My TechKids - A Work in Progress

TechKids(c) is an initiative, which I developed in 2004 to provide a platform for girls and boys with an interest in technology and possessing collaboration skills to expand their knowledge of the real world applications of technology to improve life as well as validating their, often independently developed skills, in support of the taught curriculum. This also helps them to become lifelong learners and effectively assess 21st century learning tools.

The group is open to all children in Year 4 upwards (ages 8 to 12). Members must be nominated by class teachers (or the Head Teacher), or they are interviewed by the TechKids facilitator (Mr.Lowe) and at least one senior member of the current TechKids. In most cases, that means at least one boy and one girl from the Year 6 TechKids take an active role in the interview process. Where candidates are interviewed, the candidate should bring in, show and fully explain at least three examples of how they have used technology constructively to enhance or further their learning as well as how they have helped another member of the school community with a technology-related issue. All of the examples must be created by the candidate without a third party helping.

Successful candidates attend weekly meetings usually during the school day. The programme is not an Extra Curricular Activity (ECA) or After School Club (ASC). The programme runs alongside daily class schedules and members are withdrawn on a variety of schedules to maximise their learning opportunities and minimise disruption in curriculum areas. Members are taught through a rigorous programme which includes, but is not limited to: computer programming, mentoring, learning to use a variety of technology tools, collaboration skills and basic troubleshooting skills. Currently, TechKids have a range of skills and interests outside of TechKids from public speaking to swimming to singing. All Techkids are expected to work towards 5 achievement badges representing the five main areas of the programme: mentoring, programming, robotics, presenting and mastering(aka Problem Solving). In order to be considered for the following year’s programme, a candidate must earn a minimum of 4 of the 5 achievement badges and be recommended by at least one teacher and three students they have helped in the past. They will then be invited for an interview. All TechKids keep and are expected to maintain a record book(log) of all mentoring and other technology support they provide. The logs are the collected at regular intervals and discussed with the TechKid.

Throughout the year, when they are ready, a TechKid will be moved into phased support roles for students and teachers, assisting and guiding them in improving and supporting their use of new technology as well as encouraging and modelling improved methods of using “comfort zone” technologies with a view to encourage and model technology integration in regular daily engagements.

All TechKids must act within the following 10 expectations, which are directly connected to the IB Primary Years Programme(PYP) Learner Profile:.

A TechKid is:

1. An Inquirer
2. A Thinker
3. A Communicator
4. Reflective
5. Balanced
6. Open Minded
7. Caring
8. Principled
9. Knowledgeable
10. A Risk Taker

The TechKids programme is a free programme. No school running the programme may charge for it. Facilitators are volunteers who already possess a high level of expertise in technology integration at a primary school level. In some cases, a school may charge an administration fee, but this fee is unrelated to TechKids and neither TechKids facilitators nor anyone else related to the programme may charge or accept fees to run the programme. In some rare cases, it may be necessary for a TechKids programme to accept sponsor support to help pay for some aspects of the programme which cannot be internally funded by the school directly. In such cases, sponsorships may be accepted for small amounts on a case by case and item by item basis.

The TechKids are a member organisation of the Digital Leader Network.

What in the world are QR codes??

Recently during a webinar, I discovered not only what QR codes are but how to use them which also gave me the opportunity to begin considering how they can be used in education with my class and how I can spred this resource to my colleagues.

To begin with, QR codes are Quick Response codes which are a visual representation of digital information. Here is an example of what a QR code looks like:



Increasingly, we can see these symbols popping up but how can we use them?

First, in order to use the code, we need to install a QR code reader onto our mobile phone. Now, before you panic, I was able to load the reader into my camera in less than two minutes. The readers work with any mobile phone with a camera. Moreover, there are tons of readers available and most, if not all, are free!

So, we need to begin by downloading the reader which we can do by finding our phone and the readers avaible for it here:



When you arrive on the landing site, simply find your phone's manufacturer down the right side of the page.

The next step is to select your model in the chart and read across the table to find the correct available software.

After you have done that, simply download the software from the link, for example, my model is from HTC so I was shown a choice of four different readers and I clicked on the one of my choice:



The download takes a few seconds onto my laptop.

I made sure that the ".cab" file was saved on my desktop and then using bluetooth, I downloaded the file to my mobile. I opened the file and installed and I was done!

Now, to test that the program was working correctly, I went to this site and created a test QR code which was done in a few seconds and was very easy.

As this is so new to me, I am still looking in to the educational aspects, but some immediate ideas come to mind such as assignments, notices, contact details, etc. can all be transwerred using this method. I am really excited about this tool and I look forward to being able to record here some success stories on its use!

Backchannelling and Year 6

In this post, I will be discussing a website called Today’s Meet (http://todaysmeet.com). First, I’ll discuss “Backchannelling” and how our class used Today’s Meet and how it can help with teaching and learning. You may also find the blogpost helpful at Langwitches.
Let’s get started:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmarks/ / CC BY 2.0

What is Backchannelling?
Backchannelling is a method of collaborative learning and reflection using a chat facility which is carried on during a presentation, lecture or class to support the learning of the members of the audience by linking the knowledge of others to the topic or issues of the presentation.


Here are several good chat tools which you can try out to see which is appropriate for your context, such as:

• Present.ly (http://presentlyapp.com/)
• Edmodo (http://www.edmodo.com/)
• Todaysmeet (http://todaysmeet.com/)
• Chatzy (http://www.chatzy.com/)
• Google Wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/justin/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

My purpose here is not to rate the chat tools per se, although I mention Today’s Meet and Google Wave, but to reflect upon how the tools were used and how they benefited learning in our context.

We used Today’s Meet for our first full on backchannelling activity which was integrated into our Inquiry topic of the Global Marketplace. To begin, I introduced the lesson by reviewing the Learning Objectives of the lesson, as well as activating Prior Knowledge about the topic we were looking at and the relevant vocabulary as well as connecting it to previous lessons.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankieroberto/ / CC BY 2.0
We then moved into the main part of the lesson which involved media presentations an, discussions and practical activities.

One of the practical activities was having children present what their Jigsaw groups had learned about the topic. As the children presented, the rest of the class particiapted through Today's Meet by highlighting key words, facts they had which supported the speaker or contradicted them and questions which we had the opportunity to answer together at the end of each presentation. Through creative use of the desktop, we were able to show both the backchannelling conversations and any multimedia presentations by the groups.

While the use of Backchannelling was not perfect, mainly due to minor inappropriate use of the system, it was in general a success. The children demonstrated an improving ability to multitask while they actively participated in the lesson through listening and connecting understanding of details, facts and knowledge with others and expanding the learning of the audience beyond the presentation.

Have you used backchannelling in your class? Which platform have you used? What difficulties have you overcome? What advice would you offer to teachers starting out in this area?

Class blog - a tool for reflection

Over the last two years my class of Year 6 students (aged 10 and 11) have had the opportunity to regularly participate in creating content for our class blog.

I would like to reflect on the “whys” and “hows” of the class blog and where we are with it now.
Part of my teaching philosophy is the belief that children need the opportunity to reflect, create, self assess and take part in authentic experiences which they can use to construct their understanding of the world around them.

Moreover, I think it is important to allow the children to have the opportunity to create “for the real world” and have the opportunity to display, justify and critique their work to a wider audience than simply the class or even the year group. In fact, last year, when I began structuring the blogging experience, the class was becoming very excited. One of the boys pointed out something quite interesting, the fact that now, his older brother who was away at another high school, could now read about what he had been doing.

As noted earlier, there had been detailed discussions with the school’s principal and we were given the green light to create, along a carefully delineated path which I had mapped out, our Blended Teaching and Learning Environment (BTLE).

As a class we had to determine how we would contribute to our blog, how we would maintain control and address privacy issues while still allowing the children to analyse, create and evaluate in our learning community. We initially housed our blog at Wordpress.com and then set to work setting up the blog.

For security reasons, it was decided that I would be the person to post messages for the time being although the content would be contributed by the children. Furthermore, as a temporary measure, it was decided that comments would not be allowed. It was not ideal, but I also knew that the roadmap ahead promised far more opportunities in the future, and this was a small step toward that.

The class and I then set out our ideas of how to organise our content and who would write it. We eventually decided that a weekly rota would be created so that everyone in the class had an opportunity to contribute reflective content about what they had done.

In the end, the first year of our blog was very successful, with over 5000 visits in an academic year. As we moved along, we fine tuned how we ran it but essentially, I continued to be the sole person responsible for placing content on the site after the children had discussed, drafted and written the material.

This year we have moved our blog to Blogger.com mainly because of the improved ability to use widgets. As a result, we have added items like a customised layout, Shelfari, and other widgets which we actively use in our lessons. Another change we have carried out this year is the allowing of comments. While the comments are always moderated by myself, it has now opened the door to far better reflection and discussion both outside of class and inside. Now, postings which get comments are topics of discussion in lessons as well, and the children are reading and writing as a fun activity which helps to increase interest and passion! The last change to our class blog policy has been to allow all the children in class to be contributors to the blog. They can edit their own posts as well as comment on others, but I still control the content to maintain security.

The class blog is just one aspect of the children’s PLE. Nevertheless, it has made a huge difference in they way they approach their lessons. They are increasingly recognising that we are creating a Community of Learners where their work is authentic, reflective and which they have ownership over.

Do you have a class blog? How do you arrange contributions to it? Which widgets do you use and why? How has a class blog helped your students? Share some of your insights with us in the comments!

Photo Credit: Maria Reyes-McDavis

Professional Reflections

Welcome to my professional reflections page.

In this context, professional reflections means that I take the opportunity, as often as possible to review what actions I've taken to implement IT in the classroom in a meaningful and authentic way. Reflecting also means, identifying which things have been implemented but need improving and how or why they need that improvement. Not everything works the first time around, but I also believe that few things worth doing come easily. Finally, I see reflecting as looking back and making connections not only with what I already know, but what I have discovered. I also make a conscious effort to use those connections to guide my "road ahead".

It is my very strong belief that we, as elementary/primary school teachers should not be implementing technology for technology's sake, nor should we see technology as simply "a tool". I believe, that both of these positions sells the profound implications of today's technology, to the educational welfare and future of our children, short. It does our children a disservice by belittling the importance of read/write/web (RRW) technology to little more than that of an overhead projector or, on the other hand, a silver bullet which will cure all ills. Both are, in my opinion, a falsehood.

I will however, use the word "tool" in the sense of a telescope, microscope or other instrument which is a bridge to greater understanding, collaboration, sharing and creating.

I believe that the RRW is an incredible tool which opens up a vast amount of opportunity to allow students to actively create, remix and share their knowledge and understanding with others. I further believe that Constructivist theories and Connectivism and the RRW go hand in hand and allow children the opportunity to inquire and investigate like never before.

Hopefully, over time,as I fill more of this space, you will find a resource, or an idea which you find helpful. If so, please feel free to add a comment!