Self Paced Professional Development

As an Apple foundation trainer I receive updated training manuals for two years after my Apple Academy graduation. (Class of June 2011 & February 2013) As I was reading my manual in an iTunes U course on my iPad and creating screencast for how-to videos on my Mac in QuickTime, a lightbulb went off in my head...

Last year when I was coaching I worked with a few teachers on creating self-paced lessons or units using the Pages or Numbers applications on Mac. I thought to myself why can't I do this for professional development? Participants were at all different levels, and I knew some teachers would need some initial help troubleshooting.

I always posted resources and how-to videos in my iTunes U course and/or on my personal or school district YouTube account. Usually at the end of my trainings I would tell the participants to go back and find the videos. Today was "Getting to know Mavericks" professional development for School District 100 teachers; I only had three hours to teach it. So, I spent all day yesterday creating how-to videos, shared them in my iTeach Above the Line iTunes U Course and created a Maverick Playlist in YouTube. I also created a professional development community in Google + to post resources for anyone that attends a PD in South Berwyn this summer.

I started the training by reviewing the SAMR model; I walked 3L Pershing's About Berwyn project up the ladder. Then I gave one hour for self paced learning. Teachers watched the how-to videos by following along on my OS X Mavericks Keynote presentation. As teachers watched the videos for an hour, I acted as a facilitator. I was able to walk around the room and help teachers with questions they had, while others could keep working.

+Mo Gorman & +Jen Lehotsky brought their iPads with them, so they viewed the videos from iTunes U. 

Key take aways:

• Self-paced PD allows for trainer to act as a facilitator 
• Self-paced PD allows for participants to work at their own pace
• Post resources in multiple formats for iOS and laptop users 
• Create how-to videos for participants to refer back to

What's Next? Transforming the Future of Learning- SAMR Reflection

I had the lucky opportunity of attending Apple's What's Next? Transforming the Future of Learning event in Chicago these past 2 days. There were about 70 educators across 8 states, 20 Apple employees, and researchers Dr. Ruben Puentedura and Dr. Damien Bebell. The South Berwyn team included Superintendent Dr. Stan Fields, Elementary Principal Jeremy Majeski, Middle School Assistant Principal Lindsey Lahr, and Instructional Director Shannon Soger, myself.

SAMR Reflections:

I have been learning about Dr. Ruben Puentedura's SAMR model for almost 4 years. I've listened to presentations at Apple Academy in Cupertino, CA, during district hosted Apple Profesional Development, at conferences from various educators like +Sue Gorman, +Caroline Haebig, & +Jennifer Magiera, and from reading through a plethora of digital materials via bloggers & tweeters like +Lisa Johnson, +Susan Oxnevad, +Carl Hooker, and many more! I've taken +Mark Anderson's SAMR flow chart and integrated into assessing teachers' lessons to see where they land on the model. My colleagues would consider me "pretty well-rounded" or slightly obsessed when it comes to talking SAMR.

Shannon Soger, Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Lindsey Lahr

4/2/14, Apple Executive Briefing Center, Chicago, IL

HOWEVER, nothing can compare to hearing +Ruben Puentedura talk SAMR himself. Ruben is a brillant man; you can hear his intellectuality in just a few minutes of him speaking. He's very personable, cracks jokes during his presentation, and can really connect with educators. He walks you through his slides, and elaborates in an easy to understand manner. (Although my brain hurt from concentrating so hard, trying to soak up every bit of his knowledge.)

I'm going to summarize what I learned at each level. When we use the SAMR model, we can't forget about the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge behind the task, or TPACK. (http://tpack.org) Often times you hear, "I'm blogging with my students, that's redefinition." It's not just about the technology; what is the pedagogy and content knowledge behind the task of blogging? Why did the teacher choose to use blogging? What are students blogging about?

Substitution- This is NOT a "bad" level to be at. I'm still making gains in my classroom if I'm having students read facts (the content) from a digital PDF (the technology), recording notes, and summarizing them in Pages (the pedagogy). This is setting the stage to further move above the line.

Augmentation- "I made an iBook that has the vocabulary words linked within the book from students' notes in Pages. That's augmentation." NOT. How have you set the stage for this? What directions were students given? By having the glossary available, students aren't naturally going to click each word to see its meaning.

Instead, set the stage by telling students, "As you read this class iBook, (the content) you will come across some glossary terms that each of you wrote. Be sure to tap the vocabulary word, read the definition, and look at the image to determine if the word makes sense in that context. (The pedagogy is to understand the meaning of the vocabulary.) Highlight each vocabulary word, and add a sticky note (within iBooks, the technology) explaining your thoughts."

Modification- After students read the class iBook (the content), allow them to choose their "favorite chapter," the chapter that sparked their interest. (The pedagogy is to have students retell a story in their own words.) Next, have students create a digital story using GarageBand (the technology) to record their voice, making edits where needed. Give them the option to add music or images by bringing their voice recordings into an iMovie. Finally, upload all digital stories to a website.

Redefinition- (Hopefully you didn't just skip to this section first, because a task at the redefinition level is one that comes out of all previous tasks in the SAMR ladder.) Choose a website (the technology) that allows for continuous feedback and have students listen to the digital stories (the content) and provide digital feedback. Be sure to model how to give feedback (the pedagogy). "Good job" doesn't cut it.

The site shouldn't remain stagnate after feedback is given and received in 1 post. Most likely, this continuous feedback will allow significant task redesign (redefinition). A student might say, "Jose wrote that my audio recording was hard to hear because my background music was too loud. Can I create a visual to enhance my digital story? I'd like to make a Wordle, so when you look at the picture you can tell my story was about the Siberian Tiger."  (The task has changed; students are now revising, evaluating, and creating new digital stories.)

Redefinition continued- It's common for you see social collaboration at the redefinition level, but it is NOT necessary in determining a lesson as redefinition. For help, ask these questions Ruben includes in his SAMR: A Leadership Perspective presentation slides.

What is the new task? (Revising/Editing digital stories)
Will any portion of the original task be retained? (The content from writing stories in the Pages document was retained)
How is the new task uniquely made possible by the new technology? (Students were able to revise/edit/create a new digital story because of the student feedback provided on the website.)
How does it contribute to my design? (Pieces of the new task all came from previous technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge.)

Finally, I learned about the "EdTech Quintet." I've seen the image in Ruben's slides, but can now make more meaning out it it. This will help in assessing SAMR ladders.

The quintet includes Social (twitter, wikis, discussions), Mobility (anytime, anyplace, resources in the cloud), Visualization (mapping, wordles, timelines), Storytelling (iMovie, Comic Life), and Gaming (continuous feedback). If your SAMR ladder includes the EdTech Quinet, most likely it'll be above the line.

I would love to hear feedback from my SAMR reflection. Thank you!

iBooks Author Reflection for Class Books

After compiling all the students' Pages documents into an iBook, here are some tips that we will try next time for our November class iBook. (This was my first time doing a published writing piece on the MacBook during the fall of 1st grade!)

1. Brainstorm (with students) a list of words they might use in their story. Then, add the words to a word wall or a pocket chart in the front of the room. Add words as students' ask, "How do you spell spooky?" 
2. Have the students write out their stories first, and the move on to the typing. This way students can focus on the story and not where the letter "t" is located on the keyboard. 
3. Once students are ready to "publish their piece" on the laptop, choose a pages template that will format well in iBooks Author. (We chose text page with 1 image on the Visual Report template in Pages, and we chose the Basic template in iBooks Author.) It didn't work seamlessly with this template, so we'll test out a few more before our next class iBook.    
4. I loved that we had the students choose ONE word to change the font, color, and size. It was also  meaningful to show the students a sample writing piece using the same Pages template. We showed the students what it would look like to make every word a different color. The students were the ones that realized "that looked bad." 
5. Before students met with a teacher one-on-one or read it to a partner, they highlighted the text, right clicked and chose "Speech." Students were able to complete a quick self-assessment with how their writing sounded. This was beneficial to the student, it but also helpful to the teachers who had less editing to do during one-on-one time. 
6. To make your class book even more meaningful for your students, use pictures that your students take in the iBook. Students in 1K brought iPods to the Pumpkin Farm (each chaperone was in charge of the iPod), and took a collection of pictures. We used those pictures for the cover of the iBook, and we added a Gallery Widget on the last page of the iBook. 
7. The district learning management system is eChalk. When students dropbox/submit an assignment in eChalk it automatically adds the student's username in front of the name of the document. ie shannons1234pumpkinwriting. This is a great tool to have when you download your students' assignments because each document has it's own specific name. However, when we dragged the Pages documents into iBooks Author, it named each section "shannons1234pumpkinwriting." We had to delete "s1234pumpkinwriting" 28 times, so that each section was titled by the student's name. ie Shannon 
8. For November's iBook, we will have the students' Air Drop their writing right after their final one-on-one check in with the teacher. Students will name their document with just their first name. This way we won't have to delete any section titles. The best part is that the Table of Contents is based off your section names, so when you tap "Shannon" on the Table of Contents, it will go directly to Shannon's pumpkin writing page. 
9. Finally, after the iBook is previewed and exported, I'd recommend uploading the .ibooks file in Dropbox and then post the link on a classroom website. This way anyone with an iPad can tap the link and download onto their device. 
10. Ms. K plans to share her class iBook on Curriculum Night in November. Parents will be able to read their student's story on 1 of 5 classroom iPads that will be out on the tables. 

Stay tuned for the exported version of 1K's Pumpkin Writing, and please download it on your iOS device! 

Pumpkin Speech- Augmentation

1st grade students using "Speech" to listen to their pumpkin stories before they submit them to their teacher. If something "didn't make sense" to the student, he/she made corrections to their writing, and then listened to it again. Talk about self-assessing your writing! 

Pumpkin Writing Part 2

With the help of the classroom teacher and an Instructional Coach, 1st grade students produced their digital pumpkin stories (CCSS W.1.6) this week.  Students learned how to use a secondary click to help them choose the correctly spelled word. When students had 4 sentences typed, they added features to their writing to make certain words "stand out" (bold, font, color, size).  Finally, students used the check list on the SMART board to self assess their writing. (CCSS RF.1.1a)

 

Pumpkin Writing Part 1

1st grade students listened to a Pumpkin read a loud & then used Pages to Augment their writing! During class last week, students downloaded the template, chose a pumpkin face to write about, and began their stories. Students used the pumpkin face they chose to describe how their pumpkin was feeling. (CCSS SL 1.5)

 

Pages for OS X

One way I use Pages is for taking notes during workshops and meetings. I'm a visual learner and relate much better to content with images and videos, so I choose a template like the "Visual Report" to include photos within my notes.

One of my favorite Pages lessons was for the 2011 March Madness Basketball tournament. My 4th graders chose a team to follow in the tournament, researched the school, and then put everything together using one of the Newsletter templates. Within their newsletter, they included where the school was located, the population, the mascot, the classes and programs they offereed, etc. Then, they wrote an article summarizing how the team did in the tournament.