Interface Expo - May 2015

Spent Thursday at the Christchurch InterfaceExpo. These expo days are often about selling a product - BUT there were some great learning tools on display and demonstration.

1 ) Mind Lab - were one of the main sponsors. Their philosophy includes the statement 'Technology takes the classroom out into the world.' 

Frances Valentine - Founder MindLab - NZ Tech Board - was one of the opening speakers. The aim of Mind Lab is to create innovative kids of the future. Last year 12,000 students went through each of their 3 'workshops'. This year they are hoping for 30,000. 

One key message was that we have a fantastic primary school system. A system that 'does' learning well - student focussed, contextualised, project based - then they hit secondary!! Secondary teachers are having to cope with the 'tsunami' effect of these primary students flowing into the secondary system! 

She noted that even traditional careers are being  influenced by new changes - eg 'big data' - medical outsourcing ?

Mind Lab - is partnered  with Unitec to deliver a  PostGraduate Programme - philanthropic support to keep costs down - $750 for post grad programme. Looks good to me!

Excitingly - won $1000 staff PD voucher! Checkl out The MindLab - here

2) The GAFE team - clearly reminded us that online /blended / elearning focusses on the 5Cs- 

Communicate

Collaborate

Create

Consume

Coordinate

And that teachers need to ensure that they are making best use of GAFE by making sure that students have - 

1.  customised chrome experience 
2.  automatic web pages 
3.  enforce bookmarks URLs 
4.  chrome web store - apps and extensions 

At RHS we use Google Sites for teacher portfolios and appraisal - this presentation was a good reminder to me that Sites can be key for- 

- developing digital communities of practice 

- increase student agency 

Clearly we need to use Sites for more than just teacher inquiry in fact any opportunity for  divergent thinking via individual creating - could be Site based

Learn Create Share 

As school leaders we also need to remember that the 'pedagogical experts may not be the technological experts' - pedagogy 2.0 and 3.0 - new pedagogies need to be taught 

Google Classroom and Blogger 

Blogger as a portfolio - teacher, student, class 

Importance of linking to RTCs 

Student blogging - authentic digital footprint, student led conferences

3) ETV - while I have delved in to ETV and 'archived' a few really useful clips, I have not used them in the classroom yet!! 

I liked ETV's 'tagline' of  'real time, real life, learning resources'

- live TV - only live TV service in NZ 

- in the cloud - no software, no boxes

- biggest supplier of video content in NZ 
The fact they when contacted, they will search for ANY resource to assist you with ANY topic you want to work on.

BUT - what we do need to get onto using is their ZAPTION app

- research simply pointing students to a piece of video does not work 

- students bombarded by 'noise' - they need to interact with content 

- Bill Gates education award winner - 

- wrap learning around the video content - easy to use and many ways to engage students

4) N4L - making our schools safe online....

- the education system is becoming digitised - exams, moderation

- we need to know that it will work and work safely

- apparently our schools are under attack from overseas locations - thousands of times a day...who knew???
So I have bitten the bullet and signed up to the Pond, which seems to me to be another aggregator - I already use Delicious and Twitter and Google alerts ......

5) By 3.00pm my brain was starting to hurt - but not enough to stop me buying (well Josh actually buying) a  SWIVL - robot controlled camera - track as you move, insert content during the lesson, 360degree, tracking, can be paused, stored in the swivl cloud, can include slides and still record lesson in action. I have it on very good authority that it is excellent for tracking evidence in the PE clasroom - but for me the most useful use, would be for teachers to view their own practice. 
You can see more about how it works here http://www.swivl.com/




OK - enough new things to be think about ....and try out....and find the time to ......

McKinnon Secondary College - with Ashley Evans

McKinnon  Secondary College is a large (1950) coeducational state school in South East Melbourne. It is a highly successful school in terms of State and National Assessment rankings. The school's zone is the smallest in Victoria, pushing up prices for in zone housing.

McKinnon was recommended to us by Cyclone, our IT services provider in NZ, as an early adopter of GAFE and a Google 'go-to' school. 

The school 'switched' to GMail about 5 years ago and encouraged staff who were 'interested' to have a look at the possible applications of the collaborative tools in Google's suite of apps. They also benefitted from the federal governments 'laptop for all' scheme - opting for a reduced number of the higher spec machines.

They are now in the process of rolling  out BYOD and have opted for high end chrome books. Community consultation (staff, parent and students) reinforced the idea that the devices should be able to do 'most of what most kids need most of the time.' Two year levels (7 and 10) will buy the devices over three years. The school also keeps a 'fleet' of loan machines if students devices are damaged and awaiting repair.

Considerable investment of time has gone into up-skilling staff in the use of Google tools. A Tech Support Team of 5 provide ongoing training (some of these are funded through a Tech Support in Schools Programme, some from general staffing) and professional development. A Google checklist of about 20 'must dos' was created and linked to the appraisal goals. 11 consecutive weeks of after school PD ran and staff could check off the tools as they became familiar with them. All tools are  linked to a really simple teaching application. As teachers have become more familiar with the basic tools of forms, docs, and classroom, some have looked beyond just the basics. Two test seem useful are kaizen enabling teachers to add oral feedback to documents rather than written feedback (free and speeds up feedback process) and Pair Deck for instant feedback on student learning and testing ( $). The safety net of paper versions of admin 'stuff' is slowly disappearing - no paper calendar; all appraisal online; sign ups for things such as immunisation online and all relief not just booked online - but staff notification of relief no longer on paper. 

The school's philosophy is around continual improvement - how do I move my teaching along? How can I use technology to innovate with purpose? Ashley referred to this using a Carol Dweck - staff make 'upward comparisons' -