Let’s get serious about Climate change

Let’s get serious about Climate change

This is most probably one of the hottest topics at the moment...

About three months ago, I finished editing 17 videos about the SDG’s.  

The unusual thing about this group of videos is not that they are all 

teachers who recorded the videos, but the truly amazing thing is that 

the teachers are from various countries from around the world who all 

met at the same place to record the videos.  Although there were language 

barriers as not everyone spoke a common language, we produced a video 

on each of the SDG’s.

(The videos can be seen at http://wsparrow.blogspot.co.uk/p/sdg.html) 

My philosophy is that one person can make a difference.  Regardless of 

how big or small that difference is, it can start with you and me.  The beauty 

behind this is if you make a small difference to one person, and that one 

person makes a difference to another person, exponentially, very soon 

it will be a huge difference. 

One of the group members who I worked with in creating the SDG’s, 

was Koen Timmers.  He is one of my greatest inspirational and 

innovative teachers that I know.  Last year he created a global project 

called Climate Action project.  (https://www.climate-action.info)

This was a digital group project where 250 schools in 69 countries 

worked together to learn about climate change.  The project ran over 

5 weeks and each week the students conducted research, brainstorms 

and discussed various ideas before presenting their finding via videos 

or online presentations.  This was a brilliant student centred approach 

where students where learning from each other from various parts of the 

world.

(Koen Timmers has once again created another global project that starts 

in April concentrating on SDG 4, 6, 7 and 11 and if you are interested, 

you can join at http://bit.ly/climatechange2018)

For me, I decided to allow my students a bit more free reign and allowed 

them to create videos about their own topics.  The students created videos 

about anything that they felt strongly about.  The videos in essence gave the 

students a voice to be heard, a video that allowed them to give their own 

views and opinions.  Although I gave them time to research their topics, 

this was not based on facts, but more about feelings or impressions that 

they wanted to convey to the world. 

The videos that the students created covered poverty, gender equality, 

health, peace, but the surprise to me was that the largest number of 

videos that the students created was about climate change.  Is this a 

sign of the times that even though I had not given the students a specific 

task, climate change came through as the most featured topic?

There are incredible resources that you can find online that you can do 

easily with your class and there are global projects that involve 

thousands of students and cover many continents. 

The choice you need to make is an easy one.
How are you going to make a difference?

How are you going to take action against climate change?

#TeachersMatter  #MIEExpert  #Education #RubinWorldEDU 

Health, happiness and well-being

Health, happiness and well-being

Regardless of where you are in the world, children have very similar dreams and aspirations.  I love walking into kindergarten classes and seeing the passion and enthusiasm that the children show when they are asked what they would like to do when they are older.  Unfortunately not everyone gets their fairy tale in real life. 

The catch for educators is to know the students in your class well enough to give them the support they need so that they can turn their dreams into reality.  You might not always understand the complexity of the student's situation, but the student needs to feel that they can confide in you without feeling that you are judging them.

I love enrichment clubs where you are able to get to know the children on a more one to one basis outside of a formal education setting.  I especially like to step back and allow the students to take control of their own learning during this time, allowing them to choose their own topics and do something that they feel is important to them.

With my one enrichment group of 11 year old's, they decided to make a video about healthy eating.     Even after completing the video, they took the project further when they decided to start a campaign to convert the tuckshop in our school so that it would only sell what was approved by the heart foundation.  Although it took a little while, they were victorious in the end.  The indomitable spirit of this group of 11 year old’s was inspiring!

One of the great things about being an ICT teacher is that you have a little bit of flexibility with what you are producing, which also allows more creativity in my classes.  With the new software / devices / apps there is always the option of creating something new and inspirational which can be shared with other schools or countries.  

On the other side of this, which is equally as important is your own well-being.  When you are feeling down, exhausted, sick, how are you expected to be teaching inspirational lessons?

There are little tricks that I try and do with my class where I can distress / relax at the same time as them.  One of these is in the morning to have quiet time and reflect on the day ahead.   I find that we all need timeout from technology during the day, oops I should never be saying this as an ICT teacher …. Playing soccer, hand tennis or table tennis not only gets you active, but it also creates a bond with your students.

Being a teacher is about having relationships and to me is more important than teaching a curriculum that they might forget about in 10 years time.  This is about a connection, allowing the student to feel that they are important, that they matter and that you care.

With ICT, students need to be given a voice to share what they think is important.  With the Internet there are so many global initiatives that they can be part of.  Fairly often the students come across other students with the same difficulties living half way across the world.  So often students feel that they are the only ones with a problem and being able to share their feelings with others seems to make them feel more human and that they are not alone.

Being there, actively listening, being supportive and knowing the students you teach can go a far helping them to believe in the fairy tale  that is their life.  

#TeachersMatter  #MIEExpert  #Education #RubinWorldEDU 

The Best Edtech Tools for Learning

The Best Edtech Tools for Learning

Let me start by saying I LOVE edtech tools, they really are AWESOME!  

I remember being at Microsoft HQ and Satya Nadella telling us about 

HoloLens for the first time.  My mind started thinking of all the different 

possibilities that it could be used and how VR could become 

part of my reality, not from some science fiction movie set in 2030, 

but here today, I mean WOW!

Before I start I need to mention that not all the ed-tech tools are new, 

some of them are ancient, but I still think that they are great.  The 

other thing is although there are really amazing paid for apps, 

I am going to only look at edtech tools that you do not have to pay for
or there is a free version.

One other thing before we get to the good stuff... 

I know that the dream is to have student-centred, hands-on, 

personalized instruction,  but we need to remember that

technology is not the solution to success. 
It is a tool that if used effectively can
enhance teaching and learning.

OK now let's look at the Ed Tech tools I love.

In no particular order…

Kahoot  (https://kahoot.com) 

I first stumbled across this in August 2014, 

but have been using it ever since.  I love the fact that you can create your 

own quiz and then play it with your class or you can use one of the quizzes 

that another person has created.  (A word of caution, go through the 

quiz before you play it with your class….)  Regardless of what device 

your children have, as long as they have Internet access they can play.  

To me this has to be one of the top tools, fun and easy to use!

 Commonlit (https://www.commonlit.org)

This is a great site for any English teacher.  So often you are looking for

passages to show or explain and can never find the right ones.  Well here they are.  

It is ideally suited for Grade 5 – 12.  There are hundreds of passages of texts 

that you can go through and best of all it is completely free.   I like the online 

version that allows you to highlight words, change the font size and go 

through the guided reading mode more than printing out the pdf.  There 

is also a handy quick assessment, but I really like the discussion topics that they have.

Brilliant!

OfficeMix (https://mix.office.com)

O my word, this is really incredible.  It is a free add on for PowerPoint 2013 

or higher that totally changes the way in which you can make PowerPoints.  

I love the fact that it becomes interactive, you can record and screen cast  videos 

straight in PowerPoint and you can add quizzes, polls, etc.  I used this to create 

all my learning content for ECDL year 10 students which then also allowed 

them to watch it whenever they wanted!

Have a look at my office mix video that I made to show you how to use it

StoryboardThat (http://www.storyboardthat.com/)

This is a free digital storyboard that is quick and easy to use.  I used to hand 

out templates for the students to draw, but this is so much quicker and easier, 

plus the students love using this.  It means that they do not need to be artists 

or keep loosing their pieces of paper. 
Love this!

Scratch

This is a great piece of software that is free and will allow you to learn how to
code quickly and easily using either online or offline.  The 2 versions are a little
bit different, but not much.  I have created 6 lessons that you can
download for free. 
These can be found below:

There are so many others that are really brilliant.

You might want to have a look at some of these below as well.

Book creator (https://bookcreator.com/)

Nearpod (https://nearpod.com/)

Minecraft (minecraft.net)

Minecraft education Editon (https://education.minecraft.net/)

Padlet (https://padlet.com)

Dualingo (https://www.duolingo.com)

Padlet (https://padlet.com)

Dualingo (https://www.duolingo.com)

Storybird (https://storybird.com)

Triptico (https://www.tripticoplus.com)

Have fun with these and I hope that you will use these next year!

#CMRubin, #cmrubinworld.com, #teachersmatter
#Varkey Teacher Ambassador  #MIEExpert #MSFTEdu #Education

Professional Development for staff in the 21st Century

Professional Development for staff in the 21st Century 

Giving my age away, I remember when I was a student and the school I was in, 

bought their first overhead projector.  WOW, this was incredible.  Today of course 

you get interactive boards, Ipads, Apple TV, Xbox and a whole range of others.  

Using these tools can change the way you teach, what you teach and how you teach it.  

It makes classes fun, interactive and exciting. 

Having taught ICT and computing for the last number of years learning new pieces 

of software, coding, etc is part of the job.  It is the one of the things that I really enjoy, 

the constant change of technology and the new exciting things that come out all the time.

But it can get daunting as well.  There is so much coming out so quickly that it is not 

possible to stay on the forefront in all things with regards to ICT.

I believe that my school in South Africa had the correct approach to staff development 

and ongoing professional development with regards to ICT and implementation.  

As part of my role in the school, I was in charge of ICT implementation.  

The teachers could choose to attend one session every 2 weeks.  Each session was 

20 - 30 minutes long and was either before school started or after school.  This made it 

easier for teachers to decide which session would suit them best.  During this time, 

I would concentrate on one thing that I could show the teachers that they could use 

it in their classroom.  For example, I would show them a piece of software, a web tool, 

a bit of pedagogy, etc.  

This was important, as there was a range of teacher abilities and knowledge and this 

made it easier for them to use technology that was appropriate for their ability.  

For the more advanced user they were introduced to new technology or tools that they 

could integrate into their class.

Once a week I had a meeting with each department where we would discuss what they 

were teaching and what technology they were using to enrich their lessons.  I was 

responsible for finding appropriate software, websites and tools that the teachers 

could use in their classes.  

For the new teachers or teachers that were less tech savvy, I would teach the lesson 

for them to show them how to use the technology in their classroom.  Before the 

lesson, I would always tell the teacher two things:

The teacher had to be in the class and observe me teach the class, as I was doing this 

for them, not for their class.  

Secondly, I could never teach their class as well as they could, as they knew the 

children in their classes and they were the subject specialists.  

My task was to show them how to use the technology in their class more effectively.  

A week or so later I would then team-teach with the staff member before observing a 

lesson that they were teaching a few weeks later.

One thing I realised is that there are many companies that you can contact to do ICT staff development and training for FREE.  

SchoolNet in South Africa were incredible with organising many different training 

courses for the school that they did for free.  I could not have done this without them.  

Through SchoolNet the staff managed to complete courses through Microsoft, Intel 

and Adobe.  Not only did this assist them professionally, but personally as well as 

many of these courses led to other opportunities.  

I believe that so often schools do staff development that is not really developing 

their staff.  Each school needs to find the best way for them to do constructive staff 

development that works for them. The schools do not need to do this by themselves, 

get involved and find other people / companies to assist.   

People need to remember that this is a journey and every person will progress at their 

own speed.  There is no overnight success.  One of the most important things is that the 

professional development must happen all the time, not only on a Friday afternoon 

when there is a allocated timetabled slot for this to happen.

#TeachersMatter  #MIEExpert  #Education #RubinWorldEDU 

The perfect Christmas Gift

The perfect Christmas Gift

My youngest daughter says that she would like a new laptop.  I  did say that 

she currently has an i5 laptop with Windows 10, which I think most people 

would think was very good!  She said yes, but it is not the latest....   

On the one side children are always looking for the latest and best things, 

while in education many of our leaders have not caught up with the digital revolution. 

 the reality however is that they are like me... a little older, born before the overhead projector. 

(younger readers might have to look this up on Wikipedia, but the reality was this was 

really a great advancement in technology in education...)  Being in ICT I would like to 

think that I am ahead of my game with technology in education and being able to 

relate to children and what they find interesting, but sometimes I am worried when 

leaders and principals look at what I am doing and say they do not understand the 

day to day applications and they think that what I do is a little far fetched, although 

some of the concept things that I started doing in ICT was more than 10 years ago 

and yes I did get into a lot of trouble over this. 

Apart from ICT in education, there are basic fundamental things that I would endorse 

for any pupil around the world.    

Perhaps being in an underprivileged school puts this more in perspective but:  

(This is in no order or preference, but jumbled thoughts...) 

be encouraged to take the chance and learn something new today, 

do not be afraid to go against the main stream and actually be prepared to work,  

embrace different cultures, people and encourage diversity,  

do something for other people, do not just think of yourself,  

be proud of what you could possibly achieve,  

have a goal and strive to achieve it,  

be kind to others, you do not know what baggage they are carrying, 

(In my school this is HUGE) 

treat people with respect and dignity

Perhaps the best way to end this would be:

"dif-tor heh smusma"

or in English

"Live long and prosper"

Perhaps a new approach to a novel, innovative, collaborative 

way of teaching will allow the students to reach the stars...