Triple A Learning IB Blogs » School Innovation: building our future school systems

The Internet vs teacher challenge

Robert Vanier — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:17:55 +0000

I recently asked my grade 11 students if they thought that they could be learning more from the Internet than from me their teacher in front of a 30 student sitting in rows classroom. I was very surprised to see that the majority said NO, we learn more from a teacher. This was in the context of one of my language b English(ESL) classes. And so the challenge began. My job was now to convince them that I was rather obsolete…and also to determine what they thought were my most indispensable qualities…if any. Our first stop was BRAINPOP where we spent about 30 minutes seeing how easily someone can learn language from well developed content (without a teacher). This idea of simply reading, seeing and HEARING language as a sole means of learning is well documented. Back in the 80s a group in Canada even proved it as effective as having a teacher….and this was before the Internet. So now the students are quite curious to see how much further this can go…ie how redundant they can make me. I will keep you posted.

The disorganized school

Robert Vanier — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:19:05 +0000

I recently heard a school director bragging about how busy her school was. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing because it is all so busy. There was then a very positive 3 cheers for the diverse and busy school!! But I say no to this. I see a school that is just too darn busy and disorganized….one that can’t catch it’s breath, and one that needs to know what it is doing. Such schools can end up a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing…they miss the point of taking the time to coordinate and appreciate what they do. Today we have the tools to communicate and coordinate effectively, and I see no excuse to not know what a school is up to. Especially if you are in an administration or coordination role.

Building international mindedness

Robert Vanier — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:37:31 +0000

We seem to take it for granted that we all understand that the world is round etc. Ie. That we are living in different times of day…even different days of the week. I feel that students and teachers often do not really grasp this concept. Most have heard of GMT but not UTC. My students thought the first was either an American made truck or a Monsanto tomato. The latter they were sure was the bar code on food packaging. My suggestion of the day is that internationally minded schools should invest in some sort of visual display that makes time around the globe more real to the students. Perhaps a dozen dollar store clocks, a label machine, and a really big map! One of the clocks would clearly read UTC (GMT). I might even venture a big banner question underneath reading: “So what time is it at the poles?”

School coordination

Robert Vanier — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:49:30 +0000

School coordination has become a real technology issue in my recent experience. As my school has moved to more online resources, use of email as our main communication avenue, and even internal inservice training through our local network… Our real problem seems to be the lack of real human contact to balance the online linking. At present it simply isn’t working, and I feel the real point is the lack of human balance to make it all feel real and stick together. There is not a flow of real conversation between real and virtual exchange. The end result is a feeling of isolation that many teachers are feeling. We have also had a real issue with teachers trying to deal with interpersonal issues though email rather than discussing it face to face. This can get quite out of hand, especially when one replies to all the school with a rather private issue. I am yet to find even a discussion group that is addressing this issue…but certainly more on this in the future.

Is YOUTUBE our new international textbook?

Robert Vanier — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:03:30 +0000

My own school board has yet to open student access to YOUTUBE. Teachers are allowed to access it and use it in class. And most of our school clubs, activities, fund raising projects…etc. use it actively…still without student access. More and more in my private life I depend on YouTube as user manual, textbook, you name it. In recent years I have been hard pressed to find
paper based material that can compare. Have the “Tubes” replaced the texts? Can we now imagine Tube-texts…courses built completely on Tube/online(public domain) support? And what keeps so many modern schools locked into a textbook/classroom based classroom?

The landmark that comes to mind along this road is of course the khan academy with it’s 2600 plus videos: http://www.khanacademy.org/

Physical education – innovation and integration

Robert Vanier — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:45:23 +0000

Along with new technologies in our schools comes the question of physical activity in general. The general trend I have seen is not hopeful at first sight. My own school has seen physical education squeezed into a sometimes once a week activity. Students simply do not get enough time to move and play. Some private and alternative schools favor sports and activity more and certainly still compete on the technological and intellect levels…even outperforming schools with longer “class” hours. There is more and more a place for integration of sports and fitness into other subject areas such as the arts and sciences. Schools need to take a stand on their overall fitness initiatives. When left to the teachers with departmental needs and priorities, physical education just does not make it to the front of the line. Our colleges and universities have more academic admission requirements that also put pressure on core subjects to demand more time from the schedule. I think any school wishing to innovate in this area should seriously consider a school wide initiative to better health.

As well there is an interesting chapter on using today’s tech toys that can be found here:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Tidbits_in_Tech:_Integration_in_Education/Technology_in_Physical_Education,_Is_It_Possible%3F

My 2 year-old / Our future students

Robert Vanier — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:15:52 +0000

Here is my 2 year-old son with full control of his mother’s iPhone. It is not that we go out of our way to distract him with it. He plays outside, has toys, takes naps, is not yet potty trained etc…but has mastered the iPhone. I cannot imagine a 21st century school that does not take advantage of this. As I cannot imagine the new
Hospital being build down the
Street to use anything but the most efficient and uptodate technologies. Our schools simply must embrace the changes that are already here, and plan for the dramatic impact this will have on our teaching.

Getting started with new tools and new direction

Robert Vanier — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:08:03 +0000

This is my first blog attempt from my iPad. I have had the discussion in my own school about the usefulness of fully integrating our present technologies. I know of a few IB schools that give iPads to all students and have fully integrated them into the curriculum. There just does not seem to be a lot of reason to not do so if the resources are there. We can always argue that since many schools cannot afford this…we should not consider it. At present, I don’t think we can afford to not consider it, and fast!

Triple A donates new computers to One Laptop Per Child cause

Tim Cunningham — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:20:04 +0000

Here at Triple A Learning, we’ve always supported the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) cause. With a mission to “empower the world’s poorest children through education“, who could fail to be moved by its ideals.

What OLPC believes

OLPC believes for the world’s poorest children to be full citizens of the emerging world they must develop the passion for learning and the ability to learn how to learn. They also believe that the root cause of the rapid global change, digital technology, also provides a solution. The premise is that when every child has a connected laptop, they have in their hands the key to full development and participation. Using these laptops children can

work with others in their communities and around the world
access high-quality, modern materials
engage their passions and develop their expertise.

By providing children with low-cost rechargeable laptops and setting up the wireless infrastructure needed to connect them to each other and to the web, OLPC is meeting its mission. Here at Triple A Learning, we know that the OLPC mission and methodology fits right in with our mission of Supporting Learning Communities through Technology.

Today, Triple A Learning added further to its support to this very worthy project by donating 10 new laptops.

Girls in class at Kabul school using the XO laptop

What OLPC has achieved

In the first years of OLPC, the world has seen two million previously marginalized children learn, achieve and begin to transform their communities. Triple A Learning is proud to be supporting the ongoing work to provide these opportunities to millions more children.

Over 1.7 million children and teachers in Latin America are currently part of an OLPC project with over 400,000 in Africa and the rest of the world. Largest partners include

Uruguay (the first major country in the world to provide every elementary school child with a laptop),
Peru (the largest deployment, involving over 8,300 schools),
Argentina
Mexico
Rwanda.

Other significant projects have been started in Gaza, Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Mongolia. Every school represent a learning hub, a node in a globally shared resource for learning.

About those Laptops

The laptop is so flexible in design and in operation. Known as the XO, the laptop is also designed for constant connectivity. A few children working together under a tree can connect to eachother without any other hardware, and a class full of students can share collaborative activities with one another and see what their classmates are doing.

For the more technologically minded, the XO runs on a Linux distro, has solid state memory (no rotating hard drive) has many opportunities for connections. You can find out more about it here.

(Source of much of the descriptive text One Laptop Per Child website)

This old school – episode 1

Robert Vanier — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:23:49 +0000

I am not sure if you have ever seen the PBS tv show “This old house” , most of the home in this home renovation show are from around Vermont…hundred year old houses…with lots of things to fix. Looking at the last classroom I taught in :

Why I chose this is that it looks exactly like my late classroom in Quebec, Canada circa 2009! Except we didn’t have nicewood floors…but the rest, green chalkboard desks in rows etc etc all the same….except for the cleaning rags…that would be a definite improvement to our old class… I visited my old school this week and saw this same classroom…BUT we are renovating…YES this old school is getting a facelift..actually it is already started….but for me it is starting now as I am returning to the classroom and have been given the mandate to design a WEB2 learning classroom. Stay tuned for more.