“Innovation comes from a problem you find fascinating” – Anne Gibbon
The Young Innovators Award is something I’ve been loosely involved with over the last few years with a couple of students in my class being eventually cajoled to submit an entry (one year we even had two finalists!) I have found it difficult to motivate boys to do more than a lastminute.com rush job and this year will try a different approach.
So it was with some enthusiasm I headed off to the launch breakfast held at Classic Flyers which not only provided a good feed and the chance to chat with other teachers, but this year they had arranged for a guest speaker followed by a teacher’s workshop. Anne Gibbon was an engaging speaker with a great back story. The opening quote was my take home message from her entertaining talk.
A new initiative this year was the teachers ‘turbo masterclass’ presented by Jono Jones. He was an energetic presenter that took us through a brief presentation of innovation and design thinking which was the underlying concept for the YIA. The great thing about this session was that were went through the design process with the challenge of how to ‘improve the staff room experience’. We went through a 5 step process:
Step 1: Brainstorm – what are some possible problems?
Step 2: Talk to people – to they reinforce your hunch? Is it a real problem?
Step 3: Set the problem – clearly articulate the problem.
Step 4: Heaps of ideas – generate some solutions.
Step 5: Turbo Makeathon – physical prototyping of a chosen solution.
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- Record on posters
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- Sticky notes are great
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- Our prototype games table
So I took that task back to school, modified it and presented to students. Here is a link to my class room resource that I shared with the students – one per group. I made the mistake in the first class of not reinforcing the importance of defining the problem. The students went into a mass brainstorm of solutions – many were solutions to problems that didn’t exist. Here’s an example:
With the next class I focussed in on the problem and the student generated much better ideas. We will see if this flows through to some quality YIA projects…
For those of you using Google Classroom, here is a list of recent updates you may not be aware of:
What some other tasks than just creating a document or a presentation? Here is a list of 5 really good content creation tools that students can use with the Google Chrome browser. I’ve used 
EDpuzzle is an online app that allows you to ‘push’ a video resource out to students, then be able to see who has watched it and you can even add in questions to check for understanding. It now works really well with Google Classroom and will ‘pull’ the class lists from Classroom (so you don’t have to add individual students) and can also automagically post to your Stream. Enough from me – watch the Video. Site is 
Appearing in the papers last week was news that education has a heap of jargon – wow, surprise surprise. Either go straight to the 
Nice infographic reinforcing that all teachers are teachers of Search. Students need information literacy and be deliberately taught how to search for reliable information. Google has some good resources for 
Here’s a good, brief update of some recent feature additions Google has made to Forms and Docs (how about Voice typing in Google Docs!)
To keep track of what your tutees are involved in, you can print out 
One trick I have used is to have a clear file folder with one sleeve per student. In it goes all the bits of paper we get about the student (Academic coaching, CareersNZ, Co-curricular form). This has been especially useful for the Y12 Academic coaching where you can easily refer back to the documentation from Y11 to see what has changed.
out these tips about how to use the About Tab. A good place for putting course descriptions, links to NCEA standards, curriculum resources for students etc.
Here’s a good presentation by some Math teachers describing how they use a range of Google apps to enhance their student’s learning. Although focused on Maths, could be applied to a range of subject areas.
Google Drive, Apps in the top left of Chrome, seperate programmes you can download and add to your Dock..) – as long as it works for you, then sweet as.
For those of you who want a different way to get a copy of your teaching timetable on your computer that is different than taking a screen shot from KAMAR and sticking it on your desktop, try this method. In Teachers-> Events Planner you can export your timetable then import it in to a Calendar app of your choosing. I use 
Registration is open for the GAFE (Google Apps For Education) conference. This is held at Hobsonville Point Secondary School in the Term 1 holidays. Being a Beaker, I intend to go to this (I went to it two years ago and it was really worthwhile). But not just for Beakers, there is something for everyone. If anyone else is interested, please let me know by this Friday (the 12th) as we could put in a small group PD application to share transport and accommodation costs.
labels that has their username (email address) and password. Take note of the updated tip (not in the video)- instead of Internet \ User name to get the student email, if you use General \ Student email – School, this will print out the complete email address with the @taurangaboyscollege.school.nz domain.
Here’s a link to a short presentation you can show on your class projector that has what students need to do to sign in to their school account. The last slide has instructions on joining a Google Classroom
of your subject classes with course descriptions or as a form teacher to send a general welcome back email. Here is a 
