Transformation Teachers Programme

I’ve been trying a different method of getting the students to post on the Gothic – up until now, I’ve set tasks on the class blog and asked students to respond on their own blogs.  This was effective for wider reading ‘portfolios’ but a bit of a faff for students to go in and out of each other’s blogs and post comments.  So as we’re all now studying the same text as a class, I’ve been posting a task on the main page and asking them to reply in a comment.  I did it once and they all said it was much more helpful – we got them up on the whiteboard and discussed them at the start of the lesson but wouldn’t have needed to. 

 So I’ve done it again and this time I’m trying to encourage them to ask questions and respond to each other’s comments – that way the later commenters can’t just be lazy and copy ideas from others – they have to engage with them.  And the early posters should also be posing some questions for them.  We’ll see if it works – watch this space!

Today I did a short (well, possibly not short enough – I think I over-ran a bit!) presentation on my experiences on the TTP, my action research on blogs and what directions I’m now taking to introduce colleagues in school to the potential of blogging.  It was a really interesting day, with some fascinating discussions on people’s different experiences of using ICT in education and people’s ‘critical incidents’ in changing their thinking about technologies, or inspiring them on the road to using technologies.  I was really interested to see what David Townsend was doing at Greensward school with integrated use of ICT and genuine personalised learning platforms as part of that.

For anyone reading this from the course, I’ve added more links to blogs on the right – mine and colleagues’.  If you go to Sue Kambalu’s blog, it also has a whole wealth of links, both in her blogroll and on this post.  Do post a comment on here if you have any questions about blogging, how to use it with students, etc.

I think the presentation will be available on the MirandaNet site shortly, though I’m not sure where.  I’m going to attempt to attach it to this post as well, though I haven’t attached any files before, so it may not work!

What Works Where PowerPoint

I’m also making a belated new year’s resolution to post on this blog more often about what I’ve been doing.  Here’s hoping that doesn’t go the way of other resolutions I made this year!

This blog lists blog sites that are using blogging in different ways – including a link to my Gothic blog!  Some good ideas on there from other sites:

http://villagegreen.edublogs.org/

Found this link on the edublogs forum – really good ‘how to’ blog for use in blogging!  Could be used with older students, or I was thinking of running training sessions for staff in September, so would be useful for that too.

http://howtoedublog2.edublogs.org/

I originally typed and printed an instruction sheet for students to use, which I still think is good – people like something concrete – but I then added the sections as individual pages on the blogs, so students could navigate to the relevant section as required.  Wish I’d done that from the start as think it would have helped students get used to navigating round and using the main blog.

Phew!  I’ve spent so much time preparing and admisistering my new student blogs, I haven’t had time to blog about them – though I’ve wanted to as it’s been such an interesting process.  I now have 2 blogs up and running: http://thegothic.edublogs.org and http://themonologue.edublogs.org.  These are for A level students, and each student has set up their own blog, which has a link from the main blog in the sidebar.  Setting up the blogs initially was frustrating, as edublogs were doing a big upgrade and that meant that the server was often down just when I wanted to have a lesson with the laptops where everyone set up their blog together!  But we got them going, and most student were excited about them, though it was interesting to find a couple of students who seemed to get very frustrated with the technology very quickly.  One amazed me by saying she didn’t use Myspace or anything, and only read emails on hotmail, didn’t send them.  She was totally put off by the whole process, but has now done a couple of good posts and seems more confident.  I’m definitely glad I’ve used this period to get it set up and to start setting tasks, as I’m confident they’ll all know what they’re doing by the summer break.

A couple of interesting observations from reading and commenting on student blog tasks this weekend:

• the process of ‘marking’ work so publicly is really interesting, as it makes me really reflect on how I mark.  It’s a very different process and I find that, rather than correcting work, I’m ‘discussing’ it – as if I was discussing and developing an idea with a student in the classroom.  In that sense, the feedback is more discursive and collaborative – more of a sharing of ideas rather than a judgement.  This is because it’s very ‘public’ and I want to post comments that students will be happy to have on their blogs for others to see.  That doesn’t mean I don’t correct mistakes where I feel they’re glaring – but it does mean I think more carefully about that.  So it has the added effect of making my marking more positive.
• This discursive element means that ideally students will have a record of a sharing of opinions when they come to look back on these for revision – soemthing that usually gets lost in the classroom, unless students have very good memories. This potentially makes the blogs quite powerful tools for revision.
• I’ve put a big stress on the importance of comments.  Some students aren’t there yet, but this is developing and I think has the potential to be the most important aspect.  Many started with comments of the ‘yeah lol, really love ur blogin keep it up’ variety!  Most are now progressing to more specific comments – one from this weekend says, “i like the idea of the secret garden too and i never thought of beauty and the beast, you’re actualy right.”  Not earth-shattering but more specific in that it picks up on a detail in the post.  The best comments are already managing to be positive and specific in a more detailed way – for example, “Interesting analysis! Good point about the personification of Medusa’s thoughts, I didn’t pick up on this when I was analysing. I agree with the fact that Duffy is very creative in the way that she writes, i like her too.” Similarly, from another student, “This is a really good analysis! I really like your point about the rhyming in Eurydice and I actually don’t think it’s far-fetched. I agree, I think that Duffy’s creativity is great and the way she puts interesting twists on things is unique.”  I’ll keep posting about whether the quality of these comments continues to improve as I think it’s the hardest element to get right but potentially the most powerful.

I’ve been playing with my blog some more, and have the following questions for anyone that knows how to answer them:

1. I’ve belatedly added categories, but can’t find a way to attach previous posts to them, short of going to each one, clicking edit, waiting 3 million years for it to load up, then attaching it.  Is there an easier way?

2. I want to add links, for example to other people’s blogs, but also to flickr and podbean etc.  I went into ‘widgets’ and added links to the di

I haven’t blogged for a while, so I’m seizing the opportunity while I’m fresh from today’s training… Today we covered:

 ActivVote:

Now I assumed I couldn’t use this on a Smartboard, as it’s Promethean software, but was pleased to find I could.  I liked the voting ‘pods’ – they were user-friendly and fitted snugly in your hand.  Stuart mentioned that another type of voting system he’s been using (whose name i forget) has the potential for instant feedback on the handset, so students can see which they’ve got wrong or right immediately, which appealed – but overall I liked it and could see its use for mini-plenaries throughout the lesson, to test understanding – or as starters to stimulate debate.  What I liked the most about that is that you had to stand by a view you’d made and then be able to justify it.  I usually do that through ‘floor debates’ but you get the problem that students move to the same side of the room as their friends – this was more independent I think.

iDVD:

I’m not sure really where I’d use this in teaching, but it was nice to play with – produces really professional-looking DVD menu screens, so could be used if you’d compiled students work into a single DVD, or were making a DVD of a school trip where you wanted separate menus etc.  Was also useful to discover that the slot at the side of the Mac was in fact a CD/DVD drive and not just a random hole with some foam in it!

Visualisers:

I was ready to be underwhelmed by these I have to admit – but was pleasantly surprised, especially by some of the smaller, lighter models.  As an English teacher, the prime use I can see would be in displaying students’ work instantly on screen and I have to say that, after having a few difficulties with the digimemo, I’d much rather use this – it’s more instant and doesn’t involve faffing about with cables.  For displaying work, it seemed the smaller models were more than adequate and I wouldn’t need one of the mega view-stuff-the-other-side-of-the-school jobs for 3 times the price. 

The other use I can imagine would be if I had something like a charity leaflet where I wanted us to look at presentational features – for example I quite often dish leaflets out and get students to comment on features – but if a group’s feeding back on a leaflet that the others don’t have, then no one can see what they’re discussing, unless you’ve gone to the trouble of scanning every leaflet in first.  This would provide instant viewing for the whole class as students fed back, and has much more flexibility and speed than taking a digital camera picture and loading it up.  Again, the more basic models would be more than adequate for this.

Blogs:

We looked at some blogs in groups – I was a bit frustrated at having to look at other subject areas, as I wanted to get into my own area – but had some time afterwards to investigate English blogs and particularly liked this one:

http://fernhillbookworm.blogspot.com/

It’s such a simple idea – it looks like different staff in the dpartment have all posted a review of a book they’ve enjoyed and that they hope students might enjoy.  This would be a great thing to launch at Book Week – and it could be a homework that students have to read the reviews and pick one to try reading.  Or you could set up a learner blog where students had to review a book for homework, and then you could give students some time to pick one of the reviews and read the book – then another homework 2 months later could be to make at least one comment on another book review, saying what you thought of the book.  This could be a great way for students to collaborate and share reading ideas – and book reviews are such a tired old staple of the English teacher’s stock-in-trade, that this would really freshen things up and, vitally, give students a real audience for their writing.  We’re always telling students to think about purpose and audience, but the audience in reality is always the teacher or the examiner.  Here the audience is real and tangible – and interactive, if it’s all set up right!

I might use this idea as a way to focus year 12 students going into year 13 on their wider reading over the summer – get them all to read a text and review it on a blog. 

Even better if…

Looking at all the above, I’ve yet again learnt a huge amount today, which is fantastic.  One thing I think would really help though, is if some more stuff was written down for us.  The first task, while difficult to complete in the time available, was good becuase it was very clear – all the tasks required were written out on a single sheet, with a clear deadline on, and some relevant instructions were attached.  This I liked!  I feel a bit baffled by all the different things being thrown at us simultaneously, with a general sense that we’re meant to be producing something with it all but no clear deadlines for it.  It’s like the ‘shout down the corridor’ homework at the end of the lesson that half the kids forget - I need it written in my planner with a clear ddeadline, or I don’t always remember to do it!  I think I’d really have responded to a clear and definite task or tasks at the end of each training block – a deadline for creating such-and-such a resource, using this or that programme, and uploaded somewhere (with instructions how to do that if needed – eg the first time we were asked to upload onto Fronter).  And all the above written clearly on a piece of paper (I know, paper’s so last season; call me old-fashioned, but it does help!)

After a horrendous week in which we had Ofsted at school (good report but even with the new light touch it’s an awful lot of stress), I’ve finally managed to find some time to play with my DigiMemo this weekend.  I’ve been a bit disappointed, as I can’t get it to pick up my writing properly.  It might be the battery in the pen, though I’m a bit loath to go out and buy one of those little expensive batteries if i find later it’s not that and it’s just the way i write!  My first page lost so many lines that you couldn’t really read it at all when it transferred digitally.  The second i wrote on the table, in case writing on my lap wasn’t helping the pressure.  That was slightly better but barely!  Then i tried the online writing tool, which helped, as it enabled me to kind of ‘self-correct’ as i wrote, seeing what was and wasn’t being picked up.  But it still missed bits, notably the crosses on my Ts.  I’m feeling a bit like if I have to fundamentally alter the way i write for it to work, it’s not going to be ideal for me – i guess i should get some kids to try it and see if it’s just the strength (or lack!) of my writing.

Needless to say that with all those problems, the text recognition didn’t work on my writing at all!

 Anyone had similar problems?

I’m finding it difficult now term’s started to manage to experiment with some of the technology I’ve been given – it was pretty hard to find the time even at Easter and I’m amazed by participants like Sue who seem to be managing to try something new out at least twice a week!  I’ve been reading Sue’s blog and she’s been using one of the DigiMemos we were briefly told about at the last session: http://skambalu.edublogs.org/category/digimemo/

I was taking in too much new inforation at the time to really latch onto what they were all about, but reading Sue’s blog I can see how they work and am keen to try them out if I get a chance. 

What I’m thinking might work is to use them with exam classes – for example, recently I did some work on how to write effectively about sentence structure in texts with my AS language and literature class.  I then got them all to try and write a paragraph based on what they’d learnt, share them in small groups and then nominate some particularly good ones, which i took and photocopied, stuck on a sheet and photocopied again, before giving back to them all.  This was all very laborious, especially as it involved 2 trips to the photocopy room, and also frustratingly delayed the ability to share the work collectively (we read some bits out, but many people (myself included) find it hard to focus just on words without something to look at as well and I could see the faces glazing over!)

So my idea is that, as exams approach, it would be great to use DigiMemos with my 2 AS groups, to do that sort of shared writing – I’m assuming it can then be loaded onto an IWB screen and annotated to show good features and things that could be made even better.  It sounds from what Sue said that you can then convert the handwriting into text, in which case it could be put into a Word document and even loaded into Fronter if one of the pieces was a good exemplar. 

This could be anytime in the next 4 weeks but after that wouldn’t be any good as they’d have gone.  My only other idea would be to do the same with my year 10 as preparation for their summer exam, but there are 27 of them and a few more hairy characters, so I’d be more comfortable with my AS groups of 9 and 14 relatively sensible individuals!

Judy/Sue – it would be good to hear your thoughts on this – knowing the equipment, whether you think that would be a good use for it – and Judy, whether there’s any scope for me having access to a set.  With the numbers in my groups, a half set might even be enough.

Transformation Teachers mind map

Originally uploaded by T Ware.

I’ve been playing about with OpenMind today – I’m not sure if we have it on the school computers but I’m pretty sure we have FreeMind, which must be similar. I thought that if I was learning to do it, I might as well use it to map some of the software and hardware we’ve been given on the programme, so that it helped me get my thoughts in order too!

It’s not finished, but I’ve used all the ideas in the quick start guide in the software. One aspect I really like is the way you can export out of the software. So this was exported as a picture and then I uploaded it to Flickr (I’ve just spotted the zoom function above the pictures in Flickr – so you’ll want to click on that to view this properly). But potentially more useful, they can be exported into Word and PowerPoint, a process that preserves the links made in the map. So in Word, it all comes out with a contents page and then expanded sections below, and on PowerPoint, each slide is a new subheading. I’ll need to fine-tune that export process, but I’m thinking students could use this for essay planning, then export, helping them to go from non-linear to linear, which many find hard. My only concern is it doesn’t then help them to see the correct order of ideas, which is the bit I think they find hardest.

You can also export into Html, which makes it all look like a cool webpage – but I’m not sure how you would then put that up on the web – is that easy or difficult? I guess it relies on webspace being available, among other things.

It would be great to be able to create collaborative mind maps, though I think that would be harder. I assume you couldn’t have students all working simultaneously on one map, but you could have pairs or groups filling in a different branch in turn, and adding links where they saw them. This would be logistically more difficult, but still possible.