Finding the silver lining

In Auckland, we find ourselves once again in the learning & working from home situation. Although this is disappointing after returning to relative freedom, I know we are hugely fortunate compared to many places in the world, and we can continue our lives using the power of digital technologies. I also believe that every cloud has a silver lining, and there have to some awesome things to come from lockdown 2.0!

At the beginning of this term, I started working with two classes who are new to Chromebooks at Edmund Hillary School. Their teachers were really keen to support learners to share the learning they have been doing at home, but we knew these students were not yet ready to be introduced to their own blogs. I knew that we could use email to post to the class blog, but I also wanted to support students with the process of writing a blog post by using 'cues' for each section. Working closely with one of these teachers, I created a form that students could complete when they were ready to share their learning. The questions in the form are designed to guide learners through the thinking process ofcrafting a blog post. 

Behind the scenes, I created a template for the blog post, which I connected to the form responses using the Autocrat add on. The merge job is set up so that each time a new response to the form is submitted, an email is sent to the class blog so that it appears as if student work is published straight away. On their learning sites, teachers will embed a rewindable demo to show students how to complete the form, and a link that students can use as frequently as they need.

Click on the image above to see the learning Kylie's students are sharing to their class blog

Throughout this process, I asked myself whether my work would be empowering for learners or whether I was doing the heavy lifting and therefore disempowering them. On reflection, I believe that this type of support is empowering, as it is scaffolding students towards ever increasing ownership of their learning. I think of it a bit like the way we introduce children to sports; initially we want them to achieve success so we keep the goals close and anticipate any major hurdles. As skills and knowledge are developed, we make the goals higher, the court larger, and we introduce 'twists' such as the stepping and contact rules that teach our young people to be more responsible for being in the right place at the right time. 

Normally when I work in classes where students don't yet have their own blogs, I ask the teacher to share a few examples of student work to the class blog. I'm wondering if in future, I might set up this type of system to enable sharing right from the start. What do you think?

If you would like my support to use any of the resources that I have talked about, or if you can see other ways this might be helpful, please let me know in the comments!

Sharing work through the class site

One of the things we do often in class is to have students look at each other's work to share ideas and gain depth of understanding. This may be a little more difficult to do in a remote learning model, but I thought I would share an idea that could work. I have used this as an in-class model before, and it was really helpful to see at a glance who had submitted their work without having to go into my drive. 

The process I used was to create a simple Google Form with one question, using the 'upload file' question type. This type of form will automatically generate a new folder in your drive, in the same folder as the form. Each question that requires a file upload will create a new subfolder within this folder. The subfolder will have the same name as the question you use, e.g. 'Submit your work here'.

In the first video, I show you how to create the form and embed the folder into your teaching site. Remember that you will need to ensure that the sharing settings on the folder are 'Anyone with the link can view' so that the work is visible on the site. I created my form in a folder that already had those settings, so I didn't need to do it again.

In the second video you will see how to add a button on your site that links to the form, and what it looks like when a document is submitted.

As with any learning environment, the teacher has a responsibility to ensure that when we are viewing each other's work that we do so in a way that is respectful and constructive. You will need to make your expectations explicit for your learners, just as you would in the classroom.

I hope that this is helpful for your practice, I would love to know if you have any other ways of sharing work in a remote model, or if there are any other ways I can support you in your transition to remote teaching and learning.

Sharing with our stakeholders

Yesterday was the annual Kootuitui stakeholders event, an opportunity to bring together our fantastic sponsors and partners and show off what has been happening in our three strands of Education, Health and Homes (Whaanau). I had the privilege of working with a group of year 6 learners from Papakura Central School to put together a presentation of how they use their chromebooks to Learn, Create and Share. 

Each of the students had their own idea about what they wanted to talk about, and how they would share their knowledge. Through a bit of planning and conversation, we managed to refine everyone's ideas so they could achieve maximum impact in minimum time. We had a tight window of less than a week to be organised, and no more than 15 minutes total time. At our first meeting, we made a shared slide deck, where each person could take one slide to plan and develop their contribution. Because I was working in different schools, and the students had busy timetables, we used the comments function to communicate and keep track of progress. We spent an hour on Tuesday afternoon bringing everything together and making sure all of the bits joined up to make a coherent presentation. 

In the slide deck below, you can see what the students came up with. Arpit shared a screencast of accessing learning through his class site and the other apps and sites he uses, he chose to speak to the audience while the video was playing. Tara used a google form to ask her classmates how they use their chromebooks to learn, create and share and presented their responses as word clouds. Sam shared a blog post about a piece of work she had done, giving a commentary about how she had made it. Emily created an animation about how to write a quality blog comment, and we used screencastify to make it into a video (small Mrs Cameron cameo, listen out for it). I think I will include this in my cybersmart facilitation.

The students got a hugely positive response from the audience, with lots of people making the effort to come and speak to them afterwards. They were rewarded handsomely for their efforts with second, third and fourth helpings from the refreshments table. For me, it was a fantastic experience to work with learners who were confident and creative users of their chromebooks, as much of my work to date has been with students who are starting out on their cybersmart journey. Thanks to Keith and the team at Papakura Central School for hosting us, and for developing these awesome rangatahi.