Innovation - An Art and Discipline I Can Learn.

I have often thought that innovation in education was something out there, big, and that it was beyond me.  Now, after spending a workshop day with Simon Breakspear -

• I think that innovation happens to answer the local challenges of a local people and it happens with the people involved.  
• I think that innovation is doable - by me. Innovation can be a small step - a minimal viable product, that is tried and then reiterated, through various stages until I hit discovery and success. I can start tomorrow.  Innovation is an art and discipline that I can learn.
• Innovation includes collaboration and sharing.  People working together are going to create greater innovation and success.
• Failure is an invitation to innovation. Failure is a part of innovation. Fail forward.  Expect to fall into the 'hole' and keep going through it to success.

So this is what I learned today or should I say heard today!  Learning it into activity will be a process.  The following ideas while taken from Simon Breakspear during today are his, they do not fully cover what he said nor does it accurately record what he said. It is just what I heard and wrote down. There will be errors! Do not attribute those errors to Simon Breakspear - those are mine!

1. Be open-minded - defer judgement and encourage wild ideas.  (Be disruptive)
2. Foster collaboration - build on the ideas of others, be open to cross pollination.
3. Be a lifelong kindergartener - find out by doing, have the attitude of play and say, "I'll tell you what it is when I am finished."

Think of 21st century competencies and skills in:

• the cognitive domain
• the interpersonal domain 
• the intrapersonal domain.

For example in the last mentioned domain one skill might have to do with resilience.  How do I as an educator develop resilience in my students?  Grit?

Simon Breakspear went on to list and discuss 7 strategies for innovation.

1. Provocatively question the status quo.  Be bold, big and unreasonable. Know your compelling mission.  We exist to..........  and then specify the question/challenge to be solved that needs to be articulated, sub-divided, and then minimal viable products of innovation begun.
2. Embrace pedagogy for deep learning.  He asked us to think of one powerful learning experience for ourselves and then to see if we could list what was an essential part of that learning.  Our core business of learning and teaching we need to have an unrelenting focus on.  How can the teacher be an activator of learning?
3. Harness human centred design.  Design for people, this staff, these students.  Aim for simplexity. Simple things which can be difficult to get right.
4. Give permission through conditions.  Have a culture where it is okay to be 'disruptive', fail, share, be creative, question.  Welcome diversity, be open to other disciplines outside education.
5. Launch, Learn, Reiterate.  Ask what are the minimum set of features that you need in order to start the process of feedback and discovery. It can be something small and you can start tomorrow. What could be your/mine MVP?  Make it as specific as possible. Get going, be prepared to fail, fail fast, fail forward. Ask what did I/we learn from that?  Success and failure are not polar opposites.  Have a propensity towards action.
6. Build a network of lab schools.  "Competition is so late '90's".  Collaborate, collaborate.
7. Unashamedly seek out disruptive innovations.    He gave some pointers on this, it was a bit rushed as it neared the end, but in a way self explanatory from the day itself.  He mentioned seek out free content, use learning analytics that are available say in Maths, use social sites e.g. Edmodo, think of how to harness mobile devices and learning platforms. (But am very hazy on that last one, maybe my colleagues who came with me (2 others) will be able to fill me in on that gap.)

He quoted A. Curnow - "Simply by sailing in a new direction, you can enlarge the world."

The biggest take-away for me today was, "Start tomorrow, with some small step."

Today has been very timely as I formulate my goals for this year for my own learning and the outcomes I seek for my students' learning. I have some basic ideas of where I want my inquiry to go. Not literacy this time - although I am sure I could think a good case up for further exploration.  However my area of launch. learn and reiterate will I think be in the area of Maths.  Especially with those students who make slow progress.  Also three of us were at the workshop today. I am looking forward to collaborating with them as we redefine our mission and where we want our school to.... yes innovate!

I am inspired!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

It is Monday and again I am joining in the meme over at Mentor Texts.

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The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis
By Lara Morgan  (Australian author)
Walker Books:2010

Summary from Goodreads.
Five hundred years into the future, the world is a different place. The Melt has sunk most of the coastal cities and Newperth is divided into the haves, the “Centrals”; the have-nots, the “Bankers”; and the fringe dwellers, the “Ferals”.

Rosie Black is a Banker. When Rosie finds an unusual box, she has no idea of the grave consequences of her discovery. A mysterious organisation wants it – and will kill to get it.

Forced to rely on two strangers, Rosie is on the run. But who can she trust? Pip, the too attractive Feral, or the secretive man he calls boss?

This is a YA dystopian  science fiction book, full of action and adventure. While it begins on Earth, it moves to outer space and Mars.  It was recommended to me by one of my students.  It is the first of a trilogy and I will definitely read Equinox the next one very soon.   I think the third still not have been published. If students have enjoyed The Hunger Games or Divergent they will like this one.  I would say it is intended for slightly younger readers than those two books, however all ages will enjoy it.  A book I am happy to share with my Year 7 and 8 class.

This coming week I will be reading Bigger than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder.

Finding my Feet.

We have been back at school almost three weeks.  Twelve days to be exact as each of the weeks has been four days.  Tomorrow we are off to the Waikane Pools as a school. That surely counts as a four day week!

I believe the class is settling down.  I think I have almost 'let go' last year's class and begun to enjoy the ones I am with!  I only have 25 of them.  I think that makes a difference, I would imagine that 30 going towards 35 would take be a challenge for me, so 25 is a very nice number.  I am still trying to catch up with commenting and responding to student writing.  This week we had a visit from ERO (Education Review Office) and while it is an advantage to have it completed, it did leave me feeling like I just couldn't catch up with all I wanted to achieve.

In the last three weeks I have been able to manage to have Daily Five or in our case Daily Three up and running. We have now reached the point where  students are making choices each day and it is running smoothly.  I still have not settled into conferencing or taking groups. Rather I am roaming and checking in with students.  At present they are in goal setting mode, and when they choose writing some of them are writing goals.  I am spending some time chatting with them about the goals if they are choosing to write them during Literacy time.  It may be another week before I start conferring or working with groups.  Although testing will loom in Week 6 at the beginning of March and disrupt some of them momentum.

We have opted to introduce BYOD this year.  We had a rocky start as the wireless network was not up and running.  However Norcom now have this  operational and about 5 or 6 of the class are bringing in their own devices.  This is great as it supplements the computers we have as a class.  One student is working on her iPod touch.  In fact she produced a really great video last week that took a session of planning and a session of videoing and then editing.  Simone took her own photos, personally I just love the one she snapped of Kapiti Island. It is one of my favourite views.

While we didn't really make iPod touches  an option, I can see that the latest one takes very clear photos and has possibilities.  I noticed today the owner of the iPod had borrowed another student's wireless keyboard, and was working with it and the iPod touch.

We are working with Google Docs and I think this will work well.  We have Teacher Dashboard set up, I am still exploring this, and as the year goes by hope to incorporate this more and more into my interaction with students.

This week as I mentioned above, we had ERO in our school.  They were very pleasant and professional gentlemen.  However I think the one that came into my room was somewhat nonplussed.  I was showing my class how to put an image on their blog and to do that correctly using creative commons.  Somewhere along the line I mentioned digital citizenship.  Later at a meeting I attended he asked where did the idea of digital citizenship come from, was it a word I coined!

Later that evening I decided I had misheard.  This morning I checked with the other staff member who had been at the meeting.  She confirmed that what I thought I had heard was what she heard too!  I can only say I am still struggling to comprehend this. Even though I have only been to one elearning conference in my life - Ulearn 11, I would have thought that ERO would surely be keeping up with this aspect of ICT?  I am still thinking I misunderstood.  Surely!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

It is Monday and again I am joining in the meme over at Mentor Texts.

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It has taken me a few weeks to get a book read! Back to school has meant being busy and a fuzzy tired head by the time I have some down time to read.

The 10 PM Question
Kate de Goldi  (NZ author)
Longacre Press 2008

Summary from Goodreads:
A warm, surprising, real and intelligent novel you will fall in love with. Frankie Parsons is twelve and has a rodent voice of worry nibbling in his head. His new friend - colourful, creative, talkative Sydney - has relentless, unavoidable questions of her own that force Frankie and his family to face up to things that have lain dormant for years.

This book was well written and worth reading.  Frankie reminded me a little of myself with his 'rodent voice of worry'.  Also I am partial to a happy ever after, as is Frankie and he doesn't get that.  However family secrets do eventually get explored.  That was satisfying and did mean that in another way Frankie did grow as he began to front up to the realities of his life.  

While he is a twelve year old, I still have to decide whether I put this in class library. At the moment I am leaning towards the not.  I'd rather students read it in a couple of years and fully appreciate it. I will lend it to a teacher friend who knows this age group and get her opinion before finally deciding.

At present I am reading The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis, by Lara Morgan. (Australian author). More about this when I have finished reading it.  

As professional reading I have Book Love by Penny Kittle on the go. About half way through and enjoying it.

Highs and Lows of the First Week Back 2013

As I read to my class after lunch, I noticed some yawns and heavy eyes. No, I don't think my reading is that bad, and the book - One For The Murphys - is proving a good choice.  It's rather that the first week is always a big week.  Everything is new, new people, new procedures and plus there is that heat. Every door and window is open, and the noise that the trucks make as they regularly and monotonously drone by all adds up by the end of the day.

At the moment we are all needing to draw on whatever resilience we have to meet the challenges.  Resilience is a catch word in our class this week, it is our first word wall word. I am hearing stories of our 2012 Year 8 class who are now at secondary school and I would think they are needing to draw on their resilience in big doses.  I remember we are all facing challenges and that gives me the motivation to hope for myself...

As I myself am having to do the draw on my reserves of resilience.  Seems to be a slightly empty well at the moment.  There are highs and lows. The highs get me through the lows.  Then there are the humourous moments too when I find I am just not present to what I am doing.  I am unable to multi task. I have always held that I can't, although a student teacher who spent some time with me argued differently! I personally think multi tasking is over rated and not something I value anyway!

This was the date I put up for the first day! When I later in the morning asked students to date their books, their were howls of protest. They informed me I was taking 6 years off their lives!  Where was my mind I wonder when I wrote that.

Today I was doing some Quickwrites with them, giving them a minute to write and then counting the words.  All went well until the final Quickwrite, when I went into a dream, I know where I was this time.

I was thinking about how well Read to Self had gone earlier in the morning and was feeling rather pleased.  I was brought back to earth when I heard my name called a second time, my students had realised they had gone well over a minute, and that I was a very unreliable timekeeper.    Another laugh and forget counting the words!

Today a couple of students were writing up on a google doc a class covenant that we had worked on over the last few days.  They were now drafting it up for class approval. They shared it with me and I put it up on the large screen. After we had discussed the words I asked them to bullet point part of it.  A couple of dismayed faces a few minutes later and some giggles, they had lost the whole document.  I only know some things, not all things about google docs. I said to them I know there are drafts kept somewhere but I don't know where, let's try Help!  We retrieved the document and we learned something new.  However it was a bit of a tangent.

We are using google docs with the students this year, and so while some students who worked with me know how to log on, most had not worked with them.  So I demonstrated how to do it, and sent them of in 2's and 3's to practice.  I can say by the end of time that was achieved, however it was the first time we had really used the computers this year and there were some hiccups and passwords forgotten... etc., etc.  Meanwhile some of the students had finished and ..... became noisy and boisterous.  I had to stop and refocus them.  Self management is another key word this week.  I am so missing my self managing students from 2012.  I haven't had to teacher manage for a long time.  This is all a little bit of a culture shock.  I know we will get there, but I'm finding it exhausting as I juggle them and all the other demands on my time.  

Another pleasant part of the day was when a 2012 student turned up to say hello to me and some of the Year 8 students who had been in the class with her last year.  It was really exciting to hear all the excellent opportunities she is being introduced to at college.  

As she stands beside me I realise she is as tall or even taller than myself.  Some of my present students tower over me.  Oh well, all in the name of progress.  However, note to self I must not keep  looking back at my 2012 class, I need to 'love' the class I am with. It will come.

Today was Sahara's birthday. She had brought in a beautiful birthday cake.  While I was cutting and handing it out, behind me, a 12 year old boy hugs another for saying he could have his slice of cake, and he knocks yoghurt flying all over another and the carpet.  I passed back a couple of paper towels and they cleaned up.  After morning tea break more talk about cause, effect and consequences, and 'accidents'.  I suspect with the make up of some of the students this is going to be a prolonged learning event, will it take a term? a year? Ouch, I am not sure.

Reflecting on all this I know I am going to need to slow down, I am so eager to get things flowing and a great learning environment happening. I need to be patient and build for as long as it takes.  I know once the Daily Five structure is up and running fully it will certainly help to build those on task, self management skills.  Thank goodness for it.  My mind is going - "and you haven't even started Maths yet".  I say back, "be quiet and let me get there when I can".

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

It is Monday and again I am joining in the meme over at Mentor Texts.

Hop on over and join in over at the Mentor Text Blog. Just click on the picture 
                                                 

Little Brother
Cory Doctorow
Harper Collins 2008.
Science Fiction: cyberpunk.

This book was recommended by one of my students.  On reading it I thought it was a book for someone older than a 13 year old. However I think said student would have followed it, understood it, at least as well as myself!

I checked it out from our local library.  I noticed on the inside cover that it had been presented to the library by Amnesty International NZ in 2008.

This is the story of Marcus who finds he is caught up in a terrorist attack, in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He is taken prisoner and subjected to torture.  When he is finally released he finds the USA is paranoid and the Homeland Security have taken over.  It's a police state and every movement is monitored.  He has been told to never tell anyone about how he was treated while imprisoned or he will be dealt with.

Marcus is one of those small people who stand up and do something.  He is cyber literate, and is able to organise a fight back.  As a character I loved him.

I didn't understand all the cyber stuff, but just enough to be able to follow the story.  It was a gripping story, one I had to read slowly to follow, but well worth it.  A book to make one think.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Jeff Kinney
Puffin 2007


I am probably the only one that hadn't read this!  However last year I bought the most recent one for the class, I thought it might hook in some reluctant readers.

I was surprised when some of my top readers fell on it with glee.  They had read all the previous ones.  They assured me a reader should start at the beginning, so I went back and bought the first four.  I'm hoping they will be book bait!
This was a quick and fun read, I can see why they are appealing and I chuckled my way through it.

This coming week I am reading The 10 pm Question by Kate de Goldi, a New Zealand author. It's been out awhile but I read about it somewhere and as I have sampled her writing with some other book I don't even remember, apart from the fact I liked it, I bought this book with some Christmas gift vouchers from a student.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

It is Monday and again I am joining in the meme over at Mentor Texts.

Hop on over and join in over at the Mentor Text Blog. Just click on the picture 
                                                 
This past week I read:

Guitar Highway Rose
Brigid Lowry
This edition 2004
First Published 1997
Teen Realistic Fiction
Setting: Western coast of Australia.


Firstly I was recommended to read this book by an 11 year old student of mine.  It was her top book for 2012.  Upon reading it, I loved it, however I did think perhaps 13 years and up would be a more suitable age. Miss 11 year old is a sophisticated reader and I could actually imagine her writing just such a creative and quirky book in a few years time, so I think the exception rather than the rule here.

This book has a seemingly ordinary plot, although a few surprises towards the end had me engaged to the finish. It is not the plot however that makes this book, rather it is the characters and the way in which the story is told.  A wide mix of writing forms are used, at first I found it a little disconcerting, but I was soon loving it.  Imagine this whole paragraph with out a capital or full stop. Every teacher's dread usually! There were paragraphs like this, taking the reader into the head of a 15 year old boy, and it worked. Other forms are diary, streams of consciousness, poetry, police notes..... and so it goes on.  The reader is taken into conversations and characters minds and feelings, hopes, nightmares.  In this way the story is told.

Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff.
Jennifer L. Holm.
Published 2011.
Graphic Novel.


It will be interesting to see what my students make of this. They may find the handwriting a little disconcerting as we don't use that here in New Zealand, although it was taught here when I went to school. Now it is one that has no loops etc.  That's when we do teach it!

I liked the Dad in this story and when Ginny gets a mention for her science fair work on the brain, despite the dog eating it!

I have also started a book called Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, a science fiction - cyberpunk book. As I am about a quarter way through this will probably be my reading for the coming week. Again this was a book recommended by one of my students as her top book for the year.  

Happy reading to all for the week coming.