Teaching Hacks.com

Spent the last little while getting Moodle up and running on the server. I am planning to experiment on a PD model where educators help to create the course as they go through it. (I know - sounds flakey - but if it works )

The idea is to create a structured core of a course with the ability to edit elements within it’s structure. Learners can go through the course passively or actively. A passive participant would read, view, and reflect on the content that they are learning. After or while working through the assignments, an active participant could change or expand on the sections of the course through topical wikis, synchronous and asynchronous discussions. The self-directed collaboration nature of the course will rely on course participants in order to maintain portions of the course.

I am going to start with a sample core course and if it is successful, increase the breadth. Before I open up the course to everyone I would like to get some feedback from a few people. If you are interested in participating in the course please contact me. The length of the course will depend on the participants level of interest and if they are an active or passive participant.

The Teaching Hacks Learning Modules can be found here:

http://www.teachinghacks.com/moodle/

If you would like to try out the sample course contact me here:

http://www.teachinghacks.com/contact/

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Interested in a social bookmarking tool focused K-12? I was thinking of running Scuttle on my server or another server and then do some customizations/hacks in order to offer it up a focused version for educators/students. I was thinking something along the lines of James Farmer’s http://edublogs.org/ for social bookmarking.

Perhaps I’m reinventing the wheel, but would love to get some feedback, if there is interest.

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I wanted to take something that educators in Ontario are already familiar with and apply them to information literacy. Something that really stood out was George Polya’s four-step Problem Solving model which appears in the Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8 Mathematics. This post like the previous one needs to be developed a little more. (One day when I get more time to write or someone decides to pay me to do it

The Steps are:

Understand the Problem
* reread and restate the problem
* identify the information given and the information that needs to be determined

Make a Plan
* relate the problem to similar problems solved in the past
* consider possible strategies
* select a strategy or a combination of strategies

Carry Out the Plan
* execute the chosen strategy
* do the necessary calculations
* monitor success
* revise or apply different strategies as necessary

Look Back at the Solution
* check the reasonableness of the answer
* review the method used: Did it make sense? Is there a better way to approach the problem?
* consider extensions or variations

The steps for problem solving match the steps for researching web resources rather well. When students search the internet for information they need to ask critical questions and relections that help to access and evaluate the authenticity of the information. This type of learning can be built upon the problem solving model with a few tweaks, and be a useful tool for students to use forever.

Understand the Problem
* what is the problem that needs to be solved through the internet search?
* what are the key words that relate specifically to the problem?
* what is the information that I need and what information is not necessary?

Make a Plan
* where have you found similar information in the past, where might this information be located?
* what are the possible tools that you can use to get this information?
* what strategy or a combination of strategies will help you to filter the results?

Carry Out the Plan
* execute strategies, organize and summarize results
* decide on the relevance of the information
* think about bias of the information
* revise or apply different strategies as necessary in order to obtain useful in formation

Look Back at the Solution
* check the reasonableness of the information collected
* review the process used in order to obtain the information – was it useful? would you use it again?
* consider extensions or variations of strategies for other situations

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I have talked about a multi-modal approach to professional development in the past but I think this needs more elaboration.  Most of the PD that I have seen in the school systems is still based on a train-the-trainer model and it just does not work.  What we need is to build in a collaboration model and support system into local PD that makes sense for educators when they approach a particular topic within their teaching career.

I’m going to sketch out some rough ideas for a possible model that seems far-fetched, but who knows what the future may hold….I know this needs quite a bit of work, but I wanted to share it anyways.

The Typical Model of Professional Development

An initiative might come from the Ministry of Education that needs to be delivered to educators. Trainers from the Ministry work with local resource teachers on the initiative in a day-long workshop or week long event or over a number of sessions. ÂÂ

The resource teachers now incorporate this message into their local PD events where educators in the board attend to learn and incorporate the new materials into their teaching.  Again in one off workshops or over a few sessions without much continuing support because of the sheer number of educators that need support.

Educators are then left to try and incorporate these new materials into their teaching routine.  Some educators will seek support from other teachers locally. A few innovative educators might seek support outside of the local school through communities of practice or online through virtual communities.

A Possible Multi-Modal Support Model of Professional Development
An educator can begin this professional development process at anytime, but always starts at the idea stage.

Idea Stage

Ministry trains appropriately to the different administrative staff down to the principal level on the initiative offering live person support for the big ideas that province wants to achieve at the local level for students. ÂÂ

All materials from the training event should be digitized and chunked into what is important to which Teacher/Administrator/Coordinator/Supervisory Officer – grade, subject, division and department needs to be considered.  Everything that was made available to the resource teachers then becomes available to those who will need to incorporate it.

All presentations from the training event are chunked into 10-15 minute segments that can be reviewed by anyone in the province, but structured to suit the needs of specific educators. Professional development time is given to educators at the local level to specifically review materials from the initiative as well as come up with ideas that might help to support it.

Creation Stage

Support materials on this initiative that are created (during the course of the school day) by educators, resource teachers, school boards and anyone else employed by the province are shared in a central provincial repository for this initiative where resources are structured and peer reviewed to suit the needs of specific educators.

Resource teachers and educators at the local school board work with this repository to customize materials to suit the needs of the students, and then add these materials back to the repository. Educators also have the opporunity to work collaboratively though sychronous and asychronous tools with an other member of the provincial learning community with a mandate of customizing resources to suit the educators specific needs. Thus collectively creating digital resources customized for educators with specific needs.

The Continual Beta Stage

Board support staff concentrates on pieces of the alpha stage that cannot be digitized like acquiring physical resources for educators and spreading the word on the big ideas of the initiative.

From the central repository, provincial trainers, resource teachers, and support staff concentrate on the big ideas while providing ongoing live person, synchronous and asynchronous professional development organized by the province to meet the specific needs of the educator.  Where by educators on a local level get peer support from within their school, school board, or could draw upon support from any other school boards depending on their specific needs whenever they need it.ÂÂ

All digital resources are available to all educators in the province, but support for the initiative comes from any member of the provincial learning community.

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This is an interesting wiki project from the Civics Channel…

Canadawiki - http://canadawiki.org/index.php - is a new Civics Channel project designed for people interested in Canada’s History, Politics, Geography, Provinces, Places, Economy, Population, Aboriginal, Biography and Culture.

Canadawiki is linked to Canada Channel’s Civics Canada Online textbook at http://canadawiki.org/index.php/Civics, and features content from two Northern Blue Publishing textbooks, History of Canada Online (http://canadawiki.org/index.php/Online_Textbook) and Canada’s First People (http://canadawiki.org/index.php/Narrative).
ÂÂ

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The development of the Web 2.0 for K-12 Educators wiki is going well. I was inspired by the barnraising to continue developing the wiki section of the wiki. I have also converted the RSS Ideas For Educators document to the wiki in order for me to add and make changes to it on the fly.

Sections Added and Being Developed:

Main Page

Weblogs in Education

Wiki: Collaborative Editing in Education

RSS Ideas in Education

Enjoy!

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I had fun participating in the barnraising over at EdTechTalk today. It was neat collaborative project idea, with many people contributing from around the world, in order to come up with content that would be useful. We didn’t come up with much content, but we did come up with a framework that would be useful for future collaboration sessions and hopefully encourage future development. It might be interesting to see if we could have a few more conferences like this one, in order to further develop these frameworks into something useful.

During the barnraising, the content was decided on, broken into modules and a leader was elected who helped guide us through the creation process. I was working with Bud Hunt as our mediator - on the wiki module. I wish I had more time to discuss the content synchronously with the group.

I look forward to future interactive conference opportunities like this one.

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I just added a few new php tools to the Teacher Tools section on my other project:

Lowest Common Multiple Worksheet Maker Generate worksheets based on a range of multiples.

Greatest Common Factor Worksheet Maker Generate worksheets based on a range of multiples.

Exponents Worksheet Maker Choose from a range of base numbers, and the types of positive and negative exponents to include in your worksheet.

Canadian Coins Worksheet Maker Choose the number and type of coins that you would like to appear on the worksheet.

Enjoy!

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