QR Codes -a new idea

Several of my colleagues have been using QR codes for a while now.

The general approach seems to be to give out a sheet of questions, the students answer them and then scan the answer. This leaves me feeling a little bit 'so what?' -they scan the answer and they're either right or wrong. There ends the learning journey.
The same result could be achieved with a folded piece of paper.

I've avoided QR codes up to now because I've long thought there must be a better/smarter way to use them than the above.

After a while of head-scratching and pondering I've decided to give QR codes a run out in my class, but I'm doing it  differently.

The students will be given a sheet of the answers. There are 10 questions and each will have 4 possible answers. Each answer directs you to a different question.

The questions will be hidden in the codes (yes, I know, 'folded piece of paper' -but wait!).

The students will be given a question to start from and they then move onto the next question depending on their answer. I know what order the questions should go in, if all are answered correctly so I can tell at the end who made mistakes.

Each time they answer a question they record its number so this generates a 'code' which can be checked by me at the end. If there are errors, I'll tell them so, so they can go back and check their answers.

The advantage of the QR code questions is that they remain hidden until used and if a student is struggling, the question is already in their device to be googled.

I haven't tested this yet, I've been developing the idea and tools to generate the necessary resources.

Update- there was a booking problem with the iPods so I never got my hands on them. I did run the activity with a class though' just showing the questions on the board. The activity ran well, several groups successfully navigated the route and produced the correct code at the end.
I've created another activity using the same format and I look forward to testing it soon

SOLO continues

SOLO is now three weeks old with my classroom. This is a short update on where I've got to.


Personal development:
Initially I found that setting 'constructively aligned' lesson objectives was quite a challenge. Too many PD sessions on Bloom's perhaps!
I'm getting the hang of CA objectives now and displaying them in the form of a SOLO progress arrow so the students can clearly see the learning journey (hmm, jargony).
I am trying to make my lessons more constructivist as that to me seems to be a good fit with SOLO and 'bigger picture thinking' (urk, even more jargon).

Student development:
I've never enjoyed marking books. I wonder now if its because they had the 'wrong' content. With my SOLO classes (four year 10 sets) I am enjoying the marking (Nurse! there's another one loose!) because I can see clearly that the students are making progress.
SOLO really does seem to make a straightforward scaffold for the students to see where they are and what they need to do to improve.
Some of the students still need some help with converting a list of descriptive facts (multistructural) into a flowing, logical explanation (relational).
To support this I have gained a poster on 'connectives' from the English department so I can highlight a range of ways to link concepts together.
-Sometimes its as simple as a few 'becauses' here and there!


I've had a set of 140ish laminated hexagons made by the repro technician and I'm beginning to deploy these more frequently. The students can arrange them but again the converting visual links into flowing prose is a stumbling block.

Today was the first in the series of regular book monitoring visits from the departmental hierarchy. No one else in my school uses SOLO so my books were met with "Why do you have to be the rebel!?" I explained the principle of SOLO to my colleague who I feel was deliberately being confused.
Our book marking policy is quite complicated. It involves an A5 sheet (every two or three weeks) which has Levelled outcomes (blooms/NC levels/GCSE grades) which we tick off, a box for the student to self assess, an AFL box for us and a literacy target. -their work on each page is also marked for subject accuracy and the full works literacy SPaG too.
I'm using the NC/GCSE for the summative assessment in the appropriate boxes and SOLO for the AFL. I'll doubtless have to explain it to the HoD to ensure it meets our quality standards but I think using SOLO in this way makes it clear to the students where they stand.


The experiment continues...

My SOLO Journey -2 weeks in

This school year is now about 2 weeks old. I've seen my year 10 SOLO guinea pigs for about three lessons apiece now.

A quick recap: I decided to try SOLO with my year 10 classes for a few reasons;

1. The evidence suggests that SOLO can boost achievement and despite what the GOVErnment suggest it does take effort to pass them
2. I have four classes on the same syllabus. 2 HT and 2 FT

The course they're following is OCR Gateway. I am teaching them C1 -Carbon Chemistry.

We began learning about crude oil. I taught the two lessons on the topic and then brought in the SOLO using Tait Coles' (@totallywired77) lesson structure (I tested this on year 7 at the end of last year and it worked well).

When I used SOLO last year it was at the end of a topic and it was an easy framework for the kids to understand and apply to knowledge they already had. In order to set off with SOLO in mind I needed to use Constructive Alignment (CA).
    To be honest this took me a bit of thinking to get my simple brain around. After 7 years of Bloom's I now needed to rewire my thinking and change the progression of the objectives from what I had done to what was needed in SOLO.

An example of the SOLO-ised (SOLO-ified?) objectives is:

(Unistructural) State one use for crude oil
(Multistructural) Give a range of uses for crude oil
(Relational) Explain WHY crude oil can be separated using fractional distillation I needed to stress the explain WHY bit to the students to ensure I got more than a description of fractional distillation
(Extended Abstract) Describe the problems that would be caused by running out of crude oil I found thinking at this level for my objectives quite challenging! Having to go outside the box yet remain relevant.

I'd really appreciate feedback from SOLO practitioners regarding anything in this post but especially comments about the objectives.

Initially I didn't use the SOLO terminology too much, I showed the objectives on a progress arrow and explained that we all needed to be moving to the right (towards EA).

In the third lesson, where SOLO was properly introduced I moved through the stages of using, applying and creating with SOLO. We created a mark scheme to answer the question "How is crude oil made useful?"

We worked through what we'd expect at each level and then set about answering the question. At the moment I only have the results back from the  foundation tier classes. They managed (on the whole) to write a response which was bordering on relational. Generally in the form of a list of facts about uses of crude oil with perhaps one link of concepts (eg "Petrol contains lots of energy, that is why it makes a good fuel").

It has been interesting to see what the results were and it is helping to inform my teaching for the next sections. I really need to sharpen up my own practice in some areas to help the students sharpen up their own.
I need to make sure there is sufficient material/scope for them to make links in class.

The experiment continues. 

Is the VLE dead?

Several years ago my school paid for a company to come along and set up a VLE and provide training. It was a MOODLE based system and the company did a bit of design and interface with the school's user database to unify login details.

The VLE looked awful, crashed a lot and nobody had any time for content creation. Basically, the whole project died on its arse.

A couple of years later my interest in the VLE was reignited and I decided to setup my own MOODLE server at home on an old PC just so I could find out about how it worked.

After a few months of tinkering at home I went to the ICT support team and together we rebuilt, re-designed and launched a new VLE.
This version was run on a better server (Debian Linux, not Windows) looked better - the theme was more in-keeping with the school's website etc. I led training for the whole staff on how to use (and why to use the VLE) initially interested parties came along and were trained unofficially but then it was co-opted into the CPD sessions.

The second VLE took off quite well at first, a lot more interest from staff. It had more courses with more content and (almost) never crashed. As time goes on the use of it waned. The school was under scrutiny from the Dementors  and no one had time to do things that were seen as 'nice extras'.

I have always been a supporter of, and a driving force for the VLE but now I wonder has its time been and gone?

It seems madness to write off this sort of technological input to the classroom but that is not what I'm suggesting. 'Web 2.0' technologies have raced ahead and a lot of VLE functionality is now available online, on the cloud and much prettier than most schools could develop themselves (obviously a heavy cash investment in a VLE would change this!)

I love to try new technologies and I really enjoyed creating VLE activities but that takes time. There is an awful lot of 'off the shelf' web stuff which is as good, or even better than home made.

My school has subscribed to I Am Learning and we're about to launch this next week. Thanks to twitter and the myriad teachers there sharing ideas and good practice I have discovered many other resources which are great tech uses to get the students engaged.

Using these resources saves a lot of time compared to doing it yourself from scratch and the user experience is superior to moodle (without a complicated front end on it, like the OU have).

Some resources I have discovered (via twitter etc) are listed below.

I Am Learning -online homeworks (£)
Socrative -quick quizzes (needs students to use tablets/computers/smartphones) (Free)
Dropbox/Google drive/Skydrive etc  -a place to share documents etc (free)
Popplet -interactive concept maps (Free)
Pixton - create your own concept cartoons (Free trial then £)
Infogr.am -create infographics (Free)
Triptico -hexagon learning template (Free)

None of these individually replace a whole VLE but how many people use EVERY function available?

I'd like to hear others' comments so please drop me a line!

Going SOLO from the start

Well, its a new term. Time for some new tricks.

At the end of last term I found out about SOLO and tried it out on an unsuspecting year 7 class. It seemed to go well. The AST who filmed it agreed that there was some good stuff in that lesson.

Everything I've read about this particular taxonomy suggests it is a good aid to improving learning. I have decided to try to embed it from the beginning.

But how does one go about reinventing ones own personal wheel?
I'm fortunate this year that I have four classes in year 10 all following the same syllabus. Two classes probably aiming for higher tier papers and the other two most likely foundation.
   This means I get to try something, tweak it and try it again. I'll try to record my observations and reflections here as I go along.

Starting out:

My year 10 classes will be starting with module C1 from OCR Gateway 2011 spec. C1 is the organic chemistry unit. The first sub-topic is products from oil.

Over the summer I bought SOLO taxonomy book 1 by Pam Hook and read it cover to cover. My start point is Constructive Alignment of the learning objectives. The learning objectives in the lessons have had their learning verbs matched against the SOLO levels in the book.
  SOLO will not be mentioned explicitly from the start, I think I'll bring it into lesson 3 so I can use it as AFL when we have some content covered. I'll probably use a similar structure to the lesson I tried last term (A heavily copied lesson structure from Tait Coles @Totallywired77).

I'll add details of the lesson I shall begin with after I've tried it out, then I can record how it went.

Mystery boxes

After reading this post on Tales From a Secondary Science Teacher I decided to make my own boxes.

I ordered 5 small 'project' boxes from maplin (Total cost about £12.50) and set about placing items into them.

I have decided to make a note of the contents of my boxes because I think that as an extension to the 'guessing' part of the activity the students could devise a way to test their predictions. Part of this could be to construct a copy box to see if it behaves in the same way. So, a pile of 'test' items could be provided for students to compare against.

Raspberry pi -school project

I just ordered my RasPi yesterday. I am nerdishly excited about getting my hands on a fag packet-sized computer.

I have a few projects in mind for it; media server (though I don't actually need another one!), data logging is my other thought.

I'm looking into connecting it to a range of sensors; temperature, pH etc. I think it would be pretty cool to build up a data logging system that could be monitored remotely. -Just for nerds' sake.

I'll update this post with any findings I make.

If you read this and have anything to share, please do reply!