Freaked Out Inset

Belatedly, here are some of the good practice and ideas that were shared as part of last week's Freaked out training.

Creating a culture of pupil Digital Leaders: 

• Develop a of expertise – digital wizards, digital leaders and digital learners. Pupils can keep their own blogs and Twitter accounts. Section on ddp and minutes. Publicise digital leaders 
• Digital leaders charter - what they will offer pupils and staff
• Every break of lunch create a Genius Bar for digital leaders to teach pupils and teachers
• Digital leaders appointed by digital wizards
• Change school website, where teachers can produce a weekly blog, to increase learner and parental engagement

Making our schools more interactive:

• All displays contain at least two interactive items
• Use aurasma to create interactive displays, or videos for pieces of equipment. Scan wall display and a video will play. Good for explaining and adding detail to wall displays. Use it to do book recommendations and reviews
• Qr codes in classroom, wall displays, targeted key areas. Linked to audio descriptions of newsletters, blogs etc.
• Using audiobook and qr codes to leave feedback for pupils
• Using Twitter to write stories. Using Twitter as a hook to interest. Using a Twitter account for historical figures and get them to interact. Use as class display

Changing our learners from consumers to creators:

Use explain everything to get the kids to do their own interactive learning guides

An argument in defence of the use of mobile phones in schools:

It is frustrating for us to not to be able to use a mobile device. If we need to know something,we'd immediately reach for our smartphones. Why do we deny this facility to our learners? Simon displayed a wonderful image (which I can't find online) comparing today's mobile phone with the plethora of devices that we used to use independent of each other (phone,l camera, video recorder, GPS, microphone, etc.). And most of us have access to this wondrous device, yet we never use it!

Why not allow them to use mobiles?? If we mutually devise a code of conduct, to give the learners ownersip and a shared sense of responsibility for their conduct, can't we create a culture of acceptance? Yes there will be problems; but if they are dealt with effectively, if the risk is managed, then we stand to gain so much.  He shared an example of w working code of conduct, where lessons are colour coded as follows: 

Red – no phones to be used in this lesson, keep them out of sight use

Amber – phones *may* be used, keep them close at hand 

Green – phones will definitely be used, but use them responsibly

However, Simon seemed at pains to acknowledge that this practice is fraught with pitfalls, and that patience and an understanding SLT is called for.  To give an example, if I may share a ribald anecdote, I discussed the issue of allowing mobile phone access with my Year 10 ICT, at which point, several class members (no pun intended) erupted. They then shared a story of how mobile phones and Snapchat had been used in the school toilets to share images of people using the facilities...

Plenty of ideas there to chew on, I'm sure you'll agree.

Concrete ideas

This has been on the back of my mind for a little while, but seeing Stuart's tweet earlier brought it to the front:

Lovely Graphic from Common Sense Media! #wkdigiedu pic.twitter.com/SOQ5cYFwLO

— StuSheen (@StuSheen) October 3, 2014

This is full of wonderful and aspirational aims; lesson plans they aren't. They raise far more questions than answers.
How do we turn this manifesto into proper meaningful at-the-coal-face lessons. I, for one, don't have a clue. Why don't we use the Digital Leaders scheme as an opportunity to to collaborate, share ideas and good practice and work on a collective scheme of work that will benefit our learners and we practitioners?
So, who's with me?

Let's try Facebook!

I am in the early stages of using Facebook as a platform to show pupils' work.  I have created a Facebook account just for school (I do have a personal account but it is not linked) and I created a page just for year 10 Media - two classes.  Currently there is just one post on there, an evaluation from a media class...
This really is in its early stages and I am not sure how it will work or whether it will be successful or what potential it has.  I don't want to be afraid to try things; if it doesn't work that is ok... as I constantly tell my pupils, it is ok to 'make mistakes' as this is a  great way to learn how to get things right!

Since the initial 3 day meeting, going back to the class room has been a blur.  Back to the routine; back to the teaching and back to the marking.  But, most importantly, back with the pupils.

I wanted to bring a some of the ideas of the Digital Leaders course into my class room and I started with Twitter.  Mainly because I have used it a little before, so I felt a little more confident in this area of socail media.  I created a new account for the purpse of the Digital Leader course and also continued to use the school's account for the media dept too.

I really like retweeting some tweets that I find interesting or inspiring - this is a great platform to share good ideas.

I initially started with tweeting statements like ' great class today' and using the hashtag #wkdigiedu as we had been instructed to do.  I also tweeted some of the work from a media class.
My next step was to pilot a hashtag with year 10 media - #ocscooperclan!  So when the pupils tweeted me it would create a sense of  belonging and ownership to the group.

The next idea I had was to record video evaluations/reflections from the pupils in which I intended to tweet.  This is in the early stages for the pupils and we are working on how it can be meaningful for them to reflect through video clips.
However, I soon learnt that I could't tweet these videos directly and that I would have to upload them to either Facebook or YouTube.

I will continue to develop my use of twitter - let's call it work in progress!

Freaked Out - part 1, apps

The course was an interesting day, and gave me plenty of hands-on experience with apps that I'd either had on my own personal iPad for ages and hadn;t found time to use, or completely new stuff. It was also valuable to be the only secondary teacher there, and I was treated as a guest of honour at times, which was cute.

So, as promised here's a list of the apps we looked at, and most were self-evidently useful in a classroom. I apologise if this information is absurdly behind the curve, but not having used the iPad in an educational context means I am forever playing catchup!

Simon recommended that schools have a core body of apps, rather that too many.
i can see the wisdom behind this at it allows teachers to be more focused and allows for better sharing of good practice. not to mention it is more cost effective.

All iPad apps (well, duh).
Explain everything - creates interactive and fun slideshows and screencasts.
iFiles - manages and transfers content on iPads, and allows easy downaloading of clips from youtube.
Book Creator - pulls in assets created in all manner of iPad apps to create an interactive story book. Really fun.
Aurasma - Creating interactive assets using augmented reality. I really liked the idea behind this app, and definitely intend to use this in my classroom. Learners take an image of a poster, for example, and it triggers an event such as a video or audio clip. A great idea and a good gateway towards acceptance of mobile phones in and around school.
Hyperlapse- creating time lapse video clips
8MM - a video recording tool with a variety of in-built filters to create authentic looking clips (e.g. for a history lesson)
WordFoto - generating word clouds from a customisable word list and mapping it onto an image.
Vemory - will search a user's social media account to automatgically create a memory book of images that have been tagged in a particular way
Skitch - annotating on an acquired image
Audioboom (formerly Audioboo)
iTubeList - creating safe playlists of youtube content matching a given criteria
Tagcloud - creating word clouds
Showbie - a student work manager
Post-it Plus - allows you to take a photo of a grid of post-it notes, and will scan them in and allow your to rearrange them on the ipad. Sounds crap, seemed cool.
Xnsketch - a pretty standard drawing app with some nice filters.
Tellegami - create a digital avatar that can be used to give presentations and such. I can imagine the pupils will love abusing the hell out of this...

Tomorrow, I'll discuss the key issues that Simon spoke about regarding 21st Century Learners, and some very interesting ideas on how we can help create a culture of digital leaders and learners in our classrooms.

Platform neutrality

Wednesday I attended a Freaked Out training session delivered by Simon Pridham. It was an enjoyable hands-on session ostensibly revolving around the meaningful use of iPads in a classroom.
I'll make a more detailed report on the apps we used on another post, but I just wanted to share a thought that occurred to me.

As of the time of writing, our educational standardisation and qualification systems primarily revolve around the teaching of the Microsoft Office suite. After all, it's what's used in the real world isn't it?

Now the paradigm has shifted (not that you'd know it from the glacial pace of change of the Welsh Government). The iPad is the de facto system used from an early age, and there is increasing pressure for us to teach towards the iPad. After all, it's what's used in the real world, isn't it?

Headteachers are throwing massive amounts of money at Apple, oftentimes without there being any solid strategy to support this decision. This half-baked 'me-too'ism is potentially costly and can add to the burden of already overstretched teachers.

However, what concerns me is where this is leading. There is a real danger that we are allowing recidivism into our classrooms. Being so narrowly focused on one system to the virtual exclusion of all others didn't get us very far in the past, yet I wonder if we aren't hell-bent on repeating that very mistake with the lionization of the iPad. The use of a PC has become somewhat passé. Learners are becoming, in my own experience at least, less confident with the use of a mouse and keyboard. The widespread use of the iPads in primary schools has just substituted one transferable skill for another, and hasn't actually improved the level of skills in our learners.

We need to be more measured in how we spend our time and money; for us to be less hardware orientated and more platform neutral. Keep one eye on the future and another on the present.

Tentative first steps as a digital leader

Despite all my ideals and lofty targets, reality hit me this week. Lessons to plan, work to mark, subjects to lead. As a result, my sights had to be lowered somewhat.
Still, I have made some progress on my journey.
Firstly, I carried out some initial research with several KS3 classes and discovered a little about their digital habits. I set aside time during a Year 7 and a year 8 lesson to discuss what I am working towards and why. Some of the responses I received have been eye-opening, disconcerting and worrying...

• Approximately 90% of learners have access to a smartphone, laptop/tablet or desktop PC
• Well over half of the pupils claimed to use the internet and related devices in a completely unsupervised, unfiltered and unmoderated manner. Of the remaining pupils, a handful have time restrictions imposed on them, and a few parents use filtering software
• Very few year 8 pupils were fearful of the internet and did not admit to feeling concerned about its risks
• A few year 7 pupils confessed to having experienced a difficult situation when online, but the anecdotes they shared seemed relatively trivial
• About a third of the classes confessed to using a device/app/site in a manner that they knew their parents would disapprove of
• Playing the devil's advocate even further, I asked how many of them take advantage of their parents' lack of ICT skills to conceal what they are doing. There was some reluctance to them confessing to this, but about a quarter of the class admitted they behaved in such a way

The last two points, whilst not particularly surprising, gave me pause for thought. I expected a level of disinterest from parents; I am prepared for apathy from my overworked and overstretched SLT, but I wasn't expecting the pupils to be anything other than fully committed to this process. In retrospect, this was naive of me. Of course the pupils will object to what we are trying to do when it shines a light on them capitalising on their parents' ignorance! Clearly we need to address another strand of digital citizenship, Digital Transparency.

However, before I can draw any firm conclusions or present this data to SLT/parents, it needs to be more substantial and less anecdotal. To this end, I will collaborate on a survey with fellow digital leaders to get a more complete picture of our learners' habits and opinions.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I've thrown my lesson plans away (not literally, of course) and asked a few classes the big question "What do you want to learn?". As you can see below, it's pretty much a who's who of social messaging and social networking. Turning this wishlist into something meaningful and challenging will be an interesting prospect.

I've tried to broaden the impact of digital citizenship, by trying to incorporating more digital literacy skills into a non-ICT subject. I suggested to a business studies class would they be interested in the use of wikis, podcasts, blogs, vlogs and creating their own YouTube channel to help them revise and consolidate learning, and they all seemed really enthusiastic about this suggestion. 

I am fully aware at this stage that I've only made ideological progress; I now need to start actualising my goals. By the time I next write, I intend to have made tangible progress.Wish me luck.