Community UFB access

Government announces that communities will be able to leverage off their local school ultra fast broadband connections

http://beehive.govt.nz/release/green-light-schools-digital-community-hubs

Opens up lots of possibilities

Constructing learning...

How often are laptops nothing more than $1000 pencils as schools move to their much lauded 1:1 programmes?

In our own school 1:1 programme we have been working hard to make sure that we focus on the learning not the hardware, and that we look at moving as quickly through the Substitution and Augmentation phases to the Modification and Redefinition phases of the SAMR model.

We have more and more staff using Google Forms as a mechanism for helping students to collaborate and construct knowledge, and as we were sitting in another planning team meeting discussing our own 'next steps' in our programme of development I recalled a very simple technique used by Alan November in a Master Class I attend with him in Brisbane earlier this year at the K12 Edtech conference.

Alan asked three members of the audience to each contribute to a shared Google Doc, each recording different aspects of his presentation from the day. With over 300 people (I think) in the Master Class it was impracticable to have everyone editing the document, but the document was shared with us all so that we each took away our own record of the day's proceedings.

This technique can quite easily be adapted for use in a school classroom, and with a slight tweak gains power over  simple record. Here's how I plan to do it next year.

The students will be allocated to a group of three. They will create and share a Google Doc focused on a specific class topic. The Google Doc will have two columns. The left column will be a 'record' of the content. In the right hand column they will record their key understandings of the content. This is where they will note 'aha' moments, or maybe their reinterpretation of the content in a way that makes sense to them. They might record their own examples that help them to make sense of the content.

Why?

1. They are working collaboratively to make good notes, and with the right group partners they can model note taking ideas, and effectively coach each other in this skill.
2. The collaborate in creating good notes
3. They share understandings of the material with their own examples and 'aha' moments
4. They have a record stored in Google Docs that is not easily lost and, putting it into their subject folder created by Teacher dashboard, their material is kept safe and easily accessible
5. As their teacher I can look at their notes and add helpful feedback in a way that is more difficult (but of course NOT impossible) with the traditional large A4 folder

Now this is not Higher Order Thinking at its best, and you could argue that it is still effectively Augmentation, but it does take us beyond the $1000 pencil in a way that focuses on collaboration and co-construction of knowledge.

I'm going to try it anyway.