Shall we rethink Speeches?

Recently, I organized a successful EDTech day for teachers at my Board and instead of a Keynote, I took a chance and facilitated IGNITE presentations by our own teachers.  I got the idea from the ISTE conference which always has powerful and engaging IGNITE sessions. An IGNITE is basically 20 slides, 15 seconds/slide for a total of 5 minutes.  The topic?  Anything about which you are passionate.

As I prepared for my own IGNITE on being a Connected Educator, and then when a grade 9 student at one of our high schools agreed to present an IGNITE alongside her teacher, I began to think about this format as a great Oral Communication tool for students.

When George Couros (@gcouros) invited educators to post a teaching idea using #EDUin30 for week 1 (#EDUin30w1), using IGNITE to replace the speech--an oral communication task we've had our students do for the past million years--was the first thing I thought to share:

Why an IGNITE?

• short and succinct
• requires planning and practice
• allows kids to express a passion
• builds upon oral fluency and digital literacy skills
• helps students create visual aids for their speaking
• provides support for students with working memory issues

Get started with these resources.

The other day, a friend who was listening to our IGNITE presentations, was wondering the same thing:

If you're already doing this or if you are going to try it out in your class or school let me know, I'd love to hear how it goes.

Reflections on a Successful EDTech Day for Teachers

Yesterday, we hosted an EDTech day for Educators at the York Catholic District School Board which was an overwhelming success.  Here are a few reasons why.

Skip the Keynote

Rather than have a Keynote speaker from outside of our District, we decided to try out an IGNITE session.  A few of us had been to the ISTE conference and LOVED the format. If you've never heard of an IGNITE, Check it out here. We put the invitation out to everyone and only got 6 teachers who were crazy enough courageous enough to come forward.  As the lead organizer, I led the charge, collaborated with the volunteers and then left them to their brilliance.  You'd be surprised at how difficult a 5 minute/20 slide presentation is to prepare!  One presenter said it was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

The result was more than we could have hoped--very different and unique perspectives and topics, and a truly motivating way to start the day!   Thanks to +MichaelWoodrow +Dan Bruni +Anne Ratchford Daniel LaGamba, +Dave Cheng, @MsMollyTL Theresa Penny for joining me on the IGNITE stage!

Student IGNITE presenter

When I met Sabrina, a grade 9 student at St. Elizabeth, whose learning journey brought her such immense confidence, I took a chance and asked her if she'd be willing to prepare an IGNITE as well.  Her teacher/coach Ms. Penney (who also volunteered to present one) helped her to prepare and rather than timing her slides, she controlled them on her own (less pressure).  It was an amazing way to bring student voice into the day and she did an amazing job!

I'm sure that next year, we'll have many more volunteers--both teachers and students--willing to present an IGNITE.

Teacher Facilitators

We created a Google Form and asked teachers from the system to lead sessions.  This year we had over 35 teachers come forward to showcase the innovative things they were doing in their classrooms.  What incredibly talented teachers we have working at our District!  Having them facilitate not only builds capacity of the teacher-leaders in our Board, but their ideas and experiences provide both inspiration and a practical starting point!   We had a great range of topics and various entry points for teachers anywhere in their journey of integrating technology.  Some of the sessions offered less about the "how" and more about the "why" allowing participants the opportunity to talk about important issues around access, logistics, equity, privacy, etc...

Board Level Support

We had full participation and involvement of many key personnel in our District.  Our Director of Education not only came to bring greetings, but she stayed and learned alongside her teachers.  We also had Superintendents of Curriculum, and the Senior Manager of IT @DarleneClaphamK12 support the initiative from the beginning, as well as actively participate in the day.  They have been instrumental all along in providing a vision and  moving our system forward in terms of technology enhanced, student-centered learning.

Push the Envelope a little

Although it was essential for us, to offer beginner opportunities for Google Apps for Education, iPad, and Desire2Learn as these are what make up our Technology Ecosystem, we also wanted to push the thinking a little bit.  There are some early adopters within our District, but for the most part, we are fairly slow to start with integrating Edtech in our classrooms.  Ideas such as Coding, using Twitter and Google +, Gaming in the Classroom, Flipped Classrooms, etc...are old-news to some, but for many of our teachers, they are brand new.  We made sure to include some of these workshops in the mix so that people can at least start to think about non-traditional ways in which to provide a student-centered learning experience.

We invited @MzMollyTL @Niecsa @GamingEdus to present an IGNITE and stick around to show teachers the power of engaging students through Minecraft.  We know that many teachers are excited to explore this further.

Other Musts

Learning Space

This year, we offered a place where participants can go to consolidate their learning if they need to.   We also promoted the idea of a Coffee EDU (an idea which I got from @DougPete this summer and which we saw in action at the Bring It Together Conference 2014).  Basically, people were encouraged to gather and talk about their passions, ideas, or concerns in an informal setting.   We left the cafeteria open all day for this dual purpose.   Although it did mean that some of the sessions may have had fewer participants, for people suffering from information overload  or who felt the need to connect with other educators, it was a great alternative.

Reliable Tech

Let's face it, there is nothing more frustrating than attending an EDTech day and not being able to connect your devices.  Choose a venue that will handle your needs!  We chose to hold the event at St. Augustine C.H.S., which has an excellent infrastructure.  We also had a dynamic duo behind the scenes ensuring everything went smoothly as well as IT personnel there in case things went awry.
Our Information Jedi (@gadgetqwn) took care of our Help Desk, and we lent out devices to people who came without one so everyone would have a hands-on experience.

Here is a link to our EDTech Site:  https://sites.google.com/a/ycdsbk12.ca/gafe-saturday-ycdsb/

If you are running your own EDTech event and would like to share ideas, feel free to connect with me!

Google Art Project, Critical Thinking, and the OSSLT

I know what you're thinking--what in heavens name does the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) have to do with Critical Thinking or the Google Art Project?

One of the tasks of the OSSLT is for students to write a News Report.  They are given a title and a photo and need to make up the details in a formal news report.I contacted the Education Quality Assessment Office (EQAO) a few years ago expressing my dismay with this task.  My argument was that journalists don't even use the formalized report style the kids are expected to use.

The Educational officer responded to my query with the following information:
1) the news report is a writing activity that does not require excessive prior knowledge and thus works well in a timed (standardized test) environment;
2) because the task requires students to infer W5H about a picture before writing the report, it is a good gauge as to whether or not students can think critically and creatively.

While this does make some sense to me, for many students (especially for students who have issues writing tests or who have slow processing speed needs) this is an extremely challenging thing to do in a timed situation. But, for grade 10 students in Ontario who wish to earn a diploma, the OSSLT is a reality and so is the News Report Writing Task.  So how to we help our students with this task?

The typical way teachers try to support students to write this task is to have them write practice news reports.  Many teachers try to incorporate this task into their courses, while other schools have preparation booklets with the task in it.  This approach can be somewhat effective, but it can be boring and sometimes out of context for students.

How about just focusing on the critical thinking and creative part then? Combining  a strategy from the Critical Thinking Consortium with The Google Art Project allows kids to think critically, practice making inferences, and potentially delve more deeply into art.

Observation, Inference, Conclusion Chart

Garfield Gini-Newman, from the Critical Thinking Consortium engaged a group of teachers at my Board in an activity using the Observation, Inference, Conclusion Chart.  Essentially, he placed an image up on the screen and asked each group to agree on when and where the picture took place.  The result? We talked and argued for over 20 minutes.  Throughout the activity, Gin-Newman came around and did some "additive teaching" using statements like, "Did you notice....?"  "I wonder what that detail in the corner could be? "Hmm, I wonder if there would be a shadow there if it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon", etc...

O.k. Great for teachers--we love to talk!  But would students find such a task as interesting? Would they engage in conversation for as long?  I tried it in several grade 9 applied and academic classes and the answer is a resounding YES!  (We did provide students with sentence stems to help with their conversations, but they rarely needed them!).

The strength of the activity is the open-endedness, the fact that it builds inferencing skills, and that it really engages curiosity and critical thinking. It's also relatively low risk: students have to use details in the image to support their claims but otherwise, there is not real right or wrong answer. It can work in any subject and with any image that has enough detail to infer W5H.

Here's the graphic organizer I adapted: Click here

The Google Art Project

The Google Art Project is a resource where you can find millions of images to use in the activity described above.  I can find images that connect to any subject area and, as a bonus, will expose students to some of the most famous artists in the world.  I always hear teachers complain that students don't come in with any prior knowledge or culture-- well here's a great way to bring Art Galleries into the classroom.  Click here for a quick overview of how to use it.


Now of course students will need to organize their thoughts into actual writing of a news report for the task, but if we engaged students in regular critical thinking around W5H  and images, we are not just preparing them for that OSSLT task, but we will be helping them make sense of the world around them as well.