A peak inside HPPS...

So what is life like at Hobsonville Point Primary School (HPPS)? It has been just over a year since I jumped on board to be part of a foundation school.  Year one was was a blur...challenge, challenge, challenge is the only way to describe it.  Team teaching, open learning spaces, working with multiple year groups, these were all new experiences in my teaching practice.

So what is year two looking like?  With more kids, more staff and a better understanding of what learning looks like at HPPS.  This year I am lucky enough to teach with the wonderful and talented Erin Hall, together with thirty year 2 - 5 (6 years - 9 years old) kids what does this look like?

I think we are already on version 10.3 of what our learning common looks/ feels like. Reflecting and being challenged on the 'why' means we are continually evolving our practice. No time to sit back and be a passenger, it is full steam ahead in Learning Common 2 (LC2).

Relationships
All that we do really comes down to deep relationships. Positive relationships with students, parents, colleagues and the wider community are all vital to the success of our learners.  Shared experiences help build these relationships - for Waitangi Day, together with Hobsonville Point Secondary School, celebrated Waitangi Day with a family-friendly BBQ complete with music and entertainment from the kids.  Parent evenings are another great way to share the school's vision. We have had general evenings where parents come to have a look around to specific evenings around a certain topic/ concept (e.g. Digital Citizenship).  Each learning common also has a learning wall that documents their learning journey.  This visible learning enables parents/ caregivers to see what learning looks like and spurs on questions about what they see - further building relationships.  We also open up our common online, blogging each week with updates (LC2 Blog), planning online, ensuring transparency (LC2 planning site) and providing a supplementary learning site (LC2 Learning Site) with useful learning links.

LC2 Learning Journey Wall

Personalised Learning
Through personalising the learning (not individualised learning see personalised v differentiated individualised learning chart), students negotiate and drive what and how they learn.  Having such diverse needs within our common gives all of the us the freedoms and also structures we need to ensure we are meeting the needs of all our learners.  Our learners take control of their timetables and plan their own day/ week.  Learning is negotiated with the learner using a range of information including assessment, observations and learner passions and interests.  

So a small snapshot of life in Learning Common 2 :)

Its not the journey...but the destination

Innovation and Leadership in eLearning

My teaching and learning practices have evolved through my teaching career as I find myself continually searching for the best for my learners. Why, is a big question I have always asked. Students being at the centre of their learning and being in the driving seat, is the heart of my pedagogy. I see my role as a facilitator of their learning and creating an environment for this philosophy to flourish is an exciting journey to be on. In a 'traditional' classroom (four walls, one teacher), students developed their own individual learning programmes where I let go and the students took back control over their learning. Students decided how and when they were going to learn, as I offered workshops to cater for their needs and wants. This was hugely successful, as my learners became increasingly self-managing. This year, has been a huge change. I have been in the lucky position to help start at new 21st century school. This modern learning environment has allowed us to create a culture where the student has not only taken the driving seat, but also building their own vehicle. As a team, we have challenged not only what learning looks like to our students and community, but what our learning looks like.

eLearning had been a great carrier for being creative and innovative in my classroom practice. From starting out with basic devices (a couple of computers and iPods), the world really was our oyster. We (my students and me) began to explore a vast amount of tools, uncovering a community of learners from blogging to Wikispaces to Twitter and beyond, we had a wider audience that included family and ever growing friends around the world. Our digital toolbox grew to including numerous tools that allow us to create and innovate - aurasma augmented our classroom reality, the writers club gave us a competitive writing experience, Movie making competitions (e.g. I AM MAKING Movies, One Day on Earth) gave us the scaffolding to explore animation, acting and legomation to name just a few.

Alongside my journey, it has been great to take along supportive staff who are mostly willing to come along. Finding innovative ways to introduce new devices and tools has been interesting, to say the least. Most students are always excited and motivated to see the latest gadget, adults can take a little while to discover the excitement. From leading the introduction of over 100 iPads to putting on my Google Certified Teacher hat and looking at GAFE products to showing a cool tool (e.g. an app), I try to be creative, responsive and supportive to staff needs (and wants). Running causal drop-in tekkie sessions to speaking at conferences (and UNconferences), to parent workshops, to having a complete open door classroom policy (online and physical), paying it forward is my way of repaying the good ideas I have used from many others.

Its not about the tools...but here are some tools

We have had quite a few visitors coming in and asking a few questions in regards to some of the tools we are using and why...here are a small sample of what and why we are using:

Explain Everything App
Students are using this interactive whiteboard to explain their learning.  Within our Maths programme, students go through the process of learn it, practice it, prove it then teach it.  This app allows students the ability to prove they know a strategy/ skill and/ or create a lesson for others to learn. This is then uploaded and embed in their Wikispace for others (including parents) to view.

Aurasma App
I have always been a huge fan of this augmented reality app, taking an ordinary physical image (e.g. a poster) called a trigger and turning it to an interactive video.  Recently, the students made how-to video's (using the trailer option in the iMovie app) of jobs that need to be done in the common. We then created an aura over the image of the job and voila, students can see what is expected of them when it is their turn on that job.  Next is to explore augmented reality art!
Aurasma how-to video's

Coding
Recently, a small number of students have wanted to learn how to code games, apps and websites.
Scratch is a great site where you can create your own interactive stories, art, simulations and games and is great for all levels. You can also check out ScratchEd a Scratch community for educators. 
Sploder is an interactive site where students can make online games using simple drag and drop skills - no coding knowledge is needed and is great for all ages.
Code Avengers is an interactive, web-based, New Zealand-made learn-to-code software programme. Designed with secondary aged students, some of our year 8's have been fine with using it.

Which Device?

The debate over which device schools are choosing is a topic hotly debated.  With more and more schools promoting BYOD, this may become obsolete in the not-so-distance future.  We still need to provide for equal opportunities and technology is no different, especially for those technical, specific projects (I am thinking high-end video editing, etc).

Being an avid apple user, I lean towards apple's easy to use operating systems, which to me 'make sense', however in the past couple of months have had a little play with some other devices.  It seems to me that each of these devices are quite different and would be used in different ways - what is the right tool for the job?

Apple's iPad (around NZD$500)
With the release of the first iPad back in 2010, this multitouch device really changed the way we looked at devices in education.  Finally, school's could afford a device which had multi-uses (camera, apps, word processing...), meaning we could buy one device that had multiple uses.
Reflection:
- Intuitive use
- Content (e.g. videos, audio recordings) can be easily created and upload/ embed to various sites.
- Thousands of Apps to enhance learning.
- Use with Apple TV to use airplay to share content on iPad with a greater audience.
- Mobile version of websites means limited functionality (e.g. embedding video's on websites can be difficult).
- Updating/ loading apps to multiple iPads can be problematic (speak to anyone who has used Apple Configurator!)
- Best to have laptops/ desktops available for higher end tasks (e.g. video post-production, coding, embedding creations to websites).

Google Chromebook (around NZD$359)
We were lucky enough to trial a Chromebook for a couple of weeks. I like the concept of all your Google Apps making up your desktop (e.g. docs, mail...) and that it is an easy device to share as you log-in to your own environment with your google account.  I made it immediately available for our students, placing it with the other MacBook Air's.  Students quickly figured out how to make user's and logged in with their GAFE accounts.
Reflections:
- Log-in to your own personalised environment.
- Easy to use.
- No maintenance: Updates are automatic and free (no need to sit for hours updating each device).
- Some Google Apps can be made available offline (mail, drive, calendar, etc) - so you don't need an internet connection to work.
- Get Apps via the Chrome store.
- Great for internet-based work.I was a

Lenovo ThinkPad (around NZD$1,200)
This product is meant to rival the Microsoft Surface. When I initially pulled it out of the box,  I was a little perplexed (to say the least) with the operating system - Microsoft8, but once I figured out a few basics (thanks to Google), I set-up the wireless and was away.  I like the concept of having a very mobile device, but with full web capabilities (uses full version of sites, not mobile sites). Having the touch screen, keyboard and stylus means you can flick between interactions depending on the task.  I like the concept of the all-in-one, but am still somehow not convinced.  Apart from the larger price tag, the ThinkPad feels a bit flimsy to use and not sure how it would go in the hands of younger people.

It's exciting to see companies pushing the boundaries and trying to give users the best experience possible.  For us, I still love the experience Apple products give with our students using a combination of iPads and MacBook Air's/ iMac's to suit their desired outcomes.

Google Teachers Academy

Seventh of May, twenty-thirteen saw 52 educators from 13 countries directly influencing 32,727 students, 40,311 teachers, therefore indirectly influencing 410,885 students - sitting in a conference room in the Google Sydney office in Sydney ready to embark on 2 full days of learning.

The room is full of names I recognise from Twitter - educators I follow and learn from - so I am privileged to be part of this amazing cohort.

So what did we learn?

The first day was structured with workshops run by our lead learners, googlers and the GTA planning team.  They were based around Maps, automating your world, youtube editor and collaboration tools.

Here is a snippet from one of the workshops:
Creating your world - lead by Tom Barrett & Jim Sill
What inspires us to create?

Using youtube editor  we were given an image and on a post-it note, wrote down a phrase/ key words about that image.  This was then displayed and we used youtube editor to create a story around this image.  Throughout this workshop, we were given key points to consider when:

• The starting point - don't front load too early
• Prototyping is the key - fail early
• Share early
• Critique: fail fast to quickly move on

We also heard from Googlers about what life is like working for this amazing company. We had the token Google photo of the cohort and rounded up the first day with magic moments, the pinning ceremony and the dinner.

Day two was the Unconference.  With a relaxed feel, we heard from more Googlers and then designed our day of learning from each other.  This was a great opportunity to get a real feel for the talent that was in the room.  Part of being a Google Certified Teacher is creating an action plan for a project that will be completed in the coming year.  

This was an amazing experience and can highly recommend this face-paced, mind-blowing experience.

Here is my application video:

Walking a fine line...

Over the past two days, these questions have been driving our own end of day reflections.  A task that I would have guessed to take 2 - 3 hours, has spanned across two full days.  As I think about how I would have taught this last year, I realise that although I provided a lot of choice, I was really the driving force  - this year, we are aiming for the students to be the driving force of their own learning, deciding (with some gentle nudging) what steps they need to take to achieve the goal they set.

So back to this week - challenge - that will be my word to sum up it up.  I found the balance between students driving their learning and wanting to step in a bit of a juggling act.  Where do we (the professionals entrusted with their education) step in and when do we back off? What if certain students do not step up and own their learning, who drives the bus then?  As a teacher, how much am I saying/ influencing/ implying throughout a given day - how much is too much, what if it is not enough? What about the things I don't say? 

Yes, things take a lot longer, but hopefully the outcome will be greater ownership from the students of the process and products produced.

I guess the proof will be in the pudding....

UNschool ME

Honeymoon over, time for action.  It has been just over a month since starting the school year and we have been going slowly, slowly finding our feet, which has been great, but it is time to start challenging our thinking - why were we doing the things we were doing, were we falling back into old, 'safe' habits that we have been used to?  It amazes me the default you can easily fall back into if you don't have people challenging what your doing and your thinking behind your plans.  Last week, we were challenged - in our thinking - why were we doing what we were doing?  Does this fit with our school philosophy? Are we defaulting to the one-fit-for-all model?  In some instances, I think we were going down that path.  Our goal is to offer a personalised, student-centered learning experience for ALL students - so why were we doing things such as getting all the students sitting in the one configuration for our morning meeting, why did all students sit on the same type of seat for this?  Why???

Great question - so getting ready for Monday morning.  For the first time in my teaching career, I have no plans for Monday, or Tuesday or Wednesday for that matter, Thursday is looking pretty much the same - blank!  As we (senior learning common team) sat down to plan out our week, last week, we thought back to the discussion we had - why are we doing what we are doing, are the students in control of their own learning?  We have decided to plan with the students on Monday.  Include them in the decisions we make.  Model what collaborative planning looks like, how working relationships...work.  We purposely did not plan anything, we haven't even talked about what it will look like as we want this to be as authentic as possible - and it sure will be!

So I dampen the voice of a the uni lecturer saying "detailed [weekly] planning is the key to successful week" and go into Monday's uncharted waters...what will the week bring? Watch this space to see....