Summer's Over Already?

Well summer is already over. It seems to always fly by, and I always seem to make the same comment - "it goes by too quick!". I try to decompress and disconnect during my summers; leave the school work, thoughts and ideas behind, and try to just enjoy the sunny, summer days. This year was no exception, and thus the reason why it's been a little while since my last post. However, I will say this, I found myself thinking a lot more of this upcoming school year than in year's past. The reason - it all has to do with 'flipping'.

I wrote a post not too long ago about the flipped classroom model of teaching. Over the last several months I have been researching extensively and putting together ideas for bringing this model to my classroom. A few colleagues and I have decided to jump right into this model, the deep end of course, and use this method of teaching this September. We have administration support, resources and $, and have set up the technology necessary for implementing the flip. I've planned out the videos, the activities that will be used in class, and the process to start the year. It requires quite a bit of planning and prepping and have come to recognize that as much as I don't want to think of school at all until September, if I really want to implement this model I had to get started a little earlier than usual. Surprisingly, I've been okay with this and have become a bit excited to get things going!

The very beginning of this year will require a lot of 'training' for my students to acclimatize them to the process. I plan on taking the first couple days just going through the routine and ensuring that they understand the process. The first day is usually a 'get-to-know-each-other' day anyway, so I figured I will still do this, but focus a bit more on 'get-to-know-the-flipped-classroom' instead. I've put together information for the students and expectations for the class and how to effectively watch the videos. For parents, I've also put together a letter (huge thanks to Crystal Kirsch!) and an information video so that they are completely aware of the situation. I can just imagine the first couple weeks when my students go home every night and watch videos instead of doing homework or other work! I figure laying the groundwork now will pay dividends later on.

The videos have been a bit interesting. It's always so foreign to hear your own voice, and a bit embarrassing talking to a computer screen. I've become a lot more comfortable in creating them however, and recognize the better you make the visuals, the better AND easier creating videos become. I've tried to keep them all between 5-15 minutes and hopefully the students appreciate this.

The last part of this preparation has been the in-class activities - something I've found through researching and online discussions, is often overlooked. I have found too many people focus the majority of their efforts on just creating the videos; unfortunately, this is the less important component of the flipped class model. Therefore, I've really tried to ensure that I focus on the types of activities my students will be engaging in class, after they have watched the concept videos. This I've found to be a challenging part of the preparation, as getting away from creating activities that last 30 minutes, and trying to create activities that last 65-70 minutes is difficult to say the least. 

Overall, I think I'm ready for the challenge. I guess this post is really about what I've experiences so far, and what I'm hoping for to start the school year. I don't expect it to be a seamless transition as this is a new way of learning not only for the students, but myself as well. I plan on continuously updating this blog (more frequently I promise) not only with useful tech tools that can be used in the classroom, but also my experience with flipping my classroom. I expect many of the posts will be me venting my frustration, but I hope to share some positive experiences as well. I think the key going into this whole thing is that this is not a one-semester experiment, but a continuous transition that will take several attempts before I see quality returns. Here's to a successful school year, and fingers crossed!

Ted? Is that you?

It's June. Exams are over, marks have been updated, reports are finished, and I can finally get back to this blog. It's been a while, I know, I've missed you too. However, you can't say that I have not been busy. Over the last several weeks, aside from the usual classroom work, and reporting process, myself and a group of other teachers have embarked on a new journey (that sounds corny I know - but it is true). A group of us have begun the process of 'flipping' our classrooms. We have ratcheted up the learning, at a time in the year where most are dialled down. We have begun researching about the products and processes required to effectively 'flip', and I can honestly say it's pretty cool to see all of the tech tools out there that you can use. The one that really caught my eye recently is one that many are familiar with - TED. Only this TED is a little bit different than his more famous brother. This TED is TED-ED.

First, if you haven't checked out TED yet, then please do so. The countless hours of video lectures are amazing, and I constantly find myself watching these videos rather than TV. Below are a list of what I think may be some of the best that pertain to education.

1. Sir Ken Robinson - Schools Kill Creativity
2. Salman Khan - Let's Use Video to Reinvent Education
3. Sugata Mitra: The Child-Driven Education
4. Sir Ken Robinson (again) - Changing Education Paradigms 
5. Malcolm Gladwell - Spaghetti Sauce (Not necessarily about education, but I really thought it was fantastic. Probably because I love marketing.)

Now that you are familiar with TED, let's meet his little brother TED-ED. Now this little brother has a pretty large mission - capturing great lessons from the world's educators. With TED-ED you can submit an idea for a lesson, have a professional animator illustrate it for video, record your own voice to it, and then have it posted on the website; where thousands of other educators can use it for their own lessons. Most videos are then accompanied with a number of questions, both simple and critical thinking, as well as extension activities. The idea that anyone, anywhere in the world can create a lesson is somewhat new, definitely amazing, and really shows how far we've come, not just with regards to technology, but collaboration. There are so many amazing teachers out there, TED has just given those teachers a new platform to share their great lessons, and we can all benefit from this. The website/project is still in its infancy, but before long I imagine it will be contain a wealth of knowledge and lessons that many educators will use on a regular basis. I for one can't wait to see where it goes from here!

A Blog About Blogs

Utilizing the online classroom effectively can open up a world of possibilities. I hope with the last couple of posts, people might strongly consider moving a lot of their teaching and resources online. It's the environment used most by our students, and we really need to consider doing the same. This blog is about just that; using 'their' environment to not only educate them, but others as well.

The idea of writing a blog, to some, may seem like a waste-of-time kind of idea. Who's going to read it? Who's going to care? What can I write about? All this may be true, if you don't have anything worthwhile to say. For me to suggest that this blog is followed by many, is a huge overstatement. I'm amazed actually if anyone at all is reading this now? Many students will also have these feelings and opinions. However, blogging has become a huge voice in today's world. It's what has allowed thousands to spread the word about various issues and events. It's allowed for the dissemination of information to the masses. It's what has given many people a platform, and thus an audience who would never have been able to achieve such feats previously. Encouraging students to take their voices online can greatly aid in the learning of the classroom, as well as their awareness of what's out there.

For the most part students have simply written statements online in 140 characters or less, or about things they saw, heard, or did today to their group of 'friends'. I believe many have not given much consideration to really formulating an opinion online, and having to defend or appreciate the comments left by others. For the most part, students feel that whatever they post online goes without defense or critique. Blogging can really force students to consider what they write, and how others will perceive their writing. But how do you go about getting your students to blog? What activities can you use in the class? And how do you keep students interested?

Raising awareness of blogs and generating interest has to be accomplished before you can even begin to ask your students to blog. Therefore, introducing your students to online blogs is the first step necessary in getting your students to blog. Blog hosting websites like blogger.com, wordpress.com, or edublogs.com, contain thousands of excellent blogs that you can use to illustrate blogging to your students. Tumblr.com will allow students to 'collect' blogs and follow them using their computer, tablet, or mobile device. There are plenty of examples out there to show them just how many people are blogging, and all the different uses for blogging.

The next step is to have your students learn the steps, characteristics, and rules of blogging. The best strategy that I believe to do this is something I found on, well, another blog. It's called 'Paper Blogging' and it illustrates to students all the necessary skills required when blogging. I could go on, but why not just check it out:
http://www.notesfrommcteach.com/2010/09/learning-to-blog-using-paper.html

Lastly, what can you use blogging for with your students? Other than asking them to blog about the day's lesson and what they learned, felt, or thought from it, there are countless activities that can be done. In the past I have had my students blog about economic news events that have taken place throughout the semester. They had to summarize what happened and the impact the event would have on the economy. It's an activity that can be translated to many classes and courses, and is a simple one. However, one that I believe would lend itself to much greater critical thinking is something discussed just the other day at a PLC meeting. What about posting one simple question to the students the very first day of class, that the students would have to continuously address throughout the semester/year?

This idea was posed for Canadian geography, so I will do my best to use that course as an example to illustrate the concept. The idea is to pose to the class on the very first day the question "What makes Canada such a special and unique place to live?" It is also in your best interest to inform the students that the very same question will appear on the final exam. Each student would then construct a blog where they would address that question and write about Canadian news stories, lessons learned in class, and any other ideas they had regarding the question. They could choose either side of the opinion in answering it, but the whole idea is to continuously have students comment on Canada and the uniqueness (or lack of) that this country has. They could source news articles, other peoples blogs, and videos. They would also comment on each others blogs, critiquing or agreeing with each other along the way. Not only would students critically assess Canadian geography, but they would also engage in an interesting conversation online. The final step to this activity is to pose that very same question on the final exam. For those students who continuously blogged, answering the question will be relatively simple, as they have already put forth all the necessary hard work and critical thinking. For those who did little blogging, they would then have to really work hard to answer the question. An interesting idea, and one that I will be trying next school year.

For other ideas, search online, there are hundreds of activities that you can use blogs for, and students will appreciate the online experience.

Discuss This!

Discussions in classrooms are valuable activities that allow students to analyze, assess, provide opinion, and argue about topics. They allow the teacher to assess students' understanding of the curriculum. Why do we limit ourselves then to only having discussions in physical classrooms? Why not take it online?

Virtual/digital classrooms provide an excellent medium for hosting such discussions. Many of these digital classrooms provide the discussion forum tool that allow students to join and post their opinion on topics and questions posed by the teacher. There is great benefit to this. Students do not always have their thoughts organized enough in class to be able to speak about a topic. Many students require much more time to gather their opinions and ideas before speaking out to their peers. Many students would rather write down these thoughts on paper first before speaking out. A useful strategy is to host daily or regular discussion forum for students who can leave the classroom and then respond to the question online.

My experience with this strategy has been positive, as I have found students who don't usually respond in class, responding much more online. In classes I have taught in the past, I have posted questions to the students at the beginning of the class, and have revisited the question at the end of the class. However, I have found that the same students are the ones responding, and the voices of the majority are not heard. Whereas hosting an online discussion forum has brought many new voices and thus opinions into the discussion, and the results have been great! However, there are a few things to remember with this.

1. Be regular. Schedule this strategy into your weekly plans. I wouldn't suggest doing this everyday, as setting the bar that high may mean ultimate failure; but twice or three times a week would keep your students connected to the routine. 
2. Make it meaningful. Students typically do not do work just for the sake of it. You as the teacher have to use this strategy as an assessment. However, I would suggest that you look to assess students responses on a weekly basis rather than each and every discussion. Not every discussion requires a response from every student, but I would say that responding at least once a week in a meaningful way can, and should, contribute to the students' overall grade.
3. Respond in kind. Having students respond to a question and each other is great, and students typically like to hear what their peers have to say. But you as well need to respond. Showing your students that you are paying attention to their opinions is easy to do in class, and necessary, and therefore online should be no different. Follow-up with your students and pose new questions. Critique their responses and approve their opinions. Showing any interest whatsoever will keep students coming back for more, and will lead to continued valuable discussions.
4. Switch it up. Rather than always looking to illicit responses from students on questions posed, frequently change the task. Have students look for articles, websites, blogs, etc. connected to the topic and have them provide a response to these. Have them post their own questions and generate their own discussions. Have students take the discussion to Twitter rather than the usual discussion board. Whatever you do, don't remain stagnant. Just like we need to switch up our activities in the classroom, we need to also switch up our activities online, and discussions are no different.
5. Have fun. The last thing you want to do is make the task mundane. Obviously not every discussion can be fun, and not every student will find it interesting, but you as the teacher can attempt to make things a little more enjoyable. Why not simply hold a discussion about a school event, popular culture, or the latest youtube sensation. It doesn't always have to be curriculum related, and you may find that the conversation does begin to connect to your course once the conversation gets going.

Discussion forums can be a great way of engaging your classroom. They don't have to be a chore however, and you don't have to host them every day. Setting up your online class website to host even a few can add a new dynamic to you classroom. And who knows, you might find a student you always thought was shy and reserved to be the most talkative and outgoing online. It's all about the medium.

Online Classroom Flip-Out!

As has been discussed previously, online or virtual classrooms, are excellent digital tools that allows you to do many things with your students. Maybe one of the best uses could be using it to ‘flip your classroom’. Getting into a discussion on the merits of such a teaching philosophy is a blog post in itself, so I will avoid such a debate. Instead this post will simply be about providing you with the details of how to do it using your online classroom.

However, before we begin, a brief overview of flipping the classroom is needed. Simply put, flipping the classroom, is based on the idea of having students learn a new concept out of the classroom, so that when students return to class the next day, that knowledge can be applied and greater critical thinking can take place. This attainment of knowledge can come from watching online videos, digital presentations, reading their textbook , news sources, or wherever the information is. The implications of this practice means that rather than spending 90% of class time learning a concept and using the remaining 10% applying it, ‘flipping the classroom’ allows the teacher to allot more time on ensuring students understanding and providing greater critical discussions around the topic.

I would hazard to guess that most teachers want to achieve such a result. Imagine walking into class everyday knowing that your students have learned the concept on their own, and are ready to engage in such activities? This is the Utopian model of teaching! However, it’s not easy; and in most cases it means a bit more ‘up-front’ work for teachers.  It means teachers will need to organize, and in some cases, prepare a variety of digital resources for your students.

Step 1: Whether it’s a Prezi, PowerPoint, YouTube video, website, blog, or whatever it may be, these resources will be the required material that students access in order to learn new concepts. Therefore, lots of online researching is required and teachers need to accumulate a tremendous amount of digital resources.

Step 2: The next part is getting your students to buy into the concept. This is also easier said than done. However, the fact that you are using a digital platform to present information, students will more readily accept such learning. Much of their time is spent online anyway, and in many cases students would prefer this format. However, not every student will ‘buy into’ your model and this is where formative assessment plays a large role.

Step 3: One of the tools many virtual classrooms provides you with is the ‘assessment’ or ‘survey’ function. These functions allow you to create a quiz, test, or exam using questions you determine and input into the virtual classroom. They allow you to create any question type from multiple choice, to short answer, and therefore you can create a quick 10 question type quiz based on a resource you have asked your students to look at online. This follow-up and formative assessment will ensure your students are doing the required readings, video watching, or whichever learning you decide.

So what if your virtual/online classroom doesn’t have this tool. Well you can revert back to pen and paper and have a daily quiz when your students return to class the next day. Either way, you are ensuring your students are learning the concepts and following-up with them if they are not.

Online classrooms provide you with plenty of opportunities to engage your students. Using these tools to 'flip your classroom' could be what your students are asking for!

Let's get Virtual!

Virtual or online classrooms are excellent tools that many educators are using now. For those still in the 'dark' about these environments, they offer many online tools that allow teachers to connect digitally with their students. They provide excellent extensions to the classroom that students appreciate as you are able to connect to 'their' world. Many schools offer online class websites such as 'MyClass' which provide a lot of useful features but often times are  limited in a number of important features; most noticeably that they only allow ‘one-way’ communication.  This type of communication only allows for teachers to distribute resources, links, and dates, and therefore limits student involvement. Other online class websites, such as ‘Angel’, allow students to communicate with each other, and most importantly, you the teacher; asking questions and finding answers to many issues that they might have forgotten about until after they left the classroom. This type of online classroom allows for teachers to post important dates, announcements, resources, and links, but also allows for assignment inboxes, blogs, wikis, surveys, discussion forums, quizzes, email, live chat, and marking and returning assignments all online. Over the next couple of weeks I will profile many of these online features that digital classrooms like 'Angel' provide, and explain the uses of these tools and how you can 'connect' more with your students!

Tweet This!

Although many have an aversion to tweeting, the many uses of twitter can add an exciting dynamic to any classroom. It can be more than simply telling your followers what you ate for lunch, or where you went for Easter break. An experiment on the use of social media at the University of Leicester in the UK has shown that Twitter can act as a valuable communication tool, as it developed peer support among students, personal learning networks, and an increase in students arranged social meetings. Try using it to hold a class brainstorm session, analyze the math behind a viral tweet/hashtag, issue a poll to gauge opinion, or communicate with experts in their field. Check out http://edudemic.com/2012/03/25-ways-to-use-twitter-in-the-classroom-by-degree-of-difficulty/ for more ideas!