How powerful can internet learning be?

I don't think I have brought this up before but my husband flies Radio Controlled aeroplanes and has been doing so for almost a year now.  Very early on he was flying with a friend who had more experience than himself but he moved away for work, leaving my husband mentorless.

He used blogs, youtube videos, websites, online forums and the like to teach him quite a lot.

Both to build

and fly his planes.

As you can tell it's not just the basics he's been able to come to grips with and he's been flying RC planes for under a year.  He's learnt about flying, construction, electronics, aerodynamics and the physics involved in inertia and momentum.  Answering one question often leads him to another and he's always able to go out and find the answers.

You may have also watched some of our PD workshop feedback videos which is something he does for the Wodonga CRT Support Network.  He's continually improving how he puts these (and his own) feedback videos together, using the internet as his main source of information for new tips, tricks and tecnhiques.

The point here isn't to stroke my husband's ego (although he'd like me to inform you that you should feel free to point out how awesome he is at any time you like).  It's to illustrate, in a visual way using something people understand is difficult, how potent a source of information social networking and the internet in general can be.  In just about any arena you want to learn in.

If there's something you or your students want to know?  It might take a while but you can find it, and you can find out a lot. Between Facebook, Youtube and online forums just look at what my husband has learnt to do.  You and your students can do it too!

Regards,

Mel.

Blog Spotlight; "What Ed Said"

"I once spent a whole day in a professional development workshop for second language teachers and I learned how to make a fold-up book. That’s all. Nothing else."

I found the post that is quoted from shortly before my first full run at being a presenter for a workshop (my "literacy games" workshop).

I'd also been to a workshop the week before where I learnt the name of something I already do and got a flowchart I'd never seen before.  Not that there was no useful information on offer, far from it, I'd just seen the majority of it before.

Needless to say Ed's post really hit home.  It's well worth the read if you are presenting workshops, looking at starting to present workshops or just want a few tips for the classroom.

10 tips for workshop presenters any teachers… on "What Ed Said".

What Ed Said is one of the Teacher blogs in our sidebar and I often wander over and have a look at "What Ed Said".  This time though, rather than just leave it in the sidebar, I think it's worthy of putting a spotlight on the post!

Regards,

Mel.

The 2012-2013 funding is in!

This year's funding is in.  Budgets are tight everywhere in education and being funded through the DEECD means their tight budget has made our budget a bit tighter too!  It's less than we have received in previous years but there is absolutely no reason to panic!

We will keep operating the way we have been operating in the last 9 months.  Between the new funding, the amount left over from last year and our Officeworks sponsorship we have more than enough funding and supplies to keep the status quo for the next 12 months.

There will be absolutely no drop in the number of workshops we offer, no drop in the quality of presenters we can offer and the catering quality can stay exactly where it's at too!

Meetings have always been funded through the Network and not the DEECD so there will be absolutely no change in those either!

Everything is right on track for the 2012-2013 financial year!

I would like to say congratulations to all VIT CRT Network Coordinators!

When the initiative that funds PD was announced, it was made clear that it was only guaranteed for 2 years.  This year marks the 3rd year of funding!  Network Coordinators have done a job worthy of continuing the CRT Professional Learning Support Initiative for another year.

If you have made use of the PD offered by a VIT CRT Network?  Please send your coordinator a letter thanking them for the job they are doing, keeping you supplied with CRT relevant PD.

If you aren't a member but have attended CRT Network PD?  You can find a list of the networks with contact emails here;

http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/teachersupport/Pages/CRTnetworks.aspx

Regards,

Mel.

The power of Feedback on the Internet.

We've been looking at Youtube for a while now and dabbled with it although we mostly use it to put up PD feedback videos.  Usually we don't really care about how the videos perform.  We have a look at the view counts occasionally out of idle curiosity but that's about all.

We got bored the other day and decided to have a look at all of the "analytics" that Youtube tracks for you and started to consider what they really mean.  A lot of it we don't think we'll ever really need to know.  Was it watched on Windows, Mac or Linux?  A home computer or a mobile device?  But we did go and read up on the sorts of ways that uploaders use feedback to give their Youtube channel some direction.

One of the problems is that sometimes all you get is view numbers which is helpful but since exploring we now find ourselves looking for more.  With something like the "advertisement" video in our sidebar, views is about all you need.  All you need to know is that it's being used so it's performing it's function.  

The same can be said for most of our PD feedback videos.  Because we make them to embed in our blog, comments aren't displayed with them so we aren't too fussed there either.  While it's good to see comments and thumbs up on them?  They are serving their purpose for the most part.  While comments would allow us to point to it and say "hey, look at the fun we are providing as well as the education part", feedback isn't going to change what we do with them.

Content based video is a little different.  Of course we have only made two but when things settle down a bit we plan on going further.  These are the ones where we'd like to see the feedback and we now know that other uploaders value that feedback as much as we do.

You have probably all seen a video embedded from Youtube at some point or other and it gives you a couple of options to provide feedback to the uploader.  People who are serious about their youtube channel use feedback from the view count, comments, thumbs up/thumbs down and subscriptions to guide themselves on how they select the content they upload.  Knowing how to use these tools gives you a little bit of input so the uploader keeps showing you things you want to see.

So how do you signal your support and what sort of feedback are uploaders going to pay attention to?

When you finish watching a video (or if you hovver your mouse over the video while it's playing) a pair of toolbars will pop into frame.  One from the top and one from the bottom like the picture shows.  This picture is what you see if you are signed into your Google account.  If you don't have a Google account you won't see the thumbs up or thumbs down icons.

The share button; Add views to a video. 

This button will appear whether you have a Google account or not.  Using the Share option allows you to put a link to the video onto your Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Myspace etc page or feed.  This adds views to the video by getting your friends to watch it too.

Youtube uploaders watch their views and they can also see, through the statistics that Youtube provides,  when other people share or embed their video in social networking sites or their blog.  Sometimes you get a lot of views but the video is not that well received.  What sharing does is let the uploader see that the views mean something.  Not only have you watched it, you thought it was interesting enough to share with your friends.  If your friends share it too, they can also see that they think the same and again want to share it with their friends.

This is one of the most powerful forms of feedback you can give.  Anyone can hit a thumbs up button if they liked a video.  If you take the time to share it you obviously thought the content was well worth watching.

Like and Dislike (Thumbs up or down).

You need to be signed in to your account to use this option.

Younger youtube viewers often assume that this is a powerful form of feedback when in fact it's the weakest one on offer.  It is quick and easy and is therefore one of the favourite tools of the "troll".  A troll is a person who just jumps from video to video hitting the dislike/thumbs down button and leaving negative and rude comments, usually because they attach some sort personal achievement to it or think it's hilarious to do it.  It's got nothing to do with the video itself, it's all about them looking to be important.

Uploaders know all about Trolls.  Most regular Youtube viewers also know about trolls.  The dislike/thumbs down button means virtually nothing because of this unless there's about 50 of them and no "like" rating.  There's people out there using the dislike/thumbs down button for all the right reasons, they were bored with the video or learnt nothing of note out of it, but generally speaking that feedback is lost because of the trolls.

The thumbs up/like button generally means "yep, that was ok".  You found it worth watching but it wasn't entertaining or inspiring enough to provide feedback beyond a single mouse click.  This lets the uploader know that although you found the video useful or entertaining in some way it's not really what you are looking for.

Commenting.

You need to be signed in to your account to use this option.

On the bottom bar there is a "Youtube" button with their iconic TV screen.  This button will redirect you to Youtube where you have access to the share, like/dislike like you do from the embedded interface, but you can now leave a personal comment.

Commenting is a good form of feedback because it allows you to define exactly what you liked and disliked about the video.  You aren't limited to a "good or bad" option like the other forms of feedback.  You can like most of the video but disagree with one part in particular and say so.  You can like the video but the thrash metal music they used to appeal to a younger crowd might grate on you.  You can point out 

"Hey, great video!  That music though?  It's not really appropriate for your wider audience".

This lets the uploader know that you really liked the content but sooner or later the music is going to get on your nerves and you'll stop watching.  They then have some extra knowledge to guide them.  They might have thought that their ideas would only appeal to a younger crowd which is why they picked that music, but now they know that they have a wider audience than they thought interested in what they have to say.  They can now consider picking a new piece of music more appropriate to that wider audience.

It doesn't mean they are necessarily going to do it of course, but it lets them know it's worth considering.

Subscribing.

Subscribing is a big deal.  It's telling the uploader that you are interested in a lot of what they are posting videos about and want to be notified when they upload a new one.  It lets them know that their content is striking a cord with people and keeping on posting the same sort of content is well worthwhile.

By subscribing you can also get access to the videos they like or comment on, telling them you not only like the content they are uploading but you are also interested in where they are getting their inspiration from.

Need to know.

These are basic things that every Youtube viewer needs to know.  Effective feedback is a great way to make sure that your favourite uploaders keep uploading the content you are looking for.

It strikes me as doubly important for students to understand these basic "rules" of feedback because they are cross-platform "rules" applying to most social networking sites.

These days Social Networking is one of the first avenues students have to effect the world around them.  Of course they are all taught how to recognise and avoid "cyber-bullying" and online predators from quite a young age but most Internet programs focus on personal protection and internet "manners" rather than how to be a useful and productive internet user.

If the opportunity arises?  Focus your internet-savvy students towards this goal.  Teach them that they have influence in the world and that knowing how to be a responsible internet user is necessary and there's plenty of studies out there now that show that internet usage is becoming a life-skill rather than a neiche interest.

A few years later these basic principles are going to become handy in other areas like Democracy.  Voting for a new prime minister, voting for a new club president, voting on using Blue balloons at the student fair this year.  Understanding that they have influence when offered a vote but it also depends on the majority.

It might seem like a small deal, knowing how to use Youtube feedback.  It sort of is when considered on it's own.  As a building block for the understanding of important life-skills it can be a very useful tool to teach a lot of basic social concepts that students will use for the rest of their lives.

What is it going to teach us as Teachers though?  Students have social power from a very young age these days. What are we going to do with this knowledge?  Should we understand it so we can control it in the classroom or should we promote it so we can teach them that there's power but it has it's boundaries?  That, of course,is the big question.

Regards,

Mel.

End of Financial Year report.

We have put up an End of Financial Year report page over on our PD Information Blog.

You'll be able to get some information on our Professional Development activities in the past 12 months as well as some comments on how we think the Wodonga CRT Support Network is travelling along.

http://wodongacrtsupportnetworkpd.blogspot.com.au/p/eofy-report.html

Please leave comments!  This is one of those important times where although we think we are doing OK we need to know what you think too!

Regards,

Mel.

Collegial Learning Part 4

Accessing Collegial Learning.

Most of you want to access what's already out there.

If you are in Victoria, contact your nearest VIT CRT Network Coordinator and see if they run meetings.  We each approach our Network in our own way within the constraints of the time we can devote to them.  This means that not all Networks are able to offer the periodic meetings.  If they don't offer meetings?  That doesn't mean they won't be helping you out on this front.  CRT Networks can't help but put you into contact with an awful lot of CRTs simply by gathering you together.  Even if they aren't running meetings?  PD workshops still give you access to a whole room full of CRTs!

Talk to other CRTs that you attend PD with or work along side of in schools.  Build the relationships you need to be comfortable discussing your teaching issues.  Build the sorts of relationships where you are going to get a pat on the back when you have done well.  Build the sorts of relationships where sharing teaching advice is normal and welcome.

If you are outside of Victoria, or outside Australia for that matter, often you have to start thinking "outside the box" because there's no groups near you.  You have found this blog meaning you have begun your search and  I assure you there are many many more out there.  Blogs are a very good place to start.

Keep visiting these blogs!  Start commenting! Participate in online discussions!  These days a lot of similarly minded people are no more than an internet connection away.

I have links to some of my favourite teacher blogs in the sidebar but there's many more out there.  I keep my favourites there so anyone visiting can use them as launching-off points to find the blogs that they like too. Many do like I have, they have links to even more teacher blogs in their sidebar.

On long rainy weekends I've followed these chains for hours, picking up tips, tricks and invaluable information.  Learnt things I never would have thought of myself.

As far as I am concerned Teacher blogs are wonderful things!

Creating groups for local CRTs.

The one important thing you need to understand before you start?

The number one things you need to work on to provide a collegial learning environment is relationships.  Without solid relationships nothing else matters.  Unless people are comfortable enough with their peers that they are willing to put their PROBLEMS and MISTAKES on the table, they aren't going to be free to seek out the answers they need.

The following video does a few things.  First, it explains why you need to build relationships better than I can.  Secondly, it shows you that it is important enough that schools are paying the dollars to have their coaches taught this stuff.

While I recommend watching all 3 of these videos, for now just start at the 3 minute mark of this one.

The number ONE thing you need to do before all others is to understand that one of the most important things you will do is to help build realtionships between the people in your group.

I started off with 10 of us around a table, not really knowing where we were going or what we were doing.   By building relationships between these CRTs, things hotted up.  The meetings became interesting and informative as we all got more and more comfortable with sharing aspects of our professional lives.  Before long they were telling their friends of the great thing they were on and they wanted in on it too.

The Network has now grown to over 100 members who turn up for different things at different times and we are having a direct impact on the quality of education available to CRTs and students in our region.  All because they have realtionships that encourage them to be open, enthusiastic and helpful towards each other.

As a coordinator, helping build relationships is mostly what you will do.  You will schedule meetings, look at local issues and set topics etc but building those relationships is core to getting these people to share information and advice with each other.  If you build the right atmosphere almost everything else will take care of itself.  You will be sitting in a room participating at the same level as everyone else, learning just as much as everyone else.


If you are interested in starting up a network in your area?  Please feel free to email me to help get the ball rolling. Make sure you tell me a little about yourself, your area and how you would like to structure your group because I'm genuinely interested to see how others intend to carry the same torch I am.

If you are already running a similar group?  Wow!  Good on you and please tell me your story too!  What prompted you to start your group?  What do your members like to discuss and learn about?  What are the "big" topics that get everyone excited?

Also feel free to use the comments on these 4 posts on collegial learning.  I'm as eager to learn as I am to see CRTs get every benefit that full time teachers do!

Regards,

Mel.

Collegial Learning part 3

Collegial Learning from fellow CRTs vs other Teaching professionals.

CRTs get many opportunities for some form of collegial learning.  School staff meetings, advice from leading Teachers, talking to other Teachers on breaks, talking to Teachers who are friends on an evening out. I always understood that in some respects this wasn't quite enough.  While I learned a lot from these sorts of interactions it was often from the perspective of full-time teachers.  

It didn't really help me deal with CRT specific issues like being able to grab the attention of a class and lead a productive day of learning.  Full time teachers get a class for the year, can take a week learning the ins and outs of each class and then settle in for the year.  We often have to do this multiple times a week and on top of that we have to do it in about 10 minutes!

What happens when you walk into a class and there's no lesson plan, you can't read the lesson plan or (even if you can read it) without knowing what comes before or after it's practically useless?  Plans left for CRTs are usually pretty straight forward but many of the teachers who you replace at the last minute due to sickness or injury?  Their notes are often written in a way they understand fully but most others simply can't wrap their heads around.  Full timers write their own plans, always know where they have been, where they are going and exactly what they want students to get out of those 5 shorthand lines of lesson plan.  Every time I ask a full timer when I hit this situation?  I get advised to just give them activity sheets for the day, keep them out of trouble and don't worry about it.

Ask a CRT?  Off the cuff activities, which are engaging and educational, come out of the woodwork.  "Why don't you try this?"  "I use these activities and the kids always have fun and learn things". Being a CRT in a room full of CRTs is a far different collegial learning experience than being in a room full of full timers.

This is one of the main reasons why I started the Wodonga CRT Support Network.  I wanted to bring CRTs together to learn from each other so everyone landed on their feet no matter what happened.  I wanted this learning experience for myself and if I wanted it I was sure that others would want the same thing.  Yes, we now organize and run Pdi approved workshops and seminars with some pretty high-class presenters but our core still revolves around the collegial learning aspects of our monthly meetings.

The simple fact is that the only group of people who deal with all of the same issues as CRTs is CRTs.  It's the only "one stop shopping" you can do where advice on every aspect of your working life is bound to be on offer.  It's becoming realized in more places than Victoria that Casual/substitute/emergency teachers not only want this sort of atmosphere, they need it.

More and more we are being recognized as a valuable asset in the education of children and we are continually drifting away from the "babysitter" role that has been expected of us in the past.  That one CRT we remember from our childhood who we always hoped to get, because they were fun and interesting, is starting to be recognized as what "should be".  The ones we hated, the ones that sat at the front of the class reading while they made sure we bahaved and spent a day doing Homework, are becoming a thing of the past.

With more and more being required of us, less and less of everything we need to have skill for is able to be given to us by full-timers.  They want to help as much as they can but the simple fact is that they aren't stepping into a different class every day.  They haven't honed their skills at taking command of a class of unruly students in 10 minutes.  They don't have to remember the names of a new batch of 25 students compared to yesterday.  They haven't honed their skills in following through on lesson plans at a moment's notice.  They get to plan, they don't have to have an arsenal of resourses and strategies that can be tailored to different grades that can be pulled out at a moment's notice.  They don't have to walk into a new classroom and have bulletproof strategies for working out which students are fine and which need help in the first 20 minutes.

While a lot of what we do is the same as a full-time teacher, a lot we do is different too.  We need collegial learning from CRTs to help bring us all of the best strategies to deal with the special needs of being in a classroom for only a day.

Here's a big one, we often don't get told what we are doing "wrong" and I'd like to take a second to explode a few myths generated recently in the Australian media.  Unlike a full-time teacher that needs help we often don't get it in schools.  If you put someone on for a year you have to deal with them.  If they are having issues you have no choice but to train them to operate in your particular school environment.  CRTs?  You just don't hire them anymore and get someone new in.  Cycle through them until you get the ones that fit in and you can completely avoid the effort and cost of training them.

It's not that they don't want to help you.  It's not that they don't care.  It's not that they just want to take the easy way out instead.  Here in Australia we hear every few weeks about how most schools are under funded and budgets need to be increased.  It's not just media hype and political mudslinging, it's true.  Many schools simply don't have the funding or resources on hand to be able to train CRTs, it's simply impossible for them to do it for more than a few core CRTs working in their schools.

Collegial learning is the first step to taking matters into your own hands.  It's cheap, it's easy to organize and it's highly effective.

The good news is that here in Victoria (Australia)? The Victorian Institute of Teaching and the DEECD are picking up the provision of CRT specific PD workshop opportunities.  Unfortunately it's not the case everywhere though.  In the final part to this topic I'm going to pass on some info about how to create a collegial learning atmosphere for local CRTs to access and learn from.  While most of you won't have the time or drive for such a venture I'm hoping that some of you out there take up the torch and head down the road I have.

Regards,

Mel.