Monday 14 December 2015

Hour of Code

 
The Hour of Code is an international event aimed at introducing students and teachers to coding while demystifying the concept of coding and teaching them some basics. The idea is to expose students to at least one hour of coding which many consider a new literacy and an essential skill for the future. 

I'm a strong supporter of coding as a literacy, maths and thinking tool; so I organised an 'Hour of Code' for all the classes at my school. As we have a computer suite next to the library I arranged for every class to be booked in the computer suite in their library time and had the student led puzzles shown above loaded, as most teachers had no idea about coding. The three puzzles were based on popular games and movies and guided students to code using the Scratch block format.

The interesting part was not only did more students have fun learning to code for the first time but I spotted many teachers engrossed in the coding puzzles too. Now that's what I call success; planting the seeds of coding curiosity. Below is some of the student's feedback.

Saturday 31 October 2015

Talking Minecraft in Interface Magazine

I love sharing my knowledge and experience using Minecraft for teaching. I love the game but as you know it is more than that and it's basic structure is mathematical. I have used it mostly for oral, reading and writing with kids (usually disengaged boys) to inspire creative and informational writing. This month the INTERFACE magazine ran a special feature on Minecraft and I was lucky enough to be able to contribute to the article (below) as well as share a lesson idea.

We don’t have Minecraft at my school, but I’m an avid Minecrafter and spend lots of time discussing the intricacies and wonders of Minecraft with students all over the school. This led to some of my more reluctant readers and writers bringing in and sharing their Minecraft books, like the “Handbook” series and Blockopedia. We sometimes use a few pages for guided reading; the reference books are great for information text models. After finding key information they can create Minecraft Trading Cards. I have found Minecraft players of all ages and genders are really passionate about the game, they have taught me most of what I know about Minecraft and I try to use that passion and knowledge to teach the underlying literacy skills.

There are many opportunities for narrative writing about adventures in survival mode. In the past weeks we had been learning to use our knowledge of narratives to write our own stories, and use descriptive language to help our readers imagine the graphic details. My kids take liberties with their genre choices; some wrote narratives, others mixed in informational text, and then a whole group collaborated on building a class Minecraft knowledge base which is an ongoing project: I just give advice on that one (this is a great collaborative project in which you can be the guide on the side).

With one small group of boys I did a shared writing of what it was like to be killed by a creeper, (it sounds macabre but it’s not in a block world) still the experience is intense, I know! Then we discussed the other mobs and they decided to rewrite the ending as if it had been another mob creature that killed them. As every mob acts and attacks differently their reference books were handy here too. Of course all of this writing was preceded with lots of shared oral storytelling, that’s where teachers get to learn about MInecraft. I question and challenge my students about details all the time, the others will correct any inaccuracies very quickly; these kids usually pride themselves on their knowledge. However a great site to check facts and settle disputes is the
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki which also includes short informational videos.

To fuel the excitement I have copies of the “Junior Interface Awards 2015” on both my classroom doors and the word is spreading; we are entering the Minecraft competition. I plan to continue to use Minecraft to engage with those kids that love it. It has so many rich reading, writing, maths, science, engineering, art and even coding opportunities. My message to teachers is: let your  students be the experts at Minecraft, use their knowledge and passion to teach the skills you want them to use.


Friday 2 October 2015

Photo Stories

The MADE Awards provide many exciting creative learning opportunities. This year I trained a mixed group of creative and talented kids in photography storytelling, using iPads. We were going to enter the new category in the MADE Awards; The Photo Essay. The Photo Essay is storytelling with photos (between 4 and 7).  The judging criteria were:
  • Demonstrate good photography techniques and composition.
  • Have a visual impact on the viewer – grab attention.
  • Have a relationship and a flow between the elements.
  • Being combined into a collage and saved as one image file.
  • Containing between 4 and 7 photographs.
  • Telling a clear, compelling story, or illustrate an emotion, event, or key competency.

Each of the four lessons started with discussions about our photography tips, we looked at images in google and discussed them. After a topic brainstorm, they would spend the majority of the time creating a photo story in small groups (one ipad per group). The last 15 minutes each group shared their photos and we discussed them in relation to our photography tips. Rule of Thirds was part of every discussion: did you know you can turn on a rule of thirds grid on the iPad?

Some kids really got into coaching good emotion for the camera. Lastly, they edited their photos with the iPad camera function and used Pic Collage app to present them as a narrative.

Our photography tips:

  • Rule of Thirds: the rule for taking powerful photographs.
  • Light: keep it to your back - keep light levels even.
  • Background: check what's in your backgrounds - does it affect your photo's message?
  • Camera angle: try different angles for effect.
  • Get in close: can provide impact.
  • Point of interest: make the main part of the photo stand out.
  • Make message clear!
  • EXPERIMENT!

These are their final entries into the MADE Awards Photo Essay competition. 


Students planned their photo narratives using this graphic organiser I made up; feel free to use and modify it.


I plan to use photo storytelling next term with my whole class and develop it into writing. Have you had any good experiences using photography to teach?

Coding with Kids


I was lucky enough to be able to take a Gifted and Talented group this term, and I had been scratching to teach them coding using Scratch. I wanted to show them the basics so they could take their coding creations to new levels. However, I felt it important they end with a finished product to demonstrate the learning and give them a sense of achievement. 

I wanted the students to feel like they had created something with a purpose, but still challenging to them. The maths game seemed a way they could give back to their school friends by helping them with their Maths. The coding was also understandable to me when I tested it out. I like to understand the basic coding and why it works, the kids then extend and add their ideas as they play with code possibilities. It always comes back to critical thinking, if something is not working we say, "why?" and start looking at the logic of our code. That's deep thinking, it's reading, writing and maths; and it's just the beginning. My Maths students also started doing collaborative projects, designing games many groups decided to use Scratch as their game design, and their creativity and coding logic have truly impressed me.

Over fours days during the term the group met with me, I guided them through a series of basics then moved towards exploring a maths game model. Each week we learnt more skills to apply to the games. The students really personalised their games and tried to push the coding to get the game to do what we wanted. We learnt so much but also so many ways the code won't work!

After finishing the G&T group, I was convinced that my Maths students would benefit from learning to code. I dedicated one Maths block a week to coding. I started them on the same coding basic training as the other group, but then I gave them mini coding lessons based on the concepts (position and orientation) we have been learning. Most used my teaching and took the coding to new levels; we had some challenging conversations and I said, "I don't know" a lot, or I'd use other kids as experts which didn't take long. They have just finished their projects, and I'll create a special page on our wiki for their games. I want them to have a say in who gets their games, perhaps I should get them to try "sell" them to other teachers. 

The G&T students created maths games which were put on our school website for others to play, as well as embedding them on their own blogs as evidence. They particularly enjoyed the critical thinking and creating their own designs from code.

My Maths group created some quite diverse games with impressive coding which is the result of giving them complete control. We currently have the final games on our Maths wiki page here. All my students want to keep coding, it's challenging, a great way to problem solve collaboratively and they love it.
The previous group plus my Maths students have shown tremendous growth in critical thinking and problem solving. We have encountered some tricky code, and together we solved some 'glitches' but others we had to put on hold till next time. Learning to code is a process; you get better as you play and learn. So we will keep coding. 

And isn't it great that Scratch projects are so easy to embed?

Monday 21 September 2015

Runner Up of NZ's Most Inspiring Teacher 2015

We work so hard all year to not only teach our wonderful students but to help them grow into kind, respectable and overall great young people. Seeing one of my students go to the effort to nominate me for Most Inspiring Teacher, and then persuade so many others to take up his cause really touches me deeply and makes me realise why I teach and how lucky I am to be at such an awesome school surrounded by such supportive students and staff.

Thank you "C" and all my other kind voters out there. As a runner-up I'll continue to do my best to inspire students to be and achieve their dreams.

The Most Inspiring Teacher Award: a blog post written by my students.

Below is his nomination.

ROTORUA Daily Post

By stephanie.worsop@dailypost.co.nz, Stephanie Arthur-Worsop


Monday 24 August 2015

Te Rangihakahaka

Te Rangihakahaka
All the teachers at my school snuggled down in our beddings on mattresses on the 
  1. Te Papaiouru Marae floor listening to tales of our ancestors. Although most of us would rather be in our own beds, the tales and kind teasing of the snorers were part of the experience that helped create personal bonds; as well as being given the gift of experiencing a night as early Maori lived.


The marae guides highlighted the history and culture of Rotorua, and how we could share these connections in a way that could be experienced in a real learning context that our students could relate to. We started with a powhiri, dinner then tales of the Rotorua ancestors travels to New Zealand and Rotorua. The following day we heard many myths and true stories about the ancestors of the marae and the history of the area. Then we walked around town and more stories and myths brought our town to life with a history that now played new dramas that explained why places were where they were and the reasons behind the names of streets. I felt a stronger, deeper connection to Rotorua.

My biggest takeaway from this experience was knowing that their was such a rich source of local real life stories and myths that could lead to learning across curriculum areas. Stories are a hook for all humans, and what we learnt was they can engage tamariki as well as provide learning opportunities in reading, writing, science, and more. We are lucky to have such an amazing and supportive marae on our doorstep.

Monday 29 June 2015

Helping Parents Keep UP

I teach my students to use a lot of different elearning tools to engage them, to help them show off their learning and to help make them more digitally literate. However parents often get confused by the 'tech talk' and what their kids are actually doing with all these strange tools. So on request of a parents I did an evening presentation to introduce them to tools we are using and some I'll be introducing next term.

I think it's important parents know what we are doing, even if they can't use the tools themselves, as a majority of learning is through the discussions between student / teacher, and student / parent.
Are your parents conversant in your classroom tech talk? Should they be?

Thursday 4 June 2015

Searching for Resources? Try our POND.

take a dip in the

The best place for New Zealand educators and learners to discover, share and grow.
Watch my screencast for a quick tour of this really focussed search engine for teachers. I'm finding it useful, especially the resources already gathered by other teachers.

Check out my profile on POND.

POND Starter Pack Videos: This series of videos will help you introduce POND to your staff.

Have you tried POND out yet? What do you think?


Monday 11 May 2015

How to use Skitch to make Screen Captures

Skitch takes screen capturing to the next level but allowing students to annotate onto web screen captures or photos. I made this video to teach my students how to use it and it will become part of our report writing toolkit. I also plan to get students to annotate digital texts like online informational texts, newspapers, and digital versions of School Journal texts. 

The final image can then be inserted into websites, blogs, slideshows, or "Google" docs.

How would you use Skitch in your elearning classroom?

Saturday 21 February 2015

#educamprotovegas

An amazing turnout and packed room at #Educamprotovegus proved that there are many passionate educators striving to develop their own learning and guide their own PD. It was wonderful to see so many newbies to Educampnz and I believe they all felt welcome and not overwhelmed by the geeks. I especially liked how much focus was on got pedagogy that was not particularly elearning as their is often the misconception that these teacher gatherings are for ITC geeks only.


The Smackdown ruled the day with a huge range of incredible resources being shared. It was a truly inspiring experience and I'm still processing all the amazing things I learnt.


The Twitter feed tells the story of our day and conversations happening. 


Thank you Annemarie @mrs_hyde for bringing us all together.

Saturday 14 February 2015

Handwriting Fonts for New Zealand Curriculum

I originally wrote this post on "Handwriting Fonts for New Zealand Curriculum" in 2009, now after some discussion on the NZ Teachers (Primary) FaceBook page on New Zealand fonts for computers I'm updating it with a screencast on how to install the Jarman font onto your PC. Mac users can follow these instructions. This is the download link for the Jarman font. Enjoy and let me know how you used it.




Sunday 8 February 2015

Making Mistakes Marvelous


Tomas Edison, one of the greatest and most prolific inventors in human history took 10,000 attempts to create a light bulb, that's 10,000 failures, or 10,000 stepping stones to success. I am not Edison but after my first week back at school I felt like I had made 1000 mistakes, but for the first time I felt proud of them, in fact I boasted about them to my students all week.

From my own past experiences and what I have seen from past students, failure can shut down any further exploration or willingness to give it a go. Perhaps failure often instills a fear of failure. So this year I am determine to celebrate failure and turn it around from a dirty word into a positive word. So now I happily admit my every failure to my students and model how each mistake teaches me something new and provides an opportunity to improve. My catch phase this year is "count my mistakes to see how much I have learnt".  

My dream is that my students start their year of learning with a growth mindset that celebrates mistakes as learning opportunities.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” - Robert F. Kennedy

Friday 30 January 2015

Challenging the Mindset

It's great to be part of #edchatnz in this new year, the conversation and challenging thinking is proof that there are a great many educators in New Zealand with a growth mindset. 

The idea of mindset was apparently discovered by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, although despite it being the current "rage" on the net, I don't believe it is anything new to education. It is what we aspire to instill in our students. It has also been the basis of most self-improvement teachings and the "inborn" qualities of some of the worlds greatest men and women. In the end it is about believing in ourselves, in persevering, in being learners, and caring about people around us; it is about being what we are meant to be, the best we can be as human beings.

And yes there are always those who get stuck in a rut, I've been there myself, but it doesn't mean we have to stay there. Life is a growth mindset, sometimes we falter and lose sight, lose faith, and get stuck in a fixed mindset, but like all things in life with a bit of help from our friends: this too shall pass.



Sunday 25 January 2015

The Book Whisperer

Voice Recorder >>
After my second reading of The Book Whisperer I recorded a short podcast of my thoughts about the concepts in the book and what I have taken from it as a teacher.

Have you read The Book Whisperer? Do you have any thoughts or suggestions to share?

My Nonfiction Bookshelf


My Fiction Bookshelf


Wednesday 21 January 2015

Online Reading & Listening for Kids

As I reader I have moved to reading mostly digital books and particularly listing to audio books, both of which make great stations or reading activities for the classroom. Below are the sites I have found that are free and suitable for children. Please let me know of any others and I'll update my list.
I have create a Symbaloo of all the suggestions from the NZ Teachers Primary Facebook group.

Online Books


Online Audio Books (with subtitles)

Online Audio Books
Non-fiction Reading Websites for Kids

News Websites for Kids