What did you learn today?

At the end of my lessons, and as part of my feedback period, I ask students "What did you learn today?"  Don't (shouldn't) we all?

As a rule, I tend to interrupt each of my students throughout lessons so I can get constant, mmmm errr relentless, feedback from each of them.  Yes, if put to good use, this is good AfL.  Thanks for noticing.  The best formative 'assessment' is more like formative feedback: input, process, output, adjust ... input, process, output, adjust ... and so on.  Not year by year feedback, but hour-by-hour or minute-by-minute.  Not lesson management, but learning management.

And I'd rather not get started on assessments that tick the accountability and visibility boxes.

I digress.

So...

As part of my general philosophy in education, "Don't learn to be helpless" is slowly finding its way into the long-term memory and general mind-set of many of my classes.

Again, forming very much part of an AfL philosophy, no student of mine is allowed to ask for my help!

That does sound rather mean.  Let me explain.

Rules

1. If you're stuck, ask your neighbour
2. If they don't know, ask your other neighbour
3. If they don't know, get out of your chair and ask someone else
4. Are there any online resources you could be using?
5. Have you used trial and error?
6. Only then, can you wake me up!

That's not strictly true ... sometimes I might be reading the paper.  Alright, fine.  Cross out rule 6; it's a joke.

My students are made acutely aware, at a very early stage with me, that there are far more learning resources in a class than their teacher!  Often, there are better resources than their teacher!

I don't want simply to establish a collaborative environment; I want a cooperative environment, too.

So more often now when, at the end of a lesson, I ask students "What did you learn today?" they don't tend to answer with the somewhat direct responses such as "I learned how to use Headings in Word" or "I learned how to use advanced searches in Google" or "I learned how to distinguish between a potentially reliable and potentially unreliable source of information".

No, they might say now "I learned that Other Student X already knew how to split a film clip in iMovie" or "I learned that Other Student Y already knew how to import an audio file".

This takes a while to achieve as a mindset, particularly if the class is not used to this mode of learning.  But when you start to get this feedback, it feels good.

Say it out loud

It was a funny lesson.
I had my ITGS class today, who are not having the best of times at the moment, shall we say.

I am (still) trying to get across the value and importance of not only reading/watching/listening to news, but to inspect it more closely.  I mean really inspect it: how does it really relate to the ITGS?  What language is being used?  Which Strand 1, 2, 3 elements are being hit?  And so on.

It has been an uphill battle, to some extent.  So today, I took them back to primary school.  Figuratively, of course.

We watched a short video clip (from BBC Click) about how mobile Internet is being made available in the remotest part of the Amazon.

The task was to call out each time they heard language they they though related to the ITGS course.

• "Router"
• "Telecommunications"
• "Data"
• "Smartphone"

Delicious!
It was fascinating (and encouraging) to hear them not simply watch an item of news, but actively watch an item of news.  Possibly, for the first time in a long while, I could see them processing content, second-by-second.  Literally, on the fly.

Have I cracked it?  Will they now watch news differently?  Will they be caught at home calling out key terminology, in front of Mum and Dad?

Let's see.

Talking versus Doing

Do you recall the end of my last post?

The iPad is a tool.  It is not a panacea.

I completely understand how excitement can play a part in leading a project like this.  And that is great - after all, that helps with the change process.  However, the motivation must be about improving learning, not establishing a rich IT-based inventory.

We are about to begin the process of introducing iPads, but it starts with People.  And talking.  Lots of talking.

It turns out that not everyone wants to 'talk' first, 'do' later.  The order for the iPads is in;  the discussions and planning are not.

However, and despite this fait a complet, the right work still needs to be done.  So I passed on some nuggets to relevant staff.  These nuggets include surveys and research completed by the Tanglin Trust, an outstanding school and reported by the Guardian Newspaper (UK) in 2006 as being one of the best international schools in the world.  Anyway, I made their findings available to the school.  And, through Switch, a local Apple Premium Reseller, I have also arranged for a visit to a school that has a more developed and more mature programme.  I hope this visit will trigger a series of talking points within the school ... ahead of the delivery of these iPads.

I really don't want technology to land onsite for us to 'install a handful of apps' and 'see how it goes'.

But who knows.  Let's hope my next instalment will reveal a raft of planning, reviewing, disucsisons...

iPads and the Failure of Technology

Right then ... where was I?
Oh, that's right.  I was over 6 months behind schedule!

A Quick Catch-Up

I am now working at the Antwerp International School as the Director of IT.  Part of my portfolio is to develop a better integration of IT into and across the curriculum.  Already, I have unashamedly piggy-backed onto some great ideas by Kim Cofino.  Her blog has really inspired me to 'do a better job'.

iPads

So, back to iPads.
I am skipping over some aspects of the school and getting straight to our new project: iPads in the Classroom.

I am new to the school but not new to the concept of:

• "I have a good idea.  Let's do [fill in the gap here]!"
• [Person waits, tapping foot]
• "I'm waiting" they say

You get the idea.

So, I have inherited a budget that allows for, in the first place, the purchase of a healthy class-sized set of iPads for the Elementary School.

People

People will define the success of this project, not technology.  In this case, teachers will play a pivotal role is determining how learning can be enhanced through the thoughtful integration of iPads into identified elements of the curriculum.  The iPad is a tool.  It is not a panacea.

I completely understand how excitement can play a part in leading a project like this.  And that is great - after all, that helps with the change process.  However, the motivation must be about improving learning, not establishing a rich IT-based inventory.

We are about to begin the process of introducing iPads, but it starts with People.  And talking.  Lots of talking.

Another instalment soon...

Setting the Technology Integration Scene

Having decided to take the leap (with my family), back in October 2011, and leave St Christopher's School, I found myself becoming a bit of a serial 'decliner'.  By the time I accepted this new role, I had declined 4 job offers, including one in August - a mere 3 or so weeks before the start of the new school year.

None of the roles could be compared equally with each other, but we (I) finally accepted the role of IT Director at the Antwerp International School (AIS).

Hurricance
And what a whirlwind appointment that was.  The long and short is that from interview to day 1 of school took 9 days.  That included getting the packers in (to empty a house with about 13 years of furniture in it!), which was no mean feat.  Well, I say no mean feat, but what I mean is 'Well done, my wife!'

So, AIS is much smaller than St Chris (NOR 450, as opposed to 2100 and 70-odd staff rather than 330) and the climate is, shall we say, more of what I am used to as an Englishman!

The settling process has been a little rocky, probably attributed to the pace of the recruitment and I missed the 3 weeks of orientation and settling in other staff had.  The leadership team has been patient with my contribution as I get my head around re-planning Grade 9 and 10 programmes of study and re-visit Grade 11 work with my Grade 12 class, coupled with establishing the learning priorities for this IB class.

Not to mention the small matter of living in a hotel for the first week.  And trying to find our way around Belgium after the school day.  And finding a house.  And moving in.  And living in the kitchen for a month as that was the only room with lights.  And having no TV, phone or Internet at home for a month.  And dealing with government admin.  And finding things out by accident.  And having our landlord be helpful but by occupying the little free time we have as a family at the weekend.  And falling into the trap of only walking between office and classroom at work.  And my daughter not settling in as quickly as we'd hoped.

Change.  A lot of change.  In a short period of time.  Almost all unplanned.  Now that's a headache, to say the least!

1:1
However, as an Apple 1:1 school, the journey for AIS, its leadership team, staff and me is to take this current status beyond what might appear to be the purchase of hardware and infrastructure.  The school has made a rapid journey in developing its infrastructure, adopting Apple laptops and setting the scene for its learning development.  But, what with some 'human hiccups' AIS experienced in the last 12 months - one of which led to my emergency appointment - the school has not yet fully developed the curriculum development and support structures.

And I am keen to start to earn my money at AIS.  That's where this blog comes in.

Reading Around
OK, I clearly have ideas.  But I am not an island.  Well, at least I don't want to be.
It's our half-term and I have been reading, reading and reading.  I have explored, in depth, more resources in the last 3 days than I have in the last 6 months.  Most of the resources I have read have been blogs:  Tech Integration Bloggers or other intellects who have achieved more, know more and have made a greater impact on technology integration than I have.  And I don't see myself as a slouch, either.

Well, all of that ends today.  Today, I get my A into G.  And I have to thank Kim Cofino to thank for that.  Well, actually, it's Carl the AIS librarian that I need to thank.  It was he who alerted me to the outstanding contribution Kim Cofino has been making in various schools ... for years!

I'm getting all bloggy again.  For a start, I have not reflected enough in my work recently and this will be my sounding post.  Secondly, I need to get 'out there' more.  I need to draw on the experiences and expertise of others.  That includes expertise we have at AIS, and I can see there's plenty.

So, in fact, this post doesn't actually set the scene at all for our Technology Integration project.  Well, maybe it does, but not in the way I thought it would when I first sat down to write this.

Pollution

... and lots of it, too!

Digital Pollution, that is.

It's a term I've coined to represent the myriad files and folders on our school network.

"Oh, I don't have time to delete old files" or
"Oh, I might need that one day"

Really? Really?

"Hi Darren. I've reached my network quota. Can I have more?"

Mmmm. Cause and Effect? Accountability?

The Digital Age has brought untold benefits. However, the throwaway mentality we have extends to collecting files, creating and then abandoning email accounts, or blogs, or websites, creating more files, more accounts.

"Oh Darren. There's a lot of junk on the network, you know"

Reeeeally. But none of it yours, though, of course!

It's a battle I'll never win; none of us can win.

Communication, Communication, Communication

I really don't know what happened there ... no posts in a fortnight?  Outrageous!

So, where were we?  My previous post was a bit of a moan at not achieving much (or at least it was the perception of not achieving much).

This week's focus: Communication

Parent communication, to be precise.  Specifically, our Parent Portal.

Our teaching staff have been using Portal for a number of years now and, since about September last year, we have been planning and preparing for Parent Portal launch.  Which was over a month late, incidentally.

It was officially launched on 27 February 2012 and what was the initial response from many of our parent body?  Marvelous!

In the first week, we have had maybe 70-80 emails from parents (mums and dads) who have all praised the service.  Here are a small handful of quotes:

• I think that the parent portal is very efficient and excellent tool to access my daughter's date and any information from the school on time.
• Just wanted to thank you and St-Chris for an excellent parent website. As a busy Dad this is truly revolutionary
• Congratulations! It is just great, easy to browse and very convenient

OK, OK.  It's not my work.  Our MIS provider did all the work.  But the point is, it isn't necessarily easy trying to improve school communication when you have 2384 'primary contacts' in a school (that's how many Parent Portal accounts we have created).

It provides access to selected areas of your children's data (e.g. attendance, timetable, assessments).  But for us, the breakthroughs are the Notices and Events widgets - inbox and calendar, if you prefer.

We can now deliver messages much more intelligently to each and every one of our families.  Don't have a child in Year 4?  OK, we won't send you any letters/notices/events about that year group.  Our parents now only get the messages they need.

Letters Home, Weekly Newsletters, Notices and Reminders are now all available in the Parent Portal.  In the short-term, we are also parallel-posting these onto our website.  However, this will come to an end at the end of Term 2.  From Term 3, the Parent Portal will be the only place they will be available.

We already have a 1-in-3 login rate and I expect this to rise to 50% within a week.  The incentive to login will increase as we phase out our web-site uploads.

So far, our parents love it!

If you're interested in reading more about our Parent Portal, you can visit our Parent Portal FAQs.

Less than the sum of its parts!

I can't say I've had the best or most fulfilling times since my last post.  As the blog title suggests, if you take what I think I've achieved and compare it to the effort, it doesn't seem to add up.

The group I'm leading to establish a coherent strategy for the school's ICT curriculum development met last week to 'finalise' the report: we don't leave until it's nailed was the brief.  Well, we didn't stay until it was done and it's still not finalised.  There's half a report on paper and that won't remain in its current form, either.

I'm doing lots of little jobs at the moment.  But they're jobs that seem to be taking up my time.  It's another period of 'I've been busy but I can't quite seem to prove it':

• I can't seem to nail my VLC investigation for the video-based demonstrations for students on our other site.  the DT Departments want to hook up (virtually) so the younger students can see their designs being CNC'd on the other site
• I've flirted with looking at online booking systems to assist with our school productions
• I can't nail the BSME's wish for a decent, affordable online recruitment system
• I tried to provide support for one of our MIS users, but found out there is a known issue with this particular feature ... and I can't help until the next upgrade (which is next week, mind you)
• I'm getting anxious about various hardware deliveries
• I haven't finished getting our standalone laptop setup for our MIS environment
• I really didn't do much walking about this week.  Some of my best work is when I walk about

On the plus side:
The Year 3 Terminals trial is up and away.  They've also got the LANSchool channel set (we're still learning how to exploit that fully).  Looking forward to seeing that trial in action.

We've arranged for some work to be done for us in preparation for our Parent Portal launch.  This should help with our preparations.  Looking forward to that ... I just hope everyone else is!

I finally got our MIS to do a big Mail Merge email (2 runs of 1200+ emails).  Having raised various tickets over the last few months, we got some advice from another client school in the region and that worked (thanks, DESS).  Very happy on that front.  Basically, we have to set off our big runs from the server itself as the size of the Mail Merge seems to crash an ordinary client (at about 600 emails).

I'm making inroads on our 'video 'trial'.  My tech team have been working hard on the background activity.  I have been in touch with ClickView a few times who have also set us up with online access.  Our DT department is up for being part of the trial.  I will also contact a further department.  This is looking good.  I just hope the trial goes well as it's the staff and students who will say if it's good!

Let's hope the parts add up to more next week.

There's a new pencil case in town!

Well, this is unexpected.  I have been scheduling my (so far few) blogs for the end of Thursday.  However, I find myself with an email exchange worth sharing.  It came on the back of our Head of ICT asking for a wireless webcam.  This led onto more kit.  Then it led onto the topic of Integrating ICT across the curriculum.  You see, we're also part of a group tasked with outlining a strategy to get - and keep - St Christopher's School at the forefront of ICT in the classroom.

Here's the email.  It's mostly as I sent it....
""
(Mmmm, your casual comment has caused me to spend longer on this than I anticipated!)


For me, to "integrate ICT across the curriculum " means more than English or History booking an ICT suite to 'type up a project'. (Or even ICT getting students to 'make a leaflet').  These suggest discrete modules.


Simple examples of hardware, tool and services across subjects that could be exploited differently include:

• IWBs (admittedly mostly a front of class 'teacher toy')
• Visualisers (ditto)
• Scanners
• Digital cameras
• Dictaphones
• Data loggers
• Productivity software
• Blogs
• Online collaboration services
• Online voting, surveys
• SMS, MMS
• Personal mobile devices (which capture much of the above)
  

The integration for me here is not just buying some visualisers.  Nor should they be used as an outcome, but must form part of a wider, seamless, learning process.  Not "Today, we're going to learn how to use Scanners".  Nor, "Now it's time to use the Web to research ... now it's time to scan a magazine article ... now it's time to get your books out ..."


Analogous examples would be to tell a student when to use a pen, an eraser, a ruler, compass, set square, at set points in the lesson, etc.  And if a student doesn't have a compass, he should ask to borrow one ... at the right time for him.  They are tools in a pencil case and, yes, sometimes (often) intervention is needed to fine tune some of the skills required.


Using my own definitions, you probably already integrate ICT into ICT.
An example might be:

• ICT Outcome
• Create a computer game to develop hand-eye coordination in younger students
• Necessarily, some discrete 'teaching' takes place as students learn the concepts of sequence|selection|repetition (with some good old fashioned teaching!)
• [The ICT equivalent of learning about Climate change in Geography, maybe]
• ICT Integration/Embedding
• If this computer game forms part of a wider project, you get the Life Cycle in play
• Teacher and student interviews, brainstorming, data collection, analysis, drafting, building, troubleshooting, publicising, training, supporting ... all leaning towards using other ICT tools to support and crystalise the primary learning outcome: Programming (the Game)
• For me, deeper integration might give students some degree of freedom in how the project detail is pulled together ... e.g. do they have to use Word?  Can they use OneNote, Google Apps?  Can some areas of the project be collaborative?  Can some choose to do it all collaboratively?  Does publicising only mean creating a leaflet or are blogs or podcasts as suitable?  Could one student be using a wired PC, another using his Android or combinations?

There's a new pencil case in town!


I think what we all want, in varying degrees, is to have access to technology but not change too much how we work (e.g. I have the occasional conversation with staff who, when using Citrix at home, comment that they can't copy a file from their desktop to the 'school desktop' ... my response is why is that a problem when you can create the file in the first place in school, from home.  If it's a legacy work file, deal with it the 'old way'.  Some staff will still 'email work home' or take it home 'on a stick').

[...]


PS: I don't see any great impact on the senior school discrete ICT Curriculum at St Chris.  For a start, you're making it more of a Computing-type subject (nice!), but as I suggested above, you're embedding conventional ICT to support it (and, no doubt, teaching it at the right times). [...]
""

So, there you have it.  The integration of ICT in one easy blog!

A Week of Investigation

It's been a funny week: good, busy but odd at times.  But I can't nail why it's felt that way.  I think it's because it's been almost exclusively a week of investigations.  And if you have similar work to me you'll understand that investigations can lead to a lot of input, with little - or no - permanent output.

OK, here's a snapshot of the more useful elements of my week, in no particular order of importance or effort:

1. Dipped into my mailbox to address a few operational issues
2. Investigated how VLC might provide a network-based video streaming solution (using existing client technology) to a piece of cross-phase work being proposed by our DT departments.  Half a day's work
3. Investigated the latest upgrade of our MIS (we use Engage by DoubleFirst).  A full day (and a bit of the next)
4. Dipped into my mailbox to address a few operational issues
5. Upset a few members of staff over a trial I'm putting in place (a trial that excluded them - apologies, but it is a trial and, necessarily can't include everyone).  All week maybe?
6. Investigated how Google Apps might provide a short-term solution to a BSME Recruitment development.  Maybe a few hours
7. Began inspecting, in more detail, the ICT Bids by the various school's budget holders.  Half a day
8. Stole mini bars of chocolate from the HR Office, once or twice (a day)
9. Dipped into my mailbox to address a few operational issues

Let me pick on one of these: Item 3

Our Latest MIS Upgrade
We're into our third year of Engage.  They try to release an upgrade about once a month.  Now that's good and that's bad.  Good, in that clients know they're actively improving the product and listening to client feedback (well, at least I hope they are).  Bad, in that it is sometimes difficult to absorb (and hence, plan to roll-out) some of the juicier upgrades.

This one looks good, though, and one I hope to not only absorb, but recommend we exploit.  You see, for the last few months, we've been preparing to release our Parent Portal, which is part of the MIS.  This will give families access to various elements of information about their children (e.g. timetable, assessments).  There are also nice Notices and Events widgets to help us fine-tune communications.

But this release includes Lesson Planning and Lesson Templates.  Aimed at teachers (er, to plan lessons), it allows staff to 'publish to Contacts' and 'publish to Pupils'.  Although, in this release, the act of selecting this doesn't actually publish to Parent Portal, it will in next month's release (a good reason for monthly releases).

[The Pupil Portal is another development and will form part of a near-future release ... and blog, no doubt]

But when the lesson does get published, it will also provide details of assignments (aka homework).
So, no more:
"Hey, Ben.  Your homework diary is empty.  No homework today?"
"No, Mum.  We finished everything in class"
"Really?  That's interesting, because I've logged into my Parent Portal account and that suggests something quite different"
"Erm ..." stutter, stammer

Possibly, by the time our Parent Portal gets released (it's been a long process trying to get up-to-date email addresses), the next upgrade might already have been made available.  I still need to understand Lesson Planning more but my feeling so far is that it will be a good step forward, not only for home|school communications, but for remote access to lesson details, resources, deadlines, etc.

And you never know when the next school closure is!
____________

Oh, and my mailbox still has an operating level of about 280 unread emails in my inbox (and are likely to remain unread unless anyone knows how I can freeze time for a month or so).  And that doesn't account for those that get filtered out into other folders.

Armchair Teaching?

Let's make this clear from the start: I do not advocate or support armchair teaching.  However, if used effectively, classroom management software can add an extra dimension to the whole teaching and learning experience.


OK, first and foremost, staff get all excited when they can 'see' their students' screens (as thumbnails on their own monitor).


"Do they know I can see them?"
"Not yet," I whisper.


So, from our 'armchair', we spend a minute or so 'looking at the students'.
"Er, Khalid," the teacher leans over and addresses a firm comment to a student towards the back.  "I said you weren't allowed to use the internet today."


Bingo!  Armchair use #1.


Then I go for the 'Do you have any students who can take a joke?' routine.  We pick one and we assume control of his machine, from the comfort and distance of our own.  He's drafting some text ... so we add our own comments, 'Hello.  What's your name?'


He stops.  He looks up and scans left and right.
Being the mature educators we are, we quietly snigger.  And then add more comments, of course.  'I'm waiting...'


Confusion.  He leans back a little, turns his head a little towards his teacher (but leaving his eyes on the screen).


'Miss.  Someone's on my computer!'


We quickly tell him what's happened.  Then suddenly, the whole class is excited and approach the teacher's machine.  Interestingly, there's not even the slightest hint of 'Hmmph, you can see my screen' (after all, an active teacher can do that anyway!) but more of a state of bewilderment, enquiry, fascination.


Classroom Management Software (as a real tool)
This isn't a tutorial, nor is it exhaustive, so I'll cut to the chase of some of these features:

• Web Limiting - Yes, while we all want to encourage resilience, autonomy and enquiry, sometimes students get distracted.  Prepare (and save if you like) your own list of allowed sites or blocked sites.  Save these if you're going through the same topics across a range of classes as others can load the list from a shared areas.  And, since students can only choose from your list, there's no chance for spelling mistakes (unless it's your mistake), students are up and running sooner
• Application limiting - prepare (and save if you like) your own list of allowed applications or blocked applications .  Also good if you're going through the same topics across a range of classes.  Don't want kids on the web?  Then don't put iexplore.exe in your allowed list then (or whatever your browser is)
• Launch applications for students - got a (young) class that can't find application A, B or C? Launch it for them and get them going sooner
• Co-browse the Internet - Don't want to limit browsing but want to get students going?  Where you go is where they go
• Vote - Want quick feedback (e.g. rate my lesson)?  Get a quick vote on the go
• Tests - create and save on-line tests.  Save and export the results
• Teacher Demo - Broadcast your screen onto all (or selected) other student screens
• Student Demo - Broadcast a student's screen onto all others.  "Great work, Lucy.  Let's show the whole class" or "Let's see how else that can be done.  Over to you, David"
• Remote control - if you don't want to get up, help a student from your machine
• Log off - tired of having to walk around the class, at the end of lesson, to see who's not logged off?  Log off all the stragglers from your machine

There's more, I'm sure.  Anyway...


Why did I select LANSchool over the others?
As a choice for St Christopher's School, Bahrain, I selected LANSchool as our preferred classroom management tool.  If you're still looking for your own school solution, other options include AB Tutor and Net Op.  Yes, there are more, but I only looked at these.


The problem with all this software is ... they're all pretty good at doing the same core set of tasks.  The balance was tipped in favour of LANSchool as they were the only one (at the time) who had already developed a 'simple' Apple App (for the teacher and/or student).  From within the learning environment, this allows simple communication between teacher and student.  It allows voting and students can ask private questions to the teacher.


Now they have EdApp support.  For third party apps that are EdApp Certified, LANSchool can now monitor activity of these applications, too.  I've not used nor tested it but am excited by it.


So there you have it: An armchair teaching solution, if that's what you want.  Or maybe a tool that provides a more manageable environment for staff and students, that also offers increased learning time and assessment, feedback and AfL opportunities.

Remember to put "YET" at the end

It should have dawned on me many years ago that, in my role as IT Manager at St Christopher's School Bahrain, I should be publishing some of what I do out into the WWW (that's the Wild Wild Web) rather than just getting on with my job - privately, selfishly almost.  So, here I sit, quietly cursing the period of the year where I upset some people: Resources and Budgeting.


"I want 10 of X", "I want 50 of Y", "We want 100 of X AND Y", "I want to trial Project Delta"
"Mmmm, but the pot of money suggests something quite different," I ponder.


So, when it gets to your turn to get upset by me (that includes those of you I don't work with ... yet), don't say "Hmmph.  I didn't get that bid"; rather, say "I didn't get that bid, YET"


Equally, if you've never had bids questioned/turned down/rejected/reduced ... you, too, can add YET.


Time: Nature's way of making sure that not everything happens at once.