Self-isolation #1

Yesterday an announcement was made that we had 48 hours to prepare for nationwide self-isolation - a Level 4 Quarantine self-isolation. Students were sent home. Teachers were told to come back in the morning to prep resources. Luckily we'd done some of this earlier the week before.

Today was more of a planning and prep day at school. We hunkered down. Got the job done. 

And boy, was it a long job. I spent all day literally running to and fro from the photocopier to the DC to my computer in the resource room and then back again. I had some awesome help from my colleagues in the department and colleagues at kura. 

I'm glad that I had so many resources I could throw together and hopefully it is coherent enough. 

This really is unchartered territory. This self-isolation has never happened in my career as a teacher. In my lifetime either. 

I kept thinking today about my last lesson with my Y9Tihi students. I tell them this a lot - but they are honestly the best Y9 class I've ever had. Straight up. I've had some crazy classes over the past ten years but I am so grateful for the students in my Y9 Tihi class this year. 

They were so patient, nervous and scared. They wanted the info but also weren't really ready for it either. I asked them to do four things:

1. Read up about Covid-19

2. Write me emails

3. Write a daily diary of what it is like being in self-isolation

4. Try not to panic. Be safe. Be kind to each other. 

To keep the mood calm yesterday, I introduced them to The Game of Awesome. If it hadn't have been such a serious need to keep them calm, I would have enjoyed seeing them working together so well and creating cool stories so easily. I still enjoyed it. But there was still a definite need to keep calm in that moment. 

Yesterday a lot of them asked for LOTS of school work. Like weeks of it. 

I guess that's why I spent so long making the Junior English Covid-19 Homework booklets. I wanted to make sure the booklets were accessible for all students and also challenging too. 

I'm mindful that some of the resources there are what they have already covered. Some they haven't. Hopefully it all helps. 

It was really important to me that my students and those in English classes at OC would have the opportunity to grow at home, with their whanau. To have them share their learning and READ, WRITE and CREATE together. 

I'm hoping the students will come tomorrow and collect packs for home. I'm also hoping that everyone will be safe. 

Proper self-isolation begins tomorrow night at 11.59pm - Wednesday night. 

This means we won't be allowed out of the house. 

My sister works at Eastpac. She is deemed an essential worker. It makes me happy she still has a job but also scared. I worry that she will bring the virus home or that she will get sick herself. What will that mean for us in our house? 

I worry about whether our animals can get the virus or whether people not in self-isolation walking past our house will touch our dogs and the dogs bring it inside. 

Like I said, this is unchartered territory. 

I'm truly grateful for the awesome leadership and quick response from our Senior Leadership Team at school. Also grateful that we had time to prep work for students as we moved to Alert Level 4. 

As I asked my Tihi kids to keep a diary about their experiences - I'll write here too. Hopefully they get the chance to read these and respond 🙌🏽

Byte Sized PLD - Kahoot and Plickers (Gamification)

Kia ora koutou,

Last week I was fortunate to sit in on a korero between Adam, Ryan, Manu and Jiji where they were discussing their use of a couple of new apps in their class. Kahoot and Plickers are great tools to gain formative assessment data on student's understanding using quizzes and are incredibly engaging. This week for a bit of bite sized PLD I thought I'd share these two apps with you. I've added links and how to videos as well - so feel free to skip over my written explanations if needed :)

* Kahoot! - Kahoot is super simple to use - in fact there are a tonne (currently 8.9 million) of pre-made quizzes to choose from. Making your own quiz that are relevant to your own learning in class are just as simple - most questions are either multi-choice or true/false styled questions. The students absolutely enjoy this app and from our korero last week it was really cool to see how it was being used in different departments.

The link for teachers to set up Kahoot is: https://getkahoot.com/ and the link for anyone playing the quiz is: https://kahoot.it/ 

 Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC_9zE53Wmo

How it works: Set the quiz up on the projector, make sure you've clicked 'Show Game Pin Throughout' for the students late to getting to start (particularly once they see how cool it is!), and if any student creates an inappropriate nickname for themselves you can delete it so they can enter a more appropriate one. Students read the questions on the projector screen and answer on their devices using the assigned colour or shape answers. Scores are calculated by speed of correct guess and correct answer. Scores are shown after each question and at the end of the quiz too. If you use it often you can collate a series of awesome data for your students about their understanding of main concepts within their learning. Students will need to be using their devices to play this - so make sure your class has the appropriate use forms and (in future BYOD forms) signed.

* Plickers - Plickers is a new tool for me but one that I'm very excited to get started using. The best thing about this app is that only the teacher needs a device. It's quite lo-tech in that sense which is good particularly if you don't have that many devices in class. Adam and Ryan have both used this app in class - Mary observed it's use last week so if you have any questions - check with them. Plickers unfortunately doesn't have the same pore-made quizzes available but it seems to be quite quick to create single questions for each round of Plickers.

The link for Plickers is: https://plickers.com/

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bejiz2HzUz8

How it works: Students have a numbered card which kind of looks like a QR code that is allocated to each student's name. Their cards have four options - A B C D - and each time you turn the card around the shape of the Plickers code changes. When using the Plickers app on the teacher's phone, you scan the room and collect the students answers with their raised cards. Each student's name is recorded along with their answer. At the end of the quiz (and perhaps as you go?) you get a series of results of student's answers and you can see a trend as to their understanding.

Let us know how you go!

Y12 - Party in the Car Assessment

Last night we received some pretty horrendous news. One of our ex-students passed away. We don't have full details yet but the ones that we do have so far made it difficult to teach today's lesson around driving and changing our behaviour in and around cars.

Last week was messy - we had students away on PE camp up in the Kauaeranga Valley - two trips meaning some were here when we looked at videos, some were here when we looked at techniques, some were here when we played the Film Technique game on Quizlet Live. Despite students coming and going, I felt truly positive about the direction we were all going in.

Until this morning. When I had the full class back. Today was messy. But... it worked. Somehow.

I started them all off with the Introduction I'd written on Google Classroom last night, got those who weren't here to play a couple games to learn Film Techniques on Quizlet Live, and the remainder who were here to continue with developing their brainstorms, filling in their introductions and thinking about the techniques and how they were used to 'effectively change the behaviour of (target audience) in and around cars'.

Homework today was simply to finish their brainstorms so that we could get started writing paragraphs on Wednesday. Hopefully they will do so and not write anything further so that we can use their reports for their writing portfolio assessment too.

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My Y12 EngA (Yellow) class started this assessment last term but only just finishing up their reports now. They've also had the gamification aspect of Quizlet. They actually chose for the Pink class which one worked better for them out of Quizlet and Kahoot.

It's interesting that juniors seem to love Kahoot and seniors like Quizlet better.

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Today I felt like I was doing blended learning right. Students were accessing their devices for the benefit of their learning and gaining knowledge on a just in time basis whereas previous to this the devices were used in a more structured way where I told them where to go and what to do. Seeing the students accessing the information needed, when they needed it was VERY VERY cool.

What did I actually do to make this work??

* I set up Quizlet a LOT faster than previously by telling students to get onto quizlet.live while I was opening Quizlet myself - students were waiting and asking for the passcode before I had it up on the projector.
* I had the introduction example on Classroom up on the projector in another tab.
* The game went faster than previous times as there were a smaller number of participants. They were able to play a couple of games and then got into what everyone else was doing
* I had the NZTA playlist from my channel as a link on Google Classroom which students were accessing as needed or using YouTube from their phones/devices
* I'd added the digital version of the film techniques on Classroom as well in a Resources post- which students were accessing as needed too
* Constant monitoring, helping, guiding, supporting and suggesting possible techniques for their chosen ads
* Printed copies of the report scaffold available for students

What might have helped to make this lesson smoother?

* Students checking Google Classroom prior to coming to class
* More teaching around using Google Classroom as a tool to find information
* Printed copies of all resources available for students
* Re-work the screenshots resource I made for the Yellow class?
* Re-work the Party in the Car resource booklet with clearer steps?

Overall thoughts -

This is one of my most favourite assessments in the Y12 programme and easily the best section of learning we do in the year. Because we discuss prior knowledge, learn together and from each other, collaborate and learn from shared experiences and discuss how target audiences are manipulated by Public Service Announcements like driving ads by the NZTA to change behaviours.

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Moe mai ra e tama. Fly high. Rest easy e tama. We all miss you. Watch over the rest of us.

Gamification and Y10 English

Despite my mobile data having had taken a beating yesterday, my students had an absolutely awesome learning session in class.

Using my mobile hotspot and a student generously allowing hers to be used also - we had a tutu with Quizlet's new Beta Live game.

Students were split into three teams once they'd all signed in. Questions about the Romeo and Juliet characters came up on their devices and students had to answer correctly and more importantly - work as a team.

They learnt quickly how it works - showing that this age level are way more quick to engage with this type of technology. Had we more time in the previous lesson - the Y12s may have hooked in to it more effectively. Might need to make their one more visual too.

Each team's names are around the questions - it lights up red or green based on the question answered by the team mate. Questions are switched between the teams so only one team can answer at a time.

On the projector was a scale for each team - counting from 0-12. The first team to get to 12 wins.

The issue being that if one of your team members gets a question wrong, then all of your points are pushed back down to 0.
As I was flitting around the room I saw students collaborating, students helping each other, supporting each other and succeeding with each other and also commiserating with each other.

One group figured the system out and realised to win they needed to be in one group - not spread out over the class so that they could discuss the answer first before answering - to avoid losing points with a wrong answer.

Another group - while working together were incredibly loud, excited and proud of each other's failures and success and kept pushing forward. A truly growth mindset group. These guys eventually won.

The next game we played was with Kahoot. Looking at a full test of 30 questions on Romeo and Juliet - this time some worked in pairs, others individually. Still the same collaboration and shared success was felt in the class.

The students quickly unlearnt their learning with the previous game and without any explanation from me - figured out how to play Kahoot. The music stopped at one point and one student asked where it was. Clearly, a multitasker and natural gamer :)

Playing Kahoot - with this class was a great way to see how much knowledge they had gained from the past few weeks, my weeny discussions and suggestions around understanding R&J.

When they read questions, answered them - it was in complete silence - then when they found the answer out there was either excited yelling as they won or sad gutted sounds if they lost. Others took a more competitive approach - worked together to discuss answer and answered quickly to gain the most points.

It was incredibly cool to see how much they actually did remember. Made me very proud. It was just such a shame that there were at least 8 students away who would have benefitted from this lesson.

Last game was to see how they'd fare with Language Techniques. As yet we've only brushed over a few and discussed iambic pentameter at length to help them understand the meter when speaking as  Shakespearean characters.

Not surprisingly - we had students guessing - but getting things right, using the lang techniques on the wall to help, and asking me or their peers for help. Sometimes I'd help - but learning for themselves is so much more powerful and I shouldn't have helped as much as I did.

Regardless - this lesson was awesome. Definitely need to do this again.

What I loved was the building up of growth mindsets, the gamer competitiveness and support, the focus on the right answer but also understanding the wrong answers helped for next time we do this.

One particular student who struggles with giving up has been working on actively building a growth mindset. Just a couple looks from me showed her to step it up and at one point in the game she was actually coming first to her great delight. Very cool moment. She was buzzing!! :)

Looking forward to seeing them again today and doing a quick evaluation with them about their understanding and learning.

Probably the one thing that frustrated me was that one of my students was using my phone so I had no way of taking photos of how awesome this class lesson was! The only proof I have is when I asked that student to take pics of the leaderboard at the end of the R&J and Lang Tech games.

Looking forward to the next time we do this and will try to implement this in my other classes and see if it is as successful with the seniors. It has been great in the past but this senior group is an interesting bunch. Could go either way.