Connected Learning

Jarrod Lamshed

Mar
3

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Global Connections Are More Important Than Ever

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , Leave a Comment

“When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness. Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other” Margaret Wheatley

We live in unusual times. The loudest voices we hear are advocating for the segregation and isolation of our worlds most needy citizens. Our children are bombarded with words that encourage us to pull away from those that are different from us and paint a picture of a world that should be feared. On top of this, those that oppose these ideas of segregation are rightfully vocal in their opposition to those in power. All of this has to be creating some pretty mixed and messy messages for our kids.

As parents and as teachers, we need to be actively and purposefully planning opportunities for positive, respectful and joyful global connections. Seeing ourselves as global citizens is more important than ever. With technology on our side, this is not a difficult thing to do.

Through our class blog, in the first few weeks of school, we have been able to connect with classrooms in New Zealand, France and Canada. These have all been extremely positive and each connection has been easily set up with a single blog comment by a student. This week we had students in Canada join us in a literacy task and in return, our students made individual comments on each Canadian student’s blog. We’ve since had emails and more comments back and forth creating a new and positive global experience. This has been a great kick start for conversations around writing for different audiences, purpose for writing, text types and giving critical, respectful and useful feedback. Not bad from one student blog comment.

Next week, we are stepping up our connection with France as their students return from their holidays. For this connection to happen, our students used digital tools (Google Translate) to help overcome a language barrier when they stumbled on this blog written in French. Again, with technology on our side, we can teach our children that these barriers are easy to overcome. We compared French words to English words and discussed the origins of our English Language. From a student comment translated into French a connection between teachers has been made and plans for ongoing learning are underway.

The empowerment felt by students making these connections is contagious. Our students are asking about starting their own individual blogs to share their own writing and thoughts about their learning and are asking to write to our new collaborators whenever they have some time. We eagerly mark countries on the world map in our class and learn about the geography and culture of those countries. Learning with purpose.

A great way to start making connections with your class blog is by jumping on board with David Mitchell‘s ‘Quad Blogging’ program. This fantastic program helps to link you up with three other schools from different parts of the world that you can begin your global learning experiences with.

Working with students to build a sense of global identity has always been important and, I would argue, this is even more so now. Planning and fostering positive connections with our global neighbours is a something that we can all do to work toward turning the volume down on these messages of fear for our children.

 

Feb
9

By

An Ongoing Battle

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments Tags: 5 Comments

Last night, my son was sitting at the dining room table doing his homework when I noticed that he was using a calculator that I didn’t recognise. When I asked him where it came from, he said that he had borrowed it from school.

I had that instant feeling of embarrassment that you get as a parent when you feel like you aren’t providing for your child. At our usual beginning of year school supplies shopping extravaganza we had decided that we wouldn’t buy him the $200 calculator that had been listed, but instead buy a $3 scientific calculator app for his iPad that, by all accounts, performed all of the same functions. If we were wrong, and the app was not adequate, we would buy the calculator.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to find out. He tells me that his school has a blanket ‘no phones or mobile devices after year 10’ rule. The school sees them as a distraction in their important final years of high school. I almost couldn’t grasp that we are still dealing with this type of thinking in 2017. This is nearly a deal breaker for me! How is this policy relevant to the real word? When will he need to calculate compound interest in an environment where someone says… ‘oh no, you can’t use that calculator app, we insist you use this one model of ‘real’ calculator’? I doesn’t make sense.

We really need to be challenging this type of thinking in our schools. Tying the hands of our students with antiquated rules and ‘we’ve always done it this way’ is not ok.

Jun
25

By

Changing Perceptions

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community, Developing self and others, Engaging and working with the community, PE / Health, Student Feedback 1 Comment

before and after

Throughout this year I’ve been working with a group of boys at our school on challenging stereotypes. I’ve written (a lot!) about my thoughts on this topic and about the work we’ve been doing around this in the classroom.

While doing some reflection work, one of our students made the comment that he felt like the group now looked at their future in a positive way and that before our work they weren’t doing this. Even though they hadn’t realised it, their self image for the future was based around the images in the ‘before’ graphic.

We had certainly hoped that opening up the discussion would help our boys to understand that what they see in the movies and in other media weren’t realistic portrayals of what their future’s should be like. We didn’t necessarily think we’d see such a significant change in such a short time.

Our next step is working towards our boys becoming the positive male role models in our school community.

Jun
23

By

Today Tonight – TV Report

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community, Developing self and others, Engaging and working with the community, Leading improvement, innovation & change, Leading teaching & learning, Leading the management of the school Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Over the last few weeks, the gender based learning that’s been happening at our school has been under the spotlight with an article in our local paper and now the TV news story above from the ‘Today Tonight’ program. This isn’t something that I’m particularly comfortable doing! But, I believe in the work we are doing in this area and am glad that we can be a part of the discussion.

My co-teacher in this program, Aimee Aparicio, and I both worked in a single gender program in my last school, Hackham East Primary. After attending a workshop with Ian Lillico, an Australian expert in boys education, another colleague, Rebecca Hepworth and I started trialling some of our new learning. Drawing heavily on Lillico’s work and that of Michael Gurian, we were supported by our school leadership to build a strong single gender program that still exists there today. At our peak, we had single gender and mixed class options from year 2 to year 7.

In our new roles at Woodend Primary school, Aimee and I can see that the needs of boys and girls at Hackham East aren’t unique. in fact, world wide data suggests that programs like these would have value in any school anywhere.

The program that we are running now is a great start. We have been able to tackle some topics around gender stereotypes and masculinity. An important part of this for us is that we are seeing the students becoming the drivers of this learning. They want to spread the message within the school community. This post from a student last night is a great example of that.

Screen Shot 2015-06-23 at 7.06.07 am

 

This is great to see. Students empowered to make a difference in their communities. What we are doing isn’t difficult. It just takes a willingness to try something different. The conversation around the individual needs of boys and girls in schools is happening and we look forward to seeing where it goes.

Jun
3

By

Bridging Gender Gap in a Brave New World

Category: 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community, Engaging and working with the community, Knowledge & understanding, Leading improvement, innovation & change, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

In last weeks Messenger Newspaper, Amy Moran wrote an article discussing the idea that gender education is the key to reducing domestic and sexual abuse statistics. After a discussion about the article on Twitter, Amy asked if, colleague, Aimee Aparicio and I would be a part of a follow up story looking at the gender learning program we have started with our classes. It’s always an interesting experience to be involved in something like this but the article is a positive one, and we are glad to be a part of the discussion.

 

Messenger Community News

 

Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 9.17.51 am

May
21

By

Social Media in Schools

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community, High quality learning, teaching & schooling, Knowledge & understanding, Leading improvement, innovation & change, Leading teaching & learning Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Periscope-logoSocial media is well and truly a part of our lives. We tweet our way through TV shows, Instagram photos of our dinner, pin that craft idea and update our Facebook status to let everyone know what we’re up to or share endless photos of our kids (sorry). For our kids, the world of social media is even more crowded adding Snapchat, Kik, Omegle and Vine… the list goes on. It’s almost impossible to keep up with, with new services popping up regularly.

Given the huge number of services to wade through paired with the hype around children’s safety in these spaces, you can almost be forgiven for wanting to steer clear of social media in the classroom altogether… almost.

There is a lot already written supporting the use of social media in schools. From taking control of your school’s digital footprint, to drip feeding information to your school communities, the applications are wide and varied. For me though, the exciting stuff happens in the classroom.

In many of our classrooms at Woodend Primary School, our teachers are using Facebook to improve their communication with parents. Replacing regular class newsletters, Facebook groups have become an interactive way to bring parents into the classroom. We decided that rather than continue trying to get parents to go to a new space, we would go to them. Most of us are on Facebook and know that ignoring that red notification dot is not really an option! These groups have been well received and are now a natural extension of our school community.

Even better, several classes are regularly using social media to connect their learning with others classes around the world. Twitter being used alongside student blogs has let students start building authentic audiences for their learning.

Twitter has also helped our class along with Jess Ottewell’s class make connections with the Behind the News television series. Behind the News is a current affairs show aimed at a student audience. Each week our classes have been using twitter to ask questions about the week’s stories and to share our ideas and learning. Last week, we were contacted by the show to be a part of a new ‘Ask the Reporter’ session using the new app ‘Periscope’. We were one of only a handful of classrooms to be invited to participate in this trial event where we were able to send questions via Twitter and have them answered live by a reported from the show.

Apart from the obvious added value to the learning in our classrooms, this is a great example of how a new social media app has been harnessed for a learning purpose. A lot of reports surrounding ‘Periscope’ have been negative, highlighting the possible negative uses of the app. As educators, it’s important that we see past the knee jerk reaction surrounding social media and look deeper at how it can add to learning in our classrooms.

The video of this event is posted below.

May
18

By

A Stroke of Genius

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, Developing self and others, High quality learning, teaching & schooling, Leading improvement, innovation & change Tags: , , , , , , , 7 Comments

jobs-300x225There’s a lot of googleable information about the origins of ‘Genius Hour. From the perspective of being based on Google’s 20% time  or inspired by the ‘Caine’s Arcade‘ video… you can take your pick. In our classroom, the idea for our ‘genius’ time comes from a desire to be absolutely engaged in learning.

Any of us that pride ourselves on being life long learners know how this works. We get hold of an idea that goes around and around in our minds until we have an opportunity to spend some time digging into it. The REALLY good ideas can’t wait and the digging often happens when we should be sound asleep!

The premise for genius projects in our classroom is based around that same idea. We are always looking for ways to better engage kids in learning. We want them to be enthusiastic learners during classes, so… why not give them an opportunity to learn about something that they are already enthusiastic about?

Over the years I’ve done this with my students, I’ve heard the arguments against it. Where’s the structure? How is this covering the curriculum (hmmm)? There’s no control over what’s happening? How can you be in charge of so many different projects at once? For many teachers, this can be a difficult concept to grasp. The idea of students co-constructing the learning… students setting the structure around the project… students investigating the curriculum… is something new for many. I am NOT in charge of these projects, students are. Isn’t that the end game? We want to develop students that become independent learners? Surely they aren’t going to achieve this without practicing it.

I think, sometimes, we create too much of a gap between what WE expect as learners and what we see as acceptable learning for kids. We have all been to professional development that we see as sub standard. It’s either too much talk… it isn’t pitched right.. or we just aren’t interested. Why do we expect that our classrooms are any different? When we have an opportunity to design our own learning and make it completely relevant to us we are more engaged. We not only commit our working time to it but will dig deeper into it at home. This is what genius projects do for students.

Seeing the value in loving learning is essential. If kids are cheering when you say it’s time to work on these projects, that’s got to be a good thing. Not only are they engaged, but they are learning. Currently I have a student creating scale models of famous political buildings (yes this is his passion) using minecraft. This is a student that doesn’t engage in maths lessons, but here, he is calculating scale reductions of measurement.. area, perimeter, volume. He’s writing willingly about types of government.. it amazes me every time. We have another student who is challenging our school’s fundraising policy to get her idea off the ground and raise money for motor neuron disease. She is writing persuasive texts, preparing presentations for the principal, designing a business plan and budget to support her idea. It’s a wonderful thing.

Another criticism of ‘Genius Hour’ is that this type of learning should be happening all the time… and they are right. That is part of the reason that we’ve opted for the ‘Genius Projects’ title and dropped the ‘hour’. In reality, whatever amount of time we allow kids to work on these ideas at school, they spend more of their own time own it at home.

We are certainly a long way from all learning being as engaging as this, but we are working on it.

May
13

By

Something We Should Talk About

Category: 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, Engaging and working with the community, Leading improvement, innovation & change, Leading teaching & learning Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

This is video is making the rounds at the moment…

This segment, from “The Project” host Waleed Aly, is a welcome addition to the the discussion around these issues. As I’ve said before, it is a discussion that is well overdue and one I’m glad to see is gaining some traction.

Segments like this and movies like “The Mask You Live In” give us a platform to base these discussions around. Social media is pounding us with horrific data about domestic violence on a daily basis, and as confronting as it is… this is a good thing. It’s about time.

As I’ve said before though, I think the discussion is missing the mark. It’s great that it’s happening but I think the focus is wrong. This segment talks about funding some much needed programs in Australia to help the victims of domestic violence. That’s hard to argue with. The victims of this abuse need to be protected and supported with the aftermath of their attack. But the focus here, and in much of the discussion that’s happening is about just that.. the aftermath. Our discussions, for the most part are about responsive approaches. I think we need to be discussing this with a PROactive headset.

I want to state here that I know that men can be victims of domestic violence as well. This is no less horrific and no person should be subjected to abuse by another person regardless of gender. Having said that, in the vast majority of cases, women are the victims. Because of this, domestic violence is often talked about as a ‘women’s issue’. I don’t agree. This is most definitely a men’s issue. Men hit women. Men verbally abuse women. Men sexually abuse women.

If we really want to make a difference and change the data, we need to work on this with our boys. I know I’ve talked about this a LOT but it’s something that I feel strongly about. If we can plant the seeds of change with our boys from an early age, we have a much better chance of improving things. I’m not talking about “don’t hit women”. The conversation needs to be about challenging ideas around masculinity, power, and the ideas we spread about ‘being a man’. It’s a big conversation and it’s not going to be a quick fix. We are talking about generational change which means we need to get started now.

Our education department here in SA (DECD) has committed to become a ‘White Ribbon Accredited Workplace‘. This is a great start, but it’s not the only thing we should be doing. We have a unique opportunity to work with the next generation of adults. It’s a huge responsibility. We have room for boys programs in our schools. In ALL of our schools. Wouldn’t it be great if we could harness this and start working toward a more positive future?

 

 

May
8

By

Time to Take Off the Mask

Category: 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community, Developing self and others, Engaging and working with the community, Knowledge & understanding, Leading improvement, innovation & change, Professional Development Reflections, Vision & values 4 Comments

Last week I was lucky enough to attend the South Australian premiere of “The Mask You Live In”, a film by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. 

“The Mask You Live In” is a documentary that focusses on boys and young men as they struggle to find their identities among our society’s definition of masculinity. The film addresses some important questions and highlights some scary statistics from the USA, many of which I fear closely represent our own statistics in Australia and those in many other countries.

Many times, in previous posts, I’ve raised a lot of the same points. Nearly all of our violent crimes are committed by men, our boys are significantly more likely than girls to have learning issues, boys drop out of school at a much higher rate than girls, the highest number of suicides in our country is by young men… the list goes on. Unfortunately this documentary didn’t have a magic bag full of solutions.

What the film did do, was highlight the conversation. Jennifer Siebel Newsom has captured some extremely powerful stories to narrate this problem. This movie will go a long way to bringing the discussion out of the shadows and into the mainstream. 

It’s a discussion that needs to happen. Last night in Adelaide a service was held to remember those that have lost their lives to domestic violence. It is a horrendous realisation that we even need an event like this. But we do, with an average of 2 women a week killed by their current or former partner in Australia this year. Horrifying. It’s easy to see this as someone else’s problem, but realistically and statistically any of our sons can become these men.

“The Mask You Live In” goes a long way to clearing up how we got here. The cultural pressure we put on our boys to ‘man up’ is intense. It’s everywhere. In our sports teams, music, TV, movies… the message says “be tough”… “don’t be a sook”. Most men have at some time either said or have been told to “toughen up”. It has to stop.

This week has given us a strong example of how our society not only promotes an image of ‘toughness’ but also accepts violence against others. Most of our Facebook newsfeeds have been over run by promotions and news stories about the recent Mayweather vs Pacquiao boxing match. I’m not jumping into a debate over the merits of boxing as a sport, but with celebrities lining the front row at the bout, its hard for young boys (or even we men) to ignore the fact that this manly boxing thing draws out the cool people. My big problem here is that one of the contenders, Mayweather, is a convicted wife beater. A witness statement written by his young son has been making the rounds and it is gut wrenching to read. Even with this knowledge, someone (or many people) somewhere has given this guy a chance to earn a share of $300 million (yes million) by beating someone. Not only that, but we have gone out in droves to watch and participate in the hype. In my opinion, we were focussing on the wrong hype. Domestic violence accepted and rewarded. Not good enough.

I don’t know what the answer is (still), but I’m glad the conversation is happening.

Dec
4

By

Student Feedback

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, Student Feedback Leave a Comment

This is a student comment (self reflection) from one of mine and Jess Ottewell‘s students. The comment is from their end of year report and is shared with their permission.

 

“I have enjoyed this year. The freedom of having different places to work, has often helped me to reset my brain and think clearly. Using iPads has been quite helpful. Having my iPad at school has encouraged me to research & to find new ways of presenting my work. Where other classes would make posters, we would creatively make movies and soundtracks composed by us. I have enjoyed genius time, a project where we were able to design a question about something we were interested in learning more about. I wanted to know of the processes of writing a song. I worked collaboratively to compose a song and enjoyed that a lot. It ended up being one of my key interests and helped me to realise I want to be a music producer when I grow up. I’m looking forward to high school and the challenges it will bring, but I will miss this school. I would like to thank my teachers. They have been supportive and awesome the whole year. I have grown a lot this year. If I was having trouble with anything, I knew that I could always ask for help and be listened to. So again, I say thank you for your support.”

 

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