Education Matters

I read a lot of stuff on the web and listen in on a lot of conversations about interactive whiteboards and all that jazz.  Sometimes I’m all pumped up and sometimes, I get a little deflated. So I’ve been thinking lately, just what IS an ActivClassroom anyway?

The question sets above give some interesting definitions, but personally, I disagree to all of them.   However, that’s what I seem to be reading about so that’s the perception – but is perception the reality?

To me, the ActivClassroom is a group learning environment, where we use the individual components (interactive whiteboard, Learner Response Systems, ActivInspire), to encourage group participation. It’s not what the components are but more what you do with them

So that got me thinking of even more basic concepts like personal beliefs about learning (and the implications of the ActivClassroom).

Here’s What I Believe About Learning

To me, these are my beliefs about learning:

1. Learning should be fun.
2. Students who participate and contribute learn better.
3. Assessment should be for learning.
4. Learning should be student centered.
5. Lessons should reach all learners regardless of their learning styles.
6. Technology itself doesn’t makes success. Good application can  (as seen in the research!)

These beliefs help me define the ActivClassroom – as what I’ve stated before, it’s a group learning environment which encourages active student participation in lessons.

But then…how do the students participate? How are they engaged?

1. By watching the teacher demonstrate things on the ActivBoard?
2. By going up one-by-one to the ActivBoard to write or move something?
3. By taking a quiz so that they can quickly get their scores?

Certainly, it can be more than that.

Technology That Empowers Better Human Interaction

How do we set an ActivClassroom vision for teachers so that this technology allows for BETTER human interaction in the classroom and not a replacement for it?

I don’t know all the answers, but I feel like I’ve been on a journey of discovery myself. Here are some steps I’ve noted as I’ve made my ActivClassroom journey and hopefully moved from a more teacher-centered place to a student-centered place.

A Journey of Discovery

Step 1. This ActivBoard is just like my dry erase board. I can write on it, change colors, use highlighters, save it and print it.   I can have as many pages as I want.  I won’t have to re-write or re-draw all this each time I teach this class and it’s less messy, too!

Step 2. Hey, with ActivInspire  I can create presentations, similar to PowerPoint.

And I can import my PowerPoint presentations! Each slide can have text and images which I can link to videos, animations or web pages, from inside my presentation for my students to watch.

I can highlight words or circle them, I can reveal a key point at a time, I can use a spotlight to focus students on specific areas of my page and move pictures around. Afterwards, I can give a quiz with my ActiVotes and it will keep score for grading. Note how many times I used the word “I.”

Step 3. My students can do things.  I can use ActivInspire to set up an activity.  An individual student can come to the board to have a go and the student can highlight stuff. He can move objects around and draw lines between pictures and words. This is like a digital worksheet. I can recreate them, scan them then take a screen shot of part of them.

Step 4. I’ve been visiting Promethean Planet a lot and found more efficient ways to include more students in my lessons. I can set up an activity for small groups and whole groups. The reset button in ActivInspire lets me easily move groups of students through the activity without worrying that the kids will mess it up and waste time. I can add page notes to each activity that the kids can access or other teachers can see if they want to use my ideas.

Step 5. Today I discovered I can use the Learner Response Systems to allow students to check their OWN understanding of concepts throughout the lesson, not just at the end as a quiz or summative.  I found by watching a Teacher Feature on Planet and reading forum comments that the there are benefits to NOT giving the correct answer immediately to the students. They can benefit more by figuring it out on their own through verbal discussions.

While I set the stage and guide the discussions, students are learning more when I allow for more self-discovery and deeper understanding. The ActiVotes can let them say if they agree or not to an answer or idea.

Step 6. I can let students do diagramming of concepts in whole group using the Learner Response System. All my students can contribute, not just the student “at the board.” This keeps everyone actively participating and not tuning out when its not their turn. Engagement doesn’t mean that they are listening to me, it means that they are actively participating.

Step 7. I can ask them to “text” in ideas that we can discuss, sort and organize.  The ActivExpression Learner Response System allows them to contribute in ways I am still discovering.

I guess today more than any other date – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – people have had a golden two minutes to stop and reflect about war, what it means for previous generations of people and for our generation of today.

And when do people ever have the opportunity to stop for two minutes silence and think of other people who have given so much for our freedom?

The title of this blog article ‘People of the Great War’ really fits in what we’re remembering, it’s people that war affects, people who make the sacrifices and people who feel the freedom that people fought for. Take the Battle of the Somme;  over 60,000 people died on the first day. That’s 60,000 families who lives were never the same again.

Remembering Today

One of the most memorable words spoken by the last remaining living WWI veteran, Harry Patch, who died aged 111 years old, was that we should ‘never forget’. People do still need to remember, making sense of the past to understand the future, which is where education can play a huge part in helping pupils to answer the question – ‘why remember?’

Imperial War Museum

The recent partner work published on Promethean Planet for the Imperial War Museum – taking their ‘People of the Great War’ resources and providing them as interactive content, is a good as any place to start.

There are three resource packs, Love & Loss, Rest & Relaxation, & Going to War, all providing first-hand insight into what war meant in the early 1900’s.

This picture (above) from the Love & Loss resource pack, of a father holding his two daughters, sums up unimaginable heartache for thousands of war children, and lots of questions for the classroom – what do you think he’s feeling? Do you think he saw them again? Some of the questions have been integrated into this ActivInspire flipchart for the Imperial War Museum, a good start point for any lesson on the effects of war on people.

The Unknown Australian Soldier

Audio can be a very emotive way of learning. We don’t see any images, just hear a voice, so we have to imagine the rest. In the ’stimulation society’ we live in, it’s quite a back-to-basic approach that’s an incredible means of communication. To try this out, take this Remembrance Day speech in 1993 by the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating,  about the ‘Unknown Australian Soldier‘, just one of the 45,000 Australians killed in battle. Again, put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s lost a loved one in war; listen to the speech – what would you feel? Anger or sadness, or both?

A Soldier’ Experience

To bring the impact of war back to 2009, why not introduce students to some of the people who are experiencing war this very day? YouTube contains a vast source of first-hand accounts of war in Iraq & Afghanistan (though make sure you check the comments under the video as some may need censoring for the classroom). One example of this is an interview with two US soldiers, talking about how they prepare for conflict. Real people, in real-life situations.

Perhaps by seeing how the generation growing up besides us is still fighting for the same values that we fought for in 1914, students can understand better why we should never forget?

Newspapers. Does anyone still read a newspaper? In the technology era that our students live in, how many of them would go beyond the news websites and pick up a traditional paper to read?

Reading a physical paper can deliver much more than just scanning a website, and one initiative in New Zealand has been trying to encourage students to engage in newspapers and current affairs, through a unique ‘Newspapers in Education’ initiative.

About Newspapers in Education (NiE)

The Newspapers in Education programme (run by Fairfax Media) provides New Zealand teachers with high-quality, motivating, curriculum-based resources.  NiE mini newspapers are written by teachers who understand the curriculum and the pressures facing today’s teachers.

To explore  NiE further, the Planet team caught up with Laura Carseldine from FairFax Media in New Zealand, to find out about how they bring news to the classroom.

What We Aim to Do

Teachers are increasingly busy today, wearing many hats to ensure they get the job done.  Fairfax Newspapers in Education have done the work for teachers by reducing their workloads, providing schools with well-planned, informative resources that fit easily into the school curriculum, while making school work fun and interesting for students.

Fairfax NiE’s mini newspapers and resources encourage schools and students to utilise the newspaper; each mini newspaper comes with an accompanying regional newspaper.  The newspaper relates to activities in the mini newspapers and also promotes readership in young New Zealanders, keeping them up-to-date with the latest current events so they’re aware of what’s happening in the world around them.

This knowledge equips students with the tools to form their own thoughts, opinions and ideas on what they see, hear and learn.

Making NiE Interactive in Schools

Fairfax NiE believe it’s important to move with the times so in 2008, we began creating ActivBoard flipcharts for schools to complement the resources that are put out each week.

These flipcharts provide a medium in which photos and infographics can be displayed in more detail and to a larger group of people.  A class can then discuss the images and information together as well as interact with the flipcharts in ways they aren’t able to do with the newsprint format.  The smaller, bite-sized activities and moving parts, keep students captivated and more motivated to learn through this positive interaction.

View an example from here: Go Zone – Food from the Earth

Ordering NiE for Your School

Along with the current topics we have available, Fairfax Newspapers in Education have a great range of back issues available which are listed on the NiE website.  Topics range from social studies and literacy, art and maths, environmental and health, and much more.