Sunday 15 October 2017

developing ideas - create a computer system

Looking at the ideas of the possible achievement standards, I am working on the ideas of innovation and inspiration.

It has been good to see on the NZACDITT group that people are starting to share ideas.

The first idea is one around Aircraft Tracking.

Airways have developed some amazing software, including automation systems that allow for pilots to land in fog. This is illustrated beautifully in this clip of landing in Queenstown (where an astonishing 30% of landings are affected by fog) This is why we fly - Queenstown




We can bring some of this technology into our classrooms with a simple and inexpensive Software Defined Radio (SDR) such as this ADS-B Kit US$26 from RTL-SDR. SDRs can also be used to receive radio, tv, and to listen to aircraft and ATCs. Airways have put together the attached PDF file with steps on how we can set these up in our classrooms. They are really keen to support schools so that students are exposed to this technology.

The outcome is similar to what you see on flightradar24.com


This is great, we are right near an airfield, what a great way to start to get students interested in this as a career.
The dongle has been purchased, and what do you know, it links in with a raspberry pi. So building and developing a system to track aircraft looks high on the list of projects to do next year.

Now to start looking at how we can set this up full time.

The second idea, Make an Impact with the IoT
The teacher has been working with a vineyard in the local area, and has developed a range of sensors to probe the environment, a great starter and something that I could possible look at, however, I am also thinking about broader applications. In some ways to carry on the ideas that I gathered in Christchurch, Sensing City (trust has now closed), but the ideas are still there... https://www.arup.com/projects/christchurch-sensing-city-new-zealand


This has been one that has been on and off since I started at the school. Internet of Things. 












The network has now been built and has good coverage


Now the difficult was trying to find a kit to make this work. thinxtra in partnership with sigFox have done this, it costs about $84 to have it land in NZ.


The kit is described here

The perfect way to get started with Sigfox, the Thinxtra devkit Xkit boasts a full suite of features and accessories to empower anyone to set up an IoT solution, even with very little hardware experience. Perfect for start-ups, design houses, universities and schools, the kit has everything you need to hit the ground running using the globally available Sigfox network.

Included in the box
  • The Thinxtra Shield, with embedded sensors: temperature, pressure, light, shock and 3D accelerometer, 2 LEDs and 1 push button, 1 USB port
  • Arduino Uno R3 board clone (already plugged in the shield)
  • External 8.5 cm antenna 8.5cm for best performance
  • USB cable (to plug to a Raspberry Pi or PC or to re-flash the Arduino board)
  • Battery holder (so the kit is independent of any external power source or computer)
  • 1-year connectivity on the Sigfox global network
  • 1- year warranty. 
A great place to find what to do and how to connect and develop is here

Thursday 5 October 2017

Challenge, developing an online system for evidence collection

Finally writing up an inquiry I worked on a couple of years ago. Could we look at better outcomes for students using ICT/BYOD to support students in their evidence, would it make a difference

How to take something that was once a paper based exercise and reflection, and to make it online.
In the staff room early 2014 talking in the staff room, one of the PE teachers talked about if it was possible to do something better, use the BYOD aspect, the students devices, and school laptops to be able to record and reflect on evidence for an achievement standard. The aim was for a NCEA Level One achievement standard to be Substituted at first, but then came Augmentation (SAMR model) with the extra improvements.


This was one schools data and approach. The school will not be mentioned in this post.

90962 Participate actively in a variety of physical activities and explain factors that influence own participation.

Clarification of the standard

AS90962: Participate actively in a variety of physical activities and explain factors that influence own participation

Updated June 2014. This document has been updated in its entirety to address new issues that have arisen from moderation.

Explain factors that influence own participation

Using ongoing reflection, student responses must provide an explanation of the most relevant factors that influence their own participation.
The explanation should include:
  • what the factor is
  • how and why the factor influences own participation
  • specific examples of how the factor influences own participation in the chosen physical activity
  • a range of factors.
There is no step up required for the explanation.

Participate actively

Students need to participate actively in a variety of physical activities over a period of time.
For Excellence, students must consistently show a high level of effort and engagement in participation. This must include students’ regular contributions to support others to be active and/or showing a sustained effort to improve. Refer to the exemplars for examples of how the practical evidence may be interpreted.

Collection of evidence

Teacher verification of students’ active participation in a variety of physical activities over a period of time is required, for example, over the whole year or at least one term. Required evidence should include observational notes, verified self or peer assessment and/or teacher recording sheets.
The teacher may consider validated self and peer observation sheets as additional evidence to support judgements.

Interpretation of evidence for Merit and Excellence

When interpreting the evidence collected, it should be noted that the step up between Merit and Excellence is on the consistency of the criteria for a high level of effort and engagement in participation.

Overall judgement

A holistic judgement should be made as to whether or not the student has participated actively/participated actively with a (consistently) high level of effort and engagement in a variety of physical activities, rather than quantitative marks such as 80% participation to achieve with Merit. 
 
Throughout the year the Google Form that students were filling in needed an extra frontend for students and teachers to see where they were at and what evidence was missing.

The annodotal evidence was that students were doing better. Teachers talked about more students achieving and handing in the material rather than handing in a blob of paper at the end of the year that had been sitting in their bag with the old uneaten lunches. Though we needed to see what the data said. 

In 2013, the work was handed in using booklets.
The data
2013
Number of results 154
Not Achieved 25 16.2%
Achieved 37 24.0%
Merit 59 38.3%
Excellence 33 21.4%

In 2014, the work was recorded and reflected using a mixture of google forms and an online system to report back to students.
2014 
Number of results 158
Not achieved 21 13.3%
Achieved 35 22.2%
Merit 58 43.0%
Excellence 34 21.5%

In 2015, the work was handed in using booklets again.
2015
Number of results 176
Not achieved 33 18.8%
Achieved 45 25.6%
Merit 61 34.7%
Excellence 37 21.0%


The annodotal evidence was correct, more students saw success, but not at the achieved level, it was up to a merit level. The evidence from students wasn't limited to a small box or lines in a booklet, it allowed students to write as much as they wanted.
Students commented on how easy it was to make sure where they were at, removed the troublesome paper that was left at home, or damaged in a wet school bag or lost. They often talked about being able to complete the work at home, or in another class when they finished their other work. 
The writing provided opportunities for students to explain how factors influenced their participation in the sport.
There was also a section added in the work that allowed feedback from teachers to put in comments about had they done enough. Once comment from a teacher using the system was, "I am able to give feedback while on the toilet". This is not something that the writer of this post recommends. But it does highlight the fact that teachers are not limited to where they provide feedback, its online, can be opened on a phone, or tablet. It is not limited to a bunch of paper sitting there to have feedback written onto and then handed back to the students. It is real time. teachers have teh opportunity to use there non contact time and quickly go through and check, and make comments on work that students can fix later that day.

This was simple enough and translated to a google form rather well. The data was designed well and was able to be transferred to a mysql table.

Design was not considered an important aspect, it was more about focussing on the content and delivery on as many devices as possible.



Enteries, while it was not encouraged to do 15 enteries, through the development of the project we talked about a finite number, as some students would need to do extra to make sure that they had worked towards the achieved level. In this case it was about there participation factors.


teacher comments



Some of the issues,
The system is not self aware, new students and changes to timetables happen all the time in schools. Needing to make sure that new students were added so they could evidence their learning needed to happen each month. At least with the google form, all the data was recorded.

Having a mix of systems. One teacher used both ways of evidencing, google forms and paper, this added to confusion on how many enteries that students had completed.

Students couldn't remember what entry they were up to if the system hadn't been updated. This was a case of going through the spreadsheet and changing numbers of enteries each month to reflect the work that students were doing. This would be fixed under the next version, which would remove the google form aspect.

When the developer leaves the school, this is always a risk and something that needs to be thought about.

While the excellence results did not have an improvement, this could be around teh literacy of the students to highlight.

Moderation, was not an issue as the eight samples of work were able to be printed out, or moderators could have access to the teacher side of this to be able to go through the work.


Wednesday 4 October 2017

Reflection

As I sit here with my mouth numb from a trip to the dentist, I have been busy reading up on my emails.
Working through the new digital technologies curriculum and the feedback has offered some interesting insights into what people want to happen, and actually happen.

Where is the big words and new technologies mentioned?

Where are the Achievement Objectives, what are these things called Progress Outcomes?

Where is the new Technologies?

I wondered these at the start of the process as well. However, it soon came to light that when working on the unit standards review, that people need to understand what these technologies are. Virtual reality and augmented realities are digital media content. They are developed to show video and images through a new means. 

Robotics is programming and electronics, through the development of these concepts and the tools, you can develop a robot to do almost anything. However the factor would be cost, and schools having to offer more engineering principles. 

The new technologies are catered for, just not explicit in the mentioning of them. 

Progress outcomes, these were something new and had many names before what they are. For me the ideas and how they have been developed show a difference, though for many this difference is hard to understand as it is new language. The exemplars would go to show hoe they can be used to support student learning and next steps. Though, I feel this is still to come in the development of the curriculum story.

To me, I feel that one side of the story is still to happen. While the workshop that I went to was primarily focused on Computational Thinking, there is still the Design and Developing Digital Outcomes. This is one area that I feel has yet to see the light of day and will be a poor cousin to the other. This is the area of interest to me. If a student comes up with an idea, this should support them in the development of it. This is where those 21st century skills really do/should show. I guess this is the creative side. The ideas of proposing and idea and then being able to design it. These are skills that area needed all the time. The ideas of design thinking, mashups and startups require this to be able to develop ideas.

It is interesting that people want to see massive changes, and in some respects those that have introduced different aspects of coding, media, and information into there schools should be seeing these changes. However, there is an issue that needs to be addressed first, what is the proportion of schools that have yet to have the change and shift. As I watched the NCEA debate at the PPTA conference, I heard many stories of schools and the design of NCEA that I wanted to shift away from. I now hear more stories about schools looking at NCEA Level One and redesigning what it looks like within their schools/community. 

Considering the work going on to change digital technologies achievement standards, should there be thoughts on packages of learning, of the siloing of skills. What about inquiries into digital technologies and the effects that it has on social behaviors? The development of knowledge and skills to support a student inquiry into either social/environmental impacts? Innovation through design - rather interesting when you consider that this is the heart of the Technology curriculum.