MysteryQuests – Great Unsolved Canadian Mysteries

The past week I have been on a hunt for WebQuests that are different and unique.  I came across one specific to fans of The Da Vinci Code that I thought was really kinda cool!  The mathematics behind the codes, the tricks and tips necessary to crack the mystery behind it all, I do have to admit was intriguing.  As I sent out this quick blog via Twitter I quickly received a response from @ZapplePi (AKA Ray Appel) with a link to a MysteryQuest lesson he had prepared entitled Doukhobors Make Good Canadians.

The really cool thing about this was that I grew up only 30 minutes away from the small town named after the man focused upon in this particular MysteryQuest lesson.

As I began digging a bit further into the idea of a MysteryQuest I found it to be very similar to the idea of a WebQuest but with a Canadian History Mystery spin on it all.  This particular MysteryQuest series was a winner of the 2008 Pierre Burton Award.

This was my first experience with MysteryQuest and I was really quite taken by it all.  This would be a great resource to use with middle years and high school students – ages 11-18.  It is laid out very similar to the WebQuest idea.  It has a mystery perspective to it that would appeal to the engagement factor for some students, and it is based upon Canadian content and curriculum.  Activities incorporate literacy, history, technology and social justice issues.  AND . . . all the lessons are available in French.  I know this is a big selling feature when it comes to resources with some of my consultant colleagues.

Take a look at MysteryQuest!  I think you might like what you see.

A WebQuest for: The Da Vinci Code

If you are a Da Vinci Code fan than this is the WebQuest for you!  I happened to stumble across it the other day and was hooked.  Give it a try!  You might be amazed at how much time you spend trying to crack the code.

The Da Vinci Code WebQuest

The Role of Inquiry

What our students need is not pre-packaged knowledge, but classrooms that are sites of Inquiry where the teachers themselves are constant learners.

- Konrad Glogowski

So much of what we do on a daily basis takes into account a multitude of educator roles.  I was a part of an online learning session with Stephen Downes  a few months back and he brought to light many different roles that we as educators find ourselves within.  From “The Coordinator” to “The Sharer”, and “The Critic” to “The Theorizer”, his list was extensive.   It is interesting to note that many of us who have been in this profession for a number of years feel that our role is continually changing.  Changing to become one of parent, social worker, food bank worker, religious adviser, comforter, nurse, friend and role model.   At times I agree with the roles just listed because most times throughout our day these roles are more important to the whole development of the students we work with.

The thing is, I also agree with the professional roles of the teacher that Mr. Downes outlined, therefore balance must be key . . . AND I also firmly believe that if we are to have any impact with our students our role must also be one of inquirer.  In fact, I think that this is one role that can be a part of all others aforementioned.  We need to demonstrate it as a living action of every role that we play a part in, both in and out of the classroom – personally and professionally.  Inquiry is how we learn, model learning, make mistakes, re-learn, teach, question, and live.  Our everyday life really is an inquiry action project in the making.

Professionally speaking the word “inquiry” can bring about as much angst as the word change does.  It seems to be one of those “ideas” that people talk about but don’t really know how to do it or what it should look like.  Socially speaking, we all live a life of inquiry – some demonstrating its facets more than others.  As professionals one of the most significant roles that we play within our classrooms and our schools is that of inquirer, and promoting Teacher Inquiry is one of the first and most important steps for educators to embark upon when building competence within collaboration groupings who undertake this inquiry process. There are many different questions that come to mind when we are discussing this topic.

1. How do you begin to build a sense of inquiry within oneself so as to demonstrate it for our students?
2. How do you build a community of educators who want to challenge themselves to keep the idea of inquiry and inquirer at the center of all that is done?
3. How do you build a community of educators who fearlessly, rigorously, and in good faith, challenge themselves to investigate, discover, and uncover how issues play out in the classroom to promote learning, and then do something about it?
4. How do you build a community of educators who consistently strive for innovative practice that will assist and support in the betterment of student achievement?
5. How then, do we begin to define the concept of Teacher Inquiry?
6. How can social media and open education foster the development of such communities?

The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Classroom Research has taken a look at this very idea and has provided the necessary information and research to back the questions that we have been asking. Are there easy answers?  I think not.  In fact this idea is one that many people would say to be conceptually simple, yet procedurally difficult.  It is however, this procedure or process of learning, that when embedded into daily life, brings context to the learning and becomes far more powerful and long-lasting for both teacher and learner.

Konrad Glogowski, Coordinator of the Teaching Mastery program at Teachers Without Borders, has presented an online videocast entitled Self-Driven and Classroom-Based: Professional Development in the 21st Century which addresses the idea that in order for us as educators to promote inquiry learning we must first become inquiry learners ourselves. He discusses how important classroom-based teacher development and reflective practice are to this process. This Videocast is approximately 30 minutes but well worth the time spent as a staff or a PLC group to have some great conversation and discussion. If nothing else, it may get some people thinking a little differently about classroom practice.

The Galileo Educational Network Association has put together an  Inquiry Rubric.pdf which allows educators to conduct some self-assessment and self-reflection regarding their own teaching practice.
The  Inquiry Capacity Continuum.doc is a great tool for whole school reflection regarding the implementation and embedding of the Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning process. It outlines and assesses the four key areas of Purpose and Practice, Collaboration and Communication, Rigor, and Leadership Development. School leaders have used this tool to guide discussion and reflection with teaching teams on their inquiry journey.  The idea of a WebQuest tool to support the constructivist inquiry method in the classroom is also discussed and supported in the article, Inquiry Based Learning Using the Internet.  A good read for more information on this theory and tool. 

I am always quite reflective on my own learning and want to pin-point the stops and starts throughout the journey.   I think that Oliver W. Holmes said it best in that “one’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”   All that I know is that I am never satisfied with where my learning is.  Life-long learner – life-long inquirer – I am in a constant search for more knowledge in a wide variety of areas and take my learning responsibility as an inquiring teacher very seriously both in and out of the classroom.   I am a teacher.  I am a learner.  I am a student.  I believe my role to be one of inquirer regardless of where I am in my journey.

After some self-reflection, who are you and what is your role?

Bloomin’ Google

Constructivist thought has always incorporated a deeper understanding of a specific topic or idea.  Current learning and understanding should be no different.  How do all of the technological tools we currently use fall into alignment?  Have you ever wondered where Google tools fall into Blooms Taxonomy of thought??  Click on the image below to find more information about Kathy Schrocks version of how all of the Google tools currently available fit into Blooms Revised Taxonomy.

The following video takes a look at 32 different ways to use Google Apps.

Teachers, Students, and Learners . . . One in the Same??

I had recently read an article entitled The Objective of Education is Learning, Not Teaching .   It has really had me thinking the last little while.  So much so that I  have brought it up to discuss with a number of different colleagues as well as making reference to it in a couple of different meetings that I have been a part of.  The part of this article that has really stuck with me is,

In the educational process, students should be offered a wide variety of ways to learn, among which they could choose or with which they could experiment. They do not have to learn different things the same way. They should learn at a very early stage of “schooling” that learning how to learn is largely their responsibility — with the help they seek but that is not imposed on them.

This make sense to me as it aligns itself with my constructivist and inquiry pedagogical belief surrounding teaching and learning.  This makes sense to me as everything that I have learned in my life has involved me taking the time to experience what it was that needed to be learned.  I think that as parents and teachers we continually look at the situations and learning that we have done and want to support our kids so that they don’t make mistakes or get hurt or, worse, not conform to what has been considered to be the norm.  But is this the traditional way in which we ourselves have been taught?  We want them to learn from us, teaching them about our mistakes or the things that have happened in our world, many times completely out of context – Where is the learning in that?  The reason “we” have learned so well is because we have had the experiences from which to learn from.  But if learning is truly about us constructing our own knowledge then we need to work through a process that works best for us as an individual learner.  I certainly see the benefits of this learning utilizing the idea of a WebQuest.

I have come across three videos that have really gotten me thinking more about these three terms – teachers, students, and learners.  Seeing as to how a portion of our learning this past week during Module #9 focused in on videos and learning I thought that this was only fitting that there be three videos to get us thinking even more.  I have pulled out some of the quotes that have stuck out for me as I was watching and listening.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

It is about providing the best quality teachers no matter where a student lives and then making those bridges.

We have a classroom system when we could have a community system.

The coin of the realm is not on memorizing the facts that they will need to know for the rest of their lives.  The coin of the realm will be; Do you know how to find information?  Do you know how to validate it?  Do you know how to synthesize it?  do you know how to leverage it?  Do you know how to communicate it?  Do you know how to collaborate with it?  Do you know how to creative problem solve with it?  That is the new 21st Century set of literacies and it looks a lot different than the model that most of us were raised in.

Now we are looking at a whole different range of schools that are producing genius, collaborative, gregarious, and brave children that care.

This is a very exciting time for learning.  It is the death of education but it is the dawn of learning.

As far as a laptop goes . . . it is a bare necessity.   I can’t live without my laptop.

I’m kind of new to music making.  I’ve just started like a month ago so . . . it’s kind of like a challenge for me.  The process that I go through is just trial and error.

I’d say that being able to experiment with technology is really what makes it technology.  If people didn’t sit there and experiment with test tubes back in the time of Newton nothing would have happened.  It’s paving the way for us to move forward as a species and as a civilization.

When you have access to everything, you sort of learn how to know yourself better because you are forced to decide what to use and what not to use.

I’d say that technology does make you a better learner.  I mean . . . when you are working with technology you have to sit and figure out . . . OK . . . This is what I have to work with.  These are my resources and this is what I need for a final project.  How can I make this work?  And, it teaches people to think in a different way.

Every student in the 21st Century needs to be able to critically think, problem solve, collaborate, communicate, innovate, be globally aware, be self directed, be technologically literate – these are the new outcomes of the 21st Century.

We need to be preparing teachers as broad leaders.  We need to be preparing teachers, principals, school administration in the collaborative leadership . . . the share leadership . . . what some have called distributed leadership . . . of a school environment.

This shift will be regarded as threatening by some.  It will be viewed as a hostile act by some, but it will be absolutely the necessary thing to do in order to make schools of education relevant to the future.

Are we teachers, students, learners or a combination of all three?  Is being one better than another?  Or are we always learners?  Have those of us who have chosen teaching as a profession now pigeonholed into the traditional concept of what a teacher has been?  If so, how can we begin to change viewpoints to really send the message that ”the objective of education is learning, not teaching” . . . or do we want to??  Do these give us a taste of what learning in our classrooms could look like?   But is the educational world ready for such a massive shift?  Does it have a choice?

M-learning and the Teacher-Student Relationship

This was an interesting read recently forwarded to me by one of my colleagues.  It is an excerpt from a mobile learning research review published by Dr. Mohamed Ally from Athabasca University.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Agree?  Disagree?  Thoughts on change and /or the future of our classroom structure?  Is this our new reality?  Good food for thought.

M-learning and the Teacher-Student Relationship

The digital age has created a new relationship between teachers and learners.  Research conducted by the London School of Economics found that children are typically the Internet experts in the family, and described this situation as a “lasting reversal of the generation gap” (Smithers 2003, p. 1). This reflects the challenges facing education and training providers who are steeped in traditional delivery styles when confronted with digitally literate students, where, rather than simply receiving and memorizing the wisdom of their elders, which has been the tradition for millennia, students are now demanding training that meets their specifi c information needs. Dale Spender, renowned feminist scholar, writer, and consultant, whose work includes exploration of the social effects of new technologies, observed that there is a divide between traditional teaching techniques and the attitudes of contemporary youth. Spender’s observation (personal communication, September 30, M-learning: Positioning Educators for a Mobile, Connected Future 119, 2005) reinforces the divide between traditional teaching and the attitudes of contemporary youth. Eight year olds think there’s something wrong with their teachers. Don’t teachers know that heads are unreliable places? That’s what the save key is for. Even if you do store things in your head, you can’t ever find them again.

M-learning also creates learning opportunities that are significantly
different to those provided by e-learning (at a desktop) or paper-based distance learning. Chen and colleagues (as cited in Bridgland and Blanchard 2005) describe the principal considerations to be taken into account when designing m-learning delivery:

• The urgency of the learning need
• The need for knowledge acquisition
• The mobility of the learning setting
• The interactivity of the learning process
• The situatedness of the instructional activities
• The integration of instructional content

Young people do not experience geographical place and time as barriers (Fannon 2004). Fannon’s research found that although some older learners used their mobile phones to arrange face-to-face meetings to work on assignments or discuss learning issues, younger learners were more comfortable with the thought of using mobile phones for learning, and almost half (45 per cent) of the research group were prepared to use Internet-enabled telephones as their only tool for learning. However, the challenges of creating learning to be delivered via mobile phones are not easily solved by teachers, many of whom are recent “migrants” to the digital world (Prensky 2001).

Dale Spender expressed concern about the ability of teachers to
understand and respond to digital learning opportunities, citing the aging teacher population and their lack of comfort with digital ICTs, the focus on teaching and memorizing as opposed to learning and seeking information, and reliance on doing it by the book. This approach is fundamentally different to the approach of “digital natives,” Prensky’s (2001) term for those born in the digital age for whom ICT is second nature, for whom “not knowing is an impetus to find out,” and who believe that if you need to use the manual, the product is no good. Spender’s position is reinforced by Aquino’s (n.d., p. 9) observation: “Teaching has a long established culture of individualism and secretiveness and many teachers are very challenged by the need to work collaboratively with technicians, web developers, instructional
designers and programmers to deliver successful web-based education.”

Pay it Forward and Pass it On – in Memory of Chase

Thank-you to so many of you for your outpouring of support, love, thoughts and prayers as our family has been going through a very trying and difficult time.  We are simply overcome with emotion as we are grieving the passing of our little Chase.

As you have read in Remembering Our Chase, the Canora Junior Elementary School, the  school where my nephew attended Kindergarten, had taken on the task of making a difference in their community by paying forward kindness and generosity to others.   The lesson to be learned here is that it only takes one person to make a difference.  Their campaign involved all students being given the following card.

I know that many of you are educators and work with students daily.  I’m hoping that you will help me in spreading the word to others about this task in memory of Chase.

Please take this card and use it.  Give it to others to use and tell them Chase’s story.  Use it for the purpose that was intended – to pay forward and pass on a kind deed or action to someone else who may be in need.  Ask this person to do the same, but please contact the e-mail on the card to let the school know the details.  I can only imagine the stories and learned lessons that will begin to flood into this elementary school regarding the kindness of strangers and friends – all in the memory of a very special little boy named Chase.

Thank-you for your support and God Bless!