Integrating Technology & Genius Hour: My Journey as a Teacher & Learner
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3 Things to Consider Before Blogging with your Class

5/23/2012

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This year I decided to start blogging with my class.  I heard about some other classes doing it via twitter as well as my colleague Hugh McDonald, and I thought I would give it a try.  I have a few students in my class who groan every time I ask them to pull out their journals, so I thought perhaps this would be a better way.  I also thought it would be a perfect way for my students to share about the progress of their Genius Hour projects.  So I set up the account on Kidblog (very easy to do) and away we went!  The kids loved it!  Research shows that kids are drawn to blogging because it gives them an authentic audience and I completely agree.  My students love commenting on each other's posts and often spend quite a bit of their own time at home reading each classmate’s blog and offering a comment.  It has been wonderful watching my students read and write in a meaningful way and without hearing a single groan. 

With all new things, we did have a few blips though and I would like to share those with you today so that you can learn from our mistakes!  So here are 3 Things to Consider Before Blogging with your Class:

1.  Model how to write a good blog entry first!  I know that this sounds obvious...but in all my excitement starting this new 2.0 tool, I did not take the time to show my students how to write a thoughtful and meaningful post.  Next time, I would take the time to draft one with the whole class, using the projector. 

2.  Model how to write a thoughtful comment!  Sounds like number 1, but I am talking about the comments they make on the blog entries.  When we first started blogging, my students wrote things like, "that's nice" or "me too".  It drove me crazy...why weren't they writing thoughtful comments?  Well, once again, I had never modeled how to write a good comment.  My bad.  I would really recommend practising this with your students first.  In fact, I recently read an article in which the teachers gave the students thoughtful prompts before they started writing, such as: "I wonder..., Have you considered..."  (Davis, A. and E. McGrail, 2009). What a great idea!

3.  And finally, have every student change their passwords after you hand out their log-ins/passwords!  It will save you a lot of grief!

Any other advice you would give?
Happy Blogging :)


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I Get my Energy from All of You

4/6/2012

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I have had a fantastic week.  And it is because of all the fantastic people around me.  I have been thinking a lot about this lately; how the people that we surround ourselves with make a huge impact on us.  I know this isn't rocket science and it has been said countless times before...but it is really true!  I am surrounded by the most fantastic students, colleagues, classmates (in my ITDA program at SFU) and PLN (educators on twitter).  This past week I have felt your passion for learning and it has fueled me to be an even stronger teacher.  Collaborating with all of you makes me want to be the best teacher I can be.   Your enthusiasm and dedication make me excited to do even more and continue to share my learning with others! 

Let me back up for a moment and explain my week so you can see how I came to this lovely epiphany...

Last weekend I found myself spending some time with someone who was being really negative about everything...and it brought me down.  I thought about it a lot and I knew I didn't like it.  This person wasn't a teacher, just someone I know.  Anyway, no matter what we talked about, they had negative feelings toward it.  It was exhausting!  I thought about it and realized that being around negative people can be so tiring! 

So on Tuesday night when I was sitting with my class I realized that these people were all the opposite of that individual on the weekend.  Instead of being negative, my classmates were encouraging each other, celebrating each others discoveries within our field studies, and thanking each other for sharing our successes.  It was fantastic!  I left feeling wonderful...the opposite of how I felt on the weekend. 

This positivity continued on Wednesday when I co-moderated the #genisuhour chat (we have it at 6 pm the first Wednesday of each month).  Again, I was feeling pumped!  It was an hour of celebrating the success of #geniushour in our classrooms with fantastically positive teachers!  Teachers across North America who want to help each other help our students discover their passions!

Which made me think about how contagious being positive truly is.  I was feeling fantastic, like a super-teacher who could do anything!  And I know my positive energy was then impacting the energy of the people around me.  I had several different teachers approach me last week and thank me for encouraging/motivating them.  It was touching, but I honestly felt that it was the other way around and that THEY were making ME feel more excited about teaching.  And well, I suppose both are true.  Surrounding ourselves with positive people make all of us feel more energized and more passionate about teaching!

We need to surround ourselves with positive people.  People who love what they do and love to share that feeling.  People who blog about successes and tweet about the fantastic things going on it their classrooms.  People who love life and love teaching and energize us with their passion.  People who are willing to take risks and try new strategies with their teaching.  People who are committed to life long learning and encourage their students to be curious too.

I am so looking forward to this coming week...I almost can't wait for the long weekend to be over (okay, I know that sounds super nerdy)...Tuesday night I have class with 33 other fantastic teachers, Wednesday afternoon I am going to a workshop with Alec Couros (@courosa) whom I have heard great things about, and Friday morning I will spend collaborating & planning a workshop for the STA convention on May 4 with Hugh McDonald (@hughtheteacher).  And of course I will continue to be energized by my PLN on twitter. 

It is going to be a wonderful week! I know I will be surrounded by positive people who unknowingly always encourage me to be the best teacher that I can be!

Where do you get your energy from?
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Letting Go of Control and Giving Students Choices

2/20/2012

5 Comments

 
I have been a reflecting machine lately.  I have always thought of myself as pretty self aware.  I think about my practice, reflect on lessons, talk with coworkers and all that really good stuff, but lately I have certainly upped the ante. 

I am at a point in my career where it would be easy to start taking teaching for granted and just go with the flow/do the same old thing.  I refuse to let this happen.  I am determined to not be that kind of teacher.  To not teach a lesson/unit the way that I have because it has worked before, but rather, to actively think about what I am doing, the rationale behind it and adapt/shift/change as needed. 

This term I have taught very differently.
(Read: I have taken a lot of risks.) 

It is incredible!  I love teaching more than ever! 

I have really pushed myself, including beginning genius hour in my classroom, blogging regularly with my students, encouraging students to BYOD and letting them take the reigns regarding what their reading projects and homework should look like. 

I have let go of a lot of control, and it hasn't been easy.  There are times when I think to myself, "what am I doing?" but thankfully those are greatly out numbered by the times that I hear students say:
  • "I know how to do that.  Let me help you" to their classmate.
  • "Can we comment on each other's blogs for homework?" 
  • "Let's look it up", as they pull out their own smart device.
I am giving them choices and letting them go explore topics they feel passionate about. 

At the last Pro D Day, I went to a lecture given by David Warlick. He reminded us that " This time of rapid change is forcing us, for the first time in decades to rethink education and what it means to be educated."

I think that is very important.   We need to change the way we teach and perhaps sometimes try teaching less, and instead show our students how to teach themselves and each other.  We can all do this more often.  Sometimes it is as easy as stepping back and asking, "How do you think we should do it?"

I would love to hear about how other teachers give students choice and provide authentic learning experiences!

5 Comments

Collaboration, Communication, Community

1/26/2012

11 Comments

 

Collaboration, Communication, Community 

These are definitely a few of my favourite things!  And I am so grateful that I work with such wonderful colleagues who want to collaborate and communicate about what we are doing in our classrooms!  It is such a wonderful sense of community, especially in my wing of the school where many of us plan together and do the same things with our students.  

For example, I am doing my second field study on the concept of #geniushour and blogging with my class and it is so wonderful that my neighbour down the hall, Mr. McDonald, is doing the exact same activities with his grade 7s.  We talk, email and tweet about what we are doing (successes, struggles) everyday and it is so valuable to have this sense of community here and to know that I am not trying out new activities/teaching styles on my own but that there is someone here in the exact same boat as me.  

I am also fortunate to have such a wonderful PLN on twitter, and I also collaborate with them (especially about #geniushour).

Speaking of #geniushour, it is going really well!  So far this month, students had three Monday afternoons to work on their personal inquiry projects and this Monday they will present to the class what they accomplished during that time.  I am really excited to see the powerpoints, movies, etc this Monday. And I am so thankful to Mrs. Krebs and Mr. McDonald for helping me along my journey.

Mr. McDonald's class website
My class website
Mr. McDonald's students' blogs
My student's blogs
Follow Mr. McDonald @hughtheteacher
Follow me @gallit_z
Follow Mrs. Krebs @mrsdkrebs
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Division 6 had their first #geniushour!

1/11/2012

4 Comments

 
For term two, I have decided to focus my 2nd field study on doing a student-directed project called genius hour and our blogs about it.

Even though the term at SFU hasn't started yet, I was too anxious to wait so we began this week!  I explained what genius hour was to the class (an hour per week in which they would be able to learn about whatever they want; becoming a genius in whatever interests them and that after a few weeks we would present our learnings to the class) and their first task was to blog about what they wanted to focus on.

A few students needed some help coming up with ideas, but the rest were really excited to start learning about/doing what they were passionate about!  On Monday afternoon, I had some students in the computer lab researching and creating powerpoints, some students filming movies that they later wanted to create into iMovies, one student painting and some writing scripts for french cooking shows!  Everyone was excited and everyone was on task!  I helped out as needed but really tried to push the students to problem solve and troubleshoot on their own.  It was amazing!

As a teacher, I was a little apprehensive to give up so much of the control to the students, but I am now a firm believer in genius hour!

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Reading. Thinking. Planning. (about my next field study inquiry question)

12/13/2011

0 Comments

 
Read an interesting blog today...

Here is the link:http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/10-ways-school-has-changed/

It talks about how classrooms are changing & the way in which we teach is changing.  One point that really grabbed my attention (as I am thinking about doing my next field study on the topic of genius hour) was:"We used to teach everything we wanted students to know… Now we know learning can take place through student centred inquiry"

This is what I want to do next term.  Give the students an hour a week to research their own inquiry project, and let their imaginations and interests guide their learning (instead of me).


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My plans for next term

12/7/2011

1 Comment

 
We had our last class for the Fall term yesterday...it went really well.  We all shared our field studies and talked about what we have learned this term.  I really enjoy just sitting around with colleagues and talking about teaching...wish there was more time during the week to do this.  

I am thankful that Marlowe gives us time with our cohort to talk....collaboration really is so wonderful.  I learn so much from my fellow teachers.

During the evening I shared what I plan on doing for my next field study:
genius hour and e-portfolios

As I was talking about genius hour and explaining what it is to my group, I got a tweet from a teacher in Massachusetts about how she plans on doing genius hour with her grade 4s..it was such perfect timing as I was in the middle of talking about it myself...twitter is an incredible tool for collaboration too!  

I can't wait to start genius hour with my class next term (in January)


:D
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    My name is Gallit Zvi and I am an Elementary School Teacher and Vice Principal in Surrey, BC. I am also a blogger and co-author of The Genius Hour Guidebook.
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