DIY document Cam

I have recently come across this little gem from Kevin Honeycutt.

 I was intrigued by the idea and thought I'd give it all a go.
I use ShowMe and Educreations as part of my maths programme anyway but I liked the potential for manipulation of materials using this technique. I was also able to have multiple children interacting with the same piece of work at the same time. Here is the first lesson my children and I created.

This is my group that really benefits from repetition and materials. Having videos to refer to has been a tool that I have used all year but this is stepping it up a little for me. Video and maths are made for each other. I am able to see where exactly my group stands in terms of using a strategy, if they are ready to move on or if they need more support. I also like the fact that the children can always go back and check to see if they are on the right track. New learning is available to them at all times.

Here is what one of my groups came up with today.

Thank you Kevin for your awesome idea!

School visits

Recently I had an amazing opportunity to go on two school visits.  I went to two school who are at the forefront of our e-learning movement.  One school was new, purpose built and the other has been around for many, many years and was still making amazing things happen.  During both visits I walked away with a head full of ideas and questions.
The first school showed me what I hadn't thought of before.  The teachers worked in teams to plan for their students.  Each teachers strengths were utilised to provide the best for the children in their care.  Expectation were high, everyone knew what they were trying to achieve and the whole staff seemed to move in the same direction.  What I found amazing was that all the children who I talked to were able to tell me what they were doing and why they were doing it (and I mean all the kids I talked to the year 6/7s and the year 1s).  They could tell me the task that was set and what tools they could use to complete the task.  While the children were engaging in purposeful activities all teachers in the room were working with various groups.  I could instantly see how I could make my own practice better from watching the children and their teachers.

I also liked the absolute transparency between school and the community.  The teachers had their weeks planning online for the parents to see what was happening in each class. The resources were also available and easily accessible for teacher, students and parents. What a powerful tool!
This was one thing that I could do right away. I couldn't invite another teacher into my class or knock down a wall to the class next door to create a collaborative, team teaching environment, but I could be transparent right away.

I started by putting my maths planning online, with the help of Google sites. This is a new tool for me so it did take me a little while to figure it out. Once I got my head around it, it was fairly easy to use.  I created a page for each group. Each group had their WALT, my teaching progressions and resources available to them.
As part of my teaching resources I had links to videos that illustrate the strategy I was teaching, practice activities, and other resources that related to the task.  I thought that this might take me longer to plan each week but that wasn't the case. My planning took the same amount of time as I had links to all resources in my planning anyway, my teaching progression was there also. It was just a matter of making that planning available for the children to see. It has made a huge difference.

I would start by teaching each group a strategy using materials and discussing how the strategy worked. I would then set them questions to help practice the strategy (at this point they could choose to use imaging or materials).  When the children were on independent questions stage I could see that there were at different places in their understanding.  The problem with this is that usually you would be working with another group and at times those children who were stuck would need to wait until you checked their work to get back on track.  This was not the case in my class.  I always encouraged my children to work together and teach each other, but now they had access to support whenever they needed it.  The kids who were still struggling with a concept were able to go and view the video I made available to them as many times as they wanted until they felt confident.  The children who were needing to move on could pick the follow up activity that was suitable to their level of understanding.  I thought that at first some of my students would just pick the easiest work to get all the answers right and move onto something they considered more fun.  I was pleasantly surprised to find my children picking harder questions (sometimes harder than they were ready for) but with the help of videos and their peers they could extend their understanding and experience success.  Some of my students have come to me begging for more practice questions, harder practice questions, so they could be the best mathematicians.  My students who hated maths are now loving it.  Those who found maths difficult are really enjoying the support and those who work at a faster pace can go on and extend them selves with out having to wait for others to catch up.  Not only is their maths improving but also their self management skills.

That was one thing I changed from being at school number one. I'm currently working on my project after visiting school number two, but you'll have to wait and see how that's going.

The power of kids teaching kids

I feel strongly about getting children to teach each other. They get so much more understanding of concepts when they not only learn but have to understand each concept enough to be able to teach others.
At the beginning of the term I was talking to one of my students who showed some great understanding about something I was trying to teach. Once he completed the set task I asked him to become the teacher and explain what to do to the rest of his group. He looked concerned and asked, "why do you ALWAY get us to teach each other?"
This comment made me giggle. I made my most innocent face and said, "Be honest with me! How often do you switch off when I talk too much?"
To that comment he scratched his head and looked at his feet. "Does that answer your question?' I asked. He just nodded.

I have adopted a new teaching model for my maths lessons.
Model
Do
Create

At first we look at a strategy. We work together as a group, looking at materials, discussing the strategy and trying it out together. The children then move on to complete some questions on their own. After the kids have had a practice they begin by creating videos using our cameras, laptops and iPad to show their understanding of the strategies. We create videos of children working with materials, we also use apps such as ShowMe and Educreations.
I am still getting there in terms of loading the videos onto our wiki page but here is what I have put up already:
http://room26pvs.wikispaces.com/Our+Maths+Vids

What I found really, and I mean, REALLY useful about doing this is the instant feedback about what the children understand and what they still need help with. I can see if I have to revisit a strategy to clarify some learning or I can see when kids need to move on.

To anyone who decides to give this a go I would say, go for it!
There are some things you have to be aware of:

• make sure you teach your students how to present their videos (we're still working on this one). For the first few videos I have had to constantly remind the kids to explain what they are doing step by step. They found it quite tricky at the beginning but they are getting much better at explaining what to do.
• get the kids to work with a buddy or a group of three (any more becomes unmanageable). This way you get great discussions about the learning. When one is stuck or has made a mistake then the other(s) is quick to correct them and help explain where they went wrong. So they are teaching each other in the video making process.
• talk to the students about how they use their cameras. I still get very shaky videos which can make a person feel motion sick while watching. Tripods are great, if you don't have one of those get one child to hold the camera and the other to write or move materials.

The next step for me is to apply this video making process to other curriculum areas. Watch this space!

How do you use video in your class?

Unused resource

All teachers have an amazing resource in their classrooms. At times I find this is a resource to be neglected in some classrooms by the daily grind of trying to get through the content that needs to be covered by a certain point on the term. What am I talking about? KIDS!!!
Children are far more powerful at teaching each other than some people realise.
The other day I came cross some of the children in my maths class having a learning discussion about the strategy they had just learned. After discussing what they learned they realised that some people in their class were still having trouble. I asked them how they could tackle this problem and what they needed for me to provide to make the solution possible.
I came back to this group a little while later and found them having a great discussion about their learning. They were using materials in ways I hadn't thought of and at the end of the day every single person in the group understood how the strategy worked and when to use it. I could see right away who didn't understand the strategy we were covering and could ask questions to guide the children in the right direction. From there they explored the strategy further. I found that maths was the easiest subject area to apply this too to begin with but I'm working on applying this to reading also.
Here are snippets of the discussions I heard:

There is huge benefit in putting children into groups of mixed ability and getting them to teach each other especially because they will have different strengths, different view points about the same subject and different ways of thinking about the same problem. I found that it made the children who understood the problem think about it in different ways to make the children they were teaching understand what they were talking about.
So try it. Stand back and watch what happens when the children are left to teach each other. Its fascinating!

Starting the movie process

There's no point going to conference if you're not going to use all the ideas. I find that if I don't use my new knowledge right away I loose it. So I decided to start using some of the movie making know how I learned from Helen King during ULearn 2012. After teaching two of my math groups I asked the children to "Assume That I'm an Idiot" (thanks Glenn Capelli for that one). I asked my children to create educational videos to teach me how the strategies work. To be completely honest I underestimated how valuable this tool is. Some of the children who hardly say boo during group discussion were putting on their best teacher voices to tell me all about their maths strategy. I was able to watch these video creations and with in minutes I could see who needed more help and who was ready for something a little more challenging. BRILLIANT! Easy and quick assessment that uses the children's strengths (if they want to write, they can write or if they want to act/draw/sing/dance...they can). I have also started something similar with our reading programme. I have explained to my class that hey need to make sure they really understand the reading strategies we are covering curing our group sessions as they will be making videos to teach other groups about how the strategies work. I must say I've never had such attentive listeners during teaching sessions. We'll see what they come up with once we have finished but for now here are some photos of some of the children beginning to put their videos together. If this is only day two, imagine what I can achieve by the end of the term?! Starting the Movie process on PhotoPeach