Engaging Kids Today with Dan Haesler

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about gamification. Not my longest, finest, best researched or most thought out blog post ever but if you want to check it out you can do so here.  It was a blog post on the fly, written as part of a challenge during a day long professional development day with Dan Haesler.

I attended the day as part of a team of teachers from my school. (We form the 'digital learning' committee, and as a team advocate for, facilitate and support digital learning in our school community.)   On the surface the content seemed to be a funny, engaging mix up of all the great ideas of the moment. It was polished, it was engaging and it was personal. It was enjoyable and I came away buzzing. BUT… Later that night when I started reflecting to my husband I couldn't come up with anything particularly new.  Don't get me wrong I loved the session. I was NOT disappointed.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and my thinking has changed somewhat. It was engaging. It was personal. It was polished. And… It was practice changing. It was inspiring. It was foundational to some of the small by vital changes I've already made in my classroom.   It might not have had any new ingredients compared to anyone else but by golly, Dan put the ingredients together in way that came up with a fair trade artisan made chocolate truffle instead of the canteen's stale rock cakes.

So, what made 'Engaging Kids Today' such a powerful learning experience for me? Dan asked more questions than he answered. He forced us to think. He moved through his material at a rate of knots.  And he demanded action.  The last session of the day was given over to the gaming session during which I blogged on the fly. The game was all about putting our money where our mouths are in the search for connection.

One of the most powerful reminders of the day, for me, was that the power of technology is in the power it has to connect people. This has driven the changes in my classroom. We have recommitted to twitter and are engaging with people on a daily basis.  My students chose to participate in Kid President's #Socktober social media campaign and use the internet for 'good rather than evil' (you can read our class blog about it here or my own post about it here). The students are blogging regularly and we've signed up with Quadblogging. We're still hoping to get involved in a mystery Skype but that's a work in progress at the moment.

I can hear many of you asking 'but what does this have to do with learning?' My answer is simple, and combines a few thing Dan said that day. It's all very well to prepare our students for the future but the future is tomorrow. If we can't engage students today then we have no hope for the future. So, how do I get my classroom to be so engaging that my students would choose to be there even if they didn't need to turn up? Connections. With me, with each other and with the world. How do they make those connections? Often in writing, other times in video, other times in designs. All of which need to be learnt. The learning enables the connections which in turn feed the learning.

It was a BIG day, and I'm incredibly grateful to have been involved.

There were a number of us live tweeting through the day so you get a good idea of our immediate reactions to Dan's presentation at this storify made by Jess Ottewell a year 6/7 teacher at the host school.

This relates to all of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers… Really.

Student Blogging Challenges

In the weeks leading up to the start of my current teaching position, I discovered that my co-teacher was keen to get our class started with blogging. Yay! Student blogging was a rather appealing idea to this little newbie teacher and so my brain raced off at a million miles an hour with all kinds of plans. Fast forward a couple of months until today and... Well... It's still a rather appealing idea. The practicalities of it, however, are rather less appealing and overwhelmingly rather more challenging.

We chose to use Edublogs because it has a great security record (we're able to hide the blogs from websearches too which is pleasing to many parents), it's NOT blocked by our school system and offers a really wide range of options - in terms of formats, files, and memberships.  My co-teacher actually signed up as a premium user last year (but for a range of reasons her kiddos' blogs never really took off) so we're sliding in on her paid subscription - pretty lucky huh? (Thanks Miss B.!) This level of membership allows our students to upload files which is great for allowing them to showcase their learning. I'm slowly learning more about the functionality of the platform, but there are some pretty interesting features.

However... For reasons that tend more to user error (mine) than anything else, the process of setting up our students' blogs has lead to actual tears of frustration  (again, mine). Without boring you with the whole saga just let me say that it took the two of us HOURS to sort it out to the point that we currently have 16 (out of 30) student blogs set up and linked to our class blog. ONLY 16! The issues have grown to include the expected 'forgotten passwords' (even after being asked to set their password to a given shared password to avoid this very problem); blogs mysteriously appearing archived; students mysteriously not having privileges to access even their own blog; some students' requiring additional support to use the technology; and challenges posting particular file types. We're working through the issues as a class, in small groups and one-on-one, but it's taking time and is - as you can imagine - rather frustrating.

Creating a 3D shape which was later
labelled and shared on the blog .

The challenges have been huge but so too are the benefits. The students are eager to write on their blogs, and excited to share their learning. Knowing that their work will be seen by someone other than a teacher makes the task much more authentic. Pride is being shown where previously it wasn't. Students are demonstrating their learning using web 2.0 tools (many of which I'd never previously heard) and sharing links in their blogs. Peer tutoring as one student learns a new shortcut or tool is more and more common. Greater levels of independence and engagement are already evident. These are all fantastic developments!

They'd be even better developments if the whole class could access them, but we're not quite there yet. Student blogging is all about learning though so we'll keep trying and looking forward to our next point of learning. I'm really looking forward to reaching a point along our journey at which parents and families are able to be engaged in our teaching and learning programme through our student and class blogs. I love the idea that our students will be able to use their blogs to both showcase their learning and reflect on it. The opportunities for connections that can come from blogging are quite exciting, and I hope that our students are able to take advantage of them. This project, for all the frustration and challenges, remains appealing and exciting.

Do you have any tips for us?

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) 
Standard 3.3 Use teaching strategies

Standard 3.7 Engage parents/caregivers in the educative process

Standard 4.1 Support student participation
Standard 4.5 Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically
Standard 6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice
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