Streaming Live for a Learning Community

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Shannon Smith

WEJSP "Chick Cam" broadcasting from Ms. Jo-Anne and Mr. Kneebone's room

Yesterday morning I found this great post in my reader: “Livestreaming from the Classroom” by Jaclyn Calder in which she discusses the use of livestreaming by a couple of teachers in her district.  I clicked the link to visit Cindy Beveridge’s classroom blog and learn about how they livestreamed the hatching of their chicks.  Wow!

Now, back at W. Erskine Johnston we have almost all classroom teachers using classroom blogs to share with parents and community the learning that happens in the school from day to day.  One of our incredible kindergarten teams, Jo-Anne Pulley and Gavin Kneebone, was also waiting for their chicks to hatch — that very day!  I sent a quick email and followed up with a facebook message to Jo, who I knew would be up early and heading into the school to check on the chicks.  She thought the idea of livestreaming was great and so we were set.

After setting up the livestream with a simple webcam — check out our “chick cam” here — I embedded it on the school blog, set up our lobby screen to broadcast the channel and sent a message to staff letting them know that they might share the event in their own classrooms.  One chick had already hatched, but the rest of the chicks emerged live on camera, to the delight of students, staff, families and community members both near and far.  The buzz and impact was unexpected, but delightful.

I wanted to share a few highlights to demonstrate why I think that livestreaming this event created a learning opportunity for the entire community:

  • Staff and students were able to share the stream with family far and wide — as far as British Columbia
  • Students in other classrooms entered questions in the chat window on livestream — asking about what temperature the incubator had to be kept, why some of the eggs were brown and some white, and what the students in the kindergarten planned to name the chicks.
  • Parents visiting the school paused in the lobby to enjoy watching the hatching live on screen.
  • While we were loading buses at the end of the day, the kids were still all abuzz, several stopping to comment on the chicks.
  • A class that had been watching made an impromptu field trip to visit the chicks in person.
  • The office of our local City Councillor tweeted about the event:
  • Until the custodian turned the lights out at 11 pm, the chat was lively with parents, staff and myself commenting on the event — one parent remarked, “We didn’t realize how interesting it is to watch chickens hatch – we can cancel our cable tv!”

My point is that this learning extended beyond the walls of the kindergarten classroom and gave the school a community-building event.  I look forward to catching up with the students this morning to find out about their conversations at home.  It will also be interesting to check in with staff to find out if they have considered other ways livestreaming might amplify and enrich other learning experiences for our students.

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Emotional Labour – at the Heart of Teaching

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Shannon Smith

Art of Healing by h koppdelaney on flickr

Labor, particularly emotional labor, is the difficult task of digging deep to engage at a personal level.  Emotional labor looks like patience and kindness and respect.  It’s very different from mechanical work, from filling out a form or moving a bale of hay.

Every great teacher you have ever had the good luck of learning from is doing the irreplaceable labor of real teaching.  They are communicating emotion, engaging, and learning from the student in return.  Emotional labor is difficult and exhausting, and it cannot be tweaked or commanded by management.

– Seth Godin “Stop Stealing Dreams”

This labour of digging deep with students holds in it the most robust potential for realizing true change in education.  Engaging with individual students and relentlessly seeking the learning opportunities and connections that will bring their passions, curiosity and motivation to the surface creates learning spaces where tomorrow’s leaders are born.

Godin’s recently published manifesto, “Stop Stealing Dreams (What is School For?)” is available for free download in a number of formats here.  Many of his ideas resonate with me and I don’t doubt that you will find them provocative and compelling as well.  Discussing what he calls the “connection revolution”, Godin says that a key piece of transforming education includes using “flipped learning” where students watch pre-recorded information sessions or lectures via the internet as “homework” in order to create time in the classroom for the teacher to work more meaningfully with students on going deeper with their learning.

While I think that the idea of flipping learning in this way is very interesting and opens up the conversation about how we design learning experiences for students and ourselves, the more salient idea is the importance of the connection between student and teacher.  I know that in my work with teachers, those who are focused on connecting with individual students are the ones whose students take risks in their learning and go beyond the status quo.  The teacher focused on the students is driven to learn and grow his or her own practices in order to better meet the needs of the learners.  There is no room for mechanical work, even if the environment seems to favour it.  That relationship is golden.

And while I agree with Godin that this emotional labour cannot be commanded by management, managing distractions so that the teacher can focus on establishing that connection through the labour of learning together is one of the most critical aspects of a school leader’s work.  And if I don’t see that connection happening?  You can bet I’m going to ask the teacher what he or she needs in order to encourage it.

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Leader as Host

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Shannon Smith

"share and explore" cc by denise carbonell on flickr

I recently came across the article, “It’s Time for the Heroes to Go Home“, co-authored by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze.  Like their work in “Walk Out Walk On”, this piece really resonated with my current thinking on educational leadership.

Why do we continue to hope for heroes? It seems we assume certain things:

  • Leaders have the answers. They know what to do.
  • People do what they’re told. They just have to be given good plans and instructions.
  • High risk requires high control. As situations grow more complex and difficult, power needs to be moved to the top (with the leaders who know what to do).

– Frieze and Wheatley

These assumptions about leadership are quickly becoming outdated.  Frieze and Wheatley make a compelling case for a re-imagination of leader-as-host:

If we want to transform complex systems, we need to abandon our exclusive reliance on the leader-as-hero and invite in the leader-as-host. Leaders who act as hosts rely on other people’s creativity and commitment to get the work done. Leaders-as-hosts see potential and skills in people that people themselves may not see. And they know that people will only support those things they’ve played a part in creating. Leaders-as-hosts invest in meaningful conversations among people from many parts of the system as the most productive way to engender new insights and possibilities for action. They trust that people are willing to contribute, and that most people yearn to find meaning and possibility in their lives and work. And these leaders know that hosting others is the only way to get large-scale, intractable problems solved.

Leaders-as-hosts know that they must invite in all voices, they must listen to and engage with even the most challenging voices, and they must recognize our shared drive to create meaning and possibility in schools.  The vision can no longer be determined by one individual, but must instead be a collective articulation of hope and commitment.

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Parents as Partners Webcast – Building a Learning Network

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Shannon Smith

image cc by Mark H. Anbinder on flickr

Many schools are beginning to use social media to send out information to parents.  Examples include twitter feeds and facebook pages.  These initial forays into social media are a first step.  They provide parents and the community with greater access to information regarding the school and the learning happening within its walls.

A key facet of school leadership is developing relationships, both within staff and also with families and the community.  This relationship building must include seeking feedback and listening.  Most of this work is done face to face, through school events or outreach programs and even through informal conversations in the hallways or at drop off or pick up time.

We live in a time when top-down leadership and closed door meetings are no longer seen as the way to get things done.  Stakeholders want to be involved in decision-making.  They want to know what their school leader is thinking and what he or she values.  They want, above all, to trust that their child is in the very best hands at school.

How can we use those same social media tools to engage in conversation, rather than simply pushing out information?

This will be the crux of my discussion on Monday, February 20th at 9:00 PM EST when I join Lorna Costantini, author of the ourschool.ca blog, for the Parents as Partners webcast.  Please consider joining the discussion and sharing with your staff and your community.  Here is a brief overview of key topics for discussion:

  • Leadership 2.0:  Leading through Listening and Learning
  • What is twitter and how do I get started?
  • How can parents and schools use social media to engage in meaningful conversations?
  • What challenges do we face when we use social media and how can we overcome them?
  • Open discussion:  What are your burning questions/issues/concerns?  What are your succes stories?

The session will be open to all who are interested.  In order to make the most of the experience, consider using a headset with mic so that you can fully join the conversation.  Hope to “see” you there!

from ourschool.ca:

DATE: Monday February 20, 2012

TIME: 9:00 PM EDT (GMT-5) Time Zone Converter
LOCATION: http://tinyurl.com/ETTpasp

You can join us in the elluminate room at http://tinyurl.com/ETTpasp The slides, websites and chat conversation will be held in this room. If you have a USB headset with microphone you can come to the mic to ask questions. The room will be open 15 min before the webinar for the orientation on how to participate in a BlackBoard Collaborate meeting room.

Link to Parents as Partners webcast: http://tinyurl.com/ETTpasp
Test your computer settings Test your settings

Posted in Engaging Everyone, Leadership Essentials | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Continue Looking

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Shannon Smith

 

Our task as educators is to nurture that curiosity.  If our students continue looking, we have achieved our goal.

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What’s your Richter scale?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Shannon Smith

Violet and Donovan - together, my personal Richter scale of influence.

If you are focused on measuring your value by whether or not some social media “big wig” follows you on twitter, stop.

You are missing the point.

Your voice is your value.  Keep it authentic, keep it yours and keep it in the conversation.  Period.

The conversation and your own growth as an individual and an educator should be your Richter scale.

Now, what is your magnitude?

 

 

 

Posted in Engaging Everyone, Leadership Essentials | 2 Comments

Big Picture Learning

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Shannon Smith

Our brains naturally prefer big picture learning. Understanding how everything fits together.

This video asks us to think about the way that school structures our learning. Teachers know that students learn best when there is integration of subjects and opportunities to explore areas of interest deeply.

Before I explore a couple of take-aways from this video, I want to offer a bit of caution about romanticizing the “way things used to be”. For instance, the image of a child learning to farm glosses over the fact that in this scenerio learning was limited to the narrow field of occupations held by one’s parents or close relatives.

The Take Aways: Big Picture Personalized Learning

One challenge I hear about time and time again is how to provide big picture learning experiences when the Ontario curriculum is organized into discrete subject areas with a litany of expectations in several “strands” per subject. I’ve worked with many teachers who are able to create incredible learning opportunities for students by pulling together the big ideas across a variety of subject areas. This comes from knowing the curriculum inside out.

In Ontario curriculum revisions going back as far as 2008 have adopted a “Big Picture” approach:

Another challenge is how to harness the interests and passions of all students in the class. Teachers who do this best connect with their students and see their job not as delivering content, but as forming relationships with individuals to nurture them in their learning. When that connection happens and when a teacher shares his or her joy of learning, the relationship becomes akin to that of apprentice and master. The master teacher instinctually differentiates because of that relationship. The teacher is constantly on the look out for ways to meet the learning needs of the students.  This happens when the teacher knows the student inside and out.

Anything in the video resonate with you?

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Lead Learner Series – The Big Five

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Shannon Smith

 

The Big Five: Strategies for Effective Instruction in OCDSB Schools

The Ottawa Carleton District School Board’s “Board Improvement Plan for Student Achievement” (BIPSA) includes a key strategy focused on creative, innovative, and critical thinking and problem-solving.  During a fall session of our leadership PLCs,  we explored the question, “What does effective instruction look like, feel like and sound like for all students in our classrooms?” five strategies surfaced in our answers again and again:

  • The TASK engages learners.
  • FEEDBACK guides learners.
  • CRITERIA informs learners.
  • MODERATION supports learners.
  • DIFFERENTIATION invites learners.

Underlying these “Big Five” strategies were 3 key elements:

  • engagement of students, staff and parents/guardians
  • relationships as a community of learners
  • happiness/joy of learning

It is through working together to improve learning that we develop our relationships and it is those relationships that bind us together in our commitment to all learners.

Lead Learner Series

The effective change leader actively participates as a learner in helping the organization improve

– Michael Fullan (Change Leader: Learning to do what matters most)

Later this month, administrative teams from all elementary schools across the District will participate in sessions with Garfield Gini-Newman, Senior Lecturer at OISE/UT and Senior National Consultant with The Critical Thinking Consortium.  The specific focus for these sessions will be on the “TASK”.  We will be exploring how to craft learning tasks that do the following:

  • focus on the big ideas and enduring understandings of The Ontario Curriculum
  • inspire open-ended inquiry that reflects authentic, relevant and meaningful contexts
  • promote creativity, innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving.

The “Lead Learner” series will continue with subsequent learning opportunities for administrators across the District to explore the Big 5 strategies.  The series is aimed at developing capacity within our school leaders, while providing opportunities for us to learn together, thus building our District’s “social capital”.  Capacity building, teamwork, instruction and systemic strategies are the four drivers identified as most successful in whole system reform efforts, according to Michael Fullan in his paper, “Choosing the Wrong Drivers for Whole System Reform“.  Given that the Lead Learner series is based on all of the “right” drivers, it should be an effective process.  I will be sharing reflections as I participate in the process and I invite you to join the conversation around the “Big 5″, beginning with the TASK.  What does an engaging task look like?

The "Task" engages learners

Posted in Creativity and Engagement, Engaging Everyone, Instructional Practices, Leadership Essentials, Professional Development | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Education and Social Media — the View from Ontario

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Shannon Smith

Earlier this week I read Chris Kennedy’s blog post “Education and Social Media in British Columbia“.  Chris takes stock of where edublogging is at in BC and includes the provocative claim that BC is numero uno across Canada when it comes to the use of social media in education.  As much as I like to remind myself that I am not competitive, it just isn’t true ;)  Chris’ claim got to me.

I tweeted his post to share it with others with the lament, “wish I could say the same for Ontario”.

Doug Peterson tweeted back:

We were both preparing to craft responses to Chris’ post and it occurred to us that we should work on it together using a google doc.  Then we thought – hey, why not invite everyone from the active Ontario Edubloggers’ community!  So we tweeted the link and invited the gang to get in on the post.  Visit the Ontario ConnectEd Leaders’ Consortium to see what we came up with as a group.

 

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Are we (almost) there yet?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Shannon Smith

 

Stack: iPhone, Lenovo, Aigo, Fujitsu, Samsung cc by Josh Bancroft

Mindshare Learning has posted it’s “12 Canadian EdTech Predictions for 2012”  It is an optimistic list and worth sharing to spark some discussion.  I’m particularly interested in your thoughts on numbers 2, 6, and 7.

Take a look at the list – what resonates with you?  Are we close to surpassing the tipping point?  Will BYOD be more widely implemented?  Will IWB’s evolve to better meet the needs of students?

 

1. Web 2.0 tools will continue to dismantle classroom walls to empower greater teaching innovation, collaboration, promoting enhanced student engagement. Watch for Web 3.0 tools such as natural speech recognition to take hold in 2012!

2. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and cloud computing will get beyond the pilot phase in schools and into the mainstream.

3. Open Learning and the notion of students having the options to take courses beyond their chosen university. Providing students with greater flexibility.

4. Tablets, tablets, and more tablets. And smart phones. While Apple dominates many low cost providers will come to the party with education focused devices and richer relevant education content.

5. Books are not dead yet! Content (rich media) is still king! Dynamic rich eTextbooks will continue to gain ground in high school and post-secondary institutions. Hence, while books are not dead yet, publishers are scrambling to offer multiple platform options.

6. IWB’s (Interactive Whiteboards) will better integrate with tablets and the classroom ecosystem.

7. Finally getting beyond Malcolm Gladwell’s classic “tipping point” where more than 25% of teachers are using ICT in the classroom.

8. Funding Challenges will give rise to greater education and industry partnerships to support sustainable learning environments

9. More Blended Learning options for K12 and Post-secondary students.

10. Desktops . . . what are they again?

11. Canadian Faculties of Education will finally wake up and realize they are the centres for teacher innovation.

12. The notion of 21st Century learning will be embraced by all provinces and territories across Canada.

– mindsharelearning.com

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

In the fall, Gary Stager wrote a post condemning BYOD as the “Worst Idea of the 21st Century”  for a number of reasons and concludes with the following:

Of course teachers should welcome any object, device, book or idea a student brings to class that contributes to the learning process. Every thing a child brings to school in her heart, head or backpack is a potential gift to the learning environment. However, BYOD is bad policy that constrains student creativity, limits learning opportunities and will lead to less support for public education in the future.

(Stager, October 2011)

Royan Lee countered with some pushback on the notion that BYOD is a socio-economic issue in his blog post “Why I don’t think BYOD is a socio-economic issue, Why one size never fits all, and other ramblings…”  Have a read through Royan’s points and see where you stand.  For me, it isn’t an easy issue to resolve, however, if the Mindshare Learning predictions are correct, BYOD will continue to be a hot topic.

Interactive White Boards

I find the wording on prediction #6 interesting: “IWB’s will better integrate…” (emphasis my own).  I’m just not radical enough to say that IWBs should be burned in effigy because they replicate poor teaching practice.  Or am I?

Enough said.

Well, maybe I am capable of keeping an open mind and seeing what developments help them to “better integrate” in the classroom.  Sceptical.  You?

The Tipping Point

Let’s face it, there are many tipping points here.  It feels as though we have been on the verge of the tipping point with regards to the use of ICT in the classroom.  I’m more interested in how it is being used.  I’m looking at when we will get beyond the tipping point of using ICT in the classroom to differentiate learning, including assessment, for students.  This might be a “jagged edge” issue, both across the country, across the province and across Districts themselves.  Bring it on.  What is your sense – is surpassing the tipping point going to happen in your school or your district in 2012?

The Mindshare predictions provide a nice starting point for some reflection and discussion.  Feel free to share to jump into the conversation – what do you think of where we are at and where we are headed?

 

 

 

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