Ontario News from ExploreLearning : Technology

This award honors the best overall education technology solution for curriculum and content for students in K-12 learning environments.

Gizmos won the same award in 2009, and this year's award marks ExploreLearnng's 5th CODiE win. The CODiE Awards recognize leaders and innovators across the software, digital content and education technology industries. We are honored to be included among these leaders.

The SIIA CODiE Awards website has a list of all the 2012 Award Winners.

 

 

Attention, Games, and Acquiring Mastery

I am almost thru a great book on the the role of attention and distraction in learning and work. Maggie Jackson's video summary is a great one that gives you the bullet points of the book. 

 

Now that I have posted the summary, I will encourage you to go the next step and actually focus long enough to read the whole book. 

"The costs of attention deficiency are so great ... we need to step back and re-examine our priorities" 

This got me thinking about my own behaviours and those of students in school. I need to be more self disciplined so I can be a better role model for those I can influence. What are we teaching others when we frantically go from one activity to another? ( Article: 15 big ways the Internet is changing our brain )

I was in a classroom the other day and saw a teacher insist on students focusing on the task assigned, but once they got started, she went rushing about to complete the multitude of things that had to get done all at once. No wonder the students focus on the task was so short - the example we are giving them is to juggle many things, as fast as possible. 

But then there are video games...video games are, by their nature, designed to draw in the learners focus. When I watch my children play Reflex math, they are single focused on answering the math facts. Sometimes I wonder if the house crashed down around them, would they even notice.  This is what worries my wife when she watches them play any sort of video game. She is unsure if this is healthy.

I think that it depends on the context. If video games can provide the vehicle to get students keenly focused, and then we use that focus to build mastery of a skill (like math facts), then I think we are doing what we need to do to reach the learner in the social context we all find ourselves juggling.

What strategies are you using to teach the discipline of focus?

Why is it your job to teach your kid math?

On the cover of Maclean’s magazine this week appeared the headline…

Why is it your job to teach your kid math?

Quite a provocative and alarming headline for a math teacher and parent! Certainly the fact this is the cover story highlights the prevalent concern that is out there about math education and the general lack of success students are feeling. In the last 3 years I have examined many of the Ministry of Education initiatives and resources to support math teachers in creating effective classroom learning experiences. I strongly agree that instructional strategies that build conceptual understanding are far more effective than drill, but I often wonder at what point do we expect mastery of foundational math skills?

In my Physics classroom, I was often shocked at the lack of mental math skills my students had. It was rare to see a student judge an answer using estimation or split a total into thirds without the aid of a calculator. How does this happen? Ultimately I feel we must judge the effectiveness of the teaching strategies on learning outcomes. Do we feel that the learning outcomes have delivered on the promises? Sometimes I am not sure… and clearly the journalist in Maclean’s in also skeptical.

At ExploreLearning we are trying to fix this. For more than a decade we have invested heavily in constructing interactive teaching tools that allow teachers to differentiate and represent concepts non-linguistically. However, we realized that in many cases if the foundational skills in math were missing it becomes very difficult for students to feel successful when doing more complex mathematics.

This is the premise of Reflex. Gizmos are the conceptual tools for differentiated instruction and Reflex addresses the fundamental skill of math fact fluency. These two resources work together to build student success in math.

When I hear that parents are spending hundreds of dollars on math tutoring I get rather upset, especially when I hear that many tutoring companies are simply “flash carding” students with math facts to help build their confidence. Reflex is far more effective at doing this and at a fraction of the price. 

 

Teachers need to be in the drivers seat of their own learning

I have the honor of joining my former colleagues at Fletcher's Meadow Secondary School today to participate in their afternoon PD as a "pedagogista". They are using the Minds on Media approach to differentiate the professional learning experience to collectively uncover ideas toward the goal of effective use of instructional technology.

It's not 'wait for the workshop' any more. It's 'just in time' learning - not 'just in case'. Teachers will gain expertise in asking questions using Web 2.0 tools and in developing, nurturing and leveraging a robust professional learning network (PLN).

                 

I am looking forward to not only sharing expertise but also learning alongside my peers. It is so true what Peter Skillen says..."none of us are fully technology literate" as the technology landscape is changing very quickly.

 

In the workshops I did recently with the Durham DSB math learning teams (PLTs), we facilitators were really concious of modeling the best practice that we were trying to share. For me , it can never be that I am simply "talking the talk" as my actions speak so loudly about my own attitudes toward learning. If I am not passionately learning and growing how could I possibily expect that value to be transmitted to the learners I am influencing. ( See this article for some perspective on appropriate professional development for 21st century teachers )

How are you modeling 21st century learning in your professional development? How can we really craft differentiated learning environments for our students if we are not engaged in similar learning environments ourselves? Today we get to grapple with this question.

OISE Workshops

I have the distinct pleasure of supporting teacher candidates at OISE this week in learning more about Gizmos and Reflex. This post is simply bringing together the resources that I am planning on sharing so everyone can find what they need. 

 

Gizmos: www.explorelearning.com

Downloadable version of the workshop folder:  Download Gizmo Folder

Getting started with Gizmos booklet:  Download Self Guided Tutorial

What are Gizmos flyer:  Download What are Gizmos

Modeling Linear Systems - activity for whole class instruction:   Download Modeling Linear Systems 

 

Reflex: www.reflexmath.com

What is Reflex flyer:  Download Reflex Flyer

Reflex White Paper:  Download Reflex_White_Paper

Results from Ontario pilot schools:   Download ReflexOntarioFlyer

Importance of Math Facts by Marian Small:  Download Marian Small (Importance of Math Facts)

 

YouTube EDU

I am regularly in classrooms, computer labs, meeting rooms, libraries, and offices of stakeholders in public education. As a guest, I am at the mercy of the network protocols and filtering of the school or school board that has invited me. Sometimes there are technical problems, other times everything goes smoothly. You just never know what quirky obstacle you will need to overcome before the workshop start time.

One common issue I face with school networks is the blocking of YouTube. Five years ago a collection of my Peel DSB colleagues and I started to advocate for the "unblocking of YouTube" and I recently learned that this effort has now been successful. YouTube is available to Peel teachers! This took far too long.

If teachers were surveyed, I have no doubt the vast majority will say that YouTube has delivered spectacular value to the own learning and the richness of the classroom experiences they construct daily. This is part of the reason why ExploreLearning recently launched a YouTube Channel as a venu for teachers to share lesson ideas using Gizmos.

So, I find it interesting that YouTube has rose to the challenge and found a solution.

YouTube launches a section just for schools

Excerpt written by Jeff Festa: (http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/12/14/youtube-launches-a-section-just-for-schools/print/)
 

YouTube has created a special section for schools, filled with age-appropriate educational content. 

YouTube for Schools gives users access to the hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube EDU. This includes short lessons from top teachers around the world, full courses from the world’s best universities, professional development from fellow educators, andinspiring videos from thought leaders.

Educators also can customize the content that is available from the site. Though all schools receive access to all of the content on YouTube EDU, teachers and administrators can log in to YouTube.com and create playlists of videos that will be available at their school.

School teachers and administrators can log in and watch any video, but students cannot log in and can only watch YouTube EDU videos and videos their school has added. All comments and related videos are disabled, and search is limited to YouTube EDU videos.

YouTube also has created a page for teachers, YouTube.com/Teachers, to help them learn to use the site as a powerful educational tool. http://www.youtube.com/schools  

 

ExploreLearning Social Media - Get Connected!

Are you ooking to connect with ExploreLearning? Link to our various feeds right here and get into the conversation.

           

 

Reflex exceeds 1 million logins in 7 months!

ExploreLearning announced today that Reflex, our new program helping students develop math fact fluency, has reached one million student logins. In that time, students have solved over 125 million math facts. These milestones have been achieved in the seven months since the product was launched in April 2011.

“Math fact fluency is a central pillar of elementary mathematics education,” says David Shuster, Ph.D., Founder and Publisher of ExploreLearning. “With over 125 million facts solved in one million Reflex student sessions to date, Reflex is helping a lot of kids gain confidence in their abilities as they learn their math facts.  The fact that they are doing it by playing games and having fun is the icing on the cake.”

Check out the comments and results from our Ontario pilot schools:  Download Reflex Ontario Flyer

Recently published success stories in The Sault Star and Huron Superior Catholic DSB website.

Looking for more info on the importance of math facts to student success? Have a look at this article written by Marian Small in the Ontario Math Gazette:  Download Miriam Small (Math Facts)

Looking for more evidence? Check out the results we have had in Arkansas and Texas!

 

 

 

 

Generation G

Check out this TED Talk on Generation "G"amification: 

 

Now, if you are at all intrigued, sign up for a free trial to Reflex and experience exactly what Gabe Zichermann is talking about..."Games produce intrinsic reinforcement thru dopamine responses in the brain." You can actually see this in my son's body language in this video. 

I also challenge you to get in the game!

 

Having said that, I do not agree that the days of curling up with a book are over and that "Generation G" will no longer choose this learning tool. In fact, I think the opposite. I believe collectively on the brink of a change in how we value learning (long time in coming, I know). A book is still fantasitc technology becasue the paper is right there for you to begin interacting with the ideas the author is trying to convey. I love my Kobo e-reader but it is not as effective a medium for me to be actively learning. In my opinion, E-readers are fantastic technology for consuming books but mediocre technology for digesting them.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and spectulation at a stand still.     - Henry David Thoreau

I feel the same way about math. Reflex is fantastic at building math fact fluency for learners of all ages. The important thing is the transfer of the skill to other contexts and situations. The age old technology of paper and pencil is still perfectly suited for situations like having to calculate how much material you need to purchase from the hardware store for the project you are working on.  

 

Changing classroom and teaching

I recently stumbled upon this video from the 21st Century Learning Project.

 

What a great message about the disconnect that is growing between the rapidly changing real world and the slow to change world of school. The three minutes you spend watching this will reinforce the observations you may already be seeing and hopefully excite you with possibilities. Education is an institution, which means change is slow. Most of us know that we’re out of time to hesitate and the traditional classroom makes less and less sense everyday. How can we start the change that is necessary? The good news is that if you are using Gizmos to engage students in conversation, you are making a great step forward in transforming the dynamic in your classroom. 

Science and Math, for all the instructional obstacles they include, are poised to be the very source for solutions to problems we can't yet imagine. Math and Science educators are often master problem-solvers and the technological leaders in their school. This combination means that you are most likely to be at the front line of innovation. You will be the one sharing ideas like Gizmos, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 innovations with your colleagues. You are the change your students need you to be.