Exploring Learning

This week, we have been exploring andragogy and how we can use learning theory to motivate and design learning for adults. We had to create a Padlet to share our ideas. Access mine HERE or click below.

"You must leave digital footprints so people know you’re treading among them and part of the community" Vicki Davis, ' Global Education by Design '. I joined Twitter in July 2012 and I honestly can’t tell you what prompted me to join. I had been in a school in Malaysia for a year and that had been my first exposure to teaching with technology. We were a 1:1 Mac school just starting to implement GSuite for Education (or Google Apps for Education as it was then). At that time, the apps were limited, tables for example, in Google Docs, didn’t work properly and the formatting options were limited. There was no Google Classroom either. However, it revolutionised my teaching and I began to write websites as schemes of work that had my learners as the audience and focused on what they were doing, rather than an list of instructions that I, as the teacher, should do to them. I also began to use Edmodo to share all my resources and lessons with my learners online for 2...

I had a fantastic two lessons with both my Grade 7s today; we were all excited and the light bulb moments popped everywhere! We are currently studying the novel Skellig (Almond, 2000) and I have written before about using drama to bring to life their understanding of the opening and setting of the novel ; now we have moved on to looking at understanding the allusions and symbols used, and how a deep knowledge heightens our appreciation of literature. We learned about symbols and symbolism in the first unit of the year, and this unit builds upon that knowledge and moves into an understanding also of allusions. We explored the terms and then I assigned ten topics for research to either individual learners or pairs. I created a blank presentation using a Carnival Slides template on Google Slides and then created a copy for each class. All information from each learner's research will be contained in the one presentation for that particular class. To model the task require...

A reflection on my thoughts around staff development and training comes along nicely on the coattails of a piece of research I conducted last year into the role technology professionals have in the school environment today, and where I see that role going in the future (see my post, Teacher Geeks ). My research unequivocally states that “it is essential that educators remain current in content, pedagogy and technology practices and theory”, as we move towards empowering ALL teachers to be skilled in the effective use of technology in their classrooms, and away from discrete roles for tech coaches. For an inclusive community model cultivating “teaching geeks” (Guerin, 2016) to be a reality, constant training in relevant content, pedagogy and technology is essential, and schools (and educators) must be committed to providing time and space for effective professional learning opportunities. Too often, I have learned what not to do when it comes to effective professional learning (PL) and...