Written by Hi there Cohorters!
I hope everyone has had a great break from their routines these past couple of weeks. I have just returned refreshed from rural Cuba, tech-free, advertising free and utterly in slo-mo for the last week. Bliss.
I have found in my Cohort experience that many little side-bar projects have crept into what i am now classifying as ‘Cohort Plans’ … action plan yes, still working, but in talking with so many amazing educators there have also been so many other things I want to try out. So today I tackled one of them. @mbrims inspired me to try out Parlay with my IB diploma Geography students as a great way of recording observations and conversations. After Bobby’s talk at the last F2F I was determined to add Parlay to my tookbox.
Today I went online and a chat box popped up from Katryn at Parlay … she connected with me immediately and through video conference was able to help me set up my first online round table as a conclusion to a unit on hazards and risk assessment … I recognized upon walking through the program that this would be an incredible way for me to do two things: 1. Really use discussion as a way to measure student ability to synthesize and evaluate concepts and 2. Get some metrics on social / emotional learning in terms of student interaction. Amazing! I am trying this first day back (Tuesday for me) I will report back on my attempt …
@acampbellrogers So glad you are trying out Parlay!
Awesome! Parlay is such a great tool for social sciences and discussion-based courses. I can’t wait to see what you think and how the students engage. You may be interested in George Couros latest quotation here too:
Shifting from “technology-integration” to “innovative teaching and learning.”When we focus on “edtech,” it seemingly is more focused on what technology we should use as opposed to what learning we want to happen. For example, many schools moving towards digital portfolios are focused more on what tool they want to use, as opposed to what type of learning they want to happen. If you focus more on the type of learning you want to happen, you can often shape the technology to what you want. “Learning” should always lead the conversation. Innovative teaching and learning, places focus on new and better ways of teaching and learning, with or without technology. As I have written in the past:
“If you have people embrace a different mindset and create something better for our students, while still working within the constraints of the system, incredible gains can be made within the present of what is expected, and the potential of what can be created in the future.”
Innovation is not about getting rid of what works, but about ensuring that we are meeting the current and future needs of our students. “Edtech” sometimes puts “traditional learning” into digital packages, whether they work for students or not. As schools focus more on innovation, their starting point should always be the learner in front of them, not the “shiny and new”.
George Couros
http://connectedprincipals.com/archives/17260
Hey @acampbellrogers! I just got “nicholed” – when @gnichols leaves such an insightful comment that everything else seems trivial 🙂
I think you make an excellent point about “sidebar projects”. @jmedved just commented on @jbaptist and her recent post about all these small changes and side projects turn into one big year of prototyping and iterating innovative teaching and learning practices. I really like Parlay and that it honours all student voice but I think we can’t stop there. John Dewey’s quote launches out our Cohort21 experience. “We don’t learn by doing, we learn by reflecting on what we’re doing”. I think reflecting on the conversation and perspectives presented in Parlay whether it be in person or online, is where student can really grapple with their learning and come to new insights. How they share these reflections is another exciting part because as Rushton Hurley mentions, an audience of one will yield work that not yet good, rather work that is good enough.
Have you checked out WorldVuze? They’re an excellent way to get people from around the globe collaborating on group projects exploring real world issues. In my opinion, they’re modifying or even redefining the learning experience of students as they get to go beyond the walls of their schools. One way to reframe the edtech conversation and something we used to focus on in C21 was SAMR which you can explore in the site. https://sites.google.com/a/msad60.org/technology-is-learning/samr-model
Another Tech Integration Model is TPACK – http://tpack.org/
Thanks for sharing this! @timrollwagen @adamcaplan @danielleganley @amcniven @lbettencourt What are your thoughts?
Ok ok … @gnichols & @ddoucet I feel like my final blog post could be sewn together using my responses to your awesome blog feedback – thank you for pushing my thinking! Garth, your quote from George Couros could not resonate more! I think the idea that we need to shift from ‘tech integration’ to more innovative teaching , thereby keeping the focus on the learning we want to happen is exactly what got me started with all of this. I haven’t generally considered myself a very ‘tech savvy’ teacher in the past, I was afraid of it because I couldn’t be an ‘expert’. So, I’d try to keep up, try things so that I could ‘tick boxes’ and often just feel like it was just a waste of time. As you adeptly point out, the focus was not on the learner, it was on the ‘shiny and new’. **In re-reading this just now, it occurs to me that perhaps that is the trajectory many educators do / must take? ** Recently, through my understanding of design thinking and philosophies of ‘mindset’ by Carol Dweck I’ve become less afraid of being the ‘expert’ of tech applied in class. This combined with the reading I had done on VR in the classroom and its applications for empathy – required for deep understanding of the global issues and challenges taught in my course may have been the first time that I jumped at the chance to apply tech in my course – it was the first time perhaps that I was using it to focus on the learning I wanted to happen. It was amazing. I was sold.
Derek, to your point about reframing the edtech conversation … I am familliar with SAMR because of the super tech savvy @jsmith! I do think now is a good time to revisit it. I’d say I’ve been functioning in the ‘modification zone’ for a couple of years, but am slowly graduating to ‘redifinition zone’ just this year. A few things I am feeling good about, and will share in my final blog post!
Thanks both for your input!