How can we make risk a normal part of learning?

Astro Teller runs Google's X program. Essentially it's a moonshot factory where innovators are rewarded for having the guts to pull the plug on projects they think will fail. In fact, they are rewarded for taking risks and then acknowledging that they just aren't going to pan out. Furthermore, it is in these moments of recognition that those moonshot ideas are just not going in a direction they were initially meant to go, that sometimes, the most innovative solutions come about.  Sounds like an amazing place to work and learn.

What if we could take this mentality and incorporate it into our classrooms? On tonight's #TEDEdChat, educators from around the world discussed this very question and came up with a number of interesting solutions and possibilities. Check out the archive of tonight's chat and see what ideas you can incorporate into your practice. Of particular use is the "Questions and Answers" tab. Here you will find the guiding questions for today's chat and the chat participant's responses to those questions. There is good stuff here, so I hope you take a minute to scroll through!





If you are interested in having your students pursue Astro Teller's ideas further, here is the framework for a TED-Ed Lesson based on his talk.  The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure.  Feel free to share this lesson with everyone you know. You can easily customise it to suit your student's needs. If you just want to view Astro Teller's talk, here it is:

Together, let's re(vision) how our students look at risk.

How do they compare? A close look at TED-ED Lessons, EDpuzzle,and Playposit (fka EduCanon).

Students love videos. Teachers love videos.  We ALL love videos.  And, for many of us, we learn so much better if we can see what we need to learn. However, as every teacher knows, a video can be a moment in the class when you actually lose student engagement due to a number of factors. Videos, despite their appeal and potential very rarely extend a student's understanding in a profound manner because every student's experience with a video is different.   But, with the recent development of a slew of interactive video lesson digital tools, teachers can now take a video and essentially personalize the learning experience for their students quickly and effectively. Furthermore, the busy teacher can now access oodles of pre-made video lessons from a wide variety of sources that can be used as is or customized to suit the individual needs of any classroom or teacher.

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Three interactive lesson platforms that I use frequently are EdPuzzle and PlayPosit (fka Educanon) and TED-Ed Lessons  Personally, I really like EdPuzzle and TED-Ed Lessons, but I have colleagues who love  PlayPosit.  So, how do they all stack up? Are all interactive lesson platforms equal? I spent the last month testing out these four platforms and have come to a few conclusions

Can do audio voiceovers.

This platform is easy to use and offers a number of features that make it a really great choice  My favorite feature is it's simplicity of use.  Simply upload your video, trim to include only the content you want with a ridiculously easy to use trimming system of sliding bars, and add in your questions.  Oh, and if you want to provide narration of your video yourself, you can record your very own audio track. Pretty cool. Like all of the platforms featured in this post, you can access your class analytics.  Unlike Zaption and Playposit, you can do so for free.  EDpuzzle is one of those digital tools that seems really simplistic, and, if you want, you can really just use it to teach basic comprehension of key concepts. However, it's how educators pose questions,  how they use the editing features of this platform to their advantage, and how they choose to deploy the lesson that makes all the difference in terms of whether or not the digital tool is any better than giving students the textbook and a worksheet.

Look at how this lesson uses the link tool to help students out with tough questions.  The lesson creator also uses the link tool to make students dig deeper: The Spanish Empire, Silver & Runaway Inflation

Editing Options Galore.

Like EdPuzzle, and Zaption, Playposit has a very simple platform.  It offers a teacher many, many options when comes to formatting and there is essentially nothing you can't do with the editing manager.  Like EdPuzzle and Zaption you can trim your video. Playposit also has an audio feature which is very useful if you teach students who need audio. However, students can't record their answers in audio, and students complain about the fact that the editing manager does not include a spell-check feature. As with Zaption, you can broadcast and/or share your lesson, but after multiple uses of this feature, both myself and my students find it awkward to use: it does not work very well on the Chrome browser and the video takes A LONG time to load. This lag drives my students crazy.  Even though it has the broadcast mode, Students prefer to use this platform individually as, unlike Zaption, there is no interactivity.  Playposit does offer a library of pre-made, ready to go "bulbs" (lessons) that are well organised according to discipline and sub-disciplines. And, like with the other platforms discussed in this post, teachers can customise these bulbs. Furthermore, if teachers want to, they can pay for a premium mode that enables them to print out their lessons as worksheets.  A rather cool feature; however, to be honest, I wish something like that was free.

A neat lesson using the Playposit platform is: Hernan Cortes: Hero or Villain

Enables students to "Dig Deeper"

The most simple platform out the four. Don't let this fool you. It's simplicity is deliberate. It doesn't have the bells and whistles of the other three  (it really needs an audio feature) but it's neutral design and structure enables educators to do with it what they will. Furthermore, it is completely free. Just like the other platforms, teachers can add in questions and get class analytics. Each lesson has five components: Watch, Think, Dig Deeper, Discuss, ...And Finally. The more you use this platform, the more you realize you can play with those five sections and shape them specifically to your needs. Furthermore, it's simplicity enables you to integrated lessons from the other three lesson platforms into the Dig Deeper Section. Speaking of the Dig Deeper section, it is in this section  along with the "...And Finally" section that TED-Ed enables teachers to truly elevate and expand not only the depth but the breadth of learning in their classrooms by bringing in critical thinking and extension activities.  A perfect example of a lesson that pushes students to think critically and deeply is Josefino Rivera Jr.'s The Danger of a Single Story. 

The Verdict:

All four platforms are excellent provided they are used mindfully. Your initial use is often simply a "I need a lesson to teach now" moment,  but as time goes on and you commit to really playing around with the medium that is an interactive video lesson,  you will begin to discover all of the ways you can use technology to extend and expand learning.  Apart from the well-documented benefits that video lessons can do in the flipped learning environment, a few benefits that I've noticed are:

1. Heightened student engagement. Not one of my students does not like to learn this way. 
2. The ability to pick and choose which lesson platform best suits both the needs of my students and the purpose of a learning experience.
3. The ability, when used mindfully and critically, to enable students to move beyond the basics of a lesson into deep, critical thought.
4. The ability for every student in my class to learn at their own rate. As a special education teacher, this is, for me, the greatest gift.  I can also customize each of these platforms in ways that enable me to provide accommodations, remediation and  enrichment all in the same lesson.
5. Students appreciate having video broken into manageable pieces.  A few of my students prefer to see the video in it's entirety first, but everyone always goes back to the questions.
6. The ability for students to highlight their own learning or personal interest by building and researching their own lessons. Students can create their own lessons using the TED-Ed Lesson platform  or Zaption once they register as a user. It's an amazing and rich learning experience to learn how to present and teach your own lesson. 
7. Almost instantaneous feedback. 
8. A superb way to help a student catch up after an absence. I no longer need to re-teach and re-teach key lessons. By building a solid library of video lessons and then posting them to my LMS of choice, I provide a tool that enables every child to learn no matter where they are. 

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So, in closing, one final note:  none of these tools offer one-stop shopping.  If ever a design team comes up with a platform that combines TED-Ed's ability to elicit deep learning, combined with Playposit's suite of editing tools, combined with Zaption's broadcast feature, and Edpuzzles shear ease of use, they will corner the market. Until then,  I'll leave it up to you to decide which one works best for you.

Enjoy and together, let's revision our practice.

What is a human? (And why does this question matter?)

If we are to believe those in the "know", humans around the world are about to experience the most profound societal upheaval; the most profound redefining of our purpose and point of existence not in the near future, but now.  

Artificial intelligence and the increasing sophistication of robotics will, according to Ray Kurzweil, the director of Google, a man whose predictions about the future seem to come true with consistent frequency, believes that by 2045, AI will increase the "human biological machine intelligence a billion-fold by 2045."  ( "Ray Kurzweil: As Humans and Computers Merge ..." 2014. 22 Mar. 2016 <https://www.singularityweblog.com/ray-kurzweil-pbs-immortality/>).

Let's Provide LD Students With What They Need

In my second year of teaching in an  impoverished rural community, I had a young man in my Grade 10 Language Arts class that was profoundly dyslexic. He was a great kid, personable and kind, but his reading level despite much remediation had plateaued, and, frankly, his writing wasn't much stronger. This was nearly 20 years ago. Assistive technologies like Dragon NaturallySpeaking and text-to-speech programs like  Read and Write for Google Chrome or speech- -to-text programs like Google Voice Typing, were pretty much still in the realm of science fiction or prohibitively expensive.  If you wanted to provide an audio copy of a book, it literally came as a case of 10 cassette tapes and you had to order it through the public library. Often, I would simply resort to reading everything out loud to his entire class.

There didn't seem to be much by way of accommodations back then, but, necessity is the mother of invention and I began to find ways to help out this young man. I began to record all of my lectures as this student couldn't read my lecture notes.  I recorded every text we read in class. And, whenever possible I would let him respond orally or I would scribe for him.  He still found ELA class difficult, but he passed ELA 10 and, with continued accommodations, went on to graduate.

The accommodations I provided him most definitely enabled this young man to reach his potential and learn, but there was a benefit I hadn't considered.

When this young man wasn't using the recorded books or my lecture tapes, my other students were. I no longer needed to "re-teach" a lesson to a student who was away.  I could just hand them that class' tape,  they could take it home, and they could listen and learn. Students also began to borrow the textbook tapes I'd made. They talked about how, if they could listen and follow along, they understood what they were reading better.

http://eduwells.com/2016/01/04/star-wars-posters-for-educators/

The accommodations I was making for that one student, were, in actuality, benefitting ALL of my students. Of course this is hardly rocket science, and now, in an era of personalization and differentiation, such accommodations of a child's individual learning needs seems almost archaic.

But, are they really?

Fast forward to today.  I now work in a school in which every student has a diagnosed learning disability, an Individualized Program Plan, and a number of mandated accommodations that they must have. Yet, I still have conversations every week it seems with some of my parents, and with many of my students, who see the use of accommodations as a crutch or as something to be ashamed of.

Seriously! No one questions the accommodation of eyeglasses one must wear in order to see. No one questions a paraplegics' need for a wheelchair.  And no one asks the athlete with a prosthetic leg to take it off during the 100 meter dash as it is a "crutch".

For a person with a learning disability, the necessity of an audio version of a unit exam, the need to use a word processor to write an essay, or the use of a standing desk so as to be able to better manage their hyperactivity, is not a luxury or a crutch.  It is simply an ethical and mindful response to the fact that some learners need a different way to learn. And, for some learners, that difference is as profoundly challenging as it would be for a myopic person to drive without glasses or physically disabled person to perform some physical tasks without help.

To this end, I have written a TED-Ed Lesson on accommodations, differentiation and the need for parents and educators to help students learn how to advocate for what they need in order to learn.  I hope that you find it useful.

"I Know What I Need: Accommodations, Differentiation, and Self-Advocacy

Together, let's remove the stigma that still exists surrounding learning disabilities and neurodivergence. Let's revision our practice so ALL students can maximize their potential and enjoy the right to learn.

10 Reasons Why Students Love TED-Ed Clubs

This post is inspired and co-authored by two members of the Rundle Academy TED-Ed Club. Charlotte and Cameron both have made the committment to pursue and support ideas worth sharing in two ways: Charlotte, as a student working on a talk, and Cameron, as a member of the TED-Ed Club leadership cohort. 

I found their ideas to be a touching and enlightening look into why the Rundle Academy TED-Ed Club has become a popular extracurricular activity that attracts a wide range of students with a wide range of interests. In fact, it seems that the TED-Ed Club program has a little something for everyone.  So, what are Charlotte and Cameron's top reasons for being in a TED-Ed Club?  Here they are:

1. People can share their voice and they don’t need to filter their ideas through other people.
2. It’s a great way for kids to express their ideas.
3. It’s a calm, nurturing environment.
4. It can give you the motive to do things that change the world.
5. There are no rules regarding what you can or can’t write.
6. It gives you the opportunity to be in the spotlight.
7. You get to meet a lot of people just like you.
8. It dosen’t consume very much time and if you don’t want to make a talk you can just help out.
9. You get to inspire people you don’t even know.
10. It gives you a bulldozer (figuratively) so you can move mountains.  

Of course #10 makes my day.  Here at Rundle Academy our motto is that "We move mountains." I feel that it reflects greatly on the learning environment  a TED-Ed Club helps me, as a teacher, create. Every child finds a role that suits them in this club and every child find a passion or interest that they can pursue. This year's TEDYouth Conference was all about being future ready .  It seems to me, that participating in a TED-Ed Club is just one more way to help students become ready to take on the world and pursue their dreams by helping students develop the kinds of skills that will enable them to navigate the future. When I step back and just listen and watch as my students hone their research, writing, critical thinking, presentation and speaking skills, it amazes me. How can an educational program that is so simple and uncomplicated at it's heart, be so powerful? 

Well, mostly, the program is simply a framework that enables students to pursue and learn about anything they are interested in. It promotes curiousity, and in a world where highly scripted and prescribed curricula seems to sap the creativity right out of children, this program gives them the complete freedom to simply learn for the sake of learning.

And, as 12 speakers and 15 leadership cohort members attest, it seems to be the place to be!

What to learn more about TED-Ed Club program? Check out the following links and be prepared to be amazed!

Why TED-Ed Clubs? 

What is TED-Ed? 

1 Powerful Writing Tip: Use colour coding to teach organization in expository writing.

Sometimes, the simplest tweak does the job.

If you have students who struggle with executive skills , you might have noticed that these students find it very challenging to organize their thoughts during the writing process.  Using graphic organizers during the pre-writing/planning stage certainly helps, but what if a student doesn't have the time to do pre-planning?  Or, what if they are the type of student who balks at pre-writing. I just want my students to write and some students can actually edit and revise as they go along.

So that brings me to my class of ELA 7s in a school dedicated to students with diagnosed learning disablities.  ALL of my students struggle with organization.  And, most of them really don't understand what it means to "organize" ideas around a thesis statement. I also find that using a organizational graphic organizer like Maraconda's "Expository Pillar" doesn't always do the trick either.

What did work for my students? Colour coding.

And the best part was that we stumbled upon that little nugget totally by chance.

My students are reading Skellig and I want them to extract information from the text and describe what the main characters are like. So, we brainstormed word lists that describe the characters, we worked on establishing plot events that show these characteristics, and then we worked hard on developing very simple thesis statements such as "Mina is a fascinating person because she is kind, perceptive and critical".

This took a few days.  Such thinking is very challenging because students have to hone down all of their thoughts into one general, yet focused statement of intent.

I felt that this would result in simple, yet clear and organized writing. For some of my students that was the case, but for one student in particular, his writing was still profoundly disorganized.  It was clear to me that he had ideas, but even when I tried to map his writing out, I could see he was struggling to understand that each paragraph in his essay needed to correspond to 1 idea mentioned in his thesis statement.  As an emerging writer, this student had not yet internalized the organizational structure of formal, expository writing and, after going through his piece with him, I could see him beginning to lose not only his focus, but, most importantly, his confidence.  I could literally see him thinking: "Oh boy, another piece of writing that's sucks."

Desperate to find a way to make this highly abstract concept work for him, I appealed to one of his strengths: visual representation.  I went back to his thesis statement.

I colour-coded each one of his three main ideas.  Rather like a legend, we decided that kindness=yellow, perceptive = green, and critical =orange.  I also added a fourth colour, pink, which equaled "random".  Then, I asked him to go back to his text armed with four highlighters of those colours and  asked him to highlight each sentence with the colour that matched the idea being discussed.

Well.

Talk about a lightbulb moment for this young writer.  Excitedly, he turned to me, eyes wide with realization.  "I get it!" he excitedly proclaimed.  "I have to keep all the colours together, and get rid of everything that is pink!"

I love it when a simple "lifehack" has  a profound effect upon a student's learning.

To extend this activity further, when my students peer edit and I want them to focus upon organization, each student creates a legend for their thesis statement, and then their peer editor goes through their essay and highlights each sentence in the appropriate colour. It's hand-on, it's visual, and it's fun.  Furthermore, the conversations that the students have about organization and ideas is deeper and more critical than any lesson I could ever provide.

Together, let's re(vision) our practice. It's worth every lightbulb out there!

Six reasons why educators need TED.

Why should attendance at a TED conference (in any of its versions: Active, Global, Women, Youth or TEDx) be mandatory Professional Development for educators?

1. If we are teaching for the future, then we need to know about the future. Do I really need to say more?

2. TED-ED. TED-Ed  had a real presence at TEDActive 2013 and 2014. Once educators and the general public realize what this education platform is capable of doing and then begin to use it, education will never be the same again. Check out the remarkable TED-Ed Lesson Library. It has about 139, 544 FREE lessons.  That's like 139, 544 remarkable educators banding together to build the best curated library of lessons the world has ever seen.

3. Practice the art of being an entrepreneurial educator by facilitating a TED-Ed Club or curate, organize or volunteer at  a TEDx Event.  Go to one of these big events.  Learn how it's done and then bring the excitement of "ideas worth sharing" to your own community. It will change your life.

4. Multi-disciplinary learning at the forefront. In this day and age, why are educational institutions still insisting on putting up walls instead of breaking them down?  The wicked problems of today are not going to be solved by specialists working by themselves, but by millions of minds working together, sharing and synthesizing so that crowd accelerated innovation can work it's magic. Watching great minds discover other great minds is truly a pleasure. Listening to them coming up with innovation is an eye-opening experience that is profoundly humbling and inspiring all at the same time.

5. Network, network, network: there isn't one person who attends TED, TEDActive, TEDGlobal, TEDWomen, TEDYouth or, for the most part, many of the major TEDx Events, who doesn't bring their A-game to the table. The application process alone ensures that a highly motivated and curated group of change-agents end up converging upon the conference locations with the sole intent to learn and then go back to their communities and do something with their newfound knowledge.

6. You leave dreaming bigger than you have ever dreamed before.