What happens when you let 13 year old students take control of their own learning?

Been thinking of how to write this post for a while ... and have decided to just let the student work speak for itself.
What follows are some examples of student work from a group of 13 year old girls who have were challenged to do something that they would be proud of ... something that they could show their parents and teachers that what they had done was of value to both them and to others as well.
First up is a website that a couple of girls put together for our Social Sciences faculty in an attempt to revamp their resources for teaching a unit to Year 8 students on biosecurity. These girls actually placed 3rd in the TVNZ Netguide Web Challenge last year.


Another student created a website on the holocaust, inspired by her religious studies teacher.

This student has a sporting outlook on life - so she set herself a goal of developing a website that looks at sports for the 2012 London olympics.

If you have a good look at all of these sites, you'll see the quality of the work these girls have put in. Add to this the fact that they had to research the various tools (eg Weebly, Google sites, Wix, Yola etc) to find the one that gave them the result that they were looking for. In most cases that meant that first choices of web building tool was not the one that made the cut ... often girls found that the site they had chosen didn't give them the outcome they wanted and they had to go back and rethink their choices. Add to this that they had to find the tools themselves ... little or no direction came from me ... the "guide" said "you know what the task is ... you find the tool to suit".

Another project these students were asked to do was to tell a digital story using Scratch software ... so there was some restriction here ... they had to use Scratch (it was a programming module after all), but the students had free range of the story they wanted to tell - the only requirement again was that they needed to be proud of their work. To be honest, many of the students produced outstanding work, but I chose this one to show here ... the sound is poor (haven't worked out why), but the student who created this had never used Scratch before and her story was a well known Maori legend ... enjoy it

 

 Ultimately, the girls all reported that they had learned a lot and enjoyed the freedom of choice of project. The quality of work speaks volumes for the spirit in which the girls approached these projects. I hope you enjoy them.

DESMOS - new tool for the Maths student

There are lots of pretty cool maths tools out there these days. Another has arrived, and works in a browser. It's pretty cool. Have a look at the video intro below




Desmos is easy to use, very easy to use. Students will love it. Head to here to use it. 
Here's an example of the output.

"Tread Softly on My Dreams" - Sir Ken Robinson at TED 2010

He's back. Sir Ken Robinson spoke again at TED earlier this year. Entitled "Bring on the Learning Revolution" Sir Ken makes another passionate case for transformation of education systems - not just a reformation of them.
He talks of "dislocation",
He talks of "how do you innovate fundamentally?"
He talks of how we "are enthralled by the linearity in education" and how we take this for granted.
I recall hearing him speak at a conference on the conditions for growth to flourish in Death Valley in the US a few years ago. He makes this point again in this talk.
And he concludes with a very poignant quote from a Yeats poem - hence the title of this post.
Enjoy the 16 minutes.

Sir Ken Robinson extravaganza

I've been a fan of Sir Ken Robinson for a while. He's just updated his web site and has a number of videos on his site which are all examples of digital stories of our time, and the time of the near future for our students. Here are a couple that have some appeal ...

1. Trailer for Lord Putnam's new film



2. Speech to Hammer Museum at UCLA about his book "The Element" in Jan 2009 (1 hr 20 mins)



3. Q TV Interview about The Element (17 mins)



4. 6 minutes of student interview at the London International Music Show 2008.
(If you last to the end, the girls have their own reflections on what SKR had to say, and about their "education" and music. [There are no wrong ways ...]



Thanks for sharing your ideas, Sir Ken.

What are your best applications for use with students?

I wonder what are the applications that you use with students that make a difference for them? Here are some of the ones I use that students seem to enjoy.

Edmodo - terrific tool for managing a class in a "school sponsored bebo" (as one of my students called it) format. Nice functionality for handling assignments, polls etc. Students love it.

Voicethread - terrific tool for sharing all kinds of data from video to still images, with comments via a wide range of options.

Wikispaces - very easy way to get a web site up and running -the free ones for educators are a real bonus.

Google Apps - while very bandwidth hungry these tools offer great flexibility for collaboration and communication. Google Sites is the best aspect of this suite in my view.

Google Sketchup - what a fantastic 3D visualiser this is. A real favourite.

Delicious and Diigo - great tools - work well together.

iTunes - the best way of organising audio and video

Youtube - there is so much quality and education specific stuff that it is worth putting up all the rest of the rubbish that people want to share.

TED - you can always find really cool stuff here for use with students and staff.

Jing - screencasts and captures

Prezi - very cool presentation tool - makes an audience stay awake!

Aviary - awesome suite of online editing tools - students love Phoenix (photo editing) and Myna (Sony Acid lookalike) most.

Livebrush - very cool graphics program.

Google Earth - you can do so much with this great tool - always a favourite.

Pulse Smartpen from Livescribe - not a software tool per se, but a combo of a pen, microphone, camera and software. If only it had OCR ...

The Power of Self Directed Learning - a Passion for Writing by Young Authors

How many 13 year olds write this to a teacher?

"I have written a book and Georgie is starting one (Sian is our helpful editor) so we all came up with an idea to make a website about writing and reading since we realised that not many people have set up sites where young writers can join and read other peoples work and put up their own. We added a Review page because we want people to be inspired by famous authors. We want everyone to be inspired by the heap of work people have put up. Hence the name Exploded..

The website was created out of pure self interest. We also want students to gain knowledge about writing paragraphs correctly, hence the reason we will be adding a Paragraphs page where people can see how to write a paragraph using the structure TEE."
(The emphasis is mine)
Every so often you get to see something that makes this teaching lark just all the more worthwhile. These instances are always student centred. This is the story of one of those.

I received an email from a Year 9 student, sent during her Art class. It read
"Hello,

Mrs xxxx saw our website that we put together and wanted you to have a look at it.
The site is targeted at young writers and readers and it includes forums on different topics to do with books and movies, tips for young writers and ways to gather ideas. It also has a book of the day page, reviews and advice from famous authors. And lots more!
Its up and running, with 34 members on last count. Many of them are Dio girls, but there are 3 from Sydney and many others from around Auckland.
Here is the link: www.explodedbookshelf.webs.com
We created our site using Webs.com- which was quite simple and easy to use- though perhaps limited in options for the site.

We hope you enjoy browsing."
So - I went and had a look - WOW! I continue to be blown away with what students can do!!!
And immediately I had a number of questions: So I emailed back the student with a few questions - have a read and enjoy the students' responses!
1. Why did you create the site in the first place? Was it part of an English project? Or an ICT project?
"Thank you for emailing us back! We have discussed and read your questions and have some answers!

1. I have written a book and Georgie is starting one (Sian is our helpful editor) so we all came up with an idea to make a website about writing and reading since we realised that not many people have set up sites where young writers can join and read other peoples work and put up their own. We added a Review page because we want people to be inspired by famous authors. We want everyone to be inspired by the heap of work people have put up. Hence the name Exploded..
The website was created out of pure self interest. We also want students to gain knowledge about writing paragraphs correctly, hence the reason we will be adding a Paragraphs page where people can see how to write a paragraph using the structure TEE.

2. How long did it take you to do it?
Georgie and I came up with the idea during art whilst talking about our novels. Sian agreed and gave us some tips. It was just an idea until that night I figured might as well give it a go. I found Webs.com over the internet and then created the website in less than 90 minutes. But considering I made a couple of mistakes and had to restart probably about 2 hours. However ExplodedBookshelf.com is continuously growing.
3. Why did you choose webs.com as your hosting site? What other ones are you aware of?
I am not sure of many hosting sites but I did search up ‘make a website’ over Google and Web’s looked like the best one. From the easiness to the creativeness. I thought it would help us make something amazing.
4. Did you enjoy it?
Yes! ExplodedBookshelf has become one of our biggest hobbies, you could call it an obsession! It’s lots of fun and we get the opportunity to meet other young writers. Sian is our editor and her job apart from the site is to help go over Georgie and my writing to spot mistakes that we have missed
5. What are your plans for ongoing development of the site?
We check it every-day! Updates and new discussions get submitted at least once a day and we plan to keep developing it in the future – to take it from a amateur website to a full-thrown international site!
Thank you so much! This is extremely appreciated by us all.

If only they knew how much it is me that appreciates what they have done.
Now - there are some key points this little episode has highlighted - wonder if you picked them up?
1. most of the discussion around this little venture happened in art class. Not english, not ICT. Art. Highlights yet again to me the folly of a secondary timetable - you simply can't dictate what people will think by ringing the period bell.
2. Created out of pure self interest. So, not a teacher in sight? How much powerful learning has been going on during this little exercise? Plenty.
3. One of their biggest hobbies. An obsession! I wonder how many students say their regular learning is an obsession!  They yearn to see the site used and built on.
4. No experience building web sites of any kind before. Shows how great some of the free tools are these days.
5. If the web wasn't around - just where would these girls go to try and realise their passion?

I suspect that if they persist, they may find some issues around managing their site, moderating comments and dealing with unwanted members - but I hope they get some traction on what they are aiming for.

The joy of writing. By young people who have a passion, and want to share it. Visit their site and give them some encouragement. They deserve it.
http://www.explodedbookshelf.webs.com/