iTunes U is still an underestimated resource by many educators. There is so much free content available and a real chance to learn from experts from all over the world. We have published a number of resources we have developed at Ringwood North Primary School as a part of the CBL Implementation Project and are proud to share them with other schools interested in undertaking Challenge Based Learning. Challenge Based Learning: The report from the Implementation Project 2011 The New Media Consortium has published the results from the survey, and anyone considering Challenge based Learning for their school should read this article. We were also fortunate enough to have had a case study conducted on the work at Ringwood North Primary School. Challenge Based Learning Student Guide During our first challenge, we developed a student guide as a resource to guide the students through the process and record their reflections at key points. The guide acts as a type of journal and outlines many of the key aspects of CBL. What we have found useful is that the CBL process stays the same, while the content changes. This allowed us to reused the template for each challenge - making the process more familiar for both the students and teachers. This was our attempt at providing more direction and sequential steps in what can be a very open process. There has been a lot of time, thinking and refining that went into this document, so we hope this helps out your students. It would be great to hear if it does. 'What Does Challenge Based Learning Look Like?' Movie It is hard to believe that it was only a year ago that I and a colleague set off from Melbourne, Australia to attend the Challenge Based Learning Implementation Project in Dallas, Texas. The invitation to attend with 18 other schools from across the USA and Canada was an honor, but the experience was truly amazing. Upon the completion of our project, this movie was made to capture a glimpse of a process that had been a challenge in itself. This was the reward for our students and staff, to see the bigger picture, see the hard work they had put in. I had no idea the impact this snippet would have in a global sense, and am honored to see how positively this movie has been received and hearing about the impact it is having on educational programs everywhere.The movie is still available on Vimeo and at this blog, but has now been shared via iTunes U. A big thanks also to the New Media Consortium for their continued support, and Don Goble from EdReach for awarding this movie the number 1 educational video for 2011. What an honor, especially when you consider the quality of the other nominated movies. You will find the links to their articles below. EdReach Award New Media Consortium Article Edreach Award - Top 10 educational videos of 2011
What a great way to end the school year from the school's innovative work with iPads and Challenge Based Learning. 4 students created a picture book as part of their challenge on 'Biodiversity.' Their solution - to educate other children about our impact upon the planet and explain what biodiversity is.
Read more about their solution at the link on the school's iPad Trial website.
There can be no debate - our kids know more than most adults about technology. And at our school, there is no doubt our Year 5/6 students are our resident experts when it comes to iPads. Yet rather than be threatened by this, why not harness their enthusiasm and willingness to share their knowledge?
With our Year 5/6 students and staff each having their own iPads, and small class sets throughout tour Prep - Year 4 classrooms, the need to support the staff and students around the school with this technology is vital. We also have many parents who have indicated their desire to learn more about the technology and work their children are doing with it.
And so the 'Ringwood North Junior Geniuses' was born!
Over the last few weeks, we have been running lunchtime sessions with student 'volunteers' who were ready and willing to share their talents with students and parents from across the school community. During these sessions, we shared our knowledge and practised 'min-lessons' that we were going to run back out in classrooms around the school. I was quite amazed at the regular turnout of 20+ students to each lunchtime session.
A timetable was created, and pairs of students went out into classrooms during class times to share their expertise with the students and their teachers all over the school. We also had Friday afternoon sessions in our staffroom, where parents were invited to come and have a cup of coffee and learn a little bit more from our Geniuses.
And then of course, was the t-shirt. It took a little bit of time to get organised, but no Genius should do their work without the correct attire! The students are all very proud of their new tops.
The benefits of this program include;
- providing leadership opportunities for students
- personal learning (developing responsibility, organisation, etc)
- preparing lessons for a specific audience (these guys are nearly certified teachers based on their performances)
- presentation skills, public speaking
- teamwork, collaboration
- self-esteem
- other students, teachers and parents excited to learn from the students
- ongoing professional learning for our teachers that takes 15 - 20 minutes!
A big thanks to Tim, one of our school Dads who helped with the T-Shirts, and a big congratulations to our amazing and talented Junior Geniuses.
We look forward to more adventures next year.
What is respect? Often we talk to our students about 'having' or 'demonstrating' it, but have you actually had your students investigate this Big Idea? How can we expect our students to demonstrate this concept if they don't know what it actually is? Students from Ringwood North PS investigated the Big Idea of 'Respect' as a part of a school wide Challenge Based Learning project. Students from Prep - Year 6 were guided through specific activities relating to this theme, and ultimately found a solution to a challenge issued to them. From preparing visits and celebrations for members of our local community not often recognized for their hard work, investigating the history of our students' origins, to developing solutions that promote a healthier lifestyle, this concept of 'respect' took on many faces. The Year 5/6 area was issued with the challenge of 'Develop a festival that celebrates respect.' This was an ambitious project for the students, but also their teachers. This was going to be an authentic representation of the students' work. While the teachers worked through the challenge with the students - developing questions for investigation, creating literacy and numeracy lessons that supported the students' research, as well as ongoing collaboration, the students were responsible for making their contribution towards the festival. The end result reflected what is possible when students are empowered to make choices, learn from their mistakes and work in collaboration with their teachers. The ideas the students came up with in relation to the festival was diverse and original. From the celebration of international cuisine, artworks from different cultures, our environment and the people in our community who make it special, this festival was an unbelievable achievement. One group took on the huge task of co-ordinating the event - developing floor plans, schedules, advertising materials, as well as organizing the other groups. Students manned their exhibit space, engaged in conversation with the school community who were invited to the event, answered questions and even challenged some of our practises, as highlighted by the 'Fair Trade' group. Exhibits included craft activities, showcasing original artworks, brochures, and used the iPads as an interactive tool to further demonstrate their understanding. The night ended with a number of films developed by some students as part of their solution, and even some student reflection movies. Students sharing their passion and new understandings, working with teachers to achieve their goal and ultimately sharing their success with their parents, friends and school community highlights what the notion of 'Respect' truly is. This challenge highlighted how a child's creativity, imagination and willpower can achieve what some say they can't.
Our Year 2 superstars completed an amazing job in their 'Grow Your Own Healthy Snack' challenge as part of this term's focus on 'Growth.' The Year 2 students were given 8 weeks to grow their own healthy snack and needed to investigate all kinds of questions in order to get to their solution. With their research completed, the students decided what plants they needed to purchase, where they were going to plant the seeds and organise teams to manage and care for the crop. With several weeks to spare, the students in Year 2 celebrated their success by having a healthy feast of the foods they had grown. At Friday's assembly after a fantastic presentation put together by Mrs Bryant, a new solution was presented to deal with a new problem - the food is continuing to grow! An 'Open Market' was held at recess where hoards of students lined up to sample the healthy snacks. To see the pride in the students' faces, the excitement at their success and now their ability to feed students throughout the school was simply amazing. Congratulations to all the students in Year 2 and their talented and creative teachers, Mrs Bryant, Mrs Prince & Mr Freeman.
Last week, Ringwood North PS had a very special visitor to our school. Dr Larry Johnson, the CEO of the New Media Consortium, took time out from his busy schedule to pay us a visit. The NMC produces the 'Horizon Report,' a document that draws on data from all over the world to predict the trends in education and technology over the next 5 years. The NMC has also been responsible for the collection and analysis of data in relation to the global Challenge based Learning project we have been involved in. To kick off the day, several of our students presented their solutions with our most recent challenge on the Big Idea of 'Respect' to Dr Johnson. We then had a tour of the school and a chat with many of the students involved in their CBL tasks. We appreciated Dr Johnson making the time to visit our school considering he was only in Melbourne for the day. It was fantastic to have him see our students in action and get a chance to meet the staff who have worked so hard on this project. Dr Johnson's visit, his kind words to our students and in a recent blog post at the NMC, has made us realize the genuine impact our students can have on the world.
On Wednesday, Mr Green and I were privileged to be invited to share our school's story on a 'Challenge Based Learning' Webchat. This webchat was conducted from the USA and was broadcast to several thousand participants. In the coming weeks, the webcast will be published to Apple's website for everyone to view. One of the key reasons for this webinar was to share the findings from the global Challenge Based Learning project, which we were fortunate to be a part of. For those who are unaware, the New Media Consortium ( NMC) is the leading body in looking at where education and technology are heading through their research. They produce the ' Horizon Report' which, based on their research, predicts what the future developments will be in technology and its impact upon education over the next 5 years. To say working with the NMC on this project has been an honor is a bit of an understatement! The NMC's role was to collect a whole range of data from students and teachers in 19 schools from Years 3 to University from across the USA, Canada and Australia involved in the project. They were to develop a report outlining the successes and failures of the project. Larry Johnson, the Chief Executive Officer of the NMC, presented a summary of the data on the webinar and shared the link to this report for the first time. The data collected showed an overwhelmingly positive result from both teachers and students and highlights the desire of our students to learn in ways that are meaningful to them. They enjoyed being able to direct and personalize their learning, work alongside teachers and their peers, and connect with real people from all over the globe for a real purpose. We encourage you to take the time to tread the report so as to learn a little bit more about this focus at Ringwood North PS, what the research has found and why we should be so proud of our students. We must never underestimate their abilities and what they can achieve.
This morning I, along with our Principal Mike Green, was fortunate enough to participate in Apple's Challenge Based Learning webinar. It has been an amazing experience - from working with leaders in all fields of education and innovation such as the team of teachers assembled for the Implementation Project, the New Media Consortium and Apple, to seeing our school's teachers, students and wider community embrace the concept. It has also been rewarding to share our experiences, resources and in some small way, be able to support many other schools in their efforts to investigate Challenge Based Learning. This morning's webinar will be available on the Apple website soon, but there has been a great deal of discussion today relating to this slide I created to try and explain some of the opportunities for capturing evidence of learning. The top half of the diagram outlines the CBL framework as it is. The only difference here is I have included some overlapping of the stages, as through my experience, there are times when students need to move back and forward between them. The bottom half outlines more explicitly teacher involvement in the process. The hope is that this diagram outlines to teachers the ongoing opportunities to gather evidence of learning, explicitly teach, work with small groups and gather assessments. This diagram is by no means an official part of the framework, but for me, it has been a visual way to highlight to teachers and students the different stages of the process, how they relate to one another and their role within them. I would like to hear your thoughts on the diagram, and/or if you have used it anywhere in explaining the CBL process.
Remembrance Day is always treated with great respect at Ringwood North PS. But last Friday was pretty awesome! From the moment you entered the school to see a sea of 'student created' poppies surrounding the heritage gum tree, you knew it was going to be a special day. A moving ceremony was held in the hall, lead by our talented Junior School Council, with Mrs Parker and the superb choir in support.
Throughout the day, classes also visited an amazing 'interactive museum' created by the JSC. The students had designed stations which highlighted a different aspect of Remembrance Day. As you approached each station, you were invited to press an iPad with audio instructions. Through the use of the iPad, the JSC highlighted the purpose of the station, as well as deliver any instructions that were required. One station invited the visitor to create their own poppies, and even provided a short tutorial on how to make them! There was also a short film created by one of the Year 6 students on a specific soldier and their story.
This experience highlighted so many positive aspects of the learning that goes on at Ringwood North PS. Ms Duckworth and Mrs Salisbury, who did an amazing job in supporting the JSC with this idea, discussed how impressed they were with the way in which the students, from all age levels across the school, were able to take responsibility for a task and complete it independently. Designing stations, recording audio, making movies - all done to an amazing standard. Books to read, authentic letters, student messages, pictures, posters, and hands on activities were supported by the technology. It was a perfect example of how technology can be used to enhance an experience, without making it the sole focus of the activity. More importantly, the effort and commitment in creating this experience for our whole school community highlighted the respect and admiration our students have for those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. Congratulations to the JSC, school choir, Mrs Salisbury, Ms Duckworth, Mrs Waddell, Mrs Parker, and everyone who contributed flowers or participated in the day.
We had a big day last week.
A day when long term planning in a school and taking a measured risk paid off.
Let me explain...
One of the most underrated and significant developments of iOS5 has been the ability to mirror the iPad2 onto any screen via AppleTV. This development signifies a break away from the shackles of cables and allows the iPad, iPod or iPhone to become an even more natural addition to the classroom.
Yet our decision to invest in this concept started many months ago, when mirroring was still a rumor.
Ringwood North Primary School was allocated a new learning space as part of the 'Building The Education Revolution' initiative in 2010. At the commencement of the 2011 school year, we had a brand new space waiting to be fitted out with 'interactive' resources in every classroom. As we waited for our funding to be finalised, our Years 5/6 area embraced the new learning spaces around them.
A new area, new teaching team and 138 students on a 1 to 1 iPad program with no projectors or displays. Interesting!
The months that followed proved challenging at times, but allowed us to see the how the students and teachers interacted with a new space without the predefined notion of allocated display spaces. Teachers and students were forced to utilise the space, collaborate and interact without relying upon projectors or interactive whiteboards.
This is one key area that is often overlooked in relation to the iPad. The ability for individuals and small groups to interact and share their new found knowledge through such a portable and powerful device.
Instead of investing heavily in interactive whiteboards that would not have met the needs of all students in the area, we decided to place LED TV screens in spaces where the teachers and students had been naturally congregating. The brightness of the room was also a contributing factor, as projectors were not cutting through the light as well as the energy efficient LED screens. With less labour involved in setting them up too, we were able to fit out 8 learning areas.
In retrospect, this was a bit of a gamble, as at this stage, mirroring on the iPad was still a rumor. But with the iPads on a 1 to 1 basis, it seemed crazy to have students interacting with an expensive board out the front of a classroom.
So today was the day when it all finally came together. Teachers still wanted a specific space to excplicitly teach, but were also able to setup other areas within the open plan to create a more official presentation area, or small, guided group workstations.
Setting Up & Managing The AppleTV
Education loves proxies. This causes issues with the AppleTV. At home, within seconds, you are tapping into some amazing content from all across the globe. If you are in education, unless you have a connection bypassing the proxy you will struggle to get internet. Craig, our school tech, and I spent some time brainstorming this issue, so any suggestions or comments would be appreciated in comments to this post.
Other suggestions for mirroring AppleTV in a real school...
- rememember to update your device to iOS5 first!
- you need the latest software on your AppleTV.
- If you can't get internet on the AppleTV because of your school proxy, plug in a micro USB cable to the port in the back of the AppleTV, with the other end to your computer. This should open iTunes on your computer, just like an iPhone, iPad or iPod does. You then simply follow the instructions to update the software. The other option is take them home to update, or setup your own connection that bypasses the proxy.
- Give each separate AppleTV a different name and it's own password.
- Unless you want students from all over the school accessing the AppleTV at anytime, keep the password with the teacher. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing one of my favourite movie lines 'Ignore the man behind the curtain...' from the Wizard of Oz as I overtook an AppleTV while using Photobooth from another part of the building! If the students need to display their work, it may be safer to have them share their work on the teache's iPad2 via something like iCloud or Dropbox.
- On your iPad, double click to reveal the apps you have open at the bottom of your iPad. Swiping left to where your iPod/music resides will now reveal a new button. Press the button, select the AppleTV you wish to connect to and select 'Mirroring: On"
And finally, cheers from the teachers and amazement from the kids as we are free from the limitations of cables and dongles. Within moments, staff were jumping on the AppleTV sharing some of the great work they had been doing in the classroom, and showcasing some of the new apps they had found. The technology became invisible.
And that is what it is all about!
|
