I have been putting some of the work for the students onto social media for a couple of months now.
Here is my first blog post where I was thinking about doing this.
Here is my blog post where I spoke to the students about how they thought it was going.
Here is the content that I have made so far ...
As part of an ongoing focus on reading, our literacy specialist, Marc, has been coming to our department meetings. He has been taking us though information transfer and how we could possibly use it in our lessons. He showed us a couple of examples and asked us to try it with a piece of reading that the students have to do in our own subject areas.
I decided to have a try with it with my Year 9 Food Tech class. They need to read and understand recipes in the kitchen and they have not been very successful with that up to now.
This is the doc that I prepared for them. I took the method straight off the recipe on the class site and included a grid where they needed to look for command words, doing words and how well those things had to be done and equipment that needed to be used.
Chocolate Muffins
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Line 12 muffin cups with paper muffin liners.
Combine flour, sugar, 3/4 cup chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a large bowl.
Whisk yogurt, milk, oil, egg, and vanilla in a separate bowl until smooth.
Pour yogurt mixture into the chocolate mixture and stir until the batter is just blended.
Fill prepared muffin cups 3/4 full and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
On advise from Marc, I included one example in each column as a guide as to what to put. We also did it kind of "as a team". I had a copy up on the screen and I was taking examples from the kids as they found the command words and was filling mine with their suggestions for them to see. With the middle column, which was the harder one, we did it one bullet point at a time. I said which one we were all looking at and they told me what doing word they found and what the degree of doing was.
I didn't mind doing this activity as more of a team thing today as it was our first time through doing this kind of recipe analysis and reading.
Here are copies of 3 of the students work today.
The links to each of them are on the front of my class site - link here
Student 1 - Y13
She has followed the TikTok account and is asking me if I have done any new ones. She watched the latest one about rendering. She is one of the students who helped me learn how to do the basics on TikTok so she was quite keen to see how I did with it.
Student 2 - Y13
Not very good at reading his emails so does not get the notifications about new videos being up. He hasn't really engaged with the content because of this.
Student 3 - Y13
She has watched the videos on TikTok. (especially the cookies one ... they all love the cookie recipe !!). She seems to use a "just in time" method with her watching. When she needed to know something about 3D, she went specifically to that video to watch it and when she wanted to know about rendering, she went to that one.
Student 4 - Y13
Her attendance has not been great so this is exactly the kind of student I was hoping to help with the trial, but she does not open her emails so knew nothing about it.
Student 5 - Y12 (not taught by me)
He watched the video the first time I sent them round but has not engaged with them since then. He is the type of student who does read his emails but he has not watched any more of the videos. He is unsure if this is to do with him not being taught by me but it is me that is sending the links through.
Student 6 - Y11
Watched the first ones and found one of them useful - the perspective one. Saw the emails for the latest ones but did not look at the videos they were busy and "forgot". They don't use either TikTok or Instagram so can not give an opinion as to whether they are useful on there. They watch on YouTube when they do watch.
Student - 7 - Y11
Has not seen any of them as he does not look at emails that are past the top. He has watched the one I sent last week. He thinks that adding spoken instructions would be more helpful. Watched it on TikTok last week.
Student 8 - Y11
Does not check his emails. If he did watch them, they would watch them on TikTok.
Student 9 - Y13
Does not read her emails.
To be completely honest, I was not the fastest convert to working this way. I already had all my work on my class site where my students made copies of the docs and I kept track via a spreadsheet. I made the workspaces as I had been asked to, put them on my site with some work on them, but didn't really engage after that. Bit of a "box tick", compliance thing.
Since going in and out of lockdowns over the last two and a half years and the students not having a lot of consistency, I decided to give it a better try.
I am a definite convert now. As I already had all the resources on my class site, it did not take a lot of time to set up the cards on the workspaces for all the activities. Yes, it is putting the same stuff in two different places but this has proved to be a positive thing as it gives the students the ability to start the work from where ever they are accessing it. Blog post here.
I got some students voice last year about how they liked to be presented with the work. A lot of the things that I do came out - like making examples and making step. by steps / how to's - blog post here, so I wanted to make sure the students still had access to these things if the only place they were going to for the work when not in the classroom was the workspace. I have been putting my examples and step by step documents and how to videos all on the workspaces so they are easy to find. There is also a link to where everything is on the class site so they can see it there too.
Another thing that I wanted to try this year was to use workspaces as the evidence "dump" for the drawn work that the students produce as well as the written work. I have only just started trying this, but it is going ok so I will be continuing this next year. The Year 13 student who has been trying this out for me has been taking here own pictures of the work so it hasn't created extra work for me really. I wrote a blog post about this thinking earlier this year.
Here are links to some of my workspaces embedded on my class site.
Here are a couple of examples of one students design and concepts and concept developments that they put onto the workspace (I have made copies of them so their names do not appear as the owner)
This has definitely made it easier to have all of the work referenced in one place. This is really useful for marking and moderating. The original drawings will still need to be posted to Wellington for external marking. I actually agree with them seeing the originals to be honest as it is difficult to get a consistently clear image from scanning or photographing and you don't want to risk any details being lost.
I am a definite convert to this, but I still have to make my workspaces look pretty!!! - Blog post here
As part of our Technology PD on Literacy, our literacy coordinator, Marc Milford, has been taking us through some reading strategies. This is a key part of the inquiry focus and goals for the school and cluster which is around reading.
Marc shared a template that he has been using in the maths department where they took the problems apart and transferred the information into a grid. He wanted us to have a go at using this method with our subjects. As my Year 11 and Year 13 students are mostly at a point in their project work where they have to find information about different materials that they could use in their designs, this was a perfect topic to use.
As I have previously done a lot of work involving SOLO Taxonomy and writing, I decided to structure my reading exercise around SOLO too.
Link to document - the last page was added in response to feedback from Marc as he wanted links to key words and visuals. The Y13 class did this exercise today without the last page and it was added for the Year 11 group later in the day.
In a previous blog post, I have discussed my reasoning for using social media to reach the students. This year, the DVC course does not have any Year 10 students on the Technology rotations so we decided to do a bit of advertising. This was to coincide with this weeks Careers expo. We filmed students working and some student work and put it together in a. short movie and shared it with the Y10, Y11 and Y12 students as these are the ones who will be making their option decisions soon. These links were emailed round to them. We also made another one during the expo and shared that with them too. I am hoping this has done two main things. Advertised the course for next year and made them aware of the content on social media so they will maybe check back.
Promo Links
Expo Links
I received some unasked for feedback from my Year 9 students today as they were coming into their cooking lesson. Read the blog post here explaining how I am experimenting with using social media.
They came in today and quite a few were saying " I watched the video Miss" .... " I know what to do Miss". One boy had even watched the video on all three places it was hosted! This makes a very pleasant change from them not even opening the email with the link to the class site and having no idea what they were doing when they got to the lesson.
Small steps but it made me smile.
My inquiry this year is about motivation and engagement. I have outlined in this blog post how I feel that this is going so far this year and how i feel it is time to have a new direction for this. I have also thought about questions to move me forward.
My main thoughts are, can I utilise social media as a tool for engagement and motivation?
This brought with it a lot of soul searching as to whether I should. I have bemoaned the constant use of mobile phones by students along with everyone else and their dwindling attention spans due to short, sharp inputs of information from their little hand held buddies. But then I started thinking, is this going to change? No. It isn't. So can I use it?
After getting feedback from one of my most unmotivated students that he learned stuff from TikTok, I decided to have a look. Like the rest of the internet, it is a combination of interesting stuff, fun stuff and total piffle. I started an account and had a go at making some Lego movies myself. It was fun. I wasn't great at using the app so decided before going further I would engage the help of the experts. Over the last 2 weeks, I have been getting some pretty intensive training from my lovely Year 13 girls, who are finding it amusing to be training me and are exited when I show them my new videos.
After talking my plan over the DP in charge of curriculum and Fiona from Manaiakalani, I decided to load the videos up to three places, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. This was not arduous, as when you make a video on TikTok, it is downloaded to your phone. This just means uploading it to the other two spaces and copying and pasting the written stuff.
The reason i have decided to include my Year 9 Food Tech class in this experiment is that they are driving me TOTALLY CRAZY!!! I put a load of effort into the site pages for each recipe, with videos to watch, links to check out etc. Example here. I email this to them directly and they don't check their emails. When it comes to cooking day, I ask if they have looked at the resources I have sent them. No, comes the reply. I have been printing out the recipes so they have them available to follow on the day. I have to remind them they are there. Since making a few examples on TikTok, I have been getting some promising feedback from them.
There is still the hitch that I have to email the link to the video directly to them so they know that it is there, but small steps.
Here is where I am up to with this experiment as of writing this blog post.
"How can I use and expand on existing platforms that the students are familiar with, to motivate them to be more engaged with their work."
At the start of the year, I had decided to focus on motivation and engagement for my inquiry problem. I have been making help videos and support material for all the activities that they have been asked to do so far this year. I have been putting this help on the class site and on the student workspaces, so it is all really easy to find. I have been emailing the direct links to this to the students.
So far this year, this has been ok for those students who are engaging with communications from school (emails etc) but hopeless for those students who don't. If they don't check their emails, go on the class site or the workspaces, they are not engaging with the work at all. The videos and help have been really helpful for those students who are working form home for any period of time and for those in the class while I work one to one with others.
During some PD this week, I was listening to Subash Chander K from Ormiston Junior College
Youtube - infinityplusone
Twitter - @elsubash
He was talking about how he started a YouTube channel for Maths and the really positive affect it has had on students. This really clicked with me as I had already been ticking an idea over in my head about trying to reach the students in a different way, especially those who don't connect with the traditional channels. A really interesting question that he raised was, can education be on demand.
This links nicely with the Manaiakalani kaupapa of ubiquitous learning, anytime and any place. Also, after the last CoL meeting, where we were talking about how to use technology to support what we need to do, this seemed to fit really well.
Another place where this fits well is from student feedback when i was talking to them about what they thought motivation was. - blog post here. One particular comment stuck with me from an especially unmotivated student. He said that he uses social media to learn new things. I had not looked at it this way before and it started a little kernel of thought at the back of my head. This came to the surface again this week while listening to the teacher talking about using YouTube channels.
So, I have a slightly different direction to go in now. It is still firmly based in student motivation and engagement but with a twist.
https://events.humanitix.com/ytech-beyond-the-code
Edwina
You don't need maths and science for every tech role. Tech is part of every job and career.
@ytechnz
Keynote - Dan Te Whenua Walker - Microsoft
Indigenous at Microsoft
A platform to do good in the community.
<2% M and P in tech industry
Cultural tax / low trust / lack of role models
Indigenous @microsoft launched august 2020
aka.ms/indigenous
#10kwahine
Tupu Toa - skills training
Maori AI and neural machine learning
Microsoft translator - creating access to the language for more people
Holo lens - builds the space around you in VR
Tupu.nz
Maori minecraft universe
Wrapped xbox
id@xbox - game developers
Xbox cloud gaming - play on other devices
Subash Chander K - Ormiston Junior College
Slido - 20207
Youtube - infinityplusone
Twitter - @elsubash
Flipped learning - creating videos for the students to access their learning
Project AA - sphero robots
Live streaming resulted in lots of feedback and questions from the students. Much more than the online lessons.
Can education be on demand?
When, as adults we need to know something or learn how to do something, we go online. Watch a video / read some info. We learn what to do when we need to know it.
Can you sometimes be guilty of forcing “the fancy stuff” on the kids where they want a more basic approach.
Passion projects can ignite a different side to the kids interests.
Teachers need to be -
Master of adaptability, how fast cab you change to meet the needs of the time?
Whitney Steel - Xero
Not all jobs in tech need tech experience. Don't need coding or science and maths
@whitneysee - -tictok
Tech - be aware of what is the here and now - to be disruptive , you have to know what is now in order to change it. Keeping an eye on the future and what is changing in order to be able to do this.
My Year 8 coding class came back to me today after their two week break. Last term we were working with the mBots, looking and binary and using the sensors on the mBot. Link to the mBot planning on my class site.
Today, we started playing with the Microbits - link to planning. The online app for using the microbits is great, as there is a simulator to test the code before you put it onto the actual microbit. You can code in either the blocks or python / java script. It takes you through activities with tutorials, step by step, to build your skills and confidence.
What we did today was to start with the block coding, as they were comfortable with that as they have done a lot of it with the mBots. We then did the same activities using Python and put screen shots of both side by side so they can compare and see what each part means. This was good as they could then change parts of one and see what what happened with the other. Being able to click back and forth between blocks and Python on the screen was really useful for this today. They could also see what rules were needed when writing the simple lines of code (like indenting).
This was all written up on a presentation by the students with examples of what they have been looking at and changing in the code.
