Sydney EdTech Summit Day Two

The keynote speaker this day was Kim Pollishuke and her theme was "Let's Build an Elevator to the Moon" She chose this title from her son's idea of anything being possible. The key idea from her talk that stuck in my mind was  "Don't be the flea in the jar" . She used this analogy to illustrate how a lid can metaphorically be put on possibilities to achieve. Fleas can jump to amazing heights, but when placed in a jar with a lid, they adjust their jump to not hit the lid. When the lid is taken off, the fleas continue to jump to the height of the jar, as if the lid is still in place. This challenged me to think about the students I teach, and consider what "lids" I might put on their learning, thus creating barriers to possible achievements. 
She also challenged us all to find time for ourselves and our students to pursue passions. This learning time can be incredibly powerful.

I attended three workshops on the second day of the summit:

• Apps and Tools for Making Thinking Visible - Kimberley and Lorinda
• Shifting Maths Teaching and Learning for Modern Learning - Sandra Chow
• Put Students’ Stories on the Map… Literally - Kim Pollishuke, Ontario

All three workshops focused on the use of quality apps for making learning both accessible and visible for students.
Kimberley and Lorinda shared a variety of apps including Answer Garden, the Visible Thinking website, Flipgrid, the Talk and Comment Chrome extension, Screencastify, EdPuzzle, Peardeck, Quizlet, Canva and the Dynamic Learning Project. Peardeck is add-on for Slides and looks useful. It can be used to make Slides interactive - it can be set up with questions for students to answer or discuss in an anonymous forum.
Canva looks like a great publishing tool - it has a little more to offer than Google Docs or Drawings. Answer garden uses questions to create word cloud type answers. It was fun to use and would be useful in the classroom.
Sandra's presentation was very comprehensive. She focused on apps and sites to use for different aspects of Mathematics education - Mathematical Investigation; Consolidation; Manipulatives; Authentic Maths Problems; Coding; Game-based Learning; Media; Differentiation; Formative Assessment; Prominent Maths Thinkers; Amazing Websites; and other hot topics. Lots to process and think about...
The last workshop I attended was lots of fun. Kim's aim was to use geography tools to tell stories. She wanted use to gain an understanding of the tools and how we can share personal identity through stories using these tools. It was a hands on workshop using My Maps and Tour Creator to create stories. This would be especially great with students to create mihi and pepeha to share at the beginning of the year.

This was another great day of learning. The two days with my MIT colleagues were an awesome time of learning and fun spent with a great team of individually amazing professionals. There is a lot to reflect upon - what professional learning is going to make the biggest difference to my practice? What changes do I now need to make to my practice? What tools will make the most difference for my students? What do I share with my colleagues?

Sydney Ed Tech Summit Day One

The Keynote speaker to start the summit was Jim Sill. He started the day with a short 'Ignite' talk. Jim is the Director of Global Business Development for EdTechTeam, Jim is based out of Melbourne, Australia and works with schools all over the world inspiring new uses of technology in teaching and learning. He is a Google for Education Certified Innovator & Trainer and Apple Distinguished Educator. He specializes in Google’s collaborative tools, project-based learning, and visual / media literacy. 

He spoke about tools that lead to change. He used the development of the paint tube as an

example of a tool that led to amazing change and opportunities for all. He then game some examples of 21st century tools that had the potential to create similar change and opportunity. One example of this was the Merge Cube where you can create augmented reality “in the palm of your hand”. The merge cube allows students to interact with virtual objects, rather than simply view them on a screen. 

Following this, we had 'stations' where we could wander and explore different things in short sessions.

The Playground Stations I went to were: 

Augmented Reality in the Palm of Your Hand - Lorinda Ferry

I really enjoyed seeing the cube in action. The number of different apps available to use with it is

extensive and growing. Merge Things app is a good one to start with. The students would love them.

I have discovered that they are available in NZ through Modern Teaching Aids, and are not badly priced.

The cubes are made from foam, similar to a squeezy ball, so are nice and easy to handle. You can also purchase VR headsets to go with them, but they are not essential. Lorinda showed us a downloadable printable version that is worth having a go with as well. 

Coding for K-2 Using Beebots - Sharon Cooper

A Bee-bot is a simple, battery operated (or chargeable) robot that looks like a bumblebee. It’s a

perfect starting point for teaching control,sequencing, directional language and algorithms,

using simple coding instructions. You can use any combination of forward, back, left,right, pause

and clear, to create a sequence of up to 40 steps. They would be great in our junior classrooms .

I could see lots of different ways they could be used. Again they are reasonably priced.

It’s a Wonderful World - Google Maps and Earth Apps with Sandra Chow

There are lots of new features to Google Maps and Google Earth. Sandra whizzed through a few

of these. You can create maps and import them into Earth. You can now play an amazing

politically correct version of Carmen Sandiego (she isn’t an international thief anymore LOL).

You can use Maps to create stories (I got inspired to attend this workshop on Day 2). You can also

use Tour Builder - if you sign in via Google you can publish these on Google Earth. 

Mathspace Makerspace - Fiona Thomas

Taster session exploring Equati0 Mathspace to bring maths manipulatives to light - included Base

Ten Blocks and Tangrams. After this session I decided to attend her two workshops later in the day. 

I attended two workshops. The first of these was “Digital Storytelling Tools” and the second was “Using digital tools to support the development of problem solving skills”. Both were facilitated by Fiona Thomas. Fiona’s first workshop addressed the issue of “how do we support students that are not average? How do we create “adjustable seats” for learning. Universal design for learning - how do we do this in writing?” She shared a variety of apps and sites that could be used to support and engage students in literacy learning, including: Read and Write chrome app; ifaketextmessage.com; Sizzling Starts; The Most Dangerous Writing app; Mystoryboardthat; Headliner app; Pixton.com; Piktochart… We zoomed through a number of different apps and sites quite quickly. I just need time to revisit some of these to decide which ones would be most useful to use with my students or share with colleagues.

The second of Fiona’s workshops was focused on Mathematics learning. Her main focus was

on introducing her company’s app - Equat10 (Equatio) which works complementary to Google

Apps. Her presentation reflected current NZ pedagogy around Maths and problem solving, and

she did have a heap of resources to share that might be useful. It was reassuring to know that

we are on the right track with how we are integrating chromebook use within our Mathematics programmes. 

My Workshop 

In between the two workshops I attended, I facilitated my workshop on Using Google Drawings in

the Classroom. Nicola was my awesome “wingperson”. I had nine people attendees - so it was

quite small. My aims in the workshop were to look at a variety of ways that teachers and students can use Google Drawings in different curriculum areas to express their thinking and learning; and to explore how the tools within the app can be used to create posters, word frames, flowcharts, diagrams, glossaries and other presentations, as well as to practice basic skills, such as spelling, and express mathematical thinking and ideas.

The teachers at the workshop taught in a wide range of learning levels - some taught juniors within

primary settings, and others taught older students - including two who were secondary teachers.

The examples I had were mainly at primary level, but I was able to talk to the secondary teachers

about what some of the examples might look like at their level.

It was great having Nicola in the room, as it helped having her to flick from slides to

working examples, and turn the problematic projector on/off when there were issues with that. 

I was really pleased with the feedback that the EdTech team sent through after the summit. 

I got an overall average rating of 4.33 out of 5, scoring best with “Did you learn something new

(skill, perspective, idea, strategy)?: 4.50” Feedback comments included - “Found it useful to

learn about importing video clips and changing page by clicking into the bottom corner.

Gained confidence in using draw. Learnt about shortcuts are available through the help Menu

and great to see so many examples Thank you” and “I will be able to get students to create

projects using this platform”. It was great to read that people had learnt something, and that

they would also use Google Drawings with their students.