Aurasma

You would have read in one of my earlier posts that I was embarking on a Global Educators 'journey' and part of that may have been exploring new technologies in presenting some of my students' work.

It was suggested that I explore Aurasma as a tool to do this. I spent sometime reading up about it and watching videos, and honestly I was dubious, as it seemed to work really well with iPads as an editing device, and we were a PC school.

In the end I employed my favourite matra - 'Stuff it, I'm doing it'.

And I'm so glad I did.

The kids absolutely loved using it - it was a way for them to visually explain their learning, whether it be through scrolling text, themselves actually talking and verbally explaining their concepts, or with images/ video/ text.

But I jump ahead.

For those of you who are new to Aurasma this comes from Matt Hollowell's Prezi explaining it:

Augmented Reality For The Classroom. Aurasma is a free app for iOS and Android devices that uses advanced image recognition to blend the real-world with rich interactive content, such as videos and animations, called “Auras”.

So in short, it's a program where you create a 'trigger' image. It can be anything - a photo, a piece of text, and object. Then the students can create a 'layer'. This is generally a video of any type - youtube, homemade, PowerPoint movie - or it can also be a single image or audio. Once it has been all uploaded, created and published, anyone who is following your 'channel' can open up the app on their smart device, hover the screen over the trigger image, and the 'layer' content appears magically on their screen!

 I generally get my kids to create a video explaining the concept that is portrayed in the trigger image. For example, we were studying a rather 'dry' topic - the Water Cycle. I got my students to have some sort of visual representation of the water cycle - a picture they had drawn (by hand or digitally) or some text. They then needed to add a 'video layer' that EXPLAINED how the water cycle worked. Some students chose to video themselves talking it through with visual diagrams on whiteboards, other chose to make movies on PowerPoint with scrolling text and images. My personal favourite was a couple of students who love working with Lego. They made a model of the water cycle using lego, then using a stop motion app on their phones, recorded and created a stop motion animation using the lego to show how the water cycle operated. Talk about higher order thinking, STEAM, and creative thinking all in one activity!

Here is a video example of one my students created:

I love Aurasma for several reasons.

• It's simple to use and easy to create. I created a class account that allows multiple people to log in and use it at the same time. Saves the students having to create personal accounts.
• It gives students an opportunity to explain concepts more deeply. 
• It gives students who struggle to write a chance to show off their knowledge through verbal expression.
• It's engaging and interesting.
• If you get parents involved, they can view their students' work at Parent Teacher Interview time. It looks specky and gives the parents an insight into their child's learning. We used it for Grandparents and Special Friends Day - the guests were blown away!
• It was a chance to teach students about hashtags - how to use them to organise information, but also how to search information using them.

Finally, here are some screen shots of posters I have around the place, reminding students how to use Aurasmas - you are welcome to use as a template :)

Using Lino

I love Padlet, I really do, but sometimes you need something just a bit different. I went on a search for something similar to padlet, that would be easy to use and easy to capture as an image (my biggest beef with Padlet is that I can’t print out an image of the board – it cuts off anything that’s beyond the initial page!)

And thus I found Lino. Lino is a virtual pin up board – very similar to Padlet, but in my opinion, a little more user friendly.

Padlet has the side navigation bar you need to work through to find what you want to do to add images or change background – not really rocket science, but can be a little fiddly to start with. Lino is easy to use with ‘sticky notes’ in an easy ‘grab and click’ format, right there on the page, along with easy access to inserting images, videos, and documents.  You can use it from your PC desktop, or on iPad or iPhones.
The students will need to sign up, but I think if we are using it regularly, it’s a good one to keep. You can create groups too, so you can set up group canvases that you can invite the students to.

The only drawbacks are that you still can’t ‘print’ the board as documentation or export it, I’ve got around this by taking screen shots and printing from there. The other drawback is that when you ‘post’ a sticky, it posts in the same spot each time, so if you have multiple students posting, their stickies might post over the top of each other. The students worked it out pretty quickly to move them around, but Padlet has that cool feature where you can get posts to stream or gridlock them to stop this.
I’ve used Lino a few times now as ‘working boards’ for topics and as another way to get kids to share their information. When I asked the students for their feedback on this, they said they liked it and found it easy to use. They said they liked it as much as Padlet, so in the end, I guess it’s up to teacher preference! I think it’s a useful tool to introduce to the students as they can then begin to use it themselves to set up group canvases for project brainstorming, or for personal project planning.

Maths and Critical and Creative Thinking

Let’s face it, the general sentiments about maths can be somewhat… uninspiring. We hear many complaints about maths and how students find it boring and don’t like it, and we figure that’s because a lot of us teachers don’t feel confident enough (ourselves included!) to teach beyond the textbook, lest we get it wrong and the students are forever ruined in their mathematical knowledge. We personally understand this trepidation and ingrained feeling that the only proper way to teach maths is from the textbook because really, it was written by math genius’s right??

But should this really be the case?

We have begun small, baby steps, in trying to open maths up to some creative and critical thinking. Something to get those problem solving skills and connecter neurons happening. Something to make this fun, and seem worthwhile.

We used to start with the usual ‘What do I know, What don’t I know’ type of questioning at the start of maths units to try to ascertain what the students may be able to recover from mathematical lessons of past, but after a while, this too became slightly mundane.

So we turned to our favourite types of critical and creative thinking templates and questioning. Instead of telling the students what we were going to ‘tackle’ in maths, we gave them an opportunity to explore creatively some connections and prior knowledge through Blooms, Questivities, and Thinkers Keys. These were given to the students as ‘prior – knowledge’ learning tasks and as a way to introduce them to the concepts we would be exploring in maths.

The students were given these tasks as a sheet and they needed to present it in a way that they thought was interesting and informative. Most students stuck to the ‘poster’ presentation method, however we have had a few student starting to delve into prezis, movies and other forms of digital presentations. These were shared with the class and then discussions around the ‘vocab’ we would need for this topic would occur. As students came up with pertinent words, they were given a card to write the words on and add to the ‘Vocab Wall’. This then ensures the students can see and access this language and associated vocab all the time in class.

The result?
Students collaboratively working together to produce some rather thoughtful, engaging, and sometimes hilariously creative ideas! It may seem like a whole heap of fun (which it was!) but with carefully constructed questions and learning tasks, students began to make connections between the concepts and real life. They were able to begin asking those big questions, see the purpose these concepts have in our world and use language that they didn’t know they already had ingrained into their mathematical vocabularies. As a teacher, not only does this practice essential 21st Century skills like collaboration, communication, inquiry and creative and critical thinking, but it gives an insight into the type of language, concepts and ideas the students might have about the topics.

And they’re much more fun to read than a pre-test or list of knowledge points.

You can find the Critical and Creative Thinking prompts here:

Decimals and Percentages Blooms

Chance and Thinkers Key

Fractions and Questivities

Measurement and Questivities

Reflective Practices

Probably one of the things that teachers really struggle in is guiding or giving time for reflective practices at the end of lessons. We too are guilty of this!
Reflecting on a concept or topic is an essential skill students need to engage in constantly – not just at the end of term and the unit. It needs to be done virtually at the end of every lesson where a new concept has been introduced or learning activity has taken place. This gives the students an opportunity to ‘take a step back’ from all the new information hurled at them and to sort through what it is they have understood and what it is they need to ask help for. Teachers often tell parents that their students don’t ask for help and need to do so more often, but what if the student doesn’t even know what they need help with? What if they are so overwhelmed with new information that they think they get it, but in reality when it comes to applying it new circumstances they just can’t connect it all together.
Making reflection a part of the classroom routine is essential to teach and guide students to be able to stop and think about their learning and take responsibility and leadership in their knowledge construction.
All sounds good in theory. And we all know the benefits of it. So why don’t we do it?
That great big dirty word.

TIME.

By the time you have introduced your lesson, review what you did last lesson, introduced the new concept/topic, given time to students to do a learning task associated with it, you’re already running into the next lesson or lunchtime trying desperately to get them to pack up after the bell. So how to fit it in?
We’ve come up with some simple methods. A reflection does not have to be a huge sit down and write essay responses to 10 questions. With appropriate questioning (get rid of ‘what I liked’ questions for now!) you can get a quick and easy reflection from students that help you to see what concepts have been grasped, and what ones you may need to re-teach to the whole class or perhaps just a small group or individual. The students then begin to get into a routine of being able to identify what new knowledge they’ve learned and what might be sticking points for them. We have made these reflective practice cards up so they may be printed in mass amounts and handed out quickly when needed, or they can be posted somewhere and answers can be made on a digital collaborative platform (like padlet or lino). If printed, we usually get the students to either pass them to us to review, or to stick them on the white board/ classroom twitter board – not to shame, but to facilitate discussions. Students can look at each other’s and maybe even help and explain concepts to those who weren’t sure about something in the lesson – an excellent form of collaboration and forming learning networks in the classroom.

321 RIQ

3 Recalls – Students write down 3 things they recall from the lesson, preferably in order. This is important to see if students have recalled the important and main points of the lesson, or whether they have missed the anything. This also helps students to organize the new information into smaller, more manageable chunks of understanding.
2 Insights – students write down 2 new things they have learned from the lesson, or 2 ‘lightbulb/ aha!’ moments. This may not just be limited specifically to content, but perhaps skills as well (for example, how to reference a website, or how to use advance search techniques). The obvious point here is that you can monitor that the students have understood the new topics correctly and that no one has ‘learned nothing new’.
1 Question – Students write 1 question they have from the lesson. It could be a clarifying question about some new content, or how to do something. This makes students really think about something they would like to learn further about. Don’t take ‘I have no questions’ as an acceptable remark – they can find a question about the concepts in the lesson, even if it wasn’t covered in the lesson – something connecting the new information to prior knowledge or opportunities for further learning.

 

EXIT CARDS

‘Exit Cards’ are given just before the lesson ends and students need to complete one as an ‘Exit Ticket’ out of the room to recess/lunch/home. These are fairly self-explanatory, but the reason we ask students to write down what they did in the lesson in order is to make sure they actually engaged and understood each topic covered during the lesson and the progression of the topics. Again, we get students to hand these to us or pin them for discussion purposes.

   I NEED HELP WITH…

These are the simplest cards I use. Students just write down something they need help with – easy! We hand these out at the beginning of a lesson (mainly maths at this point) and students can add to it during the lesson as we go through the content. The teachers can then view these on their desks at their leisure as they walk the room.

Another way these have been used is in  review of a test – if you go through tests afterwards, students can jot down what they still don’t understand the concepts and the teachers can re-teach to either the whole class if there is a pattern of ‘misunderstanding’ or to small groups/ individuals. These can also be used as exit cards.

Makerspaces

My latest assignment in this Flat Connections course was to make a digital 'artifact' that explained and shared a story and some information about 'Maker Spaces'., in particular the impact they had on society and globally.

It seemed far too serendipitous that only the week before I had lunch with another very creative and passionate teacher friend of mine (yeah you Sarah!) and she had begun talking to me about all the amazing work she and another colleague had started doing at their school whilst she was acting teacher librarian for a term. Words like 'making', 'arudino', 'makey makey' started getting thrown around and whilst at the time I had not much idea what she was talking about, the excitement on her face made me think 'I HAVE to get in on this!'

So began the research (total Nerd Alert here, but I don't even care!)

I pored over the web and made myself familiar with terms and what this 'Makerspace' phenomenon was that was taking the world (especially in USA) by storm. When Julie Lindsay gave me my topic to research on 'Makerspaces' I could not believe my luck!

Because I am a really controlled and moderate type of person, I decided that I NEEDED ALL THE MAKING STUFF IN MY CLASSROOM NOW!!!
I moved furniture (much to my students delight!), I ummed and ahhhed, I spent (too) much money with the constant thought of 'Oh well, if it doesn't work then at least I have a 2 YO at home who would love this', and I begged and borrowed from colleagues at school. No comment on the Steal.

And what did I end up with?

Amazingness. That's what.

At the moment the Makerspace is just a bit of free-play, but I hope next year to use it more in the curriculum and with more 'purpose' of problem-solving, thus teaching kids and making them aware of the real benefits 'making' actually has.

Plus, I get to play with Lego yay!

But back to the artifact and the assignment. Part of this assignment was that I needed to include an 'outsourced' piece in my video. Where from? Well, wherever I could find someone to give me one.
So I began with my new favourite PLN platform, twitter (you can follow me at @jolantastephens just FYI :D). I started with asking those I knew were in the making business, and then those who were established educational networks:

Luckily, someone answered my plea for help...

And everyone was so happy (well, at least Tina and I were!)

On a side note, I can't stress ENOUGH how important it is and how beneficial to your teaching it is to have a PLN set up, and twitter is an amazing space. I use mine ONLY for teaching related things and it has opened my eyes to whole new world...

(Disney-fix aside... have a look at the links in my blog reel to find a start for your PLNs -->)

Have a look at my Makerspace Artifact if you want to know more about what Makerspaces are and our journey so far.

So as Mister Maker says...

Connecting with China - Skyping Harry

This is the second skype meeting the students have engaged in for our Connect with China pilot project. I contacted Harry, and Australian citizen who has recently graduated from high school in China and is continuing to live there and study at University in Beijing. We teed up a time for him to skype us and chat about life in China as an Australian.

The students, who think themselves skyping gurus now, waited eagerly for Harry and our equipment to recover from a last minute malfunction. Unlike last week, we didn’t spend a lot of time workshopping questions, instead giving them time to think up some of their own to ask Harry about life in China. We encouraged them to think about questions that would relate to their Connect with China global connection project group topics so that they may add some ‘research’ from what they’ve learned from Harry.

Eagerly Awaiting Skype call with Harry

Once we had re-established our connection and equipment and managed to sign into skype, the atmosphere in the room tensed with excitement as the students waited for Harry to receive our call…

Hi Harry!

And suddenly, there he was, in full screen video and audio! The excitement in the room was at an all-time high as this time, the students were able to actually see Harry as well! He began by telling the students a little about his journey and how he arrived in China. I think we thought that seeing as though last week the students were bouncing in their seats to ask questions of Nitin, they would be the same this week, however, they seemed to become rather shy, possibly because they could actually see the person they were talking to. It took a little prodding, but finally the students relaxed, no doubt due to Harry’s relaxed conversational attitude.

Again, the students did not disappoint with the quality of their questions. This, I feel, is due to our work this year in critical and creative thinking and questioning.

A couple of my favourite questions were:

How has education changed between each country you’ve lived in?
How has China affected and changed you as a person?

As the questions about food, living and housing (in which Harry showed us around his dorm room), and celebrations, a couple of ‘curly questions’ popped in, including one asking “Do you think the government in China is fair?” Harry, understandably had to quickly decline to answer this and move on to another question, with us teachers promising to explain to the students later about why this was the case. It was from around this point we also noticed that Harry’s video quality began to deteriorate quite severely…

Video starting to deteriorate...

The chat we had to have with them about the government in China and how internet and communications were monitored constantly was one that the students really took to heart, some of them worrying about Harry’s wellbeing after being asked those questions. We needed to further explain that China really is an amazing place to live and Harry would be quite alright, but they just needed to be aware that it is different to Australia, and that this is why we were engaging in projects like this and the importance of having skills and knowledge in global connections.

The students are so keen to keep in contact with Harry and Harry has very generously suggested that once we get them onto we chat, we could possibly set up a group chat that the students could ask him questions on and converse further with him.

Why Should We Connect Globally?

As part of my Flat Connections course, I was required to answer the question:

Why should educators be connecting their students globally?

What literature, research and opinions can you gather and synthesise to support an argument for this?

Before I reply, let me share with you this infographic I found:

(Britt, 2001)

If we take a look at this infographic, what are your initial thoughts about the way technology is going?

Every minute millions of people are using the internet and digital technology in some way - some for personal use, some for work, some for connecting with others. In a 21st Century, we need to be teaching our students how to globally connect and the skills associated with these. We are living in an ever increasing digital and globally connected world, and our students need to be literate members of it.

I want to focus on the skills associated with living and working in the 21st Century.

As we can see from this table from Fishtree EdTech, the skills required by a 21st Century member of society link to being globally connecting. In particular, it is essential for members of a 21st Century society and workforce to have a cross-cultural understanding and be able to effectively communicate, not just with people in their direct community, but with all others involved - whether it be within the company, or internationally. Collaboration needs to extend beyond 'group work' in the classroom, and start making authentic connections with real-life situations, that is, collaboration with students, teachers and information from around the world. 

Globally Connecting - Why we should do it

Globally connecting provides exciting opportunity for students, especially when teamed with Project-based Learning (PBL). It gives students an opportunity to practice these essential 21st Century learning skills, but also engage with other ‘real people’ and sources - and form emotionally engaging and authentic connections to what they are learning.

“We know from neuroscience that in order for kids to learn something, they need to have an emotional connection to the content,” says Michael Soskil, head teacher and curriculum coach at Wallenpaupack South Elementary School in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. “There is no more powerful way to make that emotional connection than by doing good for others. With global PBL, students can identify a problem in the world and work to solve it.”(Connects, 2015)

And you know what? Even workplaces and generally societal means require people to have skills in global connections, along with the other 21st Century Skills:

Michael Furdyk, co-founder and director of innovation at TalkingITGlobal discusses that;

 “Given the increasingly global nature of most companies and global challenges, collaboration across countries and cultures will be a critical aspect of our students’ future ability to be productive and successful in their careers.”
(Connects, 2015)

Now how does that relate back to us in our profession? Are we required to be 'globally connected' ourselves? Should we be 'globally connecting' our students? Lets take a look at this list from Tsisana Palmer, contributor to the edutopia blog;

This article describes the 15 Characteristics of a 21st Century Teacher:

1. Learner-Centered Classroom and Personalized Instructions
2. Students as Producers
3. Learn New Technologies
4. Go Global
5. Be Smart and Use Smart Phones
6. Blog
7. Go Digital
8. Collaborate
9. Use Twitter Chat
10. Connect
11. Project-Based Learning
12. Build Your Positive Digital Footprint
13. Code
14. Innovate
15. Keep Learning
    (Palmer, T., 2015)

From this list we can see that all these attributes that teachers require link somehow to being ‘globally connected’ - a skill that we need to have to be professional educators, and skills we need to pass onto our students so that they may be a well rounded member of a 21st Century workforce and society. We would most certainly be doing our students a disservice if we did not at least attempt toand trying to connect our students globally and guide them through the skills associated with it.

Final Thoughts...

Times are changing.

It's in our faces the whole time, media, social media, the internet, new technological advances... the world is not the same place it was 5, 10, 15 years ago. It is no longer enough to teach students the content from a text book and to tick off a checklist of outcomes. We, as educators, must provide our students with the best opportunities and prepare them to be the best members of society that they can be. And when society is becoming increasingly 'global', we need to prepare them with all the tools we have to fight and succeed in their fields of life.

 

Bibliography

15 Characteristics of a 21st-Century Teacher (2015) Available at: http://www.edutopia.org/discussion/15-characteristics-21st-century-teacher?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

Britt (2001) In an Internet Minute. Available at: http://bwatwood.edublogs.org/2015/01/20/in-an-internet-minute/ (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

Connects, I. (2015) Global PBL projects connect students across continents. Available at: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=322&category=ISTE-Connects-blog&article= (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

Connects, I. (2015) Global PBL projects connect students across continents. Available at: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=322&category=ISTE-Connects-blog&article= (Accessed: 21 October 2015).

EdTech, F. (2015) ‘The 7 C’s of 21st Century Lifelong Learning Skills http://t.co/VS3MN4PreH  #TTOG #cpchat #1to1techat’, Twitter, 24 April. Available at: https://twitter.com/fishtree_edu/status/591715783648116739 (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

Global Connections for Teachers and Students (no date) Available at: http://digitalhumanlibrary.com/connect-with-teachers-and-students/ (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

Yin, L. K. (2011) Learning Journey... Available at: http://lohky.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/apple-learning-journey-nanyang-girls.html (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(no date) Available at: https://flatteningtheworld.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/how-much-are-the-the-time-achangin_502911b9b2615_w587.jpg (Accessed: 21 October 2015).

Citations, Quotes & Annotations

15 Characteristics of a 21st-Century Teacher (2015) Available at: http://www.edutopia.org/discussion/15-characteristics-21st-century-teacher?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(15 Characteristics of a 21st-Century Teacher, 2015)

Britt (2001) In an Internet Minute. Available at: http://bwatwood.edublogs.org/2015/01/20/in-an-internet-minute/ (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(Britt, 2001)

Connects, I. (2015) Global PBL projects connect students across continents. Available at: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=322&category=ISTE-Connects-blog&article= (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(Connects, 2015)

Connects, I. (2015) Global PBL projects connect students across continents. Available at: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=322&category=ISTE-Connects-blog&article= (Accessed: 21 October 2015).

(Connects, 2015)

EdTech, F. (2015) ‘The 7 C’s of 21st Century Lifelong Learning Skills http://t.co/VS3MN4PreH  #TTOG #cpchat #1to1techat’, Twitter, 24 April. Available at: https://twitter.com/fishtree_edu/status/591715783648116739 (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(EdTech, 2015)

Global Connections for Teachers and Students (no date) Available at: http://digitalhumanlibrary.com/connect-with-teachers-and-students/ (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(Global Connections for Teachers and Students, no date)

Yin, L. K. (2011) Learning Journey... Available at: http://lohky.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/apple-learning-journey-nanyang-girls.html (Accessed: 14 October 2015).

(Yin, 2011)

(no date) Available at: https://flatteningtheworld.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/how-much-are-the-the-time-achangin_502911b9b2615_w587.jpg (Accessed: 21 October 2015).

(no date)