Feb. 21: Digital Citizenship

Last week a small but enthusiastic group of island educators met to learn more about digital citizenship. In Ontario, it is a topic many of us have heard of, but we have had little - if any - direction as to how to implement digital citizenship topics into our classes.

Kristen Mattson (@mrskmattson; Naperville, Illinois) was our guest speaker. In her role as a Professional Learning Specialist, she supports PK-12th grade teachers by designing and developing effective professional learning opportunities. Her passion for Instructional Technology led her to pursue a Master's Degree in Instructional Design and Technology, and she is currently researching Digital Citizenship Education for her doctoral dissertation. She joined us via Google Hangout.

Her presentation "Digital Citizenship - Moving Beyond Internet Safety," started by introducing us to the different levels of citizenship (personally responsible, participatory, and justice oriented) and how those extend to citizenship online.

We looked at some of the most recent publications on our new "digital reality," and how being constantly connected impacts all of us (society in general, but particularly our students). 

Supposedly, we are becoming a more narcissistic society.
In other news, here's a selfie at the session!

There was a lot of back and forth discussion as we were just as interested in hearing about Kristen's research and resources, as she was in hearing about our classroom and Guidance experiences. 

For me personally, one of the biggest take-aways was how there is a mentorship gap when it comes to building an online presence. What can we do, as adults (as role models!) to demonstrate how to behave online, or how to harness the power of global connectivity and make a difference in the world? I find this to be an especially tricky topic in a time where we, as teachers, are cautioned to not engage in ANY public online communication with students.

Toward the end of the presentation, Kristen introduced us to many great resources, both to address the topic of digital citizenship in the classroom, and also to learn more about the potential impact of good digital citizenship through online projects. One of the lenses in which to focus the idea of good citizenship is to look at shifting away from purely "self-serving" uses of technology and look more toward modelling connectivity and collaboration.

Traditionally, after our guest speaker's presentation, we take time to explore resources and tools, reserving the last hour or so of the session for discussion, implementation, and collaboration. And while we had good intentions of doing just that, the group quickly turned to pure discussion, and continued until our time was up! 

In between bites of brunch, we talked about how digital citizenship can be introduced into the citizenship unit in the grade 10 Civics/Careers course, how to best model being online, reducing anxiety of students when it comes creating digital resources, and whether digital citizenship is best taught through a top-down or bottom-up approach.

Conversations like the one we had remind me that when you bring together educators who are passionate about a given topic, it leads to some tremendous discussion and a wealth of ideas on how to start making a difference in our classrooms. We all came away from the session both with lots of ideas to still process, but also a more clear idea on how to get started with our own students.

A Storify Twitter archive of the day's session can be found here, and our list of great digital citizenship resources can be found here.

For more information on Manitoulin IGNITEd sessions, check out other entries in this blog, or follow us on Twitter at @ManIGNITEd.

Dec. 6: Robotics!

One of the things we strive to do with our IGNITEd sessions, is cater to what participating teachers want to learn. At the end of the summer, one of our previous participants suggested an introduction to robotics, and we were happy to comply.

On Saturday, December 6, Manitoulin IGNITEd welcomed Darren Foy from Algonquin Public School (Sudbury) and volunteers from his school's robotics team to introduce an enthusiastic group of teachers to LEGO EV3 Mindstorm robots. He put together an amazing workshop that combined lots of play time with the robots with information as to what this robotics thing is all about.

Darren giving us the overview of the day, and introducing us to resources.

Most of us had never had the chance to play with robotics like this before, and weren't sure what to expect. Darren started us off with a couple of videos showing us the best of the best - what do the most advanced robotics groups do with this technology?

We then talked about how FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO Robotics League works, including the emphasis placed on fair play, sportsmanship and team work. The robotics team shared with us how they witness students practice persistence and become more creative in their approach to programming, as well as how students quickly learn that it's better to get really good at a few tasks rather than being mediocre at many tasks.

Algonquin's team display at the recent FIRST LEGO League competition, which focused on growth mindset.

Darren walked us through how to best apply for funding, and how the club works at his school as well as at a couple of the high schools in Sudbury.

After a bit of discussion, the robots were unleashed! Each student expert was paired up with a couple of adults who tackled a couple of basic challenges, such as programming a robot to follow a line, or to turn before a robot runs into a wall.

We finished up with lots of questions and answers for our hosts, a curriculum scavenger hunt, yet more hands-on time, and several grapes being launched across the room by robotic arms!

We ended the day with at least two grant proposals being put together to try and get robotics to the island. Huge thank you to Darren and all of our parent volunteers and student experts for a thrilling workshop, true to the IGINITEd spirit!

You can check out our #2014IGNITEd Twitter feed from the day here. 

Reflections on Redefining Student Learning with Technology

Our most recent session (March 22) was looking at ways to redefine student learning with technology. In particular, we were trying to reach the ever-elusive upper levels of the SAMR model.

The SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition) model, developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, is a spectrum of sorts, demonstrating how we can use technology in an educational setting. The spectrum begins with direct substitution (instead of looking at a hardcover textbook, one could look at an e-book of the same text), and finishes with a complete redefinition of the learning environment - having students create their resources and communicate their learning with the world.

Our guide for the morning was Neil Finney (@igniteincite), a teacher from the Simcoe County District School Board who has been very active in not only engaging students with technology, but also having them create new products, reaching out beyond the boundaries of the classroom.

After a quick introduction to SAMR using a grade 2 science example, we let Neil take over for the first hour. He introduced us to a great many tools - some familiar, like Skype, Twitter and Dropbox, others new to many of us, such as Screencast-o-matic, blogging tools and todaysmeet. There are so many ways we can help our students reach out to others outside of the classroom, and it was very inspirational to see examples in action.

One of the group's favourite example of student collaboration was how Neil had his senior elementary students plan an outdoors, Olympics-like event for the junior students. All of the planning and collaboration was done online with another group of students, however the product was anything but digital - it was all the events and activities for the younger children. What a great idea to meet the students where they are and engage them using technological tools, but end with a result of physically getting out of the classroom and involved in their community!

Image from http://www.thinklinkgraphics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2013-OELC-web.png

Neil also introduced us to an image of how students imagine the future of Ontario's education system (above). How can we use the tools available to us to help students get what they want out of their education?

The idea of screencasting also impressed us. Neil used this to have his students not only demonstrate their knowledge (of math, in particular), but also to practice their learning. One of our participants noted that having students literally talk their way through problem solving while their work was screencasted was not as "high stakes" as a test, and might help relieve student stress, while still having them complete higher-order thinking tasks.

After Neil's talk, we took the time to discuss whether we thought the idea of SAMR was a linear process (teachers new to using technology in class should start with substitution, and progress through augmentation and modification to redefinition), or whether a teacher could jump into the middle of the spectrum wherever they pleased.

Discussion around the table.

...and then we jumped in wherever we pleased, trying new tools. One teacher took the time and created a class blog, whereas others played with pinboards like padlet, and screencasting tools. We were given a handout to help us get started on where, in our own curricula, we could begin the SAMR process.

One of my personal favourite parts of these IGNITEd sessions is that we have the time to discuss what we've learned from our guest, and actually start to implement some of these ideas into where we are in the classroom. Thank you, Neil, for your inspiration and for documenting some of the amazing things you and your students are doing to redefine the learning process, and then sharing them with us!