Blended and Personalized Learning Conference

I wanted to attend this conference as technology is once again being heralded as the source for individualizing learning and this seemed like a good conference to get some updates on what is happening in schools. 

Lunchtime speaker Richard Culatta, former head of the US Office of Technology Education and recently named Rhode Island's first Chief Innovation Officer talked about being very careful about the words we use in describing "personalized learning". The definition in the recent National Technology Plan is the following:

Personalized learning refers to instruction in which the pace of learning and the instructional approach are optimized for the needs of each learner. Learning objectives, instructional approaches, and instructional content (and its sequencing) all may vary based on learner needs. In addition, learning activities are meaningful and relevant to learners, driven by their interests, and often self-initiated. (tech.ed.gov/netp/)

This definition sounds more like our efforts to implement Genius Hour based on individual student passion for learning than the companies that are providing branching learning using algorithms that are largely unproven and untested. In a recent blog post Alfie Kohn spoke to the use of "personalized" vs. "personal" learning:

If you haven’t given much thought to the kind of intellectual life we might want schools to foster, then it might sound exciting to “personalize” or “customize” learning. But as I argued not long ago, we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with personal learning. The first involves adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores, and it requires the purchase of software. The second involves working with each student to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests, and it requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well. (http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/ed-tech/)

As I ponder this new trend I find that I continue to be dubious about the potential for corporate solutions for meeting the cognitive needs of our students. While I think that there is a place for online practice and even tutorials, the time must be allotted for teachers to review student progress, meet with students and work closely with colleagues to determine the learning paths for students.

As an update, today (4/26/16) Will Richardson posted about his concerns about personalized learning "products".

EdCamp OOB

July 28th was the first Edcamp launched by a team of Old Orchard Beach educators. Over 100 area instructional technology, media/library and classroom teachers gathered to share ideas and learn from each other. The structure of this Edcamp was the usual plan of an open board that becomes a set of sessions when teachers put stickies up and organizers move them around to combine ideas and place sessions.

I attended sessions on "Genius Hour", Makerspaces and apps for early learning. I have a new set of resources to share from each of the sessions. Alice and I both attended the Makerspaces session, the notes on this shared doc.  Mike and I went to the session on implementing the Genius Hour concept. I would like to work with teachers on the possibility of implementing a spring fourth grade unit, Billy Corcoran share his doc that describes what his 4th grade classroom did last year along these lines. He used his literacy block on Friday mornings. 

I spent the 3rd session with Libby Corcoran who is a special educator who is also an app developer. I will be reviewing her app The Reading Train with our Kindergarten team. The app allows for individual logins and is organized into leveled books. Students can hear the books, read on their own or record themselves reading. Libby also has .pdfs of the Level 1 books that can be printed and sent home with students. I was very impressed by her story of becoming an app developer and I think this app may well be just what we have been looking for as a way to support literacy learning with the K iPads. Libby also shared a list of apps that she thinks are of value; this will be helpful as well in getting started with our second year of iPads in K and our third year in first grade.

Teaching and Learning with iPads - USM 2015

USM EPC 576 Teaching and Learning with the iPad

This summer there were fifteen K-12 educators who spent the middle week of July working toward new ways to use iPads in their classrooms. The collaborative and individual projects shared on the last day of the course were the highlights of the week. My goal in teaching the course is to give teachers enough of a start to bring about something significant as the school year unfolds.

Engaging Learners Using Technology - Yarmouth Course

The week after students finish classes is traditionally the beginning of the Yarmouth Technology Course, this year entitled Engaging Learners Using Technology. A group of about twenty educators, three who are not Yarmouth teachers, met to challenge themselves to look at an instructional area or unit that could be changed to increase the engagement of learners through the use of technology. The animated, collaborative conversations culminate in "Shark Tank" style pitches for project ideas submitted by each individual or team. There will be a half day on a Saturday in September for teachers to get assistance with projects and then the final day will be presentations by all participants on a Saturday in October.

RI Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit 2015

This past weekend was the first Rhode Island Google Summit. Google educators joined members of EdTech Team to offer sessions to 380+ educators from Rhode Island and neighboring states. During each Google Summit the sessions range for the technical information needed for administering Google Apps in a district to how teachers can use any and all of the Google products in classroom settings. 

I offered sessions on using GAFE with iPads, Blogger: The School to Home Connection, and Jazzing up your Sites and Blogs. I attended several sessions when I wasn't teaching and came away inspired by ideas for empowering our students to collaborate with each other and share their products beyond the confines of the school.

EdTech Teacher Google Jamboree

Alice Barr, Mike Arsenault and I joined 200 educators at Google Boston headquarters to learn and share the ideas of curiosity, creativity and learning that matters. The message from the EdTech Teacher presenters and the panel of Google employees was that schools should prepare students to be flexible thinkers, thoughtful collaborators and continuous learners. 

Jennie Magiera (who blogs at http://www.teachinglikeits2999.com/ and on EdWeek) showed stories and videos from her life as a technology support facilitator in the Chicago public schools. A big takeaway for me was to help our kids share their messages more on YouTube. Here is a video by some of Jennie's students that was shown at the recent White House Film Fest:

I'm thinking, what if we did a persuasive writing project that had some students select an iMovie trailer or another video format to share their message? Can we support that given the time constraints that exist? What learning goals would be met by doing this type of project?

Jennie also did a session on using tablets. In her case the devices were Nexus 7s, but the activities could also work with an iPad. We toured the Google building with a scavenger hunt list. Our assignment was to take a selfie with each item, put the photos into a group Drive folder which was also in a shared folder so that everyone could see them. This would be a good faculty session for building the concept of shared Drive folders as well as familiarity with taking photos with mobile devices. Then we explored using the app Explain Everything to create screencast videos that could then be sent to Drive for shared projects or viewing.

Other sessions focussed on using Chrome apps and extensions for things like screencasting or video notes and creating "plan your own adventure" YouTube videos.

SCRATCH for Teachers at MIT Media Lab

In the beautiful facility on the 6th floor of the glass and metal structure that house the MIT Media Lab I joined an invigorating group of 250 international educators here to learn more about using Scratch in learning settings. Over coffee I reconnected with Maureen Tumenas who always has great ideas and latest teaching explorations to share. I met a 17 year old high school student from Mexico who is a budding coder who also teaches coding to "junior school" students. We talked about the issue of encouraging more girls to explore computer science and programming and apparently in Mexico they offer a girls only option after school which I am doing for the first time this winter.

Mitch Resnick started us off with a keynote on where we've been and where we are going with Scratch. One of his key points was that the concept of learning to code is limited, but the true power is coding to learn. We teach writing as a literacy, how can we teach exploring with coding as a literacy? The 4 Ps he emphasizes are Projects-Peers-Passion-Play.

They are generous with breaks to collaborate and meet educators, so far I have met people from Mexico and Italy, as well as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas and New Hampshire. The weather is drawing us outdoors to enjoy the Boston Skyline.

The morning session was presented by the authors of the newly released Scratch Curriculum Guide which is available from: http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/guide/. They are working on a younger learners' guide as well as a set of student pages. The title "Creative Computing" stays with the theme of the purpose of Scratch being the individual creative element supporting exploration and not just procedures. 

During the session I learned that one of the ways to have students reflect on their program is to add comment blocks into the program and that I can set up a "studio" to collect projects online.

The afternoon session focused on math concepts that can be explained by creating projects in Scratch. The presenter's resources are at http://sites.jcdsboston.org/scratchmath/. The group discussion included ideas about connecting projects to various subject areas.

Teaching and Learning with iPads Course at USM PDC

This week I had the opportunity to share my ideas and learn from 18 educators in a new course at USM: Teaching and Learning with iPads. The site for the course is at: https://sites.google.com/a/yarmouthschools.org/usmepc_576_ipad/. This dynamic group brought various experiences and models to the course. Thanks to Laura Girr for coming in to work with a group on the workflow and particular issues related to 1:1 iPads, as well as Kate Parkin for working with a group on the possibilities of having one iPad for the classroom. Alice Barr helped meet with teachers on the workday on Thursday as each person worked on a project to share on Friday. Friday was an amazing experience of teachers sharing ideas that they plan to pursue in their unique school settings this fall. The networking will continue for the individuals and teacher teams who participated in this course.

While the focus was not specifically on apps, some favorites were (these are all free):

EdCamp Maine 2014

There was a terrific energy for the third Southern Maine EdCamp, held at Waynflete school. It was very valuable to connect with innovative educators from Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. This event and the fall ACTEM MaineEd conference are the best times for me to connect with others and share ideas. The "unconference" model of EdCamp has become more familiar and there were more interesting sessions offered than I could fit into my day. Meal times and the coffee table were also sources of sharing and conversations that gave me many new ideas for working with students and teachers.

My notes from the day are on a shared Google Doc. One very dynamic person was the K12 integrator from the Wilmington, MA schools. Her session on CCSS Nonfiction Resources seemed valuable enough that I shared it with our K12 Lead Literacy teachers and I have referred to it for ideas for teams at YES.

Leveraging Learning Conference 2013

Leveraging Learning Conference 2013 - Auburn, ME

The Kindergarten teachers at Rowe School are writing a YEF (Yarmouth Education Foundation) grant to have two iPad in each classroom and the first grade teachers are in their second year of using four iPads in each classroom. Given that, we arranged for six registrations for the two and a half day conference with one hundred-fifty primary educators in Auburn, ME. We rotated teachers so that every teacher who was interested was able to attend for at least one day. These are the notes from the conference. We had several big "takeaways" from the conference. One was that we wanted to limit the number of apps we used and focus on using them for creative expression, not just rote learning.

Sebago Education Alliance (SEA) Tech Camp

My teaching and learning are continuing as I present and attend sessions at the SEA Tech Camp for teachers. On Monday I taught two half day sessions: Adding Media to Blogs, Wikis and Sites and What I Learned in School Today - Elementary Blogs. The links are to the plans for the sessions that include online links to help sheets and other resources. As always I learned while teaching and it was great to collaborate with other educators.

Today I am attending Alice's session on Google Certified Trainer session on using Google Apps. One of my goals this summer is to become a certified trainer taking the online series of trainings. There are a lot of people here who are not using using Google Apps for Education and I am struck by how much our district has come to rely on the interoperability and collaboration options of our domain.

EdCafe Take Away

This post was created during the Yarmouth Summer-Fall Technology course during our demonstration lesson of Katrina Kenney's EdCafe model. We introduced the EdCafe model and then presented the choices for three sessions of PBS TED Talks Education videos. My group chose to watch the segment by Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children's Zone.
We discussed the video for about a half an hour. One interesting component was that we had two high school students in our group and they added their perspective about their preferences for assignments and personalizing their learning.

The takeaway for our group is as follows:

How are we as teachers failing our students?

• Not all students are engaged at all times
• Compartmentalized learning by subject, not integrated
• Kids fall through the cracks - how do we get students to access support? Keep on trying!!

How do we keep on innovating?

• Students respond to choice in learning materials and project options
• Keep talking about what "personalized learning" means
• Pursue YEF grants for resources

Maine Google Apps Summit August 2012

This was our first year hosting the first Maine Google Apps Summit. Alice Barr is a Google Certified Teacher and she facilitated this event. We had an inspirational keynote by Jaime Casat, Chief Education Evangelist at Google, Inc. and sessions offered by regional educators as well as international members of the EdTech Team.

I taught these sessions:

• Blogger for the Classroom
• From Video to Youtube   
• Using Forms for Surveys of Parents and Students
• Using Picasa Web Albums with Google Sites and Blogger Blogs

USM EPC 508 - Summer 2012

In mid-July I spent a week working with a group of 14 teachers from various districts in southern Maine at USM. The course has carried the title "Integrating Technology into the Classroom: Mac" for many years, but I have been able to vary the content and update the syllabus each year. I created this site for the course: https://sites.google.com/a/yarmouthschools.org/usmepc508 and we used a Posterous blog: http://usmepc508-2012.posterous.com/ as our collaboration tool. It's always stimulating to hear from and work with a varied group of teachers who represent an array of grade levels, curriculum areas and backgrounds. I enjoy the opportunity to teach this course and the teachers are usually experiencing working closely with an integrator in a way that is not available in their home district.

Exploring the Ocean through Science & Children's Literature Course

I was fortunate to join a group of educators at SMCC for three days in late June to explore the many opportunities of using hands-on science activities and children's literature to learn about the ocean. This curriculum has been developed by Mary Cerullo and others at the Friends of Casco Bay.

We were immersed in the science of monitoring temperature, nitrogen influx (which causes acidification) and the overall health of the waters of  Casco Bay. Mary has written many books about science topics that are wonderful resources for any age group. From her newest book on Giant Squid through her collaborations with undersea photographers on Sea Soup, Shipwrecks and City Fish, Country Fish Mary's books create a unique library of inviting collections of text, images and photographs on these engaging topics.

These days were a tremendous opportunity for me to revisit my interests in science, place-based education, environmental activism an the power of those who work on important causes like the health of our oceans. My friend and colleague Cheryl Oakes from Wells, Maine created this Animoto video of our trip on the Lucky Catch with lobsterman Tom and crew: http://animoto.com/play/O7ARLW2Jc6drYhaxZ11u2g.

Yarmouth Summer/Fall Technology Course 2012

Registrations are building for this years summer/fall technology course for K12 faculty. The site is at: https://sites.google.com/a/yarmouthschools.org/summer-2012-tech. Dates: June 19, 20 & 21 8:00-3:30, September 22 8:00-12:00, October 27 8:00-3:30 at YHS.


Teachers will learn and practice expanded uses of media for teaching and learning around these questions:

1. How will student demonstrations of learning be more innovative in my classroom?
2. How will I as a teacher move toward more choices for students to demonstrate learning?
3. How can I share or celebrate my students’ work?

As we develop the progression of topics and assignments the site will be expanded beyond the syllabus, dates and times.

Google Apps OnAir Tutorials

This summer one of my goals is to review these tutorials for possible use in our Yarmouth course and future faculty meetings.

• EducationOnAir
  tags: GoogleApps Tutorials GoogleEducator

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Edcamp Boston, April 2012

• SkypePlay - The Play Project
  tags: kindergarten skype mariaknee
• 21minutes
  tags: professionaldevelopment Yarmouthcourses teachers

These are a couple of the many Diigo links that I got from EdCamp Boston that I hope to pursue. There were many conversations about "Blended Learning", iPads and learning and other topics. The "smackdown" at the end gave us many links to use with our students. Some of the notes I made are:

• 6 word memoir in Animoto
• Edmodo turn in for assignments
• LittleBirds for writing and drawing
• Fotobabble for recorded story sent to parents by email
• Storybird make student accounts within classroom
• Animoto accounts only last 9 months but can set up for class
• Prezi
• Voicethread - kids can do presentation online instead of being live (differentiation)
• Sliderocket- in google apps marketplace- has voice record, can embed twitter feeds (latest 20)
• Storify
• Paper.li - newspaper generator with embedded social media

Alice, Mike and I had a chance to visit with many colleagues from around New England.

New England Apple Tech Update Spring2012

• Class Widgets - Custom Widgets for iBooks Author
  tags: iBooks gadgets Apple
• New England Apple Tech Updates
  tags: Apple tech 2012

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

It's been a few years since I attended an Apple Update. Mike, Alice and I all chose to attend this one due to the agenda items. It was helpful to hear about the development of management tools for iPads for schools adding large numbers of iPads. As long as we are adding a few iPads at a time we will be manually setting up iPads with either personal, institutional or hybrid accounts for each iPad. It is somewhat complicated as exploring apps requires access to iTunes cards or Apple Voucher provided apps. Another item on the agenda was the new option to create multimedia texts in iBooks. The limitations are that books can only be created by teachers and they belong to the teacher not the school. This is going to take some working out as we see what the potential is for iBooks and other epub options. In Yarmouth we are often looking for a tool that students can use as a multi-media creation tool. Most teachers are using sites, wikis and blogs for their own curriculum development online.

Google Docs for Teachers eBook

Many thanks to Richard Byrne: Free Technology for Teachers

Open publication - Free publishing - More google