Miss W. and her Smartboard

Well we are now in the month of August and beginning our study on China and the Olympic Games.  But this week we have had students presenting their work on sumo wrestling that they have researched throughout this term.  Most decided to present using a powerpoint even after being reminded that this meant:

• the powerpoint was just used in the background as a reminder
• you don’t have lots of words on a slide
• you will have to give a talk in front of your classmates relating to the powerpoint

Students took out extra words, found more diagrams, wrote their notes on cue cards and for their first efforts, did a great job.  Presentation afternoon and out came the video camera -  the battery was not fully charged.

“Can we use our phones?”  Go for it. So we had about four budding camerapersons videoing the events. 

I was so proud of students who got up to present in front of the class for the first time this year; a student with a teacher aide organizing an interview as part of the presentation and another student whose powerpoint was run completely from the Smartboard without any help from me. 

But this is now where I have no idea what to do next.

“Do you know how to download from your phones?”  Cords were brought to school and hopefully tomorrow the talks will be downloaded. 

But readers, what do you suggest we do next?  How can we get these videos or powerpoints on the students’ own blogs?  Firstly, we will need parent permission, then do we use slideshare for the actual powerpoint?  But what about the videos? 

Just been surfing the web and found myself on the Mundesley Junior School blog.  This poem on one of the posts really had me thinking about what we teach our kids at school and how much teacher directed learning still takes place in our schools.

Photo source : Learning fact and opinion by Old Shoe Woman

The Things We Steal From Children

By Dr John Edwards

If I am always the one to think of where to go next.
If where we go is always the decision of the curriculum or my curiosity and not theirs,
If motivation is mine,
If I always decide on the topic to be studied, the title of the story, the problem to be worked on,
If I am always the one who has reviewed their work and decided what they need,
How will they ever know how to begin?

If I am the one who is always monitoring progress.
If I set the pace of all working discussions,
If I always look ahead, foresee problems and endeavour to eliminate them,
If I swoop in and save them from cognitive conflict,
If I never allow them to feel and use the energy from confusion and frustration,
If things are always broken into short working periods,
If myself and others are allowed to break into their concentration,
If bells and I are always in control of the pace and flow of work,
How will they learn to continue their own work?

If all the marking and editing is done by me,
If the selection of which work is to be published or evaluated is made by me,
If what is valued and valuable is always decided by external sources or by me,
If there is no forum to discuss what delights them in their task, what is working,
what is not working, what they plan to do about it,
If they have not learned a language of self-assessment,
If ways of communicating their work are always controlled by me,
If our assessments are mainly summative rather then formative,
If they do not plan their way forward to further action,
How will they find ownership, direction and delight in what they do?

If I speak of individuals but present learning as if they are all the same,
If I am never seen to reflect and reflection time is never provided,
If we never speak together about reflection and thinking and never develop a vocabulary for such discussion,
If we do not take opportunities to think about our thinking,
If I constantly set them exercises that do not intellectually challenge them,
If I set up learning environments that interfere with them learning from their own actions,
If I give them recipes to follow,
If I only expect the one right conclusion,
If I signify that there are always right and wrong answers,
If I never let them persevere with something
really difficult which they cannot master,
If I make all work serious work and discourage playfulness,
If there is no time to explore,
If I lock them into adult time constraints too early,
How will they get to know themselves as a thinker?

If they never get to help anyone else,
If we force them to always work and play with children of the same age,
If I do not teach them the skills of working co-operatively,
If collaboration can be seen as cheating,
If all classroom activities are based on competitiveness,
If everything is seen to be for marks,
How will they learn to work with others?

For if they…
have never experienced being challenged in a safe environment,
have had all of their creative thoughts explained away,
are unaware what catches their interest and how then to have confidence in that interest,
have never followed something they are passionate about to a satisfying conclusion,
have not clarified the way they sabotage their own learning,
are afraid to seek help and do not know who or how to ask,
have not experienced overcoming their own inertia,
are paralysed by the need to know everything before writing or acting,
have never got bogged down,
have never failed,
have always played it safe,
how will they ever know who they are?

I am a very keen genealogist and have researched my family extensively.  I have one branch back to 1603 in Bedfordshire, England but most branches I have placed in England in the early 1800’s or late 1700’s. As you can gather from the dates, I probably have convict blood in me - well I am proud to say, I have so far found eight convicts in my direct line of ancestors. But I have also got some free settlers interspersed in there as well.  I wonder how families reacted when a child of convict parents married a child of free settler parents?

Next weekend, I might hear some stories of just that.   My great grandfather Henry Lewis ENGLAND was the son of convict parents John ENGLAND and Rebecca Jackson.  My great grandmother Julia Charlotte ENGLAND (nee CHANDLER) was the daughter of two free settlers, William Charles CHANDLER and Caroline CHANDLER (nee BRYANT).

In the 1858 Valuation Roll for the City of Hobart Town both John and William were occupiers of houses not owners, despite William coming out as a free settler. But he and his family did move around as he was a gardener and had worked on estates at Monavale as well as Government House in Hobart.   John though was an labourer back in England before being transported and by the time of the birth of his second son, my great grandfather, John was listed as a moulder.

Back now to running the reunion.  A few things to do to make sure it runs smoothly. 
Before the reunion

• Contact relatives you know who live locally and send them their part of the tree to update.  They usually then contact others and ask for information to add to their part of the tree. 
•  Always have a phone number or email address for people to contact to ask questions or give information.
• Start the organization at least a year in advance so you have a chance to contact people interstate and overseas.  Some might want to plan a holiday around the reunion date.
• Put an advert in the local newspaper, the local genealogy magazine, internet reunion pages, rootsweb email lists etc.  Publicise a lot.

At the reunion

• Have a sign in book for visitors to include a phone number or email address so you can keep in touch or use for the next reunion.
• Have sticky labels using different colours for different branches, so people can easily find direct relatives or members of their branch.
• Have the tree displayed so visitors can add to it.
• Preferably have a computer, printer and scanner available with someone adding to the family tree on the computer software programme.
• Have an area for photographs or newspaper clippings etc to be displayed.   
• Have refreshments like tea, coffee and biscuits.  This then allows for chatting among the relatives.
• Have a definite begin and end time for the reunion.

Well, I think I am nearly ready for the reunion next weekend.  Just have to update my software programme and add in the extra dates I have received, then maybe print out some copies ready for people to take away with them.

As many of you will have read in previous posts, this has been a steep learning curve for me this year.  I have been trying to allow my students to join in the challenge of using new aspects of Web 2.0 tools.  I teach all grade 6/7  classes over the year in eight week blocks and one area of history we must teach is historical inquiry.  I mentioned to the other grade 6/7 staff that I would be prepared to assess this aspect of history.  How to do this using the newer technology? 

I decided a wiki would be a great way of allowing students to present the information they found as part of their inquiry.  I began the course teaching them the historical process:

• big question to answer
• smaller questions to help gather the information
• locating sources both primary and secondary
• gathering and organizing the information
• justifying and evaluating the information - does it answer the question?
• presentation of information to an audience

Students usually only have an audience of the teacher but I wanted to broaden this to other students, teachers and members of the community. Part of the curriculum is looking at the local community and I felt this would fit in perfectly with using a wiki to organize and present the information.

Students began by brainstorming what they knew about the history of their municipality. We then decided on the big question. Students worked in pairs and chose an aspect of the municipality they would like to find out about.  Some discussed it with parents and relatives and chose their topic wisely because they knew they would be able to get some information from them. As a class, we then brainstormed where we might be able to find sources for information.  We ended up with a list of about 15 primary and secondary sources.

I then set up the wiki with a basic page of our municipality and a link to a timeline of history in the area. Another wiki page included which students were researching which topics, then finally each pair of students had their own page on which to put their information.  Students then had to get permission from parents to become a member of the wiki; I suggested at least one person from each pair be a member.

Students then began gathering their information. Emails were sent, phone calls made, visits down town to go to shops to run interviews, head to library to find books and of course using the internet.  About two weeks before the end of the course, we discussed how we were going to assess the wiki work and students came up with a rubric that I then posted on the wiki.

 The wiki is going to be an ongoing project with each grade 6/7 class adding to it throughout the year.  Also towards the end of the year, I will advertise the wiki within the community and see if other members of the district can add to the information.  There is though, a place where this can happen now, but as we know, unless something is advertised, then rarely does anyone else know about it on the net.

Already some of the first group of students added information to other pages on the wiki and gave clues as to other sources the students could be using for their research. Students have been emailing me to get help and ask questions and one day when I was ill at home, I actually got on the wiki and was emailing back to students about problems they were having. Students have also been working outside of school hours on their pages of the wiki.  Those students who did not get permission to use the wiki, have had to hand in their work as a word document so they can still be assessed.

My next post will be about the challenge the students had in this first group. Two of the questions I asked them in their assessment lesson were:

• What did you find was a challenge in this assignment?
• Should Miss W teach the class about using a wiki or is it better for students to try things out for themselves? Give reasons.

It has now been 220 years since Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet of convicts and military arrived in Australia.  At that time, only the indigenous aborigines lived on the land which had been theirs for over 60,000 years and soon the ‘whites’ were taking their hunting grounds, their food as well as their womenfolk.  In the past 220 years, many turning points have happened in Australian history including convict rebellions, the opening up of the land beyond the Great Dividing Range, the discovery of gold, the separation of the states, development of the trade unions, White Australia Policy, development of political parties, participation in war, Federation, conscription, the Great Depression, treaties with our allies, participation in local and overseas sporting events, developing our own music and film industries yet …………..

We still are in conflict with our indigenous people who have a lower standard of living than the average Australian whether they be Aussie born and bred or an immigrant to our shores.  Are they celebrating a Happy Australia Day this year?

I do quite a bit of research based learning in my classroom as I feel too often students are spoonfed lots of knowledge but not taught the skills to think for themselves. They wait for either the teacher or a parent to give them the book or page number to find the information. So I was very interested in the article by Graham Wegner who tells the reader about research based learning in his school. Personally, I love teaching the research process first to the whole class, so they realise they have to set questions, find both primary and secondary resources, justify their decisions about the big question then finally present to their peers. Students then keep a journal (maybe they will be answering my blog posts this year), organize interview times with me and plan their long term goals with regard to the topic they have chosen. Setting their goals is often a problem but practice does make it easier.