Saturday, February 15, 2014

SAMR and transformational use of IT in our classrooms


Dear all,

This weekend Clara and Frank are in Hanoi at the Vietnam Tech conference presenting their work that linked Math and IT and 3D printing. Clara with Frank’s help transformed a traditional part of the Math curriculum, taking content and applying it to an engineering investigation that eventually created 3D products from their mathematical learning. This was very different to the normal delivery of such content.

This is our aim with the use of technology in the classroom to transform the learning of students. The model that we are going to be using, and you will hear more about and be able to read about for yourselves in the Developing Professional Growth Handbook Section (I), is the SAMR model for implementation and planning for IT in schools.

This week’s reading is an article that emphasizes this approach. We at SLT Academic are discussing the important question what are the learning outcomes that we expect from our 1:1 laptop programme and our present and future investment in iPads for Primary school.

What Will It Take for iPads to Upend Teaching and Learning?

“So what does “transformative” mean to Burmeister?

“I no longer have to be the bottleneck of information for my students. I actually can be the person in charge of creating incredibly deep and broad learning experiences for kids and giving them the tools to find that factual information themselves,” Burmeister said. “My job is to ask powerful questions. My job is to create learning experience that gets kids engaged in a way that me just pouring information into them so they can memorize it and regurgitate it back to me is long gone. My job now is to get kids excited and give them the tools to be able to access the knowledge to be able create, to be able to analyze, to be able to compare and contrast, to be able to synthesize and to be able to design new things out of the learning that they’re able to access via a touch of a button on the iPad.”

That’s a tall order. Letting students take ownership of their learning may be at the heart of what Hillview hopes to eventually achieve, but getting to that level of transformational learning takes letting go of control on the part of teachers and administrators. And that’s where it can be tricky, even for a school like Hillview that’s committed to the idea of the iPad as a “positive disruptor” — a force that will require them to think about change.”


In the Science and Math department there are already students augmenting their learning by taking online university courses. In the future thses should be common practice for our Grade 10-12 students. The vision is that we will have more and more students following their individual passions and adding to their learning by taking part in more of these courses and by creating individual learning  pathways that will give them access to university material and courses.

 Transforming your classroom: MOOCs

 

2 comments:

  1. My university was an early adopter of online courses, & the province had an Open University where people could enrol to take university courses or simply learn more about a topic of interest. These were done by correspondence, so there wasn't the potential to collaborate with your classmates. Today, platforms such as Moodle provide much more powerful learning opportunities. My university offered an community discussion forum called Philosopher's Cafe where the community could attend & discuss pertinent issues. They also had an expert lecture series which included Elie Weisel. I attended his totally inspiring question & answer session. I loved this more grassroots approach to education because it offered such a wide range of perspectives. It seems that my old university had a similar perspective towards ideas, but the technology wasn't available to make it widespread. I think MOOCS can be an important way to contribute to a more knowledgeable world because of the potential for such a wide cross-pollination of ideas.

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  2. Here's an article about assessment in MOOCS:

    http://perceptumeu.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/how-moocs-and-e-learning-platforms-deal.html

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