Group 1

Capturing Enthusiasm One Clip at a Time

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Making Movies

Over the years, I have dabbled in making short movies with my students for a variety of reasons. Some on camcorders with the mini tapes where the batteries consistently failed, others on my Canon camera with tiny images. Both set up for a nightmare in editing post project. It would be a collaborative enterprise, but it would still fall on me. Not this time. iMovie on iPad is a convenient and easy way to drop and drag your way into a quality movie with high student involvement every step of the way.

This year we read aloud Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordecai Richler which lent itself well as a feature film because of its size and storyline. It is a tale about a little boy who was always told he was too little and ends up becoming a hero. As we read, we started by creating a large story board to track characters and main ideas through drawing and writing. It emerged through class discussions that since we had iPads for a period of time, maybe we could make the characters come alive in a movie of the book and the rest was history.

The student engagement, commitment and cooperation were immediately evident. Once characters were selected, scripts were written by scene and by the actors. One student took on filming and direction; others were in charge of background music and spent hours experimenting in Garageband and doing voice-over narrations. Groups of students worked on props, made invitations and posters for our premiere.

We filmed over a series of weeks and students maintained their enthusiasm the entire time because of their ownership in the project. It didn’t stop there. To get a complete experience, actors created cast photos and bios, decorated a viewing room with a red carpet and invited parents to a Popcorn Premiere Party to celebrate their efforts and receive their own DVD for posterity.

Where it gets interesting… students with speech issues were determined to have speaking roles. Students with focus and attention issues were dialed in. A quieter student became the director. Dramatization deepened comprehension for all students.

It was a learning journey for me too. I was introduced to the lightning projector cable (which was great because now I use iPads as document cameras in other parts of my day). I learned what the sound limitations are of the iPad microphones for the next project. And finally, I learned to share large files through Dropbox saving me extreme frustration.

Believe me, I don’t own shares in Mac and I’m not selling anything new – many teachers make movies with their students. But for my learning journey, this was a student and teacher friendly way for me to step back and my students take the lead. Having easy to use technology is one of the keys, but without the iPads in first place, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. But that is a story for another time. 😉

Shelagh McGregor
Inkster School
Grade 3/4
Cluster 1971

The Promise of Twitter

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If you had told me I would be going to a PD seminar that highly promotes using Twitter as a classroom tool, I would have been very skeptical of the relevance and use that it would have to my classroom. However, I was surprised that I have been converted. It was during the PD seminar that I first registered for Twitter.

That evening I was telling my fiancée, who is a teacher in the LRSD, about the PD. In his division Twitter is highly encouraged for teachers to use. His school’s Twitter page is amazing! I highly encourage all of you to check out @wyattLRSD. Teachers frequently post projects and events that are happening in their classrooms as well as reminders for days such as school closures.  I am not a parent, but I can only imagine how much parents would value this page. I am told the most common response to “what did you do today at school?” is “nothing” or “I don’t remember”.

I would love for Gladstone School to have a Twitter page like Victor Wyatt School’s but I do see some obstacles. Firstly, I can’t see many of my coworkers buying into Twitter. Secondly, can Twitter be added to WSD’s Media Consent form? Having the students’ faces makes most of the posts much more meaningful.

Erin Rogalsky
Grade 2/3 Teacher
Gladstone School
Cluster 1971

A Learning Journey

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Reflection on March 23rd,  just after the first ITLL session:

Positive energy and optimism!  George Couros empowered a room full of teachers from the moment the day started, and the energy stayed high all day.  I’ve been in this same Room 106 so many times in my career but this was brand new – bigger than I could have anticipated, even after reading “The Innovator’s Mindset.”  I’m grateful to participate in #WinnipegSDITLL with this amazing, open-minded, and eager group of teachers.  It’s also refreshing to shed my reluctance to come on-board with social media after feeling restrained and annoyed by it.   I not only started tweeting, I gained followers today! There’s so much power in numbers, most of these tweeters were strangers and they’re suddenly important to me.  We share values and interests – we all want to empower our students – and we can help each other find answers to questions and inspire each other with ideas.  I’ll be testing this out.  I am invigorated and feeling ready for whatever any naysayers might throw my way, because I know my already strong powers as a learner and a teacher are growing, and becoming stronger as I think with artistry about what I am doing.  This isn’t just sustainable; it will grow and evolve as opportunities are created.  I’ll be starting with Google docs and forms and will explore the potential of these with my students and with colleagues.  I’m already considering possibilities for Family Studies and Guidance, and am keen to use them and offer them as tools for my inquiry learners.  I wonder how students’ll expand my understanding with their experimentation, and hope their freedom and playfulness with technology will stimulate creativity.

Over the last few weeks:

It’s been both inspiring and overwhelming.  I’ve connected to educators from all over the continent.  I’ve surveyed students on their social media journeys and we’ve wondered how to smooth out this bumpy transition from no personal electronic devices in the classroom to learning with them. My students are young mothers with a multitude of demands on them and they struggle to stay on course. Despite best intentions, some claim it’s too easy to waste time while others easily started integrating smart phones into their learning. One of my students complained that despite building prioritizing skills for inquiry, social media distractions grow bigger along with project challenges.  If an obstacle appears it’s always a relief to ignore the problem and have a completely unrelated connection and conversation on social media.  If anyone has a kind solution I’d love to hear about it. I have so much to learn! I have to remind myself that it’s one step at a time – go narrow and deep. This journey has not been the smooth sailing I’ve envisioned, but I feel like I’m in good company and I anticipate great things on the horizon.

Lois Friesen

Adolescent Parent Centre (WAEC program)

Cluster 1871

Reflection on Innovative Practices

kmowat Group 1

As I reflect on innovative teaching, I think back to the in-service I attended in January involving “21st century learning with Johnny Wells”. It was after this in-service that I recognized the importance of giving students the opportunity to work in small teams to accomplish a task. These “instant challenges” inspire creative and critical thinking, promote team-building, problem solving, risk-taking, and allow students to be project managers, to persevere when faced with a problem, and build self-confidence. These are all skills that students will need to have when they become adults and are ready to enter the workforce.

Finding the time to do instant challenges in my classroom is a challenge for me. However, I do think that I have been teaching students these skills through some extra-curricular clubs that I have offered over the years. In Lego Mindstorms Club, students work in partners to build robots out of Lego and then use computer software to program their robots to move around an object, move through a maze, sense colour, light, and sound, and hit objects, etc.

In Geocaching Club, students work in teams to follow coordinates that eventually lead them to a “treasure”. I have also done this activity as a field trip last year with our Geography Club. Students were divided into 4 teams and were provided with walkie-talkies which they used to communicate with other teams to let them know that they found the geocaches. It was like the “Amazing Race” and was team-building at its finest!

Lastly, I have used Minecraft Edu. in the classroom and offered it as a club. In the classroom, I had my students create a digital world of a novel that we were studying. After choosing an area of the map to focus on, students had to break into small groups and assign tasks to one another and build their structures using materials that would have been used in the story. In the Minecraft Club, students had the opportunity to work in groups and accomplish tasks that I gave them.

I enjoy doing the above mentioned clubs because I have a genuine interest in them. I think that is important because students need to see the teacher’s enthusiasm in order to buy in. However, there are always new ideas for using innovative teaching in the classroom that I am open to trying. I definitely want to try some instant challenges with my students before the year ends, and I have some in mind. Now that it is a little less busy, it might be a good time to try something new.

Michael Conklin

Carpathia School

Cluster Group 1996

Social Responsibility With Social Media

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Upon reflection of the George Couros “Innovation and Technology” professional development day, one main theme permeated throughout the learning experience. In one word, responsibility! We learned about and discussed several innovative aspects of technology and the day culminated in our group setting up individual Twitter accounts.

We learned the “what to”, “how to” and “why to” regarding social media. All of this is simply useful and relevant to our technological needs. However, what was most prevalent in my mind as the day progressed was the responsibility of it all. When contemplating all the various types of technology our students use throughout their days for various reasons, I kept wondering, “Are we being responsible for teaching social media responsibility first before we provide our students with pretty, shiny tech toys and accounts?” For all of the fabulously innovative and educational things we can accomplish with technology, the first and most important thing we can do is be responsible. Big toys require big responsibility. Clearly, issues such as cyberbullying have necessitated us to take a good look at what our students and children are using social media for. I am most pleased that George is addressing this and asking us to ask ourselves, “What should come first, our Smarts or the Smart Board?”

Ann Melnyk
Fort Rouge School
Cluster Group 1971

Sticking with The Life of Fred

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I left our first session with George Couros feeling energized and inspired.  While I have to admit that most of the technologies he shared were not new to me (except for bit.do which I have already used to help our school secretaries create a short link and QR code to our school supplies list for next year), it was refreshing to hear George and other teachers share some of the ways that they have made learning innovative and creative in their own classrooms.

As a high school math teacher, I try to find ways of replacing worksheets and “drill & kill” lessons with real life scenarios.  One of my mentors describes the best math lessons as ones that are active, interactive, thoughtful, meaningful, personal, and practical.  Keeping this in mind, I decided to teach Grade 12 Calculus using a storybook (The Life of Fred by Stan Schmidt) instead of a traditional calculus textbook. Rather than learning calculus the traditional (university) way of:

  • Definition
  • Theorem
  • Proof
  • Corollary
  • Definition
  • Lemma
  • Theorem
  • Proof
  • Definition
  • …
  • Final Exam

with such a lack of excitement that even a rock would be bored, my students learn about functions, limits, derivatives, related rates, maximums/minimums, etc. through the adventures of a boy who discovers the topics of calculus naturally during his own life experiences.

When I chose The Life of Fred before the start of the semester, I thought to myself “This is perfect! No more worksheets, no more lectures, no more definitions… lots of creativity, lots of understanding, lots of thinking outside of the box, and lots of real life applications!” It seemed perfect, and I was sure that my students would appreciate such a creative approach to teaching and learning calculus.  And then it happened… one week into the course, one of my students said what no student has ever said before “Can we please do notes and worksheets tomorrow?”  Others in the class agreed. It turns out that after 14 years of learning mathematics and pre-calculus from worksheets and textbooks, learning calculus from a story of life experiences is very hard.

I went home that night with a tough decision to make. I could take the easy route and start to give traditional lectures (using my old notes from when I took CALC 1500 at the University of Manitoba), assign worksheets and make my students happy, or we could tough out the innovative approach a bit longer and see what happened.

I stuck with The Life of Fred. While lectures and worksheets would have been easier, I had no good reason for going back to them other than that was the way that calculus has always been taught. Two months later, the largest benefit of creativity in a mathematics classroom is very clear – there is a large increase in student understanding. Not only can my students calculate the first and second derivatives of a function, they also know the meaning of a derivative and when it would be useful to calculate one.

The world doesn’t need human calculators. Technology has given us the power to compute calculations in a fraction of a second that would take a person minutes (or hours) to complete. Instead, what we need are people who have a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and know how to use them when solving a problem.

Thomas Locke
Churchill High School
Cluster 1971

Being Connected

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I think that the whole idea of “being connected” is so important for us as teachers in education today. The demands of our job continue to increase but the amount of time in a day remains constant. Connecting with other teachers and educators allows for the sharing of ideas, so that you, alone, are not having to plan and develop every lesson in isolation!  The world of twitter is very new to me and it is work for me to understand it and use it. I do, however, see the benefit to me and eventually my students. The connections I can make will only strengthen and develop my existing skill set. Having said this, I do feel a bit like my students – when they are learning something brand new – going through this process. I understand that I need to learn this and want to learn it, but the process of getting there will put me out of my comfort zone. It is always challenging to learn something new, but…in my experiences… also rewarding. I look forward to the journey these workshops take me on… challenging me both personally and professionally.

Lindsay Blamey
Lord Roberts
Cluster 1971

Keeping the Definition of Innovation in Mind when Planning

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Since the day I started reading the book, The Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros, I have tried to reflect upon my teaching practices and trying to refine the lessons or delivery so the lesson goal is being met in an innovative way. Having said this I would like to share a story…. A teacher from our school had created a wonderful movie with her students based on a book.  My grade 1/2 students viewed the movie and asked why that class had iPads and we didn’t. A fair question I thought, and I explained they were involved in a pilot project. There was a buzz in the class and some of my students voiced that they wanted to create their own plays and film them. This led to a discussion of some of the things we could do with iPads other than creating movies.  The students became so excited at the possibilities that a couple of students were willing to bring their allowance money to purchase an iPad for the class. After hearing this, I knew how important this learning and sharing tool was for them.

We began exploring ways we could get an iPad and as a class they thought they would need to persuade the principal to buy us one. Earlier in the year we had wrote a persuasive letter and had positive results so they felt they had a really good chance. Listening to all this, the definition of Innovation as a way of thinking that creates something new and better kept ringing in my head. I steered them in reflecting upon other ways people convince or persuade people. Some of the ideas that were generated were commercials, advertisements and songs. The students decided they wanted to create a song to persuade the principal in purchasing at least 5 iPads so we could do group projects (this was their idea!!)

Now, I do not own an iPad or have used an iPad but I was ready to learn alongside them or more likely from them.  So over the next couple of days we worked together creating a song which included why, some of the possibilities it would open for learning and building connections and sharing with others – let me tell you there were some very powerful conversations happening amongst these six and seven year olds. Plus it gave me an indication of their experiences with iPads. We used our document camera to revise and edit the song and then the Smartboard to practice singing different parts. I video taped them using my phone and then the students tried persuading our Principal with their song at 3:10 on the last day of school before Spring Break! The students were so focused and engaged that you could feel the excitement in the air… they didn’t even mind that they working until the last minute.

I was very proud of all of the students’ hard work and collaboration over the last couple of days. A lot of Language Arts outcomes were met as well as the Characteristics of an Innovator’s Mindset. Well, are you wondering what happened?….After Spring break, we had 5 iPads in our class (on loan) and the students felt so empowered by their creative efforts and seeing an immediate reward!!  This is the beginning of my journey and while I realize there will be bumps, wrong turns and even u turns along the way, with the appropriate support, I hope it to be a picturesque drive.

Alka Ambaram
Inkster School
1971 Cluster Group

Innovation and Mathematics

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After attending our session with George Couros I began to wonder … what is innovative when it comes to mathematics education? Now before I say anything else, I’d like to say that I do not see myself as a perfect example of an innovative math teacher. However, I do know myself to be a person who is genuinely interested in learning math and learning about teaching math. And as George has said in his book, “[i]f we want to create a culture of innovation, we must first focus on furthering our own learning and growth.” After participating in the workshop, reading parts of George’s book, some online research, and becoming the proud-owner of a Twitter handle (Colleen H2 btw ;)) here are my thoughts thus far … What is innovative when it comes to mathematics education . . .

Embracing an inquiry approach

In other words, students are actively involved in coming up with, investigating, and   solving real-life mathematics problems. In my online travels I came across a great website for inspiration for real-life problems: www.mathalicious.com.

Building upon strengths

As George suggests, we should help students find what they love and create learning experiences which develop their strengths. I think it would be really neat to ask the students where the math is in whatever it is they love. For example, if you love biking, where is the math in biking? If you love youtube, where is the math in youtube? I think this could lead to some neat ideas/innovations.

Building connections

Students could connect with experts who use math in their fields and industries and learn from them. I’m excited for our classroom to begin building more connections using Twitter and blogging!

Looking very forward to what George so nicely phrased as this “opportunity to create something better for our students.” Thanks for reading and happy learning everyone!

Colleen Heuchert-Hammell

Montrose School

Cluster 1996