Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to spend the day with my new twitter friend, Lindsey Own, in her school in Seattle, Washington.  Lindsey and I met on twitter a little while ago and had chatted a bit about Genius Hour.  She told me that she loves visiting other schools and asked if she could come up to mine during her Spring Break.  Of course I said yes, and told her how much I loved visiting other schools as well.  And so I asked if I could visit hers during my Spring Break (thank goodness we have different breaks so we could make this happen). 

If you haven't done this before, you need to try it!  It is a wonderful opportunity!  You learn so much just by observing and chatting with a different set of teachers.  I have been lucky enough to have been able to visit other classrooms several times over the years. 

The highlights:

One of Lindsey's students picked me up from the front office and brought me to her classroom and this is the scene that I walked in on.  Lindsey and a group of her students playing a card game together.  They were chatting and laughing and having a great time.  At first, I was confused...what on earth was going on?  This was science class?  I sat at the side and just watched and realized that it was still before the first period bell.  The children were just warming up for their day.  At Lindsey's school the kids are encouraged to show up 10 minutes before the bell to touch base with their homeroom teacher and get warmed up for their day.  Lindsey uses this time to check in with her students and make a personal connection.  I couldn't stop smiling.  What a wonderful start to their day!

After chatting with Lindsey and touring the school (which included watching the K students get in their daily physical activity by having a little morning dance...so cute), I checked out a math class that is using video games to teach.  Now at first I thought that meant gamification (which I do not know a lot about, but it involves a lot of external rewards, which I try to avoid in my classroom), but I quickly learned that was not what she was doing at all.  Teaching through games is different. The video game she was using, Anti-chamber, is built on problem solving, which related directly to the unit of study in her math class.  Students were engaged, on task and learning.  Very cool.

After math, I checked out a few other classes, and then ended my day back in Lindsey's science class where they were working on their Science Symposium (like a Science Fair without ribbons).  I was drawn to the windows in her classroom as they had post-it notes all over them.  I asked her about them, and she explained how they began their science inquiry unit with a discussion about deep questions.  They looked at google-able questions and questions that required more in-depth analysis and which would make a better science project.

This is something I also spend a great deal of time on with my students.  Not only in Science class, but also in Language Arts, when we ask our students to ask meaningful questions of the texts that we read.  We don't want our students asking surface level questions that they can easily look up the answer to, but rather we want them to dig deeper and come up with questions that require deep thought, critical thinking, and perhaps experimentation to solve.

I loved this post-it note activity and it is definitely something I am going to 'steal' from my visit.  And that is what is so wonderful about these, as Lindsey puts it, "cross-pollination" visits...we can step into someone else's world, look at their classroom and units and 'steal' brilliant ideas.  

When we are beginner teachers, we are told to "beg, borrow and steal" lesson plans from our colleagues.  But I worry that once we gain experience, too many people stop this practice because their filing cabinets are now full of ideas and they don't have to 'shop around' anymore.  But then we risk losing something so incredible...that conversation with our colleagues, both in and out of our own schools.  

I love visiting...I love wandering the halls of my own school and checking out what everyone is doing and I love visiting other schools.  Thank goodness for spring break, professional development days, and a principal who will cover my class so that I get these opportunities.  Thank goodness for twitter, youtube, blogs, pinterest and all the other online platforms I use to connect with other educators.   

Thank you Lindsey and everyone at your lovely school for inviting me into your precious learning space.  I can't wait for you to visit my school!

This blog entry was inspired by Ben Wilkoff's vlog below.  I watched it a few weeks ago and have been thinking about it since. 

Ben talks about how lucky he feels when he is within a school and he mentions those "moments when you hear someone say aha!" Those moments really are amazing!  I feel so lucky to be with the learners in my class and in my school, especially when I am a part of those aha moments.  It truly is amazing to watch someone learn something new, to see that look in their eyes when the connection is made, when they have created something new, or when they are proud of themselves for a job well done.  
Take a look at Ben's vlog:

"Those moments are real".  What a great line, Ben.  They are real.  Real and amazing and sometimes we get so used to them we forget to stop and treasure them.  We need to take pause in those moments though, and really recognize how wonderful they are.

I LOVE being a teacher and I LOVE being in school...spending time with children and helping them find their passions, explore their wonders is...well, it is just amazing!  I am so grateful.

A few weeks ago, I found out that I was successful in my application to be an FA at Simon Fraser University.  I am so excited to spend time with pre-service teachers and am looking forward to the new experience, but I do worry that I will miss being in my own elementary school.  I will miss being with my little group of 10-12 year olds when they get their first blog comment from outside of Canada, when they begin their first Genius Hour project or when they discover the strategy that works for them in Math.

My secondment starts in August and so I will have to soak in every moment with my students until then!  Thank you for this vlog post, Ben.  It is a good reminder to treasure our experiences in school and to remember that we are indeed fortunate to be able to work with these amazing, inspiring young minds.

So, in response to Ben's original question: "I feel lucky to be within a school.  Do you?"  The answer is YES!  And thank goodness I will still be in and out of schools regularly with my new position!

Why do you feel lucky when you are in a school?

Every couple of weeks, we get a new topic with #etmooc a recent one was about the meaning behind the buzz words like digital literacy, media literacy...you know what I mean...

I thought a lot about it...what does it mean to me?  And is it important?  And why?

And I realized that my whole transformation as an educator is because of my digital literacy.  Two years ago I began a quest to improve as an educator.  I wanted to take my teaching to the next level.  I thought that meant integrating technology and so that is what I aimed to do...I was going to be a fabulous teacher because I was going to do all kinds of awesome, techy things with my class!  I signed up for twitter, registered for the ITDA program at SFU and started this blog.  And amazing things happened.  I became more digitally literate, but more importantly, I met all of YOU -- I became a connected educator. 

And so, I think what I have come to realize, is that it is not digital literacy that makes us better and stronger educators (people?) but it is the amazing connections that we can now make because of our digital literacy that is really more important.  

Thoughts?

So, should I change the name of my blog?

About two years ago when I started this blog, I meant for it to be a journal of some sort about the things I was learning to do in my graduate diploma course, ITDA, at SFU.  I was determined to figure out how to integrate tech in meaningful ways and wanted to document my journey.  Hence the title, "Integrating Technology: My Journey".  Well once I started the program and started analyzing my practise to see where tech needed to/could be integrated, I actually began an amazing journey which didn't only involve integrating tech, but rather I started truly reflecting on my practise and looking at WHY I was teaching the way that I was.  And I was examining everything!!  It wasn't just about integrating tech anymore...it became much, much more.  

I started thinking about student centred and project based learning.  I completely changed my math, science and social studies program in order to make them more hands on.  

I fell in love with Genius Hour and Passion Based Learning and now offer my students an hour each week in which they can learn about anything they want.

I partnered up with Hugh McDonald and we took down a wall in our school (one of those sliding ones, no hammers needed) so that we could team teach all the time!

We got rid of individual desks and were lucky enough to have our school get round tables for us so that our students could collaborate on everything.

With the support of our principal, we brought in alternate learning spaces and set up a couch area and bean bag area, giving students choice about where they wanted to learn.

We cut our boring spelling program and now teach it as needed.

I gave complete control of my the bulliten boards to my students. They own their learning and their learning space now. 

And we haven't even got to the technology integration yet!!!  Which has been fabulous (students are able to create amazing projects using iPads, we blog, we have ePortfolios, twitter, and so much more...the tech has been fantastic!  But certainly not everything.

I started this journey thinking that all I needed was to learn about some great apps...but it turns out my journey has been much, much more than that. And I am so thankful and I look forward to where the journey will take me next...so it is about my journey...but more than just tech.

So, should I change the name of my blog?  Hmm...

Last week I had a fascinating conversation with Ben Wilkoff and Sheri Edwards about the rewording of PLN from Personal Learning Network to Personal Learning Neighbourhood.  And it really struck a chord with me (see blog about that here).  Well, since that conversation, Ben and I had another conversation about Mr. Rogers and the power of a neighbourhood and Ben suggested we put together a little PLN/#etmooc theme song.  The recording of our duet is below and the lyrics to the song are below that.

For me, the making of the song was really a metaphor of the song's sentiment.  We are celebrating meaningful and professional connections by connecting and collaborating with each other.

It is one of the nicest things I have participated in online. 
Thank you all for being a part of my Personal Learning Neighbourhood.

On the "Connect in the Middle" wiki, Sheri has taken some of the #ETMOOC prompts and encouraged us to blog about:

• How important is connected learning? Why?
• Is it possible for our classrooms to support this kind of learning? If so, how?

I think connected learning is so important.  And not just for my students, but for me as well.  As an educator, my practice began to transform when I became connected and started joining "neighbourhoods" of learners and educators.  Hang out in these neighbourhoods long enough and you can't NOT start to reflect on your own practise, start questioning education and make changes/improvements in your classroom. 

And if it works for us, then it should work for our students too?  I believe so.  My students are always excited when they get a comment on their blog from a student in another school.  They loved being a part of the Global Read Aloud, and they keep reminding me that we have to connect with Mr. Hong's class again! Connections are HUGE.  To all of us.

Thank you all for connecting to me and for being in my neighbourhood.

I have been planning this blog post, since having a very interesting conversation with twitter pal, Heidi Hass Gable (@HHG), a couple of weeks ago.  We talked about the benefits of WiFi and how my teaching has evolved since my school went wireless.  So, I have been thinking about this post since then and was planning on writing about my transformation from "teacher at the centre of it all" to another body blending into the crowd...you have heard it before-- "The guide on the side instead of the sage on the stage".  That sort of thing...and it is all true and it has been an amazing journey!

But then the nature of this post switched...

My friend and teaching partner, Hugh McDonald (@HughTheTeacher) gave our students WiFi as the topic for their blog post this week...and now my perspective doesn't seem as important anymore...instead here is what our students think about how WiFi and how it has changed their learning.

I absolutely love her thoughts on sharing her learning; "In our class we have e-portfolios and we put our best work and achievements online so the world can see them and inspire other people such as teachers.  Sharing your knowledge with people is a really important thing because you can help someone create something amazing just by sharing your ideas".  How brilliant!

Another 6th grade student, Sarah, wrote, "We need wifi in school because it’s You can talk to other people around the world about the project that we are doing like the globel read aloud about a book called the one and only ivan which is amazing talking to other schools about it".

And here is Indy's blog:

Amanjot, a grade 7 student, points out that  "With wifi you have a variety of ways of getting research done, you have pictures and videos. In math now we are making a arcade game and we need to learn all the learning outcomes. Most of the people in my class don’t know how to do circumference. So they search it on you tube".

Students taking charge of their own learning?  Sounds good to me!

Marianne, a grade 7 student brought up a few different benefits, one being presentations.  She stated, "We also use it a lot for presentations, such as PowerPoints, creating websites or just writing something on Word. It’s more interesting to be able to learn it by creating it and using many cool features than just writing it on a poster. Other students that may be watching the Powerpoint will be engaged in it and taking a lot of information in".

I could keep going and going, or if you are interested please check out all our blogs at kidblog.org/mrszisclass-2.  We would love to hear your comments!  

The children have spoken, and they see the benefits that WiFi has had on their education: the sharing with a global community, the ability to create and share their ePortfolios, iPad math games, etc.  It is a part of the way we learn now and gives us so many opportunities.

What do you think?  Has it changed the way you teach or the way your students learn?

I have had a fantastic week!  So much professional development!

Yesterday I went to a workshop on Challenge Based Learning at Apple Canada Inc.  Challenge Based Learning is like Project Based Learning but with an authentic challenge to do something about a real challenge/problem in the world.  It was very inspiring!  Read more about it here.

Then today I was lucky enough to attend the Surrey School district's Engaging the Digital Learner DInner Series and hear Shelley Wright talk about Inquiry Based Learning.  Learn more about Shelley here. 

And finally, Hugh McDonald and I also put together a short video and presentation for the same Dinner Series on Passion Based Learning and Genius Hour.  I spent a lot of time this week interviewing students and talking to them about Genius Hour--it was great to hear how passionate they were about Passion Based Learning!
Check out our students below:

It has been a wonderful week!  Lots of learning, reflecting and collaborating! Love it!

Special thanks to Antonio Vendramin for supporting me (with release time, etc) to participate in all of these awesome Pro D opportunities, to Elisa Carlson for providing us with such great learning opportunities, to Hugh McDonald for learning/sharing with me, and to my husband for being supportive of my learning and late night Pro Ds.

What did you learn about this week?

October 3rd was our last #geniushour chat (click here to learn more about Genius Hour) on twitter.
We had a fantastic conversation and some great ideas were shared.   Since that chat (click here to see all archived chats), I have had a few more people ask me about how to introduce Genius Hour.  So I thought I would compile a list of all the wonderful strategies that were discussed. 

Here it goes…

• Danielle Porte tweeted about doing a guided Genius Hour to start her class off this year.  I love this idea!  What a fantastic way to be able to model the inquiry process for your class!
  

• Similarly, Katy Gartside tweeted, “this week they are brainstorming ideas with parents for their indiv proj. Then we'll share, post on wall & they can add ideas” Then they did a group project.  I love how she involved the parents into the process!    
  

• Robyn Thiessen’s students have passion portfolios and they store their thoughts and ideas for Genius Hour in them! She introduced inquiry to her young students (yes, it can be done in primary!) through ME projects (delving into topics like what are your values and what are you not...I just love that this is with grades 3s and 4s).
  

• Denise Krebs' students are researching and presenting their Genius Hour plan before they begin their actual projects. Denise also put together this Genius Hour creativity rubric that students use to show their growth

• Joy Kirr gets her students into the inquiry process by asking them to think not only about what they wonder about, but also to reflect on what really bothers them!  What a fabulous way to get students to start thinking.

• Katrina Ling tweeted, “I set up a wonder wall too for #geniushour, we watched videos and brainstormed ideas. There are some kids invention videos from Ellen show.” Watching videos is a great hook!  Kids love to see what others have done and it gets them thinking hey I could do that. 
  

• Hugh McDonald also shared how he likes to introduce Genius Hour with YouTube videos that inspire curiosity and talk about Genius.  Some videos he uses are:
  

This year, Hugh and I introduced Genius Hour together.  We showed our students the above videos, got them thinking about their passions and wonders and, finally, we modelled it. We both spent some time on a weekend creating our own little Genius Hour projects.  Neither of us had ever made a movie using iMovie for iPads and it was something we wanted to learn more about, so we both learned how and created a short iMovie each.  Perfect for sharing a little of our lives with our students and for modeling the inquiry process! Thank you Dean Shareski, Antonio Vendramin and Jodi Pulvers for the inspiration.

I am sure there are many more ideas out there from other great teachers about how to introduce Genius Hour.  Please comment below if you would like to add to this list!

And I hope this has helped any of you out there that have wanted to start Genius Hour, but didn’t know how.  Happy Inquiring :)