Infinite Monkeys: Part II

So yesterday I was writing about creating an app (short for software application) for teachers using MS Paint for Grade 1. I'm still working on it and since Kevin asked for a debrief on the software I thought I'd write another post on the process of building this app.

So far, there have been two areas of concern for me. The first has nothing to do with the software, but with the surprising lack of good lesson plans for MS Paint at Grade 1 that are on the web. Honestly, I feel we should have a mooc just to create quality technologically based lesson plans for other teachers.  Lots of teacher websites saying that MS Paint will help improve fine motor control and using the software is part of their technology plan but nothing that actually guides/informs other teachers about how you can accomplish that using Paint. (And what happens if you're in a district that can't afford a technology specialist?) So other than the ICT curriculum documents saying "Thou shalt use Paint!" if you're not comfortable using technology where are the resources?

Now onto the app building program Infinite Monkeys. It is easy to use, if you know how to attach RSS feeds from your various websites. I eventually found the solution to solve my YouTube RSS problem. You need to create your own channel with a distinct user name. This means you have to disconnect your Google+ account from your YouTube account and create a user name for your channel. It is that user name by itself (nothing else- no http, no www, etc.) that hooks your channel to the app builder when using Infinite Monkeys. The down side of it is that when you hook your channel to the app, it is only going to show the videos you've created not the playlists you've compiled. So all that work to attach my channel and none of it has anything to do with teaching MS Paint skills.

The other aspect of Infinite Monkeys I find frustrating is how quickly it becomes unresponsive. While I'm searching for solutions to various problems like locating an RSS feed the platform shuts down and you have to log back in. Not that this is difficult, just a click of a button, but when you are attempting to fine tune and see exactly what each link displays this can be a real time waster.

Finally, lets talk about the different links you can attach. You can only attach 9 elements and you get to choose from a variety of different links- Twitter, YouTube, your blog, documents, websites, etc. so there is a wide range of options. If you were to use this for self promotion for example, this is a great tool. If you have lesson plans already created with documents, forms, videos, a specific website, etc that can be downloaded, it is also amazing. But if you're trying to create a compilation of other work that is out on the web (because do you really wish to reinvent the wheel every time?) this is a difficult platform to use.

So if I was going to do this again ( and I might- I now have my own YouTube channel!) I would structure the process differently. Much like creating any unit plan, I would have to decide what specifically the app would teach, design the assets separately and use the app to compile all the links as a whole. A lot of creating/making to do to make a truly worthy app.

On reflection, to make a solid MS Paint unit, I would need to create a video for students and a video for teachers. My choices are limited right now to my channel on YouTube (no Animoto, GoAnimate or PopcornMaker for instance, unless I found a way to link directly to what I have created using those platforms), my blog, the creation of a Word document where I could compile all the links, a web link to a curriculum document (but which province or state?), probably a Thimble page on the topic and perhaps my Twitter account if it was relevant.

However, you can just build a website using Thimble or Weebly to compile all the necessary elements that already exist and spend your energy creating good quality lesson plans. It may be the easier route for creating, displaying and managing content.

Microsoft Paint and my first app

So as part of the clmooc, I've decided to build my first app (I'm using Infinite Monkeys) and I chose Microsoft Paint as my subject. Why? Because in the ICT curriculum in Canada and the US, Grade 1 is where you start using Paint. Those of us in the Educational Technology field are often playing with the latest and greatest new tools. We have a tendency to forget that not everyone is as comfortable with just the basics. And that's where you start with any learning isn't it? At the beginning? So if we're not teaching our teachers the basics of how to create on a computer, how are they going to do the same for their students?

So back to Paint. Paint is a simple program but you can do some very sophisticated drawing and editing with if you spend some time getting to know the program. There are not too many lesson plans for Paint out there only 3 million+. In the land of the internet that's not a huge number and it was already starting to give me Grade 3 lesson plans within the first 10 hits but I'm hoping to compile a list of the better ones for the app.  While there are lots of videos on how to use Paint for adults, I have yet to find a video designed for Grade 1 students on how to use Paint, which really surprised me. (So I will be making one soon I expect.) But should it surprise me? I think we're still dealing with the myth of the digital native and some resistance at the Primary levels to technology integration. And how many schools in Canada have a dedicated technology teacher? (If anyone knows, I really am interested in the answer.)

So for Grade 1, what can you do with Paint that you can integrate into the curriculum? Drawing and painting of course! Understanding colour for another. Shapes as well for math (very, very good for that!) Story writing, remixing images, fine motor control, the list goes on. While it is easy to find examples of student work in Grade 1 created with actual paint online (and the lesson plans that guided the creation), finding examples of student work created digitally in Paint is not so easy. I would love to see us create art using Paint and then transferring the idea to a paint/drawing project for instance. Perhaps have the students create a primary colour wheel/drawing in Paint and then do a similar project using paint or crayons in class? The possibilities for integration are there (the link is to a Blackboard session where a teacher is explaining how she integrated technology into her classroom for the first time.) We just have to become comfortable with the tools and use our imagination.

As to Infinite Monkey as an app tool? I'm working my way through it. As the video mentions you do need to have all of your links ready to go ahead of creating the app (and that is always a lot of work!) And it's not as intuitive as they make it out to be ( and isn't that always the case? Someone builds something and says, "It's easy!" and you're scratching your head, thinking, "Oh, I must be stupid?!") I made my first mistake on the first page when I wrote the title for the app (which automatically saves it as the url) and then realized I needed a different title (but the url remains the same even after you've changed the title.) So my advice, if you use this program, is to really think about what you want to name the resource and what it's purpose is, rather than do what I did, which is jump in with both feet (violating all of the rules of backward design! Designer, heal thyself!) I had also created a playlist for my app of YouTube videos but finding your RSS feed for You Tube is not as easy as you would think. (Hopefully my Twitter PLN will get back to me shortly.) However, I successfully attached my blog feed to the app and as many of you know, that's a big deal for me. So, as usual, one needs to play with a tool first, make mistakes and keep trying, before you can master it. Learning in action!

I'll post the link to the app when I am finished.

Maps

Maps! I have a lot of maps in my car, stuck into the pockets of the door. Maps of states and provinces, maps of attractions, museums, historic sites, maps of army bases. Some of the maps are in map books, some on the large sheets of paper that you try to fold back into the proper shape after using but never quite succeed. Indeed, in the trunk of the car is a plastic tub with all of the extra maps that we've picked up and may need again. In fact, the first thing I do when I move into a new area is buy a map. I have my husband drive me around the area for the first month we move to a new community so I can get the routes into my brain and off the paper. I don't like GP systems, often because I get lost using them and I don't have a cellphone either. When I drive, I drive and I really don't like being distracted.
I've moved a lot as my husband's job requires it. We'll be moving again this year but this time I've moved to the community ahead of time. We've moved to a place where we've lived before, which means I already know where I am going. I don't need to rely on a map as much. Not that there isn't anything new in the community since the last time I've lived here. Things do change. So there are still places to explore and see. But there is also a great deal of comfort in coming back to a place that you're familiar with and to not have to constantly rely on a map for the first few months after moving.

So, because I do know where I am going in this community I've made a video and a Google map of my visit to the library. What's great is I've learned to do two new things this week. Splice a video and to use Google maps to trace my movements. Thanks clmooc!

Off to the train for my weekly trip home to Montreal.

Connected Learning Mooc (clmooc)

So I've joined clmooc and I'm a little late to the party. But that's ok because this is a "participate when you want, where you can, do what you want to do" mooc. A "choose your own adventure" mooc. Similar to Teachtheweb, which I didn't do as much in as I should have....code avoidance?! Plus I got distracted by a pottery project (that originated from a response to a remix of my introductory web page in Thimble by Margaret Powers in our Mini Maker sub group. How cool it that!  But pottery takes so much longer than writing something online. I've made the plates, done the pencil sketches for the designs, decided on the technique (Black slip on greenware, then painted the design on in underglaze, then bisque fired, then colour correct (wouldn't you know it, Spectrum Bright Orange peeled from the black slip during bisquing!), then it's back to the kiln for the glaze fire. So I'm waiting for the first to plates to come out of the kiln. Throw in some serious family issues and you've got decreased participation in everything. I'm still working through Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence (Coursera) and I have an assignment due on June 25th I'd like to finish for that (it actually was inspiring-imagine that!) Best Coursera course I've taken so far (would actually think about enrolling at that school just to hang with the professor!) so I need to keep plugging away at that. Interestingly, students created a Google+ group for that course on our own. You'd think with all the social media tools out there Coursera could make their forum a little more interactive. I've been continuing to participate in Open Spokes ( and we need new people if you'd like to join) as well as continuing with the postETMOOC reading blog. This month, we've been looking at Hybrid Pedagogy. If you  haven't had a look at the site, it's got some great stuff on it. They really want to get the K-12 set contributing to their thinking, so think of stepping up to the plate.

I'd like to thank Sheri Edwards (as usual- a most awesome woman and teacher) for tweeting me and sending me her blog link to this week's clmooc activities so I am back on track. What would I do without my PLN? Thanks to Vanessa Vaile for sharing her Visify project as well.

So now I have to do the dreaded task of attaching my blog to the RSS feed. As usual, there's been enough time between the last time I did this that I have to look it up again. Then's it off to explore the clmooc Google + community blog and contact five new people that catch my eye. With over 400 people in this group I know I won't be able to talk to everyone. But I am going to try.


Here is my Picassohead (thanks for the idea Sheri!)

Failure and failing

So this week's topic in our Openspokes fellowship is failure, something we are all intimately acquainted with, for who has not failed at a task, at a crucial moment, sometimes with serious consequences? Who ends up a goat and goes to hell? Failure has been the gristmill for religion, literature, history, science, psychology and philosophy for eons. We all know who arrived at the North Pole but rarely do we find out about who didn't. Fail and failure have always been negative words so it is interesting to see so many people trying to turn it into a positive just lately. I have failed spectacularly in the educational setting, more than once. 

Since beginning my exploratory journey of online educational communities, failure has been a constant thread running throughout the discussions.   Brendan Murphy and I discussed failure in April, Kirsten and Erin have already posted this week about failure and what it might mean in regards to learning and students. I like Erin's belief that what we are attempting to do is teach resiliency and I think that Kirsten is spot on when writing about learning as a cyclical process, that failure has no part in since it is seen as an end and not a beginning. And yet, we use the term fail/ failure constantly in education, particularly in summative evaluation/assessment. In fact, we're addicted to it.

As we move to change our curriculum to reflect the circular nature of learning, perhaps we may also finally let go of the idea of summative assessment and banish failure from the classroom and from the educational discussion. After all, who is the summative assessment for? The student? Not at all. They know where they are from personal experience and the formative evaluation they have been receiving during the year. Parents? I used to dread report card time, when it seemed to be a litany of what my child needed to do to improve and having to argue with my husband about the value of the report card. (Sadly my children told me this was how they viewed report card grades: A-could have done better, B-bad, C-death.) Teachers? Do we crave designing multiple choice tests? Close sentences?  Having students study for provincial standardized test? How do we feel about the cookie cutter remarks we have to use in report cards where we've had to tell a seven year old they are limited in their ability? What kind of accounting system are we using to evaluate our students when you're a failure at seven? Where does our belief in allowing children to develop at their own pace, to explore and play as they learn and grow fit in with our bureaucratic school system and its need to be validated through summative assessment? So who's to blame for the word failure being bandied about?

We all are.

This is a world wide problem tied to long standing ingrained cultural practice. Parents and students expect grades, teachers comply as part of their job, the school system and governments use grades and pass rates to be accountable to the public for their spending on education. We have to re-frame the discussion, not only within our own practice as teachers (how much summative assessment can we strip out of our teaching particularly as we move to allowing students the ability to govern their own education and develop skills of self-regulation) but also with students, parents, our school boards and our governments. Until we all begin to question the role of failure in our system, we'll continue to talk about what to do about failure instead of looking at the education of a student as a continuum, where students meet challenges, work to overcome them and move on to the next challenge at their own pace so they can be successful.

P.S. I am fascinated with what happened to our good old fashioned English words that meant failure before the use of failure became widespread in English. There are multiple words that mean something similar to fail/failure in Old English: dwelain- to deceive, mislead, lead into sin or error (this one is closest to the original Latin meaning), aleogan- to fail to fulfill, misbeodan- injure, do wrong to, gedreosan- fall, perish, fail and abreoðan- fail, perish, be destroyed. All of these were replaced with the single word fail which is why there are so many definitions.

Hybrid Pedagogy: Leaders in Innovation

I’m biased. I admit it. I’m partial to the  Hybrid Pedagogy team of Pete Rorabaugh, Jesse Stommel, Sean Michael Morris, Robin Wharton and Valerie Robin.  How can I not be? These are the folks that brought us Twitter vs. Zombies where I learned to use Twitter as a communication tool through a game with Pete Rorabaugh. (I make an excellent zombie!)  I had participated in MOOCMOOC (a Hybrid Pedagogy playground) where I was introduced to the collaborative nature of Google docs. (No limit to the number of participants- write a paper in a day!) MOOCMOOC brought me to ETMOOC, a collaboratively run mooc which blew my mind away! I’ve written gushing posts about ETMOOC before but it can never be stated enough: Best learning experience ever! I felt renewed , rejuvenated in my learning, inspired by the brush with some amazingly creative people.  Jesse Stommel was a participant in ETMOOC and guided a collaborative effort in writing a poem. ETMOOC lead to postetmooc, because once you’ve ETMOOCed you want to maintain those collaborations, the positive energy that swirls around when your mind is being stretched and you’ve got a group who care about collaborative learning as a support network. You can see how Hybrid Pedagogy has become so much a part of my learning. In the spirit of collaboration I want to share!

When I contacted Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel about spending a month on Hybrid Pedagogy for postetmooc they were more than open to the idea. They have graciously agreed to participate in our discussion about digital publishing, networking, and community. 

 

So what’s so great about Hybrid Pedagogy and why should we spend a month studying and reading and questioning the founders? Let me count the ways:

1.   Promoting links between higher education and K-12: This is a great idea. As a former elementary teacher, I often feel like a poor cousin in the teaching world (particularly when people asked me why I was not teaching at a higher grade level.) Education is experiencing a major shake-up and K-12 is going to be a part of that change. The need to collaborate and rethink the process of learning is critical for all of us, at every grade level.

Jesse Stommel @Jessifer

It's always been a key part of our mission to broaden our network and make connections between K-12 and #highered.

And isn’t this something we’ve wanted to see too?

2.   A community:  Both Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel see the creation of Hybrid Pedagogy as a community that networks, researches and publishes scholarly articles surrounding the issues of progressive, critical pedagogy. “What we wanted to build was a network, a community for engaging a discussion of digital pedagogy, critical pedagogy, open education, and online learning. At the same time, we wanted to build a collection of resources to help facilitate conversations within that community.” jessestommel.com/blog/files/Pub…

 

As we’ve moved on from ETMOOC we’ve joined different ventures that require us to think about community, networking and publishing. We’ve also begun to really understand the value in developing collections of resources to share with our peers. 

3.   The spirit of scholarly generosity: As a journal, Hybrid Pedagogy has a team which peer reviews everything it publishes. They’ve published lots in a short period of time. But it is the spirit behind the journal that is the motivating factor here. They’re challenging the idea, not of scholarship, but of academic publishing and the rigid format that has evolved over the last 100 years that often favours the publisher and not the scholar. “The notion of an “academic journal” needs dismantling and reimagining. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t continue to have traditional academic journals, but that we need to considerably broaden the landscape to make way for dynamic collaboration, new media, and participatory culture.” jessestommel.com/blog/files/Pub…

As we move forward, we too need to think about how we are going to share our academic work with the world. 
 

4.  The use of play as a teaching tool: This, to me, is critical. I believe strongly in the value of play as a facilitator for learning for students of all ages. I rarely see it within the adult learning setting. The creation of Twitter vs. Zombies was eye opening to me. It wasn’t just that I learned the use of a technology I was struggling to understand through a game, but I also experienced the sheer joy of learning through play. As I said before, I haven’t played such a great game of tag in years. Through the process of game playing (because I am a highly competitive tag player) I learned to post pictures in Twitter, add sound, use Bitly, etc and finally create a popcorn video. Much of what comes out of Hybrid Pedagogy, including MOOCMOOC also incorporates this aspect of play. As Pete Rorabaugh wrote to me: “In short, we want to promote digital interaction -- our own and those of our colleagues -- that are open, collaborative, experiential, critical, experimental, rigorous, and playful. We want to promote collective pedagogical and scholarly work that empowers student agency and challenges established educational binaries.”

And really who doesn’t want to be a part of that amazing transformation?

So for the month of June, follow #digped (they do a twitterchat on the first Friday of the month about various topics), check out their website, follow some of the Unconference suggestions and prepare to ask Hybrid Pedagogy your questions in the hangout and in our Twitterchat #etmchat!

Being Open and the Open Web

Well, currently I am enrolled in Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence (Coursera) and Teachtheweb through Mozilla, plus being a member of several communities so I am feeling a little s t r e t c h e d. Both physically and mentally, so the power outage last night that shut the computer off and sent me to bed early was probably a good thing.

Synchronicity often happens in our lives and right now in the multiple groups I belong to we are discussing what is openness and what is the open web, so I thought I would throw in a few ideas into the pot.

Teachtheweb is about making content for the web and sharing that content. Funny how my mind works because I started thinking of Western history. Once upon a time, we were all makers. We had to grow, harvest, hunt, butcher, spin, weave, pot, bake, make our own ale, make our own tools, collect our own water, start a fire, etc. We went to bed when it was dark and rose when it was light. And we had to share with our community to survive. As our communities got larger, we began to specialize into guilds and start to communicate within and with other communities through verbal messengers and written messages. Society was no longer based on strictly face to face communication with those you knew intimately. Our standard of living began to increase the more we interacted with our groups and societies, as we traded ideas and discoveries, but we also began to consume more and make less. As the industrial revolution occurred, our making became further removed from the larger community. How many of us could or would be willing to do any of the tasks listed above? How many of us grow, harvest, collect water, spin or weave? Instead of a society of mainly makers we've became a society of mainly consumers. People who make or do physical tasks today are called "tradesmen" or "factory workers" and are often derided within Western society. Perhaps that's why we've sent those jobs to other countries.

What Teachtheweb is attempting to do is return us to the time when we consciously made things of value for the community, except that it is made digitally. This is a paradigm shift in our thinking, from consuming the web to creating the web. The web no longer just the purview of Silicon Valley but open to all. Are we all of the same skill level? No, but that is okay. Making the rounds right now is a stop action movie created by Kindergarten students. The teacher has asked us to remix it and share. And we are. So what is our community now? It is anyone who has access to the Internet, the tools to create content and the willingness to share their knowledge. Does that mean everyone? No it does not. Access, tools and sharing are the prerequisites of this community. So this is not yet a global movement. But it will be. So in twenty or thirty years we will be working in a fully networked world.

Ah but then comes the dreaded word...copyright. Think Creative Commons everyone. It is no use sharing our work if others can't use it. Why create if you're not willing to share your ideas? As so many have said, openness is a state of mind. It is about being willing to share, to collaborate, to be willing to look at a different perspective, to remix, reuse and recycle. To be willing to say, "I don't know, does someone else?" or "Take this idea and make it better." Being human means we're programmed to share and grow together. We're hardwired to be a group, but also to be kind to each other. So be open and think about what you can do to help spread access, tools and a sharing mentality on the web, globally. That's why you're on the web, isn't it?