*Collaborative Projects - A Perfect Way to Build Student Learning Communities

Over the past couple of years my class has been involved with several different collaborative projects.  Sometimes they are involved with just another class, and other times they are much larger in scale involving many classes from around North America and the World.  Sometimes our collaboration is more side by side in nature where we are sharing information to a shared site such as a wiki or google doc.  Other times my class is co-creating new books or movies with children from other classes.

Co-creating with a classmate for a co-creation project with children across the country.

At the simplest level my students are collaborating with one another to expand their student learning networks.  We use the iPad app Book Creator to do this as it's so easy to have multiple students start a book on their iPad and then combined pages from different iPads into one book.  A prime example of that is when we created our Salmon book early this year. Each child in the class did a page or two, but in the end we had one thorough salmon fact book.

A page from our collaborative salmon ebook

This combine book feature doesn't have to be limited to a class though. Using a cloud storage system such as dropbox or google drive, books can be combined together from children all over the world.  Recently my friend Kristen Wideen arranged such a project.

When it comes to building student learning networks I must admit that I find the smaller collaborative projects more ideal for helping my students build connections with other students.  When they are working with another student and together they are co-creating, my students are better able to get to know the students they are working with.  While there is a place for the large scale projects, they don't seem to bring my students the same type of authentic connections as the smaller, more intimate projects do.

Working together as part of a book created with a couple of students across the country.

My students have also built learning networks with high school students.  Last year we were lucky enough to work with students at a local high school.  My students came up with the ideas of the stories, the high school english class wrote the stories, my students put the text into a book and then added images to the text, and then we travelled to the high school to see our books acted out by the Drama department.  It was an extremely successful project and helped my students build their learning network by connecting with high school students.

Watching our co-created stories being acted out at the local high school 

We moved beyond local projects and also co-created with other grade one students in North America.  More than once we have created new versions of popular stories such as Good New Bad News, or The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  When we co created with other children we are so curious to learn more about these children.  Typically a video conference is a part of this co-creation too, which often enhances connections.

A page from a co-created book with  class in Iowa

A screen shot of a co-created video with a class in Ontario

How have you been building student learning networks through collaborative projects?

*This post is the fourth in a  four part series on building student learning communities. 

Part One: Building Student Learning Communities Through Blogging

Part Two: Building Student Learning Communities Through Video Conferencing

Part Three: Building Student Learning Communities Through Twitter

Part Three - Building Student Learning Communities Through Twitter

In the past I have written about how my students are using twitter in a primary classroom.   As my students use Twitter for learning it also helps them develop their student learning communities.

In previous posts I've talked about how my students have created hashtags and have invited others to join them with their learning and how they have also joined hashtags created by other students to learn with them too.  Hashtags, and the shared learning that occurs within them is an excellent way for students to build learning communities.  It is within shared hashtags such as #santasec13 (sharing secrets about Santa), #2d3dshapes (clues about 2d shapes and 3d solids), or #discoveryfn (sharing about a Discovery Education webinar about First Nations people) where my students better understood that there were other children in different parts of the world learning the same thing as them.  To no surprise my students were equally as excited to read the posts that others were adding to the hashtag.

Shared hashtags also helped my students learn how to solve math problems from other children.  When they were tweeting math number problems to the hashtag #numberstory different classes responded to their questions in different ways.  As much I was their teacher and I was showing them that there were different ways to solve math problems they finally understood the different ways when they saw the tweets from the other children solving their problems in different ways.   Shared hashtags are an excellent way to help learners build student learning communities.

Students can  build learning communities by sending out random tweets too.  This year during our first week of school we sent out one little tweet with a photo attached. "This is what it looks like out our classroom window. What does it look like outside of your window today?"

That one tweet brought my students replies from around the world and each tweet taught my students a little more about the different places the tweets had come from.  Behind every tweet was a class ready to learn and share with us.  My students had many questions or comments for the people behind the tweets and they asked them.  They were developing their own learning community from the tweets that interested them most.

My students have also learned with other students by reading and answering questions that they have found on our class twitter time line.  When a class was using twitter  as tool to collect data we were able to help them with their learning.

I could go on an on with examples of how using twitter has helped my students create their own learning communities with other children from around the world.  If you're looking to help your students find their own learning communities Twitter is another great way to do this.

If you've missed Part One and Part Two of this series on Building Student Learning Communities please follow these links. Part Four will be up shortly.

Part One: Building Student Learning Communities Through Blogging

Part Two: Building Student Learning Communities Through Video Conferencing

Part Four: Building Student Learning Communities Through Collaborative Projects

Part Two: Building Student Learning Communities Through Video Conferencing

This post is the second in a series of four posts on Building Student Learning Communities.  The first post, Building Student Learning Communities Through Blogging can be found here. Links to posts three and four will be found at the end of this blog post once they have been written and published.

I've written about how we use video conferencing a lot in my classroom for learning and while it does help with learning math concepts, or oral language skills it also helps build student learning communities. Let me explain how.

More often than not when I  video conference with my class it is done as whole class activity. My students may write on a wonder wall before a call to help brainstorm questions they'd like to ask.  In particular this was done before calls with Skype, Duck Duck Moose, and a video game programmer.  Because of the pre loading before the calls my students were keen and ready to learn and connect with our guests.  These people became people my students could contact (even if through me) when they had other questions or comments. They become part of their learning community.

Most often  the experts I bring into my class, through video conferencing, are other children  learning about  a similar topic.  Sometimes my class  video conferences with a class once, but often they meet with a class more than just once.  Take for example Ms. Kathy Cassidy's class in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,  her students have Skyped regularly with my class this year to practice and learn a variety of concepts.  We've play a variety of math games with them over the course of the school year.  My class has even taught them about Hanukkah.  While my students don't know the names of Kathy's individual students they certainly know who Kathy's students are, and when it doubt they know we can video conference with them for just about any reason.  My students like to share their learning with Kathy's class.  My students understand how those connections are important to their learning.

There are times when my students video conference one on one with another adult or child.  Last year my students worked with Ms. Leka DeGroot's class daily often. Our students played math games with each other trying to give and guess clues.  This was a popular choice for many of our students.  My students liked the connections they were making with Leka's class and it made their learning more meaningful to them.

This year we've skyped less 1:1 for math but each week at least one of my students has been reading and learning with an adult through video conferencing.  These people have become important members of our classroom.  For one student in particular her weekly reading is a very important time in her week.  She understands how powerful a learning connection can be, even if it's just through computer screen.  This adult is a part of my student's personally learning community.

Just the other day I took my class on a field trip to the local Salmon Hatchery.  As we were arriving another class was leaving.  The first thing out of one of my student's mouths was, "Can we Skype with them?"  I smiled and knew he understood how powerful our video conferencing has been for  our learning this year.

Like blogging, video conferencing is an excellent way to help students create student learning communities.

Other posts in this series.

Part One: Building Student Learning Communities Through Blogging

Part Three: Building Student Learning Communities Through Twitter

Part Four: Building Student Learning Communities Through Collaborative Projects

Part One: Building Student Learning Communities Through Blogging

I have  a personal learning network, and as an educator I believe I am a better teacher because of the people I learn and share with.  My learning and sharing happens over a variety of platforms - blogging, video conferencing, and twitter to name a few.   I love my personal learning community and I'm forever grateful for the way they push my thinking and help move my learning forward.   So to no surprise I believe it's equally  important for my students to have their own connections too.

Over the next few blog posts I'd like to share some of the ways that I am consciously creating opportunities to help my students build their own learning communities.  This post will focus on how my students use our class blog and their individiual blogs to do just that.  The next three  posts will focus on how they use video conferencing, twitter, and finally collaborative projects to foster student learning communities.  So stick around for a while as this is the first of a four part series on building student learning communities.

I began the journey of helping my students make meaningful connections with children from around the world through the class blog.  It has been and continues to be a window into our classroom.  Over the past three years I've had various other class blogs linked at the side of my class blog.   I make an effort to visit those class blogs with my students.  Sometimes it's a class in our school, other times it's a class in our district.  Yet at other times it's a blog from a class across the country, or around the world.

From the beginning of the school year my class and I regularly visit those blogs during an activity that  I like to refer to as "Blogging Around the World".  This is where my students and I visit the other class blogs to see what is happening in their classrooms.   During these blog visits my students and I read posts, look at photos and click on links if they intrigue us.  Of course we also leave comments and often ask questions.

This regular class blog visiting has helped my students see the incredible learning happening in other classrooms and it has made them curious to learn more from these children.  Having other class  blogs linked at the side of my class blog has meant that my students can revisit these blogs on their own, and more importantly from home. I still smile each time a  student comes to school and reminds me that we need to revisit a class because of what they saw on their blog.

My class has quad blogged too, as a way to create learning networks.  Quad blogging  encourages my students to focus on a specific class blog for a week before switching the focus to a new blog.  This is done with three other classes and each week a different class blog is the  focus of the week.

Again more curiosity, more connections.  During one of the rounds of Quad blogging my class and I visited a class in England that had a rocket ship land on its school ground.   Each time we visited that particular blog we were curious to see what  was happening.  It certainly spiked my students desire to learn from this class.

Today my good friend Kristen Wideen runs a Primary Blogging Community which works exactly as quad blogging does but it's geared for primary students.  If you're looking for a safe way to start building student learning communities this is a perfect place to start.

 My class blog quickly led to individual blogs for my students.  I use Kidblog as the platform for my students but there are other equally good blogging platforms. At first my students' blogs were a place to  share their learning with family members.  However, shortly there after  I introduced my students and their families to commenting.  Many families began commenting on their children's work.  Commenting was encouraged by classmates too.  My students began reading  each others blogs and they started writing  comments too.  Again this was another way to help create student learning communities. At this point the student learning communities were with in our classroom walls and our family homes.  For a few, those family homes spanned across the globe with important relatives living in far away places.

In my second year of having my grade one students blog with Kidblog, Kidblog introduced the ability to add links to the side of the home page.  This opened up a whole new world for my students.  While my students had been connecting with other students through the class blog, access to student individual blogs right beside their individual blogs was even better.  Let me share a story.

Last year I had a student with a similar name to a student in Mrs. Van Rees' class in Ontario.  They discovered this on their own.   Through the simple similarity of a shared name, a student learning network was formed.  Through out the year these two children visited each others blogs, read them and left thoughtful comments.  At times they were having conversations through the comments.   These students  had created their own personal learning network and it was all sparked by having the same first name.

There are many stories just like this all because my students had their own blogs, and on their blogs were links to other students blogs.  Even though my students are typically 5, 6, or 7 most of them understood many of the benefits of learning with others.  They were, through our class blog and their individual blogs, creating personal learning networks just like I was doing by visiting the educational blogs that I visit regularly.

Utilizing blogs to their full potential can help all students build their own learning communities.

Up next, using video conferencing to build student learning communities.

Links to other parts in this series.

Part Two: Building Student Learning Communities Through Video Conferencing

Part Three: Building Student Learning Communities Through Twitter

Part Four: Building Student Learning Communities Through Collaborative Projects

Daily Physical Activity

One of the British Columbia educational requirements is that my students have daily physical education.  I teach in a school with over 500 students and one gymnasium so time in the gym is limited to twice a week. So how do I ensure my students  meet their daily physical education requirement?

In the past my students have taken part in a program called Run Across Canada.  All the grade one students at my previous school ran and walked a 1.2 km route around our school and its fields twice a week.  We totalled up our distance covered and mapped it on a map of Canada.  It was a huge success as we travelled east from Victoria, British Columbia. We often made it into the province of Ontario.  It allowed my students to have a better understanding of how large Canada really is.  When we were running through Saskatchewan we "stopped" at Mrs. Cassidy's class to say hello.  So not only did it get my students moving, it also helped us with geography.

This year I'm extremely lucky to work with a teacher how teaches Yoga.  Once a week she works with my students while I teach hers.  My students are loving the calming effect it has on them, and as their teacher I'm loving it too.

Another popular way for my class to move is the incredible symbaloos created by the Kinderchat crew - most specifically Matt Gomez and Michelle Hiebert. I have three of their symbaloos on our class blog which we use regularly and  love.  They are Kinderchat Dance Symbaloo , Just Dance Disney, and Just Dance 2.  What I love about them is the variety of dances each Symbaloo offers my students.  I'm all about choice of course so it's great for my students to have so much choice.

Recently I have discovered the GoNoodle website and at the moment it's our most popular way to move our bodies during class. What my students and I love about GoNoodle is all the ways we can move our bodies.  Sometimes we practice the track and field events lead by USA Olympic athletes.  I love seeing my students exposed to different track and field events such as sprints, hurdles, long jump, javelin etc.  The videos are short (most around 3 minutes) and are engaging for my students.  We can do a few different events in a session, or mix them up through out the day.  The site also offers dances, yoga, and breathing exercises.  Lately we've been starting with a dance, moving to a track and field event, and ending with breathing or yoga exercises.  As my students participate they earn activity minutes. As they earn their minutes their character changes in size.  We are on our second character now.  I'll be curious to see what happens when we clock enough exercise to expand all of the characters GoNoodle offers.

These are just a few ways that we are meeting our daily physical activity requirements.  How are you meeting yours?

I've Been Thinking...

A recent edSurge article I was a part of with Erin Klein on Class Dojo, followed by some twitter conversation this morning has encouraged me to finally publish some of the posts I've held locked up in draft on my blog.  Here's one of them.

For the past few months  I haven't shared too much of my personal thinking.   It's what happens when I'm struggling with things and I'm just not sure how to put them into words.  I'm not sure I can now either but I need to share some of my thinking.

To no surprise, I read a fair number of tweets, blogs, and on-line articles.  I thrive on soaking up knowledge, thinking about it, making it my own, and then doing something with what I'm learning.  I don't always agree with what I'm reading and unfortunately this school year I often remain quiet because  I just don't have the strength to speak up.  I read, think about it, and allow it to push my thinking.

Right now so many things are swirling around in my head.  I'm drawn into many topics searching for the best ways I can help my students move forward in their learning journey. Over the winter break, while struggling with trying to write a blog post I tweeted out a few of my thoughts.

As an educator for most of my career I have felt that it was most important to let my students be exactly who they are. I certainly believe that now more than ever.  I understand that each child in my class learns in a different way and instead of trying to make them learn my way, I listen and watch more and try to find ways to help them learn in their way.  I've always learned differently than those around me.  As a result my room doesn't look like a traditional classroom but it doesn't mean that "traditional" concepts and skills aren't taught. They are just taught differently than how many of us were taught.

I very clearly remember math coming easily for me. In grade six my teacher had math worksheets we could do if we finished early.  I completed many of them quickly and  received the "Math Whiz" award pin.  Once you won the pin for the month you were given a handicap for the following month. I had to complete  at least 15 more worksheets than the next person in order to win another "Math Whiz" pin. To no surprise  I earned a second pin the following month.  But after that I started to figure out what a waste of my time these worksheets were.  The pin had little value to me.  I knew the content and gained nothing other than a pin for completing the tasks. I didn't need a pin to let me know I knew the math well.  I knew I knew the math well.

So why do I share this story? When I went to school we were all expected to do the same thing at the same time. I can assure you as a classroom teacher  it is much easier to set one way of learning and expect others to learn in the exact same way.  It's much easier to manage a class this way too.  But is the one way only method best for the learners in our classrooms? NO!  Expecting every child to learn in the same way makes it close to impossible to personalize and go deeper with learning.

Unfortunately it still happens all the time in classrooms around North America.   I am doing my best not to have it happen in my classroom. It's one of the many reasons why I believe so strongly  in providing student choice with  learning.

However I am also in the midst of a challenging school year.  I love my students very much and I am doing what I can to best meet their needs.  For the majority of my students providing choice has been as successful as I could expect.  I am seeing unique ways to practice and share learning. I am seeing students engaged in what they are doing -whether it be on their bellies at the carpet, under a table in the corner of the classroom, working with a friend, or in a quiet spot on their own.   But I won't lie, I have a few that are still struggling with choice and their struggles are affecting many.

I am also having personal internal struggles with what will make my life easier and what will be best for my students.  I have read blog posts on motivation, mindset, self regulations, and authentic student learning.   Because of what I know and some of the chatter I hear from others I am constantly being pulled from what is best for my learners vs what is best for me as their teacher.  It would be very easy for me to be more strict with my students, laying down heavy rules which I have created and expect my students to follow.  I could tell them exactly how I want things done, and accept nothing but that to show learning.  In fact it would be really  easy for me to set up a behaviour chart and reward kids for complying to my rules.  But I don't want to be the controller of my students learning, I want them to be in control of their own learning.  Plus just because I can make my life easier by being more strict and controlling, doesn't mean it's best for my young learners.

 I am also having internal struggles with doing what's best for most students vs what's best for just a few.  I don't want to run my room where I am the boss telling everyone what to do, yet I know I have some students that still require a lot more guided practice to be successful with their independent learning. I don't want to take choice away from those that can handle it for those that can't.  I also know there is a decent balance some where out there and there are many times when I've found it.  They are also times where I have not.

So each day I return to my classroom hoping it will be better than the previous.  I am constantly looking for ways for each learner in my classroom to be successful.  For many it's providing choices in how to learn, show, and share their knowledge.  For others it's a far more structured approach with a lot  more social skills being taught.  But ultimately what I am doing in my classroom has very little to do with me, and making my job easier, and a whole lot more about what's best for my students.  It's been a very challenging year, but it's a year that I won't give up on.  When I keep my students' needs at the forefront things can only continue to improve, right?

Back Channeling in the Primary Grades

If you've attended a professional development session in the past year or two you'll notice that more and more presenters and participants are utilizing a back channel to share learning.  A back channel is a space to share real time learning.  Often it's a conference or session hashtag on twitter, or a shared Google Drive document, or a room in Today's Meet, or the comments section in a Google Hang Out.  Back channels happen in real time and highlight key learning  shared by the speaker or presenter.  For those that are able to be in the session, it's a great way to collect personal thinking and it's also a place to refer back to.  For those that are not able to be in the session it's a great way to learn from those that were in a session.  Back channeling has may positive benefits.

Like most new things I'm discovering on my learning journey, I try, when possible to make it something my young learners can do too.  To no surprise back channeling is one of those things.

Often when we watch a live webinar, or a video I encourage my students to take notes of the important information being shared.  My grade one students have back channeled in three different ways.  Let me explain how.

Using a White Board to Back Channel

Last year we watched a live Discovery Education Webinar on Amphibians.  While watching the webinar my students were asked to recognize and highlight the important facts being shared.  They wrote these important facts on their personal white boards.  Although they were developing writers (aren't we ALL?),  they were able to pull out a lot of important information, in their own words.  As my students were listening, watching, and writing I was able to see (in real time) what they were learning from the webinar.

 After the webinar my students and I reviewed what we felt were the important details of the webinar. Many of my students also blogged about what they learned on their individual blogs.  It was successful back channelling at the most basic level.   In fact a week later we shared what we learned with Mrs. Cassidy's class and my students had remembered many interesting and important facts.

Using Today's Meet to Back Channel

*Note it has recently come to my attention that you must be 13 years old to use Today's Meet. Obviously my students are not 13 so as fantastic as this is as a site for back channeling my students will no longer be using it.

Just before spring break we watched a Discovery Education video on salmon and we used Today's Meet as our tool for back channelling.  Today's Meet allows you to set up a "some what" private room to share thinking and ideas.  I say "some what" private because anyone who has the link can enter the room but as the creator of the room you can decide how you want to name your room.  You also decide who you want to share it with. In the case of our salmon back channelling I named the room Div19Salmon. I quickly created a QR code that helped my students access the room independently.  Before the movie began we added what we already thought we knew about salmon, and what we were curious to learn more about.  As the movie was on we added important facts and information that was being shared.

Once the movie was over we were able to review the information we had learned and shared.  As a class we took this a step further by creating a class book with our knowledge which we shared with the world. You can read more about the salmon learning and read our complete transcript here and you can find a link to the book we created here. 

Using Twitter to Back Channel

Over the past few years my students and I have used twitter as a tool for learning.  More specifically we have used twitter  for back channeling.  Just like adults who attend professional learning conferences, children can also create hashtags to share information.  Late last school year we took part in another Discovery Education live webinar about an aboriginal community in Canada.  As we watched the webinar my class and Mrs. Cassidy's class tweeted to the hashtag in real time to share our learning.  We used the back channel to ask questions, and to reflect on what we were watching.  The cool thing was that the hashtag was shared with all the classes watching the webinar and so many others were contributing to the hashtag just like in a "real" conference.  

So you see there are many different ways that young learners can back channel as they are learning too.  If you haven't already, I strongly encourage you to give it a try with your students.