Stories of innovation

[Shawn Callahan]

As part of the Innovation Showcase we are planning to share a range of specific stories of how educators have created, adapted, or borrowed ideas, implemented them at their school and seen a significant impact as a result.

For example, check out this story by Anne Mirtschin where she explains how she used twitter to create a bevy of teachable moments.

Your stories could be small innovations or momentous changes. It doesn't matter as long as we get to hear what happened. How did it all come about? What changed?

We would like to collect as many stories as we can before the Showcase, so please add your experiences in this discussion forum of how you or your school has innovated.

[Jarrod Robinson]

I will post a story tmmrw on something I take for granted in my teaching at the present. The ability for my students to connect with me 24/7 via Skype or SMS. Without a shadow of a doubt I have noticed a significant improvement in my students understanding of content but more so in the repoire in which I have built through these mediums.

Could also share about how ive been able to use Skype to bring in Virtual Guestspeakers to cover content. For example when teaching my students about sports nutrition last year I brought in Sports Nutritionist from the Australian Institute of sport, this certainly improved their understanding as they were able to consult via video conference with an expert in their field. You can also bet the engagement levels were also 100% http://mrrobbo.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/my-first-virtual-guest-spea...

Is this the sort of thing your after? How many stories would you like?

[Shawn Callahan]

I would love to hear the story if the virtual guest speaker on skype. A couple of stories from everyone would be superb.

[Jarrod Robinson]

Here you go decided to whip something up, let me know if you want more detail.

It has recently occured to me that a tool I really take for granted is certainly the most important in my current teaching practice. Ive been utilising Skype now for well over a year since making the switch from MSN. The reason I decided to change was to create an instant message account that could be used completely for teaching and connecting with my students. After signing up I logged on in class and showed the students how I could make calls for free to other skype accounts, I then wowed them when I rang the school office asking to speak to the principal.

Now it was no suprise that as soon as I got home a heap of the students had downloaded skype and added me to their contact lists. Word soon spread throughout the student cohort that ‘Skype Was Cool’ and before long the majority of my students were online.

Instantly the conversations in the after hours happened and as my skype account is always open students have the ability to instantly contact me in regards to their school work. There are also the times when they just want to have a chat and to me this is the most important feature. The repoire I have been able to establish through conversations I have with students outside of school hours has been excellent. The ability for students to seek answers to their questions at all hours has also been very powerful. Whether its asking if they have to bring a change of clothes for a prac session tommorow or a complex eplanation of a homework question it can be done with the help of skype. Some of them have even started asking me questions about subjects I dont even teach, which again proves the power of being connected.

Anyway below is a chat transcript from a senior student in my Outdoor & Environmental Studies subject which occurred at 9.30pm. Without skype and instant messaging how else would she have been able to seek an answer so quickly?

[Shawn Callahan]

Excellent story Jarrod. It's exactly the sort of thing we are looking for. I particularly like the transcript. Really shows the interactive nature and how brief the communication can be while still helping the student make progress.

[Jarrod Robinson]

Just posted a new blog that you may consider a story of innovation. There is no doubt that the use of mobile phones improve the discussion and engagement within the classroom today.

http://guidetoinnovation.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bringing-the-world...

[Britt Gow]

After discovering blogs, wikis and nings in 2007, I 'met' colleagues in the US who also teach middle years maths and science classes. Together our classes have collaborated on several projects, which have engaged and motivated students on both continents. Our first was a peer teaching exercise, where the American students researched and presented on the structural, functional and behavioural adaptations of an Australian animal and vica-versa.
Australian Animals (Voicethread): http://voicethread.com/share/154947/
American Animals (Voicethread):http://voicethread.com/share/154981/
We also used Tokbox (http://www.tokbox.com/vm/w5ch54nfyt4c and http://www.tokbox.com/vm/o4i50v38bgkg) to record short videos. The highlight of this project was a "Skype" video conference, at the end of the term. Mr Ardito's class stayed after school for a pizza night and we connected with them at 9.00am.
We continued with another project - Building and Flying the Best Paper Aeroplane. Using the Scientific method, groups of students decided what makes the 'best' paper plane and did trials. We recorded the results and used TeacherTube to upload and share the video. We also used Google Docs. to record our distances flown in a spreadsheet to share.
Last year we conducted an On-Line Science Fair, where students researched a topic over several weeks and recorded each step of the process on an the "On Line Science Fair" wiki. Students used Voicethread, video and podcasts to record their results and commented on each others work.
I have found web 2.0 tools very useful in middle years classes as an alternative teaching strategy and a useful way to record student progress that is available for assessment from home and school, as well as to parents. Students have contacted me through email, my blog, Twitter and Facebook and asked for assistance. Communicating with other teachers from US and South America has been excellent PD and improved my repertoire of teaching strategies, added to my collection of resources and improved my confidence with ICT. By far the most important benefit is that students are excited to be learning and motivated to do well for an international audience.

[Jarrod Robinson]

Britt

What a fantastic use of some very exciting technologies. The use of Voicethread for a collaborative discussion on australian animals is brilliant, would love to see what they come up with. Its also great to see your use of Skype to connect the students, such a powerful learning tool that just simply works. Our school has state of the art video conferencing equipment that does half the job that skype and other collaboration tools do with ease. Its like the old space pen argument

'The americans spent a million dollards designing a pen that would work in space with no gravity, the russians used a pencil'

I fear that there are alot of space pens floating around in schools and the fact that you have been able to use there cheaper and easier alternatives for real world learning is fantastic.

Keep up the good work

[Marg Murnane]

Like my colleague Britt Gow and Anne Mirtschin, my classroom has expanded beyond the 4 walls of Hawkesdale P12 College. I was fortunate enough to be caught up in the wave of excitement generated by fellow colleagues and students, when we created our class blog, and since then, the idea of the flat classroom has taken hold. We have been involved with a school for gifted students in Hollywood, Florida, in teaching their students how to create their own blogs. This exciting exchange of ideas and shared interests resulted in blogging buddies and an exchange of iconic Aussie and
American treasures between both schools. The teacher in Florida, taught us a little about hurricanes via voicethread. http://johnsonjaguars.globalstudent.org.au/hurricanes/ms-js-story/

We also linked up with a school in Guadaloupe in the French Carribean. This has resulted in us producing answers to their many questions about Australia, using both http://voicethread.com and http://www.tokbox.com/ . We produced a Tokbox recording explaining the Gold Rushes in Australia. http://techno6.globalstudent.org.au/category/tokbox/ Given that the students are French speaking, the spoken explanation was much more easily understood than them trying to read our responses. They had some trouble understanding our accents, but the experience was fun
.
We also set up a voicethread on our blog, and Anne invited her colleagues on Twitter, to “say g’day to us”. That was enormous fun as we had people from all over the world, logging on and leaving us a message. http://techno6.globalstudent.org.au/say-gday-to-us/ We met some fabulous people and the students were delighted by the many accents.

My students joined in the iNet conference last year about how we would like to change the world for the better. As a part of this involvement, students used the web 2.0 technologies to create their responses. Two of my students produced a powerpoint which promoted a nuclear disarmament message for world leaders, which we uploaded to Slideshare. This slideshow was selected by the editing team, to be featured. The slideshow can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/margm/nuclear-weapons

The class then created a quiz on nuclear disarmament, using http://www.mystudiyo.com/ and embedded it onto our class blog. http://www.mystudiyo.com/ch/a67219/go/say_no_to_nuclear_weapons

As you can see, our journey has been exciting and has only just begun. My students no longer feel isolated, or that the idea of collaborating with scientists, specialists or people on the other side of the world, is beyond us. Indeed the web 2.0 technologies have empowered us, broadened our ideas, flattened our classroom walls and are developing us into global learners and collaborators.

[Anne Mirtschin]

Marg, Vicki Davis talks about things becoming "viral". I used to wonder what on earth she meant, but now I know. That once you start to use some of the technolgy tools that are now available to us, their use and application keeps on spreading just like a virus. If someone asked me where our school's innovation lay, I could no longer ping it, as from where we started with blogging, it has taken on so many different directions and just keeps on spreading and changing. I know I teach with you and know that you and Britt are doing great things, but it is so good to see it written in writing to actually be able to grasp all that our school is now doing.

[Shawn Callahan]

Wow Marg, this is fantastic. You are really covering a lot of tools and bringing the world to your classroom. Through all these interactions have you seen any real turning points for specific students?

[Marg Murnane]

To be honest Shawn, the power of using these tools for individual students, has been amazing. When we did our first "project" at the beginning of 2008, I got the usual posters and poorly thrown together booklets from the students. We discussed what made an enteraining and captivating presentation and came up with a rubric which encouraged the use of web 2.0. One particular student springs to mind as an example. He struggles with reading and writing but has an interest in general knowledge type subjects. He created several amazing presentations throughout the year which included researching and presenting on Alexander Graham Bell and Napolean. He used Powerpoint and the voices he found in VOKI to actually "ring" Alexander Graham Bell and interview him on the telephone. He also created a video about Napolean, using a flip video. His spelling is still atrocious but he is no longer "trapped" or stifled by written presentations and was able to respond to the assessment rubric in an effective, entertaining and competent way. His dad competed in the Melbourne to Warrnambool Bike race. This student used his photos and a motivating song, to create a brilliant photo story about the race. The other students burst into spontaneous applause at the conclusion of the story and I actually had tears in my eyes. This is just one student. There are other examples of the same success right across the board.

The students used Mystudiyo to create quizzes for each other which relied on the audience having listened intently, for after a presentation and even the research involved in them coming up with the appropriate questions has been valuable. The students loved doing their once a term project and the deep learning which occurred was evident in their self and peer assessments and the quality of questions they were able to both ask and answer at the conclusion of the presentations.

Of course, the class and individual blogs are amazingly insightful, accessible and loads of fun. The level of competence our students have in using the web 2.0 tools is very evident when we get new students from feeder schools, particularly in year 7. What I love is that we can set a task, create a joint rubric and the students teach themselves and each other, drawing on their competence and experience of using web 2.0. We are totally hooked here at Hawkesdale P12 and as an experienced teacher, I cannot believe the power of flattening the classroom walls. -)

[Shawn Callahan]

I've been recording a few interview talking to principals about some of the innovations they've been involved in at their school. This first recording is from Natalie Bakai, Principal of Footscray Primary School.

Here are the topics and timings:

00:20 - Teacher Aids to Paraprofessionals
05:06 - Partnership with Accenture
12:33 - Enterprise Education Program
15:10 - Play Ethics
17:29 - Vietnamese Bilingual Program
20:30 - Finish