Recently I have found myself thinking why are these kids acting this way on social media? It is not what I would have done when I was their age…Shut the front door – what was I thinking!? Like the first signs of a cold, I knew that I was becoming out of touch – so the timing of COETAIL and week 2’s readings, could not have been better. Better in that they have pulled me from falling into the abyss of the fixed mindset, I know better than you brigade. I need to find out how students use social media.

Always Connected

I first embarked on having a conversation with a group of Grade 6 students, about their experiences with social media; they had just recently completed a digital citizenship course. I also taught them about different recording techniques for interviewing.

I chose students from four different countries, to try to get a balanced view of how they connect with their friends. They all said that their main use of social media was to stay in contact with their friends, both within their current city of Shanghai, previous host cities, and their home countries! I mean what better way is there to maintain these connections, rather through the different methods that social media provides? I could definitely relate to this as an adult, as I use social media – messaging only mind – to stay in contact with all my friends and family outside my current host city. On the other hand, my 11-year-old self could remember all the phone numbers of his friends or would be able to go to their houses within a 5-minute walk.

The students then told me about the different apps they use to maintain these long-distance friendships and why they were important to them. All the usual suspects were there including What’s App, Instagram, WeChat, and Snapchat. In fact, this was the first time I saw the Snap Map and I have to tell you I found this a little invasive. Moreover, it reminded me of the scene in Batman: The Dark Knight, when Morgan Freeman, aka Lucius, discovers that Batman has turned every cellphone in Gotham into a sonar device so that he could track down his nemesis. Good intentions, but in the wrong hands…

An Unexpected Discovery

After I had finished admiring my DC movie analogy for social media, I talked to the students about what they liked and any challenges they may have faced whilst communicating online. One student told me that they liked that they could “get information quickly”; an answer I was expecting, and wish I had access to when I was 11 years old. For some reason, way back when, I was trying to find out what a punt was in NFL. Being one of the last Generation X’ers this was a herculean task in 1992 in pre-ceasefire Belfast – and included making numerous bus journeys to libraries within the city; I finally found the answer by the way, and I am not sure it was worth it. Nowadays this is a minuscule task that one might do on the Metro, on the commute to work! We then talked about editing texts…The students all agreed that they liked to be able to edit what they were going to say. They wanted to carefully craft their responses – particularly if it was a message within a group chat setting or post. I can certainly relate to this, and I do it all the time. But I do wonder what skills might be overlooked as this becomes ingrained in our psyche. Will it result in us losing our spontaneity and risk-taking?

I then decided to wrap up the conversation by asking what challenges did they face, and I was not expecting their answer – which was that they preferred having face-to-face conversations because they could read body language and react accordingly, they could see facial expressions and tone which could then help them with their reply. I found this discovery intriguing, given that all the students I talked to were born in the year Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, and have grown up with technology ever-present in their lives.

Rule Book

“The good thing about rules is that they are there to break.” This may have been my catchphrase when I was a rebellious teenager, but reading The Unspoken Rules Kids Create for Instagram, from the NYTimes, broadened my take on this – I mean it kept me on course for maintaining a growth mindset. Some of the so-called “rules” are enforced by digital peer pressure, like the “bikini rule”, and how many pictures of a party can you post in a row? I appreciated the rule for not lying to your friends that you can’t hang out with them because you have to complete your homework, but rather say you are busy or have plans; I think this rule was created only because they know that they will get caught out when they post. I do agree with the author of this article when they talk about having a conversation with your children about what set of rules they have created online and on social media. I agree because by having a discussion with our children, we can offer some decent advice.

Why the Change?

The participatory culture is helping to support the change in our social interactions. With more choice with what you want to say, how you want to say it, and where you say it. Which picture do you want to post? What post do you want to comment on? Which comment do you want to like? What emoji do you want to use; it goes on and on. My point is that there is, and always will be constant change. Who knows what the next set of unspoken rules will be, and who will they apply to? The more that tech is integrated into our societies, the more it is understood and misunderstood. As technology continues to develop, we must adapt and change how we interact with it. Foldable phones, wearables, self-driving cars, snap maps, voice recognition, AR, VR – all of it provide a fertile breeding ground for social interaction and communication to change. Although I do sometimes wonder if today’s younger generation, Gen Z, will be more open in their social interactions offline because of their willingness to communicate online.

Modeling

Who defines what social media is? Me, you, Google, or a so-called influencer on YouTube? I am not so sure, but what I do know is that I use different media platforms in the classroom to deliver academic and social interactions. For example on my YouTube channel, I put up screencasts for the students to watch when they are trying to figure out how to use the loft tool in Fusion 360. I encourage them to add comments to my videos so that I can improve. As soon as I get a comment, I will respond – if it is meaningful.

I do think about how I comment, as it is an opportunity to show them how to respond to comments on their channels or the ones they subscribe to. My videos serve another purpose. I hope that all of my students build on my work, and make it better. I hope that, when they watch my videos, it inspires them to create their own. Then they will be communicating their learning and enjoyment of the subject. I also use Padlet, Email (yes) and MS Teams to communicate with my students. In Padlet we have accounted for every student, meaning that their name will be attached to their posts. Which makes them think twice before they post – which is a good thing. And every time that I reply or put up an announcement, there is an opportunity to educate and model skills that can contribute to helping students become positive digital citizens.

A big thank you to those students who helped me answer the question of how students use social media.

Something about the words COETAIL Final Project 1 sends a shiver down my spine, rekindling anxiety that I haven’t experienced since sitting down for my final object-orientated programming exam, in which I had to write pseudo code – good times then. Maybe if COETAIL could change the name to “Just a Wee Project”, my urge to reach for the whisky to calm my nerves may be reduced. Nevertheless, I, and I mean we the COETAIL 11, have been handed this daunting task to complete. And as coincidence would have it, my marvelous MYP coordinator Maree has given me the holy grail of tasks – to design a whole week of lessons, around coding in Scratch; to be taken by 80 students later this year in May. It will be quite the challenge, as not many of our students have had much coding experience outside the Hour Of Code.

For this challenge, I have addressed ISTE standard and my own COETAIL learning goal of the empowered learner.

So, without any further procrastination, and maybe alliterations, I give you my COETAIL Final Project 1 Plan.

I do enjoy re-reading Bloom’s taxonomy, learning about digital taxonomy for the first time, and also discovering other new material along the way. Yet despite these new readings, I have my own theory about learning theories… in that one size doesn’t fit all.

I agree with A Churches when he says that  “this is the choice of the individual”. It is the choice of the teacher which combination of learning theories they use to support student learning in real-life scenarios.

I found the part on reflection in Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy rang a bell with me; “Reflection is crucial to improving the process and learning from the process and content of the conference.” In fact, I think that the most important part of any learning process is the ability to evaluate effectively.

Through reflection/evaluation, our students, and we the teaching collective, learn not just content-related information, but about ourselves as individuals. By knowing ourselves better, we can play to our strengths and address our weaknesses. Furthermore, if we are aware of this vital cog in the learning process, then we are more likely to pass this on to our students.

Practice Until it is Habitual 

The challenge for me is to create not just opportunities for students to reflect but the environments as well – FYI – today I am experimenting with different styles of music to listen to whilst I work on this blog (https://brain.fm/) and using the Pomodoro Technique by Frances Rocirillo. I also found the words of George Siemens resonated with me when he quoted Viall… “learning must be a way of being”. I couldn’t agree more! The term life long learners is thrown around more than pizza dough at Domino’s pizza, but if you can apply it genuinely, then you are onto a winner.

Sometimes I use old-school graphic organizers – which I tried after listening to a podcast on Graphic Organizers; thanks to my Hall of Fame podcaster Jennifer Gonzalez. The way I used graphic organizers was in different parts of a lesson, to help students reflect on what they have just learned or break down a skill into different steps. For example; when I was teaching variables in Python, I asked the students to break down the different steps they need to create a variable using the fishbone variable. They then used the graphic organizer to help them with a quick Kahoot knowledge quiz at the end of the lesson.

Doing Things Differently

I normally have allergic reactions when I read words that have the suffix is at the end. I have built up the habit – pun intended – of thinking that such words are often accompanied by hard-to-understand long-winded definitions written by college professors. Therefore I shun learning them – until now. Partially because it is in this week’s assignment. But here’s the thing, after carrying out a little too much (no skimming here) research on connectivism, it appears that I have clumsily stumbled into this learning theory in my teaching practice.

For example, earlier this week I was teaching part of an Individuals & Societies lesson, in which Grade 6 students were required to interview someone about religion. My job was to teach them the technical skills needed to carry this out, such as;

• What equipment did they need: Audio, visual, tripods, etc
• Why location was important: To reduce background noise
• The importance of good natural light
• Using a medium close-up for the interview: In order to capture the emotion of the interviewee

And here is what I did:

Planning: I set out by recording an interview with a G12 student using the skills I wanted to teach – see above. I then edited the recording so that I could cut out any information that wasn’t needed.

Teaching: I showed the students both the edited (35 seconds) and raw footage (1m 14 seconds) versions of the video to highlight the importance of editing; they got the same amount of information from the shorter edited version as the longer raw footage version. Then I took them down to where I filmed the interview, together with the equipment I used. After arriving at the location, the students were visibly engaged (perhaps down to the change of room), as instead of imagining what they had to do – they were in the environment. We then reflected on the video, drawing out the good points and bad e.g. background noise and a shakey table! After all of that, the students started to record their own interviews.

How did all of this link to connectivism – well according to the principles set out in A Learning Theory for the Digital Age I had watched various interviews to see what technique worked best for the topic (Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.). I made sure that what I was teaching was done on technology that the students had access to and is current, including editing techniques; Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.)

It’s Google, It’s Google Time

So now I am really interested in the learning theory of Connectivism, having cast aside my previous bad habit associated with isms.

I watched a video on connectivism by a fellow called Simon Bailey, and I loved his take on using this theory in a Geography lesson. So much so it made me think about how I will modify my Volleyball coaching lessons for next week; are they lessons or sessions? So far I have introduced a Padlet page for the students (Empowered Learner), in which they had to write what their target for the season was – this could also have been done using a simple Google Doc; which would allow me to comment on each student’s goal. To modify this further I intend to add links to YouTube tutorials showing different volleyball skills, or perhaps even links to articles (Google Scholar?) on sports psychology – some students wrote down maintaining a positive attitude! So now the students have their own SLN (student learning network) to go to for ideas. They could upload their own Youtube videos on volleyball skills, articles on team building, and personal sports blog posts. This provides them with a platform to delve even deeper into the subject – giving their own “perspective into the topic”; which for me is the most important part. Another ISTE learning goal was achieved.

So far I have introduced a Padlet page for the students, in which they had to write what their target for the season was – this could also have been done using a simple Google Doc; which would allow me to comment on each student’s goal. To modify this further I intend to add links to YouTube tutorials showing different volleyball skills, or perhaps even links to articles (Google Scholar?) on sports psychology – some students wrote down maintaining a positive attitude! So now the students have their own SLN (student learning network) to go to for ideas. They could upload their own Youtube videos on volleyball skills, articles on team building, and personal sports blog posts. This provides them with a platform to delve even deeper into the subject – giving their own “perspective into the topic”; which for me is the most important part. Another ISTE learning goal was achieved.

Finding the Path

Which brings me to the learning theory of Constructivism, and the question which Piaget set out to address “How do we acquire knowledge?”*. I think this is different for every single person, and it is our job as teachers to provide as many different open learning opportunities for our students to help them find their own path; with a few along the way.

*For me I acquire knowledge the most when I am in an environment where I feel safe and unjudged.

I thought that I would go for something relaxing for my goal here – which was to say yes to the question my principal posed – design your first yearbook; from top to bottom, the whole thing – and then some. A bit of context may help describe the learning curve required here, for starters, I come from a culture where yearbooks don’t exist, I have never designed one before, and I saw my first yearbook just before Christmas. So perhaps I have a little bit of work to do…

I have already had a few conversations with some colleagues about this seemingly insurmountable task. Some have been supportive, and others are trying to be – they aren’t there yet 😊. But here’s the thing – even though I have very little experience in this field, I do have some website design experience, I love designing and I really like to learn new things. I also believe that I possess a Growth mindset – thanks Carol Dweck, and I am a keen believer in the 4-stages of learning, of which I am currently somewhere between the conscious incompetence/competence phase.

When You Put Your Mind To It…

And isn’t is what learning is all about? Learning what we thought we couldn’t – and then maybe passing on that learning, and approach to learning, to our students? Teaching our students to grow beyond their expectations, guiding them to achieve things they thought they previously couldn’t. Also, as the deadline for the yearbook is approaching rather quickly it has become a matter of urgency (see Chris Lonsdale’s talk on language learning – particularly the bear reference) to pay attention to what needs to be done, and to apply new knowledge, skills, and understanding quickly. As Doc Brown, from Back to the Future, said “if you put your mind to it you can accomplish anything”.

Make it Happen Davey

Task No.	Description	Possible PLNs	Time Frame
1	Research and decide on 3rd party software. Meet with the editorial team to agree on ways forward including page quantity, and overall theme.	Previous yearbook designer.	Completed by 20th February 2019
2	Review old school yearbooks (and other schools too) and use this information to create a yearbook ladder – i.e. page content, themes, pics, who will be responsible for each section.	Other school’s yearbook designers	Completed by 20th February 2019
3	Create a student roster, choose a theme, upload text photos, and create a test page – run through with a colleague and get feedback for improvements. Show the completed test page to other stakeholders before asking for them to start their pages.	Other teachers/colleagues will be working on different sections within the book.	Completed by 1st March 2019
4	Upload the remaining photos and ask colleagues to start tagging these.	Marketing department	Completed by 1st March 2019
5	Start collecting photos for chosen topics in the yearbook. Also start collecting quotes and blurbs for the main topics, before delegating them to page owners.	TBC	Completed by 30th March – I know past the end of course 1
6 (next year)	Seek feedback from students and families about what they would like to see in the Yearbook. Create Yearbook after-school club/committee. Create legacy documents, and folder structure.	Students and families	Next Year!

Research Skills Applied

After reading this blog post from graduate student Seyi Ogunlande (who may have asked herself to “design your first yearbook”). I felt humbled by her comments about the fact that most of her classmates “came from different parts of the globe” and that she thought it would be “great to make something that included a bit of everyone.”. Woah, what a statement! Seyi, unbeknownst to her, has inspired this very green yearbook editor to go the extra mile (just like my predecessor) and create something special that our students and their families can cherish for years to come.

I also read a few other blogs on yearbook designs and sponged a few of their tips, such as “Make a Page a Week” from Becky Higgins’ blog; although given my time frame this needs to be 1.9 pages a day for the next 58 days. Of course, there are copious amounts of yearbooks out there to investigate, not to mention the somewhat biased advice from the various yearbook providers* to read through; a pinch of salt is required when taking onboard advice; after all, they want you to use their product.

When it comes to proofing, yes I know this is a long way off, I like the 5 steps from image seven on their article titled school marketing news, particularly the bit about using a ruler when reading each line – so old school. Again, another good bit of advice for next year is to set up a Yearbook after-school club, at the beginning of the 2019/20 year. Don’t ask me my opinion on whether I think a yearbook should be printed or digital (it’s digital), but Beta Boston makes a detailed comparison of the two, saying that ditching yearbooks have worked for some universities, like The University of Virginia’s Corks and Curls yearbook for example, whereas sales for the printed MIT’s Technique yearbook have remained steady. I am for the inclusion of some techy bits, like QR codes, which I will link to some Padlet pages for different events throughout the year. Once scanned, users will be taken to a web page containing an abundance of pictures – and video, and audio. I may even add a little augmented reality to spice up the interactivity.

*Pictavo, Blurb, Picaboo, Treering, Bookbaby

Moving Forwards

Since writing this blog post I have gone and researched Typography, and in turn, passed on my new knowledge to Grade 6 students; they are currently creating a digital book for an Individuals and Societies unit using Book Creator. And thus the circle of learning continues, now for that next yearbook page…

Design Your First Yearbook – Job Done

Update 9th May – I finally completed the yearbook with 2 days to spare. Upon reflection, I somewhat underestimated how much work was involved. I was also happy that I hit one of my learning goals of global collaborator, after working with several staff and students in school, Pictavo and publisher help desks, and pestering friends and colleagues back home. And I ended up using remove.bg for some pixel removing magic.

So, if anyone asks you to design your first yearbook. Think twice, think carefully, and think about the lost hours of sleep and increased stress levels that you will meet with. But also think that it is an awesome opportunity to create something special for your community.

A few years ago, whilst in a spit and saw-dust gym that I used to frequent pre-Crossfit days, this guy walks in with all the correct gear for heaving lifting; squat shoes, knee straps, hand chalk, and support belt. He then saunters over to the squat rack, puts on a few plates, totaling 100kg (including the bar), and without warming up, he back squatted (not even lowering his butt to parallel) at which a friend of mine, Paddy the Postie, says “he has all the gear and no idea”. So how on earth does this link to Tech-Rich learning? Well, in some of my past experiences, from visiting and observing schools’ use of tech, some of them have all the latest tech, 1-1 laptops, maker space rooms in abundance, apps pouring out from their iPads and plenty of other tech littered all over the place. And you know what, they have the all (tech) gear but no idea (about how to implement effective use of it). In order to effectively/practically/authentically embed technology within any lesson – we need to know where we are going with it first (vision), and how to use it from our point of view and that of our students.

Opportunities

I found the section on Feedback and Learning from Living with New Media interesting, particularly when the author reports on findings of Anime artists who valued the peer-based feedback they received for productions; is that because they feel much safer? Couple that with the extent that young people go when seeking expert knowledge for their hobbies can help us as educators when pitching our technology – if we do it in a way in which they are truly interested in developing, then we can open up a lot of opportunities for our students.

Authentic not Contrived

There is a fine line when choosing something that the students will love vs something that provides an authentic learning opportunity. Earlier this year my colleague, Greg Reed, introduced me to the SAMR model – which I convinced myself I had been using for years but had been calling it something else. I also took some enjoyment from Kim Cofino’s blog when she talks about choosing a “Real World Task”, as I pride myself on doing just that – hopefully along with her other steps as well. So, without much further, do, I would like to share the tech-rich lesson which I taught and facilitated just a couple of months ago with some quality teachers and enthusiastic students.

Come to me With Solutions Not Problems

Jim Fuller, my old head teacher back in the day, used to say to me “David, come to me with solutions not problems”, and so I did. And so, in the coming meetings with Jim, I would bring him the good news, refreshing initiatives, and positive exam results – in return he double jumped my pay over the next three years. Fast forward to December 2018, we had our MYP – IDU week at school, an opportunity to create a tech-rich learning opportunity. Myself, Justin (P.E.) and Leah (Science) wanted to teach the students about sports and science, moreover, about how different muscles were activated during the execution of different skills in different sports – and we had to make this an interesting, engaging, and worthwhile learning experience. We decided that a great way to do this was to teach the students how to create their very own Sports Analysis using a combination of whatever was free and available i.e. iMovie, Keynote, Macbooks, SmartPhones, and YouTube – kind of like a deconstructed Coach’s Eye. We also went one step further and used a slimmed-down version of an engineering design process – slimmed down as we had the solution – they had to make it. Our thought process was that by giving the students the opportunity to record and analyze their own skills, would reinforce all the complexities of the science – and I think we nailed it.

Practice Makes Perfect

Before the unit happened, it was imperative that we choose something that was feasible for the students – so I had to set about creating the product; can I use the term dogfooding? I choose short passing in football as my skill and sport; I was the Grade 6 football coach, so it was easy for me to ask a couple of students to perform the skill for the video. I asked two different students to pass the ball to each other, whilst I recorded it on my OnePlus 5T (my all-time favorite phone). I decided that I would later import the video into iMovie and use a combination of inbuilt features for my sports analysis; split screen to compare the two passes, clip speed to slow down the skill for a detailed analysis, freeze frame for the screenshot (I also added in animations from Keynote) and voice over to record my analysis (I later recruited a professional, Rachel, to do the voice-over). After a week or two, I completed a prototype video for the students to watch as well as video tutorials on how to make it – 6 videos total. You can watch them in all their glory here. In the end, I think we up-skilled our students’ tech skills in order to accomplish a real-world (sports) problem of sports analysis.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_px5wTqLrs&list=PLTr4HjqLnovyufT-hCAtdf32L0oDYjj2F&index=4[/youtube]

Reflection Leads to New Direction

I reflected on this task, using some of the 15 questions (great post) posed by Drew Perkins. By doing all of the tasks myself, plus providing the tutorials I certainly avoided the non-production and frustration elements. I believe that due to the depth of vlogging, movie-making opportunities, and the inclusion of animation using Keynote (to enhance the analysis), the potential of the kids finding it boring was diminished.

I could go on but I want to talk about how to use Google tools to enhance the tech-rich learning opportunities next time.

Hindsight is 20-20

First off the bat, before I do this unit again, I would ask the students, via Google Forms, who their favorite YouTubers are. Perhaps I could try to present my video example more in line with a style that our students are interested in; the risk of being cringe is very high, so I would need to step lightly. Staying with Google Forms for a moment, I will ask students to reflect on the different parts of the task, particularly the bits which we thought they found challenging i.e. Keynote and timing their voiceovers to the animation. This feedback would be used to create more concrete tutorials, for them to follow; I would also encourage them to leave comments on the YouTube videos as well, giving me feedback on each of the video tutorials, so these can also be removed or improved.

I would also like to implement Google Hangouts for our students to communicate with each other and teachers during the project. They could access this at any time, seeking help and guidance on the tasks. When it comes to uploading, I would ask the students to share the links of the videos – as opposed to Air Dropping, which is what we did this time round. We did ask the students to create the transcripts in Google Docs, which was perfect for giving instant feedback.

Looking back, we succeeded in creating a tech-rich learning environment.