[Emma Maher]

The 21st Century Skill which I have chosen to focus on is the skill of collaboration. Quite frankly, it is my belief that collaboration has become somewhat of a buzzword in educational practices and the true sense of the word and the practice has been lost. Strategies such as think, pair, share and even the traditional group research projects are fantastic ways of ticking the collaboration box on a CM/planning template but in reality is true collaboration occurring? Are each of the students involved in these activities truly equally active participants in the learning experiences and activities taking place? Without explicit teaching of skills such as negotiation, problem solving, active listening, oral language presentation etc. we cannot possibly expect our students to fully engage and develop this highly valuable skill which they require for full participation in this 21st century world.
The requirement to explicitly teach and model these skills became abundantly clear to me this year with my present 5th class. One would assume at this stage in the education that they would have had the opportunity to explore and enhance their collaborative skills and meaningful collaboration would be less of a challenge for a class of this age. Unfortunately, their opportunities to develop these skills were severely hampered in 3rd and 4th class due to school closures. With the constant threat of another wave possibly forcing us to return to distance learning, I chose to make use of digital tools to develop the skill of collaboration so that even if a child was forced to self-isolate they could continue to participate meaningfully in our group reciprocal reading activities for our class novel.

Students were tasked with collaboratively participating in the following tasks which combined would form their shared understanding of the chapter;
• Animator – create stop motion film based upon the events of the chapter
• Question Master – create a Kahoot! Quiz for 5th and 6th class students based on the events of the chapter
• Word Master – create a word map with new vocabulary and phrases which were presented in the chapter

I supported their development of collaborative skills by
• Defining the role of each member of the reciprocal reading group using a PowerPoint presentation ensuring that I highlighted that each role was interdependent and of equal importance.
• Modelled how one would execute their role using teacher in role and recorded this using iMovie. These recordings were available to students on our class Google drive.
• Provided visual supports to scaffold the execution of the task which were presented as PDFs on class ipads but also available via the drive.
• Shadowed each group as they participated in the task
• Engaged in pupil led self-assessment using Forms to engage with a self-reflection questionnaire.
The results of pupil reflections after each RR session and my observations formed the basis of my mini-skills lesson for the next RR session. It became apparent that conflict resolution, negotiation and active listening were areas that required specific intervention. Truly engaging with this child centred approach enabled me to cater for the needs of my students and develop their ability to work collaboratively in a meaningful manner. I will be teaching this class again this year in 6th class and will continue to develop this skill bearing in mind some of the fantastic suggestions above and the suggestions outlined in the model. The rubric in particular is a very useful document which I will utilise going forward.

[Emma Maher]

Digital technologies have undoubtedly played a central role in the learning experiences throughout distance learning phase of the last few years, quite frankly without Zoom and Seesaw we would not have had any direct contact and interaction with our students. I have often wondered however, in my own school context, if our use of digital learning tools actually enhances the learning of our students. If one were a fly on the wall during scheduled iPad time in our classrooms, would the majority of students be making use of this time using a highly valuable learning tool to enhance their learning and digital literacy or merely occupied by time fillers such as Maths games and word searches. Primarily, my query would be whether our students engage meaningfully with our digital technologies and the SSE process would be a fantastic method to gain insight into this query.
A superb element of the SSE process is that it provides schools with the opportunity to gain formal recognition for the strengths in their current practices. Quite often due to the ever-evolving nature of digital technologies it can feel that we are constantly playing catch up to remain current with regards to our own competence and confidence when making use of the digital tools available to us as educators. Taking the opportunity to view and appreciate what is actually going well before embarking on a period of innovation can provide a much needed pat on the back to many of my colleagues, as a reassurance that this is not all an uphill battle. The DLF is a wonderful resource that will assist my school to really hone in on a few key areas of improvement and therefore makes the entire process far more palatable.
I have already proposed that our school would prioritise digital literacy in our next SIP and am acutely aware that in order to experience success there needs to be a whole staff buy in regarding any new area of innovation and improvement. It is my intention as post holder to establish a DLT that will hopefully encompass all points of the spectrum of IT competency so that all members of our staff feel represented in the process. I am really looking forward to this period of improvement in our learning environment.

[Emma Maher]

I have never used OneNote before and if I am quite frank my initial impression was that the vast array of possible uses for this tool is slightly overwhelming. Primarily, I envisaged using OneNote as a far more efficient collaborative planning tool as our streams currently co-plan using Word and sharing in a drive however this is truly just the tip of the iceberg with regards to the potential use of this tool. OneNote is a truly remarkable educational tool that has the potential for significantly enhancing the educational experience for students, teachers and parents alike.
OneNote appears to be an effective tool which caters for the vast array of learning styles that are present in every single classroom. Visual, verbal, aural, solitary, social and even kinaesthetic learners could benefit greatly from using each of the components available to record learning experiences and share knowledge attained. The Immersive Reader tool in particular is an incredibly useful, inclusive tool that could provide the necessary scaffolding to students with EAL or specific literacy related SEN to access the same learning content as their peers. OneNote is a tool which provides such wonderful opportunities for the maintenance of a truly inclusive educational experience.
Due to the size of our school, we experience an ever evolving staff which often of new personnel such as student teachers, substitute teachers, visiting teachers, new staff members to name but a few. I foresee easing this initial introduction to our school by making use of OneNote to create a welcome notebook containing all policies, practices, procedures and calendars of events to assist their transition to our school. Until this point, this information was provided to staff in quite a cumbersome ring binder folder. OneNote is a far more accessible means of providing this information and could truly enhance the learning experience in our school for staff.

Finally, I foresee OneNote being utilised in my school context to further strengthen the link between home and school. Collating the work product of each student using an interactive, multimodal tool which can be accessed on a variety of devices provides more opportunities for parents to truly engage with their child’s learning process.
I thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to using OneNote and will continue to develop my confidence when using the tool by engaging with the Education Centre lessons

[Emma Maher]

Eoghan this is such a fantastic proactive way of introducing innovation and change. Hope you don’t mind if I make use of this in my school! Providing opportunities to take ownership of  how these new initiatives and learning tools are introduced in the school would enable teachers to feel like they are active learners rather than merely absorbers of even more new knowledge in an already over burdened new learning stage in primary in particular.

 

Like some of the previous posters, I have next to near no experience with Teams as it was not the tool of choice during the distanced learning phases in my school. My lack of experience led me to believe that it was in the same league as Zoom which most certainly does not do justice to the potential use of Teams. Teams appears to be a fantastic platform which facilitates highly effective collaboration among students, staff and outside agencies. I will most certainly take the advice of previous posters and engage with further CPD so that I can ensure that I utilise Teams fully. I would be particularly interested in using Teams to facilitate Flipped Classroom lessons.

[Emma Maher]

The role of ICT co-ordinator has remained vacant in our school for a number of years and as a result we have yet to decide on one unified approach to digital learning tools as a learning community. As the newly appointed AP2 for this post, I chose this course so as to gain full insight into the potential use of 365 so that a fair comparison could be drawn between that and what Google has to offer. I must admit, upon completion of this initial module I am already far more impressed with 365 than Google and this is mainly due to Sway and the Education Centre.
Sway is a really intuitive resource that doesn’t require the user to reinvent the wheel. I am really looking forward to making use of Sway with my 6th class this year to explore the genre writing process using digital storytelling. I feel that I have only tipped the iceberg with the potential of this tool as this is my first interaction with Sway however already it is quite apparent that Google have yet to create a tool which equals Sway.
The Education Centre provided by Microsoft is undoubtedly the finest jewel in 365’s crown. The ease at which an educator can remain current with their digital CPD is just remarkable. Digital literacy will undoubtedly be central in our SSE this coming year. Due to the constantly evolving nature of technology this will undoubtedly be a somewhat daunting area of improvement for many of my colleagues. There will be quite a spectrum of experience with regards to digital literacy amongst my staff so having an incredible resource such as the Education Centre will allow for differentiated CPD for staff.
I am really looking forward to gaining further insights into 365 as the course progresses

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Emma Maher.

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