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supporting digital classrooms, digital schools

Real Concepts in a Virtual World

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In 2018 my class was lucky to be a part of a Channel Nine article showcasing the New Minecraft EDU platform for schools in SA. What a wonderful experience it was. 2 hrs with a full bustling computer room, several students chosen to speak, official department spokespeople present and everyone ready to get the main sales pitch across.

It was a great lesson for all. The 2 hour session was edited down to about 2 minutes but all kids that were prepped, spoke on the article and I managed to make myself look slightly better than ordinary. It amazed me how little the department and Nine News actually cared about talking about the cross curricular units of work and the ways in which the students were being submersed in a virtual world. Actually, I had just taken part in an advertisement.

National 9 News Article

The next day, everyone was happy, parents were proud, kids were walking tall and teachers commented over the morning break. The clip was being watched by a lot of people and my students were telling me everytime we passed another 1000 hits. As we hit 15000, I smiled and decided to have a look at how it was being accessed. Unfortunately, my innocent interest turned to intrigue when I noticed the 100+ comments posted…

….and then that intrigue quickly turned to frustration!

comments like:

Sarah J – ‘Yep see how this will educate our youth who are already lazy and rude!’

Carmen F – ‘Whatever happened to teamwork out on the play field or with a board game?’

Brett L – ‘So we’re paying school fees for our kids to play games and teachers want a pay rise ha ha they must think all parents are stupid.’

Tom H – ‘Haha team work isn’t really teamwork when one person has headphones on!’

Why is it that these people presumed that the use of a digital sandbox platform meant that we were decreasing the learning possibilities? Why did they react with such negative force? What was the cause of people feeling they needed to comment in such a way as though my teaching was merely putting a child on a game?

I began to really question my practice and approach to all the digital resources at hand and think more about this. Was I using Minecraft as an educational tool or was it merely a new age colouring in book.

This was late in the year and our major unit was wrapping up. The students were now functioning in their virtual class city (Shichi Hachi Muchi – Room 7 & 8). We had turned the creative mode off several weeks before because the students had developed their businesses based upon requests submitted that demonstrated a clear understanding of the supply and demand needs of the city.

The journey on this unit had students using digital technologies for design, collaboration, communication and data. It enabled the students to lead and look after real world issues in a virtual setting for Civics and Citizenship. The students maintained a personal budget that also assisted students to monitor their learning progress and personal goals. It crossed 6 curriculum areas and had a 100% finish rate for the unit.

I have since continued to improve the unit of work, with incentives for extra work, and self monitoring being two large changes. In 2019 we are completely using Minecraft EDU, and my Minecraft minions have been working really hard to get our new and improved future city ready for the first home owner.

The experience has made me realise that there are many people that will try to look for fault in everything we do and that we must continue to work hard to use technologies where they can enhance learning. People will use technologies as the new age colouring book but I am not one of them. I want more, and simulations, virtual worlds, transparent templates, cloud sharing and so many other technologies are making my classroom an amazing place to be.

If you want to know more about my units of work and approach to teaching with digital technologies, please join me at the Leading a Digital School Conference at Crown Melbourne in August where I will be running two workshops; Minecraft across the Curriculum and Make Learning Real.

Steve Whitehead
IT Coordinator

The Ever-Changing Role in Digital Leadership (Mentoring and Coaching)

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This blog is the follow on from https://www.iwb.net.au/the-ever-changing-role-in-digital-leadership-kotter-model-unpacked/

and https://www.iwb.net.au/the-ever-changing-role-in-digital-leadership/

Mentoring and Coaching

In my previous blogpost, I took you on a journey of my leadership in moving a school forward into the digital age. By using the John Kotter Model I was able to unpack the steps it took for me to move my sites forward. Today I unpack this further to help you to understand the way in which I utilised coaching and mentoring strategies to guide my staff as I supported them to take their first steps in harnessing digital technologies themselves and also with their students, embedding them within their teaching and learning programs.

First of all let’s unpack Coaching and Mentoring particularly from an Educational Leader’s perspective.

Coaching involves the educational leader and teacher working together to collaboratively look at classroom approaches, interpersonal relationships, or organisational and administrative issues: all of which contribute to the achievement of the whole school improvement plan, and improvements in students’ learning. It is not evaluating and judging teacher performance rather it should be a positive impact on any teacher regardless how long they have been teaching.

Mentoring on the other hand is intended to support the development of all teachers where the leader acts as a support and guides teachers through negotiated/identified issues. This then creates a partnership between the leader and the teacher whereby they work together to achieve the improvements in the classroom practice. Often this occurs through conversations and observations.

In my role as principal and as my site began to lurch forward with technologies it became quite clear that my leadership had to focus on mentoring and coaching of some staff to support them. Through attending the leading a digital school conferences over time I have been able to glean a range of understandings and skills to be able to support my staff with the use of effective digital technologies in their classrooms, specifically ensuring that their purpose was to improve student learning outcomes.

In the early days it was important that I modelled the use of digital technologies in my day to day life at school as well as strategically placing myself in classrooms to observe teacher practice and the inclusiveness or not of digital technologies. This provided me with the opportunity to have open conversations with staff and discuss the range of possibilities and opportunities where digital technologies could enhance the learning for their students within their teaching and learning programs.

I found it extremely positive to sit beside teachers in their classrooms and discuss their teaching and learning programs with them. Through this we were able to identify strategic opportunities where teachers could dabble in digital technologies with their students. This began with the extensive take-aways which were seen and heard at the leading a digital school conferences, not only by myself but the staff which I had previously included and participated in the conferences as well. As a site I encouraged all participants and myself to form a Techie PLC to spend time trialling and sharing the range of new practices learnt from these extensive conferences. Often was the case I would work with teachers in their rooms to model the digital technology tools with their students to begin the first steps forward.

In all good modelling and coaching scenarios it was important for me to learn with and alongside the teachers. This provided the opportunities for rich dialogue to occur and help my staff trust in themselves to take this risk with digital learning, knowing that their leader understood and supported them to ‘give it a go’!

For me as the leader it was and still is an exciting time to be a part of as each staff member trials, implements and later embeds digital technologies in their learning programs. As you can appreciate the journey is never ending as the face of digital technologies continues to evolve at a rapid pace but the great delight is now I have staff who face this challenge head on and continue to evolve themselves.

In summary, the 3 most effective strategies as a leader I have embodied over time have been

  1. A continuing consistent message to staff around the importance of embedding digital tools with students and providing connected professional learning opportunities for staff (Leading a Digital School conference annually)
  2. Modelling and coaching my staff at each point of transition by building a culture of risk taking
  3. Learning with staff and embedding resourcing for digital technologies annually in the school budget.

Once again I will be taking my staff to this year’s ‘Leading a Digital School Conference’ as we continue to enhance our students’ learning through digital technologies. I look forward to seeing you there and would be most happy to have a chat.

Check out the program @ www.iwb.net.au/digital/program

Rick Noack

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

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Written by my colleague, 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, but 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.