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Can I hack it? A reflection on designing digital solutions to authentic problems

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Written by my colleauge, Megan Tubb

I didn’t realise I’d been hacked! After 12 years of teaching highly structured units of work, I found myself teaching in a way that forced me to loosen my grip on the reins of the curriculum. What started as a small discussion with my grade 6 students about the problem of litter in our playground had grown into something so much richer.

My 11 and 12 year old students were: 

  • driving the direction of our learning.
  • thinking of digital solutions to address a real problem in their environment
  • making strong connections to the adults in our local and wider community

The kids were empowered and full of pride! Meanwhile, I was struggling with self-doubt and fear. I had been pushed right out of my comfort zone to face each day with a level of uncertainty. It was innovative. It was challenging. It was exciting.

Could I hack this new way of teaching?

As the world continues to evolve, our education system is lagging behind. We know it is our imperative to develop our students to become active adults, well-equipped to fulfil their potential and find meaningful pathways for their future. Yet for so many teachers it is too threatening to step away from complete control of the direction of learning.

There are educators who are pushing back against old paradigms. Teachers who acknowledge that the old way just isn’t good enough. These teachers know the value of 21st century learning skills. They recognise that in order to equip students with these skills, they need to take a different approach that shifts away from teacher-centred learning. It requires educators to be innovative, creative and brave enough to value students as capable and contributing citizens – key players in the act of learning.

How can we utilise these pockets of innovation within schools to generate cultures of innovation across a whole school? One possible avenue is to draw on the Stanford d School’s principles of “hacking for school improvement”.  ‘Hacking’ has the following characteristics:

  • quick and fast with a bias to act
  • a culture of prototyping (just try)
  • using what we have
  • low risk

This model acknowledges that some teachers can be reluctant to try new ways of doing things because of a need to ‘get it right’. It aims to remove this pressure by grounding innovation in low-risk experiments that value and encourage a bias towards action. According to the Stanford d School:

“Since doing beats talking about doing, we embrace jumping into new, invigorating experiences. Sure, there’s some initial discomfort, but the reward becomes clear as educators stretch beyond their comfort zone to pick up new skills and mindsets.”

By taking a leap of faith and trying something new, rather than waiting for it to be perfect or right, teachers speed up their own learning process. In adopting a fail forward approach, they use their own valuable experiences and reflections to improve the practices they have experimented with.

Leadership at Taroona Primary School saw the initial litter work I was doing with my students. They applied ‘d School’ school improvement hacks to enable, encourage and support me. My experience not only built my personal capacity in the area of authentic learning, it also served as a model for my colleagues.

Pushed by my principal, pulled by my students’ passion, I very quickly came to realise some of the benefits of bravely working in this new space.

Buy in

Students identified litter in the playground washing into the River Derwent as a problem.  The first thing that excited me was that the students were passionately connected to their learning. This created

Students installing the bird feeder they designed to keep currawongs away from rubbish bins

motivation, as they were invested in their efforts and outcomes. I realised that authentic learning is not only ideal for extending highly able students but also for students who are disengaged and difficult to motivate. There was buy in from my whole class!

Students are likely to think laterally, go left of field and dream big, rather than think something isn’t possible.

I had many projects on the go with students. Some worked, some didn’t. But what each project showed me was that with the naturally inquisitive, creative and uninhibited character of children, creatively solving real problems is a gift for teachers. Students are likely to think laterally, go left of field and dream big, rather than think something isn’t possible. And throughout all this, the significant community connections and learning that took place as a result of the journey, cemented my conviction that this was worthwhile, despite the uncertainties and challenges of working in this new way.

Digital Technologies

What also became obvious was the natural fit for digital technologies. Students intuitively considered digital solutions as part of their design-thinking approaches to problems. Our school had recently taken up the challenge of being early adopters of this curriculum area within the primary sector. It was so exciting to see digital technologies being organically applied within the authentic learning process. It brought alive our vision of ‘aligning and enhancing our current work with the digital technologies curriculum’.

My experience therefore served to build personal capacity in the area of authentic learning, as well as serving as a model for my colleagues.

We know from our own experiences that teachers are dedicated and want the best for their students. It’s what drives them to turn up every day. So why then is there a reluctance to adopt a culture of innovation that welcomes authentic learning? Why aren’t all teachers using the genuine and novel problems that exist within schools and communities to provide an opportunity for students to actively contribute as citizens in their own right?

Authentic Learning is Messy

Innovative, authentic learning can be a bit like what it feels like letting your toddler have a playdate with some friends. Even though as a parent you know the benefits of free unstructured child-led play, adults can be reluctant to just let kids go. As an adult, structured activities are easier. The adult knows that the fall-out following child-led play can be messy! And the mess can be both literal and figurative. For those who like to be prepared, organised and in control, this style of learning can be challenging. While pre-teaching and scaffolds are a critical part of the journey and are a requirement for student success, the open-ended nature of authentic learning means that it is not always predictable, the progress can be slow and the outcomes are often unknown.

Like a child led playdate, authentic learning in a school setting provides genuine opportunities for creativity, collaboration, communication and innovation in a way that could never be achieved in a highly structured, adult-centred environment.

Many teachers like the comfort of having content areas mapped out for the year in neatly-defined lessons.  They may justify their reluctance to relinquish control by claiming loss of curriculum coverage. Yet the curriculum is firmly at the centre, incorporated in every aspect of the authentic learning journey. Will everything you try work? No. Will the failures be frustrating? Absolutely. The difference is, authentic learning allows the curriculum to come to life through the actions of engaged, contributing citizens who are making their mark within their school, community or beyond.

It is no longer an option to see schools as places that prepare students for “the real world”.  We ARE the real world!

Hilary Purdie and I are presenting two sessions together at the Leading a Digital School Conference being held in Melbourne at the Crown Promenade Hotel on 8, 9 and 10 August 2019. Our sessions are Bias to action – using hacks to create a culture of innovation and Pump your PL – why mindset alone is not enough for teacher transformation, please come and join us.

 

Tinkering and Music

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‘I would teach children music, physics and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning’ (Plato). It is an important message that continues to resonate with me as I watch my 3-year-old daughter bang away at various objects making vastly different sounds. She is completely immersed in the sounds each object makes, thinking about how they connect to each other. The look on her face is wonderment and awe, intense. What is she thinking about?

Music and movement is innate in all of us in some way shape or form. Whether it be playing a musical instrument, singing or connecting with the sound by dancing, tapping or moving. Music is the language we all share. How do we know what music we like? What drives people to be musicians or take up an instrument and learn to play it? Exposing children to music and learning through music improves memory and develops language and reasoning skills. Where does this connect to the modern classroom and student?

We know children learn best through play and experimentation. They like to build things and pull them apart. Their curiosity drives their intensity for learning. However in this day and age, students are expected to learn many concepts and skills, focussing on results and standards otherwise imposed on them. Where is the time to look closely, experiment and build something? At what point does the fun go out of learning?

I feel I am very lucky and privileged to be part of the amazing Upper Primary staff at The Geelong College. I work closely with other passionate educators committed to providing our students with a vast array of experiences to challenge their thinking and capabilities. More particularly in Year 5, I work in a maker-centred classroom that promotes curiosity, creativity and collaboration through making things and tinkering with stuff.

It was over 12 months ago and I was working with a group of students completing a small tinkering activity. We focussed on the Parts, Purposes and Complexities of broken technology. We asked the students to pull things apart, check out the parts, how it worked and how these parts combined to make the machine work. After which I gave them the task of can you use the parts you now have to up-cycle and make something. I had a tub of Makey-Makeys sitting on a table and a student asked what they were and could they use one. I said ‘sure but I’m not telling you what it does or how to use it.’ So off they went to find out.

The students came back to me and asked if they could make a musical instrument as a YouTube clip demonstrated the Makey-Makey turning bananas into piano keys. I said ‘sure, go for it!’ This lit a fire under them. They designed and built their instrument feverously. What was interesting to note was that no one directed them, no one gave them parameters or outcomes, and they followed their idea and passion.

  

When it came to coding the instrument sounds, again they followed their nose. They investigated ideas on YouTube, learnt new blocks on Scratch and learnt about the way electrical currents and circuits worked. I observed them working. They were in flow, in control and motivated. Other students fed off this enthusiasm and soon others wanted to have a go. Soon the sound in room changed and it became one of sounds, notes and music. The students joined groups and created little bands, recorded their sound and played it for others. Did I teach them anything? I have to be honest and say no. All we did was create the right conditions and it was simply amazing to see 10-year-old children come together through music.

This experience taught me:

  • Children have innate learning skills that are untapped
  • We need to create the right conditions for learning to happen
  • The teacher doesn’t need to be in control
  • Technology is a great tool to bring things to life
  • A set of outcomes and standards doesn’t drive student motivation to learn, it comes from them

Piaget once said ‘knowledge is the consequence of experience’ and this is no truer than what we try to provide for our students in Year 5 at The Geelong College. Making music through tinkering and coding has opened up another avenue for our students to communicate and express themselves creatively. We hope they continue to connect this way as they navigate through the formative stages of their lives. I hope my daughter continues to find joy and happiness in the music she creates.

I will be presenting; STEAM into the Humanities and Tinkering with Music at this year’s Leading a Digital School Conference, in Melbourne in August. I hope to see you there.

James Colbert

STEAM In The Family

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One of the problems we have in education at the moment is that the curriculum in some areas is developing so rapidly that parents and the wider community have trouble keeping up. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the STEM subjects area. Where once we created electrical circuits using alkaline batteries, bulbs in bulb holders and wires, current students might be using coin batteries, LED’s, conductive tape or small modular components that connect together via magnets to complete similar and at times more complex tasks.

For most parents, technology and engineering were simply not part of their school curriculum. Whilst they may have since learned how to use computers and other devices, the Digital Technologies curriculum advocates that simply using a tool is a very base level skill. Instead the curriculum advocates that students need to learn “how to use technologies to create innovative solutions that meet current and future needs.” To do this students need to understand and use computational thinking. Understanding digital systems and importantly how data and information can be used within these systems is a key to being able to create such innovative solutions.

Teaching approaches are evolving too. In the not too distant past the Science and Maths curriculum was often built primarily around content that could be tested and assessed as known or unknown. Whilst knowledge is still an important component of these subjects process skills as highlighted above, creative use of such skills are now seen as just as important.

The whole notion of STEM or STEAM is also a novelty to many parents more used to notions of discipline based or homogeneous work practices. That a scientist now uses digital componentry more often than a test tube or beaker can be quite revelatory. Understanding how easily data can be captured and not only analysed but used for both ‘good and evil’ can be almost mind blowing.

One of the fun ways to address issues surrounding STEAM is via a family engagement program based on the popular Family Science or Maths programs. Though there are a number of models for running these programs the common feature is a parent, (or other significant adult), working alongside a student on an open ended activity. In some cases programs are run after school, in other variants activities are distributed as a task to be worked on by a parent and child at home together, (note this alternative should not be seen as homework).

The best Family STEAM activities are as open ended as possible but should be capable of being ‘completed’ in a short amount of time. They need to be hands-on and minds-on. If the task is also counter-intuitive then that is even better. In most cases program participants will move through a number of activities which may highlight specific features, eg different aspects of a particular curriculum or principles which underpin practice. This highlights an important caveat, it is important to point out that the activities used in Family STEAM events aren’t how the whole curriculum will or should manifest itself in the classroom. The best STEAM activities involve real problems that are multi-faceted requiring a process approach over an extended period of time and which may not necessarily result in a ‘positive’ outcome. Even the best organised Family STEAM event can’t hope to cover all this detail.

I have had the pleasure to have been involved in a number of Family STEAM events ranging from science based programs through events focussed specifically on technology and more. As a result I have sourced numerous activities that can be readily used to run a program or series of events. These include introductory activities that require minimal instruction or materials such as the following.

In addition to these ‘starters’ programs usually include longer form activities such as Blast Off. Typically these require a facilitator that can be another teacher or an interested parent or community volunteer. Such activities should run for 15-20 minutes. Ideally the activity leader will have tried the activity before the event and also be prepared with some further challenges in mind. In the example below you might ask participants who have a ‘working model” how they might modify it to make the plane go further or whether it is possible to make the plane do tricks. Alternatively participants might be asked to make suggestions for modifications or games that might involve the planes.

In the case of many activities the question of how or why things work is often raised. Some leaders like to include explanations of the science or technology behind their allotted activity. I often prefer to leave things as a question that is open during the event but which can be researched and reported on later in class.   

Where possible I have always encouraged the teachers of students involved in the event, (as well as some of the support staff such as librarians and art teachers etc), to be the facilitators for the program. Generally this means that they only have to ‘learn’ one activity that may be repeated a number of times during the event. I’ve found that doing this can serve as great professional development for teachers, who are unsure of aspects of the curriculum and/or the approaches used to teach STEAM.

As suggested earlier Family STEAM events can be a powerful addition to a school program. Whilst they may take time to organise and facilitate, in my experience the benefits always outweigh any cost in time and materials. In addition to the benefits listed above such events can be used to showcase how school science programs can be hands-on and inquiry-based and fun and educational at the same time. Where teachers are used as facilitators the events also provide an opportunity for they and parents to interact in a relaxed situation. Students also gain a sense of community outside school hours.

Most importantly Family STEAM events encourage and foster interaction between parents and children in a non-judgmental space as they enjoy fun educational experiences together, not just doing homework. Parents and students get to see that science is all around us, is achievable and is FUN.

I’m conducting a range of workshops at the Leading a Digital School Conference that map to the Digital Technologies Curriculum. Come along and join me.

Technology for inclusion with diverse learners

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Are the learning opportunities you are providing in your learning spaces enabling the students with additional needs to succeed, have a voice and demonstrate their learning?

The aim of this post it to share important considerations when introducing a digital technology solution to meet a student’s learning goals based on universal design learning principles that meet the needs and goals of the learner and can be used in the classroom tomorrow.

What is Universal Design for learning?

Universal design for learning is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people (CAST, 2018).

Planning for inclusive and universally designed learning opportunities that utilise digital technologies can:

  • Enable all the learners to engage in the learning opportunity at their own capacity and ability level;
  • Enable multiple means of access to learning opportunities that suit any learners’ abilities (support or extension);
  • Allow access (how) to information, communication (what) and engagement (why) to be differentiated;
  • Allow any learner using the technology to adjust or modify settings and empowers and enables personalisation to meet an individual’s needs for use

Evaluating digital technology

When considering the introduction of a new digital tool for a student, it is imperative to remember that the innovation is actually the learner being able to utilise the right digital tool to engage, collaborate, learn, create and increase opportunities to think and share in a way that works for them, not the digital tool itself.

Therefore, considerations and conversations are required, and where appropriate, include the learner before a new digital tool is introduced. Knowing the learner’s needs and building rapport is always the first step. After that comes understanding of their challenges and matching the technology to their needs, areas of strength, and learning goals with the aim of building capacity and independence.

Taking the time in the beginning to ask the right questions, find out what the learners goals and environment look like and matching that to the right digital tool before introducing anything new to a student with additional needs can make a significant difference in the successful implementation of the chosen digital tool.  Questions such as:

  • What are the student’s current abilities/areas of strength and capacity?
  • What are the student’s learning goals?
  • What are the teacher’s learning goals for this student?
  • What are the other students doing that this student needs to be able to achieve?
  • What does the student need or want to be able to do that is difficult to accomplish independently at the moment?

There are four reasons to introduce a digital technology tool for a learner in your learning space. The right tool for an individual learner can improve access to the curriculum, enable the learner to experience success and demonstrate their understanding.

  1. Enhance – helps the learner to learn and function more effectively.
  2. Remedial – helps to practice specific skills.
  3. Compensatory – helps to complete activities and tasks with greater independence. For example text to speech software.
  4. Extension – provides opportunities to further extend and explore their learning, knowledge and abilities.

(adapted from Cook, A. M., & Polgar, J. M. (2008). Cook & Hussey’s Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice, Mosby Elsevier, St.)

There is a myriad of digital tools to support learners with additional needs, to encourage independence, access and inclusivity in the learning environment.  Universally designing a few ways to improve the engagement and inclusion of our most vulnerable learners, utilising digital technology, can make a big impact on the success and enjoyment our students experience.

One useful tool that you may like to consider using to help guide your decision-making process is an evaluation rubric. Using the rubrics touch points to guide considerations and questions about what digital technology tool to introduce to the student and learning environment can be a positive way to ensure all parties involved in making a decision have the same understanding about priorities for the new tool including learning goals or budget considerations.

Over time I ended up creating my own evaluation rubric template for an inclusive technology assessment that works for the specialised field I work in (sensory impairments) which I can adjust to meet the needs of each individual I am working with. If you would like a copy of this please reach out to me.

Joy Zabala and Tony Vincent have extensive experience in the area of inclusive technologies for students and have both created rubrics to guide teachers and leaders through the decision making process. Both Tony and Joy’s websites and resources are worth checking out before you get started. What I like about these two resources in particular is that they key questions in each area guide you into gathering data and information to support the consideration and implementation of appropriate inclusive technologies that focus on the learner, their educational goals and the learning context first. Once goals in this area have been identified, choosing the right technology or app can commence.

Finally, I would like to leave you with this quote from Dr Kevin Maxwell which has been my screen saver on many devices over the years and reminds me each day of why I am an advocate for purposefully using the right digital technology in our learning spaces.

‘Our job is to teach the students we have.
Not the ones we would like to have.
Not the ones we used to have.
Those we have right now.
All of them.’

– Dr. Kevin Maxwell

I’d love to meet you and share our stories at the Leading a Digital School Conference where I am presenting two sessions; Technology for inclusion with diverse learners (Thursday @ 12.10pm) and Digital tool smashing – Learning can include more than APP smashing! (Saturday @ 12.10pm)

References

CAST (2018). UDL and the learning brain. Wakefield, MA: Author. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/our-work/publications/2018/udl-learning-brain-neuroscience.html

Vincent, T (2012) Ways to evaluate apps. Retrieved from http://learninginhand.squarespace.com/blog/ways-to-evaluate-educational-apps.html

Walker, H. (2011). Evaluating the effectiveness of apps for mobile devices. Journal of Special Education Technology, 26(4), 59-63.

Zabala, J. S. (2005). Ready, SETT, go! Getting started with the SETT framework. Closing the Gap, 23(6), 1-3. Retrieved from  http://www.joyzabala.com/

 

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Digital tool smashing – Learning can include more than APP smashing!

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So, your class has mastered Book Creator for writing a story to share with a real audience, they rock at using Do Ink for green screen movie making and they are all over SeeSaw for recording their learning. It’s time to integrate a few quality apps to take it to the next level.

App Smashing is the process of students utilising a core of quality apps that complement and enhance each other to create inspiring and engaging ways that not only demonstrate their learning but showcases it and allows you to assess their understanding and skills.  The term App smashing was coined by Greg Kulowiec (USA) in 2013. Laura Cummings has a great blog post about App smashing if you’d like to know more about setting parameters and supporting app smashing in your learning space. Whilst this post focuses on the power of combining iOS apps in an education setting, over time the term app smashing has also come to include the use of more than just iPads and at times more than one device type, for example using a Chrome book,  and an iPad to create a finished product.

Students intuitively explore apps long before we’ve had time as a teacher to offer step by step instructions and often find an apps limitations and special features before we’ve fully explored the apps learning and integration potential. Students also often soon realise one specific app doesn’t allow them to produce a final piece of work or product with all the features they need or want and intuitively experimenting with a variety of apps to create their final product.  They key to app smashing is the camera roll or the ability to save a photo, a video, an image you’ve sourced or created and importing it into another app to combine, manipulate to create something new that wasn’t possible to make happen in either of the other apps on their own. App smashing it more than utilising the features and functions of more than one app to reach an objective.

The power of app smashing is the transformation of projects into rich media creations and encourages the seamless use of digital tools for learning. The two key elements for success when app smashing with iPads are the camera roll and the ability to share your creations. When you first introduce the concept of app smashing to your class, depending on their age and familiarity with the apps, you may recommend and demonstrate how to utilise specific apps together to create a finished product. Eventually, however, the goal is for students to consider the assessment criteria and decide themselves which apps will work best for their learning task or project idea by considering what the various apps features are and which one, two, or even four apps would work well together to suit their needs.

Why App Smash?

  1. encourage creative and imaginative thinking
  2. Support collaboration
  3. Students have choice, control and ownership in their learning process
  4. encourage critical thinking
  5. help students construct knowledge and demonstrate deep learning
  6. help maximize the potential of digital tools by combining features and functions.
  7. Allows creativity to shine and allows students to demonstrate their learning in their preferred communication mode. For example, speaking (audio or video), writing (typing text or with a stylus) or drawing.
  8. Provides opportunities to purposefully create and share with a real audience
  9. Empower students to share their voice and showcase their learning.

Dr. Monica Burns (ClassTechTips.com) recently wrote an e-book How to use App Smashing as an assessment tool full of ideas for using book creator as a formative assessment tool.

Combining apps for innovative project ideas

  1. Create a multimedia book (topic/ theme can cover any curriculum or interest area)
  2. Podcast / radio show/ review (book, movie, TV etc.)
  3. Interactive comic
  4. Student created biography interview videos

A few of my favourite Apps

With links to Apple App Store. Those that I know are also available on other platforms I have identified.

Tips

  1. Communicate clear assessment criteria to your students.
  2. Make sure students know how much time they have to complete the task or project.
  3. Make it a clear and easy process for students submit to you finished work created digitally.

I hope that this post has given you enough ideas to start app smashing with your students, encouraging learning and creativity in your classroom. If you need more inspiration I recommend checking out Jornea Erwin aka @Savvy_Educator, or the #AppSmashing hashtag on Twitter.

I will be presenting about these ideas and others at the Leading a Digital School Conference this year, come along and say hi – www.iwb.net.au/digital/program

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