Amplifying best practice with BYOD and Google Classroom (or any online platform)

Video - Google Classrooms, Learner Agency & Universal Design for Learning

In this day and age it blows me away that there are still high schools debating whether to introduce Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and then it frustrates me further than when they do go BYOD and they choose to make it optional or drip feed it in level by level.

Those yet to introduce BYOD are doing their students a massive disservice, potentially widening the gap between the "haves and have-nots". Young people need these skills, and considering your school probably has something in the vision or mission statement about preparing young people, you're really not delivering the goods.

And as for those who are doing the slowly, slowly drip feed of BYOD, bravo for taking the first step, but you need to recognise that you are increasing your teacher's workload, not reducing it, and the chances are you are not getting anywhere near the benefits that a one to one BYOD programme can offer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you are saying, change is hard for teachers, but dipping your toes takes just as much work, on top of still doing traditional prep and the chances are the efforts are half-arsed as a result and the students are frustrated because it's bloody unclear how they should be learning. This also allows for the nervous and reticent amongst your teaching staff to pretty much opt out and to lean on the offline they strategies they are confident in. And remember universal BYOD or one to one does not mean that you forgo that fabulous face to face offline practice, it just means that you can invest time and energy to do the online strategies well.

And yeah, yeah, yeah I hear others saying their learners just can't afford it. Well personally, I think those learners are the ones that need and deserve it more than any. Get your retailers/ICT suppliers to put together a weekly payment plan for a naked chromebook or laptop, ie. simply a chromebook or laptop. Not one that comes with case, insurance, steak knives and kitchen sink. You should be able to get these down to a few dollars a week. If your school budget or some kind school supporters can stretch to it, bulk buy and let families pay back at $3-4 a week. Yes, these strategies take time, and some financial risk,  but quite frankly if this means we are going to close the digital divide for our students and possibly their families, it is time bloody time and money well spent!

But I digress, this blogpost is supposed to about how BYOD can and amplify best practice.

Note - If your behaviour management is poor, if your lessons are poorly planned and your contexts less than engaging (and if you don't get of your bottom throughout each and every lesson) your BYOD will stand for Bring Your Own Distraction.

As the quote states below, technology can help education where it's already doing well!

Rather than finding a digital educational cure, he came to understand what he calls technology’s “Law of Amplification”: technology could help education where it’s already doing well, but it does little for mediocre educational systems. Worse, in dysfunctional schools, it “can cause outright harm.” He added: “Unfortunately, there is no technological fix…more technology only magnifies socioeconomic disparities, and the only way to avoid that is non-technological.”

- Dr. Kentaro Toyama in Time Magazine

Therefore it is key that when you bring in devices and start using an online learning platform you need to ensure it works to reinforce best practice. At Hobsonville Point Secondary School we have three principles that we believe underpins powerful learning: innovate through personalising learning, engage through powerful partnerships and inspire through deep challenge and inquiry. So when we looked at developing a best practice guide for e-learning our fabulous E-learning Specialist Classroom leader Danielle Myburgh used these principles to organise and construct a guide that outlined expectations for our teachers.

E-learning Best Practice Guide developed by Danielle Myburgh as E-SCT

One of the key ways we support learning at HPSS is through the development of a Learning Design Model that underpins a shared learning taxonomy that all staff use to formulate learning objectives for each and every module and lesson.

Learning Design Model - designed and supported by Di Cavallo and our awesome Learning Design Leaders

To ensure these learning objectives are visible I ensure I publish them at the beginning of each lesson, along with clear instructions as to what we are doing, so if any students are away or need to review their learning, they can do so with ease. 

A typical Google Classroom announcement

The quotes below are taken from our end of module feedback form where students were asked to comment on my use of Google Classroom.

Student Voice about visible learning strategies in my module

As well as ensuring learning is visible I am also keen to ensure that learning is as inclusive as possible. To this end I try to use a fairly simplistic approach to try and ensure that the principles of Universal Design for Learning is also underpinning how I use my online platforms (and how the students get to use their devices).

Image from CAST

This means that I try to use a range of modes for students learning about any one topic or developing any skill.

Offering a range of modes through Google Classroom 

I also let students, where appropriate, use a range of modes for evidencing their learning. For example, rather than demanding an essay, I would always let them present their learning as a podcast, video, infographic or essay/blogpost. Of course if I am assessing writing, I get them to write! But if I ain't, why the hell would I limit their chances of presenting in the way they do best. Note - it does pay to spend a little time teaching/letting them learn how present effectively through each mode. Don't worry, YouTube more than makes up for any teacher inexperience!

Offering a range of modes for evidencing learning (is easy)

The quotes below are taken from our end of module feedback form where students were asked to comment on my use of UDL through Google Classroom.

MoStudent Voice about UDL strategies in my module

Finally, BYOD has to be about developing Learner Agency! You can read more about that here. I believe BYOD and online learning platforms really come into their own when they are used to support learner agency and carefully curated choice! And as well as giving them choice, look at your direct teaching to learning ratio. See if you can do only 10-15 minutes direct instruction (if it's needed at all) and then let THEM learn! Just make sure you don't then sit back and do your sudoku/emails/Pinterest (okay that last one is a reminder for me ;). Use this time to sit amongst your students and question, challenge as support as needed. If you are take advantage of this time to do some quick admin, do it at the back of the class. Learners with screens need your support and your vigilance!

Let's got free-range!

More blogposts on this topic:

Learner Agency - More than just a buzzword #futureschools

"Tech doesn't improve student results - study" - why news reports like this are damaging (and missing the point).

So what are you doing differently this year in your classroom (and/or school)?

SECTOR VOICES: The Future of Education - Navigating the space between educational paradigms

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#GTASyd14 - It's Google Teacher Academy, but NoTosh you know it

Google Teacher Academy, Sydney 2014

Last week I was lucky enough to attend the Google Teacher Academy in Sydney, completing two days of workshops run by the NoTosh team and a group of fabulous GTA mentors. It was a jammed packed two days where delegates were taken through the design thinking process so as to realise our 'Moonshot Thinking' and make a plan for changing up education and us all to take our aspirations for education and multiply them by 10.

My Moonshot

So what did we do?

The first day was mainly about taking us through the design thinking (see NoTosh explanation of design thinking here) phases of immersion and synthesis, so as to explore and define our 'Moonshot thinking' - this was basically an issue or opportunity we saw for implementing change in education. We used strategies such as hexagonal thinking to connect/arrange our thinking about our issues and ideas before we then tried to capture our moonshot plan within a writing frame. We then adjoined to lunch in one of the many Google staff lunchrooms - a spectacular canteen, located in the 'penthouse' location atop the habour side building. After lunch we got to hear from a range of GTA mentors about how they used a range of Google tools and apps in and beyond their classroom, loosely connecting these to the design thinking process by linking them to the concepts of creativity and curiosity. The day then was rounded out with an inspirational talk from muru-D co-founder Annie Parker who shared her insights into the awesomeness that is the world of start-up incubators and accelerators.

Hexagonal thinking

On the second day we continued to explore the design thinking process to develop our moonshot plan, moving through ideation, prototyping and feedback. To encourage ideation we partook in the 100 ideas challenge where we tried to come up 100 ideas to help realise our plan in 10 minutes. We then selected three ideas - one we considered a safe bet, one we considered our darling or favourite and one that epitomised moonshot thinking. This was followed by a silent gallery where we could survey and feedback on the others' thinking. Then it was time to hear from Google Educational Evangelist Suan Yeo and a Google Programmer whose name escapes me. This was followed by a decent chunk of time to work independently in hope of entering the implementation phase, where we could start putting our plan into action, with celebratory party poppers being let off to highlight any GTA peeps that reached the display phase and put their moonshoot thinking into some kind of action. We ended the two days with a mentor group award ceremony to celebrate our new Google Certified Teacher status.

Officially certified

So what were the highlights?

NoTosh taking over the reigns was definitely a highlight for me. Tom Barrett and Hamish Curry leading us through the design thinking process was fabulous, their tools and strategies supporting each phase, encouraging both depth and rigour. The location and 'being at Google' was awesome as well, and whilst there was no slide (disappointing), there was a spectacular jungle relaxation room and monorail carriage serving as an office within an office to be experienced. In terms of presentations Annie Parker was a stand out - I loved her passion and also love the whole incubator concept and culture (in fact it is something we need to do more of in senior secondary school - I would love to explore the idea of making the whole final year of formal schooling an incubator model for students). The main highlight as always was the people - it was awesome to meet Tom and Hamish in person and lovely to spend a little more time with Google's Suan Yeo and Adam Naor as well. Then of course there was also our team - Team < x >. This was the team I worked with in the lead up to GTA and will continue to work with over the coming months as we develop our moonshot plans. I loved the conversations we had and look forward to ongoing discussions with them - Chris Harte is proving a great mentor, getting the balance of warmth, humour and challenge just right.

Team < x >- photo by Tom Barrett

And what were the challenges?

This was the first outing of the NoTosh led Google Teacher Academy and whilst it was (based on what I have about past Google slam type GTAs) definitely a big step in the right pedagogical direction it was not without it's challenges. I felt like we could have had the whole vision for the new NoTosh GTA articulated a little more clearly up front - I got the sense that some delegates were disappointed at the lack of Googliness - maybe someone like Suan explaining the reframing up front might have helped?? Timing was also a challenge - attempting to immerse in short bursts was challenging at best and bloody frustrating at worst. Whilst we did have immersion activities provided in the weeks leading up to the GTA it was hard to engage when still immersed in other things like teaching. This did improve on the second day, which meant we did get a little more time to dive deep...ish. The mashing up of NoTosh and Google was a little like oil being blended with water at first, with the workshops going from design thinking to Google slam sessions and back to design thinking again. Whilst we did use google apps throughout I did wonder if the NoTosh resources could have highlighted how and which Google tools might best support each phase of the design thinking process? I also wished we could have tried on some Google glasses and heard from Adam Naor about chromebook developments - surely this is what 'being at Google' is all about? 

Still, when all is said and done it was an awesome experience. It was a treat to be immersed in the NoTosh Google Teacher Academy prototype and I have no doubt that with a little feedback, ideation and further prototyping the implementation of NoTosh Google Teacher Academy London and Amsterdam will be all kinds of awesome. 

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Google Teacher Academy, moonshot thinking...and assessment

Tuesday morning this week I am lucky enough to be flying away to Sydney to join 49 other educators at the Google Teacher Academy. Below is the video I submitted as part of my application to be considered as one of the GTA Ambassadors for Change.

So why did I apply for the academy?

Whilst I am actually an advocate for educators to be as device and brand agnostic as possible, I have to admit, I do really like Google Apps for Educators. The reason GAFE appeals is simple. GAFE is a suite of tools that supports the pedagogical approach I value - co-constructed, sharing, transparent and supports student agency.

The other reason I applied was the company who was taking over the GTA. This GTA is the first academy to be run by NoTosh an international education consultancy "which challenges the status quo in schools, public services and creative companies. We work together with clients to improve the way people learn, the results of the organisation and the spaces in which people work, learn and play. Everything we do has learning at its heart." The fact that they were taking the academy marked an important change (at least it did to me), signaling a shift of focus from 'tools in education' to 'change in education'. This very much aligns with my values. Over the last 5 years as I have built up my profile as an e-learning/ICT in ed type leader-y person in NZ I have actually become less interested in e-learning and ICT in and of itself. Instead I am finding myself increasingly interested in leading change in education, albeit change at least partly facilitated by technology.

This is where the concept of moonshot thinking comes in as well. As Astro Teller in the Wired article  Google X Head on Moonshots: 10X Is Easier Than 10 Percent states "...when you’re working to make things 10 percent better, you inevitably focus on the existing tools and assumptions, and on building on top of an existing solution that many people have already spent a lot of time thinking about. Such incremental progress is driven by extra effort, extra money, and extra resources. It’s tempting to feel improving things this way means we’re being good soldiers, with the grit and perseverance to continue where others may have failed — but most of the time we find ourselves stuck in the same old slog.

But when you aim for a 10x gain, you lean instead on bravery and creativity — the kind that, literally and metaphorically, can put a man on the moon."

Put this in to an educational context and you have an interesting concept. What if we thought less about how to improve education through small a series of small incremental changes and thought more about how we might re-vision education from the ground up. This is moonshot thinking - terrifying, liberating, paralysing and awesome all at the same time.

Source

However, I am not just a dreamer or part-time visionary, I am a pragmatist. Whilst I believe we do need to re-vision and think big and blue-sky, we also need to consider how we might achieve change in the interim. This is where assessment comes in. Aside from being a foundation Deputy Principal at Hobsonville Point Secondary School, I am also involved in several national groups that are exploring how we might lead future-focused change across NZ. In the 21st Century Education Reference Group put together by Associate Education Minister Nikki Kaye we have made a number of recommendations in the Future-Focused Learning in Connected Communities report. I stand by each of the recommendations, all necessary and if we are honest, should have been implemented yesterday! Another group I work with is the NZQA Future State reference group put together by Steve Bargh. It is this group that is making me think more seriously about how national assessment change might actually be the way for leading pedagogical change - particularly as it is the mighty tail that wags the curriculum design dog...even if we don't like to admit it.

So I suspect my moonshot(ish) thinking may head in this direction - how would national assessment need to change, to change education...in the way we think it needs to change?

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To LMS or not to LMS...that is the question

Interestingly, when I started out at HPSS I was completely convinced that we would not need a formal LMS (Learning Management System). I believed the time of Moodle, KnowledgeNet and UltraNet was behind us. I believed that students should manage themselves and teachers and students should have free choice. I believed that providing one LMS as our main online space was simply no longer needed. Then, as time passed, I reconsidered, I started to look back on Moodle with increasingly rose tinted glasses. I remembered the structure, the untapped potential of all those activities, all those plugins. Before I knew it I was making a steady u-turn. I began thinking, yes, we do need a LMS, we need that Moodle - even if only as a front door, a front door that allowed us to mash up Google Apps, Gmail, KAMAR student portal, MyPortfolio and links to eTV and our Library Management System. Moodle, Google and MyPortfolio supported by SSO (single sign-on) became the vision once more. 

With this thinking fresh in my mind, I started to craft our ICT and eLearning strategic plan, lovingly aligning decisions with our values and visions (see my last post), got in touch with Catalyst and Norrcom discussed hosting and SSO - I thought I had cracked it!

Then came a couple of great comments on my blog, politely challenging my thinking around having an LMS....haven't we moved beyond that? Then boom, it hit me. Maybe I was doing exactly what I was afraid I would do - I tweaked my thinking and then I retreated to what I knew from the past, potentially missing an opportunity for doing something new, something fresh and innovative. 

So where does this leave me, back where I began, pondering the future and the necessity of having a formal LMS. 

In the time before my "tweak and retreat" thinking, I had been considering simply providing a Google Site as a front door and a means for providing a simple architecture. This would still work as a SSO page and could include links to Gmail, Google Drive, MyPortfolio, eTV and the library. I know Ormiston do this, and I would be keen to hear from others doing similar. It does however raise the question around KAMAR student portal, could still you embed it somehow? Could you embed individual Gmail account views? I understand how we could embed a school Google Calendar and any number of hyperlinks...but I want more than that. And I still can't get away from the things I like about Moodle...I like the courses that students can self-enrol into, I like the way that it is individualised and dynamically so, in a way a simple website isn't....or am I wrong about this? Or am I missing the point altogether. Do students not even need this anymore?

Darn it. It would seem that I have got myself stuck at a philosophical ICT planning crossroads. If we go with a formal LMS am I retreating back into a comfort zone? If we go the Google Site way are we doing so at the expense of student online experience? 

LMS or not to LMS? 

What you think? 

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