Ako Tamaki - Feedback

I have sent staff at Tamaki College a Google Form on Friday asking what they think of the Ako Tamaki Site.
This was the the request :-

Hello

As part of my Manaiakalani research this year into blended learning, I had the idea of making a website where the students make resources to teach other students. ( kind of like a Tamaki Khan Academy).

I had a group of students out yesterday to start putting together some ideas so we could present it to you as an idea.

Here is the site that we made :-

https://sites.google.com/a/tamaki.ac.nz/ako-tamaki/

There is still work to add to this from what we did yesterday and there are still videos to make for English and Science.

Could you please take a look and see what you think?

I need to add feedback and thoughts to my research....

Here is a Google Form to fill in with your feedback.

Thanks very much

https://docs.google.com/a/tamaki.ac.nz/forms/d/1BOi3rGniyrKrhsWEMyQ4NltpB2lZpn6VzIuzpB6xV3k/viewform

Here is the reply spreadsheet that came from that from :-
Link here

• There is a general interest in the idea of a site like this for the students at Tamaki College. Some staff are happy to make resources for this site themselves with their students, others are not so comfortable doing that.
• There is concern that the content on the site is as accurate as we can make it with no mistakes.
• There is a general thought that the action of making the resources will help those students making them and that students will listen to each other more than the teacher at times.

Verbal feedback has included :-

• The quality of some of the resources is low.
• The interest os some of the resources is not as high as others.
• More interesting tone used in the verbal information is needed on some of them.

Overall, the experiment was a success with lots of interest in continuing this idea. I appreciate the more "negative" aspects of the feedback even though this first try was more of a "concept sketch" than a finished product. It needs lots of development work and the feedback gives some direction for this to go in.

Ako Tamaki

When the students get their netbooks re-imaged, part of that image is a shortcut to the Khan Academy. This is a great online learning space where students can learn about all sorts of topics.

It got me thinking. Can our students create their own "academy" where the leaners become the teachers of the following year?

In a bid to start exploring this idea, I took one of my Manaiaikalani days today and had a varied selection of students out of class creating videos centred on teaching something to someone who knows nothing about the topic.

I have had discussions with the HODs of all the subject areas so they could choose a couple of students for each area. They had to make sure that they came with the subject knowledge that they needed to get across as I would be no help there.

I made a couple of examples myself, to show them 1 or 2 ways they could use if they wanted to, but these were in no way the only ways I wanted them to work today.

The first method I showed them was the sticky note method. I was quite happy with this method as I had experimented on my Maths class a couple of weeks ago.

The second method was similar but using drawn, coloured and cut out elements.




After showing the group the two methods, showing them the site that I had set up to present it all on and arming them with an iPad for the day, we were off.

Some students were happy to use the methods I had shown them and stayed in the room and worked on that. Others wanted more live action shots and either took themselves away for filming or shouted at everyone to be quiet when they needed to. Some went and sat on the stairs to get some quiet for making screen casts.

Here are some photos from the day....

It took them a while to get going this morning, planning on paper first about what ideas they could do and what script they would need to say.

Once they got started on the filming, there was no stopping them. They were frustrated at first by the "no editing" rule, but soon got used to the idea of it all being done in one take. We kept them nice and short, so any do overs were not taking for ever to do.

Here is a link to the Ako Tamaki site.

I am still in the process of uploading the student's videos that they made today onto the site.

My plan is to present this to the whole staff and get some feedback from them as to what they think and if they think it is an idea that could move foreword.

I am seeing this as a long term view in regards to seeing the benefits. The videos that are being made now will only be used next year when the students new to the topic are needing this information. The bonus for the students making the videos now though, is that this process cements the knowledge into their heads.

We had a great time today making these videos and as a little bit of silly as we left the room, we positioned the funky shaped furniture into a particular pattern.