digital information - habit tracking

Getting students to track how they are using there Hobsonville Habits within their learning.

Twitter is such an interesting tool to see how people are using digital technologies within their learning. To gather information and inquire into what is happening with that data.

It started with a tweet...

How Might We show this understanding with our collection of data.

Being able to get the students to enter the data. Making a simple easy to use interface. 

Each day students would be able to change the sliders to indicate their use/understanding/development of the habits.

You might ask about why there are two sliders for each, the top one is for students to enter, the bottom one is for the learning coach.

Once the data is entered, how to best show the patterns, at the moment this is available to the coach only, with future development for the students.

It is at the moment being thought about doing this is in slightly different way, being able to turn on and off habits to be able to show patterns over time.

Notes:

• Keen for some wellbeing/hauora aspects too... so we can keep an eye on that. Could be cool if as well as a ranking, that somehow/somewhere they justify with evidence so not token judgement?
• Complete this one. Perhaps a group of Coaches pilots it and iron out bugs and streamline usage ready for term 2 across school launch.

Reflection

"I haven't done one of these in a while," was a comment from my hub students on Friday, neither have I.

Sports
Adventure Racing
The term started off being a challenge for me, the Get to Go Junior Hillary Challenge was coming up and we have entered this for the past 3 years. After a bit of messaging, emails, talking with students (They don't check there emails, or read the school notices) I managed to get a team together. With the help of two of the Senior Get to Go students, training started. It has been great to see the leadership and ideas that the senior students brought to this, they bring a different sense of what it means to them to be part of this squad. They are able to talk about the challenges, the way they reflect afterwards. It allows them to gather the skills to work with 7 other people when you are tired and grumpy. The positive spirit in the group and the talking in the van between the different challenges showed that they had fun, enjoyed the day. I hope that they will join the senior squad next year.

Mountain Biking
This continues with the last race mid September, I have seen my team grow and develop their racing and now showing the skills and training that they have been doing pay off. The last race showed that even the parents work together to support each other when one of our riders was injured. I help out with the timing and general organisation of the race when running, we have not had a race like this in a while where a number of things didn't go to plan, a lost rider that didn't make the start, was found, a injured rider that needed assistance, all ok, a protest due to a rider cutting part of the track. It just goes to show when you are a teacher, you can deal with more than one thing going on.

E-Sports
League of Legends High School League.
This is a new one for me, I am looking after a e-sports team. It has even got me playing the game so I know what is going on now. I have taught these students for the past 3 years, and I am seeing a completely different side to them now. The team work in this and communication is essential for good game play. They too, reflect after the game and talk about the strategies that they use and things that went well and not so well. It has been great seeing one of the students who has taken on the role of captain communicate and encourage his fellow team. We have yet to win a game, but that is not the objective, as with the Adventure racing, there are other objectives that we are working towards.

Learning
The MODULE I have at the moment is Mathematics and Digital Technologies where students are learning how to code. We are using snap coding, as it is an alternative to scratch, the students have said they welcome not seeing the cat when it loads up. It works within a browser, as we have mac's windows' and chromebooks within the class. The biggest thing I hear from the students is that this is hard. When we unpack this, and I am more this week as part of my inquiry, is that this is the first time that they have done anything like this. They have not had to code before. Trying to work out how to get a computer to figure out the highest number when you enter three numbers, they can look at the three numbers and say it straight away, getting them to unpack how they do it, is a little bit harder.


FX, Learning how to do editing and creation of graphics is fun, thats what they are saying. They are looking forward to the challenge of the Fair Go Kid Ad Awards and spent the day on Friday researching different ideas from the 70's to make cool again. Even looking at old ad's to see ideas that they could bring in.

Challenges
Digital technologies Curriculum Workshop
I was unable to go to the teachers one of these when in Auckland, and ended up going to the parents and industry meeting, which gave me some different insights into what they are thinking the challenges of the new curriculum is. Communication with parents on what schools are teaching seems to be a partly missing gap. What is it that the community would like to see us teach?

Developing understanding of the micro:bit
Next term I am running a SPIN based upon electronics, I am using the ideas of the mindkits brainboards, bbc micro:bit and adafruit sparkfun express.
We have been lucky that a New Zealand Supplier has just started and is bringing these into the country. Learning Development is offering a bulk discount for a set of 10 micro bits. https://www.learningdevelopments.co.nz/product-page/bbc-microbit-starter-kit-10pack

I have been thinking about the next steps with this, and starting to think what are the best resources or projects that could be developed by the students. This is one of the first results when searched, https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-gb/articles/industries/public-sector/citynext/educated-cities/7-perfect-microbit-projects-for-pupils/

Supporting other schools
I have had a number of visits by primary schools in our area looking at what their technology programme looks like and how it may link in with what we are doing as a school. It has surprised me that schools are doing the one project for all students still.
How can secondary schools support the local schools in developing the ideas while still holding onto their identity. For me, it will be the progress outcome statements that I am looking for when a student transitions to secondary. These will provide better guidance on where a student is at. Maybe something for the SiSi project to have within it.

To end this reflection, we had the political parties and people in our area talk to the senior students, it was great to hear them talk and understand what is happening.

I am still working on the ideas of the habit stick, I now have some laser printable rubber to be able to create some stamps with the hobsonville habits on them.

The habit of reflection

While my students are looking at the habit of reflection, I have been reflecting on where I am at the moment, sort of taking a stocktake of how things are going.

While things are going well with modules, SPINS, projects. The new floortime for this term is going really well. It is different from my normal ideas. It is based around the Department of Conservation Battle for our birds. 

I have been using a metaphor lately, trying to keep everything in the box. Taking on some new challenges this year has made me take note a bit more of what I am doing. Learning Design Leader and timetabler. Both of these are providing me some great challenges. 

One thing that I feel is falling outside the box and upsetting me is Learning Hub. This is something that is higher up this year as it is also one of my goals. As you can see in my previous blog posts I have been putting some new activities and ideas into what I am doing in hub. Planning is a big one now, as it is a sizeable amount of time. The great thing has been the development of a hub curriculum which is designed to allow the dispositions(habits) to be explored and inquired about. Then why has it escaped the box. There has been a number of other activities, ideas and exploration happen that has happened. I feel like the planning and work involved in the development of the hub that has been a goal has been taken out of my hands. Something which I am struggling to share.

While also looking at reflection I have been thinking about other things, what is happening in my life at the moment. I have started being a bit more adventurous, I have started getting my food bag. It is taking me out of my comfortzone of the food that I normally eat. Yes, I needed to change what I ate, too many times not being organised of what to get at the supermarket. Maybe that needed to be taken out of my hands for a while. I am looking at my food bag for three weeks and relooking at what it has allowed. A Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise.

Monday

Tuesday

I also am looking at what I doing as extra-curricular. I have restarted taking photo at sports games this season, something which supports our students and our vision.













I am helping take a fantastic group of students through the Hillary Challenge training at present. Every Monday and Friday at 7am they are there, excited and ready for the challenges that they are put through. My favourite has to be keypunch and street number bingo.

I am also enjoying the mountain biking winter series again. It allows for so many of the habits to be shown, I enjoyed the comments from the students as they finished this week about the mud, throwing a bike at the marshalls (sorry, didn't see you behind the tree) and the initial, I hate this, i am not doing it again, through to I can't wait for next time.

P.S I think my students did enjoy eating a raisin, listen to it here. In learning hub.

Reflective: I look back to look forward.

Metacognitive Perceptive Mindful Observant Self Aware Insightful A Critical Thinker Analytical Revising Strategic

I am always thinking about my thinking. I am conscious of the steps and strategies I use when problem solving. I am able to reflect and evaluate the usefulness of my thinking.   I plan a strategy before embarking on problem solving. I am aware of my  actions and the effect of those actions on others and the environment. I am able to pose internal questions as I searches for information and meaning. I am aware of the need for correction if my plan is not working. I am able to reflect on the plan for the purpose of self-evaluation, and editing for improved performance.

I have ended the week with this,

I realise that we haven't really had the chance to really inquire about what the Habit of Reflective is, I thought I would help end the week with looking at an aspect.

Find some music, even if it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq-NShfefks&list=PLX9gF6kceU2SUVDqRWrJtWdal-HTpWMnIor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dIRXiRx_s

I would suggest finishing a quiet spot and listening to something for 10-15 minutes, relax. 

Then fill out these 10 questions, you cannot put don't know or anything that is not a coherent answer. 

Some of these questions relate to conversations that have happened in Hub this week.

What did you have for dinner of Wednesday Night, did you leave your most favourite part of it last?

Choose a module that you had this week, what was something new that you learnt?

Choose a SPIN from yesterday, was there an aspect of it that you did not enjoy, why?

What was your favourite TV Show or Netflix, Neon, Lightbox, youtube show, about this week?

If you could listen to a song over and over, what would that song be, why?

Consider Wednesday afternoon with the heavy rain and thunder that happened after school, how did this make you feel?

If you could any change an aspect of HPSS, what would it be?

Can you identify one teacher that supports you best? What is it about them that brings out the best from you?

What was a strategy that you used to solve a problem recently?

How do you feel about thinking about thinking?

Adventurous

At the beginning of extended hub today I asked my students what adventurous meant to them.

Developing the habits and for students to be able to see them not just in school, but in life, is important to us. We spend a great amount of time in Learning Hubs, and developing the relationships with these hubs is important. Without these relationships today would have been a complete fail. Students need to be supportive, give things a go, have trust in each other. 

I have been looking at doing this activity for the last couple of weeks, but weather and other activities have got in the way. Today, though it was hot outside was the perfect day.

Once students entered what adventurous means to them, I showed them this video

Getting students to realise the opportunities and the risks, rules for this were important, only one person on the slackline at a time. We want everyone to try, as well as safe.

Everyone gave it a go, tried different ways to balance, walk the slackline. It was one thing that struck me though, was the support from all the students to walk the slackline with support from a helper. Even though there were many failures, the support was there to try again. Something that I want to see from other areas of their learning.

Yes, even I had to give it a go, I had to demonstrate what would happen, they thought that I was playing shaking the slackline at the start when trying to balance, however with their own experiences they found the same issue. Conversations about breathing that came out of the videos were then had.

Students want to give it a go again, develop their adventerous, I wish to show them this video on where it could lead, but that can wait for another day.

Here are some photos from the activity today

I will end this post with another piece of information, this is from our hub curriculum

Next time, I need another set of post it notes to ask the question, what does adventurous look like?

Things to do next
Developing support, only fingertips to be used.

• Walk the line and hug the pole.
• Swat - two feet on the line get down as low as you can, go past the wobble point
• One foot Balance, 10 seconds
• Walk Backwards
• Bounce (gentle bounce) offload

Hand hold support

• Onload, 30 cm jump, 90 degrees to the line, up and forwards to get on the line, control forward motion
• Side jump

Vocab
Relax and Breath. Try to feel whats happening. And only exercise will stop you from shacking. And
believe it or not: Everyone is shacking with it foot and leg like a lot.
Shacking is when the line wobbles a lot when you try to stand on it.

Thank you to Steve for supporting me in the developing of the ideas.