Saturday, November 10, 2012

Making it rewindable...

My head is bursting with ideas today, so here I go trying to reflect and sort my plans...
During Ulearn I heard Kevin Honeycutt talking of making it 'rewindable'.  Making our teaching and our learning rewindable is a challenge and I have been perculating this idea...
On Wednesday morning at the Corebreakfast with Karen Melhuish-Spencer I had a real aha moment.  Making it rewindable for staff professional development is something I could see as immediately possible.
Many of the things I have tried in my class this year are new for our school.  At the start of the year the wonderful Jane recorded an Edtalk as I set out to co-create, with my students, a radically different learning space to the one our students are used to.
By recording and posting the Edtalk, my plan was shared and I was set on a path of discovery with my learners...  What a journey we are on... I have learnt so much about myself and so much about empowering learners to identify how, why, where, when and with who they learn best.
Recently we recorded another chapter in the journey looking at how the learning spaces have impacted on our learning...
Our classroom practice has transformed.  The learners are engaged in their learning journey, and empowered to identify successes and challenges, set goals, and work to achieve these goals. The learners are able to articulate their learning needs and identify who they need support from and who they can support.  
The recording of these stories makes the journey rewindable.

The aha moment was when Karen got me thinking about staff professional development.  What if we created a school professional development blog? What if we shared our stories and journeyed together? What if we made our teaching inquiries visible?  How good could it really be?

So back to school I went on a mission to make it rewindable.  I had just worked with my class to record a story to share with our school community - engaging with the class blogs.  I am adding that to the PD blog, making it rewindable for staff.
I have added it to the school website making it rewindable for the community to revisit. 

Then I got thinking about our recent RTLB interventions.  I have worked with my class to implement paired writing.  Our writing results were fantastic and the rest of the staff are interested in the journey.  What if I record a paired writing session and put it on the blog - making it rewindable for the staff?
What if the learners record the story of our Word Whiz sessions for the PD blog.  Four other classes are using the Elkonin boxes for word whiz sessions.  What if we all collaborated and shared on the PD blog to identify early interventions?  How good could this really be?  

So we did just that.  My word whiz gurus reflected on their journey and we got out the ipad and recorded a quick reflection.  What a great start to this sharing...

Here it is Would you believe the word Zack chose to demo on his iPad! MAGIC! (unprompted)


A HUGE thank you to Kevin and Karen for getting in my head, for making connections, for allowing me to see the potential, for empowering us to create, innovate, and share.

How good can it really be?  It can be MAGIC!

4 comments:

  1. Wow! So impressed with your passion to do big new things to transform the learning where you are!

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    1. Thanks so much for leaving a comment Kevin! I am still buzzing with the MAGIC of Ulearn. I am trying to chunk it and make it manageable as I try to transform my learning and the learning of others. I just love when it all comes together and it is possible to make a difference. My learners are amazing - I am so in awe of them! It is a privilege to work with them as we travel this journey together.
      AK

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  2. This is truly inspirational Anne. It is great to see theory and jargon that is used in the 21st century learning environment turn into practice; practice that is being lead by the teacher but driven by the student and the students learning, empowering tem to take on the roll of the teacher to their peers.
    I will be following your journey carefully, looking for how the rewindable model works in practice, trying at gain a better understanding of the blended concept and really just looking for ideas to thieve;)
    I will quizz you on Saturday.
    Luke

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    1. Thanks so much for your comment Luke. I am just trying to take my learning from Ulearn and Core ed and chunk it all and make it manageable to transform learning! I look at my goals I set at the start of 2012 and realise how far I have to go - but we sure are loving the journey! YAY - catch up Saturday!

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