Putting the learning from Innovate 2013 into practice

Flipped Classroom

After two full weeks of school following the Innovate 2013 conference, we can already see changes in practice that are a result of learning that took place at the conference.

One of them involves allowing students to become more independent learners, which makes classroom time more hands-on under teacher guidance. The teachers are creating screencasts (video recordings of teacher explanations) for student  The use screencasts to support student learning leads to flipped classrooms. The flipped classroom isn't new to Graded, but after Innovate other teachers have started experimenting with the practice. PFL teachers, for example, are beginning to explore the idea with the aim of generating a bank of screencasts from different teachers.

Gamification of Education

Another theme present at the conference was gamification of education.This Infographic provides some background on the term. 9th grade biology classes have started to explore this idea by following Paul Andersen's suggestion for game design to improve learning. Elements of game design used include "completing levels to acquire experience points and move up the leader board".  Edmodo and Google Spreadsheets are being utilized to gather and organize points/levels. On a similar trend, other game and flash card sites are also being explored like Quizlet and Zondle.

Learning Network on Twitter

Using Twitter to create personal learning communities was another recurrent theme at Innovate and several people have become excited about the tool. Aside from using Twitter to communicate with colleagues around the world,  one science teacher is beginning to explore how Twitter can be used as a space for asking questions and finding information about science. Several science hashtags are being explored  including #scichat. A hastag is a keyword that indicates the topic being discussed or explored by a group of people.

It's always exciting to see educators take what they've learned at conferences and immediately put them into practice.

Image Credit:
Classroom by James F Clay. Creative Commons Rights on Flickr. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesclay/3509154283/lightbox/>
El Grande by Chasing Imperfection. Creative Commons Rights on Flickr. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing_imperfection/226685564/lightbox/>
Twitter Typographic Wallpaper by Jez. Creative Commons Rights on Flickr. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/girlgeek/3374620636/sizes/n/in/photostream/>

November 28th HS PTA Coffee - We're Flipping the Meeting

Many of you have probably heard about "Flipping" instruction in the classroom and some of you have seen what this means for your son/daughter at home. This month we are going experiment with flipping the HS PTA Coffee. As I have mentioned in several Gazette posts the topic for the meeting is Graded as a Bold School. The idea of the Bold Schools comes from Will Richardson who will be presenting at the Innovate 2013 Conference.  Your assignment is to watch Will's video from TedxMelbourne (see below) and to read his short blog post on Bold Schools.

To start the discussion you can submit comments, here, on the blog. You don't even have to attend the meeting to participate in the conversation. The blog then serves as a tool for extending the conversation outside of the traditional PTA meeting. The learning doesn't only have to happen on Wednesday and you don't even need to be there to participate. This is one aspect of blended learning and the "Flipped Meeting".

Meeting Note: We'll be using laptops for part of the meeting so bring your laptop (we will also provide school laptops). Looking forward to learning together on Wednesday, November 28 from 8:30 - 10:00 am in room E12.