Elmo and The Element

Last night, for family movie night, we watched a really fantastic documentary on Apple Tv. Our eleven year old daughter hasn't stopped talking about it. It was called Being Elmo and was the story of Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who brought us Sesame Street's much-loved Elmo.

The documentary tells the story of a young boy growing up in a working class neighbourhood in Baltimore. From a very young age, he was passionate about puppetry, becoming obsessed with Jim Henson's muppets as seen on a new show at the time, Sesame Street. He spent many hours designing and sewing puppets and creating their personas. His dream was to work for Jim Henson and the documentary tells the inspiring story of his path to making his dream come to fruition.

 Kevin didn't have support at school, in fact he was bullied for his obsession with puppets, but what he did have were two loving parents who were strong advocates for him, encouraging and supporting him every step of the way despite the fact that wanting to become a puppeteer was an unusual dream in 1970s Baltimore.

This story resonated with me because our school is committed to helping our learners find their passions. We strive to help them identify their strengths and the things that they love doing and to celebrate each girl's uniqueness, giving them the time and space they need to really explore and become fully immersed in their passions. Each year group has a different form of passion-based learning so our girls are constantly reflecting on who they are and what makes them tick? In Year 8, our primary medium for passion-based learning is the incredible Passion Project. These are a full year self-led inquiry into one of their passions and seeing what the girls create is the hands-down highlight of my school year.

There are so many things I love about these projects and for so many reasons. My greatest fear is that education is becoming too standardised, that we are turning our learners into carbon copies of one another. I know we can all think of schools that pride themselves on creating the XXXX boy or the XXXX girl . I strive, in my classroom to do exactly the opposite, to enable and empower each of my learners to be unique and to celebrate that unique identity by becoming the very best version of themselves. I want my learners to be individuals who are aware of their strengths and are working towards finding that thing that Sir Ken Robinson refers to as The Element, the place where their strengths and passions meet.

Kevin Clash found his element and then he put his head down and walked straight towards it. Sure, the line to get there was wiggly, not straight but he never gave up, always keeping his eyes on the prize, that illusive job as Jim Henson's puppeteer.

I can't wait to share "Being Elmo" with my Year 8s.

I have lots more to say about this documentary but my 28 minutes is up. I thought I'd leave you with an Elmo clip that was a favourite of my son's not all that long ago. I hope you enjoy it!

The Global Read Aloud rocks!

The Power of the Global Read Aloud

This is a post I wrote for the Literacy Online list. I hope its ok to share it here too.

For the past couple of years, I have watched the Global Read Aloud unfold with great longing! This is a global project where classes read together, build connections and form friendships over the same shared book. It was started by the amazing Pernille Ripp (and if you are not following her go and do so right this minute! She is amazing!) I’ve desperately wanted my learners to be a part of the GRA but the timing is horrendous, falling over the New Zealand Term 3 holidays. This year, I decided to bite the bullet and sign up- I’d address the scheduling issues later.  

First my class and I needed to select one of the novels on offer. These five titles had been selected via a social media campaign and the selections ensured there was something for everyone.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane- Kate di Camillo

The Fourteenth Goldfish- Jennifer L. Holm

One for the Murphy’s- Lynda Mullaly Hunt

The Fault in our Stars- John Green

My class selected “One for the Murphys” by Lynda Mullaly Hunt which thankfully only five had read and all five were very keen to read it again. The Global Read Aloud is very well supported by the authors of the selected titles and we were fortunate to be able to watch Lynda Mullaly Hunt herself read the first chapter via a youtube clip.  This was a great experience. She also held frequent open question sessions via google hangout which were able to be watched later on youtube.

Next, I registered to make connections with other classes who had also selected “One for the Murphys”. It was easy to find classes who were very keen to connect with a school at the bottom of the earth in little old Christchurch, New Zealand! I was inundated with tweets and emails, people inviting 8C to connect. I formed a connection with the first class who approached us, a class in Oshawa, Canada. Their teacher and I hit it off right away and started planning fun and meaningful ways to connect our classes. I created a quiz for our buddy class to complete which would eventually result in them establishing that we were in Christchurch, New Zealand and we did a similar thing in 8C, completing quiz questions that eventually led us to their map coordinates. We would have loved to have done this via Mystery Skype but the timezones were completely incompatible. We each created a movie introducing ourselves which highlighted the many differences between us but perhaps more importantly the many similarities we share.

http://8cshs.blogspot.co.nz/2014/10/introducing-8c-to-our-buddies-in-oshawa.html

We each created challenges and reflective tasks based on “One for the Murphys” which we shared between our classes.  We collaborated via padlet, our 8C blog and their individual kidblog accounts.

The greatest challenge we faced was timezones. Without organising an out of school event, connecting synchronously was very difficult. Also, 8C uses Twitter a lot for slowchat- type questions but in our buddy class’s district, Twitter is blocked and they were not a google apps school. So there were some initial challenges to work through none of which was insurmountable. They do however use Edmodo and I was inspired to join and learn more about this platform.

About halfway through the novel, we discovered a fantastic site called Flipgrid. This is a paid website but offers a 21 day trial. I used my flipgrid account incessantly during this 21 days and will absolutely be buying a paid account in 2015. I can see so many possibilities for this amazing tool.

Flipgrid enables educators to make grids of questions. The students film themselves responding to the questions and the responses form a grid. We posed questions such as “Be someone’s hero” is an underlying theme in One for the Murphys. Who is your hero in life? Share reasons why.

It was fantastic to see our students from opposite corners of the globe lined up side by side, sharing their reflections on the novel. Their responses were often very personal and the students have requested that I don’t embed the grid into this post. However, here is a screenshot for those of you who are curious to see how Flipgrid might look.

 

“One for the Murphys” is a compelling and emotional story which touched all of us very deeply- it is so moving that I often had to give the book to one of my students to read as I experienced “sweaty eye syndrome”. Having another class with a different perspective and set of life experiences to discuss the book with was a very special experience and one I would love to repeat. There were challenges along the way and things I will do differently next time but despite this, the collaboration between us has been powerful and made our experience of an amazing class novel significantly richer.

Ok, so I've cheated for today's #28daysofwriting challenge by posting something I had already written. It is Waitangi Day here and after a huge couple of weeks at school, I've had a fantastic day with my whanau.....as we all should on Waitangi Day. ;)

Allocated seats; yay or nay?

With tomorrow being Waitangi Day, our first week of school for the year is over! Today we posed the question;

What do you need to ensure this is your best year yet? (More on this in another post)

The girls wrote the things they needed down on post-its and the statement that came up over and over again was.....

"I need my own desk to do my best work"

Although our classroom is not officially a Modern Learning Environment, the learning happening in our team is most definitely based on Modern Learning Pedagogies- it is student-centred with lots of project and passion-based learning; makered and design thinking are a big part of what we do. Student voice is at the centre of our class culture and we are constantly reflecting and innovating together to make things better for all of us as learners. 

So I feel a slight tension with their desire to have their own designated desks. For a start we don't even have enough desks! We removed lots to make room for the big watering hole table in the centre of our room. And what about the lovely comfy couch? Don't they want to work there where they can relax? Don't they want to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table? What about the chill- out space in the corridor. Don't they want to chill out on beanbags or lie on the floor? 

Apparently not! But why? 

This is obviously "on top" for my girls so we had a long chat and explored why having a designated desk was so important to them. 

"Sometimes my friend wants me to sit with her but I know we're a bad combination. I think I should sit somewhere else but don't want to hurt her feelings." 

"Sometimes I'm late for school and all the way here I worry about which desk I will get." 

"My eyes aren't great and I worry about not being able to see."

" My ears aren't great and I worry about not being able to hear." 

"I like not being too close to the windows because I get distracted."

" I like being close to the windows so I can look at the view." 

"Honestly, I am more likely to sit and work with new people when the teachers choose my seat than when I choose. Then I tend to stick with the same old people. "

" I just worry too much about where to sit." 

So I've spent the day reflecting on this. Should we be working through the reasons the girls have given and finding workable solutions for them all? Is that really a good use of our time or could we be spending that time engaged in amazing learning and working to make a difference in the world. They've already said they really want to switch table groups every second Friday so they'll still be working with a variety of people. Might this be a case of don't sweat the small stuff? 

In this case, Liz and I have decided that the voice of our learners is more important than our vision of what an MLE should look like with its few scattered tables and highly engaged kids lounging around on beautiful soft furnishings. So on Monday, at the request of our learners, our girls will be pulling desk/ table numbers out of a hat and sitting in their allocated seat. 

I seem to have some issues when it comes to setting up the classroom. What do you do in your class? What age group do you work with? What do you think is the ideal situation regarding desk/ tables? 

Kicking off the 40 Book Challenge

I tried so hard NOT to write my #28daysofwriting about the 40 Book Challenge today because I've blogged about this numerous times, such as here, here and here just to share a few! I don't want to bore anyone or appear to be a "one trick pony" so to speak. It's just that the 40 Book Challenge has impacted so deeply on my practice that I find it impossible not to share my wild enthusiasm.

Donalyn Miller is one of my eduheroes- her books "The Book Whisperer" and "Reading in the Wild" are must-reads if you teach in a primary/ intermediate school or secondary English. The basic premise is that learners are encouraged to read at least 40 books (students set individual goals but 40 is a good minimum number because it is gives enough of a challenge that learners have to work steadily at it throughout the year.) Some girls set the goal of 50, 65 or even 80. Some of these girls will make 80 and need to reassess the goal later in the year. Others might not make 40; like any goal, not meet it is not the end of the world because I guarantee that with this challenge in place, these girls will read more frequently, more deeply and read more widely than they did last year. They will also learn a huge amount about where and how to find reading material they enjoy and they will leave Year 8 with a number of favourite genres and authors. Perhaps most importantly, we will see, as we have in the past two years, 8CF transform from being a collection of children working independently in the same classroom to a truly supportive learning community where girls discuss and share reading experiences, sharing their favourite books and helping each other be successful.     

Today was the third 40 Book Challenge Kick-off party I've held for our Year 8 girls. The girls are now well aware of the challenge before they join Year 8 so today the 40 Book Challenge announcement was met with a mixture of fear and trepidation.....and great, unbridled enthusiasm. Either reaction is perfectly understandable! 

This year, after feedback from last year's girls, I've made some changes. 

1. Picture Books-

I'm sort of shocked at myself for not including picture books in the challenge before now. I'm a huge picture book lover so I'm a bit disgusted at myself for not including these sooner. Ten picture books = one book and we did discuss the importance of variety in these books but the girls "get it" and are grateful for the opportunity to explore the way text and visuals combine to tell a story. 

2. No specific genre numbers- 

Previously I had set the genre guidelines eg 3x Fantasy, 3 NZ Literature and 10 Free Choice. What was I thinking? This year, I've scrapped that but do want them to read at least one book in each category. After that, the world's their oyster so to speak. 

So after sharing the slideshow, we set goals and then we laid out piles of books including many from the National Library. The girls were so, so excited to select books, I was actually concerned there might be a punch up over, "We Were Liars" by E. Lockhart. I had two thoughts as this unfolded......

a) Why didn't I bring a first aid kit?

b) How much longer will children around New Zealand get this much joy from National Library books for? (sigh........that's another post!)

Goal setting

On your marks...........

So exciting!

Appletise; Toasting ourselves! Let's do this thing! 

The Power of Podcasting

Late last year, I became part of a global phenomenon (to use a completely over used phrase!) I found myself utterly hooked on the Serial podcast series. I had never been much of a podcast listener but I had read about Serial's unprecedented success on Twitter. I am inclined to be struck by nasty bouts of FOMO so I just had to see what all the fuss was about. (Since I am having such fun with links in this post, here is one more- the link for Serial so you too can be be of the fun!)

From Episode 1, I was hooked. I have never been one for forensics or court room dramas but this true story was told in the most engaging way by investigative journalist, Sarah Koenig. I was intrigued by the storytelling devices and strategies she used to tell the story and hook the listener without visuals. I devoured all twelve episodes (some of them twice) while on my morning walks and a number of times became so engrossed in the story that when I arrived home, I couldn't even remember which route I had taken! Like the millions of others who had gotten addicted to Serial, I was bitterly disappointed when I listened to the final episode. What would I do now?

Serial had opened up a whole new world to me; the world of podcasting. I have become a huge fan of downloading podcasts for listening to while walking or in the car or even if I am having trouble sleeping.

Early in January, I decided to explore educational podcasts and I have stumbled upon some real gems. There are many out there but here are some that I have enjoyed.

Adam Jones

Adam's podcast is brand new and as such there are only 4 episodes so far but I have really enjoyed them. I particularly enjoyed his chat with Hans Mundahl about the paradigm shift needed to make schools more relevant. He has four steps he thinks we need to take and I really enjoyed his ideas.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/adam-jones-education-podcast/id955037998?mt=2

EdReach

Wow! There are heaps of these so you are bound to find something that appeals to you. I'm a bit of a google fan girl so I really enjoy the googlecast episodes. The latest one I listened to had me totally intrigued by google cardboard! The little one minute podcasts are worth a listen too although downloading enough for a decent walk is enough to bring on a migraine!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/edreach/id412489812?mt=2

Moving at the Speed of Creativity from Wes Fryer

I love that Wes has lots of great guests on his podcasts. The amazing Jennie Magiera of Gafe Summit North and South fame features in a recent podcast. You are bound to find something here that interests you.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/moving-at-speed-creativity/id78007370?mt=2


The Whole Child Podcast

I just stumbled across this in the weekend so have only listened to one podcast but it was a goodie! I listened to a podcast about STEM education called STEM Makers and Shakers. I really enjoyed some of the ideas that were shared.

https://itunes.apple.com/nz/podcast/whole-child-podcast-changing/id306347401?mt=2



Do you listen to podcasts? Do you have any other podcast suggestions for me- educational or otherwise? Do you create podcasts with your students? Which tools do you use? Please leave me a comment if you're a podcast fan.

Class list or no class list? That is the question

Yesterday, on a stunningly beautiful Christchurch day while sitting on the side of the school pool, my friend Ginnie Thorner and I boldly announced to another dear friend that we had decided to partake in the 28 Days of Writing challenge. She was enormously excited for us.......possibly more excited than we were! You see, our friend Natalie is a writer.....a very successful one at that.

"How awesome!" she squealed in her characteristically enthusiastic manner.
"Argh but its 28 days, Nats!" I wailed. "I don't have 28 ideas in my head!"

And so began a very fruitful brainstorming session where Natalie, a parent of four, threw topics at us at an alarming rate; all the things she had always wanted to ask her children's teachers' but never had the guts! The topics came thick and fast and by the end of it, we had a list of educational "hot potatoes" some of which I'm not sure I'll touch....."Public versus private?" anyone? "Single Sex versus Co-ed?" Not today......

But here's a quick and light post for the first day of the year......

Should schools announce the classes for the following year in December or wait until the first day of the new school year?

See? I told you this was heavy stuff......

But seriously, what does your school do? The school where I currently work sends out a class list with the child's class for the following year with the school report. This goes out on the Friday of the second to last week of school. The following Monday we have a school Christmas party and the students visit the teacher for the following year. My co-teacher and I have our current students leave advice for our new students- Haiku Deck or imovies or something offering pearls of wisdom which I share with them during that visit. I hope and believe that the girls leave knowing a little about their teachers and excited about the year ahead. In January, we send them a letter via snail mail (When did the cost of sending a letter go up to 80 cents by the way??!!) I think this system works well for us.

My son's school also arranges for the students to go and visit their new teacher late in the school year. No class list comes home and my son could only remember about five of the children who were in his class so I spent most of the summer asking, "Oooh is XXX in your class next year?" but that was really just me being nosey and certainly not vital knowledge! I LOVED that on that day in December, his teacher for this year sent home a fantastic imovie showing his current students working and explaining his philosophy. It was such a great idea and the parents really appreciated it. I might have to steal that idea!

One of Natalie's children is at a primary school where the learners find out who their new teacher is and who is in their class on the first day of school for the year. He was completely at ease with this way of doing things; not the least bit perturbed and actually had a great summer discussing with his family the merits of both teachers on offer! He was fully prepared for either scenario and completely nonplussed about finding out on Day 1.

The "first day" system is the system I remember when I was at primary school. I remember my dear friend and neighbour keeping our fingers crossed for a every waking hour of the week before school started in Standard 4, desperately hoping that we would be in the same class for the first time in our school careers. We weren't. Looking back on it, I can see clearly why the school kept us separated (ahem!) but I wonder if we would have been saved a lot of angst if we had have known way back in December that "it ain't goin' to happen!"   Maybe. Maybe not.

My strong feeling is that learners, especially anxious students, can benefit enormously from knowing who they will be working with the following year. The future-referencers amongst our students will be much happier knowing a little about what the year might look like. To be honest, I can't think of any cons for letting the students know in December who their teacher might be. I just hope it is not those dangerous 8 words that keep schools using this practice, "because that's the way we've always done it!"

What do you do at your school? If you have your own children, which system do you and your children prefer? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this very pressing educational matter! :)

MORE or LESS in 2015

Sometime in December, I came across a tweet that has been at the forefront of my mind ever since. (Sadly, after a significant amount of time searching for this gem, I am unable to find it despite the fact that I am sure I must have favourited it....hmmmmmpf.)

Anyway, the tweet was two simple yet provocative questions.

What will you do more of in your classroom in 2015? 
What will you do less of or throw out entirely?

Or words to that effect........

Here is where I am currently at with these questions. This list will undoubtedly change, and so it should, as I get to know my learners. 

GIMME MORE! 

1. Student feedback- 

Year after year, my aim is always to be effective in the classroom and make a difference for my students. So this year, I want more student feedback with regards to how I'm doing. I want to know how they learn and what we can do in our room to help them learn. I want to know what they love about our class and what they want more of. I want to know what they don't love and what they want less of or what needs to be tweaked.

First Steps:

I'll be starting the year with a survey about how we can work together to ensure that my girls' final year at primary school is their best year yet. But that will be just the beginning. Throughout the year, I'll survey them regularly about how I'm going. Yep, I feel a little nervous about this- twelve year old girls can be devastatingly honest so I'm going to have to be wearing my thick skin! But I give them frequent feedback about how they are doing in our class so isn't it only fair that they get the chance to give me feedback?

Hmmmmm......I'll let you know how it goes. 

2.  Collaborating, not just connecting-

Over the past couple of years, 8C has become pretty good at connecting with other classes. We've taken part in global quadblogging, Quadblogging Aotearoa, the Global Read Aloud plus lots and lots of connecting through blogs. We even created a New Zealand-wide twitter chat to share book recommendations. We've formed lots of friendships in the past few years but in 2015, I hope to step it up and actually work with others on an authentic, collaborative project. 

First Steps:
There are a couple of amazing tools I'm hoping to explore with my girls including Flipgrid and Wevideo. I'm fortunate to work in an International Baccalaureate School and our Program of Inquiry this year offers a multitude of opportunities for collaborating with learners well beyond our classroom walls. I'm excited!

3. More Picture Books- 

In the last month of 2014, I embarked on a Picture Book a Day challenge.  Actually, calling it a challenge at all is a bit of a stretch as that implies some degree of hardship or even suffering. There was absolutely no degree of suffering except maybe to my credit card balance as I couldn't resist purchasing for my own children many of the titles I had borrowed from the library. Picture Book Month was a huge success and something I will definitely be repeating in 2015. I have seen many teachers on Twitter who commit to the Picture Book a Day Challenge for a full year. While I love this idea, I have decided to broaden this slightly to a Read Aloud Challenge for the year.

First Steps:
Read something varied and high quality to the girls every single day of the 2015 academic year. It might be an article, a poem, a letter to the editor in our local newspaper or the first chapters of an amazing novel. No more stressing that I am not going to get the 357 page novel finished before the holidays! Of course, there will still be complete shared novels but they will be less frequent, enabling us to share significantly more genres. 

4. More opportunities to CREATE-

I want to ensure my learners have lots of opportunities to create content, sharing their learning and teaching others.  To do this, I hope to give the girls the choice of a huge variety of medium and tools.

First Steps:
Wrack the brain of my team leader and Performing Arts guru, Greg Pearce and learn how to use the Arts more to share our learning. I'm also excited to do more coding with the girls. Computer Science is very strong at Selwyn House and I love that our girls choose HTML/CSS over drag and drop website creation tools. 

Having gotten totally addicted to the podcast "Serial" these holidays (like five million others) I am also interested in exploring the use of podcasting as a tool for sharing what we learn. 

LESS OF THIS, PLEASE!

1. Boring spelling programs

I fully admit that this is something that I have not yet mastered in our Year 8 classroom. We are a 1:1 classroom and the vast majority of writing that we do is digital; this means that the personalised spelling lists I used to have learners create based on their own writing are challenging to set up since the girls can easily see when they have spelt a word incorrectly on their google doc and fix it themselves. When we write on paper it tends to be a collaborative activity; identifying who owns spelling errors days later is tricky and pointless. So what is the answer? I've tried a few things and none of them have really grabbed me or my students. Have spelling lists had their day? Is a stand alone vocabulary and word origin program the answer and if so, how on earth do I make this fun and engaging? 

Any thoughts, good people? I need your input on this one!  

2.  Clutter

Last year, I boldly got rid of my desk. Anyone who knows me is well aware that I attract clutter in large doses and that this choice to eliminate a teacher desk was destined to be a challenge for me! If she is reading this, my teaching partner Liz Fairhall, will be nodding vigorously! So removing my desk had mixed results. Yes, it gave us more room for the girls themselves but it also increased exponentially the piles of paper and miscellaneous clutter around the area where the desk USED to be! 

I'm deeply committed to eliminating the clutter but I need some help. As my Mum used to say when I was an incredibly untidy teenager, "You'd be much happier dear, if you just had a system."  So desk-less members of my PLN- how do you do it? Any tips for me?

3. Filling of Gaps-

(More celebrating strengths and passions!) 

By this I am referring to our "fragile learners" for want of a better term. In the past, common practice has been to try and fill these gaps in the skills and knowledge of our most vulnerable learners. This deficit model has often meant lots of individual learning programs, removal from class to go to support programs and plenty of repetitive work to try to get these children to have a profile that is more "in line" with other class members. While this learning support work is important and hugely valuable, my question is, how can I work to find these students' strengths? How can I find their true passions and help their classmates see them in a different light and perhaps more importantly help them see themselves in a different light? 

I hope I have explained this clearly.......

4. Less Teacher Talk

'nuff said

So what do you plan to do more of in your classroom this year? And what about the things you'll do less of? I'd love to hear your ideas for your own classroom and also your tips to help me achieve this!