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Posts Tagged ‘Cari Wilson’

Leading the AI Charge: Strategies for Forward-Thinking School Districts

Posted in Change, SD45, Technology, tagged , , , , , on October 10, 2024| 2 Comments »

Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by how fast AI is evolving?

It is a sentiment I hear from a lot of school superintendents. The conversation about how fast things are moving and a resignation that it is impossible to keep up are commonplace.

We definitely have some of those same feelings in West Vancouver—whether it’s choosing the right tools or simply keeping up with the pace of change. We are trying to do some specific things to stay in the game, be AI relevant and not be so anxious.  What we have done and continue to do include:

Make leading AI part of people’s jobs – While declaring anyone ‘AI experts’ is silly, assigning someone AI leadership signals its importance and provides a go-to person for questions and coordination.

Build a cross-functional team – And the team looks different than with a curriculum implementation for example.  We have school and district administrators as well as IT personnel part of our core team around AI integration.

Creating and Revising Documentation – Setting clear guidelines and documentation ensures that everyone is on the same page as AI becomes more integrated into our work.  We started with our Core Values and Guiding Principles (HERE), Guidelines for the Use of AI (HERE) and When Do I Use AI visual (HERE). We also revised existing technology policies to ensure they were inclusive of AI.  

Focus on a few key AI apps – There are thousands of AI tools out there.  And it is easy to just talk about and debate which tools to use rather that just identifying a small number, supporting their use and getting on with better conversations around how AI can positively impact teaching and learning.  For us, Magic School has become a go-to tool for its ease of use and versatility in the classroom, helping both teachers and students adapt to AI technology

Engage the entire community – Often with new ideas or initiatives they apply unevenly to a school district.  One of the best things about AI is that it has uses throughout the system.  As I wrote recently there are great ways for trustees or senior leaders (HERE), or sports coaches (HERE), or parents (HERE), to use the tools to support their work and the work with students.  We have also leaned in to district-wide and school specific sessions specifically for parents.

Model AI in Action – Have you noticed this is the 5th AI related blog I have written in the last 2 months?  That is not coincidence.  My colleague Cari Wilson is also regularly blogging about it. And I have committed myself to spending a couple minutes at all meetings this year showing my learning with AI.  Over the last two weeks this has included meetings with Trustees, parents, principals, office staff and others.  

Leverage external experts – We have engaged with Alec Couros who worked with all district staff and then smaller groups in our district, and will be back this month to work with parents.  We have also spent five days with Dean Shareski and Adam Garry and are planning three more for the new year.  It is always a balance of using internal champions and outside experts. 

Join local and global AI networks – Locally we are working to network teachers inside our district and then network our schools around their AI work.  And then we have built a network of about 12 districts in Metro Vancouver that are working and sharing resources around AI. This is work that Shareski, Garry and ALP Learning are supporting.  We are also part of a network with Michael and Bailey Fullan and districts from across Canada and a network in partnership with C21 Canada, Mindshare Learning and Dell that is looking at AI practices across the country.

It is not fluke when you see things are moving fast, and you want to get out front what you need to do.  And it is never just one thing.  I am definitely bullish around the impact AI is going to have on schooling and want us to lead and guide what happens.  So we need to be doing things to look around the corner to what is coming next.

The speed of AI is exhilarating, and with so much possibility ahead, I’m excited to see where we can take it together.

The original blog post was posted into Chat GPT with the following prompt “Be a critic of this blog, what could be improved or clarified to make it more readable for the audience.” Feedback was incorporated into the final copy.  The image at the top was generated through the enterprise version of Magic School.  

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Gen AI – Governments, Districts and Schools

Posted in Assessment, Change, SD45, tagged , , on May 30, 2024| 3 Comments »

Checking back in on AI. 

So, when it comes to gen AI in education – where do we start?  It is a question that is paralyzing many.  I am reminded of this Spiderman meme:

Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire Recreate ...

All levels in education point at the others expecting them to take the lead.  

One of the reasons that the gen AI conversation is moving forward in British Columbia is because we have largely clarified this – with different responsibilities for different levels within the system.  And this clarification allows the work to move forward.

Provincial Government

Always good to remind non-Canadian readers that education in Canada is under provincial jurisdiction with joint responsibility shared between provincial governments and local districts.   

In BC, government is providing high level consistent messaging around generative AI.  The materials they have developed (HERE) are excellent.  They provide a background on what everyone needs to know about AI, with documents for students, parents and staff.  They also have considerations for using AI tools in classrooms, connections to curriculum and learning stories on their use in classrooms.

The provincial government has given the nod that they acknowledge gen AI is part of our lives, and we need to consider its use throughout the school system.  They take away the questions of AI – yes or no (which is a terrible question anyways), and at the same time are not prescriptive over a particular tool, or even the requirement or expectation that it needs to be used.

School Districts

If the provincial government messages at 30,000 feet, then we try to be much closer to the ground as a school district.  We have identified a district staff member to have this as one of the key piece of their portfolio.  Cari Wilson (her blog is a great read with lots of AI content) works with our educators and IT staff to support the work across the district.  It is an interesting time, as we actually need dozens or hundreds of gen AI experiments in classrooms, but we also want to use some consistent tools so we have coherence in our system.

For us it has been Magic School that is the core tool we are using.   And first, we gave it to teachers to use and experiment. Then, we have rolled it out to students asteachers and schools were ready.  We are trying to take the lessons of the last 20 years of technology and think deeply about how we be the leaders of the technology rather than the technology running us.  We don’t need a repeat of “Hey – we all have iPads how should we use them?”  We need more “what do we want to do that we couldn’t do without AI, and how can it help us?”.

We are creating study groups, and pro-d opportunities, and bringing in outside experts, and telling stories of successes and failures.  We are bringing the community along  = like this recent virtual session for families which featured our staff and students talking about what AI looked like in the classroom,  in both an elementary and secondary setting.

And like with the Ministry, one important thing we do is to give permission to work and learn in this space.

Schools and Classes

We have a huge range of gen AI use in our schools.  Some teachers use Magic School all the time.  Some don’t.  And that is totally OK.  Without a doubt there will be more AI in classes next year than this year and I have trouble believing all staff will not find ways to use AI to support lesson planning, help with personalizing learning and interpreting data in coming years. 

We also want to have real conversations about the questions that exist – topics like academic integrity, online safety, equitable access, privacy concerns and reliance on technology are all real and worth exploring.  

And while we are using AI to help personalize learning, and offer additional supports and extensions for students, we should also use it to do some of the silly things it does well – like create a parody song to the tune of Shake it Off to review the elements of the periodic table.  

And I know this will not be popular with some AI champions, I don’t think we should be selling AI as the answer to efficiency in the classroom.  Gen AI will not make teaching easier or quicker – it will make it different and hopefully more purposeful and relevant.

My #1 Piece of Advice

What is my number one message for all involved in the gen AI conversation?  Network.  Everyone thinks they are behind and looking at others.  The most thoughtful systems will network with other similar minded systems (British Columbia should be connected with other provinces and countries like Australia and New Zealand doing interesting work in this space), and districts should be connected together (for us this is being part of 4 networks connected to AI that link us with districts in our region, our country and globally).  And this process should repeat itself at the school and teacher level as we look for ways this technology is leading to learning breakthroughs.  

I have written about AI a few times, and my thinking is a work in progress.  Over the last 18 months I have come to see the emerging tools as ones we want to influence in the hope that we can shape their use to allow us to do many things in education around reaching all learners that have often just lived in the world of the theoretical.  

Note:  The visual at the top of today’s post was generated by me pasting this blog post into Chat GPT 4.0 and asking it to generate some options of images that could accompany the post. 

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Robotics and the C of Collaboration

Posted in Change, Technology, tagged , , on May 16, 2022| 2 Comments »

There is a lot made about the “C”s in education. Whether it is the three of them or maybe the four of them, or sometimes the seven of them.  Competencies like communication, creativity, and critical thinking are top of mind for all designing modern education programs.  Always on this list is also collaboration.  While everyone agrees in their importance, finding ways to see students demonstrate them can be challenging. 

This leads me to a story of robotics.  

I had the chance to join our elementary school robotics teams at the VEX World Championships last week.  In just a few years West Vancouver has built one of the top school robotics programs in the country (there will be another blog post on that soon). I have watched several competitions, but this was my first chance to be fully immersed in the world of robotics. 

And, one of the five elementary teams we had at the Championships was crowned World Champions in a field of over 500 teams from around the world (and the competition was truly global).  Now different divisions work differently, but this is how the elementary division worked at the World Championships.

In the qualification round, teams are randomly assigned to one of nine sections. In each of these sections are about 60 teams.  You play 11 qualification matches.  How these matches work is that two teams work together to try to score as many points as possible in 60 seconds.  I will link HERE to this year’s game.  I won’t do it justice, but the simple explanation is that you need your robot and your partner team’s robot to pick up small balls and shoot them into a basket (there is a lot more to it than that with multiple other ways to score).  And you are randomly assigned a partner for each match – so you might be with a strong team and then a weaker team.  The premise is that over 11 matches this evens out and the strongest teams emerge as having the most points.  

Then, in the playoff round the top twenty teams advance in each of the nine sections.  And in each section the first place team is partnered with the second place team, and then the third place team is partnered with the fourth place team, and so on all the way to the 19th and 20th placed teams partnering.  And you have one match with this partner team to score as many points as possible.  So, it should be the first / second partnership that is favoured.  

Then, in the final, the nine winners of each section advance to the championship and play one more time – the team with the most points wins and is crowned World Champion.  West Vancouver had four teams make the playoff round and two teams advance to the Championship – an amazing accomplishment.  And then had one of its teams win the World Championship (and got a perfect score!).  They won the World Championship with the Kermit Crafters from the Gateway Science Academy in St. Louis, Missouri.  

Now, West Vancouver’s Team and the team from St. Louis, Missouri were 3rd and 4th in their division.  Here is the moment after the 1st and 2nd team finished and scored were posted that they knew they made the finals.

I find this wild.  It is one of the ultimate tests of collaboration.  In the qualification round you have to quickly make plans with 11 different teams to try to score as many points as possible and then you advance to the playoffs and you partner with a team and you are completely reliant on each other.  Those who can collaborate will succeed.  So like all competitions, there is a heck of a lot of skill, and a little bit of luck and amazing teamwork.   But this is so different than anything else I have seen as you have to build this rapport in minutes not over months like you would in volleyball or soccer.   And for the finals, you compete on stage in front of several thousand spectators.  

In the older divisions top teams get to choose their partners for playoffs and so that adds another element.

We often try to find ways to see collaboration in action.  My three days at the World Championships for Robotics was some of the best I have seen.  Watching teams, people who have just met, plan strategy, talk through strengths and weaknesses and make plans to execute them was awesome (and remember these students are all in elementary school).

It was surreal afterwards as we were walking out of the arena, posing for one last picture with the teammates from St. Louis, and heading off in different directions. Our students and theirs had just shared a moment that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.  I would say never to see each other again, but they were all connected by social media.  

Championship Teams

It was one of the most powerful learning experiences I have seen on display and these young students did it in front of thousands of people who were cheering each of their moves.

I have always been a fan, but I am fully converted to the power of robotics – yes the technical skills are important, but the human skills it teachers are all those we need for our world.

For more on robotics, my colleague Cari Wilson, who is one of the lead teachers in the program, wrote a great post on the Worlds experience HERE. And congratulations to the full team of teachers including Cari, Todd Ablett, Braydan Pastucha, Mahesh Chugani , and Jeff Huang. And to the administrator team of Diane Nelson and Paul Eberhardt.  

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What Are We Writing About?

Posted in SD45, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »

It is always worth checking in on what others around me in West Vancouver Schools have been writing about.  I always find  it interesting to look at the topics people have the passion to blog about.

Laura Magrath from Bowen Island recently wrote about the River of Change:

Change can come quickly and unexpectedly, like the rising waters of the creek beside me, and the feeling of change can be an overwhelming roar that fills your being, like the deafening waterfalls in my local forest. Change can cause the solid ground we perceive to stand on to shake and perhaps give way, like the banks of the creek giving way to the surge of water, and we often resist change with all our might, despite the inevitable outcome, like the drops of water clinging to the foliage.

Craig Cantile’s recent post is about toilet paper (well, sort of) and he reflected on using the power of questions not just at work, but also at home with his wife and son:

He had me at “I wonder”. That is the best type of question. The curious nature in all of us is something fostered by my son’s teacher, our school and life in our house.

Judy Duncan at West Bay looked at the work they are doing in coding, portfolios and outdoor learning.  In writing about portfolios she said:

Each student now has a digital portfolio to house work samples and reflections related to each of the six units of inquiry. These online portfolios housed on FreshGrade replace the large binders that contained paper copies of student work. With this digital platform, videos, photos, and samples of work can be posted and shared with families on an ongoing basis.

Hollyburn’s Nathan Blackburn shared some thoughts on his time so far at the school, and just what “personal best” means:

“Personal Best” might be a hard quality to define, but it also may be the most important piece of the Hollyburn Code of Conduct. When we are each working to be our personal best, we are creating a community of caring, engaged learners. Still, students may wonder how we show our personal best. Luckily, the teachers have a variety of ways to help students recognize their personal best, and to see it in others as well.

At Ridgeview, Principal Val Brady covered communicating student learning, a topic that continues to be one that generates a lot of discussion:

While we encourage families to access and engage in all aspects of student learning provided by the school, by far, the most important determinant of student success at school is student voice. Nurture your child’s communication competency by asking questions about their learning. Have your child give specific examples or evidence of their learning. Connect student work with learning intentions. Engaging in the essential components of CSL and nurturing learning conversations with your child are key to school success.

And the blogging is not limited to out school leaders.  One of the regular bloggers is Cari Wilson who leads much of the digital innovation work in West Vancouver.  She has a weekly blog that shares tips for her colleagues in West Vancouver and beyond.  She recently wrote about the power of computational thinking:

However, in any discussion about coding, I think it is important to start off by discussing Computational Thinking. Computational Thinking is the basis for all coding. More importantly, it provides a great base for problem solving in any arena of life, from getting dressed for the snow to building a gingerbread house to completing a school project.

At its heart, Computational Thinking involves breaking a problem down into its parts, deciding which parts are important and which aren’t, looking for patterns that can help solve the problem and then creating a series of steps to solve the problem. These steps are called Decomposition, Abstraction, Pattern Recognition and Creating an Algorithm.

Yes, we have fewer regular staff bloggers than 3 or 4 years ago.  That said, those who are choosing the reflect publicly continue to make a great contribution to our collective learning.  My thanks to Laura, Craig, Judy, Nathan, Val, Cari and the others who continue to share their learning with us.

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Schools and Parents as Digital Partners

Posted in Social Media, Technology, tagged , , , , on October 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

How do we effectively help students harness the benefits of our digital world, while easing the negative effects of technology and making sure that children are equipped with important foundational skills like reading, writing and math? This question is often top of mind for those concerned about the impact of technology on students, particularly in our district, where we continue to lead on the adoption of digital tools for the classroom.

There are two prominent issues around technology that I hear concerns about, and we have also seen these same issues play out in the news on a regular basis. One is related to the content to which young people are potentially exposed, and the other has to do with too much screen time. I’ll take these two in order to address some aspects of both.

Internet Content

Many people believe that we can and should filter out the worst of the internet, and certainly, the provincial government and district technology teams spend time ensuring that accessible sites within our network are safe and educational. But in the real world, always-on access is a very real issue, and students participate in the digital conversation beyond our walls. Just as you wouldn’t send a child to walk to school without instructions and some certainty that they understand and can handle the risks, students need to harness the skills that allow them to use technology responsibly, safely and ethically.

Neither teaching nor parenting is an easy job, and most everyone would agree that it would be irresponsible to leave the role of responsible technology use up to a software package. In a similar vein, blanket internet blocks do not work, partly because students are very adept at getting around such restrictions and then sharing that information with their peers. In an era of fake news and alternate facts, the best defense is to guide and lead the conversation on digital citizenship, so that students can safely and successfully navigate the digital landscape at all times.

This is not a ‘one and we’re done situation’. Our teacher-librarians from every school, already this year, have had a special session on digital citizenship, since these specialized teachers play a key role in literacy and research. We use a common language and have a consistent approach around the district. Responsible Use is addressed. Using sources like Media Smarts our schools teach kids:

• how to recognize false content on-line
• how to make privacy decisions on-line
• about cyberbullying
• about excessive internet use

In West Vancouver, students learn how to find and validate sources and use the vast promise of technology to design, produce, collaborate and demonstrate their learning. This is a vital skill, and parents and educators who share concerns about student well-being and success should embrace the promise and the challenges that technology in education brings. Fear of the unknown is certainly a factor in some quarters, but for those unfamiliar with technology, or the policies and best practices in place, there are resources that can help.

Time Spent on Devices

There is no doubt that everyone is spending more time on their devices, and if it’s purely about consuming rather than creating, that can become a problem. Like I am sure many of you, I am concerned about the mindless consumption of so many (kids and adults) in our world. But the solution is to invest more time in areas like intelligent consumption, rather than resort to punitive measures.

At school, before we implemented bring your own device across all of our schools, we spent considerable time developing the skills of our staff, with a heavy focus on our role as ‘digital citizenship leaders’ – teaching the basics of online ethics, intelligent consumption, intellectual property, online safety and ‘netiquette’. Doing this well means less time spent policing the use of devices and more time getting the most out of what technology can help us do. As opposed to mere passive consumption and entertainment, we ask students to create, produce artifacts, collaborate and demonstrate their learning. They will be doing even more of this as we continue to implement the Applied Design Skills and Technologies curriculum at higher grades.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ITSE) is an excellent resource on technology in schools, and is referenced frequently in our district. The “standards for students” are very helpful, as the document establishes several principles, one of which includes the need to teach good digital citizenship. Schools, in partnership with parents, are doing precisely this work. The aim is to have students “recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical”.

Schools often require that students unplug and/or close their cases. One example of this in action is what West Bay Elementary School has done by creating “phone lockers” so that students can use them when they will be used for learning, and store them safely at other times. At the same time, we value the importance of face-to-face time and focus heavily on other areas of literacy and basic foundational skills – like math lessons in the forest, reading stories to younger students and encouraging the use of our public libraries.

As to what parents choose to do when children are not in our classrooms, our district innovation support leader, Cari Wilson, mentions a number of great resources, along with several age appropriate tips for leading digital literacy in her recent blog post.

Once students go to secondary school, I believe they need to have greater ownership over these decisions. This can be hard, for us in schools, and for parents at home. On the home front, I think it is crucial that parents act as good models for the use of technology.

With four school aged-children myself, these are conversations that are not just part of my work life, but also my home life. For us, we have a series of rules at home, and they apply to both adults and children:

• no cell phones in the bedrooms so we don’t get distracted at night
• we uninstall some Apps during vacation or other times to limit distractions
• we talk about which Apps we will put on our devices – and which ones we won’t
• we don’t talk about getting phones until at least in high school

Excessive consumption is a tough pattern to break, once it’s set in. But it is up to each of us to model and guide the young people in our care, and we urge every parent to take an active leadership role.

Conclusions

I am amazed at the work students are creating, that we could not have even imagined a few years ago. I see students building and programming robots, creating videos they share with the world, and digitally connecting across the district and around the globe. I also think there will be far more technology in our schools (and our lives) in 10 years than there is today. We have a responsibility to see that as technologies shift, we find ways to use it, and not be used by it.

Thanks to West Vancouver Communications Director Bev Pausche who assisted with this post.  A similar version of this post was also published on our District website.

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Maybe I Was Wrong About Blogging

Posted in Change, Social Media, tagged , , , , , , on April 7, 2016| 24 Comments »

Multi Ethnic People Holding The Word Blogging

If five years ago I looked into my crystal ball, I would have said that in 2016, all staff and students would have blogs.  These would be spaces of reflection and also for portfolios.  I would have said that they would be text based, but increasingly have video content.  I would have said that we would be increasingly wired to comment on each other’s work and have gained skills in giving public, constructive feedback and commentary.

While blogging isn’t dead, its fate in the schools of 2016 is not what I envisioned.  It seems like a lot of people have tried blogging, and while some continue the internet is littered with abandoned education blogs.    I would like to agree with fellow educational blogger Martin Weller that “the future of blogging is blogging.”

I have written several times about my experiences during the 2010 Winter Olympics. During the Games I worked with a group of students who served as student reporters covering the action through their blogs.  It was defining for me in my thinking.  I saw students producing content for the real-world, getting immediate feedback and saw the quality of their writing improve as they felt the pressure of writing for a public audience.

My colleague Gary Kern, who joined me on the Olympic project, was the architect of our work in West Vancouver that saw every student get a blog.  And led by Cari Wilson, we got students, classes and schools blogging across the district.  We had blog challenges, and we had adults highlighting student blogs, and we grew the community.

So here is a (somewhat random) collection of things that has happened in the last five years which has led away from all blogging, both for students and the adults in our district:

  • we have moved to collaborative spaces like Google Docs that allow multiple thinking outside the blog format
  • instead of seeing blogs as “home base” for videos, photos etc. we have seen the growth of Instagram and YouTube and sustained presence of Facebook and Twitter which are often used as blogs – social media engagement is fragmented across various platforms.
  • once everyone started writing, people began to comment less and less on other people’s writing
  • the theory was that adults would model how to comment on blogs and then kids would learn and follow – unfortunately adults have been terrible models . . . one only has to look at the number of news sites that have shut comments off because of the immature and often hateful commentary
  • some of our blogging tools we used were cumbersome and have not adapted as quickly as our other digital tools
  • it is hard to sustain momentum – with ‘Hour of Code’, robotics, FreshGrade, Google Docs, there are a lot of digital tools and initiatives looking for our attention

Dean Shareski tweeted, “Blogs are like rock and roll and jazz. A one time popular genre, now a niche.”  Maybe.  We had the boost from the outside this past week working with George Couros, and at least for now, some of the excitement is back.

I no longer say things like ”Everyone needs to have a blog” but I still would hope that people would see the powerful value of owning a digital space of their own.

I love blogging.  It gives me a voice.  It is a place for me to work through ideas.  It is a portfolio. It is my home base.  The jury is still out if others see it the same.

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Coding and Robotics

Posted in Change, Technology, tagged , , , , , on November 23, 2015| 4 Comments »

code
It is always interesting to visit schools and pick up on the trends. One can often see ideas that are spreading from one class or one school and quickly to all schools. One of the challenges in a district position is trying to capture the growing areas, and help support them to grow even further – looking at questions around how do we expand these great opportunities to not just some students in some schools but more students in more schools.

Much of the discussion in British Columbia is currently dominated by the refreshed curriculum.  While there are conversations that start about the content – what is the stuff being covered in each subject and each grade, these conversations are often moving to the pedagogy and assessment needed as part of this process.  And when we look deeper at the differences, I see the greatest shift over the  last two years is likely in the work around Aboriginal education.  As I have written here different times in different ways, we see Aboriginal understandings across grades and subjects.

I am always curious to see the words and ideas that are growing.  It was from individual classrooms and schools that ideas around self-regulation, inquiry and digital access have exploded.  I have also written before about the growth of outdoor learning among other trends that are taking hold.  It is sometimes hard to track their growth – it comes from students, teachers, parents and the community and when they stick – they become the new normal.

The two ideas this fall that I would add to the list and I think are just beginning to blossom are coding and robotics.  When I look at the growth plans of staff, or the inquiry questions of our Innovation teams, or listen to the interests of parents, these ideas are coming up more and more.

Coding is not new, and it is part of the ICT 9-12 curriculum.  In part driven by the global Hour of Code initiative, there are efforts to expose all students to the possibilities around coding not just those who select it as a secondary school elective.  More and more we are hearing from students, teachers and parents that we want to engage younger learners with these skills.  Cari Wilson has done a wonderful job leading the Hour of Code initiative in our district – getting into elementary and secondary classrooms.  Given the Star Wars theme this year I am sure students in classrooms and at kitchen tables across our community will be engaging with coding.

Hour-of-Code-Star-Wars

It was interesting to read recently that there may be a “significant decline” in IT literacy in our tablet / smartphone era. Given the seemingly continued importance of these skills, projects like Hour of Code may be even more important.  And we are trying to figure out how to move beyond this initial exposure and build in regular opportunities for young people with a passion for this type of learning in their elementary years to engage with activities as part of their school program.

Robotics has a somewhat similar story.

I had the chance to visit several schools in Delhi, India two years ago. And in one particular school, in a community of immense poverty, where the power went out three times while we visited, and nobody reacted as that was typical, where there were sparse resources, there were students building robots.  It was stunning what I saw . . . .

Robotics2

Students were working together building robots.  As the Principal reported, this is the future.

Fast forward ahead to this fall, and I am seeing the same curiosity and excitement around robotics in our schools.  We have had a number of staff working with robotics over the last several years.  It really has been a natural progression from makerspaces, digital access and trying to connect students in relevant ways to our world. This fall Todd Ablett, a past winner of the Prime Minister’s Award  for Teaching Excellence joined our district and he has begun to infect (in a good way) our district with his passion for mechatronics and robotics.  For now he is running a club at West Vancouver Secondary and doing guest lessons with every grade 6 and 7 classroom in the district.  The plan is to continue to grow the program – hopefully into a secondary school Academy Program next fall, and also a grade 6/7 program.  As I watched student-built robots shoot balls across the Board Room at last week’s Board Meeting as everyone in the Gallery took out their phones to record the moment – one could feel the excitement.

Abblett

The structures are a work in progress but we have an unwavering commitment to ensuring our schools are relevant and connected to the world our kids are participating in – the world that I heard Todd describe where self-driving cars are just the beginning of what the future may hold.  I often wince when asked “what’s new” in our school district.  The truth is most of what we are doing is about going deeper and getting better at what we already do.  We are also trying to keep our eyes open and look around the corner at what is coming next.   If you want to look for two things I think you will hear about and see far more in 2018 than you do in 2015 – I think coding and robotics are good bets.

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Hopes and Dreams for My Kids’ Schooling

Posted in Parenting, SD45, tagged , , , , , , on June 8, 2013| 5 Comments »

TEDx

Being a part of a TEDx event feels like being invited to an exclusive party, in a room full of smart people and the kind of place I look around and feel ridiculously inadequate.  I did have the opportunity in the fall of 2010 to be part of TEDxUBC and speak about my experiences working with students during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.   This past month I had a second opportunity to speak at a TEDx event, this time TEDxWestVancouverED,  an event organized by four of my colleagues from West Vancouver, Craig Cantlie, Cari Wilson, Brooke Moore and Garth Thomson.  It was a particularly great experience to hear from some of the interesting and passionate people I work with in a format that lends itself to telling a story — stories we don’t often get to tell in our busy day-to-day routines.  When  I first spoke at a TEDx event I highlighted some of what makes these events unique and special:

– the format forces presenters to be concise

– the discussions between presentations are valued

– there is a great mix of people attending from a variety of professions

– the presentations live on through the web

– it is all about ideas

My presentation was based on a blog post I wrote last fall, Some of My Parenting Wishes for My Kids where I shared some personal stories of my own hopes for my kids’ learning.  Here is the video of my TEDx Talk:

And you can also see all the slides I used here:

Thanks again to all of the organizers and volunteers (including our West Van students who helped edit and publish the videos) and, in particular, Craig Cantlie who took the lead.  In the coming weeks other videos will be posted, and I will blog more about this event — there are several must-see presentations.  I will also share the ideas from TEDxKids@Ambleside — another great TED event that will have its videos posted shortly.

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Another Serving of West Van

Posted in Personalized Learning, Professional Development, SD45, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

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I want to check back in and share some of the work going on in West Vancouver.  I last blogged about Some West Van Stories in November.

Director of Instruction Lynne Tomlinson got a boost for her most recent post on our district arts showcase – The Lighthouse Festival – when Sir Ken Robinson shared the post with his 167,000 Twitter followers.  Lynne highlighted the diversity within the arts at our schools:

The festival is indicative of the many programs offered in our district.  The variety of the performances provides a rich schedule of entertaining events as each teacher’s program is unique and highlights different aspects of performing arts.  We have enjoyed performances including: spoken word, theatre, choir, soloist, band, pop musical, flash mob and varied dance.

And she concluded, “This is public education at its finest.” – So true! It is great to expose the larger community to the great work in our schools, and give our students the opportunity to share their work with the “real world”.

Fellow Director of Instruction, Gary Kern, recently shared some of the initial feedback around our 1:1 Action Research.  There has been the good, the challenging and also the surprising.  Included on the surprising list from teachers:

  • It surprises me that people feel that students having 1:1 access to technological devices at any time at school is anything but to be expected. Many have their own iPads, or iPods in their backpacks. At home, although they often must share devices with other family members, all of my students have access to technology almost anytime.
  • How fast it is to find information (instant) when we are discussing things in-class
  • How much having google images supports our ability to “see” what we are learning
  • How many options exist/how many things we can DO with technology to show what we know or find things out
  • For educators too, tech opens up endless teaching and learning opportunities that far-outweigh the frustration of slow Internet, missing chargers, and access denied messages!
  • I was surprised when a teacher said, how can the students take notes from my lesson if they are ‘playing’ with their devices.  I figure the students take snaps and vids when they need to. A paradigm shift needs to be made here.
  • It surprises me that children think that computers are smarter than they are. When they figure out that they are in fact in the driver’s seat of these powerful tools and that the sky is the limit, they begin to see and think over the rainbow!

Sticking with technology, Caulfeild parent Andrea Benton wrote a guest post on Principal Brad Lund’s blog sharing her thinking as to why she supports and encourages the use of technology in their school.  Her post inserts itself into the discussion of what is the right balance in elementary school.  She argues:

Some people believe that technology shouldn’t be in schools. For me, this is short-sighted.  Schools shouldn’t be teaching for today but should be educating students for the jobs of tomorrow. This includes project management, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork and collaboration. Technology is here to stay and it is only getting more complicated.

Hollyburn Principal Val Brady recently used her blog to nicely outline the WHYs and the WHATs to writing in elementary school.  Her useful post looked at the purpose of writing and what has been changing:

The philosophical underpinnings of teaching writing have shifted over the years. Developing student skills in writing is still important, but engaging students in writing for real purposes leads to joy in writing and at the same time develops communication skills that will serve students a lifetime.  Whether students put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, engaging in writing for real purposes gives voice and structure and develops thinking ability.

For West Bay Vice-Principal Tara Zielinski, a lot of focus in her class has been on Exhibition – the final stage of the PYP experience for grade 7’s:

In one sense, it’s a rite of passage.  However, after having both participated in and led Exhibition for five years now, I know it is so much more.  There have been and will be moments when our students feel like I did on the zip-line platform – fearful, intimidated, and adverse to things they have not yet faced.  Writing a Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry over and over demands resiliency.  Collaboration requires reflection and metacognition. Interviewing experts takes organization and calls for effective questioning skills.  However, each year it is one of the most rewarding components of my job to observe and support our learners as they integrate the essential elements of the PYP and more than six weeks of intense erudition into a final presentation.

At Pauline Johnson, they have just been through the student-led conferences, and Principal-designate Chantal Trudeau shared her thinking around their power:

The student-led conference is a wonderful opportunity for the students themselves to take ownership of their learning and to show their parents and guests what they have learned over the course of a term. Students invariably feel pride in what they have accomplished. They feel independent, confident and important as they read their favorite stories, lead their parents in the calendar routine, show science experiments or Social Studies projects.  Research shows that student-led conferences is a method that better helps students improve their learning, improve parent engagement, and get higher learning results for our students

Ridgeview grade 7 teacher Cari Wilson shared the story of her students inspirational meeting with Molly Burke:

One of the big privileges that comes with being in Grade 7 is the ability to join your school’s “Me to We” group. Last week many students in School District 45 joined thousands and thousands of other students in Me to We’s “I am Silent” day. It is a day of silent protest and solidarity, designed to bring awareness to the plight of the millions of children worldwide who are not listened to. The children who have no voice.

This year, on the day before “I am Silent” day, 5 lucky Grade 6 and 7 Ridgeview students got a chance to meet Molly Burke, a remarkable young Canadian who although blind has found her voice and is using it to inspire young people.

And finally,  also with a large serving of inspiration, West Vancouver Secondary Principal Steve Rauh had his blog taken over by John Galvani a grade 12 student in a wheel chair:

I am John Galvani, I am 17 and I am in a wheelchair. For my Global Education class I organized for wheelchairs to come to my school. I wanted to spread awareness and education about what my life is like in a wheelchair by giving my class the experience of being in a wheelchair for the day.

I contacted BC Wheelchair Basketball Association and arranged for them to deliver 10 wheelchairs on April 10. Ten students volunteered to be in a wheelchair.  They went to their classes, recess, lunch and some even went to P.E.!

We should do this for all grades so that they can see and feel the challenges that people in wheelchairs go through everyday.

Lately I have been seeing a lot of what I do as being the amplifier of good ideas – whether that is done face-to-face or in the digital world, my job is to tell our good stories and connect and network them to others.    And, there are lots of good ideas to share!

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TEDxMania

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, SD45, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 15, 2013| 3 Comments »

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The TED conferences have recently been in the local news with their announcement about the global conference moving to Vancouver and Whistler in 2014, but TEDxMania IS coming to West Vancouver this May. Of course, since June 2006, when Sir Ken Robinson spoke at TED on creativity, the education world has been captivated with TED.  Since then, TED videos have become integral to classrooms and to our professional learning.

And since then, an off-shoot from the TED conferences — the TEDx events — has been created:

“Created in the spirit of TED’s mission, ‘ideas worth spreading,’ the TEDx program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis.”

I have had the opportunity to speak at a TEDx (UBC), where I shared my story of working with students during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. I really loved the event format because speakers had to be concise with their presentation within an 18-minute time limit. The format also lent itself to participant discussion between presentations, with a good mix of ideas from people in a wide-range of fields and with different perspectives; it was live-streamed on the web and afterward archived on YouTube, and it was focused on ideas. Talks from that day, like the one Barry MacDonald gave on Boy Smarts, I reference to this day. I was also so impressed with those who volunteered to organize the event because it is a huge undertaking, but a wonderful service for the community.

That said, two groups in West Vancouver have caught the TEDx bug and are setting up for an exciting May:

TEDxWestVancouverED comes from the dedication of four thoughtful and passionate West Vancouver teachers – Craig Cantlie, Cari Wilson, Brooke Moore and Garth Thomson. The event, first hatched at an EdCamp in Delta last fall, is focussed on the future of education and asking some big questions, sharing ideas, and inspiration. Their event, at the Kay Meek Centre on May 11, will celebrate and also challenge – it is the very best of our profession. I am honoured that I have been asked to speak, and I am busily trying to recast a previous blog post on Some of My Parenting Wishes into a TED-worthy presentation.

The second event is TEDxKids@Ambleside, also at the Kay Meek Centre, on Friday, May 17 (for many BC schools this is a professional development day). Focused on curiosity and wonder, and led by the ever-dynamic, Grade 7 student, Qayam (also the event’s curator and founder), it is taking on real shape. The event is also supported by a team of students who would rival any organizing committee in their dedication, focus and execution. It is a thrill to be a support for these students, seeing the event gel, watching them solicit sponsors, weed through speaker candidates, promote via social media and turn a concept and idea into a solid event. Currently, the organizing committee is in the final days of accepting speakers, and has already filled more than 50% of participant seating for the day. The event is truly by the kids, for the kids and will feature some amazingly powerful young speakers.

The power of TED is the engagement that takes place on the day of the event, but it is also what Sir Ken and others have shown – the spreading of good ideas and the sharing of videos that emerge to give these ideas legs. Hopefully, many in my network will be able to attend one or both of the upcoming events, either in person or virtually “full of good ideas worth sharing.”

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