Google Edu Conference On Air

On Sunday I will be presenting a session as part of the Google Edu Conference On Air

I will be explaining how I went about creating a template for my students to use within our Google Apps for Edu domain for their ICT work at KS3. We have over 600 students using google sites within GAFE to display their work in ICT lessons. I will discuss the problems that I uncovered through the process and had to overcome. I will also discuss the benefits and drawbacks of using a system like this. I will also explain our use of class badges and introduce you to www.classbadges.com

Please watch the stream online via my Google+ page, and post questions if you have any in the feed.

PyConUK and PythonEDU

I attended my first Python conference over the weekend of the 29th September. This is primarily a conference for programmers using the programming language Python, but this year the organisers have worked to include the teaching community as programming becomes more and more likely to appear on any plans for a new ICT curriculum in the UK.

I was not sure what to expect over the weekend, and as I took my seat and the mornings introduction began I realised that the geek to teacher ratio was worse than expected. I was constantly asked over the weekend if I thought that teacher groups knew about professional developer communities like the Python community? I guess not.

My first session was an introduction to Python for newbies. This was my first ever programming lesson, and as a teacher I constantly questioned how I would teach this to my students? Would I teach concepts and basic coding steps and then ask students to implement them in made up circumstances or would I flip this model and give students code through a project so they can understand its application before working out what the code is doing to understand how to program. (I'm not sure if I'm closer to a solution to this conundrum.) Python seems extremely easy to learn as a programming language. I come from a more scripting background so it is still difficult for me to completely understand it but I feel empowered to at least have a go. The best part of this session was that the organisers had placed experienced developers around the room to help us students when we got stuck. This was genius. I was lucky enough to have been sat with someone who explained problems to me in such a way that helped me to understand. This triggered an idea - why not ask the coders to produce screencasts, voice threads or videos for simple concept explanations or activities to aid learning. they could be uploaded *somewhere* and we teachers could use them to create lessons.

Later that evening there was a discussion between the chairman of the Python Software Foundation, Van Lindberg, the staff of PyConUK, and for some strange reason I was there too. We discussed the future of Python in education globally. I enjoyed this discussion as I think we are all working towards the same goal. I really think the python community has an opportunity here to have Python as the language taught predominantly in schools in the UK. The raspberry pi is going to make this the number one language and if there is a way to teach something in scratch and then mirror it in python to show kids the advantages and disadvantages of both it will be an even better education tool. 

On the second day I worked with Nicholas Tollervey @ntoll to deliver an 'Education Sprint'. After talking with many of the teachers on the first day it became clear that both parties needed to be brought together to tackle the problems faced by educators. The simplest way to do this was to start with statements or questions. We had the following:

• What do the developers need to know from the teachers?
• What do developers think students should learn?
• What do developers think teachers need to know to be able to teach programming?
• What ideas for projects that can turned into schemes of work can you think of?
• Willing to help teachers?

After giving the attendee's time to write answers for each we started a very interesting discussion on each topic. By the end of the discussion we chose 5 project ideas and split into groups. One teacher per group of developers to guide the discussion to create a scheme of work or series of lessons. I think this was a really great process, I think it showed that both groups could collaborate well to come up with something fantastic, and I personally think that's what education is all about. Good things happen when you bring experts and educators together. All the projects have been put onto GitHub which can be found on Nicholas' blog.

Somehow I ended up on a panel where I clearly didn't belong, but y'know need to represent! Luckily I was rescued before I really said what I think about the ongoing issues of education. lol.

I kept returning to the idea of having an online space where teachers, developers and students could access what they need from each other. I'm not really sure how to describe what I'm envisioning:

As the three target groups want different things it might be an idea to split the site into 3 categories: If you are a teacher click here, if you are a student click here, if you are a python guru genius developer wishing to help the first two groups because you are lovely click here.

• Geeks can upload videos/screenshares/audio/voicethreads, or activities, or problems. They could locate schools via a search nearby asking for support, or advertise code dojos.
• Teachers can use geek content to create lessons, we can share lesson plans, activities and schemes of work. Or search for geeks in the area willing to help out at different levels (1st, 2nd, 3rd line etc)
• Students can find help to questions from geeks, or find other students to help them, find events to attend for them.

It's something I would like to work on, but I think I just have too much going on right now, especially if we are expecting an ofsted inspection at any moment. Perhaps some nice developer will help me out. *hint hint major hint*

At the end of the day I gave a lightening talk about trying to get the Python developer community to get involved by creating content that could be blended or flipped by teachers into lesson plans. It's difficult to get across what you are trying to under a time pressure. I tried to use my example of teaching to explain the need for a Python EDU portal but not sure I really did it very well. (you can judge by watching this video from 1.50.53 onwards) I'm trying to promote a way of doing things in teaching, not myself. The feedback from the community is that they wanted an inclusive community/group/mailing list/forum for teachers and geeks. Github is too geeky for teachers and CAS is too teachery for geeks (not my words).

The beauty of reaching out to this community of programmers is that they work on a open source principle that mirrors my own teaching. The python community listened to what I had to say and in many ways have responded. This has culminated in the creation of a google group called Python EDU for geeks and educators. I hope in some way teachers will see this as an opportunity to do something great. But currently, with this strange education climate this all could be a waste of time :/

P.S. Maybe the site should include a geek to teacher speak and vice versa translator for the lols.

Second Raspberry Jam

I know, I'm not very inventive with naming my blog posts. It's all part of my master plan to be able to find them in a rush. At least that's the logic I'm sticking with.

The Raspberry Jam at Mozilla Space in London was very different to the last jam that I attended. There was much more of a buzz and people were moving around the room looking at, engaging with pi projects brought in by people.

@MrLockyer @Jennyfer37 and I built on what we had started at the last jam, encouraging the community to help us create pi projects that we could turn into schemes of work. Stephen did this by laying out lots of card on a table and offering people post it notes to offer their help, technical advice, project ideas, and suggestions for what teachers and students should learn/teach. Jenny and I attempted to divert as many people as possible over towards the area to join us!

The most exciting moment for me, was when Richard Vidler arrived with a project idea that we had started to form at the last raspberry jam in a breakout room. He took the idea, worked on it over the summer, and brought in a document that I can start to turn into a scheme of work for teachers. And there was much rejoicing. I've already emailed the electronics club at my school to see if they want to be involved.

When I met up with SK Pang, he suggested that he could create a parts kit for the project to sell to schools. He also has a kit and a tutorial on his site for creating a traffic light system.

I witnessed a lego mindstorm education kit plugged into a raspberry pi, and after some tinkering from the community with a few lines of code they had it spinning and singing Mary had a little lamb. If you have lego kits laying about in your school, you could already have the makings of a great pi project. It must be fate, because when I got into work this morning, there was a lego edu catalogue on my desk!

So... epic.

Watch this space for pi projects and schemes of work coming your way. I'm going to set up a site page for teachers/schools/students/parents with projects and schemes of work probably over the weekend.

Eportfolio and ICT Badges Reactions

Today I taught one of my classes how to use the eportfolio template I had made for them and explained that they could make the welcome page of their eportfolio their own by including facts about themselves and images. (See my last post if you have no idea what I'm talking about!)

They seemed to really enjoy decorating their own pages, but I was disappointed that some of the students didn't want to customise it more.

Then I presented the ICT class badges and the idea behind them. I was surprised by their reaction. They really seemed excited about collecting the badges by unlocking them like achievements. This would be either by completing units or by demonstrating a skill. They can then proudly display the badges on their site. There was hushed whispers about which badge they wanted to get first and a lot of "Oh yeah I want that one". This bodes well.

I've printed a display of them for the classrooms and soon I can start to dish them out. Exciting times! I might have to think of more to keep the interest up.

 

ePortfolios for KS3

This post is mainly for @computing_teacher and anyone wanting to know why I made the decisions I did about how my students would create and use eportfolios in KS3 ICT lessons.

So for a while now I've been contemplating having all my students create and use eportfolios in ICT lessons at key stage 3. This is for a number of reasons, firstly our students do not have exercise books, so how do we record that we are feeding back to our students. Before now we've used a word document to record feedback, but there was no way of telling if students were reading it or learning from it. Secondly, most KS4 qualifications have started to require students to put all their finished coursework into an eportfolio. Finally, I think it's a skill that all students should learn and understand as CV's move from being paper based to electronic in the future. Employers will expect some form of eportfolio to show evidence of work. In all industries.

For some time I've gone back and forth between using a blog or creating a website. Both have pros and cons. In fact I've changed my mind between them on many occasions but it always came back to the same issue. With Google sites within Google Apps for Edu, I can control the content and who see's it, therefore protecting the students from the internet and prevent the students from doing/saying something inappropriate on the open internet. Most blog sites are uncontrollable. Maybe for a small class its ok, but for nearly 600 students this was going to be a problem.

I decided that for Year's 7 & 8 I would create a Google Site Template for the eportfolio that they would be able to copy from within GAFE, and then edit to make it their own. As this concept of an eportfolio would be new to them it seemed wise to model what one looks like. I thought it might be nice for Year 9 to create a google site from scratch as they have already studied website development in year 8, and it would be more fun for them to make it completely personalised.

I designed and created a Google Site like you would normally but from my GAFE account. Once it was complete I saved it as a template, for students within the domain. It is now ready for students to access in the first lessons when we return. (After I explain it to my dept!)

In my next blog I will explain my ICT class badges, but as I am still developing these, I'm not ready to share them all with you yet. 

Yes Luke Skywalker is one of my students, and he is really whiney. He cries often.

Share Everything

One of the most surprising things to happen during the last term of a crazy school year where I transformed my teaching and status, was being contacted by a school in Portsmouth who had seen a scheme of work I had been trailing with my Year 9's through www.ictwithmissp.co.uk They asked if they could use it and have access o the online resources that went with it. Obviously they could only see the lessons as I laid them out for students to access through my blended learning model.

I said "Yes, of course, here is all the gubbins you will need."

I told this story to other teachers both within my own department, school and to teaching friends outside of school. They all asked the same question "Why did you just hand it over? Why didn't you ask for money?"

My answer "Share Everything."

I have an open source attitude to teaching. Firstly, education should be free, and every child should have access to the same resources. This obviously doesn't happen in any education system. The richest children will always have access to the best of everything meaning the wealthy will stay wealthy and the poor will stay poor (but that's a separate argument). Secondly, like open source coding, the collaboration of minds improves the software, everyone contributing a piece to move forward. If a few of my own lesson plans or ideas are a starting point, and then a teacher in Portsmouth improves them and then a teacher from Preston adds an idea, we ALL benefit! Let's stop giving our money to third party companies who don't know anything about teaching.  Stop teaching the curriculum, let's create our own curriculum. We are the experts in our fields, we should shape our own education system for the better.

Listen to this guy, because this is what I think I'm doing, and you should be doing too:

Creative use of ICT

A few months ago I was asked to write a guest blog about creative use of ICT in teaching. That post can be found here.