Collaboration – Digi Coach: Embracing Change

Digital Coach, Good Practice, PYP Exhibition, Uncategorized

Collaborating Online – The PYP Exhibition

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 nicrehman

Following on from my post Using Tech to Enhance and Engage – The PYP Exhibition, I thought it would be useful to share how we collaborated online throughout the Exhibition process.

At the beginning of the inquiry I built a Google Site with a page for each of the Exhibition student groups: Dance, Painting, Film & Photography, Storytelling & Drama and Music. This site was used as a central hub for students, teachers and mentors to store and access Google Drive resources, to ask questions, share ideas, and reflect.

A key feature of this site was the use of Padlet as an online communication tool. This resource acts like a virtual notice board, where members of the Padlet can post sticky notes and make comments to share ideas. With this engaging and easy to use tool, users can make notes, add pictures, videos and links and comment on each other’s notes (if desired). Within each group’s page on the Google site, I embedded their Padlet for ease of accessibility. Each Padlet was set to private so that only invited users could see the board and student posts were moderated by teachers; ensuring students and teachers had a safe space to collaborate. Below are some screenshots of our Padlets with student and teacher names removed.

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Digital Coach, Good Practice, PYP Exhibition, Uncategorized

Using Tech to Enhance and Engage – The PYP Exhibition

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 nicrehman

This week our school has just celebrated the learning and achievements of our Year 6 students during their PYP Exhibition. Exploring how people express themselves, the students conducted an in-depth inquiry over six weeks into a Central Idea they helped to create based on their interests and passions.

CENTRAL IDEA

The Arts are a creative language that we use to express ourselves and to inspire others to change the way they think and act.

Facilitated by their teacher and mentor, each student developed their own line of inquiry to investigate. After weeks of asking questions, conducting research, collaborating with peers and exploring different concepts, the students presented their learning to their parents, teachers and other students across the school.

Throughout the Exhibition, students, teachers and mentors used a Google Site (with the added sparkle of Padlet) to communicate and organise resources. See my post Collaborating Online – The PYP Exhibition.

Being able to join Year 6 on their inquiry journey as a Digital Coach was an absolute joy! It was wonderful to see the creative ideas from students and mentors for using technology in their Exhibition. When students wanted ideas for presentation inspiration, we worked together to find ways for technology to engage and captivate their audience. Below are some examples of how we used tech in different ways across the Exhibition groups. Click on the circles to view images and captions.

Using Chrome Music Lab, visitors created melodies that played in the Silent Disco.

Another student demonstrated how different coloured filters can be used in photography to elicit different emotions.

Student made photography filters.

After viewing artwork, visitors shared their feelings through a word cloud poll.

Using Prezi, this student shared his research about different Jazz, Blues and Gospel musicians.

One student created a stop motion to demonstrate his understanding of how people express themselves through Science Fiction films.

A student used the Puppet Palls app to create a video of traditional and modern day interpretations of Shakespeare plays.

Visitors were encouraged to share their impression of London by submitting their response to an online poll.

Word cloud of London Photography poll.

Google Certified Innovator

Becoming A Google Certified Innovator: The Excitement Builds

April 4, 2017February 17, 2018 nicrehman

Finding out that I was accepted into the #LON17 Google Certified Innovator Program was simply exhilarating! We were notified via email and as soon as the word got out, we were posting like crazy, celebrating our glorious news.

It was a wonderful buzz connecting with 35 other like minded educators from around the world who had just received the same news; that we were going to be Innovators! Well, I really should revise that point, as many of us have already started innovating in education; now we have the opportunity to do so on a bigger scale with the support of Google.

Very swiftly our cohort began to make connections online, forming what is likely to be some lasting friendships. With such positivity and willingness to share, team mates posted words of encouragement and resources within the group. We also had some nifty designers who came up with #LON17 logos to inspire our team. Aren’t they great?!

#LON17 theresa — Designed by Dr Theresa Hamm @DrTHamm

Untitled — Designed by Robert King @RobertIsaKing

Coming from a wide range of locations and backgrounds, our #LON17 cohort has wonderful ideas for innovation. I feel really blessed to be a part of this talented group of educators. Check out our introductions and visions on the Google for Education Certified Innovators site.

As newly recruited Google Innovators, we were sent a BreakoutEDU box with a collaborative problem to solve. It was quite exciting to receive this in the mail as this was my first experience with BreakoutEDU. Our boxes contained very basic clues which required a lot discussion and testing of theories to solve the mystery. Luckily there were some bright sparks in the group who cracked different parts of the code and led us to solving part one of our challenge.

Our next step in the puzzle is to fill our box with an item that represents ourselves and give clues for others to guess our lock code. This will very cleverly lead us to introducing ourselves and how we have come to be the educators that we are today. What a great way to foster collaboration!

With two weeks to go, we excitedly await to meet our team mates and coaches in person at the London Google Innovator Academy 19th – 21st April 2017. As the countdown begins, I better get my thinking cap on and decide what to put in my BreakoutEDU box!

Digital Leaders, Uncategorized

Coding Week

February 21, 2016March 18, 2017 nicrehman

Coding week in the Lower School was a big success! The purpose of this week was to spark an interest in computer programming across the school. To kick off the celebrations our student Digital Leaders ran an assembly to spread the excitement. One of our Digital Leaders dressed up as a robot and his peers created an algorithm for him to follow. Two competitions were also launched for Lower and Upper Primary. Students had to use problem solving skills to identify what would happen when the algorithms were run.

Throughout the week, each class completed an Hour of Code. Students were introduced to key coding terminology such as algorithm (step by step instructions to solve a problem) and debug (find and fix mistakes in a computer program). As they wrote, ran and debugged algorithms, students were encouraged to use the computing vocabulary with their peers. It was wonderful to hear some of our youngest students talk about how computers work.

Practicing coding is an excellent opportunity for students to work collaboratively and use problem solving skills. When students were paired together on a device, we found that rich discussion followed as they shared strategies and clarified steps whilst adding them to the algorithm. Students also developed their spatial awareness skills as they determined which way they should turn their character to reach the target.

Overall it was a successful week and feedback from staff and students was positive. We look forward to including more coding into the curriculum and exploring more resources.