Supporting Teachers’ ICT Curriculum and Pedagogy: How can I be part of my colleagues' ongoing PD?

This idea of Teacher-Librarians as technology leaders is not my first thought when picturing a school librarian.  In fact, none of the schools in which I have worked have employed a librarian that was considered a technology leader. While I haven't seen this concept in action (except for our esteemed leader, Aaron Mueller!), I love this new, changing face of the teacher-librarian.

What does a TL do?

Image courtesy of: https://anethicalisland.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/27-things-your-teacher-librarian-does/

As asked in our assignment, "How can we, as educators and Teacher-Librarians share what we’ve learned with our wider communities of practices?"

Firstly, I have plans to keep up with my blog even after this class is done (or perhaps starting a new one but continue the act of blogging).  I think it is a great way to expand on articles that we find linked on Twitter or begin conversations about topics of interest.  If we're meeting regularly with a Personal Learning Community, we can work with this group to choose topics to research and each write about.  I think that blogging is a great place to begin sharing what we've learned with a wider community.

BUT, What are the ICT needs of the communities in my own school?  As a community of DL teachers, I think the specialized ICT needs are (but not limited to) the following: (1) tech to keep us in touch with our students/help us assess/document learning etc., (2) innovative ideas for connecting students to one another, (3) keeping students safe online, and (4) finding the best resources for students to use in their learning.  Working with a community of parents who school at home, their needs are quite similar to those that I listed for DL teachers.

Our current solution for meeting the ICT needs of our DL teachers is that we have people on staff who create "how to" videos for all the programs that we use and these are posted in our Moodle Staff Room.  In the summer, admin provides a weekly online workshop called "Tech Tuesday" about a specific tool that we should/could be incorporating into our practice.  Twice per year, we have two-day conferences in which we have the opportunity to learn more about various topics. These are usually whole-group sessions.(we have about 25 teachers in my department)  

The current solution for meeting the ICT needs of our parents is minimal.  All I can think of is that there is a column in the monthly newsletter about new technology.  

The question here is "What can I do differently, or new, this year that better supports the development of our department's ICT needs?"

(1) Tech to keep us in touch with our students/help us assess/document learning etc. 

I think the biggest challenge that I face in sharing what I'm learning with my DL teacher community (or that they have in sharing with me) is the overwhelming feeling that one cannot master one. more. technological. tool.  We are constantly inundated with awesome suggestions from colleagues about what they are using and sometimes I think, "I just can't learn one more thing right now."  I don't think I attended any Tech Tuesday online workshops this past summer because of this feeling.  How do we overcome this?  

One idea is letting teachers choose their interests for these 2-day conferences that we attend. Those of us interested in leading a workshop could share our workshop idea with admin. Then they could create a list of workshop possibilities.  Teachers could vote on workshops that they would be interested in and then these would be offered at our conferences.  Here's a great article that I found about how to design a good workshop.

Image courtesy of © iStockphoto MichaelJay

My other main idea that relates to this topic is described below #4.  **Getting bored by reading about my very specific audience that doesn't relate to you?  Skip down to that section!  ;) 

(2) Innovative ideas for connecting students to one another

This is probably more of my personal idea and not necessarily my colleagues as it stems from Why School? by Will Richardson.  I would definitely like to lead a workshop summarizing Why School for staff in order to start discussions about how to implement Richardson's concepts for "new school" into our DL programs.  I found this great list of the best student collaboration tools and the number one tool is VoiceThread which I have just started using (and loving) this year.  Especially as we begin to plan 2015/16 using BC's new curriculum, this would be a great time to begin this conversation about "doing real work for real audiences".  

(3) Keeping students safe online

As we begin to think about connecting students to "real audiences" as I wrote about above, it's important to find the best ways to proactively teach parents to teach their children to protect themselves online and learn about digital citizenship.  Some my top finds in this topic are all on www.CommonSenseMedia.org.  Here's an example of the awesome resources that I have already found on this site.  My idea on how to incorporate this into ongoing PD is described below #4.

(4) Finding the best resources for students to use in their learning

It would be great to begin creating something that connects our DL teachers and homeschooling parents with the specific resources that we have in our school's resource library. Parents and teachers can only see what we have in library through title alone in our current search engine.  It would be so helpful to host mini-workshops or even create workshop-style videos in which one talks about a variety of our library resources relating to one topic.  For example, if you were wanting to learn about rivers and oceans, what resources are in stock?  What do they look like?  How would you incorporate them into a integrated unit at home with multi-aged children?  This would be an excellent way to share

An idea that incorporates all of the above (and starts me thinking about my final project):

Essentially, there are not a lot of professional development opportunities directly relating to Distributed Learning teachers (or DL-TLs!).  

What if we jump on the 23 Things bandwagon!  Have you heard of 23 Things?  Perhaps you haven't as it originated in 2006 - I had not heard of it until stumbling across is today while researching this topic.  However, I think it's a fairly famous project in the TL world.  I'm just new to this world!  It is a education and learning project developed by Helene Blowers to encourage librarians to learn and adapt to Web 2.0 and other new technologies.  Check out this original project assignment list here.  I love it!  According to the FAQs, it's,

"...a self-discovery program which encourages staff to take control of their own learning and to utilize their lifelong learning skills through exploration and PLAY.  There will be no classes or workshops offered to support this program.  Instead, staff are encouraged to work together and share with each other their discoveries, techniques, and "how to's" both in person and through their blogs."

What if our school developed a DL-specific "23 Things" type course that would walk a DL teacher through an introduction to some of the best technology out there that relates to the list of ICT needs that I have explored here (and many others!).  Because it's self-discovery, only teachers who are interested would participate but if it was described as only an hour a week, what teacher would not want to participate?  Also, perhaps there could be some incentives for completing, blogging, and tweeting about the topics.

Lots of ideas here for me to build on and develop this year as well as some to develop into possible final projects.  I've shared this blog post with my vice principal in hopes of actually putting some of these ideas into practice this year and/or coming years.

Bibliography: 

"23 Things". Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.  6 Aug. 2015.  Web. 28 Oct. 2015. 

Building Student Success: BC's New Curriculum. BC Ministry of Education. n.p. 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2015

Common Sense Media. Common Sense Media.  n.p. 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2015

Common Sense Graphite (2015) "Best Student Collaboration Tools".  Common Sense Media.  Retrieved from https://www.graphite.org/top-picks/best-student-collaboration-tools . 28 Oct. 2015

"23 Learning 2.0 Things". Learning 2.0. PLCMC. Aug. 2006.  Web. 28 Oct. 2015

Mindtools Editorial Team (2015) "Planning a Workshop: Organizing and running a successful event".  Mindtools.com. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/PlanningAWorkshop.htm . 28 Oct. 2015.

Shulba, Rebecca (2015). "Reading Review Blog Post #3: Let's Narrow It Down". MrsShulbaGoestoSchool.com.  Retrieved from http://www.mrsshulbagoestoschool.blogspot.ca/2015/10/reading-review-blog-post-3-lets-narrow.html . 28 Oct. 2015

Developing your own ICT Skills & Pedagogy: It's more than simply saying, "I'm a lifelong learner"

When I started teaching, I taught grades 3 - 5 in a school with about 60 students in grades K - 7 and there were just 3 other teachers.  My best professional development came from stopping by the gr. 1 - 2 teacher's classroom everyday to discuss our days - I learned an unbelievable amount of things from her that I still use in my practice today!  Working from home can be an isolating experience.  I connect with other staff from our school almost entirely by email and then once per month at our online staff meeting.

Last year, at our June staff conference, the topic of developing personal learning groups came up - how great would it be to get together and chat every week online?  When our assistant vice principals invited me to be part of a personal learning community (PLC) that would meet once a week in a Google hangout, I thought, "Sure!  I'd love to do that."  Unfortunately, the night that was chosen to meet on coincided with another weekly engagement so I never did connect with this group.  Did I do anything about that?  No.  After reading about PLNs on Jen McLean's blog today, I was reminded of this PLC that I never did join. She posted an excellent clip of Will Richardson talking about PLNs which I am going to repost (thanks, Jen!):

Video: Richardson, Will. Personal Learning Networks. (7 December 2007). [Video file]  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mghGV37TeK8 18 October 2015

Will Richardson suggests that teachers can best teacher students to develop their PLNs by creating our OWN personal learning network.  "We have to understand how these types of networks can have a profound impact on the way we learn."(Richarson)  While I DO understand my desire to learn from my peers and connect more, I don't think that I have done much to facilitate or develop this.  I want to take this opportunity of being given this assignment to make some tangible advances right away!

Beginning and maintaining my explorations and development

(1) I have already expressed in previous posts that I would like to learn more about how to maximize my use of Twitter as a tool in my own learning.  I admit, I do not yet understand how Twitter really works.  BUT I have now downloaded it to my phone instead of just using it on my laptop.  Haha.  I found this article about the Teacher's Guide to Twitter and took these two tips.  (actually, 3: I followed @edudemic !)  I signed up for a TweetDeck account to better organize my Twitter account.  I also added a Twitter feed to my blog.

Personal goal: Tweet something related to my personal practice once per week.

Image from Edudemic

However, a good thought to note in regards to Twitter is that, "Social platforms like Twitter don't provide the PD.  Social platforms provide the opportunity to build strong relationships with people, which, in turn, provide the opportunity for real professional growth to occur.  Twitter is the gateway to find articles, blogs, have discussions, build relationships with other professionals with like (or unlike) views on similar topics." -- Andrew Mead in Five Ways for Teachers to Take Control of Their Own Learning

(2) I emailed my assistant VP to ask about setting up the PLC again for this year or re-joining if they are still going.  

Personal goal: be in a PLC with other educators from my school before the end of term 1.

Some of the ways that educators and professionals are connecting and sharing their learning

Image from EdSurge

I found this excellent article about how teachers are learning and edSurge breaks the Professional Development learning cycle into 4 parts: engage, learn, support, and measure.  They give links to websites and tools that we can use for each of these stages in our own professional development.  

Personal goal: spend more time looking into at least one of tool listed in each of the 4 parts of the learning cycle. 

Bibliography:

Edsurge.com (2014) "How Teachers Are Learning: Professional Development Remix". Edsurge.com Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/research/guides/how-teachers-are-learning-professional-development-remix 18, Oct. 2015

Edudemic.com (2015) "The Teacher's Guide to Twitter".  Edudemic: Connecting education and technology.  Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/guides/guide-to-twitter/ 18, Oct. 2015

Mead, Andrew. (2015, Mar. 16) "Five Ways For Teachers to Take Control of Their Own Learning."  Canadian Education Association Blog. Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/andrew-mead/2015/03/1/five-ways-teachers-take-charge-their-own-learning 18, Oct. 2015

Richardson, Will. Personal Learning Networks. (7 December 2007). [Video file]  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mghGV37TeK8 18 October 2015

Fostering Reading Culture in School...and Home School?

PERSONAL PRACTICES: how have I been fostering a reading culture in my school?  What worked and what didn't work?

I love to read.  In fact, I mostly like to read children's picture books.  My kids are 6 and 4 yrs and going to the library to get piles and piles of books are a regular activity.  At the beginning of kindergarten, the Fraser Valley Regional Library has a "100 Books to Read In Kindergarten" list.  I created a visual list of these 100 books and we worked on reading those books and checking them off over the course of my son's kindergarten year!  I love programs like that.  And, thank goodness for the kids' library cards, as we are often late in returning our books!  When you take out your maximum number of books (60) and then go a couple days overdue, the fines add up fast!  Haha.  But when my son comes home from school and talks about his new interest in a topic, we immediately head out to our public library and find books about that subject!  What can we learn about it?  I love FVRL. 

As a classroom teacher, my enthusiastic love of reading translated into an awesome classroom library (which is sadly stored in boxes in my crawlspace currently...).  I used the Fountas & Pinnell leveling system to level all the books on my classroom bookshelf and then was regularly assessing my students using Reading A - Z tools (which, at the time, were the same lettered leveling as F&P but now are slightly different).  This way, I could ensure that kids were reading at a 95% accuracy rate in their silent reading time and moving up as their abilities improved.  Kids would complete a reading response page about their book and I had a rotating bulletin board where these would get posted so that other kids in the classroom could see what their peers were reading and perhaps get suggestions for their next novel.  Now that I reflect back on this, instead of having kids complete a reading response journal in their notebook or a graphic organizer page, wouldn't it have been great to have something online to share about their reading with students from other schools?  

As you may have figured out from my previous posts, I currently work with families who home school and have been doing this for the past four years.  Many of my personal and classroom practices are still in use. I ask them how often they go to their public library (which is surprisingly very low!).  I assess their child's reading level using Reading A - Z.  I set up their child (if he is in K - gr. 3) with a RAZ Kids online reading account (where I can track their books, listen to them read aloud, and see their comprehension quiz scores).  I suggest curriculum that is literature based (like Moving Beyond the Page) though not everyone takes me up on it!  :)  

Because the public library is essentially our "school library" for homeschoolers, I have tried some varying ways to get my families there.  One year, I started an Author of the Month program that I set up for all my K - gr. 3 students.  I chose an author for each month then curated a huge list of activities based on specific books from that month's author which parents could incorporate into their LA, math, science, socials, etc.  The plan was to have parents request as many books from FVRL online for these authors in advance then complete activities throughout the month.  I even set up a blog where moms could post about the activities they were doing which started out strong with a few moms but fizzled out within a few months.  While I loved creating this program, I found it to be a ton of work to keep up with and the level of interested parents was always varying each month.  I found that parents did not necessarily do the pre-work of ordering books.  Parents who did, often found that they were not getting all the books that they wanted in time.  This was why I have not yet continued this program but would like to in the future.  In reflection, I'd need to dedicate more time to keeping the blog up and running.  It would be awesome to figure out a way to have the kids connecting about the books they're reading as well.  

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE: What Else Can I Be Doing/How Can I Improve?  

Twice, above, I mentioned that it would have been great for students to be able to connect directly about the books they are reading.  During one of our Tuesday night Google hangouts, I was introduced to Symbaloo.  This looks like something that I plan to use right away in my practice to connect homeschoolers together to talk about their books.  I've started a "Kids Books" Symbaloo that link the cover picture (that a child as young as kindergarten could locate on his own) to a VoiceThread where they can talk about the book. My students are familiar with VoiceThread because they send work samples and talk about their work with me using this program. I'm not yet using the Symbaloo just yet so I was just practicing but here's the first stage: 



I found an article by Kim Manzer about providing support to struggling readers using technology and found a couple good ideas there but many of the sites that she mentions are no longer up and running (such as OWL and Reading Tutor).  In searching one of the resources she suggests, PictoPal, I discovered another research article about this site, however, the these articles are from 2007/8 and this program also does not seem to be in service.  This can be a problem with articles about technology!  

But I actually had to do some research on what a "reading culture" really is.  I think I've been writing about individual reading tools but how do I "incite a reading cultural boom"?  I read some very interesting articles by National Literacy Trust in the UK about a 2 year plan for starting a whole school reading culture and they describe practices such as taking a whole-school reading audit, surveying pupils about their reading behaviour, and creating an action plan.  Of course, they want you to pay them to help you do these things and use their tools but for a school in need of a change, it might be worth it.  However, within that article, I found a study about children's reading habits and preferences which was very interesting and could be used in more depth.  I wonder if it translates well to Canadian children as it was written based on children in England and is from 2005.  

However, to relate this topic to my personal practices, is it possible to create a reading culture among homeschoolers?  I feel as though I can introduce parents to my personal enthusiasm, my tools and practices, but it's up to them to instill a love of reading into their own children.  My job would be to introduce parents to this concept.  Here's a great blog post that I could share with parents about establishing a reading culture at home.  The author describes practices such as building your home library, establishing a library shelf where the books related to your current topics are displayed, and engaging in activities related to books.  I can help this area!  This is what I was trying to do when I started my author studies and hopefully, what I will continue to do through my current practices and my introduction of Symbaloo/VoiceThread to my families.  A great book that I recently discovered is called Story Stretchers: Activities to Expland Children's Favourite Books which I will use to develop some more author studies and suggest to families to purchase.  I also found a couple other great-looking websites that I thought I could research more to improve reading cultures in individual homes.

In my searches for the websites in Manzer's article, I also stumbled upon Awesome Stories.  Has anyone used this before?  I've signed up for my free 30 days.  Here's the premise:

AwesomeStories - Why it is so Awesome in Under 2 Minutes from AwesomeStories on Vimeo.
  
I think there's definitely possibilities for instilling a reading culture in home schools and the first steps are making parents aware of ways they can do this, getting them to their public libraries, and researching/using the tools myself so that I can share them with parents and help their children connect with OTHER children to talk about reading. 

Bibliography

Clark, Christina and Foster, Amelia.  "Children's and Young People's Reading Habits and Preferences: The who, what, where, why, and when". National Literacy Trust. National Literacy Trust, Dec. 2005.  Web. 12, Oct. 2015.  

Manzer, Kimberly. "Providing Support to Struggling Readers using Technology Assisted Reading". The Morning Watch: Educational & Social Analysis. Memorial University of Newfoundland, Fall 2013.  Vol. 41.  Web. 12, Oct. 2015.

National Literacy Trust. National Literacy Trust. n.p. 2015. Web. 10, Oct. 2015.

Raines, Shirley C. and Canady, Robert J. (1989) Story Stretchers: Activities to expand children's favorite books. Mt. Ranier, Maryland: Gryphon House

Woodie, Heather. (2014, Apr. 7) The Ultimate Guide to Establishing a Reading Culture in Your Home. Blog, She Wrote.  Retrieved from http://blogshewrote.org/2014/04/07/ultimate-guide-establishing-reading-culture-home/ 

Reading Review Blog Post #3: Let's Narrow it Down

After somewhat overwhelming myself with my topics in the last post, I whittled my interest down to the single idea of wanting to take more of what I've read in Why School? and apply it to my own research and practices.

According to Will Richardson's description of his vision for "new school" is:

        "...it's about asking questions, working with others to find the answers, doing real work for real audiences, and adding to, not simply taking from, the storehouse of knowledge that the Web is becoming.  It's about developing the kinds of habits and dispositions that deep, lifelong learners need to succeed in a world rife with information and connections.  The emphasis shifts from content mastery to learning mastery."

I'm on board.  I have never heard it said so succinctly and clearly.  Yes!  I want to do this!  My fear is that I don't know how to do this.  It's definitely easier to stick to the old school model, is it not?  In grade school, I was the kid for whom rote memory was no problem.  I'm not one to ask hard questions and, honestly, I had a terrible time thinking critically about the articles that I read in history courses in university.  Asking questions is not my forte.  I don't want to share my work with real audiences because what if they criticize me?  Who am I to add to "the storehouse of knowledge that is the Web"?  But after voicing all these concerns, I think to myself, I'm going to have to figure it out. Like I said, I'm on board.

So, HOW do I tangibly "get on board"?  It's not by researching some of those links that I posted in my last blog post.  This is almost a "re-do" of my previous reading response #2 but this time, I will break down the suggestions Richardson gives in Why School?, and find resources to begin "unlearning" what I know, and relearn these new school practices.

>> 1. Share everything (or at least something): sharing comes in many forms: blogging our reflections, capturing video of our process, etc.

>> 2. Discover, don't deliver, the curriculum:

"Teachers need to be great at asking questions and astute at managing the different paths to learning that each child creates.  They must guide students to pursue projects of value and help them connect their interests to the required standards.  And they have to be participants and models in the learning process." (Richardson)

Child-driven Education TedTalk

Mitra has completed many experiments in which he gives groups of children computers and watches what happens.  He describes the effect of a "Granny", who simply admires what the group of children are doing and asks things, "can you do that again?"  Other points of interest:
- children can learn anything that they are interested in
- a single child in front of a single computer will not retain as much as a group of children around a single computer because of the discussion that takes place.

Project-Based Learning Research Review
I think Project-Based Learning aligns with this section that Richardson is describing.  It's definitely a buzz-word around my school and I'm not sure I truly understood the sense of the term until now. This articles is an excellent overview of this term, recommendations for putting it into practice, tips for avoiding pitfalls, and a bibliography for further exploration.

How to Create a Personal Learning Portfolio: Students and Professionals
   Because we need a way to document, reflect on, and assess learning, Richardson suggested students prepare personal digital portfolios.  In this article, Morrison gives an excellent breakdown of the steps in which students should follow in order to do this.

>> 3. Talk to strangers: 

"The key, of course, is having the ability to find them, vet them, and bring them safely into the learning lives of your students. ... And, more important, it's a chance to teach kids how to do this for themselves."  (Richardson)

This is a tough one to research.  I think this would have to be a case by case project, to connect your student with someone in the field that he's learning about.

Classroom Champions
This website connects classrooms of students with professional athletes to teach health, career, and character-building skills via Skype or Google Hangouts.  Then they continue to connect that same athlete multiple times so that they build a relationship.

Is Twiducate worth looking into?  Has anyone used it before?  It looks like it could be a cool way to connect students to other groups of students for collaboration but I'm not spending a ton of time on the site.  However, I would love to hear your feedback if you've used it.

>> 4. Be a master learner.

"People who model their own learning process, connect to other learners as a regular part of their day, and learn continuously around the things they have a passion for."  "...[teachers] have to exhibit the dispositions that will sustain their learning: persistence, empathy, passion, sharing, collaboration, creativity, and curiosity." (Richardson) 

>>5. Do real work for real audiences.

   By doing this, students have to think hard about their audience, learn how to network and collaborate with others, and develop proficiency with the tools of technology.

  To assess, "teachers could co-create rubrics with students that identify what their work should address and what quality looks like," (Richardson).

For students, the importance of doing work that matters.
This is an excellent summary of this section of Why School? that I could easily share with others (mostly my students' parents, likely) to describe why I'm trying to find ways for my students to create a project with meaning.

>> 6. Transfer the power.

"If we expect our kids to be able to own their own learning, find their own teachers, create their own classrooms, and find other students to learn with, then we need to make sure they have opportunities to do these things in school." (Richardson)

****

Now that I have spent more time thinking about these six suggestions, breaking them down, and spending some time looking for what's out there, I know that there are lots of resources out there for me.  I was intrigued by websites like educurious.org which seems to provide project-based units and connects students with experts in their network as well as Sugata Mitra's School in the Cloud website.

Am I still on board?  Yes.  I have now assessed the possibility of unlearning and deem the task both worthwhile and doable!  As I went through each section, I was thinking about how I could share these six suggestions with my families who home school and possibly use my list of resources as tools for parents educating their kids at home.  I am excited by some new possibilities that have popped up in my mind for the Vision Project.

     WORKS CITED

Mitra, Sugata. "The child driven education." Newcastle University. TEDGlobal 2010, Oxford, England. July 2010.

Morrison, Debbie. "How to Create a Personal Learning Portfolio: Students and Professionals." Online Learning Insights.  Online Learning Insights, 30 Jan. 2013.  Web. 4 Oct. 2015

Richardson, Will. "For students, the importance of doing work that matters." Mindshift: How We Will Learn. KQED, 30 Apr. 2014.  Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Richardson, Will. Why School?. New York: TED Conferences LLC, 2012. Kindle edition.

Vega, Vanessa. "Project-Based Learning Research Review." Edutopia.  Edutopia, 3 Dec. 2012.  Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

Classroom Champions.  Classroom Champions.  n.p., 2012.  Web. 4 Oct. 2015.