Monday, 26 January 2015

BETT 2015

Betts 2015: notes taken from a variety of seminars.



Day 1


DIGITAL LEADERS

A Big idea: that we develop a group of students titled digital leaders. These students would develop sites as resource areas for teachers. The history Archive structured by me and my web collection is part of this process but we can take this further. This in turn links back to many of the speakers ideas about empowering students to become teachers themselves and to step away from content driven "flipping". Some of the ideas were focusing on redressing what it means to "flip" the classroom and how to avoid bad practice: the 3 sins of extending the curriculum from the classroom rather than innovating with new pedagogy.

This question is one we could all ask of our students and flip that to what do they want to develop. Many of the student presentations were innovative and creative. Student led: what do I want students to develop? What do they want to develop?


My areas of development to franchise out:


1:U&C site. Pages. Student developing.
2:TOK and history development.

Then there were some new apps and plugins not used but they seem really good.



  • Flubaroo is a plugin that auto marks
  • TeachEats is a blog. We at SIS ought to have a blog for teachers to share good practice
  • Action: make a Blog for all teachers
  • Why? Sharing good practice
  • This platform might do this for us: Teach meets.

I went to a presentation on students making: Online video tutorials made by students for safety on the Internet. We could do that. (delivered session on internet safety post BETT 2015)


Links with kindred project possibly: The business portal: student subject area all developed by students: google classroom used


Other ideas: Morning email notes / Teacher tool kit


Day 2


TWITTER IN THE CLASSROOM

Twitter @KiraOConnor


Tips for Twitter


Using history or political accounts

Paradoy accounts
@KingHnryviii Henry Tudor

Need to create research group to find relevant Twitter accounts


  • Tweet pals
  • Ask questions
  • 140 summary sum up books etc concise language set as hmwk task
  • Breaking news
  • Netiquette engage with parents get parents to follow me
  • Exchange ideas @teachingideas
  • #elemchat
  • Vine mini films need to look into this
  • Create # for university and career info
  • Using to learn English
  • Following celebrities to correct English   Red balloon school

GOOGLE CLASSROOM

Session using google classroom


Digital leader group

Creating student digital leaders

Survey of the use of IT amongst staff

Student made tutorials
Need to do this for university

Google classroom app

Use for u and c classes by country (Done: we now have a U&C google classroom for every secondary year group)

PODCASTS IN THE CLASSROOM


Using podcasts in the classroom
Spreaker dj
Audioboom
Book creator
Creative book builder

Video collaboration in the classroom

Morfo booth
Lego movie creator (make history revision)

Robotics in the classroom

Sphero
Ozobot

Documents in the classroom

G docs
Post-it plus

Curation in the classroom

Pinterest (all teachers should use)
Pearltrees

Explain in the classroom

Explain everything (not free) 1.50
Tellagami

Back channel in the classroom

Twitter (make a hashtag for your classroom)
Todaysmeet

Digital leaders in the classroom

Promote students in these roles

Support digital learners

Dlchat Twitter

Learning together

Google +
iTunes U

Marki

Padlet

Righting the wrong flipping classroom


Dr Ashley tan: Education consultant


Using a backchannel is good: set this up ( discuss with colleagues ) Link about using backchannels


  • Flipping is not about changing homework. Thinking about flipping is an Opportunity to question why we are giving homework.
  • Voice thread: Perception of flipping can be to extend curriculum time. A bad idea.
  • Flipped presentations made by students in advance for peers ( making students teachers)
  • Learners as content creators: externalising using internal schema
  • Learners as teacher: teachers become better at their content by teaching it, thus teachers should get students to teach
  • Vertical learning: an SIS example would have been the core celebration.
  • 3 sins of bad flipping: Same thing, question nature of homework, extend the curriculum


  • Fostering student collaboration
  • Active inspire software
  • Collaboration ideas

Using mobile phones in the classroom.

  • Ambit tac
  • BYOD strategies
  • Use of mobile phones
  • Contradictions in school rules
  • Use of mobile phones by adults setting examples
  • Rethinking to allow them and teach students how to use them
  • George c Marshall example

1/focus on pedagogical values and responsibility
2/Encourage but respect privacy rights
3/Students learn how to use them

Protocol discussed with staff


A code access with permission

R code recreation
P code prohibit exams
S code external use

Rethink


Student involvement

Visual information

Create school apps by students

Parents using phones and QR codes around the school

LINKS
http://www.teachhub.com/how-use-cell-phones-learning-tools
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2012/sep/10/mobile-phones-classroom-teaching
http://gettingsmart.com/2013/01/part-1-44-smart-ways-to-use-smartphones-in-class/


The power of blogs for problem solving


Ken Robinson


Pisa program international student assessment

The last presentation today is by Sir Ken Robinson

National education systems worldwide are being reformed to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. As a respected adviser to governments in Europe, Asia and the United States, Sir Ken argues in this powerful presentation that many countries are pushing reforms in the wrong direction. Drawing from his groundbreaking book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, he explains why too many are locked into a model of education shaped by the Industrial Revolution and a narrow idea of academic ability. Urging schools and colleges everywhere to rethink their basic assumptions about intelligence and achievement, Sir Ken focuses on the vital questions: Why is it essential to promote creativity? What's the problem? Why do so many adults think they're not creative? Most children are buzzing with ideas. What happens to them as they grow up? What should be done? Is everyone creative or just a select few? Can creativity be developed? If so, how? In exploring these questions, Sir Ken argues for radical changes in how we educate all students to meet the extraordinary challenges of living and working in the 21st century. Takeaways include: How education wastes more talent than it saves The three core objectives of 21st Century education.  Why we're all smarter than we think. What schools and colleges should do, and how governments should help

Thursday, 21 August 2014

Diploma Programme

The development and raising of awareness of Sociocratic methods of organisation will be part of my agenda for this coming academic year. Examples to draw upon this method of organisation are within the DP teachers Leadership team, Advisory team, vertical articulation groups in DP and the working groups within my TOK and History classes.

To read more about Sociocracy as a democratic method for organisation check out this link http://sociocracy.co.uk/


Extended Essay in History

Results are back regarding the recent EE in History grades and it is clear that criticl analysis and source evaluation are crucial once again. The Dp2014 students produced 3 high B´s and 1 excellent A. The difference was regarding critical analysis and the holisitc grade. This is worth 4 points and to an extent has an element of subjectivity about it. the critical analysis requires joind up thinking and rigorous debate within the essay.

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

University and Careers

Check out my ongoing development of University and Careers information on my google site
https://sites.google.com/site/mrmunglespastoral/ I´ll be updating this over the course of the next academic year, and developing contacts with other IB Counsellors and of course our ex students at their Uni placements.

More to come!!!

Sunday, 2 February 2014

The new TOK curriculum

The new TOK curriculum

So far I have developed a coherent new programme for the new TOK orders. This is outlined on my TOK site here TOK new orders course outline

21st Century Classroom

January:

This weekend I´ve learnt a lot of new tricks regarding the Google suite of applications. I think one of the best things i´ve learnt this weekend is how to use scripts within google spreadsheets. There appear to be so many scripts available which really transform the use of google drive.

I also attended Betts where I met with a number of proactive teachers and learners, some of the most impressive were with regards to the development if ideas behind flipping the classroom. I´ve been developing many of these ideas independently but it was fascinating to see so many different techniques and ideas, which I´ll be incorportating into my teaching practice. Check out my flipped online learning at Learning about the causes of the spanish civil war

Targets for next academic year will be

1. To take more teachers and students to BETTS in January 2015
2. Follow up on my inservice day in March to SIS teachers on Blended Learning My Presentation on blended learning
3. Development of more DP leader initiative in training (mac book programme) started in April 2014


ideas from BETT 2014