Redefining Search!

Note - this post was originally written back in May/June but never published for a variety of complex and personal reasons mainly having to do with my health . . . but all is good now!


May 2016 - I meant to write this posting about a month ago, but things have gotten a little bit away from me with moving back to Asia for next school year. Too much to do with so little time left in Poland before we move on from here. On a fast train heading south to Kraków gives me a bit of time to reflect, write and just think . . .


After attending Learning2 Africa in Johannesburg in the fall, I have been thinking how I needed to alter my approach in the HS towards teaching research skills to students.  For the last number of years we have taught and reviewed research skills with all G9 students as they entered the HS (through a series of projects, lessons and workshops culminating in a large, personal research project in their English class) and in G11 as students began the Extended Essay process. Changes this year in faculty, curriculum, and the approach to launching the EE have resulted in most of this work with research skills falling away. After attending Jeff Utech's extended session at L2Jo'burg on research skills, I knew I had to do something different right away.

Rather than continuing with the model of periodically working with whole grades of students, I shifted my focus to the faculty. My reining was simple - up-skill the entire faculty to give them the same toolbox of resources, techniques and strategies and they will in turn use, model and train all students in the same way, in every grade and every class. What I developed was a differentiated workshop targeted at individual departments/disciplines which worked through how research skills have changed with Internet-enabled mobile devices in the hands of every student. As teachers, if we are still asking questions which can easily be Googled, then we are asking the wrong kinds of questions of our students. Are your students trained in how to conduct a really deep and targeted search, or to cope with conducting effective research when they do not have any search terms?

To answer these questions, I put teachers into research scenarios which changed their thinking about research.  When you have no search terms to begin with, research ceases being a solitary act. It naturally evolves into a collaborative and creative process involving critical thinking and communication - the 4 C's of 21st Century Learning. For example, in the workshop I had teachers work in small groups and try to answer the following questions about this image: what is shown in the photo and where was it taken?

Do you know what this is?  And where was this photo taken?  [can you figure it out without using Image Search?]

Individually, most teachers had no idea where to start with such a task. In their small groups some started discussing what they thought it might be and what search terms they could use to describe the image. All sorts of search terms were tried ranging from "golden dog poo" to "swirls" and to "golden ratio spirals". Other groups tried to work around the task to find the actual photo on the web, or to use Google Image Search to find similar images, but I did not provide them a copy of the image to work with. The most successful groups spent a lot of time talking and collaborating about what they thought the image might be, before jumping into any searches. These groups hit upon really important search terms like "Buddha" and "statue" through their collective knowledge, which they used to quickly used to figure out that these are the top knots on the back of Buddha's head at Wat Pho (the reclining Buddha) in Bangkok. Every time I did this workshop with another department team, they all agreed that this exercise was not only fun and exciting, but very thought provoking. As we are now an MYP candidate school, this exercise placed teachers in an open inquiry process which was unfamiliar for some.

Some of the groups who started with an easier task wanted to try the more challenging images rather than finishing the rest of the workshop. Simple testimony of how much they enjoyed working on this. The remainder of the workshop focused on sets of resources and alternative sites for research, compiled by discipline.  If you are interested, you can use the following shared doc as a resource with your faculty or students.

Harder - Who are these women (what "people" are they)?  And what does "what they are doing" mean?

Following the ripples and impact of these workshops was really interesting. It was great to hear about how teachers took my materials back to use with their classes for ongoing research projects, and how students could immediately employ these techniques and resources for their projects. Other teachers still required more support  and booked me to work with their classes - even small steps forward are still making forward progress.  One tech-hesitant teacher took the initiative to present these skills and resources to their class who were engaged with an large-scale IB Diploma Internal Assessment involving deep research into a topic of the student's choice. This teacher still felt that they could not completely help all of the students in their class with their research so I was brought in to work with a few particular students. I ended up working with two students in particular who were truly "stuck" in their reach process and it was really gratifying to help them get unstuck, and then immediately pass on some more advanced techniques to their friends . . . Students teaching students . . . it doesn't get better than that!

Another teacher had an epiphany in the workshop, and took my exercise with open, collaborative inquiry revolving around an image, and adapted it directly into their lesson . . . the next day! This teacher had been struggling with a unit centered on the Renaissance and the rise of religious art and its symbolism. The lesson changed from a lecture and discussion about a few important pieces of art, to open inquiry process where small groups of students truly looked at and analyzed a piece art to discover its importance, symbolism, and hidden meaning. This teacher told me with great enthusiasm about how the class were looking and thinking deeply about art for the first time . . . in years . . . and how much they enjoyed the process of discovery.  Huge win, and a big step forward.

Epilogue (October 2016) - a number of months have passed by since I wrote this, plus I have changed schools and continents. At my new school in Singapore, not a whole lot is different and I have discovered that I need to take the same approach with faculty. So Redefining Search is being rebooted and recycled, and relaunched with both faculties that I work with (my new school has two separate systems/curricula under one roof).  It's interesting to think about how the "students are digital natives" thinking has really taken hold all over the world, and how teachers don't often consider how student's search skills (and their own) need upgrading.  Taking this approach of up-skilling the entire faculty in order to reach the most students (hopefully all of them ;-) has been a successful and necessary approach at my last two schools . . . so, how are your search skills and the skills of your faculty? 

'84 on 8/4 Unplugged Challenge - Revisited

In a previous posting I talked about hosting an unplugged or blackout day in the HS, as a way to create student awareness of their own "wired" behaviours and to give them a sense of how "connected" they really need to be.  We are now at the end of a five week long buildup to our first ever Unplugged Day which happens next week on April 8th.  Throughout these five weeks I have been trying to engage and draw staff and students into participating in this event, using some "hooks" such as having 1984 related references and videos in assemblies and newsletters, running weekly trivia contests (grade level competitions for house/grade level points) for 5 weeks in a row, branding the Unplugged side of the event as being a student in 1984 (you can only use technology that was available back in the day), connecting a dress-up Spirit Day in the HS with the event, and building mashup movie posters with teachers from favourite movies of the 80's.

1984 Weekly Trivia

A major component of the buildup to the event has been the weekly trivia competition where the four grade levels compete for "house" points over the school year.  I used the 80's to theme all of the trivia questions - at first I did not even say what it was all about and let the student's natural curiosity build.  Over the last month, I have been asked a number of times about what all the 1984 references were all about.  In fact, the student council president had the idea to kick everything off by having the movie trailer for the movie "1984" mysteriously be shown during an assembly with no explanation at all - that got the students talking.

Fitting the trivia questions in with the theme of the 80's was simple.  The first week focussed on major events in '84 such as the famine in Ethiopia, and the recording of "Do they know it's Christmas" as a fundraiser.  The second week's questions turned to famous bands and movies from 1984, and the famous "1984" Apple television ad to launch the Macintosh to the world.  The third week raised the bar as students had to identify famous bands/songs, movies and television shows from 1984 based on video clues that I spliced together.  Here is one of the video clues that I put together, if you are interested . . .

Week four questions forced students to use primary sources, as I built the trivia questions around information about the school in 1984 (location, address and name of the director), and about the current faculty (Who graduated from high school in 1984?).  This was interesting to watch unfold as students could not just go online to figure out the answers.  They had to actually talk to one another and collaborate, talk to various people in the school beyond their immediate teachers, and figure out their own plan of attack.  This particular week's trivia was definitely the most difficult to answer, so it generated the fewest responses, but it was interesting to see how students were working together, talking with the students in their grade who have been at the school the longest, and trying to figure out how old their teachers are - some estimates were very far off in both directions!

The final week of trivia was designed to hype next week's event, and to give students more information about what to expect that day.  To get more of the faculty involved and to help build some spirit into the event, I decided to put a ton of time and effort into making teacher mashup movie posters from the 80's.  Teachers simply had to send me their favourite movie from the 80's and I would insert them into the movie poster as one of the characters.  In some cases, the posters turned out much better when they took a self-portrait with their head at an angle to match what is in the original posters, which the staff were more than willing to do.  As I was doing all of the technical work to make the posters and staff just had to volunteer to be included, this turned out to be a massive hit with more than half of the faculty getting involved.  The final round of trivia was simple - students were shown in an assembly, a video with 22 different movie mashup posters and they had to name the teachers (in order) as they saw them . . . and it was tough but a whole lot of fun!  To hear the hooting and waves of hysterical laughter from the student body as they saw the posters made it all worth while.  After all, part of the event is all about school spirit!  Here are three posters that I made for the final trivia, as I could not help it (it was so much fun and I kept getting ideas for movies to use as examples) . . .



Spinoff or Collateral Learning

In preparing for our upcoming Unplugged Day, there has been a lot of spin-off learning amongst staff and students that has come up through the weekly quizzes.  Some of these outcomes I had hoped for, and some came as a surprise, but these are what make all of the time and effort really worth it.  Some of the collateral learning and positive outcomes which reach beyond technology, have been:

1. Development of student search online skills and working with primary sources
2. Student collaboration and communication, and working in self-forming teams or small groups
3. Building school spirit and involvement with both staff and students
4. Faculty developing new technology skills such as using Photoshop or other built-in tools on their new Macs like Photobooth and iMovie - there is nothing like "just in time" tech learning to move people's skills forward
5. Building currency and connections with the faculty that I work with in the high school
6. Faculty developing new project ideas and connections with their own curriculum through inquiry learning, using different media in class, and how visual and video media can be used in the classroom to study/analyze advertising and other concepts.

It will be interesting to see how our Unplugged Day works out tomorrow, but I will write a short follow up once our first attempt at this is complete.  It has been a fun build-up to the event, and I hope that staff and students gain at least a little insight into their habits and need to be connected - it's all about finding the right balance.  Have you hosted any school events which had collateral learning beyond technology or spin-off technology development?  What happened and how did it go?

A Day in the Life of a Student - TechXcursion to 1984

So I have been thinking about hosting a "tech blackout" or "unplugged" day in the HS for some time now.  For some, hearing the Technology Coach & Coordinator talking about not using any technology for a day at school seems out of place, strange, or warped.  Our current generation of teenagers that I see every day at school are very tech savvy, engaged and wired all of the time.  My school is awash with iPhones, iPods, tablets of varying lineage and laptops galore.  As a 1:1 laptop school, I expect there to be an abundance of technology in the students hands, everyday.  But as a technology department, we have never prescribed that technology/laptops need to be used all of the time, 24/7.  Technology should be used only where and when appropriate, where it enhances teaching and learning.

The problem that I see in our hallways, classrooms and around campus is our students' preoccupation with their technology - at all times of the day.  We have students who feel the urge to be connected so strongly, that they have turned on their mobile notifications for their favourite social networking sites, so they receive a constant stream of buzzing text messages of updates from their thousands of "friends".  Being an international school, most of these "digital friends" are spread around the world - this must mean that the buzzing updates go on day and night.  How is this level of connectedness healthy or happy?  Do any of us really need to be online and networked all of the time?

Mindfulness is a new buzzword that is floating around our school right now.  In the spirit of being more mindful, and connecting to the cyber-citizenry section of the ISTE NETS-S standards (which we have adopted for our student body), I think an "unplugged" day challenge for faculty and students would be an interesting way for students to reflect on their connected lives.  In our Digital Footprint student seminar, when I talk with HS students about how they perceive themselves and how deeply their need to be connected is, most seem to downplay how dependent they really are.  They either do not want to admit their addictions to themselves, or they just do not see it at all (it's all normal to them).  So how to raise student awareness, mindfulness and self-reflection?  I propose going back to 1984 for a day in the life of a student.

Remember these?  Who still has one lurking at home in a drawer?

What I have been formulating is '84 on 8/4 - having a full day at school where the theme is 1984, on April 8th (Europe goes by D/M format for dates).  In keeping with the 1984 theme, we could restrict participants from using any technology that did not exist in '84.  This would mean no laptops, no mobile phones, no mp3 players, no digital projectors, no interactive whiteboards and no internet.  Students (and faculty) could still use a landline phone, could watch tv when they get home, listen to music on a Walkman (if they can find one ;-) or could actually have a face-to-face conversation with a real person/friend/teacher/family member or pick up a book to read.  There will always be a contingent of staff and students who will object to such an exercise - how to engage and involve them all?  Do we make this an optional "challenge" or try to impose it on the school?  I don't actually know, as this is a complex problem.  There will always be some who will argue that their use of technology that particular day is unavoidable and crucial to their teaching or learning.  Perhaps involving everyone goes into the "too hard box" for now.  Perhaps getting the first try at such an event off of the ground as a staff/student challenge would be the best way forward . . . start small and grow it from there.  And I think the theme aspect of it is important for students.  I'm already working with student council on the idea and it can be turned into a spirit dress-up day and/or be connected with curriculum as well - what high school doesn't study Orwell, right?

Have you ever hosted an "unplugged" day or something like it?  What were your motivations for staging such an event?  What was kind of pushback was there from staff and/or students?  How did it work out?  What were the good and bad outcomes from the day?  Most importantly, would you do it again?