Author: Richard Roberts

My Favourite Digital Tools

Richard Roberts Group 2, Participant Post ,

Josh Winestock, Tyndall Park, Cluster 1871
In my last post I mentioned that as a millennial I am quick to adopt any tool regardless of whether it meets any personal or educational outcomes. I am the one who searches for ‘lifehacks’. Most of these tools, apps, and technologies come and go, but some remain useful to me everyday. Here is a list that I have found helpful. In some cases, the connection to education may be a bit loose, but in making my life easier/more organized/flow better, these tools help me focus on my most important instructional goals.

Evernote
Evernote, a cloud-based note-taking application, is where I store EVERYTHING from my life. It flexibly works with different formats and filetypes, and it synchronizes across platforms. In it I store resources, assessments, sheet music, music files, business cards, presentations, media and lesson plans. You can search for notes by any contained text, and email documents to the program using an Evernote-specific email address (E.g. joshwinestock.9471942@m.evernote.com).

A few ways it has helped me teach:
​-Until it’s time to print and distribute, all of my resources are paperless.
​-I can play media files straight from the application (including those I needed throughout the winter concert).
​-It stores my report card comment bank.
​-All of my blog subscriptions (including My ITLL Blog) are sent to my evernote email address, keeping my real inbox clear.
– For our drama performance THIS week, a colleague of mine created a note where she placed music files throughout the script so she could easily read the script and launch the music at the same time.
I recommend partnering Evernote with Scannable – a high quality scanner for your phone.

Followupthen (Followupthen.com)
Followupthen is an email reminder program that lets you send reminder emails to yourself or someone else at specified times. Sending an email to the address thursday@followupthen.com will bring the email back to you on Thursday. Everyweekday7am@followupthen.com will bring a recurring email back to you at 7am every workday.
How I used this application: Our school sends out a weekly bulletin for staff called Monday morning jazz. The optimal time for me to read it is every morning at 8:45am. I don’t want to print it or leave it in inbox where I will forget it, so I send it to the email address everyweekday845am@followupthen.com.

Microsoft Sway (Sway.com)
I was introduced to this presentation application when the WSD sent out an email newsletter using it in September or October. Sway is a highly intuitive online presentation application (similar to Prezi). Teachers can create lesson plans online for students to access at home. Students can create presentations at home and link them to their teachers. In addition to lesson plans, I use Sway to hold all of my choir lyrics (http://bit.ly/1rmfWyy)

Planboard (Planboardapp.com)
I haven’t been using this application much in the past school year. This application, created by chalk.com, is an online planning notebook. You can include links and media throughout your lesson plan. Chalk also hosts Markboard, a site to record classroom assessments.

Other applications I find helpful:
1. Say it Mail it (iPhone) – take audio notes and immediately mail it to yourself or (bonus points) to your Evernote account.
2. The Email game (online) – quickly move through email.
3. Workflow (iphone/ipad) – Create apps within this app.
4. WolframAlpha (everywhere)- Find and compare anything quantifiable on the internet.
5. Substitute Alert (iPhone)- Notifications to your phone for Aesop jobs (for all the substitute teachers out there).
6. Duolingo (everywhere)- Language learning app.
7. Dropbox (everywhere) – Filesharing
8. Figure by Propellerhead (iPhone/Ipad) – Music fun!
9. Quick Graph – my favourite graphing app

Josh Winestock
Music/Math Support
Tyndall Park School

My ITLL Reflection, Cluster 1871, Tyndall Park School

Richard Roberts Group 2, Participant Post ,

I am hugely grateful for the opportunity to take part in the Innovator’s Mindset workshops over the course of this year. I appreciate the change to invest in my own learning, and, as a new teacher, I feel that I am being invested in.

One idea that most resonated with me while reading The Innovator’s Mindset was that of the growth mindset vs fixed mindset. I believe that this attitude, when adopted by student’s and staff, has the greatest leverage in supporting other positive behaviours. Those who think with this lens are more likely to exercise the grit and perseverance when any challenges show up.

“What gets measured gets managed” – Peter Drucker

As we explore the use of the technology throughout this learning experience, I am interested in how we use it to enhance assessment. This year, Tyndall Park school has introduced the program Manga High (mangahigh.com), an online educational tool, in our grade 3 and 4 math program. I find it most helpful that through this program provides detailed feedback on each student every class. Without having to create an assessment, I can search the program to see how the students are doing with each module. This is so valuable as it gives us the ability to track student progress at a whole new level. I feel I am more effective in planning lessons as a result.

My one concern I have with my relationship with technology is that I often am quick to use tools without any idea of the outcome I want to achieve. George’s diagram in the The Innovators Mindset that showed the good and better reasons to use technology illustrated this point well. Being the millennial I am, I find myself incorporating new tools, apps, and technologies into my life, even when its not necessary.

Looking forward to continuing our ITLL sessions!

Josh Winestock
Music/Math Support
Tyndall Park School

Every Bit of Knowledge Counts

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My class has just finished just about three months of intensive work on their Explora Vision Project and Science Fair Projects. These are inquiry based projects driven by the students’ curiosity over the topic of their choice, and as well by the desire to aim at a calibre of work that meets the competition level criteria. As these are projects that required an application of all the skills the students may have or are yet to learn as of this point, there was definitely a range of skills and learning needs that needed to be met and scaffolded for each individual student. Among the skills called for were: skills in applying reading strategies (such as visualization, making connections, questioning, analyzing, evaluating and summarizing), skills in effectively writing a report or a persuasive piece, skills in the use of technology to research and to present information, skills in organizing tasks and time, and skills in orally presenting to an audience. Indeed, with the immensity of the task and skill set demanded, but with not enough time to spend in conferencing one to one with each student, as a teacher, I knew I needed to pull out not just my strategies as a teacher that I’ve always tried, I would also need to innovate my teaching. I needed to learn to tap on the power and ease technology can offer to meet at least some of the tasks we needed to do.
Knowing just the basic so far in using technology, I knew, I could at least tap on its potential to make our task efficient. Thus, I emailed students both as a class and individually, tasks, schedules, reminders, or feedback about their work so far. We’ve communicated by email even through weekends, after school hours, or even during the Spring Break! In the classroom, I noticed that even students in the same group have also started using email to communicate their share of work to each other. It saved us so much time, as well as maximized the time we have for enhancing the depth of our research and quality of our work. Having spent so much time browsing the online resources, students have had the chance to access tons of information in print, images and video format. They have also discovered how to locate scholarly articles if they are looking for Scientific Studies done so far on their topic!
What I realized? Every bit of knowledge counts… it is not to be underestimated. Something as simple as an email could be a powerful tool to make the task efficient and meaningful.

By Melinda Severa
Prairie Rose School

Innovation

Richard Roberts Group 2, Participant Post ,

I must be honest, I was apprehensive when George Couros encouraged us all—primary teachers and up, to use Twitter. I myself did not have a Twitter account, nor did I think that it would be an appropriate tool to use in my classroom. I was mistaken. I have always been keen to use technology in my Grade 1 classroom, and have used various forms of it throughout my career—from creating digital portfolios, claymation, movies, readers theatre, interactive games, etc… however, I had never thought about getting my students to Tweet. After our Innovative Teaching day, I left feeling refreshed and eager to try something new. I have started to talk with my students and their families about what Tweeting would look like in our class and have received positive feedback, thoughts, and ideas from them. I hope to partner with an older grade to get us started (probably more for me than my kiddies!) and will progressively build on that.
​A colleague and I were also inspired by a video that we saw at the PD and have spoken about creating a similar type of video with our own students, teaming grade 1s with grade 5/6s.
​In my classroom, we are currently working on a cultural identity project which has my students connecting with family here and in the Philippines and India. We are using our families as references and translators to create a multi-lingual book to help us and others recognize and be proud/positive about who we are, our identity, language, and culture. Students have used digital cameras, email, videos, journals, and multimedia to help us build and create this on-going project.
​Now, I am still new to Twitter and have to remind myself to use it, and when I do use it I spend way more time than I really should thinking about what and how to say something, but I am no longer weary of it and can see what the advantages are to using it.

Amanda Borton

Grade 1 Teacher

Tyndall Park Community School

 

Blog Post 1

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I left the first session wondering how we could add one more task to our already overflowing plates. I was discouraged and frustrated and I chose to deal with these feelings by ignoring the task. As our follow-up session neared I knew that I would have to submit a blog post and have it posted for my colleagues and a network of other professionals to read and I was once again confronted with more stress and pressure of a deadline.
As I sat in front of my computer I typed and retyped possible responses and reflections and discovered this… innovation is not just Twitter or technology. Innovation is thinking in new ways or differently and let’s be honest, isn’t that what teaching is about?! School is not the same as when I went and it definitely is not the same as when my parents did. We change with the times; we become relevant and adapt to meet the needs of our students. We may not call ourselves innovators but that is exactly what we do on a daily basis.

Think back to your time in school, the teachers we remember are those that did things differently. We recall the ones that took the time to show interest in what we were interested in; the teachers that gave us choices and input and freedom. It’s the way you felt. The freedom you had in the class and the ownership you had in your learning. That is innovation.

I now think of this as an opportunity to showcase what we constantly do in our classrooms. To build a professional network of colleagues who can share in the passion we have behind our doors and encourage us to be creative.

We are not changing what we do; we are celebrating and sharing what we do.

Alyssia Silverberg-Kaufmann,

AMVC, 1871

ITLL Blog Post

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I think that using technology really lends itself to finding this “Innovation” or “Inspiration” I keep hearing about. Listening to some of the stories during our workshop, I’m finding that we have these happy accident moments where using technology ends up giving us these special moments that give us a sense of well-being. Moments that give us a chance to reflect and learn about who we are. These moments that weren’t planned for, but were made possible by the inherent nature of how technology can remember, rehash and share the experiences we have.

I recently came across a video online that illustrates my thinking. I think it’s important that we realize that technology is really just a medium for us to express and experience the lives we already have. Sharing these moments speaks to what humans are. Social creatures who thrive off each other and find motivation in building a community and connecting with each other. Take a look at the video link I’ve included, anyone who thinks video games are rotting the minds of our youth might be surprised.

Patrick Tytgat

Andrew Mynarski VC

Cluster: 1871

Using an Innovators Mindset to Facilitate Positive Mental Health in our Students

Richard Roberts Group 2, Participant Post ,

After the first session with George Couros, I learned about how powerful and useful technology can be with regard to innovation. I was also excited to open my own Twitter account and have been using it regularly to connect with educators around our division as well as the world. I have made a few comments but I am mostly just doing a lot of “retweeting”. As someone who has never communicated with others on social media, I am finding it exciting when people message me or comment that they appreciated my “like”. I am also amazed at how much I am able to learn from other colleagues in the mental health field with just a few clicks on my phone. I now feel inspired to find different ways to use technology and innovative practices with the students I support that are dealing with a variety of mental health disorders.
On page 21 of his book The Innovator’s Mindset George comments that it is important to create a teaching environment that is “best for this learner”. I agree that we have to think about the future of each of our students and what type of education is going to serve them the best to achieve their goals and be successful even when there are difficult obstacles to overcome. We need to develop as many of the positive characteristics he suggests of an Innovator’s Mindset in order to create new and exciting learning environments for all of our students.
The comments below from the families I work with describe the challenges that some students face every day going into a building where they don’t feel connected to staff or able to succeed in the classroom.
“She wants to leave school and stay in her bed all the time”
“She doesn’t feel like she belongs at school”
“He has gotten into a rut about not attending school”
“She wants the teachers to understand the accommodations she requires to succeed at school”
“Sometimes she is just too much and tiring for them to handle at the school”
An empathetic and observant teacher recognizes the individual needs of all his/her students and strives to find ways for them to feel connected to their learning. This is not an easy process but the educators that are able to do this are responsible for some of the positive comments I hear from families and schools.
“He smiles more and seems more engaged”
“She is going to school every day and doing well”
“Right now he is firing on a lot of good cylinders”
“Many of the teachers are understanding of her situation”
“She is flourishing in the Technology Program”
I look forward to the upcoming sessions where I can continue my journey of learning and develop an “innovator’s mindset” with the hopes that it will help me empower the students and families on my caseload.

Laura Ateah, ISS Support Teacher, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, HSC.
Cluster Group 1871

Reflection on Innovative Practices

Richard Roberts Group 2, Participant Post ,

Prior to this school year, I had not heard a lot of talk about innovation in the classroom. To be fair, this is technically my first year of teaching full time since having children and I haven’t been in the loop as much as I probably should have been. What amazes me is how quickly things can change, even when it has been said that change in our educational system is rather slow here in Manitoba. Since I have been back though, I have been really excited about these new approaches to learning.
At École Garden Grove School, we have been lucky to have Jaymie McLure do some great, innovative work with our students. From Destination Imagination Instant Challenges to Story Starters using Lego, I have certainly learned a lot. Not only are we thinking outside the box and moving away from the incessant worksheets that are available to us, we are providing our students with new, creative and collaborative ways of learning.

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Although at times it is hard to imagine how different our world will be in twenty years from now, I know that this shift into different and more innovative ways of teaching is only going to help better prepare our students for their futures. If we can have open minds and learn with and from one another, I think that we as educators will benefit along with our students.
I know that I have already altered my way of thinking about this whole process and having an open mind has definitely been helpful. I look forward to what we have yet to learn in our next sessions!
Nicole Lavallee
École Garden Grove School
Cluster 1871

Focus

Richard Roberts Group 2, Participant Post ,

I am glad to see that so many educators had the same feelings about our day with George Couros. I had no idea what to expect on our first session. Twitter? Google Docs? Storify? All of these were new to me.
I was a computer/LWICT facilitator for 20 years and was comfortable integrating technology with all areas of curricula. Word processing, morphing, audio recording, animation, green screening, video editing and more, were used to show student understanding. I collaborated with teachers to plan “computer” projects. Students would come to the lab, complete their projects (hopefully), and move on. Now, after 20 years, my role has changed. I am a grade 5/6 classroom teacher and am loving having my own students to work with!
I have seen many changes with technology over the years and all have been innovative. Our first session with George was about Twitter and using it with our students. What? Social Media in the classroom? How can that be? Sites that were previously locked and blocked? Wow!
I teach my students about their digital footprint by creating Twitter posts that are displayed on our bulletin board outside the room, create “Fakebook” pages and video our Book Talks. All of these are contained within our school, but now students may share their work with the world through Twitter.
I came out of that session with many ideas. So many that I became frustrated with myself about where to start, and getting nowhere fast. Focus girl!
I made a personal and classroom Twitter account but have not made any tweets. I get inspired by all the creative things I see educators doing with their students. Focus girl and make that tweet! I introduced my class to Learn 360 to collaborate on an informational article. I also created a survey in Google Forms and bit.do for our grade 6 students to answer questions about ideas for their Farewell. The outcome was fantastic! I showed the students the site and they went with it. I still have many ideas but it is a start. I just need to focus!
Wendy Groot
Tyndall Park School
Cluster 1871
Participant

Innovation in Collaboration

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There are three grade 1 classrooms in our school. At the beginning of each unit and throughout the unit, we meet to exchange ideas, resources and materials. This ensures that our units don’t become static. We are making changes and adding something new and interesting each year.

We recently completed a unit on Canadian Bears. The children worked in groups and came up with questions about bears and what they wanted to learn. We also frontloaded a few questions of our own that may have been missed. The children listened to informational books about bears and read their own books looking for answers to their questions.
We found some short You Tube videos of bears in their natural habitat so that the children could see what a grizzly bear, black bear and polar bear’s den looked like and where they built it. The children had an opportunity to roleplay and pretend they were a bear building a den and hibernating. We watched short You Tube videos of actual wild bears looking for food and learned how climate change affects their ability to find food. Again groups of children had an opportunity to roleplay being a bear and looking for food, while the rest of the class had to guess what type of bear they were depicting. We printed pictures of the different types of food bears eat and had the children sort the food using a Venn diagram. This year, one of our colleagues borrowed an actual bear fur pelt from the Living Prairie Museum and each class had an opportunity to examine it up close. Once most of our research was complete, and the children had their information recorded on their rough copy sheets, they transferred this information onto a publisher template on computers. They typed their information, drew their bear’s habitat and added the clip art to support their writing. The children printed their work and created folders from their projects. See photos below.
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I don’t think our unit on bears would be as interesting and dynamic for the children, if it weren’t for how well all three classrooms collaborated with each other. When everyone is working together to share ideas and support one another great things are achieved.

Francesca Bova
Meadows West School
Cluster Group 1871