Showing posts with label Macul. Show all posts

Here is a brief overview of the project as we described it to our audience. For further information see my article that was published at Edudemic.com on March 28th, 2013 and check out the projects website here. 

What: Multiple two-day events that bring teachers together to learn how to author content using iBooks Author. Collaborate in content area or grade level teams to divide up and conquer common core aligned granular size learning modules that are shared among teachers. 

Who: Motivated and creative teachers working in an iPad learning environment as they will most directly benefit from these resources. 

It's not that this technology is so amazing and new that gets me giddy. Rather,  it is the idea of accomplishing this task together, collaborating and sharing with a group of like minded teachers. Let's face it that doesn't always happen in our building, department, grade level groups.

 I don't look at this technology as something so innovative that it will blow our doors off. However, I do believe the results of this project are something that could allow teachers to innovate their classroom practices in a way that blows the doors off their student's learning. That, to me, is very exciting. 

I want to learn. I want to share what I know. Doesn't everyone want professional development to be like this? Learn from others and share what you know put them together to advance education. However, how often do we sit and humbly (or selfishly) remain quiet in department meetings? Or how often do we as teachers not have the buy in for what our PD is about? 

This event will be teacher driven and grassroots. It's not an order coming down from the administrators (at least not yet- ours is thinking about telling departments "no more textbooks"). It will call upon the creativity of many, it will deepen the creativity of many, and it has the potential to deepen the creativity of students.  

1. Focus on Digital Citizenship

It quickly became apparent that adolescents might be well versed in digital technologies (although not all) however, they are not well versed in the digital ethics and understanding of the trail they are leaving of themselves online.  

This year we focused more on digital citizenship. Students were required to attend an hour long presentation on online ethics. Parents were encouraged although not forced to attend. We hosted another presentation from a local lawyer on the dangers and consequences of sexting.  

A small group of teachers from the elementary level took sometime looking through age appropriate material for students to learn more about digital citizenship. A decent amount of our website (ilearn.zps.org/digicitizen) is dedicated to equipping parents, students, and staff with resources for addressing and teaching online behavior. 

2. Focus on Instructional Strategies

The theme of concerns from teachers after the first year really drove to the heart of the question "what should I be doing to effectively leverage learning and teaching with an iPad?"  This lead us to layout some strategical practices so our teachers had some targets to shoot at. Here is where we landed:

A. Online Presence. This should be our first step, certainly for those who didn't already have a classroom presence online. For many of our teachers this was already being done so their next move was to ramp up the interactivity. To move away from a static one-way communication space of a website and towards a more social platform, such as Edmodo or Moodle.

B. App-lied Learning. This is sometimes where people say "but it's not about the apps" and of course it isn't but why else did you buy the iPad? Yes, we want our teachers to use the apps for creating, consuming, critical thinking, collaborating etc. We felt it was important to support our teachers in how to use the App eco-system to enrich student learning. This meant re-creating the Blooms Taxonomy Wheel for apps for our teachers and training them on how to use the iPad to collect student work.

C. Data Driven Instruction. With a piece of technology in the hand of every student we knew that collecting data would be much easier. The question then became how do we use this real time data to support / differentiate student learning? Many of our teachers are leveraging the data collecting ability of sites such as Braingenie.com, Thatquiz.org, Moodle Quiz maker, Tenmarks.com, and Mobymax.com. Teachers can use data collected through these online assessments and re-route students during face to face time to better meet their needs.

D. Authentic Audience & Project Based Learning. These two are goals we are striving for but certainly have a way to go to fully implement. The idea being that we really want our students to be producing real world artifacts and problem solving for a real world audience. 

3. Professional Development
Finally one other concern coming from our teachers was around the area of ongoing professional development. They expressed their desire to have someone available full time to work with them towards integrating the iPad into their instruction. This is where my job was created and it has been a real pleasure to serve my k-12 staff this year in this capacity. In addition to face to face support we have ramped up our online professional development as well by offering video tutorials for teachers to view when and if they want. 

My colleague and english teacher, Shawn Jacob, did a great job of highlighting a few changed practice behaviors that are indicative of many of our teachers habits. These behaviors include using iTunesU to distribute course materials, using KidBlog.org for his class to publish to authentic audiences, using instagrok.com to conduct research, and finally leverage the iPad for creating great content. 

Shawn is an excellent example of a teacher integrating the iPad in a meaningful way and on a daily basis. The stories he tells about students and their use of the device to build meaning and content is truly spot on and humorous. 

You've seen the image before, a bunch of nerdy NASA dudes sitting in front of monitors while the countdown over the loud speaker hits zero. The flames burst forth from underneath the shuttle lifting it high into the atmosphere. Just as the shuttle breaks through the exosphere the nerd heard throws back their chairs and jumps for joy cheering and celebrating another successful launch and exploration of space. 

Kevin Honeycutt, a Macul Keynote, talks about launching kids, inspiring their goals and ambitions and fostering their whole growth as an individual. I appreciate Kevin's candor and the way he expresses his thoughts. He has a way of connecting with my heart when he speaks about reaching out and teaching the lowly and marginalized student. He does an incredible job of reminding teachers that it is not about the technology, but rather, the relationships we hold with students and how those relationships foster creativity, individualization, and self esteem in our young people.

 

One of the colleagues I attended Macul with, Shawn Jacob, is really good at this as well. I deeply admire his classroom management strategies and the efforts he makes to keep kids and curriculum moving in the forward direction. He shared with me a few stories of seeing his own students launch and you can tell these are the stories that fuel him and keep him teaching. 

Listening to both Shawn and Kevin reminded me of how much I miss the classroom and being connected to kids. They also reminded me of a few important rules in life and teaching. 

Kids need you/us. They will never tell you this. For as much push back as you get as a parent, coach, or teacher the bottom line is kids need you. They may not admit it now but most likely there will come a time and place when they will. They need you to believe in them, hope for them, inspire them, push them, support them, and most of all set boundaries for them. Adolescence is a time in ones life that can be similar to a row boat in the middle of a wavy ocean. Adults can help students navigate their way back to shore and offer sense of security amidst the turmoil.

This was a great reminder to get out from behind the computer, take some focus of the data, high five a student in the hallway, go out of your way to do something for a kid that no one else would do, and just invest in a student's being well enough to the point that they burst forth from their pad and launch!

iBooks Author For Creating Interactive Books for an iPad - Workshop

1:00-3:00 pm W2-70 By: Dave Tchozewski

Dave Tchozewski +Dave Tchozewski is the Director of Information Technology for Jenison Public Schools and has a real heart for innovating the classroom. He will be running this two hour workshop to give teachers hands on experience with using this fascinating tool. 

iBooks Author- Creating iPad Content for Education

4:00-5:00pm O3-45  By: Joanna Montgomery

Joanna is an expert in iBooks Author and did our training for us at Zeeland Public Schools last summer. She also works for Apple and serves as the DE for the east side of Michigan. Joanna will have you hooked on creating iBooks for sure. 

Innovating with iBooks Author and Pages

8:30-9:30 am D3-17  By: Steve Dickie +Steve Dickie 

Steve is an incredibly creative and innovative science teacher who is partly responsible for this summers iBooks Author hackathon. He has incredible knowledge of the ins and outs of iBA and is looking forward to leading the east side of the state to author high quality content. 

Join the iBooks Author Collaborative 

11:30-12:30 pm DO-01A By: Anthony DiLaura +Anthony DiLaura & Steve Dickie +Steve Dickie 

This is my session, so of course I think you should attend :) Steve and I are hoping to share with you the plans for this summer's collaborative project that is already spreading across the Midwest. Teachers from all over are coming together to create interactive textbooks. If you teach in an iPad environment you should be here as this is the future of teaching and learning!

iPads, iBooks Author, Screencasts, Edmodo & More: New Tools for High School Teachers

11:30-12:30 pm D3-17  By: Julie Kindred +Julie Kindred and Daniel Telgenhof

If you are wondering what the potential is for iPads and iBooks Author, this is a great session to attend. Julie Kindred, self proclaimed tech-illiterate, created her own AP Statistics book this past summer and is using it to teach her students this year. She will give you the full details of her journey and tell you how it is increasing student engagement and learning. She is a wonderful and charismatic personality that you have to get to know.

Creating Impressive, Interactive iBooks with iBooks Author

11:30-12:30 pm Craig Van Ham

Craig is an incredibly savvy ed tech teacher that cranks out tons of video tutorials on different web 2.0 tools and apps. Craig hosts this wonderful collection of helpful tutorials on MiLearning's iTunesU space. Craig also has created tutorials to get you started using iBooks Author.  

So, I encourage you to check out a few of these sessions, get introduced to iBooks Author. And, if you are teaching in a 1:1 iPad environment, or soon will be, then you definitely want to get involved with the iBooks Author Hackathon going on this summer. For more details and registration check out the website here: http://mibookexchange.wix.com/ibahackathon

Disclaimer: I am not sure if there are more sessions going on at Macul highlighting this tool, sorry if I missed someone's session. Please add it to the comment section below.