To Stop Bullying

The passing of Amanda Todd in B.C. has brought to light, once again, the drastic effects of bullying. Where bullying has a new layer because of the internet and social media, increasing the reach of the bully, these aspects also have extended the reach of a person asking for help.
Amanda Todd is an example of the 'Sext-Up Kids' CBC's DocZone featured earlier this month. She is an example of a victim of bullying. She is an example of a victim of cyber-bullying. She is an example of a teen who attempted suicide. She is an example of a teen who used YouTube as a means to help self-heal and ask for help. Sadly, she is also an example of a teen who fell victim to suicide.
The life and death of Amanda is horrific. The sadness expressed across social media is prolific. However, they are too late to save Amanda.
Something more than mouthing words and shaking heads has to be done. Check out the Facebook page created after a pre-teen found a note on her locker suggesting ways she could take her own life. It is titled "Death note left in school locker". Consider the words of a Geoff Adams [language warning] that circulated Facebook recently who calls for action against bullying while it is happening, not after-the-fact.
The real issue is that bullying is only an extreme measure of socialization. We often hear that is one function of schooling - socialization. Isn't that what bullies are doing? They pick on the kids who stand out for whatever reason. They serve as a function of creating a society commonality. We would like to think the 90 pound weakling is the only target, but that is not always the case.
Truthfully, we have all played a role in bullying - we either bullied, were bullied or assisted bullying through inaction. Some of us played all three roles.If you think you were not bullied because of our personality, consider which other role you played. Until we can come to terms about our own part in the process we are never going to end the torment. Once we get to the underlying issues, we can break it all down to rebuild it.

Day 9: Utilizing Lesson in Moodle

Today was our second-to-last day and we spent it learning about lesson in Moodle. It is a powerful tool that is highly underused. The shear amount of planning it takes to use lesson effectively makes it too time consuming for teachers to tackle. This did not daunt my group! They diligently created, edited, revised and made lessons. Some had technical difficulties that hindered their progress. How can you create the lesson, try to make the question page, save it and have it not available? Especially when it still appears on the course page! Also, one poor girl had all most of her topics simply disappear and the 'Add a resource' and 'Add an activity' went missing from the topic she did have remaining. The solution was to redo it all. :(

There was continuation of previous work: building questions in the question bank, finishing rubrics in projects and embedding videos in courses. It was grand to listen to them work with each other, helping each other solve the issues that arose. They have been looking in Moodle.org for solutions and finding more information about the things they are trying to do. They are resourceful and helpful and generous. My work with educators in Dominica last year left me unconvinced that teaching practices would change once I left. So it was quite a compliment when one of the IT guys observing my group said, "For a change, I think these teachers will actually use the things they are learning". I agree. I see them making things to use in their classrooms. It is satisfying!

I am not sure if I have mentioned how traditional the school settings are here. Teachers are called 'Miss' and 'Sir' by their students. I hear "Miss! Miss!" every day. On a particularly difficult day, I hear it way too much! To give you an idea of what it is like, here is a set of classroom rules from the school I am working in:

If you cannot read that, it says:

"301 [Room number]

Class Rules

Respect all teachers

Show respect & kindness to each other

Keep the classroom clean

Always sit properly on the chairs

Do not deface school property

Leave your seat ONLY with permission

Speak softly at ALL times

Cell phones, MP3s, laptops should be OFF

Be honest, do not steal or gamble

Eat outside of the classroom

Stand when a teacher comes in

ENJOY LEARNING!!!"

Now I know most of these apply to a typical classroom in Canada, but our students do not stand when a teacher enters the room, rarely wait for permission to leave their seats and speak softly only when they are unsure of the answer they are giving! And many of us are trying to use cell phones and laptops as part of the learning process. 

Tomorrow we say goodbye. I hope all of these teachers will stay in contact with me, but I know I will be lucky if even a few actually do.

Day 8 Dominica: More Moodling

Another fantastic day! This group is Moodling like crazy. We went through course settings and embedding. At the same time, they learned about SchoolTube and Voki. They enjoyed this so much, I may have to show them ImageChef, BigHugeLabs and Blabberize.

They embedded video and web images on the course page, on a web page within their course and in a block on the side. They also played with the HTML code to resize the images so they would sit side-by-side on the screen. Some continued to work on quizzes as well.

We also began setting up the gradebook for their courses. Weighting of categories and items took a while to figure out, but we got it.

Yesterday, one teacher brought me a bag of snacks - Tamarind Balls, Coconut Tablet, Gooseberry Jam, and what I would call Peanut Brittle, but she had a different name for it. Today she brought me a bracelet with my Zodiac sign on it. Another student brought me mangoes. Did I mention how much I am enjoying this group?

 Not much else to report, though. We only have a day and a half left together! So sad. Tomorrow will be building a lesson in Moodle. Scary stuff!

Day 7 Dominica: Moodle Quiz

Today the teachers began working in the courses I built for them. We have been playing a little with various assignments and links, but now it gets serious!

So I took them through a step-by-step of quizzes. We discussed the various settings such as unlimited attempts and the power of immediate feedback. They are all excited about getting this done as they will not have to carry papers back and forth between home and school. They are also excited that the quizzes are marked for them. They experienced how much work it is to put all the questions, responses and feedback into a quiz, but they also noted how lasting the work will be.

They are a traditional group. They certainly did not like the idea of a student getting 100% on a second attempt at a quiz. Most felt there should be a penalty given if a student got a question wrong on his or her first attempt. However, they could also see that there could be learning for that student while figuring out the right answer. One exclaimed, 'They are going to get a heavy penalty for a wrong answer' another noted that the students take it much more seriously if they know ahead of time that each wrong answer will cost them, even if it is only a small penalty. I hope to return to this discussion later in the week.

The day went well. They created quizzes consisting mainly of multiple choice questions and then they tried the quizzes of their colleagues. This allowed them to see the results they would get when their students took a quiz. They were impressed and we all had a good laugh when one teacher went to manually mark the essay question on her Social Studies test to read the first response, "Miss, are you serious?" Let's say we can't excel at everything.

As usual, we set the plan for tomorrow before leaving class today. We will cover course administration and embedding objects in a course or web page. This will also allow a little playing with various web tools.

This is a great group of teachers. Have I mentioned that before? I am going to miss them. Hopefully we will keep in touch. What are the chances?

Days 5 and 6 Moodle and Access

 Friday was a busy day. We started by trying to finish the projects and the work in Microsoft Office. The time after snack was spent introducing Moodle. Instead of having them all work in their own course pages, I gave them each one topic [I used their names as headings] and had them upload their projects and create an assignment. This worked out quite well. The day finished with a discussion of what they needed for the final week. Many wanted to learn more about Access and Moodle, with a couple who wanted to complete their projects and learn more about Excel. I spent the weekend building course pages and preparing lessons for Access.

Monday was spent getting Access databases together. I had a series of five lessons prepared. We went through the lessons, took the self-checks, practiced by looking at examples and completed assignments. It is so refreshing to work with these teachers; they work diligently on any task they are given. They created tables. They related the data in one table to another. They even created forms. We had planned to do a little work Moodle after snack, but we did not. They were very focused on getting the work done in Access. When some of the computers did not work in that first week, I allowed them to bring personal computers to class. This was a great idea until I realized they all have varying versions of Access. Most have 2003, but others have 2007 or 2010. By the end of the day on Monday, I had gained more experience in these programs then I will every actually need.

The day ended with the men laughing. This is a good sign, right?

Dominican Weekend

So it is now Day Seven of instruction in Dominica and I am behind in posts. WAY behind. I am going to cram Day 5 and Day 6 together, but first I will tell you about my weekend. Friday after work we went to see a couple of sights: Emerald Pool and Mero Beach. My Facebook friends have already seen this picture of me on my anniversary, without Alvin for the fourth year in a row. The Cafe at Mero Beach was named 'Romance Cafe'. Maybe next year I will be home. Maybe.

Saturday was spent preparing materials for Monday's class. This was time consuming, but my class wanted to learn more about Access and so that is what I did. Normally I would just take screen shots of the steps to guide users through the process. Problem? I have Access 2010 and the computers in the lab I am working in have Access 2003. BIG difference. So I spent a lot of time on Microsoft's website gathering tutorials and putting together PowerPoint presentations for lessons as well as various assignments and quizzes. Since part of the course is instruction about courses in Moodle, I tried to use a variety of the tools so they get a feel for the platform before we jump into creating courses.

I fit in a pedicure from a spa called 'Spanish' where a couple of women from the Dominican Republic work. It is little more than a closet. The water is taken from the bathroom sink and heated in a electric kettle. My feet soaked in a foot bath with just enough water to cover them. However, the lady vigorously removed all rough skin off my feet and proceeded to scrub my feet like they have never been washed before. She did a great job on the nails, too, I think. There was so much going on in that little room, people coming and going and loud music blaring ... it was not the same 'spa' experience one gets back home. Not by a long shot!

It was a rainy weekend here. The rain wasn't misty or light, it poured at times through the night and day. The sun was hidden behind clouds and the temperature dropped quite a bit. This made it better for our huge day out on Sunday. We went up to Freshwater and Boeri Lakes. The view of the valley from the roadside on the way up was spectacular. The hike to Boeri Lake is described as moderate. The sign indicated it was a 45 minute walk. It was something, let me tell you. Up, up, up and down, up, down, across a stream, along a path to get to a lake that is surrounded by boulders and is filled with cold water. The lake is covered with steam coming from Boiling Lake, just over the peak. All three lakes are craters in the same dormant volcano. Freshwater and Boeri are cold, but Boiling Lake [you guessed it] is too hot to enter. The hike to Boiling Lake takes something like six hours and is quite challenging. I don't think I will ever see Boiling Lake.


The next stop [of which I sadly have no pictures] was to swim through Ti Tou Gorge. These rocks have been carved out by water and an amazing channel has been created. You can swim through the gorge to the falls on the other side, the source of the water that has over centuries carved away the stone. The water was deep and I was quite nervous. I turned back once, concerned by the sound of the falls and the depth of the water. After being assured of a ledge somewhere in the middle of the cavern to rest on, I went back in. It was fabulous; no regrets.

The day ended with a stop at Trafalgar Falls, which are actually two falls; one side has hot water and the other cold. I visited the falls last year, but this time I went further over the rocks and into the pool of cold water from the falls on the right. Then we went carefully back over the rocks made slippery by the rain to the pools of hot water from the falls to the left. I was very tired by the time I got back to the hotel, but it was an excellent day. I managed to get more work done, but called it a night before 10 pm.

Day 4 Dominica - Projects Nearly Complete

Miriam, Liz and Hihson working project for their school

Today was a good day. There were less teachers today (only 10) but they came ready to work! They have outlined their projects and have found great online tools students can use while creating them. They are sharing ideas and resources and have begun collaborating as an organic part of project planning. It is wonderful to see. Dominican curriculum includes many courses that have practical work as well as theoretical work. Teachers of these types of courses have been able to create their projects more rapidly than those who are building from scratch.

McGrey, Annie and Dean working on an IT project

One group's project has the students designing an eating area at their school. This project includes presentations and fund raising aspects as well as Math and technical drawing outcomes. They are very excited to work on this and have already asked the principal for permission to implement it in the fall. 

Another group is working on a project that brings together many of the CSEC syllabus outcomes as well as some English and possibly other subjects as well. They are using some sample projects as exemplars and have been very diligent about completing the  planning template. This template is not the one I provided, but a different one that was found online that suited their tastes. I am so impressed! They hardly need me at all.

Part of the planning is deciding on assessments. Sample marking guides, rubrics or scoring guides have been provided and these are used along with ones they already have in their courses. Most of the projects will be finished tomorrow. That is a good thing as we begin to look at teaching in Moodle and we should be able to outline their needs in this course work for the last week. This in turn will outline the homework I have for the weekend!

Today I recorded my group as they sang their national anthem for me. It is a beautiful song and they are beautiful singers. Listen to it here: Isle of Beauty

Day 3 - Questioning Project Based Learning

Day 3 already! Today was the day we really began the work on PBL. Well, not work yet, but serious preparation. My hope is to get this group collaborating with each other. Although some are sticking to their colleagues within their schools, or with friends, the rest are branching out across the room to teachers whom they have never met before this session.

The teachers I am working with are honest, sincere and truly interested in doing the best for their students. It amazed me how they face the same issues as we do in Alberta. More than one wondered if projects were worth it as they would inevitably take more time to learn concepts than the way they are teaching currently. The curriculum must be met because the students have standardized tests that must be written. They feel there is no control for the teacher to risk losing precious time. I was sorry that I did not have the answers for them. My encouragement to do the best to deliver as much of the curriculum as possible in a way that helps children gain understanding, real understanding, about the world around them was well received, but they are still hesitant.

Another concern was with group work and the possibility that one member of the group could take a ride on the work of the others. They expressed real concern that one student would have to do too much while others would not learn anything. This ignited a deep conversation about the role of the teacher and how much responsibility it is fair to place on the students. Of course there isn't one right answer to this. By the end of next week, I have a feeling this group will come up with strategies that will help them deal with all the problems that may occur while implementing Project Based Learning.

Singing praises.

While my group are working away at a project and begin to build their own projects, two of my colleagues spent two days at a school without internet. Since their sessions are about Web 2.0 tools, they were not having a great time. Yesterday one of them got her group to sing for her. It was lovely and inspired us to have a friendly competition between groups. My group took this very seriously, trying to find the best song to sing. It took far longer than I thought it would! In the end, the song was beautiful. I will share the whole Voice Thread when we have it finished with all four groups.

On a personal note, we went to Champagne Beach after work. I actually snorkeled! It is great, although I did get slightly panicky once I realized I could not stand on the bottom to be safe. This inhibited me from going the entire path, but I did see some amazing fish and the little bubbles coming up from the fissures. The water around the bubbles was so warm!

Day 2 Dominica IT Summer Institute

Day two! These teachers are really working hard to get through the project in the course. The thing is, this project is not very good. Even after they watched videos from Edutopia.org that show well-constructed projects - the kind I hope to get them working on - they still wanted to finish the provided project. They felt they were learning valuable skills in Microsoft Office software. I purposely choose a project that had too many finicky details, but this did not bother them at all. This is the thing about projects - even the poorly constructed ones are engaging when the learner wants to learn!

The participants all seem to know their way around Word, and are gaining experience in Excel and Access. Between you and I, I am gaining skills right along with them! 

Day 2 Dominica IT Summer Institute - slide show

Tomorrow we start investigating the project-based learning approach. Technology is a real asset for students working on projects, but the access here in Dominica can be a problem. Although there are enough computers for everyone, there are several problems that can occur: the mouse, the monitor, the internet cable or the CPU itself can be non-functional or the software [Adobe Reader!] is not available. This is ongoing; a couple of computers that worked for us yesterday did not work today. When teachers have these problems in computer labs it makes the use of technology very frustrating. I hope some of them can continue to try if things do not improve.

The good news is that they are having no problem working in Moodle, the learning management system we are accessing course materials through. Today three of the ten uploaded assignments and will be reading the feedback I provided tomorrow morning (if they haven't already!). I have been answering questions about whether they will be able to use this platform in their classrooms ... here's hoping they can!

Day 1 - Back in Dominica

Five of the ten teachers ~half of the group.

Well here I am again in Dominica. This is a much different experience from last March. It is not completely different; it is still quite hot - sweating is a full time activity - and the luscious vegetation is still amazing, I have with me three wonderful women and many more participants in my class. Well, that I have a class makes this go-round a new experience.

We arrived here late Saturday evening. Sunday was spent resting and walking around the city. One of my colleagues was here in July last year, but the other two are new to Dominica. We are enjoying sharing stories of the island and its people. Giving impromptu tours has been the order of the first couple of days.

Those that know me, know that I will chat anyone up. There is no better way to learn about any place you may be. On the plane from Barbados to Dominica I sat beside a Dominican man who has lived in Alberta for the last 24 years! His perspective is that the island does not do enough to develop industries that would improve the economy. When asked why he lived in cold Canada instead of Dominica, he said he liked having seasons. It is only ever summertime here! I have found out that there are around 70 thousand people on the island, but another 20 thousand live off the island. 'Overseas' they say - that could be anywhere from the United States or Canada to Africa. So about a quarter of their people live elsewhere. Strange.

But the reason I am here is to help teachers with integrating technology into education. The day started somewhat uncertainly and late. Once we knew which teachers were going with which instructor, and which school we were heading to, we only had to figure out which computers would work for us. The school my group went to has internet access and enough working computers for the group. However, the material I had prepared was directed toward secondary teachers teaching information technology and there is only one participant who meets this description. Even so, they all worked away at the sample project I had for them to do.

I will be introducing them to project-based learning materials in the coming days. What I hope they learn is that the project I started them off on is not very engaging, nor does it foster authentic learning the way it should. Soon enough, we will all be experts at building collaborative projects using technology and curricular content. I will keep you posted about the process :)