ULearn16 Presentation

Learning how to create and deliver an Ignite Presentation was a new learning experience for me and something that I had not previously encountered. I wanted to present professionally and keep the audience engaged and excited while unpacking my inquiry findings. The results to date have proved that the intervention has been successful and I am excited to share what I have implemented in the classroom.

After researching how to do an Ignite presentation (20 slides which auto advance) 15 seconds each slide, presentation over in 5 minutes, I had to really condense previous presentations and cut all the extra information. Every word had to be carefully chosen and the slides had to be carefully prepared with a balance of images and text which was easy on the eye while still keeping the "guts" of the inquiry intact.

So I started to create..... Once I had completed it and matched the notes to fit, I then converted it into Keynote . That was exciting as I hadn't used Keynote for ages but it turned out well and I felt happy with it. All was needed now was lots of practise.

The day came, the presentation went well and I felt excited to be able to share my findings with other educators. Then I found out that John Couch the Vice President of Education at Apple had listened to my presentation....this was awesome such a privilege.


Below are links to my presentation and also my supporting notes. There is still more work to be done but to date things are looking good, the presentation is done and end point data collection is on the horizon.

                                                 Ignite presentation Multimodal Learning

                                                                  Supporting Notes

Ruma 3 - Tamariki reflection on their writing.

It's Not A Planet, It's My Home. Creative Writing Examples.

Author: Wiremu

IT’S NOT A PLANET, ITS OUR HOME    

 I'm in hyper sleep. I have been asleep for 65 years. I start to wake up. I look through my blurry helmet it is as dirty as a dirty windscreen.

I hear my ship gliding through space, it was as smooth as a car on a freshly made road. The first thing I see is the beautiful star. It was as shiny as diamonds.

I felt my seat hugging me like a giant teddy bear, it was as hard as two walls crushing me. Next the warm sun was shining over my face.

I smell cake from my home, freshly baked. I taste delicious nuts in the cake. The earth it is so close my mum my dad will be there waiting there for me. I haven't seen my family in 65 years.

The  Atmosphere it is here,  I start to wobble and shake. I smell smoke in the air.

I walked out, I was alone. I saw blown up cars and nothing alive. Everything was dead, the breeze was upon me, it sent a shiver down my spine. My family is gone, a tear dripped down my face. Nothing is here but the concrete and dead trees.

   My home where has it gone?                    

     

Author: Narnya

It's Not A Planet, It's My Home.

I’m sleeping. Light shines on my face. It must be the sun. I slowly open my eyes.

I see the milky way it's green, blue and purple. I look up and I see a constellation of the jungle and my family. I am so happy and excited to go back home. I am wondering how much my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews have grown. I hear asteroids shooting past. I feel sore from sitting here for 65 years. I hate being alone. For the past 65 years I've had the stars for company. Sometimes I feel like the stars are watching over me.

Finally I see earth in the distance. It looks a little bit different from when I left. I said to myself “Aww I can't wait to see everyone I'm so excited”. As I get closer and closer. I feel a rush of wind as my rocket hits the atmosphere it shakes  as if I was in a massive earthquake.

I thought about how my caretaker would feel about seeing me after 65 years. I'm so excited but so sad because I don't think I will be able to see space again.

All the planets, stars, milky way, and much more stuff. As I was enjoying the beautiful view my rocket had a rough landing it hurt and it gave me a fright.

The rocket door slowly opened and I quietly creeped out. I can’t believe what I see…

I slowly take my helmet off, it was terrible I smelt smoke and tasted  dirt and dust There was no water to be found, no green grass, just concrete buildings and wooden buildings. I look down and I pick up a branch, I look at the trees all of them are dead. All the leaves have fallen off and they are dead too. I feel like I want to go back to space.

My heart belongs to space.

Author : Mikaere 

It's Not A Planet, It's My Home.

I am dreaming and I am excited and I can't wait to see my family and my brother and sister. But I am scared to see planet Earth and I hope my home is still there.  I am gonna miss space and my rocket shield  is really really old. I touch my rocket ship for the first time then I heard a meteor pass me. I am hungry because I haven't had food in a long time. I can tell my story to my family. I hope they like it. I am going really, really, fast and my heart is pumping like a really fast rocket ship. I finally landed I stepped out of my rocket ship. I look around and there was rubbish on the ground and gun  bullets, the building were broken down I was so, so, so sad.

Author: Waisea

It's Not A Planet, It's My Home.

I am asleep it is so quiet. I am feeling good and I am dreaming about me going back to Earth. I feel so warm in my suit. My age is 10 years old and I have lived in space for 65 years.

Through my window I can see stars and planets and my home Earth.  The Milky Way is just nearby.

It is dark everywhere and my tummy is rumbling, I am hungry.  Can’t wait to see my brothers, my mum, my dad and my sisters. I am feeling really excited. At last I am going back down to Earth I am feeling great.

I am coming through the atmosphere.  My eyes are too blurring for me to see, I am  waking up. I can feel the hot sun on my face it is like a heater on a icy day. I am just about to land, I am scared, because the rocket ship is spinning out of control.   

Finally  I have arrived, there, I thought what a terrible mess!  What have the people done?

I was walking and my toes were slipping through the concrete, I saw broken vehicles and gun bullets.

Was it a war I thought to myself? I was so disappointed. I said to myself what has happened?

I was sad I had no home. I saw broken bones everywhere I was scared. I saw someone in the distance it was a big robot, all of a sudden I was happy.

I yelled out help!  It was not a goody it was a baddy. I was running for my life. Getting chased by a robot is not cool I was screaming. I got shot by it in the alleyway. Blood was pouring out of my hand. I felt sore and I could feel myself dying.      

The Multimodal Approach

After reading many articles on the benefits of using a multimodal approach to enhance the quality of writing, I decided to implement a couple of the approaches I had read about, in the classroom to see what would happen.

Multimodal Learning This link explains the multimodal approach in detail if you are interested. 

I had read that :

1.'Words and Pictures are Better than Words Alone. People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone (Mayer, 2005). Words include written and spoken text, and pictures include static graphic images, animation and video. The use of both words and pictures lets the brain processes more information in working memory (Sweller, 2005). Mayer (2005) tells us that narration and video is much more effective than narration and text. 

2.'Multimedia Learning is more Effective When it is Interactive and under the Control of the Learner. Not all students learn at the same pace. Research tells us that when learners are able to control the pace of the presentation they learn more. Multimedia presentations are more effective when the learner has the ability to interact with the presentation, by slowing it down or by starting and stopping it. This pacing can also be achieved by breaking the presentation into segments; shorter segments that allow users to select segments at their own pace work better than longer segments that offer less control (Mayer, 2003).'

Which brought me to this question. 

How can I recreate this in the classroom?

The Literacy Shed was my first port of call and I came across a short video made by WWF where a chimpanzee sent into space during the space program in the 1960's as an experiment returns to Earth and all it's changes through the eyes of a stranger. 

'Words and Pictures are Better than Words Alone.'

IT'S NOT A PLANET, IT'S OUR HOME

We watched it as a class twice and then we  started our collaborative padlet which worked really well. (See the discussion on my last post.) 

I made the link available to each tamaiti to rewind and stop and start when they wanted to so this made them in control of the presentation. 

'Multimedia Learning is more Effective When it is Interactive and under the Control of the Learner.'

After completing this process some amazing creative writing emerged. We shared along the way and discussed giving feedback and suggestions to each other. My next post will present some of the results. 

Using Padlet as a Collaborative Brainstorming Tool.

Using Padlet to encourage collaboration and provide the tamariki with a rich kete of words worked really well. This was particularly helpful for some of the more reluctant writers as they were inspired to contribute to the big picture even if they only had one or two words to add. The tamariki were then told that they could use any of the ideas on the padlet in their writing it was a shared brainstorm.

Created with Padlet

SPARK MIT 16 Hui 2

Another great day was spent at the Spark HQ listening and supporting each other on our inquiry pathways.  A huge thank you to Spark for the wonderful manaakitanga provided, the space was wonderful and the food delicious.

It was a good chance to share ideas and collaborate professionally on where we are at and where to next.

SAMR

Discussion around where our inquiry fits on the SAMR ladder was very valuable. There were a couple of great resources, links  that I felt explained the model for me, one was the SAMR wheel  and the other was an analogy of Taking a Dip in the SAMR Swimming Pool.  They both got me thinking about how I can move my pedagogy from "best practise" or enhancement in the shallow end  to transformative in the deep end.  Lots of food for thought.

Progress on 'My Inquiry'

My inquiry has developed into a 2 pronged inquiry with the quality of the vocabulary being one prong and the recording and presenting of the virtual or real experience being the other.

I have already used a couple of interventions to assist with the quality of vocabulary including using a split screen to enable the children to view the collaborative word lists that we have created alongside their writing. They are also learning how to use and online thesaurus to provide richer vocabulary.

We will be taking a collection of quality photos on our next EOTC experience combined with screencastify,
 and this will provide them with not only a visual prompt for them to write on when they return but also the scaffolding required for when they take photos of an experience at home. They will share this at school and then it will be a prompt for their writing.

The next step for my blogging will be to provide some links to evidence of my interventions so that others can share the ideas.

Some of the other ideas that I will be using shared by others in the group are using teacher dashboard as a visible, motivational, scaffolding tool in writing. I can't wait to give this a go and also using comic creator templates as another writing tool.

Baseline Data Sample

After analysing the data pushed out through Antword, this is how I have decided to summarise each child's baseline data.

File name: /Users/teacher 1/Desktop/James Control.txt

Number of types: 94

Number of tokens: 175

Type/Token ratio 53%

Statistics

Essential list	TOKENS		TOKEN%	CUMTOKEN%	TYPES	TYPE%	CUMTYPE%
1		61	34.86	34.86	10	10.64	10.64
2		22	12.57	47.43	12	12.77	23.41
3		10	5.71	53.14	7	7.45	30.86
4		14	8.00	61.14	9	9.57	40.43
5		8	4.57	65.71	6	6.38	46.81
6		9	5.14	70.85	8	8.51	55.32
7		1	0.57	71.42	1	1.06	56.38
8		2	1.14	72.56	2	2.13	58.51
Not on lists		48	27.43	99.99	39	41.49	100
TOTAL:		175		94			94

This sample text taken on  April 2016 shows that James used words from the 8 levels on the

essential lists for 73% coverage in his writing, the remaining 27% of words he has used are

not on the lists – These 48 words can be classed as high interest or topic related words.

Two were place names (Fyffe, Kaikoura) and three were kupu māori (noho, marae, kawakawa).

The aim is to see a further increase in the “off lists” usage of words that James is using to show

an increasing richness and wider use of vocabulary, beyond the essential lists. This will be reflected

in a higher type/token ratio and a higher percentage of coverage from “off list” words. In addition, new

word lists can be created from the control samples and post intervention samples and compared to show the growth

in word usage across the class.

Thanks goodness for digital technology

The analysis of the children's writing in as much detail as I require to deliver an intervention targeted at the root of this inquiry would not have been possible prior to the move to a digital learning environment. Why? Keep reading.......

There are never enough hours in the day as a teacher and if I had to re-type every piece of writing that the children had hand written, before using Antword Profiler to analyse the vocabulary used, I would not have been able to do this, it would taken too much time and not have been time efficient.

Thanks goodness for digital technology. 

Not only was this part of the analysis enabled through the use of digital technology but also the next part of the analysis as well. Imagine having to go through each piece of writing and count the number of words that appear in list 1, list 2 and so on through to list 8.   After that I would have had to count up the times that each word was repeated etc.  Time efficient, definitely not! Once again this intervention would  not have been possible without the move to a digital environment.

This is just the beginning of an exciting inquiry and the data that I have been able to gather and analyse to further inform my direction has only been made possible through a digital learning environment.

Digital Analysis Hiccup

Over the past few weeks I have been comparing a few vocabulary analysis digital tools to see which will be the best fit for my inquiry.

I have come across an awesome tool developed by Laurence Anthony called Antword Profiler. This piece of software is going to provide me with an in depth analysis of the children's writing that I will be able to use to inform my quantitative data in the initial stage. 

How does Antword Profiler work? Click on the link Antword Profiler to find out more about the tool.

I have had to adapt the tool to suit my inquiry as the lists that were developed to work in this programme were not going to be specific enough to enable me to see detailed movement in the progress of my children's writing throughout the inquiry. What does this mean? 

I had to create and import the Essential Word Lists 1-8 to use as a guideline as these are the lists that we use to teach spelling in my class.  - By the end of Y2 children should be expected to know all the words in List 1-2 , the end of Y4 - Lists 1-4, the end of Y6 - Lists 1-6, the end of Y8 Lists 1-7. In some cases children will have mastered all these words at an earlier stage. There will also be words that are not on these lists.

Antword did not work well with apostrophes, so on the lists I  collapsed or expanded those words eg. can’t is now cant etc but we’re is weare, I’m is Iam I’ll is Iwill and It’s is itis. Instances of these need to be modified in the child’s text before I load it into Antword.

Just a slight hiccup but easily solved.

Planning my timeline

Today was spent tidying up my proposal and organising a timeline. By setting mini goals linked to the Spark MIT hui each term, it will keep my inquiry on track.


I feel that today has given me clarity around the type of data that I will be using to inform my direction and where I had previously thought I would use eAsTTle data I am going to find out more about Paul Nation's Range Programme and see if this is a better fit.
I will have to begin with a control piece of writing which the tamariki will do next week and then begin my analysis.

Looking deeper into providing the virtual experiences I have come to the realisation that this means that I should not only expect children to increase their world of experiences according to 'Whaea Heather '- but that I need to broaden my knowledge of what experiences my learners DO have under their belt and in their life. It is a presumptuous thing for educators to say our kids have limited experiences and perhaps it is more a case of teachers having limited knowledge of what the children bring. My next mission is to work out - How do I uncover that??

This is AKO - theory of learning through reciprocity in action and it is exciting to be able to implement it explicitly in this inquiry. To further explain, if I am providing experiential input that I believe the tamariki need to improve their writing, I also need to have them provide input for me on their real life experiences so that I have my lens into their world sharpened By doing this I am asking them to actively engage with their regular experiences rather than be passive participants in life. 

Writing can be the authentic purpose for creating critical thinkers who are highly engaged in life. With me being that person that is vitally interested in their world, it will hopefully creates intrinsic thinkers. I believe it also shifts the ego and develops people who are interested in others and people who notice the perspective of others resulting in socially/emotionally responsive tamariki. I will need to be careful though not to overload them in the domain of sharing,as it can quickly become overwhelming and work against the goal. I will need to be the manager of this.

Mission 2 - In knowing the learner, if writing isn’t their preferred mode of communicating - how do I use their preferred mode and quietly encourage writing alongside?

The tamariki have really been enjoying having agency over their learning and I have been noticing that this power of choice or Mana whakahaere is making a huge difference to their task engagement. I hope to nurture and provide as much agency as possible.

Student Voice - Is it what I thought it would be?

 To gather some student voice to inform my next steps.

My class are quite new at using google draw, but we thought we would give it a go as a way to gather information on what they like about writing and what they find difficult or are barriers for them when it came to tuhituhi time.





 
There was a variety of reoccurring comments from the tamariki mainly with struggling to find new words or sufficient words to make their stories interesting and also struggling with punctuation. This was great as my inquiry will be focussing on providing strategies to increase their vocabulary bank. I have a few strategies that I am pondering however I need to get a timeline in place with milestones along the way so that I don't miss anything and so that I can give this inquiry the time and depth of research that it needs.