Virtual field trips

There has been heaps going on these last couple of weeks, maybe not an excuse for not posting so much, but it seems legitimate.  

We've been working with google on their google expeditions program.  It seems really great, teachers can lead virtual field trips around the world (well wherever google has taken the photos), information pops up on the screen and it is just very engaging.  

From the students reaction I mean, it's been overwhelming so far, they are so excited, and many of the excursions easily fit into our curriculum, which is also great.  Also very fun for leading inquiry. 

It does make me wonder a lot, about where we are headed as a society, how will this really change the way we interact? Should we be worried about lack of connections to place, or will this help us become more rooted into our place? 

Anyway, it's been an incredibly fun day so far.  It's great to see how different teachers/learners react to new situations, and just wonderful to see students so happy in this last week of school. 

Physical vs. Virtual

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At a conference last weekend I had some fun with google cardboard, we could go places we couldn't go on our own, I saw the surface of Mars and went to different museums.  As a virtual opportunity (aside from some initial discomfort) it was pretty great.  Interestingly enough though the presentation I was leading was on environmental education.

My goal was to get people outside with their students. Often as teachers we don't give students enough time to think about who they are and where they are.  This can deeply affect their understanding of themselves and others. I want students to be more present in the "real" world.  But I was at a tech conference, so I had to think deeply about the effects of virtual manipulatives.

In maths, or language, how can we harness the power of the virtual world to connect students. When using math manipulatives is there a difference between virtual and physical for learning? All these questions were popping up.

With a colleague we decided to start up a podcast, and this is going to be our first dive into it.  What is the difference and does it matter to understanding? I'm not sure we have answers, but it will be interesting to talk about.

Access to the Outdoors helps us learn

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I was reading this article about why people have better memory recall when they have access to the outdoors.  It seems like there is a lot of research out there right now where relationships and feelings matter.  Access to the outdoors, according the article help students feel better which helps them do better at school.  It doesn't seem like it's too hard, but it's an important thing to remember.

So, how much access do students need? What are our experiences outside? What matters most to being outside?  I have lots of questions for the upcoming weeks.

What is Nature Smart

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Just had an interesting conversation with a grade 5 teacher about "nature smart". 

He wasn't totally convinced that multiple intelligences were something we should be teaching towards, specifically with nature smart ideas. 

I fully understand that encouraging people to develop growth mindsets can get them out of a box of learning a specific way and not just focusing on their strengths. The conversation which really got me though was, what was nature smart? 

In the book he was looking at it said something like liking animals as a basis, his question (and rightly) was who doesn't like animals? Does that really make you nature smart. 

I started talking about the ability to see things in systems, not really sure if that's nature smart, but looking at connections between animals, and creating empathy that kind of thing. But wasn't really sure. 

So this week will be digging a little deeper into my ecoliteracy book, trying to convince him about maybe thinking ecoliterate is a little different from nature smart, we'll see. 

Finally getting outside

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The past couple of weeks here have been "haze filled" so students couldn't go outside very often, this included recess. 

After reading Richard Louv and learning more about nature deficit disorder and experiencing these last couple of weeks, it's easy to see how a school needs their students outside. More than just running around or getting exercise, students need the connection to other living things.  

Many of the units we've been inquiring into have looked at how we organize ourselves in groups.  The younger students especially had a difficult time with this because they had little time to connect with other living things (at least that's what I think).  By building that empathy with other things we are more able to see ourselves as part of a system. When we see ourselves as part of a system we're more likely (I think) to see how we can work for the benefit of a group of things, rather than just ourselves.

We (as teachers) had never really thought of this aspect before the haze.  Now we are wondering how we can reshape our units, to really look at how other living communities organize themselves, and if that is true, than how can we organize ourselves to benefit the community. 

We definitely had some interesting discussions, and once our term break is over, we're all ready to finally get outside. 

Reflection

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With our grade 3 classes we've been using blogs to reflect what we are learning. More than that though, I am hoping to make our reflections interesting.  Almost all of my students think that reflection is like a recount.  Here's what we learned, this list of things.  I know now this.

It's frustrating, mainly because I want to move away from that kind of learning, but my students obviously still see learning this way.  I try to tell them that let me know what you learned, not what was taught, what's your big take away, why does it matter? 

Then I wonder why or who taught us how to reflect.  I think for my next couple of lessons I'm going to look at some other student blogs and teacher blogs to talk about what's really important about learning. Then go to maybe tumblr or something to show how we are always kind of reflecting.  Maybe some comics, to talk about processing visually, maybe Nicki's Blog to show how we can even think differently. 

School is off for two weeks so I have heaps of time to prepare, but how can we teach students to write interesting reflections, I've used them as the audience, and even they are bored.  So time to inspire I guess. 

Outdoor Discovery Center

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Our Outdoor Discovery Center opens this week.  However, "The Haze" is making it nearly impossible to go outside. This is going to be a great way for students to learn about how to take personal buying action (hopefully).

We're going to be Looking Closely.  But first we're going to find spots to look closely.

This week I'm headed out with the teachers after school to look for great spots to notice life.  Then we will bring the students out with cameras and get them prepped for sitting still and being patient and then being a part of our living community.

With the smoke everywhere outside, I don't know when we can get the students out. Fall break is fast approaching so we may have to wait until after then, but we are all really excited.

Diversity Matters

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I've been wondering a lot lately about the importance of diversity.  Too often in the classroom teachers are trying to create an "ideal" student, or a student that fits their particular preference.

When we think (or when I guess environmentally minded people think) about the environment we think of the strength of diversity.  How it helps make our system stronger, which in turn helps make us, as humans, better.  I guess I wonder who does this in class, we often talk about how we appreciate different perspectives, and different ways of knowing, but in my trips through classrooms I don't know how this is championed or truly used.

How can we as groups look more towards the diversity of our classroom? How does it push our thinking? How does it makes us better learners? Then, can we look outside, and see how our local community works, see what makes it strong, it's not everyone being the same, it's everyone being different.  

How can we engage learners in our class to focus on diversity? Recently I read an article about student centered learning my biggest takeaway was this.

You cannot counter structural social inequality by good will.  You need to design structural equality into the classroom.  

          Structuring equality in classroom discussion--in a lecture or a seminar--is actually quite easy to do but it is not intuitive. At least, it was not intuitive for me. I learned several tricks from other people and I pass them on every time I give a public lecture and use at least one or two of them every class period.  They work.  They change the dynamic.  They change the way everyone participates.  When the situation is equal, no one hides, no one wants to hide, and no one bullies.

Looking forward to trying to make this happen

Environmental Leadership

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This week was pretty exciting.  One of my teachers has asked me to do an environmental leadership class which was great. Now every Tuesday I have dedicated environmental time in a class. 

It's been a year, but it's a huge first step for me. 

Our first adventure will be in our garden, and then we're going to sit outside and find our sit spots.  We're going to start developing a sense of place and a better understanding of our environment in order to be real leaders and work with our community to enhance our place. 

I'm really excited.

Making our own paths

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One of the best things about this job is the ability to constantly (re)define my role.  So, it's pretty great for me, although I can understand that people who need clearly defined roles might not be as happy.

So, what I'm really going for this year is experimental iPad groups. I recently read this "Challenging Tweet" post.  It's been consuming a lot of my thoughts recently.  We are reinforcing this idea of hierarchy and traditional classroom values while using tools that could be used for student led learning.  I'm trying to get my teachers and students to see this, but I'm not sure about it myself. I just know it's something we have to start thinking about it. 

My first thought is, this is why we need to teach coding.  Students are taking part in a world they really don't have a lot of control over. Coding will give them some power. Actually teachers need to know more about this (and so do I for that matter). 

My second thought was, get them outside and start creating their own knowledge, they can do this inside too, but I really want them outdoors to reinforce this idea that learning has no boundaries, when you're in a class, the walls are already there. 

Anyway, trying to go down these new paths, some lead nowhere, but hopefully one or two will take me to some place pretty great. 

Sit Spots into Nature Journals

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Over the summer break I read Coyote's Guide.  I want to get better at mentoring people who go outside.  I used to call them Magic Spots, but in the book they are called sit spots.  Sit spots help build empathy, understanding and systems thinking in students.  By sitting outside in your specific place you can watch change, and see how nature "works". 

Last year, I tried to develop a sense of place in students by taking photos then making a time lapse to see change, and then share that change with others.  I think it worked alright, but I want to incorporate a nature journal this year. 

I had a bit of time this summer, so also read To Look Closely.  The idea of the nature journal and sit spots are tied together pretty tightly here.  It adds another level to the sit spot.  I used to sit in a circle and discuss what we saw and felt but there was no other form of documentation.  I think that by using a sit spot with a nature journal I can help develop a sense of place in students. 

I'm not quite sure what the nature journal is going to look like just yet, but I'm going to start with notebooks, hopefully with blank pages, no lines to inspire a whole no boundaries approach. 

Here's hoping.

Welcome back

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We tried to change our domain over the summer, and we misplaced a whole a significant number of google docs.  It hasn't been great, but I've been thinking a lot about the opportunity for redefinition.

Way too often we rely on what we did last year, we change it, make it slightly better.  I wonder about the opportunity to do great, rather than the chance to do less bad.  We can make a mediocre unit slightly better, but do we take the opportunity to really change what we're doing, and make it as great as possible, I'm not sure we all have the courage. 

When we lost our documents, I thought this was the opportunity to do such a thing, but people are relying on former paper copies to reconnect what we've already done, so it's not ideal right now. 

At international schools we change teachers pretty frequently.  Teachers go to different grade levels, different teachers come from different places, but at the beginning of the year, we're not always open to these new ideas. More often, we want to stay with the status quo, and just keep what was going okay going. 

Since we've misplaced some data, I know that teachers are a little more hesitant to use computers.  I think this image really makes me think of computer literacy. If we were all a little more literate, I'm not sure we'd have misplaced this information.  The more people know, the more likely we are to save our data (not that I want it saved in this particular instance).  

So for me, at the beginning of the year, I just want teachers to take a risk to be more literate online.

What is a school focused on Environmental needs?

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I've been asked to think about what an environmental education looks like, what things we need, what do we want?

For most of these things it was really hard for me to answer.  Mainly because I think it's a lot like EdTech, sure we need things, but more than that we need a shift in how teachers think and interact with students.

More than anything, I think we need time for teachers and students to be outside, slightly unstructured but thinking and looking, this probably isn't the biggest seller in a standards, university focused world.

But students with time develop great systems thinking habits, they are passionately curious and are able to think creatively because their imagination has been developed.  They are used to being bored so they understand more about what it means to create things.  I feel they just understand more, and appreciate more.

We need people to stop thinking about specific skills students will gain, especially in a world where climate change is happening.  What the individual gains for themselves isn't so important, we need to focus on what we will gain for our planet, how we can all make a difference for our shared survival, not my immediate gain.

But still, I need to think about these things.  So any help would be great, what do we need to start something focused on environmental education, what skills will students develop, where do we go from here?

Presentation

So, here's my enviroed story.  It's a story more than a presentation, walking through why I am an environmental educator, and some of the worries I have, it moves to the hope that we collaborate together in a 21st century learning community.

My primary worry is that we are becoming too individual, and as individuals it is harder to make large scale changes.  I love the idea of personalized learning, but worry about how that effects our ability to work as a community and make decisions as a community.  My desire is to  move towards community based learning and problem solving while focusing on individual talents and ideas.

For me though, the formation of this community is key, and a big part of my community is the #enviroed team. So thanks for that.  +Nicki Hambleton has also been a huge part of my community development, and a big reason for my belief in the community based education with individual talents.

Final Project for Coetail

  by Gerry Dincher

Wow, this project took a lot of turns, but I feel it's much better now than when I envisioned it many months ago.


This was my original UbD.

We started off on high notes, all the grade 3 classes started by taking pictures and then blogging about their favourite spots at school, almost all of the students finished and almost all of the students shared with at least one person. So It was somewhat successful as a start.

Most students took a picture of their spot, and thought about it.  Most were of staircases, some were of the lunch area, a couple were of the soccer field.  They then described it with the potential audience of someone who is coming to the school. They used their blogs to write an entry.

Almost all of the students ended with the task, two students (who I was working with a little earlier) picked an outdoor spot and created a stop motion video (which will be in my video).  They then recorded some of the feelings over the images.

One of the students had a spot with a tree, and that tree died.  Just this week we planted a tree in that same spot.  His talking about his spot to his community really made a change in how people viewed their space.

Next time, I would want to have more time with the students.  I only had them once a week, which isn't a whole lot of time to dig deep into places and feelings.  We needed to spend more time on creating a more meaningful platform I think, and developing connections with other places.

I want this to be a more meaningful exercise on developing sense of place, so next time I would work with that as well. I want students to develop emotional connections to people and places. By developing our stories, we can work on this connection. Next time I would try to use more video (stop motion) and blend in more images than just the one.




All in all I enjoyed the whole Coetail experience.  It's been great building the standards into our shared units, and building more meaningful digital citizenship lessons into my co-teaching experiences. I'm going to continue to develop connections, I firmly believe in connectivism and will help my students find people they want to learn from as well.

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Developing relationships

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Just something to think about today, I think this will be the start of my presentation in a couple of weeks.  I'm discussing how to use technology in, and for the environment in elementary school.  I think it's all about relationships, what do you think?

Comm-unity

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For +COETAIL most of my community involvement has been focused on #enviroed.  Since I'm merging the tech and environment.  We talk every Thursday, which is pretty amazing, well Thursday for me Wednesday night for everyone else.  Here is one of my favourite chats , mainly because it focuses specifically on tech and 21st century skills in environmental education.

As a group we explore what each other are doing, ask each other questions to get specifics, I've worked with two other teachers on their specific research project, and have asked a couple of teachers to work with me on my coetail project. 

I've been trying to merge these two for awhile

+Nicki Hambleton has helped me out a ton too. We talk often in person. We bounce ideas off each other with pizza and wine (even if we shouldn't always be eating it).  It's great for us (well me definitely) to be able to see reactions and just check in on and get checked in on.  This personally has been one of the most valuable tools for me, not that Nicki is a tool.  But she has directed me towards other people like Kerri-Lee and Dave, and has directed me towards Cognitive Coaching where I met up with other coetailers as well.  

Mostly I feel like I've moved beyond just messing around, I've built part of my community (especially with #enviroed).  Connectivism is a real thing in my life.  I'm building on my connections, sand still reaching out for others.  

It's been a great journey so far, and I'm looking forward to even more in the last month.