Student Survey

Wow. After the student survey results I have been really thinking. The results clearly showed that one of my little goals of making more explicit the success criteria in tasks has been achieved. The kids clearly show more awareness in SC.
The Results got me thinking. I came up with the idea to survey the kids using google forms to clarify the student voice. The results and implications for my practice are great. I generally survey the kids in my class every term. Asking them about me as a teacher my strengths and weaknesses. Using Google forms I believe I was able to get a more honest result. I also was able to target the student's thoughts and opinions around my inquiry this year.
Here are the results:





The children generally show more enjoyment of learning when using computers than other activities. They also believe that in spelling the use of LEXIA and possibly sharing learning digitally has helped them learning the most.

My target group were children at risk in surface features in writing. A link to the form can be found here

Questioning with Trevor Bond

http://ictnz.com/

Trevor raised some interesting thoughts about questioning. Curriculum delivery. Skills and values. The session was excellent and thought provoking.

I really appreciated the practical elements to his presentation. Below are my notes:


Questioning is one if not the most important strategy we should teach in our schools.


So What:
Facilitate more to encourage questioning.
Value of the teachable moment?
Teach the questioning skills.

The Questioning skills -

1. Identify the need or problem (write statements of need)
2. Identify the key words (relevant contextual vocabulary)
3. Ask a range of relevant questions (Open/Closed etc.)
4. Take them to a variety of appropriate sources
5. Persist, editing questions as necessary until they acquire the needed information.

What is a good question:

• Is relevant
• Gets the information that is needed.
• Can be taken to intelligent and non-intelligent sources. (People=intelligent Book/google=non-intelligent)

What is a poor question:
Questions that require an intelligent source to use the context to decode the intention.

• Where can I find it? What skills do I need? How do I get there?

Modelling is the most important teaching thing. We model poorly but get away with it due to the context!

Question Matrix
Trevor also introduced his question matrix (but my laptop battery failed so had to stop taking notes). Check it out here.

Digital Learning Pathways

Well I am looking back on notes from my first breakout. My first breakout was excellent in explaining the digital learning pathways.

(I had signed up for the breakout because I was quite upset about all my links being broken due to their new work at digistore).

I realised that they were working towards a collaborative resource but had little idea of what they were really trying.

The digital learning pathways are basically what used to be called webquests. This isn't exactly true but I will explain that later. They are resources which we can create using a range of digital resources to guide students through a learning journey. Here are a couple of examples:

Earthquake investigation

What caused the Canterbury earthquake?

Love New Zealand:Endangered Animals

The idea is that instead of getting a bunch of american slanted stuff when you type in webquest you have access through the school account to journeys that include the digital objects as well. The digistore provides us with an environment to share with other educators.

Now the as I was saying before these learning objects aren't really webquests as they are not just student activities. They can also be teacher planning tools providing you with a place to pool your resources for the up coming unit.

The Breakout was doubly excellent as it gave me a chance to share some ideas with the lovely ladies next to me. The gave me these links:

www.Smartkiddies.com.au
www.ICTgames.com
http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

All in all a most excellent session!

Crockett Key Note 1 21st century fluency

Well my first reflection. www.fluency21.com

I found the keynote excellent and it really made me think about what changes are needed in our curriculum (that is what we teach not governement stuff) so as to prepare our children for the world we live in now and the future. It is scary to think we are now 10% into the 21st century.
Well here are my notes. I have briefly summarised the difference between traditional learners/teachers with digital learners.

Digital Citizens thus need Digital fluency:

Solution fluency
Creative fluency
Collaboration fluency
Media fluency
Information fluency

Ulearn

Wow!
What a fabulous experience for the team of us who went down.
I feel inspired, enlightened, invigorated, and exhausted.
Tomorrow I will start reflecting, for now I'm curling up in front of the heater to watch several DVDs.