How has my teaching changed since "going digital"?

I was asked an interesting question this week. How to approach the upper portions of the SAMR model in technology. I put a comment on the blog post with a few suggestions and it got me thinking about how my teaching has changed since going digital.

The first time I looked at what I was doing in regards to SAMR was quite a while ago. Blog post here.


Instead of students looking for how-to videos on YouTube, get them to make their own. They can use their chrome books to record video and then edit it together in their YouTube accounts as they don't need fancy editing software to do that and the editing tools in YouTube will be enough.
You could get them to help you build your site in this way - with their own content explaining how to do things - this is then available for you next lot and then they can be improved / replaced. (students teaching students using the tech)

I did this as part of my MIT2014 research. Since then, I have got my students to make their own How-To's about a number of topics.

Team research using Google tools - information and collation from the internet - this is the same information for all of them so why not get them to do it in small teams to give them confidence - the shared spaces on Google can enable this really well - the teams can share folders or individual documents to collate things together. If each team has a slightly different focus, they can then share their research with the whole class and everyone has access to all the research they need.

Google plus communities are a great way to share information / examples etc with the class. They can then share their work into the community and everyone gets to see everything that everyone does. This is a link to my Level 3 community of you want to go and have a look.
Level 3 DVC Community
The other good thing about this is that if you keep the same community going you can collate years worth of work for the students to look through when they join your class.

My students make online portfolios of their design work using Google sites. This enables them to collate three years worth of NCEA work in one place (if they choose DVC at Year 11, 12 and 13).

I have put an example here of a current NCEA Level 3 student. This does not shw his previous work as we have moved to new Google sites this year.

All of my planning is now totally visible in terms of the class Google Site. I remember this being so scary at first and I have to keep reminding myself of that when I am helping someone new to putting it all out there on sites.

I don't think I could go back to photocopying everything for a lesson now after having everything on sites for so long. There are instructions, links to extra information, links to examples, my own examples, literally everything is on there.

The fact that lessons / tasks / skills are now so rewindable is an extremely key point. 

During last year, when my inquiry group was my Year 11 class and I was doing Class OnAir, I experimented with a "Rewind to Remind" section on the class community. I had the video camera always available that year due to doing Class OnAir so it was easy for me to do extra videos of my instructions. I have been slack this year about doing this and need to think about it again as the students found it useful. If I set up the webcam on my desk so it is easily available, this might make me start doing it again.

I don't print out all the research that the students do anymore to send to NZQA at the end of the year for project marking. I send them the links to the student's portfolio sites stuck on the front of their sketch books. I am not totally convinced that they look at them though as last year I used personalised Bitly links to make it easier for them and I could see that there had been zero clicks on the links.
Digital portfolios are also useful when it is moderation time of the year. Links can be sent away for planning and work, so no posting is required.

There have been a lot of changes and it continues to change each year and the technology improves and more things slot into place.

Climbing the SAMR Ladder

We have been involved in an interesting activity at school recently where we have been looking at what we are doing in our teaching practice regarding online learning. Part of that assessment process involved looking at the activities that we are doing and where they fit onto the different levels on the SAMR ladder.
Here is what I thought that I could put on each stage of this ladder. This table is part of the from that the school gave us to fill in. We had to put our input into the last column.

Level	Definition	Example	Evidence (Link)
Substitution (Enhancement)	Technology acts as direct tool substitute, with no functional change.	Examples may include; digital copy of notes/handbooks.	Graphics Site All of the instructions and resources are stored online rather than on paper. Everything that I used to give the students on photocopied handouts is now on the site for them to reference.
Augmentation (Enhancement)	Technology acts as direct tool substitute, with functional improvement.	Examples may include; use of google forms for pre/post tests etc. Use of go animate/glogster/  collaboration using Teacher Dashboard.	Junior Pop Up Book Project Use of gafe products for various collaborative/group activities. These activities have been enhanced by being able to collaborate with each other online and by getting quick teacher feedback.
Modification (Transformation)	Technology allows for significant task redesign.	Examples may include; gamification/ animated tasks/use of google maps/video.	Level 1 layout exercise - analysing each others work in a Google Plus community. The students upload their design work to the community and allow others to comment on it. They take the comments of others to structure the analysis of their own work.
Redefinition (Transformation)	Technology allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable.	Examples may include; cross curricular/virtual tours/Google+.	Level 1 online course - mooc style - no classroom input at all. I have made an online module to test the validity of a totally online course so the students access it and complete it in their own time.

This was a really interesting activity to do and it made me really think about the activities that I have designed for the students to work through. I need to get more of the DVC work up into the redefinition area, as this is also a golden opportunity to get the work into the extended abstract of the SOLO progression which will get the students to extend their thinking and get outside of that box. We still need to produce work on paper as those key drawing skills are vital to design work, but how can I get them to produce the other work we get to do in innovative and interesting ways so it inspires them in the course rather than is a chore.

This is a great link from GettingSmart for an interactive SAMR ladder.