Wednesday 26 November 2014

Teaching Multimodal Literacy with Inanimate Alice

Inanimate Alice is an interactive multimodal digital novel told from the perspective of Alice the main character. This transliteracy fiction story tells the story of Alice from the age of 8 years old. She gets into all sorts of interesting and often dangerous situations as they travel the world wherever her fathers work takes them. In each episode Alice is a few years older and the writing style, the games she creates, and her artwork develop accordingly. Alice is highly imaginative, and a developing game designer whose games are incorporated into the story. The reader interacts with the story on each ‘page’ in different ways and experiences a combination of text, sound, music, images and game play. The entire story is planned to be told over 10 episodes, the first was released in 2005 and there have since been another three episodes with Episode 5 been released on the 1st December 2014. The series is written and directed by Kate Pullinger and produced by Ian Harper.

Inanimate Alice has been used as an exemplar of a digital storytelling and has been widely recognised as an example of transmedia storytelling. Considering the multimodal world of internet and gaming there are not many good examples of this type of literacy and schools have been slow to recognise the value of using and teaching multimodal literacies. For some ideas check out the learning experience of my students and myself on our wiki. This is a record of an entire unit I taught based on Inanimate Alice to my Year 6 class (http://inanimatealice-aperspective.wikispaces.com). The fun part about ‘reading’ Inanimate Alice is that afterwards students can use what they have learnt to create their own episodes of Inanimate Alice, and even have them posted on the official website.


Inanimate Alice is an exciting and engaging story that has captured the imaginations of every class I have shared it with, and the teaching and learning possibilities are very broad. Not only that but the website is packed with extra student resources and teaching support materials, like the ‘Starter Activities Booklet’, the ‘Teachers Education Pack’, and links to the curriculum. One of my favourite resources is ‘Alice’s School Report’ which is a set of narratives in a graphic novel style of Alice’s adventures in other countries.


In The Classroom: this video shows an example of how a teacher is using Inanimate Alice in the classroom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SZ0uSwIDKk


Interview with Kate: my Year 8 students loved Inanimate Alice so much they arranged a Skype interview with Kate Pullinger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eliJOj0-jlA


The Website: on the 1st December 2014 Inanimate Alice Episode 5 will be released on the website. The website will also be getting a whole new look plus some extra features like a gallery of student created content and a developers journal. http://www.inanimatealice.com


This is your chance to dive into transliteracy with all the support and scaffolding you could possibly need as a teacher. It will provide you with so many opportunities to explore the multimodal literacies of our 21st century. They are relevant and I promise you they are fun and engaging. Give your students a chance to meet Alice and go on an adventure.


Inanimate Alice Episode 5 Trailer

Saturday 22 November 2014

EduCampNZ Christchurch 2014 #educampchch

I love going to EduCamps as for me they showcase what I believe a model life-long learner teacher is. These amazing teachers take a Saturday morning of their own time to share and learn from each other, to connect and collaborate. So not only was this #educampchch a wonderful learning experience but also a great chance to meet those teachers whose passion for teaching learning is an inspiration.

Below is a copy of the Smackdown slides and they were all fanatasic, but some of my favourites where:
* Kahoot (Slide 6): which allows you to run a quiz, you do however need either a connected device per student or per group.
* The Five Sentence Challenge (Slide 10): which is an online writing challenge for emergent writers.
* Coding for Teachers (Slide 18): a community of teacher learning to code together.

Smackdown Slides
I presented some of my favourite free coding sites and apps for different primary school levels.

There was also a lively Twitter backchat and sharing happening which you can view below.
Twitter Feed
 

Friday 21 November 2014

The Hour of Code

I am committing to have my students participate in the Hour of Code -- would you like to join me? Here's more info about the Hour of Code:
Computer science is foundational for all students today, yet 90% of students haven’t been exposed to this subject at school. Last December, Code.org launched the Hour of Code, a challenge for students to spend one hour trying out computer programming. This year, Khan Academy, Code.org, and many other organizations are offering a bunch of new ways for students to participate in the Hour of Code!
What is the Hour of Code?
The Hour of Code is an hour-long introduction to computer programming designed to demystify code and show students that everyone can learn the basics. For example, Khan Academy has crafted several custom-made tutorials for your students that require no prior experience:
Try Hour of Code on Khan Academy!
Hour of Drawing with Code: Students will learn to program using JavaScript, one of the world's most popular programming languages via two great options:
  • Drag-and-drop: block-based coding for younger students with less typing skills and students on tablet devices (ages 8+).
  • Typing: keyboard-based coding for older students (ages 10+).
Hour of Webpages: Students will learn to make their own webpages using the basics of HTML and CSS (ages 10+).
Hour of Databases: Students will learn the fundamentals of databases using SQL to create tables, insert data into them, and do basic querying (ages 12+).
Last year, 15 million students tried computer programming for at least one hour during Computer Science Education Week on Khan Academy and other platforms.
This year, our goal is to reach 100 million students.
Let’s join Microsoft, Google, Apple, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Malala, and millions of others around the world to make history. Start planning your Hour of Code today!

Thursday 13 November 2014

Why Don't Students Like School?

The title of this book first drew me to it, as we have all experienced the frustration of not being able to get through to a child. However this book focuses on why student's don't enjoy school because they are not succeeding in their learning, which makes sense as I have never met a child who does not relish the satisfaction of achieving or discovering something new.

Cognitive scientist and author, Daniel Willingham says that people are curious, but not naturally good thinkers.That unless the cognitive conditions are right we will avoid thinking, sounds true for me at least! As teachers we need to understand the science of thinking and reconsider how we encourage students to think in response. The better students think, the more they will learn and the more likely they will enjoy it.


Willingham encourages us not to dismiss the value of knowledge, even in a Google society. That despite all our efforts to teach critical thinking, without an extensive and deep factual knowledge students will struggle to problem solve, to think critically or abstractly. Background factual knowledge is vital and should precede skill, and skill should be taught in context. An example he mentions that I have experienced often in the past is starting a unit with an attention grabber. For example a few years back I started a science unit with the famous 'coke and mentos' experiment. It was a hit of course but what did my students really learn? Not much that day although they were excited and perhaps engaged to being the unit. However, what if I had spent the time developing their knowledge of liquids, gases, and surface tension first, then done the experiment later? Would they have been more likely to think and perhaps come to more informed hypotheses of the experiment? I believe so.

Some of the cognitive principles Willingham discussed are:

How memory works
We need to give meaning to the knowledge for it to be remembered.
Mnemonics are not the devil's work, they are actually excellent memory tools.
Humans are wired to storytelling, so use story structure to teach lessons.

What's the truth about visual, auditory, and kinetics learners?
Its seems there is little truth in this old belief, sure it helps to approach any learning in multiple styles, but that's true for all learners. Students learn by learning meaning.

What's the truth about Multiple Intelligence's?
Surprisingly for me having used multiple intelligence's for many years, cognitive science shows there is no evidence for multiple intelligence's. Maths needs to be taught mathematically, and counting leaves for 'nature smart Johnny' will not help him learn maths better. However multiple intelligence's can still be used successfully with content and to change thinking; just not individuals

Praise effort not ability 
It took me many years and more practise to develop the habit of this one but it is worth reiterating. Cognitive science does confirm that praising effort or the process (not ability) is highly effective in motivating students to learn and develop a positive attitude towards learning. However praise must always be sincere, kids can tell! We need to teach our students that hard work increases intelligence and failure is the road to success.

These are just some of the surprising new things I learnt from reading "Why Don't Students Like School?" and it has certainly challenged some of my past pedagogical practices. It is well worth the read, and I'll leave you with one last major lesson (repeated through this book) that cognitive science has revealed. Practice, practice, practice! Practice makes room in working memory, which allows deeper thinking to take place. When deeper thinking is happening students are more challenged, confident, and hopefully liking school and their own learning journey.

Friday 7 November 2014

Why We Should Teach Mindfulness Meditation to Children?

I started practising and studying mindfulness and meditation early this year as a way of dealing with my own troubled stated of mind. It fast became an anchor, a place of peace, a place that allowed me to overcome emotional pains and automatic reactions. I also grew to love and value my meditation times; I wished I’d learnt this as a child. As a teacher I recognise a valuable life skill which I plan to gift to many children in the future.

Meditation is a strategy that can play an important role in every classroom, for cognitive focus and emotion control. Learning to quieten and focus their minds, children improve their abilities to pay attention, be better communicators, make better decisions, improve behaviour, and be compassionate.

Some studies of mindfulness programs in schools have found that regular practice improves student self-control and increases their classroom participation, respect for others, self-acceptance, happiness, and optimism. Even a few minutes meditation a day can make a difference; just taking a few deep breaths deactivates our fight or flight response (our sympathetic nervous system) and engages our parasympathetic nervous system which is our resting mode. As a teacher I have noticed that most of children’s problems in and outside the classroom derive from making instant judgements and not being able to notice the reality of a situation, and some of us never grow (or learn to) out of this.


So perhaps the Dalai Lama had a point when he said, “If every 8 year old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.”  I would love to test this theory, but even if it didn't, I believe meditation has the power to make children better students and better human beings.