Getting back to Juniors

This year has seen a large change in what I have focussed on. Getting used to a Innovate Learning Environment and using Innovate Learning Practices. But what it has also allowed me to do is focus on Juniors. We have no senior students really this year. It has allowed me to rethink my ideas about what Junior Technology programs allow and what can be done with them. I have not been bogged down with the issues of NCEA for my students, it has been something that has been on my radar to do for a while is to rethink what junior technology programs might look like with the changes now implemented to NCEA Technology and Digital technologies. What might these look like in the future?.

At the junior levels we are developing an understanding of the three strands of Technology, we are not getting them to write a university paper.
I have students developing skills and understanding through their work, but not all of it is written, getting students to develop their ideas and present them to me through one on one conversations. Group Conversation, Now I know what others are saying, Oh, where is the time... We have changed the timetable to allow that, developing new ideas in how to present. Why is it always an individual piece of work that is being assessed, why can't it be a group piece. I have students working on a greenwall as part of sustainability at the moment, they have looked at inquiry, planning and collaboration through technological modelling. The report and the feedback are around how they have worked as a group. Not an individual. How have the communicated their ideas, not how well have they done individual planning, because half the time that has been done by the teacher in the first place. How do we get students developing the concepts of the strands when everyone talks about being time poor. Lets get creative, I love the ideas that come through this group about change. When I asked about what the does the future of the subject look like, great ideas, but why are we talking about these as a future, why are they not a now.

Students have the technology at hand, they are sitting in front of them every digital technologies class. BYOD, mobile phones, photos, videos are all valid forms of evidence.

I know a number of people will be frustrated at what I have written here. But I am frustrated. We need to be thinking smarter, and getting our students prepared for a world that is under change. Not for something that existed in 2007.

All the strands can be covered through digital technologies, but it doesn't mean that you have to spend an entire term covering that one strand.
Tech modeling could be being done through a digital media outcome. I currently have students creating paper prototypes for an app to support their PE class in which they are working towards action, developing through a couple of lessons.
Technological systems through programming and computer science.
Get a student to develop a program will require some form of planning and brief development. For example.

They are not in depth NCEA assessments, it is around using teacher judgement around the indicators of progression. It is around developing and knowledge to support the students learning and understanding. And they have fun doing it. Getting a student doing paper prototypes had them talking, collaborating, seeking feedback for an hour and a half, they want to continue developing prototypes next week developing the functional reasoning behind there design, as well at the practical reasoning. Using http://popapp.in 

We do not have specific year 9 classes, we call them the foundation years where year 9 and 10 are together in all classes and work towards different curriculum levels on where they are at.

Topics we cover
The whole school works under a theme for the term. Here is what we are covering each term for the next two years;
2016 Term One - Identity - Identity of Design, Principles & Elements of Design
2016 Term Two - Space/Place - Innovation & Ideation
2016 Term Three - Citizenship - Characteristics of Technology
2016 Term Four - How Things Work - Technological Systems
2017 Term One - Culture/Diversity - Outcome Development & Evaluation
2017 Term Two - Relationships - Technological Products
2017 Term Three - Innovation - Brief Development
2017 Term Four - Transformation - Technological Modelling

Many teachers outside the school talk about the issues of teaching technology, its not fun...
As for fun stuff,

• my fun stuff has been brief development where students developed a brief for new training equipment to develop a skillset in PE. (no specific requirement on any tech area)
• my fun stuff has been technological modelling where students have been developing ideas around an app for developing skills with the primary school students years 4-6
• my fun stuff has been technological outcomes were students made a stop motion video around relationships for visual text through an english context.
• my fun stuff has been elements of design creating graphic novels through an english context. 
• my fun stuff has been digital information using documents and sheets
• my fun stuff have been digital media photoshop looking at students photo editing skills, collage development and incorporating mixed media to support the ideas required for level one.
• my fun stuff has been sketchup recreating building around the hobsonville point for historical purposes.
• my fun stuff has been developing a technological outcome for 5 years through scratch
• my fun stuff has been programming through ardunio using the mindkits brainboard develop prototypes
• my fun stuff has been programming through python to develop games through technological systems
• my fun stuff has been digital information, creating guess who through mysql console for technological modelling.
• my fun stuff has been digital media through developing simple websites using notepad++ through outcome development.
• my fun stuff has been teaching students about algorithms, human computer interfaces, data representation which has covered a lot of technological systems.

A lot of this has taken place from the student voice we get from the students, as well as conversations that I have with students in the modules. What is it that they want to get out of school, from the area. Where will this take them. I look forward to what the students will be doing in the next couple of years with the knowledge and skills that they have obtained through technology and digital technologies. 

Innovation Generation

Many of the Innovation Generation are deeply worried about the future of the planet, seek healthier lifestyles, and want to make a difference more than they want to make money. But they are swimming against the tides of tradition. A lot of parents still harbor hopes that their children will persue prestigious careers and be economically better off than they are. Too many teachers and employers still reward the "old school" behaviours of deference to authority and striving for "success", conventionally defined - and count on carrots and sticks for motivation. The result is that many in the Innovation Generation are skeptical of adult authority and the institutions that their elders have presided over. School is a game the Innovation Generation knows they have to play to get "credentialed", but they do it with as little effort as possible. Most have no desire to climb the corporate ladder and wait twenty years to do something interesting or worthwhile. They have no patience with worksheets or busywork. They have dreams and ambitions that demand time and space - and active nurturing.  

The problem is that many of those in their forties, fifties and sixties who work in established institutions don't make the time and space for the younger generation's dreams and ambitions. Leaders of conventional schools and businesses don't know what to do with this Innovation Generation. These young people have different dreams, different aspirations from their elders.

Page 19, Creating Innovators, Tony Wagner

Why am I posting this,
When I read this book it kept striking me that what we are doing within the Technology Curriculum and Digital Technologies needs to change. No longer is it ok to give the students the same project and expect an outcome. Why are we not allowing students to develop websites with a social need for example.

Last year a student wanted to make a change, help end child poverty.
This was picked up by the Internet Party who pushed it out through their social media.

Allowing students time to develop outcomes and think of new ideas is what is required in schools. It is amazing when I think of the work and time that students put into developing their ideas in class, developing programmes that supported an issue around spelling, a security system in a house through a raspberry pi due to a break in of a fellow student. These projects are ones that I would have never thought of. Students being able to have the confidence to talk about these projects and develop the understanding of skills and knowledge required to make these projects work. A lot of people will talk about the final outcome, few will talk about the process that it takes to get there, the failures along the way.

I meet with my Hub students today and asked them about their successes this term, all were able to talk about them and why they were successes. When I asked the question about failure,  they struggled to talk about them.

You are going to fail - and likely more than once. If you don't fail, then you are probably playing it too safe. Failing hurts like hell - especially failing in public. But you will learn some of your most valuable lessons from failure - far more from your successes. As you reflect on the causes of your failure(s), you will come to better understand yourself - your strengths and weaknesses - and you will adjust your aspirations accordingly. You will also become clearer about what it is you are trying to do and what is required to make it work. Think of failure as iteration, as learning.

 Page 246, Creating Innovators, Tony Wagner

Transforming Assessment Praxis

I am on a pilot of a new NZQA Best Practice Workshop model, which is around Transforming Assessment Praxis.

While it hasn't been all inspiring, as most of the work that they have been talking about over the last five weeks has been ideas that I have been working on with my students for the past couple of years. It has made me more aware of what we are trying to do at HPSS. Knowing the learner and working with contexts.

As well as looking at Naturally Occurring evidence

While watching the three hour session tonight that I missed last week, around What currently drives you current assessment practice, What students value, Future shifts, Modes of assessment and naturally occurring evidence. I have been sent two assessments to moderate by another teacher, looking at these tonight and putting the ideals that I have been working through, I have been able to make some changes to evidence statements. While it is an assessment in Digital Information, database creation, the assessment is written in such a way that it allows for a student to develop their own context, yet also offer ideas for those students that can't think of one, or it does show the students what the rigour of the assessment should be. Having the conversation with the teacher on the phone while modifying the assessment through Google Drive has allowed for some great conversations to happen about how the assessment could be delivered, and what contexts should be included to help develop students ideas around rigour.
Evidence statements have now been changed to allow for a screencast of the database working by the student to show how it would function.

But the highlight of the work was on area of the assessment that had been developed which was on to show skilfully or efficiently as required as part of the step up of the assessment. This is the masterpiece of the assessment in my opinion, without even knowing it or putting it in for assessment sake, this allows for naturally occurring evidence of the technology level 2 achievement standard around planning to be included. So a 6 credit assessment, is now a 10 credit assessment.

In the presentation I was watching tonight, was included some information on overlaps. This is something I think originally looked at when the assessments came out, however I think I was turned off at the amount of evidence required by the standards. Having a better understanding of the standards now and evidence required through my role in the subject association helps me to now develop better assessment outcomes. A feature of what we are looking at as part of the Workshop15 in the holidays. To many teachers are talking about the amount of evidence needed for assessments now. Why are we not thinking smarter and allowing the technologies that we use everyday to assist us.

I know look forward to the next two weeks where I get to put my plans for the task into action and develop an assessment resource 

Things to consider …

Prior to writing your assessment resource, you will need to consider the following:

• Your goal
• What the student voice has told me
• Student input into context
• Knowing my student
• Documents which will inform my assessment resource (Achievement Standard, Conditions of assessment, Clarifications documents)
• Modes of assessment
• Variety of ways to collect evidence

My Goal, to look at how naturally occurring evidence and authentic contexts can help develop engaging learning that can be used for overlaps of assessment.

Data representation unplugged - continued

This week I had an email around last weeks Data Representation work. In the email there were a few comments that I found rather interesting. I include part of it below. The whole entire focus is one around assessment, at the junior level. I must say I read this 5 times trying to understand why? Why the subject requiring 32 credits per semester? Why the assessment driven curriculum?
To be clear, the following is not the school that I work at, we work towards Learning Objectives based on our Learning Design Model and NZC 2007, we report on curriculum level and progression, based upon rubrics.

We have a junior diploma which is all about credits, each subject does 32 credits per semester.  If an assessment is worth say 12 credits, they'll get 12 credits for getting excellence, 9 for merit and 6 for achieved or something like that.  Then students get A/M/E for their junior diploma overall based on how many credits they got out of credits available.

IMHO it's awful because our junior curriculum is assessment driven.  Sure we get to decide on the topics and how the assessments work, but once that has been done we still get stuck having to balance covering what's needed for the assessment, and trying to make it catered to their interests.  See, we decide on the topics before we meet our classes and then we're locked in, there's not much room for "Hey you guys are fully interested in binary, let's spend a week on data representation (and make some movies like Gerard's class did" because we have to give them a decent shot at their assessments.

To be clear, a week in my classroom for this module, is one and a half hours on a Thursday. As part of our SPIN, Special Interest Module. I include the following on what is being covered.

The work I am developing towards is Technological Systems under the Technology Curriculum, The work you saw as part of the videos and page was on part of the Computer Science module that runs over 13.5 hours

I am using the basis of the computer science badges that the University of Canterbury, Computer Science Education Department developed. 

Students will then work through algorithms and finish off with HCI.

Data Representation

The core concept of this topic is the binary digit, which is the basis of all data storage and transmission on digital computers. Students should be familiar with the role of a bit, combinations of bits (such as a byte), and their use to represent numbers, characters and images. This work does not include compressed representations (e.g. mp3, jpeg).

For a student to be successful they need to :

Demonstrate the ability to work with binary and hexadecmimal numbers by showing how to:

• manually convert between binary and decimal for numbers up to 8 bits.
• Demonstrate the ability to manually convert between hexadecimal and binary for arbitrary numbers, and to convert between hexadecimal and decimal for numbers up to 255.
• Demonstrate how to count and add in binary.
• Explain how an 8-bit characters are typically stored on a computer.
• Explain a system for representing colours with numbers. This might be one of:

• Web page colour specification (6-digit hex values)
• Colour picker in publishing software that allows RGB or HSV values to be chosen as three numbers
• Photo processing software that gives the RGB or HSV value of chosen pixels

Demonstrate a data representation that has a choice of bit sizes, and explain the significance of the different representations. Examples that could be used include:

• 8-bit and 16-bit characters
• 24-bit and 8-bit colour
• Other Examples could include:
• 16-bit and 8-bit sound files
• 56-bit and 128-bit encryption
• IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
• MAC addresses using MAC-48, EUI-48, and EUI-64
• MIDI representation of notes, patch numbers and channels

Convey the concepts of data representation to someone who doesn't know about the topic. This might be:

• A short video suitable for non-experts explaining a key aspect of the topic
• Introducing it effectively to someone who is considering doing the module themselves
• Creating effective quiz questions (e.g. in Peerwise)

The work they did last week in their second class was conveying a concept of data representation suitable for a non expert.

Challenge accepted

When I first came up with this SPIN I thought I would just go through and do the same old tasks in python that I had been doing with my students for the last couple of years. However, this place makes you want to challenge yourself.

That is what I have been doing over the past 10 weeks, challenging myself in what I am doing with my SPINs. In Term 1 I had a SPIN for programming where I used the programming language Scratch. This term I took it up a level to a text based programming language, called python. This is able to be freely downloaded and installed on the computers without having a licence which makes it work in our BYOD environment as well as being able to be installed on the school computers.

The challenge of programming is that sometimes it is just maths problems that get created and solved. I decided that I wanted to look at game development. Not your normal games of multiplayer environments in 3D. The simple games of Quizes, 8 Ball, Hangman, Paper Rock Scissors and High Low.

These are games which can be developed to increase in skill and ability. Perfect for a differentiated class. Why you might ask. The class that I teach is not just one year level. It is 4 year levels in one.
I have year 8, year 9, year 10, and year 11 in the same class. One thing is that we do not have the achievement standard to contend with. This is about the learning. Students come in with all levels of ability already, working the tasks into the different scaffolds helped. It meant that a student could still succeed. Working with groups of students around the class provided opportunities for support, most of the time it was a student asking before they tried the code themselves. They wanted the validation, yet the answer was almost always the same, "Have you tried it?"


A number of these ideas have come from other resources on the Internet, but being able to develop these and work them towards our students knowledge and understanding. Bringing in our schools Learning Design Model helps students understand the common language in our school as well as areas that they may need to look at and develop.

Using self assessment tools like SOLO taxonomy provides students with feedback and those next steps in their learning.

As I near the end of term, I reflect back at where we started with code being copied from the TV and whiteboard, through to now students planning, testing and developing work as an individual or peer programming. Through the use of other items such as playing cards for high low and working out what has to happen, and what steps are required. Through to playing hangman in class and working out the word, a list of letters tried and how many guesses left(which is interesting as some are as little as 8, where some have 16). Getting students to work out the planning through playing the games has helped immensely.

But one thing that still gets the students are the use of the less than and greater than signs (< >) in programs.
if num1 < num2 : # num1 is less than num2
if num1 > num2 : # num1 is greater than num2

Why is it so difficult?

SPIN

I am about to start another phase of teaching at HPSS. So far I have worked through a Small/Specialised Learning Module where I am working with an english teacher in the development of visual images for the english curriculum as well as meeting the requirements for digital technologies/technology. Through this module we are getting students to develop their own comics based upon a poem, short story or novel.

Today I also went through my first big projects sessions. This was amazing as the students worked through a brief development making sure that they met the questions and developed an understanding of stakeholders. I look at this and wish that I had been developing these ideas with the students at lower levels sooner. I think I have been so much thinking about skills and knowledge that what students really wanted to do was develop their own project, and have the guide on the side to assist them to develop the knowledge and concepts with their own work. I think back to the lessons that worked well and they were the lessons where students developed their own content. Students also worked through some planning about how they are going to see the next 6 weeks. A number of them were talking about meeting during a lunch time to keep on track with what they needed to do by the next big project session.


But, back to what I am doing tomorrow. SPIN and mytime. I have three SPINS tomorrow, one we are doing digital information, very much based around using Google Apps, developing knowledge of the applications and how it can be used to enhance their learning. Coding using scratch to work through a number of projects, very much based to develop the knowledge and skills to meet level 1 programming. The last is web development, in which we are going to look at develop a web site. I think the part I have to remember is that we only have 7 weeks.

mytime tomorrow is based around a photo orienteering exercise. I am looking at observational skills of the students and how much they know about the outside of our school. Which will be interesting as the building is very much designed to keep you in.