C21 Teaching
  • Home
  • FTPL Videos
  • Blog
  • List of Blog Series
  • Education Resources
  • Starting with Flipped Learning
  • Friday Freebie
  • About Me
  • Contact

Teaching Internet Fundamentals Part Three

28/9/2016

0 Comments

 
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.”
― Attributed to Neil Gaiman
Last week I published two articles (here and here) talking about how I planned to explicitly introduce students to the internet, and address misconceptions to ensure that they were all on the same page when it came to understanding the fundamentals of using the internet. I recently delivered the first lesson in the unit to a Year Four class and it went somewhere between poorly and average and was a good way of reminding me that I am not as good or as experienced as I sometimes think that I think I am due to how comfortable and settled I am in the school.

I still firmly believe that the Google Search Engine Lesson Plans (GSELP) are valuable resources, but I think that I need to find a way of resetting my expectations as I move between classes. Being the RFF teacher is a difficult position, moving from class to class and age group to age group, I still get caught out on a semi-regular basis expecting too much of younger students, having just had Stage Three, or, as happened today, going from having Kindergarten to Year Four and adjusting my expectation back up, but adjusting them too far and still expecting too much.

Looking at it now, I structured the lesson poorly and I am fortunate that the students in this class are, on the whole very polite with only a few overly exuberant students. I had the students work through a series of questions to get an understanding of their preconceptions about the internet, writing them down, and then used a class discussion to bring it together, which showed some interesting thoughts from students:
Picture
After completing the Padlet, I then went through the presentation that had been put together, after getting students to stand up and stretch and move around. I think that I had effectively lost them by this point and It was not until we got to the Kahoot that I had put together as a summative learning that they perked back up and re-engaged, but it demonstrated that they had not understood what we had discussed, as many of their answers were incorrect.. I have more Stage Two classes tomorrow (as I write this) and I will deliver the lesson very differently to those classes. Just because I am the teacher does not mean I get it right all the time. I just need to be sure that I learn the lesson and get it right the next time.
​
Tomorrow will be introductory video first, then a slow work through of the questions one at a time, with students identifying their own pre-conceptions and then class discussion and explanation of the meaning before moving onto the subsequent question. I feel that this approach will be more effective and result in the students understanding the concepts more than my students did today.
0 Comments

Internet Fundamentals Part Two

24/9/2016

0 Comments

 
“The Internet: transforming society and shaping the future through chat. “
– Attributed to Dave Barry
Yesterday I wrote an article about how I had begun to explicitly teach my Stage Two students about the internet, some of the terminology they will hear, how to get the most out of doing searches and some other fundamental skills. Whilst doing some research for the unit of learning I am beginning with my Stage Three students last night, I stumbled across a resource that will make teaching my Stage Two students about the internet a great deal easier than it otherwise might be.

​Google has a series of Basic Search Education Lesson Plans broken into three modules, each with three lessons as seen in the image below:
Picture
Overview of Google’s Basic Search Education Lesson Plans retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/gwebsearcheducation/lessonplans on 06/06/2015

This series of lessons is nicely constructed and affords the opportunity to discuss some ideas that I had not even considered, including the very first part of lesson one; asking the students what a browser is. Whilst, yes, there is the presumption that all students are digital natives, and it is true in so far as they are born into a world where digital devices and technology are largely ubiquitous, in regards to their level of familiarity and ability with those same devices, there is a vast array of ability and comfort levels. It is not just those of the older generations who hold some fears of technology.

Having spent some time reviewing the lessons, I think they are a very good fit for my students and a good starting point and will be using them, in conjunction with formative and summative assessment to check for my students’ pre-knowledge and misconceptions using a Kahoot quiz that I have generated based on the lesson.

​This is one of the things that I love about teaching now, as opposed to teaching twenty years ago; the internet makes the process of finding resources more efficient, and allows me to draw from a more diverse range of activities than my colleagues in decades past have had access to.
0 Comments

Internet Fundamentals

24/9/2016

0 Comments

 
“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.”
-Attributed to Mitchell Kapor
I have spent a significant amount of time with Stage Two teaching them some computer fundamentals such as opening and closing programs and files, saving, renaming, searching for files, keyboard shortcuts that are considered ubiquitous such as cut/copy/paste and I felt that it was time move on. I want to begin to explore the internet with them, as part of the ongoing discussion about digital citizenship and online safety, but also to give them the fundamentals about how to use the internet. Despite the oft-used title of digital natives, its is my experience thus far that many students are most certainly not digital natives.

Accordingly today I spent some time going through the basics of understanding the different components of an internet browser, such as opening a new tab, a new window, the difference between a search bar in a search engine and the URL/Address bar, also known as the Omnibox.

I had students do a search relating to a particular topic they are learning about with their classroom teacher at the moment (so far I have had classes tell me Australian National Parks or Australian pre-history; as in the exploration and discovery of Australia prior to English settlement). As part of that we have also talked about the various search features of Google such as the search tools for the different search options. This has included a brief overview of how to refine an image search to show those labelled for noncommercial reuse, refining a web search by year, a book search by document type etc. I have also had a few teacher aides in the room at different types and they have indicated that they also have learned things through the lesson, which is another benefit.
​
I feel like it is a good investment in time to ensure that the students in this age group have some of these fundamental computer skills as these basics of digital literacy will be assumed knowledge as they progress through their education
0 Comments

Trial and Error

21/8/2016

0 Comments

 
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” 
– Attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt
The last two days have been, I feel, rather successful overall. I have had mainly primary classes and have been able to get stuck into a few parts of the program that I wanted to test, and have learned a lot about how to administer those aspects of the program.

First of all, my initial thoughts conducting formative assessment was to have the class watching one of my book studies videos whilst I spent time with one, two or three students, depending on computer availability within each classroom. I realised that with the state/quality of most computers in classrooms that that would not be particularly feasible. What I spent yesterday and today doing, with four classes, was quite different to what I originally envisioned when I developed the program.

I have fairly free access to the school bank of laptops at the moment, which helps with this. What I have been doing is assigning students in pairs to the laptops, having them log in and open up MS Word. They have been asked to create a recount or narrative, within which they must demonstrate their ability to utilise particular editing and formatting functions, such as changing the font, font size and colour, text justification, lists, bold, italics and underline and a series of other skills.

Students then save this document to my flash drive, and I then open each one, assess which skills they have successfully demonstrated and record the date for each skill within a master spreadsheet against their name. It has worked quite well thus far, and I think that I will continue with this process.

The other option that I have considered is providing students with a sample of dummy text, and asking them to edit it to demonstrate particular skills. This is how I think I will assess their ability to utilise some skills such as the grammar and spell check functions.

It has been interesting noting down which skills students possess, and thus far the skill sets have been fairly consistent, across all students in the primary classes (with the exception of year five students who are away this week on a camp). The majority of students can utilise bold, italics, and underline, as well as change the font, font size and font colour. There have been a handful who have inserted an image, a text box (which was not a skill I asked them to demonstrate) and insert borders, and one student inserted a watermark.

I have also now utilised the myEdapp website with a handful of classes, and the more I use it, the more I like it. Creating the units of work (called quests) is incredibly easy, and provides an inbuilt range of activity options, including videos, multiple choice, open text response, class discussion and others, and once the quest has been built in your library, it is there ready to go for next year, and is only two clicks away from being added to a new class.

Marking is straightforward, and provides the opportunity to give as much or as little feedback as you want, as each activity/question in the quest can be given feedback. You can also set the quest up so that students are required to self-assess against a sample answer, allowing you to give an indication of what you are looking for (particularly useful for reminding students they need to use full sentences), and they can self mark against whichever marking scale you select (numbers, words descriptors etc).

I can also add other teachers to a class. This could be particularly useful for those in a job-share arrangement, or for those teachers in the position I am in, where they are providing relief time for the regular classroom teacher as it allows the regular classroom teacher an opportunity to see what the students are achieving and keep up to date with what you are teaching.

The support has been first class thus far. I spoke with Yohan and Daniel at their stand during my time at the FutureSchools Expo in March this year. I caught the tail-end of a walk through of the system that Yohan was giving to another teacher. I spent time after that presentation talking to Yohan about the aspects that I missed in the presentation, and then had another chat with Daniel later that afternoon for another bite at the cherry and the chance to reabsorb the information. The webapp bypasses the YouTube block that the NSW DEC has in place, allowing you to use your teacher judgement and insert appropriate and meaningful videos for your students to watch about any skill or concept (N.b. – this is the prime opportunity to insert the videos that YOU have created for your flipped class).

I was excited by this, as there is a large range of quality content on YouTube that is genuinely useful in the classroom for students. Contacting the team for support is a one click option (once you are logged in). There is a message icon at the bottom of the screen, which then opens up a sidebar chat screen where you type in your message, hit enter and the message is sent. Every question that I have sent through has been answered within a few hours (barring a few messages sent through on a weekend), and the team has been incredibly helpful, offering to input my class lists for me when I was having issues having those input correctly. Issues that I have raised have been taken on board, and work-arounds provided, with permanent solutions being in the works.

Students have found it to be highly engaging as well. I spent time at the end of the two lessons in which I used the site asking the students for feedback on the site, and they all felt that it was easy to navigate, that it was easy to use and that the structure made it easy to follow through what they needed to do. The only thing that I got caught out on, partly because I missed that it was there, was the chat feature. I ended up having students turn it off as it was becoming a distraction and there was some silliness going on. If it is going to be on, as I can see some value in its use as a back channel discussion tool. Overall however, myEd has been, for me, as someone who is attempting to flip all of my classes, an invaluable tool.

I have also just created the first video in what will become a series on fundamental computer skills. My initial thoughts was that I would have two or three skills in each video, but keeping in mind the guidelines for creating flipped videos that Jon Bergmann gave us during the masterclass at the FutureSchools Expo, I am trying to keep them nice and short. This first video focuses solely on the difference between shutting down, logging out and restarting the computer, and and is just under five minutes long, which I am quite happy with.

As always, thank you for reading, and if anyone would be interested in attending a TeachMeet on the Central Coast of NSW about the flipped class and BYOD, I would love to hear from you.
0 Comments

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @C21_Teaching

    Categories

    All
    21st Century Learning
    3D Printing
    Aaron Sams
    Abdul Chohan
    Aboriginal Culture
    Aboriginal Education
    Academia
    ACARA
    Accreditation
    ACER
    Action Research
    ADE
    Aimmee Shattock
    AirSquirrels
    AITSL
    Alex Smith
    Alfie Kohn
    Alfina Jackson
    Alice Keeler
    Alice Leung
    AM Hon DLitt
    And Clark
    And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
    Anne Van Der Graaf
    Announcement
    ANZAC Day
    Apple Distinguished Educator
    App Speed Dating
    Artificial Intelligence
    Ashanti Branch
    Assessment
    Augmented Reality
    AussieEd
    Australian Curriculum
    Awards
    Awesome
    Baby
    Behaviour
    BetterU
    Blake Seufert
    Blogging
    Bloom's Taxonomy
    Books
    Book Study
    Bradley Loiselle
    Brad Loiselle
    Branching
    Break
    Brett Salakas
    Brett Wood
    Brighton Secondary School
    Bron Stuckey
    BYO
    BYOD
    BYODD
    BYOT
    Cameron Malcher
    Camtasia
    Cara Johnson
    Career Change
    Carol Dweck
    Carolina Buitrago & Martha Ramirez
    Casual Teaching
    Catherine Ford
    Cathie Howe
    Change
    Charles Fadel
    Charles Leadbeater
    Chelsea Wright
    Chris McNamara
    Christopher Pyne
    Chromakey
    Chromebooks
    Clarification
    Class Notebook
    Classroom Economy
    Classroom Management
    ClassTech
    Class Tools
    ClickView
    CLT
    Coding
    Coercion
    Cognitive Load Theory
    Collaboration
    Collegiality
    Community Engagement
    Computer Skills
    Conference Expo
    Conference Review
    Confidence
    Connected Classroom
    Consequences
    Constantin Lomaca
    Constructivism
    Contemporary Pedagogy
    Cooinda AECG
    Copyright
    Corinne Campbell
    Cornell Notetaking
    Creative Writing
    Creativity
    Critical Thinking
    Crystal Caton
    Cultures Of Thinking
    Curiosity
    Cyberbullying
    Cyber Security
    Daily Summary
    Dan Haesler
    Dan Jones
    Data
    David Jakes
    Deborah Nicholson
    Democracy
    Digital Citizenship
    Digital Curriculum
    Digital Learner
    Digital Literacies
    Digital Literacy
    Digital Natives
    Digital Pedagogy
    Digital Pedgogy
    #DigLit
    Discipline
    DocHub
    Domains Of Knowledge
    Dominic Hearne
    Drama
    Dr. Britta Jensen
    Dr Caroline West
    Dr. David Zyngier
    Dr. Jane Kise
    Dr. Janelle Wills
    Dr Janine Beekhuyzen
    Dr Jill Margerison
    Dr. Kevin Donnelly
    Dr. Milton Chen
    Dr. Nerida McCredie
    Drones
    Dr. Rachel Wilson
    Dr. Robert Talbert
    Dr. Ruben Puentedura
    Duolingo
    Dyslexia
    Dyslexie
    Early Years Learning
    Earth Engine Time-Lapse
    Easter
    Ed Cuthbertson
    EdTech
    Education
    Educational Technology
    Education Funding
    Education Nation
    Education Policy
    Education Portfolio
    Education Vendor
    Education Week
    EduChange
    EduMedia
    #EduNationAu
    EduTech
    @EduTweetOz
    Edward DeBono
    Elder Gavi
    ELearning
    Elizabeth Amvrazis
    Employment
    English
    Eric Bogle
    Eric Mazur
    Errol St Clair Smith
    Esafety
    ESafety Commissioner
    Eureka
    Evidence Based Practice
    Experienced Teachers
    Family
    Feedback
    Film
    Flexibility
    #FlipConAdl
    FlipConAus
    FlipConNZ
    FlipLearnCon
    Flipped Learning
    Football
    Foundation For Young Australians
    Friday Freebie
    Frozen
    FTPL
    Fun
    Fundamental Movement Skills
    Furniture
    FutureSchools Expo
    GAFE
    Game Based Learning
    Game-Based Learning
    Gamification
    Gaming
    Gary Stager
    Gavin Hays
    GDocs
    GDrive
    Genius Hour
    Geography
    Gert Biesta
    GForms
    Glenn Carmichael
    Glenunga International HS
    Gonski
    Google
    Google Apps For Education
    Google Classroom
    Google Docs
    Google Drive
    Google Forms
    Google Lines
    Google Maps
    Google Slides
    Google Suite
    Graduation
    Gratefulness
    Green Screen
    Greg Ashman
    Greg Whitby
    Group Work
    Growth Mindset
    GSheets
    Heather Davis
    Heath Wild
    Higher Education
    History
    Hogan Assessments
    Holidays
    Homework
    Honours
    Hopscotch
    Horizon Report
    HSC
    Ian Jukes
    Ian Thomson
    ICT
    Ideology
    Indigenous Culture
    Initial Teacher Education
    Inquiry Based Learning
    Interland
    International Baccalaureate
    Internet Skills
    Invent To Learn
    IPad
    IPads
    ITE
    Iteration
    IWBNet
    #IWishMyTeacherKnew
    Iyah Rahwan
    Jack Hyland
    Jack Hylands
    Jacqui Murray
    James Meijboom
    Jamie Dorrington
    Jane Caro
    Jan Owen
    Jared Cooney Horvath
    Jean Piaget
    Jennie Magiera
    Jenny Magiera
    Jeremy Cumming
    Jeremy LeCornu
    Jim Sill
    Joel Speranza
    John Bergmann
    John Burfoot
    John Catterson
    John Dewey
    John Goh
    John Hattie
    Jon Bergmann
    Josh Aghion
    Kahoot
    Kanga Cup
    Kate Lanier
    Katharine Birbalsingh
    Katie Jackson
    Kaye North
    Keith Crawford
    Ken Bauer
    Kid President
    Kim Maksimovic
    Kindergarten
    Kirschner
    Kirsty Tonks
    Kirsty Watts
    Language
    Leadership
    Leanne Steed
    Learning
    Learning Spaces
    Library
    Lifelong Learners
    Life Maths
    Lila Mularczyk
    Lily Young
    Linda Ray
    Lindy West
    Lip Sync Battle
    Lisa Rodgers
    Literacy
    Louann Brizendine
    MacICT
    Makerspace
    Marc Prensky
    Margaret Merga
    Marissa Peters
    Mark Gungor
    Mark Liddel
    Mary Lousie Ryan
    Masterclass
    Mastery
    Mathematics
    Mathletics
    Matt Burns
    Matt Noffs
    Matt Richards
    Matt Scadding
    Media
    Melbourne Declaration
    Melbourne Girls Grammar
    Melinda Cashen
    Mental Health
    Merrylands East PS
    Metacognition
    Michaela Community School
    Michael Aulden
    Michael Beilharz
    Michael Ha
    Michael O'Leary
    Microsoft
    Milton Chen PhD
    Minecraft
    Mistakes
    Monique Dali
    Moral Machine
    Morals And Ethics
    Motivational
    Movie Making
    Murat Dizdar
    Music
    MyEd
    NAO Robotos
    NAPLAN
    Netiquette
    New Beginnings
    Newspapers
    New Teachers
    NMC Horizon Report
    No Excuses
    Note Taking
    Numeracy
    Oakhill College
    Office365
    Offline Access
    Old School Teachers
    Olivia-oneill
    Onedrive
    Onenote
    Organisation
    Padlet
    Panel Discussion
    Parent Communication
    Paul Hamilton
    PBL
    PCPS
    PD
    PDHPE
    PDP
    Pedagogy
    Pedro Negouera
    Peer Instruction
    Peggy Sheehy
    Penny Bentley
    Personal Characteristics
    Peter Adams
    Peter Ellis
    Peter Hutton
    Peter Mader
    Peter Paccone
    Peter Whiting
    Phillip Cooke
    Phillip Heath
    Philosophy
    Phonics
    Physical Education
    PISA
    Place Based Learning
    Planning And Programming
    PLN
    Politics
    Prakash Nair
    Pranav Mistry
    Pre-Learning
    Presenting
    Primary Classroom
    Privacy
    Private Education
    Problem Solving
    Productivity
    Professional Associations
    Professional Development
    Professional Learning
    Professor Barry McGraw
    Professor Geoff Masters
    Professor Jane Burns
    Professor Ken Wiltshire
    Professor Richard Buckland
    Professor Richard Telford
    Project Based Learning
    Prue Gill
    Public Education
    Public Vs Private
    Punishment
    QR Codes
    Questioning
    Rainy Mood
    Ralph Pirozzo
    Reading
    Recycling
    Referee
    Reflection
    Reflector
    Reggio Emilia Approach
    Relationships
    Reports
    Research
    Research Skills
    Resilience
    Resources
    Respect
    Rewards
    RFF
    Richard Byrne
    Robert Livingstone
    Robotics
    Roundtables
    Rupert Denton
    Ryan Gill
    Ryan Hull
    Sally Wood
    SAMR
    Santa
    Sarah Asome
    School Culture
    School Policy
    School Tour
    Science
    ScopeIT
    Self-Branding
    Seymour Papert
    Shane Hancock
    Shireen Winrow
    Silence
    Simon Birmingham
    Simon Breakspear
    Simon Brooks
    Simon Crook
    Simone Segat
    Simon McKenzie
    Simon Sinek
    Sir Ken Robinson
    Sixth Sense Technology
    Social Media
    Socratic Seminars
    Solar System
    Special Needs
    SponeBob Squarepants
    Sport
    Spreadsheet
    Staff Development Day
    Stage One
    Stage Three
    Standardised Testing
    Star Wars
    STEM
    Stephanie Kriewaldt
    Stephen Lethbridge
    STM Bags
    Stories
    Storify
    Stress
    Student Mobility
    Student Wellbeing
    Sue Waters
    Sugata Mitra
    Sunk Cost
    Super Awesome Sylvia
    Susan Bowler
    Sweller
    Sylvia Libow Martinez
    Teacher Education
    Teacher Fever
    Teacher Life
    Teachers Talking Teaching Podcast
    Teacher Value
    Teacher Wellbeing
    #TeachforThink
    Teaching
    Teaching Boys
    Teaching Philosophy
    TeachMeet
    Team Teaching
    TED Talk
    Temporary Contract
    Teresa Deshon
    TER Podcast
    The Arts
    The Eddies
    The Four Cs
    The Hewes Family
    Thinking Skills
    Think Pair Share
    Thomas William Nielsen
    THRASS
    Times Tables
    TMCoast
    #TMSpaces
    Topic Tags
    Tour Builder
    TPCK
    TPL
    Transmedia Storytelling
    Trial And Error
    Troy Faulkner
    Trust
    Tweetdeck
    Twenty-First Century Skills
    Twitter
    University
    URL Shorteners
    Vale
    Value
    Video
    Virtual Reality
    Visual Art
    VR
    Warren McMahon
    Winning
    Word Online
    Work Life Balance
    Worklife-balance
    Writing
    Youngling
    Youtube

Support

Contact
About
Flipped Teacher Professional Learning Videos
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photo used under Creative Commons from brianc
  • Home
  • FTPL Videos
  • Blog
  • List of Blog Series
  • Education Resources
  • Starting with Flipped Learning
  • Friday Freebie
  • About Me
  • Contact