E-Community Ontario – an online community for teachers and school boards in the provincially-funded education system.
Seat Reservation System (SRS) – a tool that lets school boards share seats in secondary school e-learning credit courses across the province through digital reservations.
When thinking about how the Ontario’s eLearning strategy can be used to respond to and support the individual needs of students, I decided to cross-reference the four components of the province’s eLearning strategy with the four renewed goals set out in Achieving Excellence, which are:
Achieving Excellence: Children and students of all ages will achieve high levels of academic performance, acquire valuable skills and demonstrate good citizenship. Educators will be supported in learning continuously and will be recognized as among the best in the world.
Ensuring Equity: All children and students will be inspired to reach their full potential, with access to rich learning experiences that begin at birth and continue into adulthood.
Promoting Well-Being: All children and students will develop enhanced mental and physical health, a positive sense of self and belonging, and the skills to make positive choices.
Enhancing Public Confidence: Ontarians will continue to have confidence in a publicly funded education system that helps develop new generations of confident, capable and caring citizens.(http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/renewedVision.pdf)
In the table below, I have tried to examine the relationship between each eLearning component and each of the province’s renewed goals, through the lens of responsiveness to individual student need.
eLEARNING STRATEGIES
A C H I E V I N G
E X C E L L E N C E
Learning Management System (LMS)
Ontario Educational Resource Bank (OERB)
eCommunity Ontario*
Seat Reservation System (SRS)
Achieving Excellence
The LMS responds to the need for students to develop 21st century learning skills in an online environment that consistently offers robust areas for assessment, evaluation, and discussion.
Contains over 31,000 K-12 resources, each fully searchable and tagged with the relevant curriculum expectations.
*On a number of occasions I tried to register for eCommunity Ontario, but with no luck. The main information I found about this component is from this page, which has not been updated since 2013. I wonder if this initiative has been replaced by Google+ groups, Twitter use, etc…, all of which promote the sharing of resources and exchange of ideas among educators in order to support student achievement and well-being.
Courses have limited class sizes, meet Ministry standards, and are delivered by various public school boards in Ontario.
Ensuring Equity
Students can interact with the LMS using text, speech, video, audio, etc…, thus making it a space that nurtures a diversity of learners. When using the LMS, students also have translation software at their fingertips, thus facilitating learning for English Language Learners.
Accessible to all Ontario public school students, the OERB can be used to provide enrichment and remediation as well as facilitate home learning, fostering a stronger home-school learning connection.
Rural students, First Nations students, and students who may feel uncomfortable attending classes with their peer group have access to high quality online learning.
Promoting Well-Being
Students can access the LMS when it suits them most, thus taking into account the fact that many students have jobs, family responsibilities, and/or particular medical or sleep-related issues.
Students can work through multimedia elements at their own pace, thus reducing the stress that can occur when all learners are expected to progress at the same rate.
Students are more able to spread out when they take more challenging courses, thus reducing stress and possibly leading to greater academic achievement.
Enhancing Public Confidence
The cornerstone of Ontario’s blended learning model, the LMS allows students to access high-quality online course content while often being guided by an in-person teacher and supported by online and in-person peers.
All contributions to the OERB are either commissioned by the province or (as I understand) screened by OERB staff, with Ontario students’ needs in mind.
Regardless of the size of a school or its location, the public can be assured that students will be able to access the courses they need in order to graduate and pursue the higher education and/or careers that interest them
**This is the third of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 3 course.**
TPACK and SAMR are two models used by educators when thinking about how to use technology to raise student achievement and engagement, and deepen learning in ways that would not previously have been possible.
This post addresses what school or system leaders have to take into account when promoting adoption of one or both of the models.
Originally I found myself more drawn to TPACK: It’s a Venn diagram. Hang out in the middle. Done. However, my school board is choosing to focus on SAMR rather than TPACK (or both). The main reasons are:
Stick with one acronym;
SAMR seems more popular in Ontario than TPACK, according to colleagues in the know;
SAMR focuses on the task, without mention of pedagogical or content knowledge. This makes it less personal to the individual educator and therefore makes examining one’s own practice less threatening, particularly for those who may feel hesitant to integrate technology in their classes.
When promoting a model to be used on a school or board level, it is important to consider:
PD delivery models – In our school board, a lot of the tech-related professional development is delivered in a peer-to-peer model, by teacher-colleagues in the roles of central coach, central consultant or school-based digital lead learner. SAMR’s task-based focus lends itself well to a mentor-coaching model where educators engage in co-learning in a supportive and a non-judgemental fashion.
Available resources – There are a lot of high-quality and free text, image and video resources available online that support the SAMR model, some of which can be consumed in 2 minutes or less and others that go deeper and take more time.
Ease of adoption – Substitution is a first step and one that, with support, most educators can try out. If educators get in the habit of identifying where on the SAMR model their technology use falls during a particular lesson, this can help open conversation between educators who can support each other as they move up the SAMR ladder.
Buy-in from educators and administrators – SAMR is not specific to particular grades, subjects, devices, software, operating systems, etc… Many educators and administrators have been thinking about and applying the SAMR model for some time as it aligns with a renewed focus on critical thinking, innovation, collaboration and creativity, which are central elements of effective learning. A deeper knowledge of the SAMR model and how to use it as a lens through which to view instruction is highly useful and highly transferrable to any instructional context.
So, even though I like circles and TPACK is easier to pronounce than SAMR, I have come around (no pun intended) to promoting the merits of SAMR over TPACK as the preferred model to promote at a school or system level. TPACK can get a bit too bogged down in a myriad of consonant combinations and I like that SAMR can be even further distilled to: From Enhancement to Transformation. (What is our goal as educators? Transformation. What kind of effect do we want to have on our students? A Transformative one.) When framed simply, we educators can work in teams or PLNs to transform our lessons and our students’ learning. SAMR’s hierarchical model allows for a more clear path towards a transformative use of technology in the classroom and offers an entry point for all educators, regardless of what grades they teach and where they are at with their technology integration. We do not need to climb the SAMR ladder in one day, but it gives us a direction, and that direction is up.
**This is the second of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 3 course.**
Below are some thoughts on how my (current) vision compares, contrasts and was influenced by two videos that I watched during the first week of my Integrating Information and Computer Technology Part 3 AQ course.
This video makes the case that technology use is revolutionizing education in terms of access, engagement, differentiation, etc… and it suggests that certain skills that were previously drilled are becoming obsolete in our new era.
Among other things, one of the “eduvators” in this video suggests that a curriculum for future learning could be boiled down to the following three expectations:
Reading Comprehension
Information Search and Retrieval Skills
How to believe? (i.e. how to weigh the credibility of information based on its source)
At first, I thought, YES, this is it! So succinct and yet it captures everything! Upon further reflection, though, I realized that the list above is all reception and no expression. What about communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation…? Technology in schools needs to be a platform for these things too, building on the interpersonal and problem-solving skills that our education system fosters in the Early Years.
This video suggests that technology in education is an evolution and not a revolution. According to its creator,
“The fundamental job of a teacher is to guide the social process of learning (…), make every student feel like they are important (… and) accountable to do the work of learning.”
I agree with this statement, but also with the added comments that Applied Science made on this video:
The altruistic posting of information on the internet was a pretty big deal. Before this era, a curious person had to physically get a textbook, or find an expert for a conversation. Now, a curious person needs 30 seconds to get the gist of almost any common topic on Wikipedia. Much lower friction leads to more people choosing to learn because it’s simply easier. ….
Agreed! This point further reinforces the importance of Information Search and Retrieval Skills and How to believe? From the curriculum proposed in video #1.
One thing that I definitely agree with from this second video is that,
What matters is what happens inside the learner’s head and making a learner think seems best achieved in a social environment with other learners and a caring teacher.
What technology enables is the possibility for an expanded social environment and many teachers, who are hopefully not just experts but caring experts.
Both of these videos make me think that, as educators, we can learn from our colleagues who have experience teaching in gifted programs: Access to technology means that more and more of our mainstream students will be turning their minds (and school projects!) towards areas that we may know little about. Our jobs as educators must be to guide them and encourage them in their pursuits, ask critical questions, and push their thinking, all the while stressing the importance of genuine human interaction and personal well-being.
**This is part of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 3 course.**
I am six days into my Integrating Information and Computer Technology Part 3 AQ, and have been asked to write a blog post about my vision for technology use in education and how said vision compares and contrasts with some of the resources we’ve reviewed so far. In the organizational sense, Visions tend to be only marginally longer than Mission Statements. But how do I turn my thoughts on technology use in education into an elevator pitch when I am still mentally sorting through so many thoughts, ideas and action plans suggested my colleagues, my board, the Ontario Ministry of Education, the twittersphere…? Hmm.
My vision for technology use in education does not include specific apps or devices or platforms. It does not include the mastery of prescribed skills by particular grades. It focuses on being open to new learning and new learning partnerships. It includes using technology as a way to engage and differentiate, recognizing the diverse needs of our students. It involves creative self-expression and innovation, risk-taking and an understanding of privacy and online security. It involves research skills and critical thinking. Mostly, it involves using technology to appreciate our diversity and our incredible planet. (Uh-oh… the elevator doors are about to open and it seems that I have just made a pitch for world peace instead of technology use in education. Oops! Below are some highlights from a few of the course readings, thus far. To read my thoughts connected to two videos that I reviewed and which influenced my thinking, click here.)
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21st Century Competencies:
Critical Thinking
Communication
Collaboration
Creativity and Innovation
Renewed goals for education in Ontario:
Achieving Excellence
Ensuring Equity
Promoting Well-Being
Enhancing Public Confidence
Emerging Themes Related to the Effective Use of Technology in Ontario Schools:
Vision
Digital Citizenship and Literacies
InnovativeTeaching Practice
Student Engagement, Culture and Achievement
Learning Environments
Parent and Community Engagement
Recommendations:
Vision
Authentic Student Engagement
Inspiring and Inspired Teachers
Skills for a Digital Age
Responsible Digital Citizenship
Equity of Access and Equity of Opportunity
**This is the first of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 3 course.**
For the final required blog post for the Additional Qualification course I am taking (Integrating Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom, Part 2), my task is to address some of my final thoughts or take-aways.
One of my classmates, Stephanie El Kabbouchi did an excellent job of listing out some of the key assignments. You can read her post here. Rather than reiterate what is already on another edublogs site, I thought that I would comment on a few of the unique structures of this AQ that really stood out for me.
The assignments were differentiated so that every participant could access the content at their own level. The major assignment was an ongoing inquiry of your own choice. This high degree of differentiation made the course challenging and engaging for participants with varying levels of comfort with regards to technology and vastly different teaching scenarios (e.g., elementary school, kindergarten, high school, supply teacher, instructional coach, teacher on leave, urban setting, rural settings, First Nations setting, etc…).
Eight students in an online AQ is an excellent size. This allowed us to really get to know each other and respond in meaningful ways. I have taken AQs with as few as four people and as many as twenty in the past. The former made it tough to generate rich discussion that also suited people’s schedules and the latter made it more difficult to feel connected, especially since in such a large group participants are usually not reading and responding to everyone’s comments. Again, eight seemed a magic number.
All of the assignments were practical and not at all reminiscent of those 10-page lesson plans that I used to write in teachers’ college… you know the ones! The assignments were either immediately usable in a class setting or otherwise a way for us to test out and explore tools that we might use with our students at a later date. The website https://www.commonsensemedia.org was especially rich.
The theory, particularly the TPACK model, was thought-provoking and presented in very digestible chunks (thanks, internet attention spans!).
Finally I have to give a shout-out to the instructor of the AQ course, Paul MacKett, who, despite the online delivery model, put a very human touch on this course. He did this by sharing personal anecdotes from his days in the classroom, reminding us that each of us (himself included) is a whole person with many other competing interests in our lives such as family, health, work, etc… He took the time to offer insightful and encouraging comments and suggestions, always written in a collegial tone, to every single discussion thread. Quite impressive.
Taking AQs can sometimes be a daunting prospect – after all, most teachers already have a full plate with work, family, and other commitments. The learning in this course was interesting, the course load was manageable, the instructor was supportive and knowledgable and the tone was collaborative in nature. Level 4!
**This is the third of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 2 course.**
In my school board, Copyright Posters (i.e., the DOs and DO NOTs of photocopying) are posted above most photocopiers in our school. In general, they make wonderful wallpaper, which is to say that they don’t get much attention after a while. Our manager of Business and Learning Technologies always includes copyright reminders in his monthly e-newsletters (e.g., Did you know that it is a copyright infringement to use your personal Netflix account to show videos in you classroom?), but one walk around during an indoor recess would tell you that this message has not been received (or at least implemented) by many teachers. Despite the fact that there are lots of free-to-view videos available online on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, as educators, we still tend to show videos that impinge on copyright issues for, I believe three reasons:
Educators want to show the best possible material to students;
Educators may not realize that there is a copyright infringement;
Even when educators do realize that there is a copyright infringement, they never feel or see the consequences of such an infringement and so there is not a strong disincentive.
This is true of images too insofar as students and educators take images off the internet and paste them into projects and personal sites. When I first started blogging, I copied images from the internet with no regard for copyright, never even mentioning where I got the images from. Later, on my blog, I started including links to the images’ URLs or websites that they came from. Finally, when I learned about Creative Commons, I started doing “labelled for reuse” searches in Google images and only using those images and attributing to the creators, as necessary.
Here is a quick screencast I made on how to search for images that you are allowed to reuse.
I have done this with students before, but I have never gone through the ins and outs of Creative Commons licensing. That is definitely something that I would do with my grades 3-8 students in the future. (Though I suspect that as with all technology-related lessons I do, there will be a student or two in the class who already knows about Creative Commons and can teach me a thing or two! What a great time to be a teacher/learner!)
Until not so long ago, when I thought of “mental health” what I was really thinking about was “mental un-health” – undesirable behaviours and a myriad of diagnoses. This past year I have spent much time with my beloved Kindergarten Program (2016) document, from the Ontario Ministry of Education, which places a huge emphasis on self-regulation and well-being as being key to academic success and social-emotional health.
Self-regulation is central to a child’s capacity to learn. (…) Children’s ability to self-regulate – to set limits for themselves and manage their own emotions, attention, and behaviour – allows them to develop the emotional well-being and the habits of mind, such as persistence and curiosity, that are essential for early learning and that set the stage for lifelong learning. Self-regulation involves attention skills, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (…). Self-regulation skills also allow children to have positive social interactions and help establish constructive patterns of behaviour that will be useful to them throughout their lives (Ponitz et al., 2009).
Research has shown that the ability to self-regulate is essential to the development of learning skills and work habits (Baumeister & Vohs, 2011) (…) (The Kindergarten Program 2016, p. 54)
Well-being is influenced not only by the absence of problems and risks but by the presence of factors, at the individual, family, and community level, that contribute to healthy growth and development. Educators help promote positive mental health in the classroom by providing children with opportunities to learn adaptive, management, and coping skills; communication skills; and relationship and social skills – the personal and interpersonal skills they need to develop resilience, a secure identity, and a strong sense of self. (…)
When educators take children’s well-being, including their mental health, into account when considering instructional approaches, they help to ensure a strong foundation for learning. (The Kindergarten Program 2016, p. 62)
The following are three resources that I have been looking into and would like to learn more about:
Reaching IN… Reaching OUT (RIRO) is a Canadian, evidence-based program that supports the development of resiliency skills among young children and the adults that care for them, both in school and at home. I have colleagues who have used this program and who rave about it. A major plus is that this is such a well-developed program that involves hours f in-person training to fully implement it. The corresponding downside is that for those looking for a quick fix or who are unable to attend training, this program seems out of reach.
The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence also offers extensive training and their resources seem easier to implement in K-8 classes. By using the four-coloured Mood Meter and the “RULER” acronym, students begin to Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, and Regulate their emotions.How to get started using these strategies in early childhood settings is highlighted in the article Teaching Emotional Intelligence in Early Childhood (Young Children,72(1) – March 2017). The article states that “Children with higher emotional intelligence are better able to pay attention, are more engaged in school, have more positive relationships, and are more empathic.”
Teaching Emotional Intelligence in Early Childhood (Young Children, 72(1) – March 2017)
“MindMasters is a research-based program that teaches simple and concrete techniques to help children manage stress and frustration, relax fully and develop a positive perspective.” It is a free program promoted by the Child and Youth Health Network for Eastern Ontario that includes online videos, an app for kids, and references to picture books available at the Ottawa Public Library. Mind masters bills itself as a toolkit for helping children develop positive living skills.
Have you had any success with any of these programs, either at home or at school?
As a first year teacher back in 2007, First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) studies did not factor into my grades 7 and 8 Core French classes in an inner-city Canadian school. Since I didn’t teach Social Studies, it did not occur to me to include FNMI issues into my classes. Additionally, I purposely avoided engaging with my students about cultural, religious or ethnic heritage, based on the advice of a more experienced colleague. Fast-forward to June when I was asked to participate in a division-wide “Shopping Mall” unit. I created a worksheet which listed words and phrases that store-owners at a mall might need (e.g., Now Open, Welcome, On Sale, Half Price, Thank You, etc…) and had the students translate these phrases into French and other languages, with the help of their multilingual classmates. I was totally surprised when I saw that someone had written in Cree. Not only did I have a First Nations student in my class, not only had it taken me until nearly the end of the year to create conditions where he could easily choose to self-identify, but, because of his name (Jacob Wolf*), I had, until that time, transposed my own cultural biases onto him and assumed he was Jewish! This was an a-ha moment for me and changed the way I engaged with my students from then on. In recent years, I have worked hard to create a more open classroom environment where we can all learn from each other. At times, this learning includes exposing our own biases and looking around with fresh eyes.
Once I started thinking more about FNMI issues, it got me wondering about how indigenous families might feel when they see French-Core checked off on their child’s report card and right below that, a checkmark indicating Native Language-N/A. Even just writing that last sentence feels like a punch in the gut, knowing that most elementary students do not have access to a Native Language class and the historical reasons why this might be the case. With that in mind and faced with a very sweet yet seemingly unmotivated student in one of my grade 5 Core French classes, I approached my principal about looking into the possibility of creating an independent unit of study for this boy in his indigenous language, using online resources. She was very supportive of the idea, but unfortunately, at that time there were few resources available online and, I am sad to say, the project fizzled without the student or his family ever learning about it.
Now, thanks to advances in technology, there are quite a few places online where teachers can turn to to support indigenous language learning. Here are a few links:
“(Becoming an Indigenous education partner) simply requires an open mind, and a commitment to professional learning. The reality is that all teachers in Ontario need to be armed with a toolkit of knowledge, so that they have the skills and confidence to teach FNMI content in their classrooms.” (http://etfovoice.ca/node/586) I am at the beginning of this journey and am continuing to learn in this area. *I have slightly modified this student’s name to preserve his privacy.
**This is the third of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 2 course.**
From the Capacity Building Series, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Towards Equity and Inclusivity in Ontario Schools
This is such a huge and important topic. For this post, I decided to address this theme through the lens of Intercultural Understanding (which is a focus in every strand of Ontario’s Grades 4-8 Core French Program) and share a little bit about how I strived to create a culturally responsive classroom environment.
When teachers explore student identity in the spirit of discovery and out of authentic caring for each student as a whole person, meaningful relationships develop.
This reminds me of the work of Dr. Jean Clinton who consulted for the Ministry of Education on the new Kindergarten Program (2016) and wrote The Power of Positive Adult Child Relationships: Connection Is the Key. As educators, we know how powerful relationships can be – both with students, parents and colleagues – for creating and sustaining safe, healthy, equitable and inclusive learning environments that honour and respect diversity.
One of the strategies that I have used in the past has been to send a note home at the beginning of the year, inviting parents and students to help me promote intercultural understanding. Here is the text:
Intercultural Understanding in Core French – How you can help!
Learning about different cultures is an important part of the new Core French curriculum. As in years past, I will occasionally include posts about celebrations and traditions that are meaningful to students in my classes, but I need your help: If there is a celebration or tradition that is special to your family, please let me know about it! (Celebrations and traditions need not be religious in nature, for example, if your family has an awesome movie night tradition, that is worth sharing too as that is also part of our Canadian culture!)
Thanks to my students and their families, every year I learn something new in this department! Let’s keep it up!
This initiative proved to be transformative, both for myself and my students. Families sent in photos of their holiday tables, students surprised me with essays about their celebrations, others came in traditional dress and performed dances for us. We all learned a ton! A homeroom teacher colleague of mine once ask how I knew so much about the kids’ cultural events. I told her the truth: I just asked!
As a parent of children who do not celebrate the majority culture, I can say from experience that it is so much easier for families to walk through a door that has been opened than to have to first open the door and then walk through it.
Other strategies I have tried/could try are:
Honouring a child’s first language by having the child or the family teach me how to say hello, thank you and well done in their native tongue;
Co-creating a class book with family photos for each child;
Creating class profiles so as ensure that I am addressing the various learning styles and multiple intelligences of my students;
Involving the children in the design of the classroom environment and units of study, but being aware that if the dramatic play area is always subject to a vote, then only majority voices may get heard (i.e., Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc…)
Recognizing that every child learns in a unique way and honouring the space and time they need to optimise their learning.
Educators attempting to teach about a culture they do not identify with risks perpetuating assumptions and stereotypes about certain social groups. When implementing a culturally responsive pedagogy in the classroom, the role of the educator is to create a platform where cultural knowledge can be shared; it is a learning opportunity that allows student to see: “Knowledge building is reciprocal because students play an active role in crafting and developing learning experiences for themselves and their peers. This results in making learning relevant and accessible for all students in the classroom as they are able to see themselves in the curriculum. (OME, 2013, p. 5)”
This is a subject that is near to my heart. Can you tell!?
**This is part of a series of posts that I am writing based on prompts from my Integration of Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom Part 2 course.**
For the final required blog post for the Additional Qualification course I am taking (Integrating Information and Computer Technology in the Classroom, Part 2), my task is to address some of my final thoughts or take-aways.
Mental health is much more than the absence of mental illness. (
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