LearningToday shares with everyone two beautiful posters, that help us remember Bloom’s Taxonomy: the Blooming Butterfly and the Blooming Orange.

How do we connect the Bloom’s Taxonomy with the iPad?

Following in Kathy Schrock’s and Kelly Tenkeley’s footsteps of assigning iPad apps to the different levels of the Bloom’s Taxonomy, I created the following table with apps that I have tested out and am recommending. (Click to see a larger version of the image)

In order to make the cut, the app had to fulfill the criteria (from Wikipedia and according to the Blooming Orange’s verbs) set out for each level. You will notice that several apps that are in the same app category (ex. screencasting: ShowMe, ScreenChomp and ExplainEverything) are represented on different levels of the Bloom’s. The explanation is that each one of the apps can be used for the different levels. It is not to say that the ShowMe app could not be used on the “Analyzing” level. Also, be aware that simply by using one of the above mentioned app DOES NOT mean that you are working on the specified thinking level. Ex. you could ask your students to use the ScreenChomp app to simply list and record themselves “remembering” facts that they previously had memorized.

I want to encourage/challenge you, to take a look at the iPad apps on YOUR iPad and to categorize these apps with the different thinking levels and THEN take the next step to SHARE your list with other educators. Leave a comment below to link to your list/graphic/table.

Remember: Exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers.

• describe
• name
• find
• name
• list
• tell

Suggested apps:

• iBook
• Noteshelf
• Stack the Countries
• Evernote Peek
• Nxt App4Kids
• Ansel’s and Clair’s Adventure in Africa
• Word Seek HD
• eClicker
• Globe

Understand: Demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by being able to:

• explain
• compare
• discuss
• predict
• translate
• outline
• restate

Suggested Apps:

• ScreenChomp
• Motion Math
• 123 Charts
• Idea Sketch
• Corkulous
• Blogsy
• Good Reader
• TouchDraw
• Pages

Apply: Using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way

• show
• complete
• use
• examine
• illustrate
• classify
• solve

Suggested Apps:

• ShowMe 
• Poetry Creator
• Keynote
• Visualize
• Posterous
• ZigZag Board
• Presentation Link
• Xperica
• GearHD

Analyze: Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations

• compare
• examine
• explain
• identify
• categorize
• contrast
• investigate

Suggested Apps:

• iThoughts HD
• Lino
• Popplet
• Today’s Documents
• Diigo
• Explain Everything
• 3D Cell Simulation
• Go Sky Watch
• Go Docs

Evaluate: Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria

• justify
• assess
• prioritize
• recommend
• rate
• decide
• choose

Suggested Apps

• Hoot Suite
• Skype
• Mobile RSS
• Science 360
• Zite
• Flipboard
• Instapaper
• GoodReads
• Wunderlist

Create:

• plan
• invent
• compose
• design
• construct
• imagine

Suggested Apps:

• Audioboo
• iMovie
• Comic Book
• Reel Director
• Sonic Pics
• Animoto
• Puppet Pals
• Toontastic
• Doink

One of the take aways from the Curriculum Mapping Institute this past week was that it brought an upgrade to THE trusted KWL (Know, What to Know and Learned) Chart to the forefront. It seems a no brainer…one of those things… “I should have thought about it”… So what is this upgrade all about?

An “H” snuck into the Acronym!

• What does this “H” stand for”?
• Why is this an upgrade for the 21st century?

I started out by searching Google, which immediately wanted to correct my search term and showed me  the traditional “KWL chart” results. I had to re-affirm that I indeed wanted to find out more about KWHL charts. (The nerve…!)

The  top search results turned out mostly downloadable files for templates, which was quiet interesting as there were several explanations in these tutorials what the “H” could stand for:

• HOW can we find the answers to these questions?
• HOW can we find out what we want to learn?
• HOW did the learning take place?
• HOW can we learn more?
• HOW will we find the information?

In direct relation to our quest to bring Information literacy in the 21st century to our teachers and students, the “HOW will we find the information” sticks out right away for me. A chart, that points out “knowing HOW to get to information”, which  highlights essential skills in the Information age, seems of vital importance when planning lessons and units as well as teaching the process to our students.

My Twitter network was much better in helping me extend my search for KWHL.  The tweet from my friend Chic Foote from New Zealand even revealed a further extension by including “AQ” to the mix: Apply and Question.

OK, so we have doubled the length of the original acronym. We have a total of three new sections in the famous chart.

The search for “KWHLAQ” immediately took me to Maggie Hos-McGrane from Switzerland (How could I have not ended up at her excellent blog Tech Transformation? ) Maggie wrote a great explanation post about the letters that make up the Alphabet Soup- KWHLAQ.  Maggie is putting the acronym in relationship to the PYP (IB Primary Years Programme) model at her school? She assigns the following explanation to the three “new” letters in the acronym

H – How will we find out the answers to our questions?  Students need to think about what resources are available to help them find the answers.

A – What action will we take?  This is another way of asking how students are applying what they have learned.  Action is one of the 5 essential elements of the PYP and it is an expectation of the PYP that inquiry will lead to responsible action initiated by students as a result of the learning process.

Q – What new questions do we have?  At the end of a unit of inquiry there should be time to reflect on whether we have successfully addressed our initial questions and whether we have come with with other questions.  Actually, if the unit is successful I believe there should be more questions – we should not be “done” with learning.

As Maggie used the PYP model as the base for her rational of the expansion of the traditional KWL chart, I am looking at it through the 21st century skills and literacies lens.

H- HOW will we find the information to answer “What we want to know?”
Information Literacy is one of literacies educators and students seem to have the most trouble with. Not being able to find the information we need or having to wonder if the information is accurate often gets blamed on the OVERLOAD of information being produced and disseminated online, as well as the fact that ANYONE can contribute. We need to have the skills to be able to deal with the amount of information by learning how to filter that information through a variety of means. What better way to integrate the “H” into our learning inquiries in order to find, evaluate, analyze, organize, curate and remix information.

A- What ACTION will we take once we learned what we set out to learn?
There used to be a time… (when I was at school) that information was set in stone (well, it was written in black and white on paper, bound in a book). I could not really add my perspective or new information that I learned from my teacher, family, friends or from experience to the “book”.  Issues that we learned about, where (mostly) far removed (time and geographically) from our reality. How could one student accomplish change beyond their immediate surroundings? How could one student affect change? The reality of feeling helpless beyond our neighborhood has changed. Tools to reach and collaborate with a worldwide audience are available and free to use. Making students aware of their power and the opportunities available to take action is imperative.

Q- What QUESTIONS do we have?
The “Q” immediately brought Bill Sheskey’s quote from the book Curriculum21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs to mind.
Bill has summed up the upgrade of the KWL-chart for me. It is not about delivering the answers anymore. In the 21st century, being able to ask the questions (and continuing asking)  is the skill we need to instill in our students. Learning is not confined to a textbook, the walls of a classroom or peers and experts who are physically in the same location. Learning is open ended…we strive to be life-long learners. Why would a chart end with the question “What have I learned?”. Let’s leave the chart open ended with “What (new) questions do I still have?

I have learned in the past that when planning with teachers in upgrading their units, chart templates have been a welcomed addition. It creates a manageable overview of what we need to consider as we strategically upgrade to the 21st century. Using templates also can show, over time, the different skills, literacies and roles to empower learners that have been touched upon. Templates such as these, when used consistently, can support teachers as they are struggling with 21st century fluency.

What are your thoughts on adding the “How to find the information?”,”What Action will you take?” and “What new Questions do you have?”?  How do these additions relate to good practice in education for the 21st century?

How have you used KWL, KWHL or KWHLAQ charts in planning and/or with your students?

In the School Library Monthly  a post titled I.Need.Reflection caught my attention. You can read:

I’m acutely aware that I’m flooded with input without having the time to arrange that input into meaningful patterns.

and the word “truncate” in the following quote immediately conjured up a mental image about the lack of reflection time for our students AND our teachers.

In today’s hurried classrooms, it’s tempting to truncate the learning experience by cutting off the reflective process.

The author also points to research

Research tells us (see: Donovan & Bransford’s How People Learn or Darling-Hammond’s Powerful Learning: What We Know About Teaching for Understanding as examples) that my state is not unique; rather, reflection is undeniably essential to making new learning stick. Whether you call it metacognition, reflection, or thinking about our thinking, new learning requires that we reflect.

I believe that one of the most important skills for the future is the ability to write

• …to write well
• …to write in different media
• …to write for difference audiences
• …to write reflectively
• …to write collaborative

So how do we teach reflective writing?

I started to look for resources online and felt I immediately hit the jackpot with Peter Pappas‘ series of posts on his blog Copy Paste about

• A Taxonomy of Reflection: Critical Thinking For Students, Teachers, and Principals (Part I)
• The Reflective Student (Part II)
• The Reflective Teacher: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part III)
• The Reflective Principal: A Taxonomy of Reflection (Part IV)

Take a look at his Prezi below to give you a taste of his thoughts on creating a reflective school environment.

5th grade brainstorming reflective vocabulary

By using Peter Pappas’ Bloom’s Taxonomy of Reflection, we hoped to guide students in the process.

Peter Pappas's Reflection Taxonomy

Reflection Taxonomy by Peter Pappas

Working with 2nd graders on reflecting about their President Reports. Some of the questions from Peter Pappas’s Taxonomy were too hard for them to grasp the concept. We adapted some of them for the younger learners. They were tempted to answer the question directly. “Did you achieve your goal?” was answered with an obvious “Yes, I did” in the reflection. It was clear, that supporting a reflective writing culture in the class would could not be a one time project, but was a process to go through to become a reflective classroom learning community.

Here are some links to student reflection examples

• 2nd Grade:collaborative reflection on Bat ABC Project
• 2nd grade:President Report Audio Reflections
• 4th grade:Reflection of Skype call with Book Author
• 5th Grade: Reflection about the Christopher Columbus Project

Soon, it became very clear to me, that I was “saddling the horse backwards” as we say in German. By expecting to teach students reflective writing, we needed to START by making teachers aware of the IMPORTANCE of reflection and the mechanics of teaching reflective writing. We needed to take a step back to become a reflective teacher- community before we could expect our students to become a reflective-learning community and our school a reflective school culture. We are starting to work towards that by making it an official theme that is running through all our Professional Development.

My colleague Andrea Hernandez and I wanted to model that reflection come in in all shapes and sizes. We created a  video reflection of our “21st Century Teaching and Learning”year at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School.

21st Century Learning Reflection from langwitches on Vimeo.

Do you take the time to reflect? Do you give your students time to reflect on their learning? How do you teach the mechanics of reflective writing? How has your school moved forward in becoming a reflective learning community? Please contribute ideas, links and resources you have. What worked for your school, teachers and students?

In my previous post titled Enhancement-Automating-Transforming-Informating, I described the fusion (in my mind) of the SAMR model with Alan November’s concept of Automating vs. Informating to transform teaching and learning.

Since then, my colleague Andrea Hernandez and I have set down to create a visual using the above model to include concrete examples from our school to illustrate to our teachers what tasks are considered in the substitution/augmentation/modification/redefinition stages. We want to be transparent in showing our expectations of basic tasks being led autonomously by the classroom teachers to teach and support students without the necessity of tech support to be present. At the same time, we wanted to emphasize the progression and show what transformational teaching and learning looks like.

As we were populating the chart, it became clear to me that the stages were part of a time line, a process that an individual and an entire school cultures had to go through in order to transform and leap from “preparing students for 1970s, 1980′s 1990′s to preparing them for 2020′s and beyond” (Heidi Hayes Jacobs). Once I saw the imaginary time line, I also felt that that the stages coincided with how (21st century) teaching and learning was seen. We used to see it as a:

Tools Set:

• we taught keyboarding classes
• we had classes that taught a specific version of a office program (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• we emphasized file management
• we supported teachers when they did not know which button to click for printing
• we gave instructions, such as “click in the upper left corner for the drop down menu and save”, we gave new instructions when the software package, platform or version changed
• we gave tech support to upload, download and resize images

Then we started to understand that it was never about the tools, but about the skills teachers and students would acquire when using these tools.

Skill Set:

• we blog to teach and learn about writing, communication, networking, presentation, publishing, commenting, reflection, organization and collaboration skills. Blogging is about Digital Citizenship, Media Literacy, Information Literacy and Global Awareness.
• we use wikis to understand about copyright, evaluation and analysis of Information, collective knowledge and new writing genres.
• we skype in order to expose and connect teachers and students locally and globally to peers, experts, eye witnesses. We become more fluent in networking and and information literacies, speaking, listening and presentation skills are honed.
• we teach bookmarking skills to help teachers and students cope with the exponentially increasing information available. Finding, evaluating, analyzing, tagging, categorizing, organizing, connecting and remixing of information are just some of the skills necessary for that
• we podcast (audio and video)  to allow students to express themselves and their knowledge in more than the written form. We incorporate storytelling in order to give students multimedia skills as well as expose them to visual literacy and information literacy.

Now, it seems that teaching and learning will not necessarily move from the “enhancement” to the “transformation” stage with a tool set and the necessary skills alone. In order for teaching and learning to become transformative there also needs to be a

Mind Set:

• Our world has flattened and is interconnected
• Information is just going to continue to grow exponentially
• Students of today and tomorrow learn differently than we did
• We are life long learners
• We are self-directed learners
• “How we connect with each other is how learning occurs” (Stephen Wilmarth)
• “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but the ones who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn” (Alvin Toffler)
• “Collaboration and sharing knowledge are highly prized skills” (Alan November)

Take a look at the following graphic and keep a time line in mind, as well as the stages mentioned above to move from substitution to redefinition. Does this make sense to you? What would you add?

Heather Durning who blogs on Mrs. D’s Flight Plan has graciously allowed me to cross post her latest post here on Langwitches.

I believe her blog post is invaluable as it fulfills the need to document, summarize and assess learning outcomes when leading your students with new forms of teaching and learning. The blog post titled “Holocaust Education via @Langwitches and Group Skype” is such a post. We need to start sharing new forms of schools, classrooms, teaching and learning.

As Kevin Jarett tweeted:

If you dig further in Heather’s blog, which carries the tagline: “Teaching with technology in a Gr. 7/8 classroom means sometimes you fly by the seat of your pants“, you can read more about the collaboration between her class in Ontario and Clarence Fisher’s class in Manitoba, Canada.  I was honored when she contacted me to be part of that collaboration. During the Skype call I realized that I was part of a NEW FORM of teaching and really a new form a school and learning. I got goose bumps reading the students’ comments Heather shared with me after their reflection of the Skype experience. I can start seeing that new form of what learning can be/is crystallize itself in the fog ahead.

Read Heather’s description and her students’ comments below, then head over to her blog to follow along her journey of creating new forms of learning and teaching opportunities.

Skype Call Perspective from my End

Holocaust Education via @langwitches and Group Skype

This week, the Idea Hive experienced a significant “first”:  a shared read aloud of The Book Thief using Skype, backchannel chat, and Linoit, a virtual bulletin board.   In previous posts, Clarence shared the beauty of this story, and the pre-reading activities leading up to the book, designed to develop students’ knowledge of Germany in WW II.  In the Hive Thinking classroom, students collaborated to produce research summaries of various topics including Hitler Youth, Jesse Owens, Hitler, Kristallnacht, and the Holocaust.

Following this step, students viewed a video created by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, Kristallnacht- Night of the Broken Glass.  While viewing images, including many of her Jewish grandparents in Germany, Silvia narrates her family’s story surrounding that horrific night on November 9, 1938, when Hitler showed the world his plans for the Jewish community. Please take the 9 min. needed to view her story.  I assure you it will be worth it.

The next day, the Idea Hive students met via Skype to share questions they planned to ask Silvia in a follow-up group video call, a new Skype feature.  During that group video call, it was incredible to watch students in Ontario and Manitoba listen and interact with Silvia as she spoke to us all from Florida.  This call allowed our students to experience together, the emotions shared by Silvia, as she answered their questions.  Silvia helped students learn how similar behaviours are mirrored today in social media sites such as Facebook.  Students connected, as they learned together in an authentic environment.  One of my student’s parents shared the impact this experience had on her daughter.  “When she came home, she talked and talked about the Holocaust.  She cried.”

After the call, I asked my students to share their thoughts on how Skype affects their learning.

When we Skyped with Silvia, what happens years ago, makes more sense. She told us way more than I’d read in a textbook. She made me put myself in Germany during the night of broken glass.

When you’re talking to someone on a Skype call, with people around the world telling their story, you realize how really brave they are, like Silvia. They inspire us to share more of our experiences.  Brad P.

Skyping helps us learn. When our class Skyped with Silvia Rosenthal, she told us more information about the holocaust and WWII than a textbook would have told us. This makes it exciting for us because we can see her expressions and it makes it more real.  We can feel her emotion.

In order for this to work, there must be preparation involved so you have a reason to Skype. Preparing for a Skype call is just as important as studying for a test or practicing a speech for your History project. We prepare because it helps us present the information the way we want it to sound. We also prepare so there is a serious conversation, and so we don’t stumble over words as we are speaking to our audience. Ethan J.

During the Skype call, the students are very quiet and involved.  We are very interested with the call because we are not just reading a boring old textbook.  We are hearing somebody’s story. When we had a Skype call with Silvia on Monday, we got into it, asking questions that we’d previously planned.  And we all know you cannot ask a textbook questions!  If you have access to this technology, why not use it?!  Alyssa H.

The group Skype feature enables our students to share powerful, emotional learning experiences together.  It’s another step in our year-long goal of creating a community of learners in the Idea Hive.

Cross posted on Angela Maier’s blog!

In the month of November, Angela Maier, asked a number of educators to write about PASSION. Each one of the contributors will add their perspective on PASSION in education. It was an honor to have been asked to be one of these contributors.

I am realizing that Angela has stumbled upon (or  has strategically moved towards) THE NEW FORM of how we learn:

• Together (on a large scale)
• Global
• Across age, gender, time and physical boundaries
• Virtually
• As part of a whole
• Connected
• As part of a discussion
• Contributing our experiences
• Discussing and reflecting
• Participatory

I invite YOU to experience this new form of learning, to form your own opinion, to create strategies to bring this new form into a classroom and to rethink how “classrooms” are/will/should look like in the present/future. Participate in the discussion. Comment here, comment on Angela’s blog and contribute via Twitter, using the hashtag #passiondriven.

Wikipedia defines Passion as:

Passion ( from Latin verb patior meaning to suffer or to endure) is an emotion applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something. The term is also often applied to a lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity or love. Passion can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion towards a subject, idea, person, or object. A person is said to have a passion for something when he has a strong positive affinity for it. A love for something and a passion for something are often used synonymously.

Create a Wordle by using this definition and you will get the following visual representation (Well, I added a few extra “Passions”). I immediately see the words “enthusiasm”, “feeling”, “emotion”, “compelling” and “strong” pop out at me.

As I am googling “Passion in Education”, I am running across snippets such as:

• rekindle your passion
• passion and humor
• passion and potential
• passion and persistence
• passion and excitement
• passion and conviction
• motivation and the passion to learn
• passion for knowing
• passion is contagious and provocative
• passion driven learning objectives
• feel their passion for students and education
• passionate about what we believe
• passion is what keeps teachers looking forward

I am also intrigued by some of the quotes I am finding from educators and their thoughts about passion.

Eric Sheninger

[...] students are permitted to follow their passion, which results in the active pursuit of self-directed learning opportunities.

Sir Ken Robinson

Finding your passion changes everything.

Steve Irwin

I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message.

These three quotes above seem to address three different aspects of passion (in education):

• Teachers’ Passion
• Students’ Passion
• Passion in itself and for Education

As an educator, ask yourself: What is YOUR passion?

Image licensed under Creative Commons by rAmmoRRison

• What makes you get up every morning?
• What makes you continue doing what you believe in, although it is harder?
• What makes you take the road less traveled?
• What makes you share your work?
• What makes you love what you do?

As an educator ask yourself: What are my students’ passions?

• How can you tap into your students’ passions?
• How can you relate to passions that you could not have even imagined a few years ago?
• How can you connect your students’ passion to the academic content you are teaching?

And how can you use your passion to make a difference and move education forward?

• Why should you contribute?
• How do you share your passion with the world?
• How can you add your passion to others in order to move forward?
• How can you be part of a bigger picture?

I tried to look at the topic “Passion in Education” from yet another angle…from consuming different media and sources such as posts, tweets, quotes, slides, literature and Google Searches about the topic…to playing with and producing media…

Passion in Education from langwitches on Vimeo.

We have the capacity to interact with other passions and have the privilege of living in a time in history when we can connect anytime, anyhow and anywhere.

We are able to express our passions in more ways than ever before. We are talking about a myirad of passions, present in the field of education. By choosing to share our passion with the world, we contribute a puzzle piece to a bigger picture.

What is your puzzle piece and how are you choosing to add it to the bigger picture?

It was a post titled “Formats for Visual Thinking in the Classroom“  from Richard Byrne on Free Technology for Teachers, that prompted me to write this post.

Visual Learner

I am a visual learner, which means I prefer to learn through seeing.

On Wikipedia you can read about Visual Learning:

Visual learning is a teaching and learning style in which ideas, concepts, data and other information are associated with images and techniques. It is one of the three basic types of learning styles that also includes kinesthetic learning and auditory learning.

Visual learners also prosper when shown graphs, graphic organizers, such as webs, concept maps and idea maps, plots, and illustrations such as stack plots and Venn plots, are some of the techniques used in visual learning to enhance thinking and learning skills.

What I have learned too though, is that I learn best when I not only SEE visuals, but when I CREATE visuals. I purposefully dissected Heidi Hayes Jacobs’ book Curriculum21- Essential Education in a Changing World via visuals I created.

As I was reading the book (hard copy, not on my Kindle), I was using highlighters to not miss thoughts or quotes that I wanted to remember. It did not take long to realize that I was highlighting too much How was I going to get through this book and make sense of it, connect and wrap it around my thoughts which were floating around but had not been verbalized?

I know that I work best through concepts and ideas when I create diagrams or use mind mapping tools. I really like using the SmartArt Graphics in PowerPoint. The visuals below are a summary of what I “read out of the book”, the most important points in my mind and quotes.

I am resorting more and more to creating images, when I am trying to Wrap my Mind Around a Concept.  I don’t seem to be the only one learning by creating visuals. There has been an increase of Infographics all over the web. Recently, I also lead a workshop on upgrading presentation from “Death by PowerPoints” bullets and overwhelming text slides to replace them with visuals to get your point across.

I know that I want to bring, what I am figuring out about my own visual learning and my experience/background with digital images, web design and desktop publishing, somehow into the classroom and to students.

• One of the 21st Century Skills is “CREATING”
• The highest level on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is “CREATING”
• Media literacy, is not only analyzing and evaluating media, but also “CREATING” media.

The above mentioned post “Formats for Visual Thinking in the Classroom“  from Richard Byrne gave me the final push to start concretizing an approach to integrate CREATING visuals for learning into the classroom.

I used iThoughtsHD on my iPad to brainstorm ideas, lesson topics, possible learning activities and tools that I would like to use for students to explore their own visual learning abilities.

Take a look at Laurence Musgrove‘ s SlideShare presentation. It is full of great examples of (hand drawn) student created visuals! Please share examples of visual learning of your own student or learning activities you are “envisioning”!

“Does the Internet Make you Smarter” is the title of an article by Clay Shirky, published by the Wall Street Journal Online.

I wasn’t that satisfied with the title after I read the article, since I seem to have “gotten out of it” something different. The tagline,

Amid the silly videos and spam are the roots of a new reading and writing culture

seemed to be more fitting as to what what point Clay Shirky was trying to make in the article…but maybe that is only what I read into it…

Shirky’s article spoke to me. While reading it, I seemed reassured that we are on the right path. All new media and all new innovations NEED time to be experimented with, to find their niche, to develop norms and guidelines to “use it for good” and for learning. It is not something that happens naturally or instantly. Shirky gives several examples from history that make the point that with the onset of new media, there will be a tsunami of “mediocre materials” until “higher level projects” emerge.

It is our misfortune, as a historical generation, to live through the largest expansion in expressive capability in human history, a misfortune because abundance breaks more things than scarcity. We are now witnessing the rapid stress of older institutions accompanied by the slow and fitful development of cultural alternatives. Just as required education was a response to print, using the Internet well will require new cultural institutions as well, not just new technologies.

On the different token, I am experimenting with new forms of “learning” from/through different media. I blogged about “Learning from a Book“, as I took Curriculum21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs apart and remixed my understanding as visuals.

With Shirky’s article, I chose to use an app called “Sundry Notes” on my iPad and take notes, quotes, insert clipart, highlight and arrange ideas in sequence that made sense to me. This process of “taking the article apart” and re-arranging/re-mixing it helps me to digest, make sense of and connect concepts.

What if we allowed students to take books, units, articles, or lectures apart and re-mix them with and in media that make sense to them?

Here is what I started out with:

Topic: Addition & subtraction of fractions, mixed numbers, improper fractions.

You have:

• 4th & 5th graders
• A SmartBoard.
• 40 minutes

You need:

• reinforcement
• practice
• check for understanding
• engagement

How can I step away from the front of the room and “present” the topic, then explain step by step, then give them a worksheet to see if they can duplicate the “path” that I have shown them?

I want my students to be “empowered learners” as Alan November points out. I don’t want them to be passive recipient of knowledge that I am trying to fill them up with.

Adapted from Alan November (pp.188-193), Curriculum 21 (ASCD, 2010) by Heidi Hayes Jacobs.

I chose five different smartboard notebook files created  by various contributors from the Smart Exchange.

• Mixed Number: All Mixed up? by Anthony Santoro
• Mixed Numbers by abteach03
• Mixed Numbers and Improper Fractions by Smart
• Math Mixed Numbers Addition and Subtraction (Regrouping) by D. Stewart
• Fraction Story Problem Practice by Anthony Santoro

I let the class know that “this lesson” was going to be a little different . They were going to be looking at “lessons” other people had created. They were going to be exploring these lessons and evaluating them as to their effectiveness in regards to their own understanding, ease of use, techniques used, success in helping them learn the concept.

I put students into different groups and asked them to come up separately, as a group, to the SmartBoard to look at one of the notebooks. They were to explore a few slides and narrate their thoughts out loud. They were to explain their steps as they were figuring out what to do. Some of the techniques used in the notebook were more intuitive than others. Some of the slides were a digital version of a paper and pencil method, while others were animated and interactive. What techniques helped their learning style? Which slides were more engaging than others? Was it clear what each slide was expecting the learner to do?

Below are several screenshots of the notebook slides.

Will students know the content (mixed numbers, improper fractions, etc.) better after these 40 minutes? Are they learning to be participants in their own learning? Are they learning about different learning (their own) and teaching styles (tutorial/lesson designers)? Are they hearing explanations from their peers? Are they encouraged to make suggestions to make a lesson better? Are they actively involved? Are they preparing to become their own “tutorial designers” as they are dissecting other examples?

What do you think?

Keep in mind that this was a one time modeling lesson for this group. What would I do different next time? Create an evaluation rubric ahead of time for them? Maybe  even create a Google Form to submit their evaluation directly into a spreadsheet? How can I have their classroom teacher follow up this kind of lesson? How do we embed the new roles to empower learners  suggested by Alan November?

How would you make this a successful lesson to empower learning? Share your ideas how to tweak, expand or change it? What would you come up with? Be creative… Please share!