Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Some Thoughts on Dog Training

A few years back we became a 'dog family'. The kids had pestered me for ages and, basically, I gave in. Our dog, 'Mac' came into our lives and I think he's great and am so glad he did.

Next Friday we become a 'two-dog' family.

I'm probably completely mad as I don't really love animals, my wife is allergic to most of them and we are super-busy, but my 12 year old has them as one of the two passions of her life (the other, thankfully, is baking).

We are spending our few remaining days of only-one-dog-ness reminding ourselves of all the important things that we will need to do with Cara, when she joins our household next Friday.

Of them all, I think one of the most important is the whole area of training. We can't expect a pup of a few weeks to simply fall into our lives and know all that she needs to; she'll need toilet trained, (fast!) trained to wait, come, sit, not to share the couch and not to beg in order to become part of our family. Sophie, that's your job, she's your dog, nothing to do with me.

We'll see how that goes.

I remember in school, having had the iPad a couple of months and looking forward to each child in the class having one thinking; "This is amazing, the kids won't need trained and neither will the staff. They know most of this already from their iPods and iPhones."
After teaching for a few months in a 1:1 iPad classroom I thought: "Just put this in the hands of teachers and it will be transformational - just wait and see what they will do."

Four years on I think that one of the most cornerstones of any successful iPad deployment in education is training.

Yes, it's true that iOS is such a ubiquitous platform that most people are already very familiar with it. Yes, it's true that babes and infants can virtually pinch, swipe, tap and touch before they get to solid food. Yes, most apps are straightforward and intuitive and behave exactly as you'd expect.

But this is a world where training is vital.

Teachers need trained not only in how apps work but in how they work together. Here are some reasons, a 'course catalogue' if you like:

Digital workflows
Storage of data
Digital marking
Rubrics for assessing digital content
Open outcome tasks and technology for learning styles
Content delivery and course creation using digital tools like iTunesU
Curriculum content to take advantage of this technology
Classroom transformation 
Digital Video
Reporting and Sharing 
Linking Apps
Classroom management tools

...and so the catalogue goes on. 

This is important because we are in danger of having a bad experience with our new puppy. We are in danger of being up in the night, cleaning up 'accidents', getting fed of begging and being bitten and barking and many other natural consequences of having an untrained pet.
And the story in our iPad classrooms could also be a tale of technology that fails to be transformational, that causes more problems than in solves, that turns teachers away and gives them more work, rather than cutting time for tasks and making things smoother and easier.

It's not a new world anymore. The stories of transformation in our classrooms should be abounding. It's important that teachers aren't left to 'bring the new puppy home' alone and that school leaders and innovators remember - when you're building the infrastructure and planning the wifi network and winning the hearts and minds of parents and stakeholders don't forget to train the teachers, without whom, the transformation will be at best sporadic and at worst non-existent.


Fingers crossed for the new pup.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Primary Reasons for iTunesU

Primary Reasons for Using iTunesU

In the post-tablet educational world, a place where the fact that students can make great movies and other content on their iPad and the internet is a world of knowledge now literally 'on tap' iTunesU is providing a way for schools to make this world make sense  and work for them.

Beginning in the universities and colleges of further education, iTunesU initially enabled people like myself to enrol in eclectic courses in philosophy from Harvard and dream of developing the next 'Angry Birds' because we had signed up to a 'Developing for iOS' course from Yale!

Increasingly schools have been seeing iTunesU as a useful, if not yet perfect, way of distributing course work to students and using some of the materials they have spent a lot of time creating, to great effect in their new 1:1 environments.

But does it have a place far from the lofty heights if Harvard and Yale, and even the large secondary schools that are piloting sharing their course materials this way - in the primary school?

I have to say I wasn't sure. The interface of iTunesU is bland and utilitarian, not immediately inspiring to students in colourful classrooms where so much learning is practical and kinaesthetic. In these schools the student/teacher relationship is so key and learning is often about inspiration - lighting the spark that motivates younger students to inquire, question and investigate.

So it was with some degree of doubt that I decided to introduce iTunesU to our class of 9/10 year olds. I felt, as it was something I could be asked to speak about to other schools the world over, that I should have a practical experience of how it worked in the classroom.

Firstly, for the uninitiated, iTunesU courses are 'built' on the Mac, not the iPad. The interface for building them is clear and intuitive once you grasp the structure. I will love the day when it's possible to build the whole thing on your iPad, I'm sure that's just a matter of time right?

Once I'd got to grips with the format for building the course - self-paced or in-session, outline, posts, draft posts, assignments and materials I found I actually really enjoyed making the course. Here are some reasons I enjoyed it:

1. It made me think clearly through the structure of what I was teaching and how I was going to deliver the learning opportunities which I found very helpful.

2. I realised that once the course was made, it was made - forever and next year or whenever, I could use the course again, and again. 

3. Suddenly the trendy concept of a 'flipped classroom' made some practical sense to me as a teacher - my students could continue learning at home, not simply completing rote examples of what we had learned in class. They could experiment, explore and create at home to complete assignments and then bring their learning into the classroom for discussion, further development and assessment.

4.Parents and other interested parties could participate in the learning, or at least be able to see clearly what programme their children were following. I could just enrol them on the course.

5. Finally, and possibly most surprisingly to me, the kids loved it! They really enjoyed receiving their learning in this way and how it linked with the approach we were taking to the iPad. Much of the new content approaches we were adopting in school really suited being delivered through iTunesU and we began to hear reports of students spending real time enthused in learning - at home.



So, iTunesU, I think you could still do with a splash of colour but you're doing a good job - from the lofty heights of Harvard to my 'wee' primary class. 

Thursday, March 20, 2014

The Conversation Moves On...



So, the iPad.

Yes it's great. A beautiful device on which you can do so much in school. From blending traditional materials with the digitals world in art, to creating music in new and wonderful ways, re-inventing the textbook and breaking down the artificial barriers between subjects and curricular areas - it's really changed the game.

But we all know that now right?

What happens next?

I think, as a teacher of some four years experience in this 'new world' that the conversation is now getting really interesting.

Once we have come to terms with the technology, realised that it is really not about how many apps you have, and begun to integrate some of the creative workflows that the iPad makes possible into our teaching - what then?

I think there are two frontiers that are now on the horizon.

Firstly, the structures and processes, not just of the classroom but of the school - how does this new technology permeate the environments and administration of our schools and classes? From workflows for distributing course content and marking to storage of files of various types and sharing this content with stakeholders such as governors, inspectors and parents, this is an area that is an interesting one and, in my opinion, has still to be 'sorted' in a way that is innovative and game-changing the way that the device has been in the classroom in teaching and learning.

Secondly, content.

Our curriculum materials are still outdated and fail to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the iPad. We are still fitting the technology to our existing frameworks and materials and only now starting to develop and create content that is specifically designed to take advantage of the 1:1 environment.

In my classroom we are working with new materials developed in the Netherlands by Leonardo Education called 'Journey Through the World of Knowledge'. These are curriculum materials designed around 'un-googlable' questions. Designed to work seamlessly with 1:1 technology and compliant with iTunesU which I am finding a slightly unexpected success in the primary school.

This, accompanied by my 'Reflection Booth' for video assessment, 'Aurasma' for bringing my classroom walls to life with fantastic video rich content, and the success and popularity of the digital report card on iBooks, is what is exciting me now.

Thanks, as always, to this lovely piece of glass that we call iPad for bringing all these questions to life and forcing us to take a rethink of how it all works.