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Tag: digital

  • Digital Curriculum: Destiny or Disaster?

    From the first day of full time employment at a school, I was put in charge of “Technology”, not for my design process skills, but for my knowledge of ICT and computers. I became the go to guy in fixing problems with teacher laptops, sound systems and projectors. That soon became student Chromebooks and student iPads. Of course, the school had external support as well, but having someone onsite is incredibly convenient, especially when ICT can be problematic at the drop of a hat, and is becoming more and more relied upon by teachers to bring learning to today’s learners.

    You’d think I’d be incredibly excited and enthusiastic about the announcement of the new ‘digital curriculum’ being implemented around the country in 2020. What an opportunity to share my passion and knowledge of ICT with the next generation and prepare them for the world of tomorrow as we delve deeper into the digital age.

    However, I’m not.

    You see; I’m also a self-taught programmer myself. I design and code websites. This site was built by me, though largely a theme, it has been modified to suit my own tastes and coded to reflect that. I have built my own personal website from the ground up on the back of WordPress. I dabble in CSS (with SASS / LESS), PHP, HTML, and Javascript.

    There’s not many teachers (especially primary school) who can say that!

    I know that behind every code, there is a whole bunch of trial and error, refreshing, and testing. Programming is largely just problem solving.

    My issue is that in my current job, that we are having trouble enough teaching students to read, write, and do math, let alone be able to create a simple script that includes tags, if/else statements, or simple calculations.

    In 2015, I taught a class with one-to-one Chromebooks, and we spent the first term learning how to spell our last names, because the school email address for students is firstname.lastname@schoolname.ac.nz.
    Then it was time to remember our passwords.

    Sure, the curriculum itself isn’t going to be getting students to create complex code or learn any particular language, just like Year 1 students won’t be learning their 8 times tables. However, it would seem to me that certain priorities need to be addressed first – such as basic literacy and numeracy skills. Something tells me that for many students, it will become a matter of running before they can walk.

    My other gripe is that the Ministry can announce a digital curriculum and implement it within a few years, and yet there still isn’t an actual Māori / Te Reo Māori curriculum. I guess it shows where the priorities are.

    Fun and Games?

    So then, what will they be doing? And will it be at all relevant to what they need in the future? Or is it all just a little bit of fun and games and doing something “cool”?

    The curriculum document says:”

    In years 1–8, these two areas are usually implemented within other curriculum learning areas, integrating technology outcomes with the learning area outcomes. These two areas also significantly contribute to students developing the knowledge and skills they need as digital citizens and as users of digital technologies across the curriculum. They also provide opportunities to further develop their key competencies.

    – NZC Online, TKI. 

    It goes on to outline exactly what “Computational thinking for digital technologies” and “Designing and developing digital outcomes” mean for the students, and a lot of it is around raising awareness of what computers are capable, what their limitations are, what problems can be solved with them, and what possibilities there are. It ranges from programming to digital media and safety online.

    So it might not all be so doom and gloom – especially considering that for the most part, I already try to integrate digital technology throughout all other areas of learning.

    Those of you who have ever been around children and technology, you’ll know at how quickly they pick things up and run with them. I remember my 2 year old nephew taking photos on my phone and then flicking through them all after he’d taken some!

    Are you Ready?

    I have to give the Ministry some credit here too. Unlike National Standards where they were inflicted upon us without any kind of preparation or support, they have gone above and beyond to provide schools with resources and support through their Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko – Digital Readiness programme. Schools wanting to up-skill and get on board with the new digital curriculum should head over there now and check out the resources on hand to support you and your staff in getting up to speed with the new curriculum area.

     

  • National Standards Plus

    Seriously. How ridiculous?

    Mum is running late for work, driving over the hill to her 9 til 5 job in the city centre. A notification comes through on her phone at 9:01am, and although she knows she shouldn’t, she checks her phone anyway. The message preview reads “Sally Burgess*: Reading – Below, Writing – Below, Mathematics – Wel…” before it gets truncated to fit on the screen. Opening it up to see the $45 million dollar app in all it’s glory, Mum forgets about the upcoming corner and drives off the road into the fence of the unfortunate homeowner. This instantly lands her in hospital. It could have been so much worse though. She probably counts herself lucky not to have plowed through multiple crowds of children at the local school 300 metres down the road.

    That’s right. The government would have parents being updated in real time every and any progress their child is making in National Standards throughout the school day.

    They’re calling this ‘National Standards Plus’, largely because of the additional time and energy that is going to be chewing into teachers already busy schedule. The additional testing, the additional data gathering, the additional reporting and notifying and uploading to the app’s system. All this PLUS actually teaching the children.

    National Standards Plus would allow parents to track their child’s progress in more detail online.

    “We will show you your child’s progress on your mobile phone, English said. “Some schools have already rolled out tools that support this approach.

    – Stuff, 28 August 2017

     

    The benefit to this will be of course that parents are kept up to date with their child’s progress as it happens.

    Of course, to get this, teachers will be required to input data as it happens. Which will have to be regularly for it to be a worthwhile app to keep on your phone. So now instead of teaching, teachers will be in a constant state of testing, assessing, marking and upload results to the app, for each and every child in their class, each and every day.

    What the government is forgetting however, is the cost of equipping each classroom in the country with one of these:

    Osbourne:  Portable Scale, Wide, Digital.

    Whether you are weighing market hogs to capture packer premiums or weighing show pigs, goats, or lambs, the Osborne ACCU-ARM Portable Scale offers the most “rock solid” portable weighing system available. The solid, animal-friendly scale uses precision levers to reduce sway and bounce and is completely cable free! With Osborne, the entire weighing operation is more efficient and less stressful for both you and your livestock!

    This scale features standard side panels, side-opening gates, a wheel kit for easy transportation, and a weighing meter with digital read out. The scale platform is 20 in. (51 cm) wide and the scale weighs animals up to 500 lbs. (227 kg).

    Find out more here.

    Using these scales to weigh the pigs is one thing, but teaching children so that there is progress to notify parents about is another.

    Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins said National was ‘”doubling down” on its National Standards system which was not improving student achievement.

    “Kids in New Zealand are over assessed. What we need is less reporting, more teaching.”

    And he questioned how teachers would find the time to update assessment records for continual online access.

    Education union the NZEI said plans to spend millions building a computer tool to track children’s progress as it happened,” based on shonky National Standards, is an obsession with data gone mad”.

    “Requiring teachers to input standardised assessment data across a range of subjects in real time for 30 or more students in a class will reduce the time teachers have with children and increase children’s anxiety about learning,” NZEI Te Riu Roa President Lynda Stuart says.

    “No parent wants their child’s teacher sitting entering data for hours when they need to be face to face with kids.”

    Seriously. How ridiculous?

    Oink.

     

    In relation to – Stuff – National launches official campaign with education bid

  • Coding in the Curriculum

    In 2018, the New Zealand Curriculum is destined to have a new addition to its subjects.

    From the age of five, children will now be taught about coding, logic, problem solving, if-else statements, app making, social media analytics, and probably hacking as well.

    But there is a lot, a LOT, of apprehension about this, even as a techie myself (for instance – I design websites, and have coded for much of my adult life). Put it this way; I’m not jumping up and down about this announcement.

    Who?

    I don’t know about you, but the first thing I asked was who is going to do this? I have met many a good soul who dedicate their lives to teaching students, but who’s computer literacy is extremely limited.

    And while the content knowledge required to for Level 1 of the curriculum will be very basic, it still requires a great deal more teaching knowledge to be able to teach it effectively. What are students getting stuck on? What are the next steps? How do I solve the next problem?

    Take for example Level 1 of the Reading curriculum. It’s fairly straight forward. Most, if not all (fairly presumptive, I know) adults could achieve this. Now think of the teaching knowledge you would need in order to teach it effectively. The sounds, the blends, the phonics, digraphs, vowel sounds and rules around their usage, the common pitfalls and sticking points as well as the various strategies required to assist and help students to progress to level two. And that’s just scraping the surface of teaching students to read.

    Imagine the level of teaching knowledge that is going to be required to effectively teach digital literacy.

    And now take that to level two, and level three of the curriculum.

    My current estimate, based on my current place of employment and the various other schools I have worked in, would be that about 10% of teachers would have the skill set required to teach digital literacy if it was introduced tomorrow. And that 10% is probably generous. Most of what makes a good programmer, coder, or even just a ‘tech guru’ is the ability to solve problems. When something goes wrong, you need to know what to do to fix it, systematically, step by step, eliminating variables as you go. From experience, many teachers struggle to problem solve why their projector isn’t connecting, or why the sound isn’t working on their laptop. How do we then get to a place where teachers are teaching students even more complex problem solving when you introduce if-else statements that don’t work!

    Many non-tech-savvy people turn to one demographic for help. Young people. Why? Because they’re already up with the play on technology. Their desire to explore, to learn, to develop skills with technology seems to happen automagically, and I can only see teachers and schools getting in the way of that. As well as this, I read an interesting post about ‘future-proof’ learning, predicting what the future holds for our students, and how we can’t and shouldn’t be including things in the curriculum that are a phase, or a fad.

    (Note: I realise that schooling exists past primary school; but we already have specialist subject teachers at Intermediate and High School level, and so schools would merely employ a specialist ‘digital literacy’ teacher.)

    How?

    Another aspect that may or may not have been considered is how schools are going to teach it. You know, the practical side of it. You see; I’ve only once had to write down a piece of code on paper (during a Comp101 exam I took in Uni). It was nigh on impossible not being able to check and edit the code to improve it or to see if it worked. A lot of coding is trial and error.

    Essentially, if digital literacy is to be taught, then students will need devices. Doing it with pencil and paper will only last so long.

    Now I’m not sure about your school; but our decile 2 school has only just got to the point of having 1 device between 2 in the senior school, and 1 to 4 in the junior school. Yes; we can combine sets of these devices to allow every student to have access to one, but my point is, there are lots of schools out there who wouldn’t have this level of technology in their school yet.

    With more devices comes more problems. More students who run into connection issues, which in turn requires the teacher to know how to solve that problem (many of which once again, don’t know how to go about doing this on their own laptops as it is).

    When?

    Ultimately though, when are teachers going to fit this in? Or is it going to be integrated throughout the day? I guess that comes down to the individual teacher. But I know for one, I would love to spend more time teaching students how to use the Chromebooks, how to code a website, and more; but the reality is that I have a hard enough job covering the rest of the curriculum sufficiently, as well as the ever increasing demand on Maths, Reading, and Writing, without adding more to that workload.

    Gripe

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m not having a go at my colleagues or other teachers. They all have strengths and are all marvellous teachers. I merely see a massive gap between adding a subject to the curriculum and the current knowledge of those that have to deliver content about that subject. Massive gap.

    I can see my job as a tech-savvy teacher becoming more than it already is, as I can see me having to assist with other classes tech problems more than I already do, provide support for when tech devices go wrong, and provide ongoing P.D. as teachers encounter problems or inspiration that they want to explore.

    Once again – not sure when I’m going to actually get to teach my own class.

  • How to use Realtimeboard in the Classroom

    Yesterday I posted about Realtimeboard, an online whiteboard I have begun using in my class to collate and collect the work that we work on together.

    Today I plan to take you through the steps for getting started, making your first board and general use of the app. I’m sure that I won’t be able to cover everything that the app can do, but hope to give you enough of a start so that you can realise for yourself the power of this software and how you might start using it in your classroom.

    Step 1. Getting Started

    I am going to assume that you’ve managed to get yourself signed up, and hopefully have managed to get approved for an educator account. If not, I highly suggest that you do. Go to realtimeboard.com/education/ and fill in the form. They actually get back to you a lot sooner than they suggest.

    Once you have signed in, you’ll be greeted by your dashboard. You may get a “What’s New” as is customary these days with these kinds of apps.

    The dashboard is relatively straight forward. You have your created boards at the top, and some demo boards below.

    Clicking on the Google inspired blue “plus” circle will create your first board.

    Realtimeboard has done well to make this app resemble any of the native Google Apps, by including “Shared with me” and “Last Opened” menu filters on the left hand side.

    At the top right, there are account links and settings options.

    Click the plus to create a new board.

     

    Step 2. The Workspace

    Navigating

    The Realtimeboard workspace is essentially an infinite ‘canvas’ or board stretching out beyond the edges of the screen. There are a few, quick tips you’ll need to know for getting around.

    1. Using the mouse roller button, or doing two finger scroll on most trackpads these days will zoom in and out from your canvas. It zooms towards or away from the position of the mouse cursor on the screen.
    2. Clicking on the canvas and dragging allows you to move around the canvas at the current zoom rate.
    3. Clicking on an object selects that object and allows you to perform different operations with them.
    4. Double clicking will centre and zoom (in or out) to fit the selected object to the whole viewport.
    5. Arrow keys also allow you to move around the canvas
    6. Esc key exits from the current operation. If you are typing text, it will go back and show the selection of the text box. Pushing Esc again will deselect the textbox. Obviously, if you’ve only selected a shape, pushing Esc once will deselect it.

    Zooming in and out allows you to get right into the little details, as well as zoom out to see an overview of your board. Using these together, especially with frames mode creates great transition animations as the viewing screen zooms in and out to fit the screen.

    Top Left

    The top left, as with many Google Apps that Realtimeboard has mimicked, includes the Title & Document Name and a Home button to return you to the Dashboard.

    In addition, Realtimeboard offers an “Export” button, which allows users to save the board off in a range of different formats. This is incredibly useful for a number of reasons and uses, such as including the board in a different document, keeping an archived version of the board, or merely just backing up. It also allows you to save it straight to your Google Drive; if you have linked your account.

     

    Tools

    Realtimeboard includes all the tools you would expect to find in such an app. Each tool even has a shortcut key which is incredibly helpful for quickly changing tool. I’ve included these in square brackets.

      The pointer tool has two options. One is the standard Select tool [V], and the other is the hand, or Pan [H], which allows users to drag the viewport around the canvas. The select tool defaults to the hand tool when clicking on the canvas background instead of an object on the board.
      The Text tool [T] brings up a standard text cursor that users can use to create text boxes on the whiteboard using click and drag
    Hello Sticky Notes [N]! This is possibly one of the cooler tools that can be used to show key bits of information, or student’s ideas and suggestions. You can post one at a time, square or landscape, or create multiple notes at once. Great for writing down different student views from around the class!
    It wouldn’t be a whiteboard without the Shape [S] tool. Gone are the days of teachers having to practise drawing perfect circles on their blackboard. Now, just select the shape and then click and drag it to the desired size on your canvas.

    You can also add text to shapes!
      The Pen [P] and Eraser [E] tools are great additions for the whiteboard. You can quickly select the desired size and then free hand draw or write onto the canvas with a selection of colours. While these are initially limited, you can also add your own custom colours from the spectrum.

    The eraser tool works really well, but only for lines drawn with the pen. It does not erase shapes for example.

     
    Comments [C] are integrated into Realtimeboard much like they are in Google Apps. You can even mention other collaborators directly. Like in Google Docs where you can assign comments to words or lines or sections, you can place comments on any part of the canvas.
       Undo [Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z] is the most used tool, and it’s no surprise that the folk at Realtimeboard have built this into their app, along with the common shortcut people will be used to.
       Lower down the tool menu, Frames [F] (which I am quite impressed with as mentioned on my overview). This tool allows you to create “pages” or “views” within the whiteboard. You can then navigate between them using the arrow keys (only when in Frames). When using this tool, you can select the size and drag it to incorporate whatever you like to appear in the ‘view’.
       Fullscreen does just that. No bells. No whistles. But quite useful none the less, especially when displaying this on an actual whiteboard.
      The last tool is the Minimap [Z], or zoom tool. This essentially allows you to return to the default zoom or size of the document, as well as showing a mini-map of your board (remembering that it could be gigantic on an infinite whiteboard!).

    Inserting Media

    The other tool is at the top of the whole list. It allows you to do a range of different things:

    • Choose a template from a range of different layouts and examples of what Realtimeboard can be used for.
    • Uploading images, files from your local computer.
    • Uploading images etc from a URL.
    • Screenshot of a webpage.
    • Recently uploaded files that you’ve already uploaded.
    • Files from the Realtimeboard Chrome Browser Extension.
    • Files from your Google Drive (if you have connected your account in settings).
    • Wireframes are great! They are a quick-select library of templates or layouts which are quick and easy to add into your board. See below for the examples.
    • Tables and Charts to give a quick visual of data or statistics is built into this app nicely.
    • IconFinder allows you to add a selection of icons to make your board more visually rich.
    • Vimeo allows you to select video from Vimeo.com.
    • Adding videos from YouTube.
    • Add images from Google Image Search.

     

    Top Right

    Once again, Realtimeboard have been smart in keeping the same kind of features they offer in the same location as Google Apps. In the top right, includes a Share button to add ‘viewers’ or ‘editors’ and ‘collaborators’. You can invite people using their email addresses, and you can set the level of privacy, from ‘Can View’, to ‘Can Comment’, and ‘Can Edit’. You can also get a ‘Public’ link that allows you to easily share it out to everyone.

    Next to the share button are the ‘Comments’ that have been made, all available in one place.

    The Information button gives you quick links to feature pages of Realtimeboard. These are not related to the document.

    The Search button does just that; searches your board for a given word or phrase.

    Other Features

    The only other feature is key to real-time collaboration with others, and that is the Chat Feature in the bottom right corner. Video Chat requires a premium account, but screensharing appears to be available – although I have yet to try this. I can imagine this might be quite useful for view only collaborators.

    The other great feature of Realtimeboard is that it automatically saves, just like Google Apps.

    3. Creating Content

    Adding Text

    One of the most common tasks you’ll want to do is adding text.

    1. Select the Text tool [T]
    2. Click on the board where you want the text to start.
    3. Start typing…

    As with most text tools, there are a number of formatting tools for use. From left to right;

    • You can choose the font size
    • Set the text as Bold, Italic, or Underlined, or a combination of all three.
    • Change the font colour, or the Fill colour. The fill colour sets the background of the text box to the colour you select.
    • Set the alignment of the text within the box, from left, centre, or right.
    • Create a bulleted list.
    • Create a link.

    Modifying Objects

    With all the objects placed on the board, the orange outline shows the object that is selected. This goes away when another object is selected, or you click off that object (or press Esc).
    The white circles around the outside of the selection allow you to change the dimensions of the box by clicking and dragging them in the appropriate direction. The corner circles allow for diagonal adjustments, and with text boxes, or if you hold down shift as you drag, these will keep the proportions as you adjust them. The circles in the middle of each outline allows for adjustment in either the horizontal or vertical direction only.
    The arrow on the end of a looped three-quarter circle allows you to rotate the object through 360 degrees.

     

    If you right click on an object, there is a drop down menu that will appear with a range of options. These are different depending on the type of object. Most of them however include the following tools:

     

    Right click menu on any object

    		  Right click menu on any image  

    Right click menu when multiple objects are selected (using Shift)

    Holding down Shift as you click on different objects allows you to select multiple objects at once. Right clicking on these selected object then allows you to group and/or align objects together, as well as other functions.

    The key menu items I use from these are definitely the ‘Bring forward’ function, or the ‘Send backward’, which allows me to put things behind or in front of other things, particularly important when adding shapes and text to work in with each other.

     

    Examples

    I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. Below I’ve just put up some examples of the content our class is currently experiencing through the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme run by the New Zealand Police. I spent a bit of time after our last session going through and adding a bit of flare to the content, more to show what is possible. I’ve included a few notes about how each was created.

    Example 1

    • Square shape, dragged to rectangle, filled with black.
    • Text, text colour changed to white.
    • Text, header box given a ‘pink’ fill, text colour to white.
    • Same pink colour for down arrow (Shape).

    Example 2

    • Square shape made into rectangle, thick border, purple/blue (custom colour)
    • 4x text boxes for each numbered point. Bold first line. Examples unbolded.
    • Text header, given same fill colour as border of square. White text colour changed.
    • Post-it Note added to right hand space. Font changed on note to ‘handwritten’.

    Example 3

    • Star Shape, Yellow Fill.
    • Star shape (small), orange fill, duplicated 4x.
    • 4x text box next to each small star.
    • STAR heading. Rotated 90 degrees. Bold text.
    • S.T.A.R, bold first letter. Bring to front over top of Star shape.

    Each of these examples look like a Powerpoint slide, but these are just the tip of the iceberg of how you can create content, and then add to it to make it visually impactual for your class. Adding in frames allows you to present it like a slideshow, or simply use the Pan tool [H] to move around the content. Each of these three examples exist on the one Realtimeboard, and are visually linked by arrows that viewers can follow the lesson progression as we worked through it.

    Right. That should be enough to get your feet wet. I’m sure that you’ll get the hang of it in no time, and begin creating a variety of creative and amazing content that will engage and inspire your students.

  • Realtimeboard: The Online Whiteboard for Teachers

    So you need some whiteboard software?

    Basically, there is software that is out there that mimics a whiteboard.

    Then there’s Realtimeboard.

    Online, creative, systematic, intuitive, custom, automatic, flexible. All the things you want in many software apps. But without adding so many options that it wipes out any function.

    I’ve been using Realtimeboard for a while now, but was always limited by their “3 board for free” policy, where free account users could only create three ‘boards’. Being that I would probably prefer to have one board for each subject, or one board for each topic, or even one board per lesson, the 3 board for free policy wasn’t really going to work.

    Recently, there has been a big push (even by Apple) for schools to ‘prove’ that they are a school, in order to offer educational packages to certified education institutions. Realtimeboard recently created a ‘education’ account that educators could sign up for. Their education package includes essentially their premium features, for the free package price. You can’t complain about that!

    Features

    Six-hats

    Below are some of the features that make Realtimeboard my new app of choice:

    Online

    If you want your app to be successful, it needs to be online. No question about it. People need to be able to access it on any computer, or even, any device; phones, tablets, netbook, notebook, laptop, or desktop computer.

    Realtimeboard is exactly that. It runs from the website, realtimeboard.com, much like Google Docs does, or WordPress. And like those, it has a dashboard that you’re taken to when you log in, with a grid or list view of your ‘boards’. As mentioned, the free account allows you to create only three boards, however, with the Education or Premium plan you can create as many as you like.

    Sharing

    To spread the use of your app, there is one thing above all else that will do that. The ability to share. Google does this seamlessly with their host of apps, all tying into Gmail and user contacts.

    Likewise, Realtimeboard allows you to send your board to any email address to share it. You can set the privacy to be view only or edit – though I suspect that such users may be required to sign up to the Realtimeboard service as well – which is how they spread their product.

    Sharing, in turn, also leads to collaboration, and is a key buzzword with anyone talking about technology and teaching together.

    Google Drive

    Integrating with a larger company’s product is a must. Realtimeboard not only allows you to sign up to its services using a Google Account, but then allows you to link with your Google Drive, and use your existing Google contacts list. This makes sharing boards a lot easier, especially with those on the same domain or those who also use Google Apps (which is most teachers these days). Add to that the fact that this will also work for students on Chromebooks, and it makes Realtimeboard an incredibly powerful tool.

    Web App on Chrome

    So more and more people are using Chrome, and people are discovering that they can add Web Apps to the home screen. Realtimeboard also does this, as well as having a Google Extension that users can add to quickly copy content from webpages into a board of their choice in Realtimeboard.

    The web app itself is little more than a link to Realtimeboard.com, but it sits nicely next to your Google Apps to remind you that it’s there, waiting to be of service!

    Templates

    With Realtimeboard, you can create a blank board, or use one of numerous templates which come pre-built with different layouts, different features, and different looks and feels. With that said, I mostly use a blank template to begin with, but in time, I can see the benefit of the templates if you have a specific learning module that requires one of the layouts seen in a template.

    Presentation

    Using the ‘Frames’ mode, users can use a frame to show a progression, turning Realtimeboard into a powerful presentation tool, much like Prezi or Impress.js. Each day in a series of lessons, or each lesson in a unit over the course of a term could be ‘framed’ up and put into a selective order. This makes it very flexible and usable for more than just keeping notes, or jotting down brainstorms.

    More

    As I say, I have only just started paddling in the pool of possibilities with this app. There is no doubt a range of uses and applications for it, both in the classroom as teachers, but also for students.

    So go ahead and get signed up. Get using it. Explore a new realm of possibilities in real time.

     

    Keep an eye out for an upcoming Check out my post on this site for how to use Realtimeboard, with real screenshots of the different tools and functions that the app offers.