Truth is so excellent

"Truth is so excellent that if it praises but small things they become noble" Leonardo Da Vinci

Embedded Professional Learning - Week 2:

The thoughts of Da Vinci have always fascinated me. Well perhaps not always, but certainly for a long time before he became fashionable again (move over Dan Brown!)

The Truth is, I am discovering some fairly amazing truths about myself. I am wondering how it is possible to have such a passion for developing young people, yet be so overwhelmed by the challenge of it all. Teachers who have been 'at it' for some time, make it look so easy.

The Truth is, this is much harder than I expected, and my natural instincts don't seem to be helping much. When I decided to become a classroom teacher, I did not expect to experience so much failure. How is it possible to plan so carefully, prepare so thoroughly and still crash and burn? My Mentor Teacher says I am doing ok. I feel like I have been stolen away and some incompetent git has been put inside my skin.

The Truth is, I am running entirely on faith right now and desperately searching for a little of that 'nobility' that Leo mentions.

The Power of Power Point

In the realms of Active Learning PPT has got to be one of the greatest tools. PPT packages can be created to guide a student's learning, research, discovery, and critical thinking, and made available to them either in class, by email, on USB or on disc. It is a brilliant tool and a skill I am really glad to have acquired. The PPT loaded up here on my sight is titled Learning Activity - Event Management. It is an adaptation of a training activity I prepared last year for a VET qualification, and is a perfect start for my Grade 12 English Communication class for their Event Management Unit beginning this term. Years of experience in Event Management has taught me that every little detail needs to be covered, so this is the focus of the presentation in relation to Venues and Artists. There are worksheets and assessment activities also available. to go with this activity. They do not fit the format for blog posting here, so to receive these just leave me a message (as comment) with your email address.

I see PPT as a great tool to support many of our planning frameworks. It is also the perfect procedural skill to showcase students' declarative knowledge. PPT is simple to learn and can produce impressive results in visual appeal and organisation of content. In fact ,it is one of the finest organisational tools I have encountered because it forces students to sequence their thinking, while allowing them to edit the process.

Accomplishing the skill of PPT is also great for students' self esteem (2nd from the top of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid). It is a perfect playground for the visual learner, relies heavily on DOL 2 and 4, and incorporates aspects of Critical, Creative and Self-regulating Habits of Mind.

With access to the right equipment, students can begin to use PPT in Primary school, and be very proficient within a short period of time. It's like playing a computer game, so students are both motivated and excited to produce Assessment activities in this format.

Incidentally, to upload your PPT to your blog go to:
www.slideshare.net/guest66ae43/how-to-add-power-point-presentations-to-blogger.

Making a Diaporama

What's a diaporama? That's what we used to call a slide show. Photographic competitions all over the world were held for the finest selection of beautifully crafted photographs that were painstakingly sequenced for effect. I know because my sister used to win them. Aged 15 in the adult sections! She was fantastic at it. I never did try my hand, and now I don't have to, because I can do it all on line!

My second encounter with the slide show was with large screened slide advertising that my partner and his mate were marketing in Brisbane in the 80's. They got them into the Brisbane Airport, Toombul Shooping Centre, Chermside and Indooroopilly I recall. It was an excellent idea that they imported from Canada. It never did take off completely though, and was soon superseded by video footage advertising that ran on a loop.

As for my own experience here, I am a little disappointed. My own album of photos just won't load, so I am unable to show you the incredible Raise Your Voice festival that I attended in Brisbane, which is weird because other photos have loaded perfectly. Anyway, I have found an excellent collection of Flikr photos on a singing theme, so they will suffice for now. Stay tuned for the Festival soon!

I think students would get such a kick out of making their own slide shows. It's a wonderful way to jazz up a blog, or web page, and working with photos is just so much fun. Once again they create an immediacy and enthusiasm that is difficult to top. Using Relate-Create-Donate students could even undertake to put together slide shows to showcase different aspects of their school and school life to have running in the admin foyer, or loaded onto the school website. Community organisations may even pay for students to put together themed shows or advertising for their showrooms, waiting rooms and lunch rooms. I can think of at least one lunch room where a relaxing slide show would be an enormous improvement.

These days, the project potential of this simple skill is unlimited. A flow of images tells a million words, and can spark interest where there was none before. I was in a pet shop today where a slide show was running of every animal you could imagine. It was fascinating and having it running there on the counter created a fun atmosphere at the point of sale. Images will always draw the eye and I think there are endless ways in which a slide show could be used not just as an archive, but to engage learning, convey meaning and create atmosphere.

Using Wikipedia

I love this site for its abundance of information and accessibility. Almost without exception it is the first sight listed in all my searches and I have found it to be an excellent starting point for student research. With my year 11 and 12 students I spend a lot of time on musical analysis, aspects of style, historical influences as well as the details of composers' lives and careers. Wikipedia is just the best "first stop" resource for the students. It provides great articles that cover almost everything they need to know to get started and usually points them in the direction of more information should they require it.

It's true, sometimes the comments are shallow, based in opinion rather than scholarship, but often they are insightful and can help students develop perspective. I recently had senior students put together their own research pack on the life and works of Anton Dvorak, composer of the great New World Symphony. Through Wikipedia they were able to piece together his life journey, and in particular the years spent in New York and his devotion to the music of the Native Americans. This was very unexpected and fascinating to them. Dvorak was Czech after all.

Wikipedia is also my best friend when I am trying to prepare LEP's in a rush on material with which I am not 100% familiar. I also like the fact that discussion pages are in a state of constant update. Of course authenticity is important, and while the articles may not all be of sophisticated levels of scholarship, they are covered by the creative common license agreement.

I did not develop my musical knowledge bank on Wikipedia. I did it the hard way, in libraries full of very thick books, and in journals and Record stores that cost me a fortune. So far my students have never served me up false information found on Wikipedia. I find it to be a reliable information source, all the more useful because information is concise, clear and accessible. It is also one of the few sights to which students can go to read what other students have already discovered about their research topic. That alone is valuable, as it creates a sense of shared experience that validates the task while also encouraging their further investigations.

I give Wikipedia 5 stars and will continue to use it as both a teaching and motivational tool.

Get Inspired by Active Inspire

I am lucky to be using the Interactive Whiteboard with my Year 9 English class. The possibilities are endless. Talk about Active Learning! At this stage the content is prepared by my Learning Manager, but I get to implement the learning activites with the class. The students are so motivated and call out excitedly all the tools that I should be using. Not only does the IWB make the lesson more fun, but the learning becomes seamless. We move from viewing of film clips, to looking at film reviews on www.rottentomatoes.com, to instruction in a power point style, to lively discussion and back to more film. The gadgets and tools are so accessible down the side of the screen and so far, no malfunctions. Students can add their ideas onscreen in dot point or work in groups to come up with an idea which they then transfer to the board. It's a wonderful learning tool, and creates a great learning environment.

Learning Activity - Event Management Unit

Event Venues

View more presentations from amandaobrien2.

Using YouTube for Learning

There are so many possibilities with this resource. YouTube carries vids on everything from Uncle Harry cleaning his teeth, to the very best of pro-am live performances and theatre. It is an exciting resource that I have been using for years, as a reference, research and teaching tool. Performing Arts is my thing, and my students and groups all learn early on to access YouTube and download anything they would like to sing or perform. They have been bringing me these ideas for vetting and selection for a long time. Being 'old school' I could see the value in the tool, but was too afraid to try to download any of it myself. So while I used immediate access, I had no archive of all the material. But not anymore. Thanks to the GDLT course work I am now as proficient as the very best of my teens. Now I can impress them by coming to class with ideas and downloads. I have even learned an ultra-quick way to complete the download which involves no pasting of addresses - just type "keep" in front of YouTube in the address and hit return. How easy is that? (My seniors were very impressed when I shared that one with them). Perhaps you already knew this, but its empowering for me to feel some degree of confidence in my IT skills, at last!

My plan for YouTube in my EPL is for a learning experience on Dreamtime Stories as Plays. I have chosen Tiddalik the Frog for the play, and have sourced three excellent and very different performance/presentation ideas from YouTube. These downlolads will provide the foundation awareness for my year 8 music class. From there we will work on script development, character development, costume, set and promotion using other ICT frameworks, working towards our own performance in NAIDOC week.

See my posting on "Tiddalik" for more details on the project.

Voki Oki Oki, Oi! Oi! Oi!

I am completely hooked on voki.com. For engaging learners it is an excellent tool that can be utilised in a multitude of learning activites. See below:

• Learning activities can be introduced in a fun, interesting way. See my Tiddalik posting.
  
• Teachers can direct specific assessment questions to the class, in an engaging way.
• Voki is an excellent tool for students who have lower level reading and writing skills.
• Through the use of Voki students can listen to the teacher's instructions as many times as necessary.
  
• Voki will assist ESL students, who can hear the instructions from the teacher in English as well as in their native language.
  
• Students can be set a series of questions to be answered periodically throughout the unit of work, perhaps on a weekly basis, to which they must respond.
• Students can learn how to create their own voki, and make their response through a voki of their own creation.
  
• Students can also use voki to stay connected to busy parents, by sending voki messages direct to their parents..
• Greetings can be sent by students for special days. Mother's Day is coming up soon.
  

As a tool for the classroom, Voki's potential is unlimited. Students will enjoy creating their own voki's for fun, or for assessment purposes. It is another way to engage learning through procedural knowledge to display declaritive knowledge. It involves Active Learning and supports Engagement Theory. Voki's lead to the pinnacle of Maslow's pyramid, Self-actualisation and fulfillment, by providing students with a simple, yet effective means of expressing their identity and their ideas. It is a creative process with a purposeful outcome, and it is great fun... even for grownups!

To Get You Own Voki! go to www.voki.com and follow the prompts.

Tiddalik The Frog - voki, wiki, and YouTube

Get a Voki now!

This is my "Play Project" space. I have based it on the NAIDOC project that I am helping my Learning Manager with at school. She is using a published version of the play "Tiddalik the Frog" from a Prim-Ed Publication, "Aboriginal Legend Plays". Students are grade 8-12 and the performance will be presented during NAIDOC week this month.

Thinking about Learning Engagement Theory however, I would like to adapt this idea for Year 8 Music or English, to include a greater focus on ICT resources and development. Aspects of the project would include acquiring and integrating of the narrative, development of a script, creation of costume design, researching of music resources and sound effects - all created by the students themselves.

I have found 3 excellent YouTube resources that tell the story. This would be a great way to begin the project, allowing students to hear and see the story before embarking on their own journey with Tiddalik:

1. Indigenous Storyteller
www.YouTube.com/watch?v=d9Hi_CbLQs&feature=related

2.Paintings, narrative and didgeridoo
www.YouTube.com/watch?v=VpZ29kUCQWM

3. Performance by Great Big Book
www.bookedout.com.au/performance/Tiddalik

I think a class wiki will be a must, so students can combine their ideas. They would need to identify the characters in the story, come up with costume ideas, design a simple set, source appropriate background music and sound effects (all of which will be available on YouTube or Limewire and create their script.

Some leading questions for the task might be:

• Who was Tiddalik?
• What does he do?
• Who are the other characters?
  
• What is the setting of the story?
• What music would suit this story?
• How does this lesson teach us in our life today?

Students would work in groups on each aspect of the project, compiling their findings and ideas on respective wiki views. Rehearsals would take place in class time or during Rich Task time. With a final performance scheduled for NAIDOC week or end of term.

It would be tricky to implement this project in my current EPL as there is no internet connection to the Music Block (!!!) making it impossible for students to research online or access their wiki. Special sessions can be booked in the computer lab, but I am told these have to be booked months in advance. So I will keep this idea in my bag of tricks for the next EPL.

The voki used here to introduce the project to the students, was created on www.voki.com. It was a very simple process, which I managed to create entirely by myself.

To create your own voki, just clik on the "Get a voki now" link at the top of this post.

For more info on my use of voki see my post Voki Oki Oki, Oi! Oi! Oi!

Acceptance is the Key

I think all any of us want is to be accepted. I really relate to the scenario of having to achieve in order to 'earn' that right to belong. I thought it was just me, and had never interpreted it as a 20th Century educational phenomenon. Needless to say I found article by Norman Kunc (1992) very illuminating. The argument made in this article is very strong, particularly as it describes benefits for every member of the classroom. Acceptance equals an emotional state of relaxation which is conducive to healthy self esteem and the process of learning. I imagine the active learning approach would go hand in hand with this plan. The more students interact and participate together, the more familiar and connected they will become, which will enhance their sense of belonging and preparedness to learn. The same principle applies to learning styles. By incorporating a variety of learning style activities into the one session, we can in a sense 'welcome' each type of learner to the process, again enhancing the sense of classroom community which hopefully works as a model for out-of-school attitudes and perceptions also. Maybe it was Felder's reference to the "spirituality of teaching", but this whole unit has really got me thinking how important it is for us as teachers, to actively generate a culture of tolerance and cooperation in which meaningful learning can thrive.

Kunc, N., (1992) The Need to Belong: Rediscovering Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, (in Villa R.,, Thousand, J., Stainback, W. & Stainback, S. Restructuring for Caring & Effective Education. Baltimore: Paul Brooks.