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EdChatNZ Blogging Meme

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If you get included in the blogging meme: copy/paste the questions and instructions into your own blog then fill out your own answers. Share on twitter tagging 5 friends. Make sure you send your answers back to whoever tagged you too.

1. How did you attend the #Edchatnz Conference? (Face 2 Face, followed online or didn’t)

I was there for both days of the conference. On Friday I was teaching through most of the day so my involvement was mainly through inviting people in to be part of my Hub and my Apocalypse Now module. Saturday was far more of the conference experience for me.
2. How many others attended from your school or organisation?
 As we were hosting, our entire school was involved on the Friday – staff and students. On the Saturday there was still over half of our staff and a smattering of students attending (yes, students voluntarily at a conference on a Saturday!).
3. How many #Edchatnz challenges did you complete?
 After setting the challenges for everyone I embarrassingly did not complete them all! I think it was 12 that I did complete. I missed the food sculpture, highest point, new technology (although did get to see the Ultimaker 2 3D printer in action that we have on order) and the dancing challenges. Am most disappointed about the dancing challenges as I often dance randomly throughout the day.
4. Who are 3 people that you connected with and what did you learn from them?
So many awesome face to face catch ups with incredible twitter colleagues that made the weekend feel a bit like Edu-Nerd party of the year! I especially enjoyed catching up with 2 ex student teachers Emma (@emmaotearoa) and Jess (@ikanarat). But have to give special mention here to 3 connections that reminded me of important things:
Reid (@ReidHns1) is brilliant. He laughs often and loudly and as someone with the nickname of Excited Puppy I love to find other teachers who are genuinely stoked in what they do.
Jonathan Finnerty (@FtFinnerty) was a student of mine in my first few years teaching and it is really cool to see him as a confident Geo teacher soaking up the inspiration. It was cool seeing him make his first tweet after the conference (that first risky step done) and I hope we see him connecting regularly online (no pressure now…)
Aaron Huggard (@MrHuggard) spent 3 hours of Friday sitting in my module with students. In speaking with him on Saturday he felt it was time spent well extremely well – if you want to experience a school, do so from a students perspective.
 
5. What session are you gutted that you missed?
 Hard one, lots of awesome workshops I missed while teaching and presenting myself, didn’t get to see Pam Hook talk on SOLO but I would have loved to have been in Heather Eccles (@heccles01) session in support as she helped preservice teachers find the ways to connect with the awesome NZ education communities.
 
6. Who is one person that you would like to have taken to Edchatnz and what key thing would they have learned? 
Would have loved to have taken Michael Harcourt (@harcoumich). He is an incredible teacher who has inspired me over the past 7 years. We used to work across a desk from each other and bounce ideas back and forth, he always had an article or book to suggest for me to read. When I moved back up to Auckland I turned to Twitter for that regular bouncing of ideas (we still skype but once or twice a term isn’t enough!) and so it would have been full circle to bring him to #edchatnz.
7. Is there a person you didn’t get to meet/chat with (F2F/online) that you wished you had? Why
 Would loved to have chatted with Mark Buckland (@mjbuckland) face to face. Looking back through the tweets he was in a session I ran and in a couple of others I attended but somehow didn’t manage to connect. Will make sure this happens at ULearn!
8. What is the next book you are going to read and why? 
 Just started reading Creativity Inc today which I have been looking forward to for a while. If the new Ewan McIntosh book arrives it will be that next as I continue on my journey with Design Thinking. Otherwise Tait Coles’ Punk Learning that I got in the book swap at EdchatNZ conference, have read his blog for a while so interested to see what the book adds.
 
9. What is one thing you plan to do to continue the Education Revolution you learnt about at #Edchatnz?
 I want to help encourage more people to connect not only on twitter but by sharing their learning through blogs. Mark Osborne’s keynote pointing out the depth of discussion available when we meet face to face can also happen through blogging and commenting. Would love to see more people start with this – this blogging meme will help!
10. Will you take a risk and hand your students a blank canvas?
Have become reasonably well known now for some of the risks that occur in my classes…A blank canvas is all good but I would also add a couple of constraints to the activity – this is what causes the creativity to occur.
Who do will I tag with this meme:
All people I’m not sure are blogging yet, hopefully this meme will extend their connection with #edchatnz:
@MrHuggard (ok one that already blogs but I’m still keen to see more of his ideas online!)

Lessons from Term 2

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While playing with family over the first week of these holidays I have been reflecting back over last term. This reflection has led to me finding 5 key takeaways to remember in future.

1. Name the Elephant in the room

If you can name the issue/concern that is bugging you at the time it arises it allows your team to move forward together much quicker. An effective team has healthy working relationships and can deal with these situations, not get stuck on taking things personally.

2. Take the time to get students defining the problem

An extremely important step in problem solving is actually defining the right problem at the start. So often students are given the problem by the teacher. This term Pete McGhie and I really found out how powerful it is to get students defining the problem themselves. More time consuming but incredible learning ensued!

3. Teach less and teach it better

Page 34 New Zealand Curriculum

Page 34 New Zealand Curriculum

Continue reading →

NZ US Design Thinking Chat

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Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to Google Hangout into the awesome Fuse14 conference happening in Atlanta. After many twitter discussions with Grant Lichtman (author of The Falconer) and Meghan Cureton (Director of the Innovation Diploma at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Upper School, Atlanta) we decided it was time to chat ‘face to face’. The discussion also included Claire Amos and Karen Melhuish-Spencer here in NZ and ranged from the state of Design Thinking in our respective countries, how to grow student centred approaches through to the intersection of student passions and community needs. Watch the full video below:

Problem Finding and Student Ownership

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This term I have been co-teaching a module with Pete McGhie that has had students focusing on our developing neighbourhood, Hobsonville Point, as a place. By investigating this place we have looked to find a need facing residents and then design a product that would improve their life here.

After initial lessons focusing on developing an understanding of how place, food and culture interact as concepts we went out to explore our surroundings:

After this exploration we focused on generating as many problems as possible that we saw in the neighbourhood.

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Once we had brainstormed, shared and discussed the possible problems it was time to start defining the core problem as each group saw it. Continue reading →

Anchor Points

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Image sourced from Wikipedia

Earlier this week I had a mini-mental tantrum to do with my struggles teaching robotics. I pride myself on having a Growth Mindset but it absolutely disappeared on me as I thought “that’s it, next term I’m moving back to teaching the stuff that I know really well and that is my passion, not theirs (the students).” But after letting my tantrum go I was able to reflect and move forward with teaching robotics in a more effective way.

This whole episode (and how quickly it happened) reminded of a visual metaphor (I think that’s the right thing – I may be about to be slayed by the English teachers out there!) I thought of a couple of weeks ago when having a critical friend talk with Maurie. Continue reading →

Changing Tack?

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I have spent much of this term working and learning in the robotics lab with my students. This includes a Spin Module (90 minutes a week), Big Project (3 hours a week) and 2 My Times (flexitimes at 50 minutes each). Right now, I’m not thinking of being in here as much in future.

To meet the needs of our students who were interested in Robotics I got involved and have benefitted greatly from external support of those far more knowledgeable in this area than I am. But over the last week or so I have begun to question how much of my focus has been on our robotics areas. Because I do not have the skills and knowledge in this area, I am constantly needing to learn more and have found at times that I have not been able to help students as they struggle with certain aspects they are working on. Youtube, Instructables and Arduino tutorials have certainly helped but at times even then I have been flummoxed. So more time being spent (in school and out) learning and curating resources to help me and the students as we progress with their projects.

Of course, this then leads to the critical reflection points of am I adding value for these students? Continue reading →

Advice for Twitter Chats

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From a small start at the end of 2012, the NZ twitter education chat #edchatnz has grown exponentially. The last chat had around 1000 tweets in the 60 minutes that the chat ran for. It was moving so fast that some very experienced Edchatters were struggling to keep up with what was happening, let alone those new to taking part. There are lots of posts out there offering advice for teachers new to twitter (such as this great one by @lisa_madden) but not much advice on venturing into the often fast moving world of a twitter chat. Hence, this post: How to take part in the awesome learning of a twitter chat when you are new to them.
Continue reading →