Category: iOS

Exploring Technology through Guided Inquiry, iOS, Kuwait, Professional Development

Inquiring into Technology

Lissa Layman

In the fall two grade 3 teachers asked my colleague and I to introduce iPad apps to their classes. After some coaching, we decided to start with introducing the big ideas behind presenting information before the apps. We’ve done that (post coming soon) and now the classes are ready to go further with some practical application of Contrast, Alignment, Repetition and Proximity. But because I like to think big (and make more work for myself), I wondered what a learning experience would look like for introducing any app to students.

Could we create a learning experience that could be adapted by teachers/instructional coaches for any creation app/program (and would not be boring or repetitive for students)?

After doing some brainstorming with Andria based on Kath Murdoch‘s Inquiry Cycle, I drafted the learning experience below. Anyone with the link is able to comment…looking forward to your warm and cool feedback!

iOS, Kuwait

Garage Band & IB DP Oral Exams

Lissa Layman

A couple weeks ago our Language B department contacted me to train them on how to use Garage Band for their oral exams. I had only minimal experience from last year, so I contacted Christina (our curriculum coordinator) for the details. After a brief chat and checking out her blog post from her experience a couple years ago, I was ready.

The mini-training for our teachers was successful however they were a little nervous about remembering the exact right steps on the day of (they didn’t want their students to do amazing work to then realize that it didn’t record). In order to make it the simplest possible for the teachers, I created a tutorial with screen shots and a checklist they could use for each student. I got good feedback from it and thought I’d share it for any other DP teachers who need to submit oral exams to the IB. Feel free to share it and adapt as necessary!

1:1, iOS, Kuwait

Shared Vision – Input Appreciated!

Lissa Layman

Our school is currently using the ISTE Essential Conditions to evaluate our 1:1 iPad program and move it forward. We are currently working towards coming up with a shared vision. I’m excited about where the future lies!

I would love any input on our two draft visions! Feel free to comment here or add a comment to the google doc. Please share about your experiences or any advice! Thank you! 🙂

iOS, Kuwait

Community walk

Lissa Layman

In November, I participated in a Community Walk with one of our Grade 2 classes as part of their ‘Where We Are in Place and Time’ unit of inquiry. Their teacher, Ms. Kira, is currently working on her International Teaching Certificate and IB level 1 award and this was part of her course requirements.

In groups of 2 (each with an adult supervisor), students walked around the community near our school for 30 minutes. The majority of our students do not live near the school so this was a new experience for them. Their goal was to take pictures of the community and interview someone in order to learn about life in the community. Shahad and Lulwa were ready to go with their interview questions (2 pages!) and iPad.

They wandered around a bit before finding a man working at a bakala (convenience store) who agreed to answer their questions.

They had two full pages of questions that were…quite interesting and definitely detailed! Although I did have to help focus them, it was really fun to see them interact with a local community member in both Arabic and English.

They took pictures and videos using their school iPads during their walk in order to create a presentation for their classmates and parents. Afterwards, they ended up creating a 6 minute long Explain Everything…it was a struggle to watch. The heart was there but it was a time when the technology seemed to inhibit the demonstration of their learning. Explain Everything just has a few too many tools for 2nd graders. But I was also impressed that they did the video all by themselves (I had my suspicions about some of the other groups).

Overall I really enjoyed being a part of this experience and hope I can be more involved next year! Kira asked me to reflect further on the experience:

Explain how you believe the Community contributed to the cultural life of your school and how it contributed to the local community.

  • Most of our students don’t live in the community of the school. Being forced to actually go out and explore this community helped the students understand what life is like here. The saw the stark differences from what they’re used to seeing where they live. Walking around the community was not a normal part of their everyday lives and took courage on behalf of the students (and adults!). The walk helped our students become more open-minded and reflective. It also benefited the community – our school and the community are kept almost completely separate  99% of the time. This was a fantastic opportunity for the community to see and interact with the students at our school. It created a better understanding, both on the part of the school and the community, about what is on the other side of the walls. Our students took a risk to be communicators with adults in the community and were rewarded when those adults treated them with respect. Everyone learned something!

How did the Community Walk change your perception of the local community?

  • I enjoy interacting with the local businesses around our school (while still being conscious of my surroundings). Although I live in the community, our walk took us to streets that I do not often traverse. I enjoyed seeing the new businesses and how the employees interacted with the students. It was definitely a positive experience!
COETAIL, Collaboration, iOS, Professional Development

I watched #COETAILCast 11

Lissa Layman

And really enjoyed it! Definitely worth an hour of your time. But if you don’t have that much time, here are the highlights (according to me):

COETAILers on Twitter
After the workshop I gave at PEAK on Saturday, I found value in the conversation re: Twitter. Becoming a connected educator can do so much for you and for the education community.

COETAILers on Blogging 
A great discussion about making the time to blog and what to blog about. Hopefully something we can use during our KIEC workshops in January. Two highlights for me: “If you’re in a tech integration job, part of your job is to blog, to reflect” (Jeff Utecht) & “Write for yourself” (Chrissy).

Dana Watts on iPads in education
Dana summed up everything I believed in the perfect way. I’m not going to try to paraphrase. Just go watch it (only a minute or two).

1:1, Collaboration, iOS, Kuwait

Language B Final Exam Review

Lissa Layman

When I brainstormed with the Language B department (Arabic & French) about how they could meaningfully integrate technology (SAMR prof development), they were eager to talk about the (quickly approaching) end of the year. Reviewing with students can be frustrating for both students and teachers. They wanted a way to put the responsibility of the review on their students while also engaging them. Although we came up with several ideas, they were most intrigued by Popplet (some of them had already seen it) and two of our French teachers (MYP & DP) gave it a try.

The teachers signed up for free Popplet accounts. For homework, the students signed up for accounts. Amel, the DP French teacher, created a popplet for each unit. She then created popples for grammar, vocabulary, and sub-topics. Once the structure was set, she invited students to the popplet. It was the students’ responsibility to fill in the popplet with grammer concepts, vocabulary words and sub-topics.
Tronc commun  Relations sociales

The middle school MYP teacher also used Popplet in a similar way with her students.
FRENCH REVIEW GRADE7

It was fun to hear the oohs and aahs from the students when I added a popple from the desktop and it showed up on their screens. The teachers liked that their students could collaborate and that each popple automatically included the creator’s name. Although only the creator can edit a popple, the teachers liked the comment function to help guide students. The ease of adding students to popplets was beneficial for the teachers. The ability to share links to popplets (on their class Edmodo pages) and create images was incredibly useful. The biggest negative? We’re an iPad school – the fully functional free website is flash-based and the app (with ability to collaborate) costs money. Also, you can only create a limited number of popplets (easily solved by saving the image when done and deleting the popplet).

Although this isn’t a “redefined” use of technology, the ability to simultaneously collaborate on a brainstorm with students gives it more oomph than “substitution.” It was a little taster for our teachers and hopefully they’ll be able to build on their experiences next year.

Google, iOS, Kuwait

Google Earth in lower elementary

Lissa Layman

Last weekend at the Middle East GAFE Summit, I had the pleasure of meeting John Bailey and attending one of his sessions on Google Earth. The man knows his stuff! While I was at his session, I was finally inspired to share an idea I had for the KG2 teachers recently. I’m sure John could embellish it and make it much better (as he found out he was selected to attend the next Google Teacher’s Academy while we were there..congrats John!) but I do what I can. 😉

During the 3-hour planning meeting for the IB PYP KG2 unit, it was mentioned that in the past students have looked at their food wrappers to see where their food comes from. I thought this would be a great way to incorporate Google Earth!

After students find out where their food is from, the teacher could create a placemark for each student/food item. Instead of just creating simple placemarks, I went one step further  and inserted pictures. I took a picture of the food item using my iPad. I then created a secret board on Pinterest (using the iPad app). On my computer, I copied the image URL of the picture on Pinterest. In the placemark, I clicked ‘add image’ and pasted the URL. You could also put the pictures on your website…you just need to be able to get the image URL. If you want to get really awesome, you could mess around with Tours and create a video of all the placemarks.

Although you cannot create placemarks on the iPad (that I’ve found…let me know if you figure it out!), you can open your Trip on the iPad. I emailed myself the Google Earth attachment (you can also upload it to your Google Drive) and was able to open and view it on the iPad. Students can now actually SEE where their food came from! Pretty cool, huh?

(I couldn’t get the embed gadget to work for the Google Earth file. Feel free to open it in Google Earth! Merci to Jeff for his modeling skills 🙂

Note: I did not receive any compensation for this review. Just my honest opinion & experience.

iOS, Kuwait, Professional Development

A Reflection on Tech Integration – SAMR

Lissa Layman

I’ve been struggling a lot lately with this whole technology integration initiative that is sweeping the world. Yesterday Jeff and I went into a 1st grade classroom to help them create word-webs and stories using their iPads. It didn’t go as smoothly as one would hope and by the end we were wondering if the technology made the project better.

This morning we were truly challenged as Technology Coaches – two elementary teachers are starting their final project for COETAIL and need to integrate technology into a unit plan. Unlike many teachers that we come into contact with they know about SAMR and want to attain the Redefinition level.
This is what our job is supposed to be…right? Integrating technology in a way that redefines education? I honestly can’t say we’ve done a ton of that this year. I often wonder how many technology coaches (or whatever you’d like to call us) are truly helping teachers CHANGE education through the use of technology. I’m not naive enough to think that it can happen for every task that a student completes…but how about once a unit? Once a month? I’d take once a year! So many people (me included) are quick to make suggestions for integrating technology (in our case iPads) – make movies, use Explain Everything, write blogs, etc. How often do we stop to think…and ask ourselves “Is technology making my lessons better?” and “Where am I on the continuum?” I’ve sat around tables with teachers who truly believe that they are redefining & transforming education when they are simply at the substitution stage. I am just as guilty of this too! There are thousands of education blogs out there boasting about the latest and greatest way technology is “changing” their classroom. But is it really?

So where do we (me, my school, you, your school, educators around the world) go with this? How do we ensure that technology isn’t just a band-aid? I’ve had this discussion with Jeff countless times. But how do we have this discussion with other teachers without stepping on toes and hurting feelings? We haven’t introduced the SAMR or TPACK models to staff yet because we think they’d be a little overwhelmed (have you read Nicholas Provenzano‘s rant?). We are also in limbo waiting to hear what our iPad initiative will look like next year. Do we introduce these models? If so, when?

Quality technology integration isn’t easy. It’s takes time, patience and lots of brain power. It takes CHANGING the way we teach. Are we ready for that?

–

Get started redefining…
Exploring the SAMR model (ECISD Technology)
Brief Intro to TPCK & SAMR (Dr. Ruben Puentedura)
Technology in Education: A Brief Video Intro (Dr. Ruben Puentedura)
More on SAMR (Dr. Ruben Puentedura)
Elementary example of SAMR
TPACK
TPACK Explained

This is in no way a complete list…please feel free to share more!

1:1, Collaboration, iOS, Kuwait

A Reflection on Tech Integration – Grade 1

Lissa Layman

A couple weeks ago a 1st grade teacher emailed us wanting to discuss how she could use the iPad in her lessons. I was the only tech coach available so I invited her up to the office. When I asked her about her objectives, she explained that she wanted the students to create word-webs to brainstorm for a story and then write their stories (individually). She wanted to give those with the iPads the option of using the iPad to brainstorm and create their stories. The two apps on our iPads that might be simple enough for 1st graders to create stories are Explain Everything and Keynote. We decided that my first session with the students would be to “teach” them how to use Explain Everything through the creation of their word-webs. I would then go back into the classroom a second time to help them create their stories.

Session 1 Reflection:
Jeff came with me to help teach the 10 students with iPads how to use Explain Everything. While we were with the iPad students, the teacher was in another part of the classroom with the rest of the students. Students without iPads were given a paper template to create their mind-maps. Students using Explain Everything had to create their own shapes before starting their brainstorm. It didn’t go quite as smoothly as one would have hoped.

After class, Jeff and I discussed how we could have done it differently. We knew we couldn’t just teach 1st grade students how to use Explain Everything through direct instruction. BUT the students were quite distracted by the technology. Many of them created great brainstorms, others never got past the stage of drawing their shapes. Looking back on it I would have changed several things:
*all students start with the classroom teacher to talk about brainstorming and create a class mind-map.
*all students make their first draft of their mind-map on paper using the teacher-created template.
*students with iPads then re-create their mind-maps using Explain Everything (with assistance from tech coaches).

Does this process take longer than without using technology? Yes. Is using technology making their stories better in the end? Maybe. That’s a big maybe and depends a lot on how the students use Explain Everything. When I was in the classroom my lesson plans involving students using technology usually took longer so students could become comfortable with the technology (device, app, etc). But the ultimate goal was to save time in the long-run and end with a better product and a deeper understanding of the concept. In revising this 1st grade lesson, students would be repeating the process of creating their mind-map (once on paper, once in the iPad). Maybe students would revise their paper draft when creating the iPad draft, allowing them to think of better ideas. The major purpose of the second draft would be getting them comfortable with Explain Everything so that they could then use the app to create their stories.

Session 2 Reflection:
Jeff and I went back into the classroom today to continue helping the students use their iPads to create stories. We thought we would mostly be helping them transfer their ideas into stories however the majority of the hour that we were there was a continuation of creating their word-webs. Once again students were distracted by the technology. By the end of the hour, most of the students with iPads had moved on to turning their ideas into stories. We weren’t exactly sure what the stories were supposed to look like, so we had students add slides to their Explain Everything word-web and write 1 sentence per slide.

After leaving the classroom Jeff and I began immediately debriefing and reflecting on the project and instruction. Did the technology cause the students to create better projects? No. The projects were of equal quality, if not worse, to what the students using paper created. Does this project still have potential to create something better? Maybe. After the students have finished their stories (with 1 sentence per slide), they could use the record feature of Explain Everything to make a product that the other students would not be able to make. Students would then have original stories (writing), with their own narration (reading) and the videos would be able to be shared with other students and parents. Is this possible in a 1st grade classroom? Maybe…with lots of practice and patience!

As technology coaches we need to make sure that we are always encouraging our teachers to use technology when appropriate. It is a TOOL that should be used when it is the BEST tool for the job. If paper and pencil are the best tools for the project…that’s okay! There is a fine line between quality technology integration and superfluous technology integration.

1:1, Collaboration, iOS, Kuwait, Professional Development

Getting back in the swing of things!

Lissa Layman

Wow it’s been a long time since I posted anything! 2013 had a great start – we were home in MI for Christmas & the New Year and my sister, Abby, came back to Kuwait with us! She is substitute teaching for the semester and just signed a contract to come back next year to teach Pre-K. We’re pretty excited to have a little bit of home here 🙂

One of our biggest challenges as technology coaches this year has been getting teachers on board and actively incorporating technology in their classrooms. There have been a lot of ups and downs with our 1:1 iPad initiative and I don’t think teachers really know what to think – should they invest their time or is it all going to be for naught? Students currently have to pay a fee to acquire a school iPad and gain access to the wireless network. We’re not exactly sure on the numbers but somewhere around 40% of our student body (~2000 students PreK-12) have iPads. This presents many obvious logistical problems for classroom teachers.

As a tech coaches, we’re trying to decide where to focus this semester  Last semester we offered Professional Development after school on Mondays. Although our turnout was good at first, the numbers slowly diminished. We set up a website, but we’re not really sure if our staff actually uses it. Plus we’re still trying to figure out the dynamics of working in a 3-person team.

For the most part our job this semester has become more individualized. The principals sent out an email for us and we’ve appeared at a couple meetings, but we’re trying the let-them-come-to-us method. We don’t want to offer PD that teachers don’t want or won’t come to. But we DO want to support our staff. We’ve been encouraging teachers to give students choice for assignments and allow them to use the iPads. Teachers (individually and in small groups) have started coming to us more to help them plan units & lessons, create their class websites or blogs and support them in the classroom during lessons.

Whenever I get frustrated or down I just try to remember that this is a growing year. I wasn’t involved in the process until we arrived in August (and I’m not always consulted now) so we all just have to work with what we’ve been given. We have some students with iPads which isn’t the ideal 1:1 ratio however it’s much better than most other schools in Kuwait (who don’t even have wi-fi). I’m looking forward to seeing how everything turns out in the next couple years 🙂

Reflector Update:
We’re still in the testing phase of this project. The 5 elementary teachers that are using the app aren’t having great success. We know that it’s not our network or the app itself (I have success using the app on my 2012 laptop connected to the school wireless) or the wireless adapters (we bought & installed 2 new ones with no success). We now think that it might have something to do with the computers that teachers are using (low RAM, etc). We’ll be continuing to investigate during the next couple months!

Some fun events coming up this Spring:
*Jeff and I will be starting our masters with COETAIL on February 4th
*Abby, Jeff and I will be traveling to Greece at the end of February for a long weekend (National Liberation)
*My brother and his girlfriend are coming to visit us in March for their Spring Break
*The three of us will also be traveling to Thailand and attending NESA in April (Jeff is presenting!)

If you’d like to read more about our lives outside of school, feel free to check out our other blog. 🙂