I've been thinking a lot about the idea of flipped learning and how I can get it to work for the benefit of both myself and my students. The use of videos is central to the notion of flipped learning and so I started using them in my lessons. Experience quickly showed, however, that longer videos - say more than 5 minutes - did not hold the attention of students and they quickly opted out of them.
One strategy I have employed to deal with this is The Bank of Mr Bilton. Another idea I had was to develop shorter and more succinct videos. It was from this idea that the 60SecondMindmeld project was born. Take a look at the latest from this project: a 60 second introduction to the Raspberry Pi.
Friday, 26 July 2013
Friday, 12 July 2013
Bank of Mr Bilton
Yesterday I was moderating a #ComputingHour chat session on the topic "Successful teaching of coding - where to start?" The point was made that it was ok for students to make mistakes when coding because they will learn from their mistakes and ultimately improve their understanding.
The first lesson I learnt when teaching coding, however, was that I needed strategies to avoid the constant need to firefight - i.e. the need to answer 30 questions all at the same time. I thought it would be interesting to see what strategies other teachers employed and so I posted this tweet:
In my case, I am currently using the acronym VOTE:
The VOTE acronym works hand-in hand with other strategies I have written blog posts about. Here's how I use it:
When they enter the room, students are given 2 bank notes issued by The Bank of Mr Bilton. When they leave the room they exchange the bank notes for a Growth Mindset and/or Effort stickers. See my Badges, Stickers and Achievement Points posts for more on these.
The bank note is shown below. The fact that it has my photo on it gives it real value for the students. An editable version of the note can be downloaded if you would like to add your own photo. Every time students fail to go through the VOTE process they have to hand over one of their notes, ultimately earning fewer stickers than students who were able to work more independently.
The first lesson I learnt when teaching coding, however, was that I needed strategies to avoid the constant need to firefight - i.e. the need to answer 30 questions all at the same time. I thought it would be interesting to see what strategies other teachers employed and so I posted this tweet:
If students are making lots of mistakes, how do we deal with the "sea of hands"? #ComputingHour— John Bilton (@jonbilton) July 11, 2013
It was great to see the excellent strategies that were suggested - all designed to encourage students to learn more independently, to not always rely on the teacher to answer a question as soon as it arises.
1. Peer Teaching
The ball was set rolling by @Coding2Learn who suggested that teachers make use of peer teaching -those that succeed help those who struggle. Only when they cannot help each other do they ask the teacher.
2. SNOT
A great acronym, SNOT, was suggested by @SharplesICT. SNOT stands for Self, Neighbour, Other, Teacher. In other words, students consult all help available in the classroom before they ask the teacher.
3. C3B4ME
Based upon the "language" of texting, @SuzanneCulshaw suggested C3B4ME, indicating that students should, again, consult all help available in the classroom before they ask the teacher.
4. Q Tokens
Another strategy suggested by @SuzanneCulshaw was Q Tokens, or Question Tokens. Here students in the class each have 3/4/5 tokens per lesson and have to hand over a token every time they ask a question that has an easy answer. This strategy has proven to be a great way of making students think up decent questions that they can to ask the teacher.
4. Q Tokens
Another strategy suggested by @SuzanneCulshaw was Q Tokens, or Question Tokens. Here students in the class each have 3/4/5 tokens per lesson and have to hand over a token every time they ask a question that has an easy answer. This strategy has proven to be a great way of making students think up decent questions that they can to ask the teacher.
In my case, I am currently using the acronym VOTE:
| V | Video | Watch the video |
| O | Other | Ask another student to see if they have the answer - their neighbour first of all, followed by someone else in the class |
| T | Teacher | Ask the teacher for the answer |
| E | Execute | Show progress by completing the work now that you have the answer |
The VOTE acronym works hand-in hand with other strategies I have written blog posts about. Here's how I use it:
When they enter the room, students are given 2 bank notes issued by The Bank of Mr Bilton. When they leave the room they exchange the bank notes for a Growth Mindset and/or Effort stickers. See my Badges, Stickers and Achievement Points posts for more on these.
The bank note is shown below. The fact that it has my photo on it gives it real value for the students. An editable version of the note can be downloaded if you would like to add your own photo. Every time students fail to go through the VOTE process they have to hand over one of their notes, ultimately earning fewer stickers than students who were able to work more independently.
Download the editable .PNG file here
This system works really well for me. It is great at eliminating superfluous questions and definately encorages students to become independent learners. An important part of the acronym, however, is Video. This aspect of VOTE will be the subject of a future post.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Moderating #ComputingHour
I had fun and busy time on Thursday 4th July hosting the first #ComputingHour discussions. The 1 hour live chat session takes place on Twitter every Thursday between 9pm-10pm. Anyone can take part - all you need to do is use the #ComputingHour hashtag when you tweet.
The topics of the two discussions that took place were:
"Ideas for using the Raspberry Pi"
"Which programming language to focus on?"
Follow the links to read the summaries of the discussions I posted on the #ComputingHour website.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
#ComputingHour
Twitter is an amazing vehicle for sharing opinions, ideas and resources. Trouble is, I can only access Twitter for an hour-or-so a day. This means that I constantly feel that I've missed out on lots of great tweets because they have dropped too far down my timeline. And so I started #ComputingHour as a way of overcoming this problem.
#ComputingHour is an opportunity to network with like-minded people interested Computing and ICT in schools. Sessions take place on Twitter every Thursday evening between 9pm-10pm. The first session takes place on Thursday 4th July 2013.
Take a look at the #ComputingHour website for more information.
Take a look at the #ComputingHour website for more information.
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Badge, Stickers and Achievement Points 5
Things have been progressing nicely with our reboot of rewards and praise within the ICT/Computing department. The stickers are now in school and I’m super-pleased with them! Well done @SchoolStickers who have supplied a high quality product.
Everything is now in place to get this exciting initiative off the ground with
Year 7 in September. When a coded sticker has been earned it will be placed into the student's planner, and a non-coded badge (a virtual duplicate of the sticker) will be placed into the student's Google Apps blog when their work is marked. The student uses the code on the sticker to log their achievement on the SchoolStickers website.
Achievement Points
Issued on a lesson-by-lesson basis
Issued on a lesson-by-lesson basis
Home Learning Stickers
Issued half-termly upon successful completion of the homework task
Google Apps Blogging Sticker
Gold, silver and bronze awarded according to the quality of eportfolio
All that remains now is to give this initiative a big launch. I'll report back in October or November to let you you how things have gone.
| Badges, Stickers Part 4 |
Monday, 17 June 2013
Badges, Stickers and Achievement Points 4
The curriculum and the home learning tasks for term 1 (Sept-Dec 2013) of year 7 are now in place!
We will be starting with a unit on Scratch and E-Safety where students work towards designing a game in which they have to shoot down the E-Safety threats whilst avoiding the "friendlies". The bronze, silver and gold Games Programmer and E-Safety Expert stickers and badges will be awarded for the best work, as will the bronze, silver and gold Blogger badge for the best Google Apps eportfolio. A badge will also be awarded for the completed home learning tasks on the topic of History of Computers.
We will be starting with a unit on Scratch and E-Safety where students work towards designing a game in which they have to shoot down the E-Safety threats whilst avoiding the "friendlies". The bronze, silver and gold Games Programmer and E-Safety Expert stickers and badges will be awarded for the best work, as will the bronze, silver and gold Blogger badge for the best Google Apps eportfolio. A badge will also be awarded for the completed home learning tasks on the topic of History of Computers.
Bronze, Silver and Gold Badges
Year 7 Term 1
During the second half of the term we will work on a topic based around the Smart ICT scheme of work in which students create a Bizarre Facts website. Whilst this will be created using Dreamweaver, we will be looking in detail at html coding. The bronze, silver and gold Website Designer and HTML Hotshot stickers and badges will be awarded for the best work, as again will the bronze, silver and gold Blogger badge for the best eportfolio. A badge will also be awarded for the completed home learning tasks on the topic of Story of a Dot COM.
List of Stickers and Badges for Term 1:
| Half Term | Sticker Name | Points Value | Notes |
1
|
Games Programmer (Bronze) |
2
|
Design a game in Scratch - task completed |
1
|
Games Programmer (Silver) |
3
|
As above but to a good standard |
1
|
Games Programmer (Gold) |
4
|
As above but to an excellent standard |
1
|
E-Safety Expert (Bronze) |
2
|
Give Scratch game an e-safety emphasis - i.e. shoot down the e-safety threats |
1
|
E-Safety Expert (Silver) |
3
|
As above but to a good standard |
1
|
E-Safety Expert (Gold) |
4
|
As above but to an excellent standard |
1
|
History of Computers |
2
|
Home learning task |
2
|
Website Designer (Bronze) |
2
|
Create a Bizarre Facts website |
2
|
Website Designer (Silver) |
3
|
As above but to a good standard |
2
|
Website Designer (Gold) |
4
|
As above but to a good standard |
2
|
HTML Hotshot (Bronze) |
2
|
Understand basic html coding |
2
|
HTML Hotshot (Silver) |
3
|
As above but to a good standard |
2
|
HTML Hotshot (Gold) |
4
|
As above but to an excellent standard |
2
|
Story of a dot COM |
2
|
Home learning task |
1-6
|
Blogger (Bronze) |
2
|
Awarded for completed eportfolios |
1-6
|
Blogger (Silver) |
3
|
Awarded for good eportfolios |
1-6
|
Blogger (Gold) |
4
|
Awarded for excellent eportfolios |
1-6
|
Effort |
1
|
Lesson-by-lesson achievement point |
1-6
|
Progress |
1
|
Lesson-by-lesson achievement point |
1-6
|
Growth Mindset |
1
|
Lesson-by-lesson achievement point |
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Stickers, Badges 3 . . . and Home Learning
Work has been continuing on Badges and Stickers for next academic year. @GeekyNicki has been a good source of inspiration for ideas - check out her website which has lots of amazing resources. I've been looking at linking the Badges and Stickers to the Home Learning Tasks that I've been working on.
Here are the stickers that Carrot Rewards (who I have no affiliation to) created for me. I'll be using these with the new Year 7 between September and December 2013.
| Half Term | Sticker Name | Points Value | Notes |
1
|
History of Computers |
2
|
Home learning task |
2
|
Famous Dot COM |
2
|
Home learning task |
Here are the stickers that Carrot Rewards (who I have no affiliation to) created for me. I'll be using these with the new Year 7 between September and December 2013.
| Badges, Stickers Part 2 | Badges, Stickers Part 4 |
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