Sean's Blog

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Stop Motion Art & Animation in Grade 3

What happens if you take 180 Grade 3 students, 2 magnificent Art Teachers, 24 iPad (Justand) stands, clamps and 24 iPads?

Well, you achieve a level of creativity that is truly inspiring—and that is the only word to describe the fever pitch that has been Grade 3 Art classes this past month, the synergy between 'real life' art work (paper, scissors, paint) and the literal bringing to LIFE of these creations using the stop motion animation via the iPad app - Stop Motion Studio was exactly that, INSPIRING. You don't need to look any further than this is to see the true embodiment of the '4 Cs' of '21st Century Learning' described by UWCSEA profile in action.

Creativity | Collaboration | Communication | Critical Thinking

Creative and innovative
Collaborative; and Communicators
Critical thinker and problem solvers

A brief look at Caroline and Siân's learning intentions for this unit reveals how powerful this kind of activity is in providing experiences that facilitate this kind of learning:

How to use animation software to retell a story.
How the creative preparation for an animation differs from other forms of art
How to use mixed media to create scenes and characters.
Look critically at their animation and consider how it can be changed.

Video compiled by Caroline Sebunya

Watching the students in action it also became quickly evident that there was a great deal of 'Critical Thinking and Problem Solving' happening—not something the teachers had expected or consciously planned for but, I can assure you, if you ask them now they will tell you that this became a very powerful aspect of the students' learning - from assembling and adjusting the stands, to the realisation that they need to storyboard their animation to troubleshooting issues with the App, to making judicious choices about the kinds of materials that would help them to tell their stories—even logical mathematical reasoning as they wrestled with frame rates per second!

So the question is, how do we really teach creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration? These are right brain skills, those that are most difficult to teach in a codified, regimented way. With most school systems now fixated on measurable outcomes (usually test scores), how do we make these 'soft skills' a genuine priority when they are so hard to measure? Well ... one way is through Digital Art.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Don't Just Stand There, Reflect on Something!

"Don't just do something, stand there!"

That could just as easily have been the title of this post, except I wanted to get the critical word 'REFLECT' in there somewhere. The point is, in the midst of the frenetic pace that is our typical school today, it is rare occasion that anyone actually makes time to stop. Stop and think.

Reflection has to be one the hardest things to encourage students to do well, and yet, if we are serious about our students retaining what they learn, cultivating the self awareness that is at the heart of the UWCSEA Profile it's something we not only cannot afford to ignore, but something we need to make a regular, essential element of our classroom practice.

A common objection when this subject comes up is something along the lines of,

'I would if I could, if I had time'

But as the research highlighted in this post highlights, the fact is, if you want the time you invest in teaching your students to really matter, if your students are going to have any hope of retaining, long term, what they learn in your classroom, then

... you can't afford to ignore making time for your students to reflect on their learning.

Why? Because they only learn by thinking about what they have learned.

The conversation about what kids need to know and to be able to do by the end of high school has gradually shifted over the past several years to emphasize not just rigorous content goals, but also less tangible skills, such as creative thinking, problem-solving and collaboration. That shift has brought schools that are practicing “deeper learning” into focus.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been a big supporter of this work, defining deeper learning as a model that focuses on critical thinking, communication, collaboration, academic mindsets and learning how to learn, all through rigorous content. New research conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) has found that the deeper learning model does have positive learning outcomes for students, regardless of their background.

“One of the things that we saw in these schools was that the teachers and students themselves were constantly engaged in thinking about what students were learning, and the students were reflecting on their learning and trying to improve it.”

Learning by thinking

Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance: a team of researchers from HEC Paris, Harvard Business School, and the University of North Carolina describe what they call the first empirical test of the effect of reflection on learning. By “reflection,” they mean taking time after a lesson to synthesize, abstract, or articulate the important points.

Participants completed a math brain teaser under time pressure and wrote about what strategy they used or might use in the future to solve the problem. This group did 18 percent better in a second-round test than their control-group counterparts, who were not given time to reflect. In the field study, groups of newly-hired customer-service agents undergoing job training were compared. Some were given 15 minutes at the end of each training day to reflect on the main things they had learned and write about at least two lessons. Those given time to think and reflect scored 23 percent better on their end-of-training assessment than those who were not. And these improvements weren't temporary—researchers found they lasted over time.

This study sheds more light on this practice than ever, and what follows is my attempt to sum up their findings as succinctly as I can.

Emphases and content [inside brackets] are mine.

You can access the original paper here.

Research on learning has primarily focused on the role of doing (experience) in fostering progress over time. In this paper, we propose that one of the critical components of learning is reflection, or the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience. Drawing on dual-process theory, we focus on the reflective dimension of the learning process and propose that learning can be augmented by deliberately focusing on thinking about what one has been doing. [...] We find a performance differential when comparing learning-by-doing alone to learning-by-doing coupled with reflection. Further, we hypothesize and find that the effect of reflection on learning is mediated by greater perceived self-efficacy. Together, our results shed light on the role of reflection as a powerful mechanism behind learning. (Abstract)

...
Individual learning can be augmented when individuals can not only “do” but also “think” about what they have been doing. In doing so, we depart from previous work equating direct learning with only learning-by-doing and introduce the construct of “learning-by-thinking”—i.e., learning that comes from reflection and articulation of the key lessons learned from experience. (p 4)

Reflection— is the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience. Reflecting on what has been learned makes experience more productive.

Reflection builds one's confidence in the ability to achieve a goal (i.e., self-efficacy), which in turn translates into higher rates of learning. [Or appreciating ones own capacity, efficacy, achievements; eg, I am good at/better at ...] (p 5)

The automatic, unconscious process of learning generated by “doing” becomes more effective if deliberately coupled with the controlled, conscious attempt at learning by “thinking.” In doing so, we extend literature claiming that the capacity to reflect on action is necessary for practitioners to learn (Schön, 1983) [from surface to deep] (p 6)

It's not enough to just think about it, you have to express it, share it.

The process of transforming tacit into codified knowledge requires a cognitive investment that generates a deeper understanding of this knowledge.

We contribute to this literature by providing empirical evidence of the benefits associated with knowledge codification and uncovering the mechanisms behind them. Our findings suggest that the benefits of codification are not affected whether its purpose is for self-reflection or for sharing know-how with others. [Whether it is a private diary, or whether it is a public journal, like a blog.]

The automatic, unconscious process of learning generated from experience is coupled with the controlled, conscious attempt at learning by reflection. (p 8)

The automatic, unconscious process of learning generated by doing can become more effective if deliberately coupled with controlled, conscious attempts at learning-by-thinking. In particular, we expect individuals to perform significantly better on subsequent tasks when they think about what they learned from the task they completed. (p 9)

Theories of knowledge codification (Cowan, David, and Foray, 2000; Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka and Von Krogh, 2009) shed light on another potential benefit to the knowledge holder of sharing knowledge. Those theories suggest that,

... the reflection effort needed to create the insights to be shared with a counterpart may end up generating a deeper understanding of the problem space itself.

This deeper understanding benefits the knowledge holder in terms of improved problem-solving capacity. In particular, we would expect the improvement in problem-solving capacity generated by reflection aimed at sharing to be greater than the improvement generated by reflection alone. In other words, one can expect performance to increase the most when reflection and sharing, i.e., thinking and teaching, are coupled. This line of argument should be familiar to those who teach and subscribe to the adage that one learns the most on a subject by being forced to teach it. (p 10)

Though reflection entails the high opportunity cost of one's time, we argue and show that reflecting after completing tasks is no idle pursuit: it can powerfully enhance the learning process.

Learning, we find, can be augmented if one deliberately focuses on thinking about what one has been doing. In addition to showing a significant performance differential when comparing learning-by-doing alone to learning-by-doing coupled with reflection, we also demonstrate that the effect of reflection on learning is mediated by greater self-efficacy. (p 26)
...

Individual learning can be augmented when individuals can not only “do” but also “think” about what they have been doing.

Learning Journals

Our results also have important practical implications. In our field study we showed that taking time away from ~~training~~ [teaching] and reallocating that time to reflection actually improved individual performance. ~~Companies~~ [Schools] often use tools such as learning journals as a way to encourage reflection in ~~training~~ [teaching] and regular operations. Our personal experience is that individuals of all ages may not treat these exercises with much seriousness; however, our findings suggest that they should. Our study highlights that it may be possible to train [teach] and learn “smarter”, not “harder” (p 27)
...

Individual learning is enhanced by deliberately focusing on thinking about what one has been doing.

Together, our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey:

“We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.”

Self-aware - Reflection

Practical pointers

So how does this look in our Learning Journals? As we use Google Sites as our learning platform, I've posted examples/models on our Google Site here.

Reflection inline on a site page

Reflection as an ongoing journal within folder

In fact any file that is stored within Google Drive allows the ability to comment, and even have a reflective/feedback dialogue with within Drive:

Here's a slideshow of some possibilities to make this simple, and therefore easy to build into regular lessons:

Reflection is critical

Cited in Black & Wiliam's pivotal 'Assessment and Classroom Learning' (1998), a review of European research by Elshout-Mohr (1994) pointed out both that students are often unwilling to give up misunderstandings—they need to be convinced through discussion which promotes their own reflection on their thinking—and also that if a student cannot plan and carry out systematic remedial learning work for himself, he or she will not be able to make use of good formative feedback. Both of these indicate that the kind of self-assessment fundamental to reflection is essential. Similarly, Hattie et al (1996) argue that direct teaching of study skills to students without attention to reflective, meta-cognitive, development may well be pointless. Pointless.

A more recent study entitled 'Learning by Thinking' (Stefano et al, 2014) focuses on the importance of reflection as one of critical components of learning; reflection as "the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience". In short, if you want your students to retain what they have learned long term, you have make time for students to reflect on what they have learned (not just what they have done) in fact far from bring a 'maybe if there's time' option, this is something you can't afford for your student's NOT to do.

"... individual learning is enhanced by deliberately focusing on thinking about what one has been doing. [...] Further, we find that the effect of reflection on learning is mediated by greater perceived self-efficacy. Together, our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey: “We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.” (p29)

But,

Yes, you knew there was a but coming.

I see them used only for summative and not formative assessment, where the student creates a wonderful screencast that demonstrates mastery of the content... Which just leaves me wondering, well where was the learning? Did they already know how to do this? If not, where is the 'journey', you see I find teachers habitually orient to capturing summative demonstrations but rarely, if ever formative ones, specifically capturing mistakes, misconceptions, errors. This seems to 'run against the grain' of teaching instinct.

Worse still, if a student 'gets it wrong' the tendency is it to ask them to scrap it and try again.

The truth is, misconceptions are a fantastic opportunity for a great lesson using a two stage screencast, stage one, the misconception, duplicate to another and overwrite with a correction. As John Hattie explains:

"A safe environment for the learner (and for the teacher) is an environment where error is welcomed and fostered – because we learn so much from errors and from the feedback that then accrues from going in the wrong direction or not going sufficiently fluently in the right direction." p23 (My emphasis)

Hattie J (2013). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

All you need is to set an activity that is focused on a common misconception that you know students often have, here's an example adapted from a recent article by Jan Chappuis Adapted from "Thoughtful Assessment with the Learner in Mind" (Educational Leadership, March 2014)

"The challenge with misconceptions is to correctly identify them and then plan lessons to dislodge them. Misconceptions are stubborn: They can't be corrected by papering over them. To illustrate, let's look at a misconception that's common in middle school science. Newton's first law of motion states that a force is not needed to keep an object in motion, yet many students (and adults) will tell you that if an object is in motion, it will require a force to stay in motion, which seems like common sense. (Aristotle thought this, by the way.) Memorizing the principles of the first law—“an object at rest will stay at rest” and “an object will continue with constant velocity unless acted on by an unbalanced force”—is generally not enough to counter what our senses tell us about force and motion: If you want a book to keep moving across a table, you have to keep pushing it."

So, having given the class Newton's first law of motion, the teacher could ask the students to create a screencast that explains the forces that are in motion in order for them to, for example, make a ball roll slowly along a floor, and to describe the forces are that in action that could affect it and why...

While the students are engaged in this activity, the teacher is actively monitoring, as a keen observer, the teacher is constantly watching what students do, looking for clues about their learning progress, and asking for input from students about their status, what have they learned, and more importantly what do they need to unlearn. The teacher walks among their students as they work, listening for clues about their understanding, asking questions that probe their thinking... Looking for any evidence of misconceptions that will fuel the next intervention or episode of teaching. Having established the extent of understanding, the next steps will be to teach to correct. Depending on the extent of the misunderstanding, correcting this could be a 10 minute clarification, or maybe require a series of lessons and activities designed to explore this issue thoroughly.

Following this, the teacher asks the students, to continue their screencast, not to delete or amend the initial misunderstanding, but to continue the learning 'story', to identify the misconception and contrast it with the correct interpretation.

"Finally, when students are able to do so, have them explain why the misconception is incorrect. Misconceptions, whether in science, social studies, mathematics, language arts, or any other discipline, require an intentional approach tailored to the nature of the misconception because the teaching challenge is to cause conceptual change—to have students give up the inaccurate conception they currently hold in favor of an accurate one." p24

Another but...

But this leaves another problem; what do you do with the 20 to 30 short videos?

Watching them all could take maybe an hour, and that's without feedback, that could be time worth spending considering the richness of the data it contains, arguably a better way to spend your time than 'marking'. Alternatives include, peer assessment, or 'P2P' (Pupil 2 Pupil). Name stick random checkups, choose 5 to view carefully (don't tell them who it will be, use name sticks near the end of the lesson).

What do you do with the kids who on the first attempt were able to show that they understood the situation well, no misconceptions evident?

Well the short answer is differentiate, other suggestions could include... Promote them to 'teacher assistants', as 'assistants' they are invaluable in helping determine whether the 'corrected' screencasts of the other students are actually really correct. Challenge them to find another misconception to set the class (in the same area of learning) see if it can 'trick' the class? Create another screencast to explain why the misconception exists?

7 powerful ways to use screencasts

Black and Wiliam describe 7 indicators of understanding in their seminal work, Assessment and Classroom Learning (1998), and it just so happens these exact same indicators are fantastic ways to focus the ways you ask your students to make screencasts.

These indicators of understanding are especially relevant in terms of the kinds of evidence that screencasting is uniquely equipped to capture, ask students to use screencasts to make their learning visible - explicit by creating a screencast that models the following: extension, modification, pattern finding, shortcuts, explanation.

Tacit indicators will be persistence and enthusiasm.

"After studying and discussing video extracts and transcripts of lessons, seven 'indicators of understanding' emerged [...] as a series of potential clues to the level of the student's understanding,

extension of a concept: students who have understood something often take the idea further on their own initiative;
making modifications to a pattern: students who understand, spontaneously start making their own modifications, while those who don't understand imitate or follow rules;
using processes in a different context: students who have understood a particular idea often start seeing the same patterns elsewhere;
using shortcuts: only students who are sure of the 'big picture' can short-cut a procedure so that thinking up or using a short-cut is taken as evidence of understanding;
ability to explain: students who have understood something are usually able to explain it;

Tacit indicators
ability to focus attention: persistence on a task is taken as a sign of understanding."
changes in demeanour: students who had understood were 'bright-eyed' while those who had not appeared half-hearted;

(p 57)

I'd argue that the reverse is true as well, namely, if a student does not show any of these indications, then it is likely they don't understand it, so capture their attempt, teach into their struggle, and then get them to capture a later more successful attempt.

SAMMS - Transformation with Tech
Social: A great way to manage a class load of videos such as those generated by a class full of students creating screencasts is to ask the students to post them on a class online platform, such as a Google Site or blog.

Access: They can search for clarification on specific elements they find confusing, maybe particular vocabulary, or inspiration for their demonstration.

Mutability: In response to feedback, students can easily duplicate and revise their screencast and post a second screencast that shows clear evidence that relevant criticisms have been resolved.

Multimodality: Of course this entire medium is multimodal, combining image, drawing, audio and video.

Socially Network & Situate: Now it is online, you can facilitate a P2P homelearn* activity. Assign assessment buddies to feedback on each others screencasts at home, of course the teacher can now easily monitor the quality of these online interactions, and interject, support, clarify, redirect as necessary.

Looking for inspiration for misconceptions? Google it... "common misconceptions students have" or something similar, will give you plenty of material to get you started.

For example ... http://www.apa.org/education/k12/alternative-conceptions.aspx

*as opposed to 'homework'.

Paul Black & Dylan Wiliam (1998): Assessment and Classroom Learning, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 5:1, 7-74

Elshout-Mohr M (1994). Feedback in self-instruction, European Education, 26, pp. 58-73.

Hattie J, Biggs J, & Purdie N (1996). Effects of learning skills interventions on student learning: a meta-analysis, Review of Educational Research, 66, pp. 99—13

Di Stefano, G., Gino, F., Pisano, G. P., & Staats, B. R. (2014). Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance. Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper, (14-093), 14-093. Chicago

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Learning Journal Downloads

The school year is drawing to a close, and with it the final upload to each child's Learning Journal in the Infant School.

The vehicle we use for these 'Learning Journals' is Google Picasa, which is merged with a twin Google product called Google Photos, within Google+. This year's content will be removed from each teacher's account before the start of the next school year in August.

With this in mind you may wish to download some or all of your child's learning journal before then. In this post I will outline how you can do this.

In Picasa you can download images, one by one, but you cannot download videos.

So it's much easier of you 'upgrade' to Google + and then you can download individual photos, videos, or even the entire album. You will be able to view all your Picasa media from within Google+.

Click on the Picasa link your teacher sent you, and it should automatically redirect to Google+

Use the drop down menu on the right to download the entire album.

Click to enlarge

Troubleshooting

Some parents are finding that this still doesn't work, the link just directs them to Picasa. This is due to a 'cookie' that is preventing the redirect from Picasa to Google+. If you clear out your cookies (something you should do regularly anyway) it should work.

For normal (non techie) parents, Cookies are bits of code that are stored by websites on your computer to enable a site to 'remember' or 'recognise' you when you return to their website, like remembering your preferences etc. Or in this case 'remembering' that you want to use Picasa, not Google+, except now you DO want to use Google+! So clearing out cookies, effectively wipes that browser's 'memory' of your preferences relating to the sites you visit.

Confused? Never mind, in the Chrome browser, just click Chrome on the Menu, and choose 'Clear Browsing Data' tick or untick as you see fit, just make sure the Cookies box is ticked, and then click the 'Clear browsing data' button. Don't panic, you can't do any major damage to your computer here.

Another alternative in Chrome is to right-click on the link in the email you were sent and open it in an incognito window, which will open the links in google+ since no cookies are stored.

Note:

This will download all the content, ie, images and video, but not the comments; to keep those you will need to screenshot the relevant pages instead.

Any problems - please forward the email your child's teacher sent you to me at smc@uwcsea.edu.sg and I'll see if I can resolve it for you.

Download albums you own as follows:

Click on Home and then Photos:

More > Albums

Choose the Album you want to download:

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Designing & Making & ICTs = Creativity Cubed

There can't be many activities that come closer to the essence of what it means to be human than the sheer art of making, the magnificent process that links the mind to the medium. The ability to take nothing but a notion and to translate that into a tangible product that is as real as as the hands that made it.

As someone whose life is dominated by screens, I would be the first to extol the virtue and legitimacy of pixel manipulation as a creative medium, in fact most of my work is predicated around precisely that. But it still doesn't come close to literally getting your hands dirty, the assault on the senses of the noise and smell and sweat of actually cutting and shaping and forming with your bare hands. Nothing like it.

Real vs Virtual? You don't need to choose

Which is why I started up the Designers & Makers Activity with Carl Waugh (Head of DT Dover Campus) this year. You see, I think the most exciting use of tech is the kind that does not make puerile demarcations between the 'real' and the 'virtual' - yes sawdust is more 'real', more tangible, than symbols on a screen, but, and this is critical, you don't have to choose. Just as with the stop-motion activities we use in Art lessons and in Kindergarten, arguably digital technologies are never more exciting than when they is used in the service of 'real life' making and creating.

Clearly our kids agree. When I gave them the choice halfway through the ECA, between continuing working in 'resistant materials' (wood metal & plastic to you non DT types) with their hands, or manipulating a 3D model in SketchUp to export to the 3D printer, half of them declined, favouring the fervency of cutting and drilling and forming instead.

Pure focus.

Creating vs creativity

Which brings me to a concern I have here—the relentless emphasis on, creativity, yes it has it's place, but sometimes, sometimes it's enough to just have an excuse to shape something, without a care for it to be validated or endorsed by a 3rd party, let it be what it is. So often the kids come asking me 'is this OK?' or "is this finished?" and I tell them, again and again, you decide, you are the creator, you conceived of it, you are creating it, it's your choice whether or or it not it meets your expectations or not.

Create - to cause something (anything!) to happen (small c)

Creative - the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something (big C)

(Howard Gardner, Five Minds for the Future)

I won't lie to you, some, maybe most of their solutions, are not particularly 'creative' but they are creations, their creations—see the difference? That is enough. So they're not creative products that I would rush to purchase (actually, a few are) but that doesn't matter, when you see their beaming, ecstatic faces as they strut out of the workshop and later around the school) proudly displaying their designer bag/key/pencil-case fobs.

Howard Gardner explains:

"Creativity as a generalisable capacity [...] has distinct limitations. We recognise a variety of relatively independent creative endeavours. A Creator can solve a hitherto vexing problem, formulate a new conundrum or theory, fashion or work in a genre, ...

...

We also [need to] recognise a range of creative achievements—from the little c involved in a new floral arrangement [or designing and making a bag fob] to the big C entailed in the theory of relativity." (p80, brackets mine)

According to Csikszentmihalyi, (try saying that without Googling it) creativity occurs when—and only when—an individual or group product generated in a particular domain is recognised by the relevant field as innovative and, in turn, sooner or later, exert a genuine, detectable influence on subsequent work in that domain. This perspective applies to the full range of creations, across spheres and across varying degrees of innovation (from the littlest c to the biggest C).
...
Well I can't see how we can have the critical BIG C conversations until we've given our kids loads and loads of 'small c' experiences—time to explore, experiment, and make loads and loads of mistakes, and enjoy it. What I do know is that regardless of your opinion or mine, these kids are solving 'vexing problems' (to them), 'formulating new (to them) theories', in the pursuit of 'generating products' that are 'recognised (by themselves and their peers) as innovative'.

That's good enough for me.

Creativity Cubed

ICTs + Powerful Pedagogy + Traditional Tools = Creativity Cubed

Creativity as making (small c), Creativity as innovation (big C), Creativity as problem solving.

Creativity with breadth, depth and height—Creativity Cubed

I have to confess that, I am slightly biased towards Design & Technology (DT) as a field of human endeavour, that's my background. My first degree was in 3D Design, along with the PGCE in DT that followed it, which led to my first 5 years in teaching as a Secondary School teacher in South London, back in the 90s, while continuing freelancing as a Web/Graphic designer during evenings, and weekends.

Design Tech is, in my humble opinion THE place you should look if you want to see how digital technologies can really work seamlessly with traditional tools and skills. Even back in 1990s, the only area of the school I worked where you could expect to see computers in use for learning other than the IT Lab, was the DT lab; only in DT they weren't being used to 'teach IT'. No. They were actually needed as powerful tools for enhancing teaching and learning, and most importantly creating. No one was even talking about an integrated model then, but in DT you wouldn't work any other way. From Graphic design on early Apple Mac black & White Classics, to robotic control with old BBC Micros, and CNC milling with Applications running in MS DOS, you couldn't really be an effective DT teacher without embracing the transformative opportunities afforded by ICTs.

Nothing has changed, except that the tools just get better, faster, more capable, and easier to use, in a process of iteration, or evolution, but certainly not obsoletion, and the DT facilities at UWCSEA are certainly no exception. The 'dream' behind this ECA was to see what could be done with some of the recent technologies brought in by Carl Waugh, the Laser Cutter and the 3D Printers, while also introducing kids in Grade 4 and 5 who have never set foot in a workshop their first experience at creating with resistant materials like wood, plastic and metal.

ICTs & Synergy

So how did this work?

SketchUp Modelling of their TouchDraw Design

Gallery below:

For the first 3 sessions, the students focused purely on designing, using the vector graphic TouchDrawApp on iPads, this allows the kids to use some powerful vector features like subtraction and merging, but especially allowing them to export their designs as SVG files that the DT machines can handle. They had to design two versions, one to be made my machines, the other to be made by hand—the latter needed to be simpler to allow for their inexperience with working with resistant materials.

The fact that their designs were digital meant I could easily print them for transfer to the materials they would use, as well as export their machine designs to use with the laser cutter, before they commenced work on the hand made designs.

4 or 5 session later ... (making by hand takes a LOT longer than making by machine, something these students have a profound appreciation of now...) the students were given the option of modelling the design in 3D using SketchUp, before making it by exporting it to the 3D printer. As mentioned earlier, many students opted instead to stay in the workshop, so much for tech trumping traditional tools...

So, once again, the tech served to enhance the 'real world' experience. An approximate ratio of screentime to make time in this activity would be at least 1:5, one session with digital tools on screens for every 5 sessions with traditional tools in the workshop, less for those who opted out of the 3D printing.

So there you have it, the human propensity to make remains undaunted in the 21st Century, far from negating it, tech tools transform designing making, just as it always has with traditional tools, it's not either/or, it's both.

Gardner H (2006). Five minds for the future. Harvard Business Press.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Calculators in the 21st Century

What place do calculators have in the 21st Century?

Some would argue, none, and that they never should have had a place even in the 20th Century. Certainly one of my earliest memories of TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) was the replacement of the humble 'log book' by calculators in my Maths classes on the west coast of Ireland, back in 1986 or so.

This post is not about to debate an argument that is at least 20 years old, but I am happy to point you to this post which discusses the nuances of matter very well indeed.

I would like to highlight some comments made about calculator use by the renowned John Hattie, in his magnum opus, Visible Learning, where he says:

Calculators + Good Pedagogy = d = 0.72

"Ellington found that the effects were much higher when calculators were involved in the teaching process; for example, when used for composition problem solving, the effects were d = 0.72: "When compared with students who did not use calculators, students in treatment groups were able to solve more problems and make better decisions with regard to selecting methods for generating solutions"(Beddington, 2003, p 169)

For more on Hattie's meta - analyses, have a look at my other post here, but for now, take it from me that a rating of d = 0.72 is very good, no, not very good, it's astounding.

Now, I've been thinking for some time, what if you took the pedagogically sound use of calculators and applied them to a technological tool that is favoured by adults who work with numbers the whole world over? What do financial professionals use to manipulate numbers? Calculators?—you must be joking, no they use spreadsheets, why? Because,

Spreadsheets are the calculators of the 21st Century

Maths Problem Solving with Numbers (click to enlarge)

I can tell you that my work with students confirms this, in fact, if I take the liberty of tweaking Hattie's profound eulogising about the wonders of ~~spreadsheets~~ calculators I think the observations hold true, no, they are truer, more emphatic in my experience than ever:

"Hembree and Dessart (1986) found that the pedagogical use of ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets improved students basic skills both in completing exercises and problem solving. Across all grades (and particularly above grade 5, when ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets become more prevalent) and across all ability levels, students using ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets lead to greater effects in students' basic skills in operations and particularly in problem-solving."

Visualize Data with a couple of clicks (click to enlarge)

"The effect on problem-solving seems to relate to improved computation and lower cognitive workload demands. They also found that there was a better attitude towards mathematics and an especially higher self-concept of mathematics for those using ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets compared to those not using ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets.

Transform number manipulation by moving it online, collaborative, social.

"... this enhancement in attitude was probably because the use of ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets helped relieve students traditional dislike of problems expressed in words (by reducing the cognitive load of having to compute as well as problem solve)."
...
"Using manipulative materials and ~~calculators~~ spreadsheets helps to reduce students cognitive load and allows them to devote their attention to problem solving."

Adapted from Hattie J (2013). Visible learning, p146-147

Transforming Calculations & Mathematics

As powerful as spreadsheet applications like Excel and Numbers are, already leveraging SAMMS elements like access to the internet to gather data, clarify facts, strategies; move modes of operation from teacher centred/pushed data, to student centred/gathered data, and the the mutability afforded by the spreadsheet—what calculator has an undo key? What calculator allows you to grab aspects of data and literally tweak it, or even move it around the sheet, recalculating variables at the speed of thought?

But we can add even more SAMMS to the recipe. Moving the entire activity online, namely with a 'cloud' based spreadsheet application like Google Sheets, that allows us to add the transformative elements of ICT that are:

Situated:

Now students and teachers can work anywhere, any place, any space, on the same sheet. From real time feedback using comments, to transforming 'homework' into just an extension of classwork,

Social:

The sheet becomes a mini social network, a micro-community; allowing a group of students to collaborate on the same spreadsheet in real time, or to assign different aspect of a more complex problem to various member of the team, to be interconnected as the separate aspects of data are clarified, calculated and ratified by the team. At any point, any student can duplicate the entire sheet and continue work work separately, or move it to another tab within the same sheet.

All of the work you see here was completed with Grade 3 students, recently I have been able to continue this work successfully with students in Grade 2, using Numbers on the iPads. Here is one of our students to explain it for you:

If the only thing holding you back is lack of understanding of how spreadsheets work, don't panic, I have all the guidance you need right here:

Step by step, but to do the activity you see here really only requires a formula as simple as:

Answer (empty cell) = (click first number) + or any other operator, eg -,/,*) (click second number) Enter/return. Done.

Answer = 1+1. That's it.

See the Picasa Web Album below for some more examples:

Hattie J (2013). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge. P 146-147

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Sharing Ownership of Files in Google Drive

So if you are about to depart UWCSEA, you will need to remember to leave your important Google Documents behind. Behind the scenes your school GMail account is eventually turned off and moved to an archive state in the months after you leave. When this occurs any document or resource that you have created, uploaded and therefore owned within your Google Drive will disappear.

If you have shared and uploaded resources into shared department account you will need to shift ownership of these before your leave... so that your legacy of documents will live on.

Step 1 - Search your Google Drive using the following command.

Use the search bar within Google Drive to filter for documents that you own, but have shared with another account or have uploaded into folders within another account.

From: your account
To: department account

Example: (be careful about the gaps)
from:anm@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg to:doverhsbusandecon@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg

Step 2 - Select the files that you wish to change ownership

You can hold down the shift key and then select multiple files at once. The grey text next to the file name points to the folder where these files are currently located. These folders will be within the Google Drive account that you searched with above.

Step 3 - Click on the Sharing Button to change ownership

Now you can choose to make a different account the owner of the resources. As shown below, you will need to find the departmental account and then change this permissions from Can Edit to Is Owner. Once you press save the permissions will be alters.

(A word of Caution - be careful about selecting too many documents at once to change permissions. From experience 20-30 at once is ok, but after this the process slows down or even stops.)

Step 4 - Final Check

You can now do the same search as Step 1 and see a reduced list of documents. The resources you once owned will still be in the same folder location, but now owned by the departmental Google account. You can also use this process to shift ownership of files which are using up a lot of space in your personal account. Remember you have a 30GB personal limit for files that you own.