Nov 1 2012

Where should School leaders stick their iPhones?

One of the reasons I’m always keen on the idea of leading a school is that it’s never been easier and more fun to document the amazing life of a school and publish it to the world. I have seen a number of examples, both online and in person, of leaders running what seem to be live feeds of the day’s activities. This becomes one of the most powerful forms of feedback for the students, marketing for the school and parents absolutely love it!

It’s school life that leaders should be sticking their iPhones & iPads in to!

Many, if not all Principals these days have a smart phone and many have and iPad too. Unfortunately, due either to a reluctance to ask for help from the staff or worse, a lack of interest in classroom activity, many of these multi-talented devices simply get used for email and calls.

So, here is a list of ideas regarding how leaders can use their devices more effectively to lead and promote the good work of both staff and students.

In-School Photo feed
“Document the Day.”
One school I visited in California had TV screens scattered throughout the school to display information and daily routines etc. But I saw something else appearing. The Principal made it his duty to take at least 10 photos a day of student activity and post them as a running slideshow on the screens. Students were spurred on by the recognition “from the top” and it looked impressive from my point of view as a visitor. It took up 30 minutes of the Principal’s day, which for the payback was cheap indeed. If you are careful you can also publicly broadcast daily activities online, giving parents immediate access and the school a great marketing opportunity.
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Twitter
“Principals chat principles”
If you’re lucky, your school leaders are already on Twitter, but most are not. The best professional development is often provided by peers and on Twitter there are 100s of school leaders discussing amazing projects and developments. This keeps school fresh and challenges principals to push their organisation forward. Twitter provides 100s of case studies to help in decision making and is free and on call at any time. Leaders like to network and this is simply the best example of networking ever conceived.
Here’s 6 world-class tweeting educational leaders to get you started:
@NMHS_Principal
@21stPrincipal
@bjnichols
@TomWhitby
@PrincipalDiff
@PatrickmLarkin
Check out who they follow and also use the account @ConPrin (Connected Principals)
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Video performances
“The Principal’s view”
Quite often for student cultural performances, the leaders have the best seat in the house. Why not record the performance and post it on the schools LMS for everyone to watch. The students will appreciate it greatly and it indicates genuine interest in the creative talents of the students.
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Dictation
“Who needs a typist when you’ve got an iPhone”
The latest iPhone update to iOS6 improved the iPhone and iPad’s ability to receive dictation. It is only available in some countries but will save much time and reduce the need for 2 people to compose a letter. Maybe a leader can dictate to the device and hand to a typist just to clean up?
Here’s an introductory video:

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Be Humble in your leadership
Please ask the teachers and students for advice
Around the world, teachers and students are being immensely inventive with their use of their smart, mobile devices and many leaders are missing out on opportunities for fear of looking weak. Asking for help connects leaders to staff and students, immediately improves working relationships and in fact, can increase the level of respect people have for a leader. Everyone in an organisation benefits from a leader who can learn and develop new skills and understandings on a weekly basis, regardless of where they come from.

Oct 25 2012

True learning is creative! … iPad, please!

The iPad empowers students to create products within any subject context, physical space and even on the move. This is why the iPad is so important in transforming education into a genuine learning experience, not a knowledge absorption space. This well known Ken Robinson video has, for a while, indicated the importance of creative process in learning. Creating is important because during the process of creating something new, a student is:

the owner of that process
fully immersed in the experience
genuinely engaged
driven by and personally connected to the learning objectives

Under these four circumstances, you create truly life-long learners, who are intrinsically motivated by their own demands and ideas.

(picture via @gcouros)

Common misconception 1:
“My subject’s not creative”

Many teachers do not see creative process as part of their subject. The factory based education system used throughout the 20th century, isolated subjects as disconnected silos of information and creativity was removed from most of these study areas and confined specifically to the arts subjects only. This is not how the real world operates and creative thoughts and processes are demanded in most, if not all industries. All subject areas within schools (while those areas still exist), must harness both the students’ genuine will to create and the iPads power to enable this in so many forms and under so many circumstances.

Common misconception 2:
“I can’t grade & compare different creative output styles”

What exactly does grading do for a student? It gives them a record of how they compare with their classmates or even national year-group. What does this positioning mean? … nothing! The minute you leave school you will be working and competing with different groups of people of various ages and your grade comparison becomes meaningless immediately. Yes, you looked amazing in your school when up against your fellow students performing standardised tests, but now you’re suddenly struggling against people from different backgrounds and may even look quiet incompetent.

Students also become distracted from their learning when focusing purely on their grade comparison with their friends. This removes any interest in learning for the sake of bettering oneself and even engagement with the objective of the tasks. Students take shortcuts and do anything that would increase the grade regardless of the impact it might have on truly understanding concepts or not. Students also find it very difficult, if they can do it at all, to articulate what an A or a B means. The grades themselves are arbitrary and mean nothing in terms of personal achievement and only make the lower grade achievers give up on learning anything.

This UK BBC documentary, The Classroom Experiment, covered many common traditional teaching habits that actually do harm rather than good in education, including grades:

A shifting agenda

An increasing number of educators are agreeing that:

Personal creative processes should replace fixed content delivery and
meaningful comments from both peers and teachers should replace meaningless grades

The iPad is both a personal creative device and a great tool for collaboration and documenting discussion. This is the basis on why and roughly how schools should push forward with 1-to-1 iPad integration.

Oct 23 2012

USA Education vs. iPad

It is common for outsiders (like me) to picture America as:

conservative (traditional and proud of their American way);
security conscious (all ‘foes’ must be known and controlled);
having a poor standardized public education system (Something the US is currently debating publicly – “Waiting for Superman”

If true, all 3 ‘generalizations’ would have an extremely detrimental effect on introducing iPads in schools. Below is a personal view of how these 3 factors will impact on the success of iPads in transforming American education.

The new mobile world needs new thinking (not conservative)
I found a blog post, glowingly discussing the iPads potential to transform education and you might think I’d agree with it. But for me, most the writing and attached picture sum up all the obstacles facing iPad integration in the US. The article does mention collaboration and iMovie (specifically only in regards to FIlm courses), but essentially describes the iPad as a great note-taker, textbook and consumption device. That consumption is of the teacher’s education. In particular, the image advocates standardized education where one-size-fits-all and a teacher is the only source of learning. Here’s an indication of what I’m getting at in two images:

As a simple starting point, american schools must dismantle the traditional classroom layout which isolates the students as mere educational factory products and places the teacher at the centre of all learning. This is simply not the way the world operates anymore.

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The world no longer recognizes the carrot & stick external control.
One of the driving theories behind 20th century education was the idea that given a choice, students would not want to be at school. This thinking led to the traditional carrot and stick approach, where rewards were offered for conforming to the teacher’s demands and punishments issued for breaking from the “norm.” The article mentioned above, also positively refers to how “schools can be in control of what applications are on the device as well as what students do with it.” This desire for control is only needed within the out-dated education model that expects students to conform to an education put upon them rather than expecting them to enjoy exploring and understanding the world they live in. If it’s the school’s education, a student might not feel a connection and avoid it. This is where external control is required. If the education is student-centred and demands the student prove themselves within an open-ended model, then the student can genuinely connect as best suits them and the control measures will be detrimental to the freedom and thus are not required. The iPad is a personal device and pushes a personal education agenda. The iPad is not a school device, ready to deliver an externally controlled experience of the world. Read this book for more info.
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Poor education?
Until the US reduces its devotion to 1 & 2, and stops trying to press a pre-written education into every american, then iPads will never be allowed to transform learning. As I’ve mentioned before, The professional and personal worlds we now live in are both personally curated and social. Young people now have these factors as normal life expectations and school systems that isolate individuals physically & academically will not seem relevant and will cause disconnect and continue to fail.

Oct 21 2012

Science needs Art – Kids need iPads

IDEAS NEED VISUALISING – WHY STUDENTS NEED IPADS!

What does this mean for iPads in Schools?

In this second video, Ruben Puentedura explains his research into why particular technologies are successful (even over 200,000 years). In it, he shows that any technology will be successful long term, if it allows:

A) Socialising
B) Mobility
C) Visualising ideas
D) Story Telling and
E) Gaming!

Are you thinking, what I’m thinking? Yes, that’s exactly what the iPad brings to learning and why it will be successful in schools. The last 3 of those 5 are all about visualising ideas and immersing oneself in a concept using multiple senses. This is not only where extra engagement comes from but also true understanding (never forgetting).

Where to start?

It’s important that students visualise their understandings, both for their own development but to also aide their peers and gain a sense that what they are doing is for the better of others. It is this that develops real drive to learn, it does not just add ‘play’ to the learning environment.

Many Apps to choose from but here’s two:

2D

ANIMATION CREATOR HD ($4) : This app offers a great new way for students to prove understanding in an entertaining way that other students will in-turn learn from. Easy frame by frame animation that some student really like to beaver away at at the back of a classroom. I’ve see some stunning examples!

3D

iMotionHD Stop-Frame animation Filming with “Auto-wait” shoot setting.
This is the most instant fun I’ve had with my iPad in 2 years! It’s a free app and really simple to use. You set the number of seconds gap between photos and then make slight movements of the objects in front of the iPad’s camera to create instant animations. It also has a manual mode for taking the frame shots one-at-a-time. It is simply brilliant! It could be used to comically or otherwise cover any topic and show you understand the process (great for Science) or story so you should be able to use this in any subject!
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EXAMPLE

Here is an excellent example from the TED Ed site, where a normal teacher’s lesson is given to a professional Animator. The result is stunning. This professional connection might change education but your own classroom versions will be of equal importance.

P.S Why does the title mention Scientists?

I feel a major part of the Scientific process is the final depiction of the process / concept / new understanding and this requires an understanding of how people think visually. The use of colour & shape, the position of key objects within a frame at any one moment, the direction of cameras & direction of film sequence determine whether a scientific idea is ever understood and passed around the world. This makes learning the visual arts as important for science students as for any. It is a commonly neglected part of the scientific industry and certainly in Science Education. iPads in the classroom can start to readdress this imbalance.

Oct 19 2012

iPad vs. BYOD

Yes, we are at the beginning of a revolution in Education. Yes, we have witnessed the world going mobile and yes, there is a variety of tools available to help us make learning mobile and personal.

But…

Most of the teachers around the world getting excited about this and offering advice (like me) are tech-savvy people. We have already had a play with many devices, we blog and Tweet all day, researching the best practice around the world. We are comfortable with the differences and know how those differences in features and software might affect a lesson. We also know that BYOD stands for “Bring Your Own Device!”
But “we” account for 5% of teaching staff in the world! (That’s based on at least 10 schools I know in NZ and the UK)

So…

Until the vast majority of the teaching profession are aware of what opportunities students would have with one device over another (at least 5 years), the decision a school makes must guarantee simplicity for the non-technical majority. The decision a school makes must also ensure there’s a strong, easily accessible support system and that getting what you need is straight-forward. This keeps everything simple for a non-tech-savvy teacher and offers comfort in knowing what is and isn’t possible when assessing the students output. The idea of one student saying “I can do this” and another saying “I can’t” is simply not equitable and makes things difficult for “normal” teachers. This leads us to another question:

Why should it be iPad and not one of the others?

The devices are all the same! They all:

have a camera;
have a screen;
can ‘Skype’
access the Internet
do office-style documents

So why iPad?

I think I can answer that in pictures rather than words.

Here is a major section of Apple’s App Store available through the iPad directly focused on the key learning areas, not available on any other system.

Here’s a separate area of the App Store dedicated to various subjects and special educational areas including a full section for Special Needs education.

Here’s the Apple website section on education, with iTunesU offering 1000s of courses from every major University. Again, there’s a focus on the benefits of considering special Accessibility options and how they can actually benefit all teachers and students. Through iBooks, you receive both fiction and textbooks, how-to guides and the ability to produce your own multimedia iBooks using iBooks Author on a Mac. This Mac software is free but the absolute leader in ebook authoring software. (iBook is just Apple’s name for eBooks)

The rival support systems just don’t compare, especially in the eyes of a non-geek teacher.

Android.com offers no education section but does specialise in games.
What is Open Source? Some of the geeky teachers might use ‘Open source’ as some sort of argument when choosing a device. This is where Google offer the code for how a device works to the world of geeky programmers and they can do whatever the like with it. This sounds good, but for schools, it means little. It makes the Android system more buggy and prone to viruses and crashing. These issues destroy both lessons and confidence amongst a generation of teachers trying to grapple with new learning pedagogies.

Google Play’s site (The main Android site) does not place it’s education section on the home page and when you find it in ‘Categories’ it only divided into Free and Paid with no focus on the various needs within education. Most apps in this section are early-childhood based and you have to scroll though page after page to discover what’s available. Not good for a teacher who’s new to this game.

Conclusion

You see, it’s not about the device it’s about the support system you can connect to and how much that system is designed for education. In this regard, Apple is the only company doing anything specifically for schools. Google and Microsoft continue to focus their efforts on business needs and hope that schools find a use for their business tools. A school near me had a technician who was adamant that it be BYOD rather than just iPad. 4 months into the programme, he was preparing advice documents for the following year to say iPads only!

Future
There’s also the matter of statistics and future developments. iPads have been bought by schools and universities in their millions! There are at least 50 iPads in education for every competing tablet of any make , and given the conferences I’ve been to, that’s probably generous to the “others”. The competition is eating into the iPad market but not in education. What does this mean to schools? We can support each other through this tricky transitional period in education’s history, if we are all on the same platform. The developers, who make the apps with an educational focus and offer the support for schools are nearly all iPad based. Over the next 5 years, the gap between what can be done in schools with iPads and their alternatives will increase exponentially and this makes iPads the only truly sensible choice for any school of ‘normal’ staff and students.

P.S.

Oh and the Flash thing. Yes, iPads don’t play all those Flash based educational websites but Adobe, who make Flash have stopped making it! and so the next 2 years will have every website moving away from flash (they’ve already started.) So Flash is no longer an argument and the new Windows 8 Tablets will not play it either. The reason it all came to a crashing end was because Flash running in the background on the mobile device swallows up battery life. Something Apple were the first to recognise and never went near it. The other companies are now realising. Adobe’s given up.

Oct 16 2012

iPads in schools! They just play games!

20th Century pedagogy + iPads = Gaming

So, you’re in your classroom and annoyed that the kids are playing games on the iPads. You have devised a strategy and at random intervals, you ask them to double-click the ‘Home’ button to see the last apps used. Great! Well done on controlling the situation so they can get on with:

writing their notes;
Reading their e-textbook;
completing their essay or
‘Researching’ on the Internet.

The only step forward you’ve really seen is the ability to use that Shakespeare app or Dissecting Frog app. You are also worried that the iPad’s ‘distracting’ tools and games are removing rigour from your teaching process.

The parents too, have complained that all they seem to see is game playing and maybe your school is considering limiting the apps allowed on the devices.

Well done on introducing iPads. But it’s teacher-centred pedagogy that encourages gaming, not their maturity level.

Now you have introduced a radically new and powerful learning device, you need to update your pedagogy to match it. The iPad is revolutionising education, not because it is replacing paper & textbooks or offering new gadget-style apps, but because it:

returns power to the student to personalise the process;
offers tools to collaborate quickly and smartly;
allows for mobile, continuous learning;
can bring about faster feedback;
widens the possibilities with how to approach any task;
Is a productive and creative device and;
is unobtrusive to any learning space.

Why are these issues the most important?

Like the iPad, learning is personal

As I have previously mentioned, you can’t encourage the idea that learning is a lifetime occupation, if you centre your education delivery around the teachers. If you need to have a teacher to learn, then your learning must stop at the end of the school day. I have witnessed a number of classrooms and teachers having problems with iPads. In every case the classroom was teacher centred and generally students were reading issued text, making notes from lecturing and definitely all working at the same task in the same way. In these teacher-centred environments, any iPadding at home will consist of mainly gaming as only a teacher-issued piece of structured homework could possibly indicate that home was a place to be productive with an iPad.

This is not what the iPad was designed for. Even outside the realm of education, the iPad was only designed to be personal and this should be the only approach when considering how one learns with or even without an iPad. Any approach where the iPad is a paper or textbook replacement, within these traditional teaching methods, wastes 98% of the iPad’s power to reinvigorate education for a new century.

Solution: Stop asking the class to do the same thing and you’ll (nearly) remove all gaming.

I’ll cover the potential for gaming itself to advance learning in a future post, but for now, you need to

Only consider the specifics of what you want your students to understand;
Pose questions that demand the students link aspects together;
Set challenging work that asks for all the required detail but;
Offer almost complete freedom in how they prove their understanding; (see Student apps)
Encourage creativity & fun in all student output. This will result in genuine rather than imposed engagement.
Often encourage the production of a “learning product” that their classmates might utilise in the future.
Issue the learning objectives to engage and inform peer assessment. This makes assessment against the original objectives more meaningful.

When students are working on a creative project of their own design that will prove to the teacher just how powerful the iPad can be, then genuine engagement in learning not only takes place in the classroom but returns home with the iPad and will often continue. Tactics like these, readdress how the student views the iPad’s capabilities and in doing so, reduces the desire and time for gaming.

Oct 12 2012

A 21C Teacher in a 20C School

I teach to the exam. There, I’ve said it! After all, doesn’t everyone smile when the student gets an A grade? Isn’t graduating what’s life’s all about?
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But what does A mean?
It means that when given:

An exam date;
A fixed list of topics and themes;
Last minute, panicked revision;
A table and paper in a large silent hall; ..the student can perform! Wow!

Thank God, life outside schools and every workplace is both silent, organised in straight rows and has no technology beyond the pencil! Thank God working life only means working alone within fixed boundaries. ….Oh that’s right, it’s not. And many of these A grade students prove to be useless when given any creative challenge in a real workplace scenario, something universities and employers complain about. Fortunately most develop many skills outside school that allow them to cope.

Solution: Make the exam the side-project

One joy of working in this crappy system of 20th Century factory education is that now with the Internet and video I can record each of my full-year courses’ exam lessons into about 4 hours! Yes, 4 hours and yes, it’s the full course of teaching! See this for details.

The direct teaching of the exam is now outside the classroom. I can ask them to complete an amount of the course by a certain date and check this with traditional assessment while they spend all the class time working on a related project of their choosing and design. If there’s a practical element to the course then all projects and time can be based on this practical work, within the context of a real-world scenario.

These projects can be long, the whole year for all I care! They can also work in groups if it suits. As long as the project is engaging for the student and they take real ownership over it. They should also set their own check points to monitor their own progress. Ownership, creativity and variety is what the iPad does best. Hopefully the project connects directly with the outside world directly. I like to pitch the possibility of making money in any area using the internet. For example, any student can publish a book for free.

Examples: (Off the top of my head)

Biology: Produce a set of videos covering the relevant experiments to compile in an ebook to sell online.
Geography: Film a documentary on the local geography for the school to use.
Computing: Make $million with your first iPad app!!! (I heard the “Pocket Whip” app was making $30,000 a week and it doesn’t do much!)
Mathematics: Learn how to produce a website of embedded web-based Maths tools that your peers need for the course you’re all doing.
English: Publish a short story on Amazon that contains the same themes as X.

Conclusion

The important thing is that they are engaged in your subject and see the exam as an unfortunate extra rather than the whole reason for school. If they need to learn how to do something during their project, they find it themselves on the internet (this is what they should do, it’s what we do!) or if the teacher can help then great, as the teacher now has time to work one-to-one!

Oct 8 2012

What is true mobile independent learning?

5 teaching classics I won’t be using next year.

1. Classroom Projection

Have you ever been to the cinema to watch a kids movie? A multi-million dollar Hollywood budget is not enough to keep every eye on the screen! So why would I bother to use this form of delivery with 30 teenagers? If they all need to see something then like “real” people do in the “real” world, I issue the link and they watch in their own time. Independent learners find it frustrating to be told to stop their schedule for something. Dropbox sharing and Twitter/Facebook Groups have replaced the need for me to project anything except, ironically Hollywood Film clips (copyright) but many can be found on Youtube and your school system might stream video files to the mobile devices…maybe? I don’t use film clips.

2. Homework

Homework is proven to damage family life but really there’s no such thing for mobile learners who manage their own work schedule. My results have been much better and of higher quality since I offered “Flexitime” to all my students. Learning objectives are set and a timeframe issued, end of story. Students enjoy the freedom and feel far more obligation to get the work done. It is now after all their work, not mine.

3. Worksheets

One-size-fits-all content delivery allows for no creative thought and makes no sense in a mobile world where information is everywhere, anytime. Worksheets as a control mechanism also only made sense in the factory model of education in the 20th century. If the content of 6 worksheets can be covered in a 3 minute documentary, directed and written by the students then…worksheets…really?

4. Textbooks

RestrictIng and not conducive to either creative or collaborative thought and process so….no textbooks. All school material is available online, so no need for them either.
Online, It’s also often more recent, relevant and entertaining too.

5. Whole Class discussion / teaching

Talking content or concept to a whole class never includes or engages everyone in the room regardless of class age, intellect of character so ….no. All content delivery done through Flipped classroom setup to ensure 24/7 availability. I already have students watching lesson videos at midnight because…”that’s the way I roll, sir!” A discussion should be meaningful and to be so, needs to be with a small groups or one-to-one only. Flipping the classroom immediately gives the teacher and student a more meaningful learning environment.
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I have discussed these ideas with colleagues and often when they try to argue, for example, that class discussion can work, we do eventually have to agree that there’s always one not listening and to say that most benefit is just not good enough. We are not employed to teach “most” of the students. In general, the overall idea that because we were bored and controlled at school, then current young people will be ok just isn’t going to work. Lets all start to learn and collaborate in the ‘real’ world we actually live in.

Oct 5 2012

IPad = Flipped Classroom Made Easy

Yes, the Flipped Classroom (Video lessons watched before class time) is a fashionable topic but whilst there’s still chalk-and-talk together with standardised testing I feel I must continue to push it. And no, it’s not just chalk-and-talk in disguise. It creates a whole new learning environment for the student.

I haven’t taught a whole class for 6 months! All my teaching is now one-to-one and not surprisingly, my grades are soaring. In the classroom I only teach individual students the specific points they highlight as unclear after watching the video lesson and I monitor progress on the projects they’ve designed to prove understanding of the content. This I’ve done within a traditional exam-based school structure and have students who are not focused on grades but more on what they can best do with their time at school, especially now that the time is very much theirs not mine.

Flipping my classroom has changed my career. My job’s more fun, the students are happier and scores in the tests, I unfortunately still have to dish out, improved vastly and immediately. Although, be prepared for the students to be slow to adapt to the autonomy of running their own time, it might take 3 or 4 weeks to get fully engaged with managing their own education!

Why should all teachers flip their classroom?

Online videos should replace all whole-class teaching because:

Not every student listens to teachers when surrounded by distractions
Students understand at differing levels when lessons are one-offs
Some students need the teaching at a different pace (both faster or slower) to what’s delivered in the classroom. (Solution: Pause and rewind video)
Students generally concentrate when watching a video on their own.
Some students miss the lesson in question and would never ask a teacher to repeat a lesson.
Teachers moan about time pressure and this returns all lesson time to tasks and one-to-one follow-up (I’ve now got so much time, I’m not sure what to do with it!)
Autonomy is returned to the student who can watch the lesson when it best suits their own schedule (teachers rarely allow for all the other commitments in a student’s life)
Even whole-class ‘discussion’ (as apposed to teaching) excludes the shy, the bored, the under-prepared students.
The iPad whiteboard allows for paused-recording-setup, meaning all the teacher’s time writing, typing, finding images, drawing diagrams, loading web pages & even thinking is removed from the final lesson and everything in the video seemingly appears on-demand. (I’ve reduced one annual course’s content delivery to under 4 hours!!!)
With the teaching online, my students discuss amongst themselves in the online class forum, adding comments both in and outside the classroom, often solving each other’s issues without my input. My students are free to watch it at home or in class but can also use all the class time to prove understanding in a way that’s personally interesting to them. I set understanding goals but the output is all down to them.
One-to-one explanation is superior to reading large amounts of written text and is more successful with the majority of these Generation Y and Z students. Some teacher’s have told me they’ve “Flipped” already because they ask the students to read the textbook for homework. That’s just not the same and the teacher in question still does chalk-and-talk because he’s not confident the students fully understand from the prior reading!

So here’s my workflow for those who are interested

WHAT’S NEEDED?

1. YouTube account (stores the videos with controlled access)

2. Explain Everything (iPad app for recording iPad screen as Whiteboard – it’s the best of this type of app available – See bottom of page)

3. A Learning Management System (needs to announce videos to class and allow for commenting / forum – I use Facebook groups with my senior students -see my Help Docs for FB setup)

STEP 1: Online Account setup

Having a google/gmail account does automatically give you a YouTube account but you have to login to YouTube specifically to activate the video storage. So first login to YouTube using a Google (Gmail) account using a browser like Safari/Chrome/Firefox.
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STEP 2: Recording a lesson

Now open the Explain Everything app.

Have a practice with Explain Everything. There are some features that take a bit of getting used to, such as:

the pen marks become objects when you click on another tool and must then be deleted as a whole rather than rubbed out which you can only do whilst still drawing.
Teach using a number of slides (like PowerPoint) as each slide is stored as a separate part of the recording meaning you can return to the lesson and re-record just slide 3, for example, if it’s reported as not being very clear. Then upload the video again with all the slides stitched together.
Get used to hitting the Pause button. If you can’t think how best to say something, need a picture or need to draw something then Pause!
Don’t worry too much about it being perfect. The students like the little mistakes so have a bit of fun!

There’s a few more things, so have a play.

STEP 3: Uploading the lesson

When you’ve finished the last slide in a lesson hit the Camera button in the bottom right-hand corner of Explain Everything and select Youtube.

Name your lesson using a system like “YEAR/GRADE – TERM/SEMESTER – COURSE – TOPIC”. This will make organising videos with YouTube account easier later on.

Choose “Unlisted” to keep some control over who sees your lesson. DO NOT choose “Private” as this demands the student have a Google account and you have to individually grant each account access to the lesson!

STEP 4: Publishing to students

Once uploaded, click the button to “Copy link to Clipboard” and move to your LMS course page to paste the link for your students to access. (I use Facebook with most my seniors)

STEP 5: Your new classroom

Now consider a small number of tasks the students could attempt (if they can’t think of a project) to prove they understand the video or a number of videos. Examples include: making 3 minute documentaries, animations, even their own “better” Explain Everything video! These products can then also be posted on the LMS for peer review.

It’s amazing how easy tests become when the students have been this connected and autonomous with the content. These videos are then available all year and of course very useful revision the night before the test!

Should I use the ShowMe or EduCreations app to do the same thing?

My answer is No! There are a number of apps like these that send the videos to only their website for storage. They are hoping to become the one-stop video sites for education. The issue is that Youtube is known by all and accessible by all. Believe it or not, both the apps websites use Flash (unplayable on the iPad normally) and all students need the app to see the videos on their mobile device. Youtube means you retain control of who sees it, you know everyone can see it and this will require no further technical setup or app awareness.

It keeps things more simple and you can also just keep the lesson as a MP4 file on your computer. Another option not available on the other apps.

Oct 2 2012

iPad vs Standardised test

TASK

Student A has an iPad and is asked to show they understand Topic X

Student B is given a textbook and then a written test on Topic X

APPROACH

Student A uses the internet on the iPad to research current views regarding what’s important about Topic X and considers how it might be best illustrated using the numerous tools available on the iPad.

Student B reads the fixed content in the textbook (written 12 years ago) and considers how the questions might be framed in the test within the context of the given text.

OUTPUT

Student A uses the iPad to storyboard a documentary that they will film with friends and edit on the iPad to illustrate their understanding of Topic X.

Student B reads the given text and seeing the Topic now has fixed boundaries asks friends if they’ve had a test on Topic X before and looks on the internet for past exam papers on Topic X.

RESULT

Student A has ownership over the process and is intrinsically motivated to produce the best product and gains a deeper understanding of Topic X.

Student B is motivated by the attainment of a score in the test and as it’s not a goal he decided on, will take any shortcut to achieve this score, including rote learning answers for the test but often leaving revision to the night before. The teacher hopes that being focused on obtaining a good test score, understanding of Topic X will be an obvious by-product.

EVALUATION

Student A has the documentary peer reviewed by other students who enjoy watching the film and explain which elements of Topic X are best illustrated. Student A re-films a sequence to improve the film they have developed and will never forget making.

Student B finishes with 66 out of a 100 in Topic X and moves on to Topic Y.

iPad = Autonomy = Passion

A desire to create Life-long learners can only be achieved if the learning in question is owned by the learner. If students work from the same textbook and sit the same exam, it is the teacher’s education not theirs and a genuine connection to the learning process is never formed. Introduction of iPads in schools should come in conjunction with a move away from the 20th Century idea that students don’t want to learn and external incentives must be applied. Given autonomy over the learning process means that a student with an iPad can find genuine enjoyment in all learning. They can enjoy displaying their talents whilst developing new ones in an environment that understands that humans do enjoy both working and learning. They just need freedom to choose the technique and time at which they will achieve the desired result. The iPad means that no student is restricted to only those tools on offer by the teacher or classroom.

Now that many global businesses (Google, Apple, Best Buy) are abandoning their 20th Century work structures, schools must follow suit or face becoming irrelevant within five years.

Four things that kill true motivation to learn:

1. Tests

2. Textbooks \ worksheets

3. Chalk & talk

4. Content based Qualifications.

Please start thinking about the chasm opening up between school life and ‘real’ life. Think about how fast the world is changing and developing and how relevant your students’ activities are when under your supervision.

There’s nothing more depressing than seeing 100% on a test. Imagine what that student could have achieved without the ceiling imposed by the fixed content.

 IPAD 4 SCHOOLS

MAKING SIMPLE SENSE OF IPADS IN SCHOOLS