EdTech Summit 2018 - Day One

What an awesome day at the EdTech Summit at Whangarei Girl's High School.  We were all wowed this morning with a keynote from Jim Sill called 'The Beginner in You'. 

There were lots of great sessions that followed. It was great to learn new ideas that I can use in my classroom.

Two things that really stood out from today for me and that I will use in my classroom next term are:
-Using google forms to create quizzes but breakout style and pick a path stories.
-The great learning apps available from the mathlearningcenter.org

I also went to a session on Scratch. I need to do a whole lot of playing in scratch (I have only used scratch jr) to learn more about this wonderful programme that will engage, inspire and challenge my learners.  Love the CS First Coding Club idea and the wonderful tutorial videos.

Looking forward to another day tomorrow.

Collaboration Framework

As part of the Innovation part of my Inquiry, I wanted to create a framework that teachers could use that related to Collaboration, Digital Tools and Visible Learning. I am about 96% happy with the framework BUT would love any feedback about what teachers/leaders/facilitators etc think.

Collaboration / Digital Tools / Visible Learning Framework

Below are a set of statements for you to think about your practice and where you sit within the context of working in a collaborative learning environment, being at home in the digital world and providing visible learning for your learners.

Innovation!!

As the innovation part of my inquiry, I planned to construct a rubric that teachers could use to assess where they were at with collaboration, visible learning and digital tools.
I was fortunate enough to spend a morning with Tania Coutts who helped me begin the construction of my rubric. I split the rubric into three parts for each of the three focus areas.  Eg: Collaboration - is I, Sometimes We and Always We!

After lots of thought and discussion I then decided to change from a rubric to: A framework with questions to encourage teachers to think about where they sit within the context of working in a collaborative learning environment, being at home in the digital world and providing visible learning for their learners.

I used the following resources to support me in the development of my framework.

New Pedagogies for Deep Learning

eLearning Planning Framework

CORE Education Collaboration Framework

Creating collaborative effectiveness - Sarah Martin and Chris Bradbeer - Stonefields School

Evaluating and Improving the Quality of Teacher Collaboration - Rebecca Gajda, Christopher J. Koliba

I then had a skype session with Dorothy and she gave me some suggestions about how I could develop my framework further. One of her suggestions was to get some opposing voice. I shared the framework with my colleague I work with and one of our facilitators to fill out - thinking about me as the teacher. I also marked myself where I thought I was for each area. My facilitator gave me good feedback and got exactly the same results as I did, which was really interesting as he has not spent a lot of time in my space this year. I am still waiting to hear my colleagues results.

I have just spent the last couple of days tweaking the framework. I am wanting to discuss the changes I have made with Tania and Lee (My Principal) before I post it up and use it on my staff. 

SO... Watch this space.