Promoting OneDrive for Student Use

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At St Andrew’s College we are extremely fortunate to have two great staff manning the IT helpdesk; Joshua and Brodie. Frustratingly, as the College’s 1:1 laptop programme nears universal coverage, they continue to see students, and occasionally staff, whose computers have failed, often through no fault of their own. Too often the owners are faced with the, sometimes devastating, realisation that their data is potentially irretrievable. This can be particularly traumatic for students who lose part, or all, of an NCEA assessment.

Brodie Dickinson

Mr Brodie Dickinson

Joshua Harrison

Mr Joshua Harrison

Educating Students in Data Security

Earlier this year all Year 9 students were, for the first time, initiated into the platforms and programmes that we use most often at St Andrew’s. This is obviously an avenue for future student education about file safety, but for the rest of the student body there are challenges engaging students with a topic as potentially un-engaging to them as data security.

The catalyst for action on the College-wide promotion of OneDrive as the cloud storage solution for Collegians was the opportunity to test the class-wide implementation with Year 8 students. In an earlier meeting, a Year 8 staff member had mentioned that there was some confusion within his class of what they should be doing, and the ins and outs of using OneDrive as a storage solution. Our solution was to approach all Year 8 teachers and request a period to install OneDrive on the devices of all their students.

With the stability of the Next Generation OneDrive Sync Client we felt that it was prudent to actively encourage students to use this service. Joshua and I gained access to the four Year 8 classes in a two week period – refining the process down to less than 25mins to install and activate the Client on all student devices in a class. There were certain challenges with a small number of students whose devices were set up to stop them installing software on their devices without parental permission – a situation that is understandable for Year 8 students.

The result of this action was that we were happy with the class-wide implementation of OneNote as a feasible way to gain traction within the Preparatory School, and perhaps class-by-class may in fact be the most effective implementation method for students of this age.

Year 9 usage survey

In the Middle School, and Senior College it is perhaps a little more complicated. With upwards of 1000 students it is difficult to find an efficient way to engage students in the process. In an informal brainstorming session it was decided to try a range of approaches in a short period of time to try to raise awareness of OneDrive as a potential secure, online data storage solution.

Poster created for Preparatory Students

Poster created for Preparatory Students

To gain a bit more information about OneDrive usage in the school I initially surveyed a Y9 class. It was interesting to discover that, from a group of 26 students, only four were actively backing up their data to a cloud based service – two using OneDrive, and two using Dropbox. This behaviour was not due to ignorance of the risks however, as every student spoken to was able to articulate awareness that their data would be compromised if their computer was stolen, or damaged. This information further solidified my opinion that many of our students are aware, but essentially ambivilent to the risks of losing their data. This, in turn, consolidated my desire to produce a resource to change student attitudes and behaviour in this space.

Resouce Production

As a result, Joshua and I have produced a series of four posters, and accompanying videos, to help students engage with OneDrive as a sensible online data storage solution. Because we are a Y1-13 school the posters have been designed to hopefully engage students of different ages, with one produced particularly for a Preparatory School audience and another for Senior College students. The remaining two are for a more general audience.

Poster4

Example of a more generic poster

Student Feedback

An important stage of the production stage was gaining feedback from students. It is important that these posters effectively inform students, and by showing early drafts to students of differing ages we were able to make some important changes, mostly around the clarity of the message, ensuring that it was obvious to the students what their next step should be. This feedback was gained from students who were in Helpdesk, as well as Joshua and I approaching students in different parts of the school asking for direct feedback.

Video resources have also been produced to guide students through both the installation process, and the basic usage of OneDrive as a tool. Care was taken to ensure that we produced videos for both Mac and Windows users. As usual these video resources were stored on the StAC eLearning YouTube Channel.

Resource roll-out

With the holidays quickly approaching, it will be week one next term when we launch these resources. I am planning a multi-platform approach, with printed and electronic versions of the posters in circulation, deans and tutors emailed, and spoken to, in an attempt to generate a conversation in class, and the instructional videos will be promoted to students via email and the front of the moodle site. I am hopeful that students will engage with this message, and ultimately the payoff will be fewer students in Helpdesk with lost work!

Making Great Television to Reinforce Social Studies Learning

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As blogged about in 2014, St Andrew’s College has been running the only professional television studio in a New Zealand school for almost 20 years. What is particularly exciting for me is the potential of other subjects to utilise this fantastic resource to allow students to conceptualise, and create video content.

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to attend a PD day that featured Dr Rueben Puentedura, that developed my own understanding about the SAMR model and its application in unit planning. An important aspect of this learning is that, as part of the redefinition of a unit, technology is allowing students greater opportunities to create meaningful content. With our fully functioning studio, students at St Andrew’s College have the opportunity to produce high quality video content, that both reinforces their own understanding, and displays their learning for others. One such recent example has recently concluded in Year 10 Social Studies.

Mr Simon Williams - Head of Television and Film

Mr Simon Williams – Head of Television and Film

Decade Study – The Swinging 60’s

A Level 5 Curriculum Objective in Social Studies requires students to study how the ideas and actions of people in the past have had a significant impact on people’s lives. This year, students undertook a decade study of the 1960’s; including aspects such as historical events, music, and fashion. This was a very popular unit with students, but, as always, the challenge was making their learning authentic.

Mr Simon Williams, the head of Film and Television, was interested in this new unit of work, and offered to assist the teachers to create some video resources to complement their classroom learning. Because the majority of students access learning in the TV studio as part of the Performing Arts course at either Year 9 or 10, there was no need to spend time on the ‘how’ to create such material. This meant students already had the skills to produce an interview style television program, and they could focus on the content.

Mr Williams wanted the process to be smooth and clearly beneficial for the Social Studies staff members, so he assisted by writing a simple script, and organising several interviews with staff that have fond memories of the decade, as well as a television cameraman who cut his teeth in Vietnam in the 1960’s; Mr Wayne Williams.

Student Involvement

The students’ roles included filming, performing, presenting and editing the final production – to create a number of professional standard videos that were ultimately edited into a 35 minute television program.

Students with varying levels of experience were able to contribute to the production of such a programme as the interview format is very familiar and accessible for them. This fact emphasises the potential of the Television studio to help students of almost any subject area to enhance their learning by creating resources of various forms.

Putting Social Studies Learning into Action

The head of Social Studies at St Andrew’s College, Miss Kerry Larby, was enthused by the activity.

One of the key aspects of Social Studies is perspectives, so it was extremely beneficial for our students to hear the authentic experiences of staff members they interact with on a daily basis, but may not realise their past experiences. 

Miss Larby also noted that one of the focuses of the unit was helping students to discover the wealth of resources that exist within people, rather than relying on the easy, often web-based, option. Each student was encouraged to identify, and interview, somebody who had clear memories and experiences in the 1960’s and make use of this information to supplement their learning in class.

Collaboration for Mutual Benefit 

Students at St Andrew’s College are extremely fortunate to have access to the remarkable television studio. SetWidth204-TV-Studio2What was particularly pleasing about this activity was the cross curricular nature of the production; utilising students’ existing television creation and editing skills to show, and develop, their learning in Social Studies.

There is certainly scope for more subjects across the College to implement similar tasks, and I look forward to reporting on them on this blog in the future!

 

 

 

 

Promoting Digital Citizenship With John Parsons

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john-parsonsLast week John Parsons from Simulate 2 Educate ran 45 minute sessions with students in each year level of Year 9-13 at St Andrew’s College, along with an after school Professional Development hour with teachers. The day finished with an evening parent session, that included a candid outline of the challenges facing students and parents when it comes to cyber security and technology usage.

John’s presentations were engaging and humorous and he succeeded in connecting with the students at all year levels, whilst delivering an unflinchingly real message of the risky behaviour happening online. Pleasingly, this was entirely absent of any elements of judgement because of their age; instead he highlighted the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars are being lost annually by adults making poor decisions or being duped online.

Idle curiosity and social engineering are powerful factors that drive decision making and both are exploited through risky online behaviour. John highlighted this with two examples:

  1. If a student found a USB stick lying outside the gates of the school and they took it home, plugged it into the family computer and found a file on there named “click me.docx”. Curiosity might drive them to open that file which could lead to the installation of a keystroke logging app which would collect and send typed information allowing the original owner of the USB stick to receive confidential information such as online banking or Facebook usernames/passwords.
  2. If a Facebook user received a message saying “You should see the picture that David has shared of you online, click this link to view”. The hook here is basically everyone knows somebody called “David” so it has an element of potential truth and instead of seeing the image they are redirected to a squeeze page  which might solicit their first and last names, and either their cell phone number or email address. Worse still, it may include a download file/link to see the picture but all it really installs is a keystroke logger.

The reality for our students is that they are born into a super-connected world in a way that their parents never were. Typically, when adults think of privacy they generally mean or refer to someone else taking care of the security of information to prevent someone from accessing it inappropriately. John’s message to students was essentially that view of privacy is dead and now the responsibility is all around self-control where the individual needs to take complete ownership of the sharing of their personal details and manage this themselves.

Every single one of you in this room is going to be subjected to a Google search by a prospective employer … I know over 96 boys and girls who can not get part time jobs because of content that their friends have posted online about them.

John Parsons (Simluate 2 Educate)

For this reason, John said, a student’s real CV is their online, digital footprint. Therefore they need to control this as tightly as possible by not allowing people to capture and share photos that make you vulnerable. Interestingly, John shared three ways that individuals are profiled by businesses and these went beyond just being in a photo in a compromising way:

  1. The pictures that people upload – do they lack or demonstrate empathy? Employers and Universities will ask this question of prospective employees/students. In other words, what kind of person would upload and share a photo that embarrasses or exploits another person in a vulnerable situation
  2. How do people talk to each other and what kind of content are they sharing and promoting online? Does it lack or demonstrate empathy? This is a key message as it’s very easy to be a digital bystander who perhaps didn’t upload the original content, but by liking or commenting on it can make you complicit.
  3. The company you keep – what sort of behaviour is going on in photos you are tagged in and what sort of people are you following and communicating with in your social networks.

John Parsons used this video to highlight the risks and attitudes to sharing highly personal content online.

Practical Steps Students Can Take:

A number of keys were provided to enable students to make better decisions online:

  • Stop communicating online whenever you receive a request or comment that makes you feel uncomfortable. If you stop responding to any messages you are taking control of the situation.
  • Screenshot the communication / request that made you feel uncomfortable in the first place. By collecting evidence of this you are again taking control of the situation.
  • Print or store the screenshots in a secure folder or location that can be shared with a trusted adult such as parents who can help students in this situation.

Don’t let technology, or the people that use it, erode the values that your family have given to you – you’re too valuable to allow technology to do this

John Parsons (Simulate 2 Educate)

This message came through time and again throughout the presentation: that the students are unique and too valuable to allow themselves to be exploited online. John further dared the students to care – to not walk past people who are in need (whether this is physically in person or online). He encouraged them to ask a student if they are ok and how they’re feeling if they had observed unkind or unhelpful things online directed at that student. Finally, he urged them to not cheapen themselves but to instead nurture and protect their identity.

Reflections:

These messages from John are timely and need to be consistently delivered to students, staff and parents on a regular basis because of the real risks that can be associated with content shared online. Making poor decisions in this area is not confined to teenagers, as evidenced by some of these high profile examples:

Whilst students increasingly have a “post first, think it through later” mentality when it comes to sharing all elements of their lives, the potential impact on their well being and prospective employment and study is significant.

Ultimately, Digital Citizenship is everyones responsibility and by following the advice of John Parsons and exhibiting self-control in what they share, students are taking the first step towards valuing themselves and their reputation.

Guest Post: Mr Dekker’s Journey With OneNote & Minecraft

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This is a repost of a blog on the official Microsoft Education blog where Mr Wilj Dekkers, a Year 6 teacher at St Andrew’s College and Microsoft Innovative Educator, recaps the journey of his classroom over the last two years with Microsoft OneNote and Minecraft.

OneNote is central to the pedagogy in my classroom and school. When you walk through the building you can witness the everyday use of the application from Year 4 to Year 8. You will see Active Boards where teachers annotate writing samples in the Content Library for students to use as a reference for their own learning. Students are huddled around their laptops debating which sources of information are most relevant to include in a shared notebook, and staff are reviewing meeting notes shared through a Professional Learning Group’s OneNote.

Preparatory School Inquiry Learning Model

Preparatory School Inquiry Learning Model

St. Andrew’s College uses a custom designed Inquiry Pathway—the core of which is built around helping students develop a collaborative approach to learning. The approach is question-driven, encouraging students to find the answers themselves, coming to their own conclusions. As a teacher, this is exciting; we plan and facilitate but cannot predict the final outcome.

Having planned an inquiry around national identity in the 21st century, I had posed a problem to my class: The Christchurch earthquakes of 2011 had left a long lasting scar on both the economy and identity of the city. Tourism was dwindling, with visitors flying in and quickly moving on to other parts of New Zealand’s South Island. I challenged my students to answer the question, “What does it mean to be a Kiwi in the 21st century?” and also find a way to bring tourists back to our city.

OneNote Minecraft 1

Students formed collaborative groups and created their own shared notebooks. They planned, questioned and researched their Kiwi icons. They interviewed parents and discussed how families from a variety of cultural backgrounds celebrated being “Kiwis” and what being a New Zealander meant to them. All of which was documented in each group’s shared OneNote Notebook.

Students began asking if they could book laptops to work together in our shared learning spaces outside the physical space of the room. They loved having the flexibility to be able to work together around a PC or laptop and then continue collaborating using OneNote at home, completely away from the physical space of the school, in the evenings. Students were so enthralled with the inquiry unit and ability to work together in real-time through OneNote. Parents even began commenting on how they had never seen their students so excited to return from school and get started on their homework.

Part of the inquiry was looking at how we could bring tourists back to Christchurch. This was where Minecraft was introduced to the class. Students brought in devices running the pocket edition and connected to shared realms via the school’s Wi-Fi. As well as working as a team to answer the big inquiry question, members of each group had individually focused on an aspect of Kiwi culture. I asked the students if they could build a theme park with Kiwiana-themed rides that incorporated elements from their inquiries.

Before long, the class was a buzzing hub of self-directed learning. Students were writing presentation speeches from their inquiry notebooks while Minecraft experts built bigger and better Kiwiana rides to showcase their learning. In the evenings, groups continued developing and improving their learning in preparation for the big day.

By the end of the third term of 2014, OneNote became a standard classroom tool. Having seen the benefits, families had started purchasing laptops for their students to use in our class. This again caused a chain reaction. Students with access to their own devices were using OneNote more, which in turn meant that more students began arriving with laptops.

This had to be managed carefully, since having a laptop in Year 6 is not required. I was wary of technology being used as a substitution tool and made sure that in my planning any use of OneNote or any other tools we were using was in ways that enhanced or allowed learning to take place in a way that could not be done without a device.

OneNote Minecraft 2

It was around this time that Sam McNeill, Director of ICT for the college, brought in six Surface Pro 3s to trial, and I was fortunate to be asked to use one in the prep school. Having always been a believer in the creative power of the pen, I was instantly won over by having the best of both worlds at my fingertips—a fully functional Windows tablet with a stylus that allowed me to write down ideas, thoughts and comments directly into my OneNote Notebooks. It did not take long for a few students to begin arriving with their own Surface tablets!

In the final term of the 2014 school year, we focused on our use of narrative; enhancing writing features and broadening our vocabulary. Using both OneNote and Minecraft seemed like a natural fit.

As a class, we read through “The Warlock of Firetop Mountain,” written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone in 1982. This book was one of the first “single-player gamebooks” and was the first of what was to become a successful series of pick-a-path gamebooks called “Fighting Fantasy.”

OneNote Minecraft 3

The students loved it. We discussed modern game worlds, from Fable to World of Warcraft. How could we emulate those fantastic “Fighting Fantasy” stories using the technology at our disposal, and how could the technology enhance the quality of our writing? We wanted our readers to have the same sense of choice and adventure we had experienced reading “Warlock,” while being able to share our writing without needing to produce any form of print media.

“Minecraft brings out the creativity in me. I love remaking my story Minecraft and improving my writing.”
—Mila

Through the insertion of hyperlinks connecting pages, students found an easy way to provide choices for the reader, and as notebooks stored on Onedrive could be easily shared, the audience for their writing expanded quickly. Students were sharing and collaborating on their adventure stories by allowing editing rights to certain classmates deemed to have the relevant skillsets to be seen as official class editors.

The inclusion of Minecraft was thanks to Ms Tam Yuill-Proctor, a Year 10 English teacher in our college. Students in Tam’s creative writing class had used Minecraft and other 3-D authoring tools to create worlds for their stories.

“Using Minecraft made my imagination go wild with thoughts!”
—Kinda

Our Year 6 students took Tam’s idea and expanded upon it by using Minecraft to both plan and develop their writing, as well as to review and revise the content, descriptive phrases and vocabulary. As their Minecraft worlds grew, so did their stories, which were housed in OneNote. In some cases, we had 10-year-old boys who were not big fans of writing producing 5000-word interactive pick-a-path stories. We published a blog entry detailing the OneNote and Minecraft pick-a-path story.

“Minecraft was helpful because it made me notice all the little details in my narrative that were never in my original bubble plan.”
—Padric

By 2015, most teachers in the prep school had embraced OneNote. The superb OneNote Class Notebook app creator was now an important element of Office 365, and students were appreciating the structure of the Collaboration Space, Content Library and their own personal sections.

Teachers were appreciating the organizational simplicity of adding resources and lessons into the Content Library for students to use in their own sections. Within my Year 6 class, multiple students arrived at the beginning of the year armed with Surface Pro 3s.

OneNote sections became collaborative planning spaces for groups designing games and interactive narratives; students naturally made use of the Collaboration Space to form group sections for our prosthetic hand designs for the 3-D printer.

This was also the first year that I started using Minecraft in Math. The students in my group weren’t huge fans of math. I knew they were capable of so much more, but their personal attitude towards the subject was that it was hard; comments at the start of the year were mostly, “I’m not good at math.” My focus was to change their attitudes to that of a growth mindset where they say, “I’m not good at math, yet!” Continue reading →

PowerBI Supports StAC’s Pastoral Care Programmes

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PowerBI

For the last 12 months we have been actively exploring how Microsoft’s Business Intelligence product called PowerBI could be used at St Andrew’s College. I have blogged about our initial experimentations with this here and that post would be a useful piece of pre-reading to provide context to this post.

This week has seen the culmination of a huge amount of work over the last four months, with Tutors being given access to what is being called the Tutor Quadrant Report. Below is a screencast showing some of the features of this (with identifying details blanked out):

Demonstrating The Tutor Quadrant Report

Initial feedback from Tutors has been very positive as they recognise this new report presents a significant step forward in terms of:

  • Ease of access – using their existing school username/password to access the report on any device with a browser and anywhere (they are not restricted to being on the College campus).
  • The collation of disparate data presented in an easily comprehensible, highly visual format. Previously, to obtain information on attendance, NCEA results, discipline and Fortnightly Notes would have required dozens of clicks, different windows and reports, and even using different platforms (both Synergetic and Sharepoint).
  • Speed – the reports load very quickly in the browser.

It is satisfying to hear this type of feedback given the significant level of investment and effort that has been made in developing this platform from where we were 12 months ago.

AIS.pngFor some understanding of this journey from Crystal Reporting through to PowerBI, the following video is a quick version of a presentation Mr Dave Neilson and I gave at the Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales’ annual ICT Leadership Conference 2016 in Canberra in May. The theme of the conference was Supporting Digital School Improvement and you can download a copy of the slides from this presentation here.

The abbreviated presentation from AIS NSW ICT Leadership Conference 2016

Some of the key points from this presentation include:

  • There are multiple ways you can use Microsoft PowerBI, we have explored two methods of deployment:
    • Manually generating reports in the free PowerBI Desktop App and publishing and storing content in the Azure blob in the cloud (quick and easy, but limited security options)
    • Developing an on-premise data warehouse and using ETL processes to extract data from various sources before loading into a tabular data model and connecting to the cloud via SSAS Gateway Connector. This is also very secure when implemented with row level security.
  • PowerBi was preferred at St Andrew’s College for a number of reasons, including:
    • It’s scaleable – educational pricing for Pro licenses is affordable  (~$4/m per user) and easily managed within the Office365 Licensing Administration area
    • It is easy to access – teachers can use their existing school username/password so there is limited barriers to entry and it is accessible via a browser from any device.
  • Visualisations of data are excellent. The ability to transform what was previously stored in spreadsheets and rows and columns of data into easily comprehensible displays is critical. There is a range of default visualisations as well as third party generated ones.

Next Steps:

time to talk

Time to talk! The power of a visual to highlight a student trending in the wrong direction.

With the release of the Tutor Quadrant Report, planning is already underway for the development of further reports for both teaching staff as well as administrative staff. The migration to PowerBI of an existing Tableau report that our Director of Development used has been completed and this enables her to now access data refreshed daily and drill down using the self-service elements of PowerBI. Pleasingly, she has already identified a number of enhancements she would like to see – this is something we anticipated would occur once the end users started getting more meaningful access to the data.

Additionally, rebuilding a very detailed NCEA report similar to what we explored in the original proof of concept  will be important for academic staff to monitor progress as the year progresses. Ideally, we should see some accelerated development now that the backend infrastructure is in place.

Lastly, there is rapid development happening on the PowerBI platform all the time. One of the most exciting developments is the ability to embed reports into an existing website or portal and even apps, opening up a huge range of possibilities where we could securely share reports like those above with students and parents. For now, that is in the medium to long term planning, as we focus on rapidly deploying further PowerBI reports for the College staff.

Putting the R in SAMR

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One of my on-going goals is based around the successful implementation of eLearning into my teaching of Year 13 Geography. In my role as eLearning integrator at the College, it is important that I am seen to be visible in this area, and that I can show that I too am implementing some of the strategies and tools that I am advocating to other staff.

SAMR

The SAMR Model

SAMR is a popular model used to help teachers infuse technology into teaching and learning. The man behind the model is Dr. Ruben Puentedura, an Argentinian academic. The SAMR model is based around a planning progression that aims to transform learning experiences so they result in higher levels of achievement for students. We have previously blogged about the SAMR scale here – a great post that thoroughly describes the model.

Alternatively you can listen to Dr Puentedura explain the SAMR model on this video. 

Hearing Dr Puentedura Explain his Model

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a presentation by Dr Puentedura here in Christchurch. During the presentation he spent time analysing the structure of the SAMR model, by modeling how the model could be used in the teaching of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

The way we were challenged to think about the model was as a SAMR Ladder.  A unit of work must involve a deliberate progression through the stages of the SAMR model, with each learning activity building on the complexity of student understanding generated by the last.  This ladder analogy was the crucial aspect of the presentation for me, and really consolidated my own understanding of the model and the most appropriate way to implement it.

The second part of the presentation was time spent working in small groups implementing the model into a unfamiliar situation. In my case it was helping Year 5 students consolidate their understanding of correct notation in Mathematics. While, as a senior Geography teacher, the context was unfamiliar, this actually proved beneficial as the exercise consolidated my understanding of the importance of a deliberate progression of learning activities required to move through the ladder, thus improving student engagement and understanding.

Takeaways from Presentation

I found Dr Puentedura’s presentation the most engaging I have attended recently. On reflection, my main takeaway’s are:

  • The SAMR model is designed to be implemented progressively across a long unit of work, rather than used to justify the planning of an individual task.
  • Think of the SAMR model as a ladder, and plan to progress your students and their learning.
  • The challenge for teachers is to move beyond Augmentation to Modification

Putting it into Action – Queenstown Tourism Development Unit

S

My Ideas for a SAMR Unit on Tourism Development

Upon returning to school I felt compelled to put my new learning into action. Next week my Year 13 students begin work on a new unit of work; Tourism Development. The aim of the unit is to help students demonstrate understanding of how a Cultural Process shapes a Geographic Environment; in this case Queenstown. During this unit they will study the historic and contemporary role that Tourism Development has played in the life of Queenstown.

Whilst technology has previously played a part in my teaching of this unit, this will be the first occasion where I plan to implement the SAMR model this deliberately throughout a unit.

Four levels of Task Development

Because OneNote plays such a big roll in my class it was easy to identify tasks in the unit that are clearly Substitution. Particularly with the recently added Classroom Notebook Add-in to OneNote it is now incredibly easy to ensure that class notes are easily distributed to all students in an organised, and deliberate way.

The second level of the scale is Augmentation. These are tasks that technology acts as a direct tool substitute, but there is a level of functional improvement. A good example of this will be a task that I have previously used during this topic where students use the Placemark functionality within Google Earth to investigate the Spatial Patterns of accommodation and attractions in Queenstown. This task could just as easily be done with a paper map and felt pens, but the functional improvement comes from the ability of students to turn the different layers on and off, and add text detail to each of the Placemarks.

Task Modification is where the real challenge lies for me in this unit. Google Earth makes another appearance on this list, as the program is so useful for students to visualise an environment such as Queenstown; so there are two further tasks that utilise its potential. The third task is aimed at utilising the potential of the site Canva which we have recently discovered in our team as an easy site to use to create visuals.

The final step in my ladder is based around task Redefinition. At this level the technology must allow for the creation of a new task, one that was previously inconceivable. In this case I plan to have my students create a revision website that will be made public. We have previously blogged about student produced websites and I feel that this is an authentic purpose for the students to challenge their organisation and, most importantly, their learning.

The unit of work is planned to take approximately 5 weeks of class time – and with the amount of content material that is demanded of Y13 students it will be interesting to see the progress that I am able to make through this plan. I feel particularly optimistic at this stage however, as the substitution aspect of my providing notes for students to annotate, rather than copy, frees up huge amounts of time to complete more in-depth tasks.

At the conclusion of the unit I will revisit its success – watch this space!

Modelling Google Earth Tours & Internet Research

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Barry Martin PhotoI was recently invited to speak at the weekly St Andrew’s College Chapel Service. One of the features of these services is the Deputy Head Prefects walking up the centre aisle at the conclusion of the first hymn, and saying “Today we remember ….” and naming an Old Collegian who was killed in action.

For my Chapel, I researched Barry Martin, student #101 at St Andrew’s, who attended from 1918-25 in the Preparatory School and completed his first tour in the RAF before volunteering for a second and eventually completing 46 operational missions over occupied Europe, before being killed on 2nd February 1943.

To visually represent Barry’s life, I opted to build a Google Earth Tour (something I shared on at the recent TeachMeet hosted at St Andrew’s) and indicate places of significance such as his birth (Waiau, North Canterbury), where he attended school (here at St Andrew’s College), through to his various flight training and operational bases (Canada, Mildenhall and Oakington) and his final resting place (Rotterdam General Cemetery). Google Earth tours are something we have encouraged teachers to use and some good examples include:

Targets

The yellow pins in this Google Earth screenshot represent targets Barry Martin navigated his crew to, over the course of his 46 flights.

The entire story that I shared at the Chapel Service can be seen in the video at the top of the blog, however you can see the start of the narrated Google Earth tour here. What has been interesting to me is the amount of teachers and students who were really surprised by the power of Google Earth, having never really used it in any meaningful context before. Consequently, Tom Adams (our eLearning Integrator) has run some professional development sessions for staff interested in using it with their students.

The reality is, whilst the visualisations of Barry Martin’s journey added engagement through technology, the researching of the information for the presentation itself was almost entirely dependent on the power of the Internet. I had used Microsoft OneNote to easily compile a working document of information, starting with links to relevant websites and notes to myself on their usefulness:

The ease of being able to drag ‘n drop and cut ‘n paste information into this notebook accelerated the research considerably:

OneNote for research

Screenshot of my OneNote notebook for researching Old Collegians

One of my goals in this research was to bring to life Barry Martin’s story and show more about him as person and not just a statistic from World War II. Through the searching of PapersPast I was able to find references to Barry’s pre-war life, including his engagement and  attendance at an Old Collegian dance at the Dunsandel Hall with his fiancee, which sounded like an eventful night with the power cutting out!

Other sources that proved invaluable in finding out more about Barry’s life included Google Books, an unexpected source that showed up the research of Stephen Harris in his book Under a Bomber’s Moon and the relationship between his great Uncle Col Jones and Barry Martin. It is from this source that I obtained the photo below of Barry with unnamed friends, along with the entertaining account of Barry cooking up a storm in the barracks with tins of lambs tongues and tomato sauce sent to him from New Zealand:

Dutch Police Report

Original Dutch Police Report on the crash of Barry Martin’s Stirling bomber.

Other sources were not so easy, but did manage to turn up gold for this research. I optimistically posted on the Wings Over New Zealand Aviation Forum and was thrilled to get a reply out of that which led to obtaining a copy of the original Dutch Police Report that detailed the circumstances and location of the crashed Stirling Bomber on the night that Barry Martin’s plane was shot down and he was killed. This was eventually sourced from the book “De Crash Van De Padvinder” by P. van der Leer.

This highlights that whilst the Internet can be an outstanding source of quick and accessible information, the importance of human interaction (even if that is via forums, email and text messaging) along with a curiosity not to give up, remains a vital part of any good research. The Christchurch City library had all three volumes of For Your Tomorrow  by Errol Martin which was invaluable for factual details, and the St Andrew’s College library had historical records of Barry’s attendance at the College, 98 years ago.

Old Collegian

I also discovered that Barry Martin’s medals had been auction at Bonhams in 2014:

Bonhams Medals

Barry Martin’s medals – note the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) on the left. Barry never knew he had been awarded this, as it was announced only two days after his disappearance.

It was very gratifying to be able to harness the power of technology to shine some light on an Old Collegian of St Andrew’s College and the ultimate sacrifice he made.

UPDATE:

This is the recording of an earlier Chapel Service that I gave on James Samuel Cartwright. He was a former teacher at St Andrew’s College and All Black triallist and was tragically killed only days after the D-Day Normandy invasion:

Staff Profile – Bronwyn Radcliffe

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During 2016 I have been profiling a number of Staff members from different departments to help to highlight the seamless nature of ICT integration into the vast majority of classrooms here at StAC. In Term 1, I began by profiling Donna Jones; a post which highlighted and celebrated the willingness of an experienced classroom teacher to innovate and model effective learning to her students. That post was followed by a profile of some of the great work occurring in the Mathematics department; focusinbronwyn radcliffeg on the strong collaboration occurring between Mr John Quealy, and Mr Mitch Howard as they work to raise engagement and success levels for some priority learners.

This week I am profiling Mrs Bronwyn Radcliffe, a member of staff who predominantly teaches in the Languages department. Over recent years, it has been pleasing to see the enthusiasm with which the Languages department has embraced the potential of eLearning tools in their classrooms.

Introducing Digital Textbooks

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An example of Digital Textbook Content

In 2016 the French department began a digital textbook trial. In an attempt to source the best product for the differing needs of each year level it was decided to use two different products; Studio for Year 11 students, and AQA for Year 12.

The allure of digital textbooks, for Mrs Radcliffe, is the range of interactive activities that are seamlessly linked to self-marking activities, and the detailed analysis of student performance that she, as the teacher, has access to. This analysis is replicated by the functionality of the second main online platform that Mrs Radcliffe utilises; Language Perfect. This product allows Mrs Radcliffe to personalise the learning of her students to the particular topic content by ensuring that the vocabulary lists that she requires students to learn are directly relevant to the classroom content.

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An example of the Language Perfect analytics that Mrs Radcliffe uses to track student progress in her class.

“I love that I can provide Language Perfect with the specific vocabulary lists that I need my students to learn, and in most cases, it is entered into the programme for them to learn within 24 hours”

This functionality of Language Perfect enables Mrs Radcliffe to run include elements of a flipped classroom in regards to students knowing in advance the vocabulary that must be learnt to enable their learning to progress more immediately in class.

 

Providing Students with Better Feedback

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An example of feedback utilising the strengths of the Surface 4 Pen.

As part of our three year teacher laptop lease, Mrs Radcliffe has recently been issued a Microsoft Surface 4. We have previously blogged about the efficiency gains that a Surface tablet affords a teacher in giving students timely and valuable feedback, and Mrs Radcliffe has been quick to implement such practice in her class, through the class OneNote notebook. Her students now receive handwritten feedback that clearly identifies the areas for improvement in their work and, as in the example above, they can use the highlighter function to record the changes that they have made.

A second feature of OneNote that is adding value to Mrs Radcliffe’s teaching is the Insert Audio function. As a teacher of language, it is imperative that students are exposed to the correct pronunciation of new vocabulary. By using the insert audio function, both students and Mrs Radcliffe, are able to record, and listen to, each other speak. This has clear benefits for the quality of the student’s speaking.

Technology in Language Teaching 

While researching this profile, it was again pleasing to see how fluently our teachers are able to articulate how technology influences their classroom practice. The confidence that they have to innovate, and more importantly reflect on the successes, and obstacles that ICT brings into a classroom, shows a real commitment to the flexibility and pride that they take in the development of their pedagogy. Mrs Radcliffe is a great example of this.

Hosting a TeachMeet at St Andrew’s College

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This week, St Andrew’s College hosted the first TeachMeet event in Christchurch for 2016 and over 40 staff from 15 different schools attended. If you’re unsure of what a TeachMeet actually is, you can find more at the website http://www.teachmeet.co.nz  but in short:

A TeachMeet is an organised but informal meeting (in the style of an unconference) for teachers to share good practice, practical innovations and personal insights in teaching with technology.

Participants volunteer (via the TeachMeet website) to demonstrate good practice they’ve delivered over the past year, or discuss a product that enhances classroom practice.

Source: Wikipedia

To help promote the event, I took to a new tool I’ve been using recently called Canva which allows you to very quickly and easily develop stylish posters, images and social media banners through their website:

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One of the key reasons TeachMeets are successful is that presenters are limited to only 2minutes or 7minutes for their presentations. This results in a fast-paced event and a range of different ideas and solutions being shared. It also means that preparation for the volunteer presenters is kept at a minimum – it’s not onerous to share something you’re already doing in your classroom or researching to give a go.

From the slides above, you can see there were seven presenters who shared on the following topics:

  1. Wilj Dekkers (St Andrew’s College) Using MineCraft and OneNote for Creative Writing
  2. Tom Neumann (Riccarton High) Using an alphanumeric self marking video game in Moodle to review content of Yr11 Economics
  3. Sue McLachlan (Hagley College) Using OneNote Learning Tools in the classroom
  4. Tam Yuill Proctor (St Andrew’s College) Using OneNote as a Digital Teacher’s Planbook
  5. Karyn Gray (Haeta Community Campus) The Quest for Personalisation of Learning- My Thinking, My Research, My Questions
  6. Schira Withers (Our Lady Of The Star Of The Sea) How we as educators can help students with low working memories improve their self-management skills using digital technologies, thus  allowing them to experience success and move from a fixed to growth mindset.
  7. Donna Jones (St Andrew’s College) Using a 3D app to inspire creative thought and ideas for creative writing.

When one of the presenters was unable to attend at the last minute, I added some thoughts on using Google Earth to create personalised tours to round out the afternoon.

A number of attendees contributed on the designated Twitter hashtag of #TMChch and you can see the entire timeline here with a small selection being:

Continue reading →

Presenting At Microsoft Analyst Summit 2016

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image006This week I’ve had the privilege of attending, as well as co-presenting, at the annual Microsoft Analyst Summit for Asia Pacific, hosted at the St Regis Hotel in Singapore.⊗ The focus of this summit was Fuelling Customer Digital Transformation Through Innovation and was an opportunity for Microsoft to present their product and solutions roadmaps for industry analysts from the likes of Forrester, IDC and Gartner (amongst others) and where possible, highlight the value through the voice of partners and clients.

This is how I ended up at the Summit – Anne Taylor, from Microsoft NZ, inquired if I would be interested in co-presenting with Guenter Weimer the General Manager of Windows & Devices Marketing for Microsoft Asia Pacific. This seemed like a great opportunity to build on the 2015 video case study below that showcased some of the amazing work from our teachers and students:

Guenter had already seen the video and decided he wanted to show it in its entirety to the Analysts present, before discussing a few other developments at St Andrew’s, including:

  • How do we measure success when it comes to the integration of technology in education
  • To what extent has technology such as OneNote & Office365 increased collaboration amongst students and also between students and teachers
  • Did teachers need encouraging to adopt the use of a digital pen for inking on their Surface devices, or was it a natural transition
  • What plans does St Andrew’s College have for deploying Windows 10
  • In a BYOD environment that allows choice within parameters, how do we ensure cross platform compatibility and successful outcomes

MSAnalystSummit1With an audience of over 90 industry technology analysts, I was unsure what sort of reception a session that focused on education would have, however I was really pleased that after Guenter and I finished talking, there were a number of insightful questions from the analysts during the open Q&A session that followed.

Additionally, based on the Twitter feedback from the Summit’s hashtag of #MSAnalystSummit the session was well received:

Being the first conference of this sort that I’ve attended, I was really pleased to discover how open and engaging the different analysts were that I spoke with during the various breakouts and meals over the course of the two days.

I was also privileged to listen to some phenomenal presentations from other industry experts, including Mr Simon Challis the Managing Director from Ryman Healthcare in New Zealand, talking about how they are using Surface Pro tablets with every client in their retirement villages. Another interesting and relevant session was from Mr Mahendra Vaswani the Director of Teaching and Learning from Hale School in Perth, Australia.

Hale at home

As part of his presentation, he discussed the Hale @ Home programme they run which is described on their website as:

Hale@home is an innovative online learning programme that helps students prepare for the transition to Hale as a boarder. The boys undertake the programme in Year 6, prior to attending the School.

Hale@home provides a welcoming, online forum where boys meet others on the same journey to becoming a boarder. The programme is designed to build their confidence, familiarise them with technology and introduce them to their fellow boarders; all while they are still at home.

This is an outstanding initiative and a fantastic demonstration of how technology can bring both current, and future, students together into a virtual classroom.

Overall, this Summit has been a valuable learning and networking experience for me and represented a great opportunity to showcase the innovation happening at St Andrew’s College to a wider audience.

⊗ Full Disclosure: Microsoft covered all travel costs and expenses for me to attend this summit.