The iPad – Changing the Learning Game
Steven Jobs has changed the landscape one more time (and I'm not talking about the iPhone - that's one more to his never-ending list)!
Could I be more pleased with the iPad? While it's still missing a few things such as a camera and the ability to see flash video, all in all, it's hot!
I swore I was not going to get one of the first releases. I was intent on delaying gratification! Then I went to get my hair done and my hair dresser was scheduling appointments over the phone onto his iPad calendar. "You mean you don't have one," he quietly admonished. "I thought you were the Apple techie nerd!"
OMG, could he be so unabashed? It was an open challenge to my rightful position as the female Apple nerd of the community. It was over. To delay gratification was to lose my role as being ahead of the curve. Immediately after the hair do, I went to the Apple store and bought my iPad.
I've been lost in iPad heaven for the past six weeks. It's an unending source of learning and expansion. I've become a student again. I discover something new every single day... from note taking in an executive meeting to playing with storyboard picture mats...
I've re-read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse and Ben Franklin's Autobiography.
Now I'm onto Grimm's Fairy Tales and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. All of these classics are free from the Project Gutenberg archives.
And then there's Scrabble, Bejeweled, mind-mapping, photo editing, the BBC News and more. Just when you think you're stymied, along comes another app that will help you do exactly what you need!
My dear friend, Doug, the #1 tech nerd in my universe, said that he had only turned his laptop on twice since he started using his iPad. And he got his two weeks earlier than did!
And what's the point?
Why am I waxing so eloquent?
Because I believe that the iPad is about to revolutionize education! It would do well in every classroom in the world!
It's fast, half the price of a computer, lighter than the net book and the look and feel is smooth!
I'm sure the kids who have one already, love it... you can surf the net, get onto Facebook, play games with others in distant places and more.
Soon textbooks will be coming out on it, moving us closer to a paperless world where trees get to live and we get to read, write, draw, and play without a paper footprint!
If you haven't already done so, check it out!
And all of this being said the day after the new iPhone was released to the world! Kudos to you and your team, Steve Jobs, a job (no pun intended) well done! Education and learning has never been so fun and it's getting better all the time!!
An IQ Awareness Activity for Middle & High School
This video can serve as a great introduction to awareness and how much we see or do not see in our environment. Have students watch the video and use it as an opening to a discussion on awareness.
You might link it to an activity in which they are asked to be aware of certain new things in the canteen. Or you might do a walk-about on campus to notice the things they had not seen before.
Then link this lesson to social awareness. How many times do we overlook the cues that others send us during our communication with them. Many students don't recognise the facial expressions or body language of other people around them. These students tend to oblivious to the EQ and SQ aspects of their relationships and this little exercise should create awareness as a starting point.
Why Intervention?
Why do we have so many intervention programs cropping up around the globe? Including the one I deliver.
Intervention on rumors... intervention on isolation and bullying... intervention on taunting... intervention on internet harassment... intervention on 'sexting'...
Why are our students so dissatisfied that they are taking out their angst on other students?
I believe it is because we have somehow missed the point. And what's the point?
The point is P3 - purposeful prevention programs. These are programs based on and directed towards the whole child. These are programs that inspire the mind and heart, increase curiosity, and involve students in the solutions. These are programs that balance IQ training with emotional and social skill training. These are programs that deliver methods and strategies so that students can achieve their dreams.
Many of the professions our students will be engaging in during their careers do not exist today. We cannot fit our students for a time and a set of trades that we don't even know about nor understand.
But we can encourage their intellectual endeavors, model and teach emotional well-being and self-control. We can help them increase their awareness of who they are. We can help them discover their gifts and talents.
It's about time, don't you think?
Maybe someday intervention programs will become an historical relic.
Increasing Student Retention
If you're as interested in learning as I am, I'm sure you have wondered about student retention.
Donald Clark wrote an excellent article on spaced practice as a prime method to increase retention anywhere from 200-700%.
I'd like to further the list with 3 more ways to increase student retention as well as a giving you a practical activity for the upper primary and middle years.
The 3 ways to increase retention are:
- Storyboards
- Talk and share
- The Y chart review
Here is a 5 step method of using these items in a structured way to increase retention around a core subject:
- Storyboard - Using symbols, color, images and words, students record their insights, learning and ideas from the lesson.
This is a 15 Years olds notes from a session I did on changing habits and listening
- Talk and Share - Debrief the lesson with paired or triad share. Have each partner share their storyboard and add one thing to their board from their partner's insights and ideas.
- Y Review - Within 24-48 hours have students work in teams on a piece of butcher paper. Ask them to make a Y chart with ideas, insights and learning in each of the different areas. Debrief with full room share.
- Placemat Team - 52-72 hours later have students work in teams to do a placemat activity review on butcher paper. The four areas might be: ideas, insights, learning, link to other learning.
- Weekly Popper - At the end of the week throw a 'popper' or pop quiz without the word 'quiz'. Hand out blank storyboards and ask students to fill in the nine boxes with nine ideas, insights, learning, links to other learning, and other items of choice.
Here are some sample Y Charts and Placemats that go along with these activities.
Treading on Dreams
This is the second TED talk I have seen by Sir Ken Robinson. I won't destroy this brilliant speaker by trying to summarise his points, I will let him speak for himself.
Whilst watching Sir Ken I was reminded about one of my early years in the classroom. I was teaching the 5th Grade at the time. During that year I decided that the class would start a program focused on the students developing their own goals. Being a young and somewhat naive new teacher I thought I had discovered a method of each student engaging in the academic process and personally setting their own academic goals.
So I allocated some time each week for the students to write their personal goals. After the first session, I asked the students if they would mind if I read their goals. In my mind my students would be setting goals for academic improvement and I would help them by coaching them for academic improvement.
So that night with my students' permission I took their files home and read their entries. I already had the lessons planned in my mind on how to deal with some of the academic problems my students were facing.
To my shock the students had written approximately 4 or 5 goals each, yet there was only one academic goal in all of the entries.
Most of the goals were emotional and social self-management goals. One student wanted to get along better with his younger brother. He wanted to know how to not get frustrated at his baby brother when the younger sibling took his stuff. My student had realised that when he gets frustrated with his younger brother his natural reaction was to snatch his own stuff back. The younger boy would then cry, Mom would then get angry with him and impose a punishment.
I had not prepared a set of lessons on how to deal with younger brothers taking stuff!
My planned academic excellence program had just morphed at light speed into a Mentoring and Coaching program.
I developed new lesson plans over the next few months working on patience, respect and communication in short 10 minutes sessions. Basically we worked on things from the EQ and SQ domains and nothing from the IQ realm.
As the sessions continued more and more students asked for help with their specific challenges. Without exception my students had laid down their dreams before me. I had the choice to focus on the academic or to tread softly amongst their dreams and see where I could add value.
Thank you Sir Ken Robinson, I too believe that our Education System is broken and in need of a revolution! I hope that I bring a small revolution to the teachers, principals and classrooms that I personally touch.
Congratulations HSFCU!
Hawaii State Federal Credit Union was voted one of the top 10 companies to work for in Hawaii.
Yea and Congratulations... what an honor!
As schools and organizations take on the goal of transformation it is wonderful to learn of organizations who have gone through the process of change and renewal.
Organizational transformation is based on individual transformation. And it takes a high level of emotional and social awareness or 'literacy' on the part of leaders and their teams to make the work environment a safe and exciting place for everyone. This requires a willingness on the part of leaders to improve their communication skills, coaching skills, and their all around IQ, EQ, SQ competencies.
I spent 4 years working with different departments and teams within HSFCU. The goal was to move the organization from the traditional or mechanical model of business to the New Paradigm or the Human Side of Enterprise. The arrow represents the changes that were achieved during that time.
I have been and still am engaged with leaders in various industries including the educational sector, to transform their organizations. This means dissolving silos, engaging teams in cross functional projects and assisting leaders in increasing their Emotional and social skill sets.
The neuro-science research is research invaluable in accelerating the changes that leaders are capable of making. If leaders want to change, what used to take 4 years, might take 2 1/2 today. I look forward to sharing some of the latest research in my coming blogs.
For now, congratulations HSFCU... a job well done!
