Curriculum Mapping in Melbourne

I’m fortunate to be working with ACEL and ASCD as they bring Heidi Hayes Jacobs and Ann Johnson to Australia to continue the introduction of Curriculum Mapping to our schools.  My perspective is that available technologies enable students to “side-step or super-charge” their learning.  The determining factor is a meaningful and individualised curriculum that engages intrinsic motivation and develops a culture of thinking.  My session is titled “Curriculum Mapping + Web 2.0 = Personal Learning” as I don’t think education stands a chance of taking advantage of digital technologies without better articulating and tracking individual student learning. Curriculum Mapping has to happen.

Below is a “Flowgram” of Web pages that line out the case for personal learning. Consider it a “Slideshow” through a tour of Web pages so you can explore more on your own.

You can view more easily through the Interactive Player.

The following handouts accompany the session:

• Curriculum Map of the presentation
• The agenda for the session
• A Tale of Two Kiddies
• I Want to Integrate Web 2.0
• Dos & Don’ts of Integrating Web 2.0

 

Finally - don’t miss the Conference Archive on Heidi’s Web site, CurriculumDesigners.com for access to presentations, handouts, etc. A real treasure of support.

CPTLA Conference - Teacher Librarians!

Nice to join some of my favourite people: teacher librarians.  Part of what makes them so precious to schools is that they perform one of the few roles that has truly altered in the past few decades.  From card catalogs to server closets and from a stack of Britannica to Encarta collapsing under the weight of Wikipedia.  Teacher Librarians have had to step up to the times, whereas some in classrooms have not had to face the challenges of change.

Part of what I’m talking about in this keynote is “Info Lit 2.0″.  Yes this involves great Web 2 assets, but more importantly, a clear awareness that in our digital world, we owe it to our students to pursue the second definition of “literate”.  The awareness needed is that “taught” information literacy skills really only achieve the first:

 

Like all forms of critical and creative thinking, it’s the disposition that counts once the skill is learned.  This means we must develop a culture that fosters the sensitivity and inclination to engage in the task.

Then we are ready to couple the Challenge and Skill in a scaffolded process.  I tend to “take the mickey” out of Info Lit “processes” that have a neat little step called “synthesis”.  This is where WebQuests came into the mix, addressing the “insert magic here” aspect of most Info Lit approaches.  Similarly, Flow theory shows the way: a balancing act between Challenge and Skill where scaffolding is decreased as skills increase. The nice thing is that teachers and teacher librarians can get into Flow just as easily as students!  I hope that the Look to Learn strategy and tutorials for using Wordpress and Pageflakes support participants as they explore the challenges of our evolving profession!

Here’s a handout for the session that focuses on the Look to Learn strategy and a few handy Web 2 tools and tutorials for working with them,

Look to Learn Launched

I’ve just launched a site I’ve been wanting to get onto the Web for a while.  Called “Look to Learn,” the site combines what I like to call “Real, Rich and Relevant” resources with thinking prompts.  The rationale is to help teachers and students use such activities frequently (3+ times / week) as a way to nurture a culture of inquiry and to help students develop a disposition toward such thinking.  Another way to put it is, “Here’s an engaging way to foster an appetite for deep learning and the joy of learning that accompanies it.”

Web 2 & the Studies of Asia PD

Welcome to participants in this two day workshop held at the University of Melbourne and organised by Lindy Stirling, State Advisor, Studies of Asia (see the Studies of Asia Wiki).

Day 1

We will mostly be working from Tom’s CEQ-ALL site.  The outline of Day 1 with Tom  is:

• Web 2.0 - Empowering Learning
• Beginning with Web 2 Tools  Wordpress, Pageflakes & Diigo
• Designing your Learning Activity

Here’s a page of handy Web addresses and resources.

Day 2

Lisa Hayman will facilitate Day 2 which will bring in the VELS and authentic assessment as well as more time to work on the learning activities.

Gifted and Talented

Tom March is working with Gifted and Talented educators from the Victorian department schools.  The day will focus on two main points: CEQ-ALL and the 1,2,3 Strategies for Meaningful Learning.

Here’s a handout of links and resources

TubePrompter

Carrying on in the theme of “Builder” Tools and scaffolding higher order thinking, this month’s new addition is the TubePrompter, an interactive page to facilitate “Learning 2 Look” activities using the wild richness of YouTube. Besides eliminating all the distractions inherent in the YouTube site, TubePrompter also offers ten different scaffolds to help groups of students learn through close looking. Simply copy the “embed” code for a YouTube video and paste it into TubePrompter, then click the “Learn 2 Look” button to open a new window with your chosen video embedded and a raft of prompts designed to inspire student thinking.

See the newly updated Web site:

Easily embed videos from sites like these into a clean Webpage frame with 10 Looking Prompts only a button-click away (see the Prompts frame). 

Contemporary Teaching Skills

Indie Film Winner shot with phones

Learning to Look Prompt: See - Feel - Do

1. See - what do you see?
2. Feel - what is the main feeling you had after watching the video?
3. Do - what does this make you want to do?

clipped from www.youtube.com Tropfest NY 2008 winner, “Mankind Is No Island” by Jason van Genderen

Also take a look at the New TubePrompter for embedding YouTube videos combined with Thinking Routines from Tom’s ThesisBuilders.

For Real, Rich and Relevant resources other than YouTube, try this updated list of great sites.

Google InQuotes & Nov 4

One cool Google App that it would be a shame to miss over the next couple weeks is “InQuotes.”  You may have noticed a new band of quotations when searching in Google News for a person in the media buzz.  For example:

Notice that the quotation is current and you can access more quotes from the same person by clicking on their name.  In this case, 272 quotes are in the database and the first ten are listed.

Also, don’t miss the “search these quotes” field so you can narrow the collection based upon a key word:

If all this doesn’t inspire creative teachers to set their students to a critical reading / thinking exploration, take a look at the first mentioned “InQuotes” app from Google Labs.

Many of the features just highlighted are present as well as links in popular categories which shift to the top of the paired quotes with the click of a mouse.  Also note that you can “spin” or toggle through the content for each category.

The default duo is, of course, Obama and McCain, but their names are actually dropdown menus so you can compare quotations from other significant American leaders like Biden and Palin or Rice and Cheney:

Finally, as we might well forget leading up to November 4th, the US is not the only country with dueling leaders.  The “Edition” dropdown at the top-right corner presents similar match-ups for Canada, India and the UK.

What interesting uses can you think of for this neat interface?

Working with Loreto Kirribilli

At sessions today, I’m working with the teachers of Loreto Kirribilli to consider CEQ-ALL as a unifying process to contextualise their outstanding learning framework which is designed to help students “develop as intelligent, confident, wise and lovable young women, with a strong sense of social responsibility.”

Through the course of the day, I’ll be sharing my latest views on the Immutable Trends and the related Challenges for Education, followed by hands-on workshops where teachers will set up their own Web 2 learning space. We’ll use Wordpress.com and Pageflakes (tutorial) and perhaps get into Clipmarks and Diigo.

Loreto Kirribilli has a fantastic mission which says in part: “… to provide an education which liberates, empowers and motivates students to use their individual gifts with confidence, creativity and generosity…”  This is exactly the kind of focus a school needs to traverse the challenges and opportunities of our digital era in education.

• Here’s a handout with useful links for the sessions