1:1 CHROMEBOOKS HERE WE COME!

SOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!

Today I found out that my class is going to trial 1:1 Chromebooks next term!!!!!

I am soooooooooo excited!  Can you tell?

Now my poor brain is thinking and wondering and exploding with all the ideas and possibilities that having 1:1 Chromebooks will enable!!!!!

Next term is going to be extremely exciting!  Knowing how engaging and motivating using Chromebooks and our Chromecast+T.V are ... the learning in Ti Kouka next term is going to be amazing!

Now where to begin!?

My Chromebook Adventure/The Tutu Within! - Part Two

Part two:

So what have we been learning in our classroom?

We have been ...

• adding users - this was a bit of a nightmare at first - each child had to be added to each chromebook.  This took time especially when they made a spelling mistake in the email or password.  Aue!

• using Google Docs to publish writing - editing and suggesting, making comments -this is highly valuable and readily accessible

• Sharing docs for e-learning websites

• using Google Slides to present research information about a mini-beast - this is huge - the possibilities are endless (the tamariki are so quick to learn and 'suss out' how to use the different tools to enhance and customise their slide presentation - I love that they are often showing me how to do something or a quick fix or a short cut!

• using our Google Chromecast to share children's learning, to display learning intentions, success criteria and learning tasks, to view websites, to view photos and videos.

Once I develop my own knowledge of all things Google, we will be able to continue to use our Chromebooks to engage, collaborate and enhance and possibly accelerate the learning in our class!

Reciprocal Teaching Update/Review

So the five weeks is up!  Reciprocal Teaching has been very beneficial!  The overall feeling and attitude towards it from my tamariki is hugely positive.

At the end of the the five weeks the tamariki were once again 'tested' by Roz and Ana using Probe running records.  The data collected from this showed that the majority of the class improved their comprehension percentage and several moved up a reading level.  There were of course children who made no progress according to their reading level but confidence, attitude and participation across the board increased.

From a teacher point of view the five week intensive with every group being taught for 30 mins every day, for four days, with the assistance of another 'teacher' and teacher aide all using the Reciprocal Teaching approach (Julia Westenra) has indeed improved the comprehension levels of my tamariki.

However since the intensive took place I am now back to teaching by myself, under timetable constrictions, with five reading groups.  I am still using the Reciprocal Teaching approach as I can clearly see the benefits of the four main skills used to facilitate the learning and comprehension.

Hence the lessons are now modified to manage all these factors.  We are still using the 'Tokotoko' and working through the process but often we stop at questioning due to time constraints.  We also do not get through as much of the text - often only one or two paragraphs/pages per group depending on the groups reading level.  This can be disheartening for the tamariki as the "never get to finish the text" together but do so independently.  Each groups learning needs are identified and the next learning 'skill' becomes the focus of the teaching e.g. we may only 'do clarifying' or only 'do questioning' and break these skills down in order for the children to be successful in using them.

As a syndicate we discussed the Pros and Cons of the R.T intensive.  Amber (the other intensive class teacher) and I along with Roz, Ana and Robyn Harawira (RTLB) also meet to evaluate the teaching and learning achieved during the intensive.  The korero from this meeting was then shared with Julia Westenra.

In conclusion ... I believe that the five week intensive of Reciprocal Teaching was indeed worthwhile and beneficial.  For use in the future I would recommend using the intensive model initially at the end of term one.  Intensives after that point will depend on the results from the before and after data and also the schools  strategic goals for the year.

I have thoroughly enjoyed learning how to use Reciprocal Teaching effectively in my classroom.  But most of all the response from the tamariki was fantastic!  The smiles, pride and confidence they displayed when taking on the teacher role is definitely my highlight!

My Chromebook Adventure/The Tutu Within!

My Chromebook Adventure/The Tutu Within!

Straight from my brain to the page, no planning, just spewed onto the doc!  Enjoy!

Towards the end of Term 1, 2015 I received 4 new Acer Chromebooks.  I already had one so I was ecstatic that I now had 5 Chromebooks.  This was the start of a mountain high load of ideas and learning possibilities that my children and I would be able to be involved in.

So where do I start …

Basically I’m a tutu!  I have taken this opportunity on board and sought out information, videos, blogs, vln posts, facebook etc to find ideas/ways/methodologies/inspiration to use in implementing the use of these chromebooks.

My number one form of ‘Professional Development’ has been me!  I am enthusiastic about technology.  I have ‘tutued’ with Google Apps for Education in order to use it in my class.  I felt that this was a good start but the need for real P.D is definitely required to effectively use this technology in my class and to pass that learning on to my fellow chromebook colleagues.  With help from the I.C.T committee (Roz and Norah) I met with Rosemary Murphy from Allandale School to see how she uses Chromebooks in her Year 5 & 6 class.

Here are some points from the meeting we had with my added opinions

1:1 Chromebooks is definitely the way to go - I fully agree with this!  5 chromebooks for 22 children has been a struggle.  We are lucky that we were able to borrow chromebooks from other classes when we were doing our Mini-Beast slides.  We also used our black laptops which have Chrome as the internet browser.  It was amazing to be able to see the level of engagement of all the children who were actively preparing the slides.  This is the ultimate payoff of one-to-one devices.  Every child engaged in learning, researching and presenting information, checking spelling, looking up words, searching images, downloading images and even youtube videos - which I hadn’t even taught them how to do.  Our tamariki were collaborating and supporting one another in their learning.  They were sharing their work with each other, they were providing suggestions and praise for each other as well.  Leasing chromebooks is the best option.

Get a tv and a chromecast - I am very thank you that I now have a tv and a chromecast.  This will enable my children and I to share and collaborate together in real time when working in small groups for mainly writing to begin with but also maths and then reading.  The ability for children to instantly ‘cast’ their computer screen to the tv screen for other children to learn from or comment on will be thrilling and motivational.  This is still very new but I look forward to exploring the possibilities that this technology will provide.  Now that I have the tv in my class it will be used daily to enhance my childrens learning.  The chromecast was fairly inexpensive ($59.00) so I am very grateful to have this set up in my class. (Thanks to Matthew for attaching the tv to my teacher’s station)  Projectors are pretty ‘old school’ now.  They are expensive and tvs are getting cheaper and cheaper.  However at this time I still see myself using my projector especially for whole class activities such as presenting Slides and videos as well as GoNoodle stuff.

Apps - Rosemary shared a handful of core apps that she uses regularly with her class.  I will endeavour to try out/make use of these apps in due course.  For now my main focus is developing my childrens ability to navigate and use the core G.A.F.E apps.  I have taken an idea shared by a teacher on the NZ Teachers FB page and come up with a GAFE skills checklist and reward system which I have called G.A.F.E Star!  My children will be able to become a GAFE Star once they can competently demonstrate the listed skills for each GAFE app.  So far we have only looked/learnt about Google Docs, Google Slides and Google Drive.  My children are extremely motivated to learn all the skills and be the first to become google stars.  Suggested apps are WeVideo, Go Animate, StupeFlix, Blogger - all children have their own personal blog to record learner - I am keen to do this but this requires discussion with the I.C.T committee re-value/purpose etc (this may be an option for developing e-portfolios in the future if needed).  I was not sure about the permissions required to load apps onto our chromebooks but Rosemary said it should be straightforward.  Just download it on each chromebook.  We also discussed Admin permission.  Rosemary is her schools Administrator along with the Principal.  I am keen to look into this further and discuss how the admin tools can be used if at all for setting up class lots of folders etc.

Google Classroom/Hapara Teacher Dashboard - we discussed these options.  Rosemary has Hapara Teacher Dashboard but rarely uses it.  I asked about Google Classroom as now that I’ve seen it, it is not actually what I thought it was (obviously needed to do more research).  It would have it’s place but having attempted to use it, it seems that I can set the same sort of assignments/tasks purely by using a google doc and sharing it.  So at this stage I will stick with just ‘sharing’ docs/assignments/task etc with my children.

i-Pad - when I asked about making movies etc using the chromebooks Rosemary said it would be better if you had a class i-Pad as these were more convenient for capturing and editing video.  I have mentioned this to Ana in Ponga as they have i-Pads which we are able to use.  So later along the journey I will give this a go.

Point England School - Auckland - Rosemary highly recommended that a group of teachers from our school visit this school.  They are leaders in I.C.T implementation, use and enhanced learning.  Point England School is a decile 1 school with over 600 students (mainly Pacifica and Maori).  I have visited their school website and it is amazing to see the things that they are doing.  I am now following several of their teachers blogs as they record their I.C.T journey.

Pedagogy - as I have investigated and gotten carried away with all this ‘google, chromebook’ stuff and considered the direction I would like to take I have come across this word several times.  Yes I am a tutu, I want to use these technologies in my class.  I want my children to achieve success and develop pride in their abilities as GAFE stars but I am bugged by the fact that I am just doing it myself.  I do not know if I am really on the right track.  Is this use of technology really enhancing the learning of my children or is it just cool stuff and just tutuing.  What is my understanding of the Pedagogy that sits behind this technology?  What does our school believe?  If I think that one-to-one devices are the way to go is this supported in the schools pedagogy?  Will this be a barrier?  So as I continue along this learning journey I do need to slow down and ensure that what we are doing/learning in our class is grounded in pedagogy and is supported by the school.  All the research that I have come across so far clearly states that schools that are using I.C.T/Chromebooks/i-pads/tvs/chromecast and technology in general are enhancing their students learning because they have got the pedagogy and foundations set and firmly embedded across the school.  As the saying goes … when we’re all paddling our waka in the same direction we’ll get there faster … or maybe that’s just something I mixed up myself.☺

So where to next?
Continue being a tutu!
Keep in contact with the I.C.T committee via Roz- committee member and my Senior Teacher - re policy, resources etc
Investigate 'pedagogy' further
Plan to use technology - Teaching as Inquiry model for low writers - enhancing their writing by using Chromebooks instead of exercise book and pen.

Complete Part Two of this post ... What am I actually teaching and what are my tamariki learning?

New T.V!!!

Woo hoo!  I'm so excited.  Today we used our new 50 inch TV in class to enhance, motivate, capture and inspire my learners.  We all think we're pretty flash alright.

We are very grateful to have our new t.v which Mr Watson kindly installed for us last Friday afternoon.  He did a great job of securing it to the teacher's station.

e-asTTle

So today signaled almost the end of a series of professional development staff meetings that began back in term one of this year.  We have been led along the way by Ana Bryne our Assistant Principal.  Ana has been amazing.  She has led the learning of our staff with a quietly positive, reinforcing and simple approach which has enabled us all to learn in a non-threatening and respectful environment.

Here is a run-down of what we have done as a staff and my reflections on the learning I have gained.

Term One:

Week 6: e-asTTle introduction video

This was not a very exciting video, rather long and not overly engaging but gave an adequate overall understanding of what e-asTTle is and how it can be used to assess children's writing.

Term Two:

Weeks 1, 2 and 4: e-asTTle rubric, teacher marking of selected writing samples from e-asTTle exemplars

After these staff meetings I felt much more confident when using the marking rubric, generic exemplars and annotated marking sheets.  The discussion around giving each of the seven components a rubric category was highly beneficial.  It wass important to listen to others because from their korero it often confirmed what you were thinking and why but it also challenged what you were thinking and made me look closely at the exemplar to locate specific evidence that supports what I was saying.  Another reason these staff meetings were beneficial was because we were given time to look closely at the exemplars.  It was a bit scary at first because it seemed to take a long time to mark just one piece of writing.  This was due to a variety of factors some being unfamiliarity with the marking rubric, the use of 'most', a 'range', 'and/or' etc when deciding which rubric category to give, referencing the exemplar with other exemplars, the rubric and online exemplars.  This set us up well for when we had to mark our own class e-asTTle samples.

Weeks 5 & 6: marking of our own class e-asTTle writing

Week 7: writing moderation

Well thank goodness our management team for providing us with two weeks of staff meetings and syndicate meetings dedicated to marking our e-asTTle writing samples.  Boy did we need that time especially with trying to balance the time we do have with writing full mid year reports as well.  Aue, it was challenging but I'm pleased to say that I got all my initial data logged into e-asTTle on time.

What fabulous things did I realised when marking my e-asTTle samples?

Well let me see ...Time, it takes time and you definately need a quiet space to work in with minimal distractions but with a few people whom you can bounce queries or wonderings off every now and then.  Roz, Jodie and I worked independently together in Puriri.  It was great.  We were able to get on with our own mahi but every so often someone would ask for the others' thoughts regarding a particular piece of writing.  Eventually we were able to move from marking two pieces of writing up to 4/5/6 pieces in an hour and a half.

Aue, it's getting a bit late.  I will publish this now and come back another time to complete this post.