Google Classroom

This is still ongoing. My colleague and I have been at this for 4 months. Right at the end of last year, we were asked to go for a meeting regarding our school portal. I jumped at the opportunity as I have been trying to start my Google Classroom since it was launched. I even bought a domain name thinking that it would be sufficient. A few tens of ringgit poorer later, I discovered that I could not carry it out as I did not have an education website. I did try it for a while though, learned my way around it a bit. And that was that! I left it as it was for a whole year... For me, I learned most of my stuff by reading up on my own because there are so few around me who share the same interest or passion.

At the meeting, I asked for the portal admin password reset. And there in our hands were the keys to our Classrooms! School was already about to start by then and as soon as it did, both of us went into a frenzy of creating email ids for our students. There were hundreds to be created. But we did it in a record time, on top of other things that we had to do... new lessons for the new year, new classes, a new digital signage in the works and the usual paperwork.

It's been 4 months of running a digital classroom alongside the school prescribed one, which is the VLE Frog. And I have this to say... Google Classroom is a great tool.

The thing I like most about Google Classroom is it has made me even more efficient. I measure efficiency by the amount of time saved in class for what I consider as 'time-wasting but necessary activities' such as copying from the board. Consider this... I was able to finish my Form 3 literature component in slightly over 2 months. And students did plenty of work on it too. Every chapter was accompanied by an edited video which I chopped from an actual movie. The novel went digital and the Classroom is where I placed my digital copy for download. Questions were put up there... and I have figured out ways around the work/homework. Also, where Flubaroo can't work its magic, I resorted to manoeuvring my way around with the help of the Google Form and Google Spreadsheet. I started using Doctopus together with Goobric last year and so, they made their appearance in some of my class work too, as my virtual assistants. Have not had much time to reacquaint myself with Socrative or Kahoot, though my friend occasionally still uses Socrative. I picked up all these from the educational websites. One thing I think the MOE fails to grasp is if teachers are motivated, a lot can be achieved.

Sometime last month, I attended a Google Educator Group seminar, organised by the JPN. After attending it, I kinda got the impression that my friend and I perhaps make up a very small number of teachers in country using the Classroom. The Google people could not provide support for me for Classroom because they were not familiar with it yet. Also, Google Classroom didn't quite catch on because schools need an education domain for it to be able to work. The MOE should actually just look into this than spend so much on FROG classroom.

I like the Classroom for its simplicity to use. The learning curve for it is relatively manageable, as long as one has an understanding of the digital learning environment structure. Some tenacity and persistence go a long way too. And of course, having at least one other teacher who is just passionate as you about embracing change goes a very super long way too!

So what do I do in my digital classroom? This is where I put most of my school work for the kids. They no longer use exercise books for their work. Some work is done in the digital realm. Other work still gets done the traditional way, with a pen and paper. So, they keep a file to keep the 'paperwork'. I have been able to cut down paper usage quite substantially. And there will be no exercise book wasted at the end of this academic year. The management files can be recycled next year. So, yeah, my classes have gone at least a third digital. Comprehension passages are printed on paper but questions are put up in Classroom. Time is saved when Flubaroo does the work for me for the objective questions.

I scanned the Sejarah textbooks for all forms 2 years ago and the Classroom is now a very good platform for me to put them up for my students to download into their phones.

Accessibility is the next problem which many will point out. My friend and I are fortunate. We are in a school where almost 100 percent of our students have at least a smartphone. And that is all we need for them to do their work and read stuff which we put up or asked. Almost all of them have access to internet connections too.

And this year too, I can claim my Nilam project to be quite authentic. All my students read the same books. And they write their own reviews. I have used materials from different sites and put up my own ebooks for them to read. And so, this year, from simple readers like those from Reading A to Z, my students read 'I Am Malala'. Next will be one of my favourite comics from childhood... Asterix!!! And all these can be put up in Classroom.

What are some of the surprises? Somedays I would still be at school after the bell rings for dismissal. And I get had many pleasant surprises in that I see work completed not even 45 minutes after the students left the school compound. This is Gen Z. They are the social media generation. Their communicative devices are like an extension of themselves. Put your work there and it is bound to get response from most of them. Of course, the usual 'threats' of fines for work not done have something to do as well, but it's relegated quite a bit down the list.

But generally, my experience with Classroom has been quite good. I did try Edmodo but it was too much hassle. I read up other LMS platforms. We have the VLE Frog programme too, but when the issuance of user id is not efficiently managed, very often you are left with students who cannot remember their id or not have one. And that is when, even with one left out, you cannot have that everyone in the 'same room' rule working. And it spells failure as some will be left out. With Classroom, the teacher has full control as long as he/she is made a user with some administrative rights in the school website. That is the beauty of Google Classroom.... well, at least for me.

With my iPads and AppleTVs still my main tools for instruction in class (this is the third year that I have not used the chalk board), having Google Classroom is a super added plus point. The education field is still changing. The last few years have been very exciting for me. From iPad and its many amazing apps to AppleTV for ease of projection and Google Classroom for that complete experience.... I have been more fortunate than many to be able to experiment and use them extensively in my classes.

More to come.... I hope.

Of 3D Printing, Lego Bricks and Stuffs...

Teaching is so filled with help these days. I do formative and summative assessments online with my students. I keep in touch with my students via the communication network... email, What's App, iMessage.... I can't keep up with all the new apps. I collaborate with students in the cloud which comes in all kinds of names these days. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.... the list seems endless... There are Dropbox, Box, Drive... again another long list. From the big bulky desktops, we have moved to chromebooks and who knows, perhaps tablets will be making their presence felt soon too. They are already in many places.

I use AppleTV to transmit lessons on the screen, write on little tablets instead of chalkboards. Mind maps make appearances with great ease because apps make it possible. Videos and animations too with great frequency. Students submit homework online. I still use the exercise books, though but they seem such a waste. Papers come from trees and we waste so many pages in an exercise book each year.

When I started teaching, cyclostyling was how we did the printing. You type on stencils with the clunky typewriter and had this red liquid which worked like an eraser for mistakes. It was a wow moment when dot matrix printers made their appearances at work places. Then came the laser printers. These days I mostly print my own worksheets. But most of the time, it's a mix of digital screens and papers. I try to minimise the use of papers whenever possible.

Then the Overhead Projectors came about.... followed by the visualisers and projection panels. Then as computers became more common, projectors made their presence felt. Chalkboards will probably be a thing of the past soon. LED screens, AppleTV,  Chromecast, smart tv and the most recent addition is the 3D printer. It is quite amazing what a 3D printer can do. From chocolates to titanium, these printers are able to print I have read. And they print even complete houses too, cars as well and homemade toys. As a kid, I think I never imagined such changes. Goes to show how small my world is.

My students play with Lego bricks, lego with brains, NXT, EV3... And these are for co-curricular activities. When I was a student, I knew only of one type of band and my school band was already quite special back in the early days in the sense we had a bagpipe section. These days kids in my school are spoilt for choice... 24 Seasons Drums, Chinese Orchestra, Brass Band and even a Symphony Orchestra. 

Lessons used to to teacher dependent within the four walls of a building. These days we have the world wide web to help us. All kinds of gurus reside there, in places like Khan Academy, Crash Course, UdaCity, Coursera and so on. If you want a visual instruction for a hobby, YouTube is available. We are even beginning to have our own homegrown versions. Recently students in Kedah were given access to Kedah ETutor where the video content is based on our very own curriculum.

However I guess too, if we are to ask the generation before us how it was like... I think their tale will probably be in the same tone too, albeit about different things. After all, theirs was a generation of huge leap in transportation and communication too....

But despite all these amazing development, I wonder too whether we have all become wiser and more resilient? Point to ponder. 

How My Classroom Has Evolved

My classroom has undergone quite a few changes in the last 24 months. Come July, it will be exactly 2 years since I last used a chalkboard to teach.

It has been an exciting journey for me as a teacher. Not having to use the chalkboard... I find it most liberating. From Doceri, I ventured into so many other apps which gave me a versatility which made teaching (and learning too) so much fun. The icing on the cake... I did not need to turn my back on my students. I have not done that in class for a long time. All my classes are now face to face all the time.

I now write so much less in class. Typing has replaced much of the writing. Am thankful for my typing skills which I owe to Dad. He used to pay me 50 sen to do his typing sometimes, and I did it happily for the extra pocket money. I move from one form to another quite easily in class. This year I added another projector in the lab. I now operate with 2 projectors.

With 2 projectors, I can put up passages on one to annotate and questions on another for easy reference. I can use one for mind map and the other for other media in the lesson. One can come up with any combo of preferences.

Chromebooks are used for Google Drive and Socrative. There other assessment apps which I am itching to try but with the workload piling up, it'll have to take a while. Using Google Docs for essay writing is more effective than the traditional 'write-in-exercise-book' method. With a few add-ons like Doctopus and Goobric, I can view more students work. And monitoring... Today I asked a student if she was working on her writing. She said yes. I told her she wasn't. There was some denying but finally she admitted. It's amazing how I can click the tabs containing my students work and know whether they are working on their piece. There is also a more personal touch and students learn other skills too as they work on their writing online. And Goobric.... with the writing rubric attached, students get a clearer picture of where they stand. Google Drive ... almost like a 'one-stop' centre.

Students seem to enjoy this way of learning. I have had students coming back to ask whether they could take their online assessments again. I get more interests shown by the kids too.

Apps ... it's amazing what one can achieve when there is media as your teaching aid. A picture, or video, or even a caption... in the traditional class, it would have been a gargantuan task just to bring them into the class. These days, with just a computer or a tablet and a projector, you are good to go. And oh yes... a speaker system would definitely add the oomph.

And emails... I email my students reminders to pay their fees. Their parents can emailed me when their children are sick. I scan timetables, textbooks and ebooks I prepared to my students too. I am fostering a new culture of learning too, I realised. Many students usually are not aware that their smartphones can be used to enhance their learning because they were not taught so. My classes are slowly learning. Our students have not been allowed to bring their technology to class because we deem those gadgets as a distraction. Well, I disagree... It's mainly because they have not been shown the way.

But despite all the breakthroughs in technology... I learned one thing too. It is the teacher that makes a greater difference. The personal touch, the story teller, the listening ears, etc.... these are still unmatched by the gadgets. A good teacher is still more about those than just technology.

I have also been privileged to set up a digital signage for the school with the help of Other Half. Using Raspberry Pi(s) we now run two 60-inch TVs as our digital signage. Announcements are now in poster or video forms. The time saved due to announcement over the PA system is quite substantial.

Changes ... they are inevitable. We can choose to remain in our old but comfortable ways or force our learning curve upwards and change with the inevitable...Oh ya.. SPM results are out. One sees the usual rounds of jubilations and dejections. A parent said this when she was congratulated for her daughter's excellent set of results. Her answer..."God's blessings.' Sigh... means those whose children did not do well did not get God's blessings???

Google Drive vs Apps from Apple in the Classroom

This is probably long overdue, two months overdue, as I have been meaning to blog about my experience of using Google Drive as a teaching tool... mainly for writing.

I have tried using Google Drive in all my language classes, mainly for writing purposes. I went in without anyone to guide me and it has been a journey of sorts for me.

Week 1. In my first attempt I merely asked my students to share their files with me, meaning they were owners of their documents and I was given the right to edit their documents. But it soon became clear to me that it was no way to do things as it was very difficult to keep track of all the essays which were coming in. I blogged about my first week's experience here...

Week 2... in my reading, I came across an add-on, Doctopus which was actually a script written as an add-on for Google Sheet (Google's twin to Microsoft's Excel). What Doctopus does is it enables the students to work on their assignments on my drive. This means I am the owner of their assignments until a time when I relinquish ownership into their respective Drives. Doctopus is rather like an automated assignment mailer. Everyone gets the same assignment and I can embargo the whole class's assignments for grading. Embargo is like locking their files so that no editing can be done by the students. This is great for me to set deadlines.

What I like about Google Sheet with Doctopus as an add-on is Goobric. Goobric is an Chrome Extension which adds rubric functionality to Doctopus. It is a great tool because it enables the rubric to appear as you grade the essay. I have taken a new interest in rubrics lately because of that too. You can type the marks on each section of the rubric. And with a little work added to Sheet like formulas to calculate the total and grading it, it gives a very good feedback to students (once they understand how it helps them) and me as a teacher. My only grouse is the waiting time for the rubric to appear as if you click other tabs, the rubric will disappear. That wastes quite a bit of time for me.

If I continue using Google Drive as part of my teaching tools, I will definitely be looking into making class work (essays) as part of the overall grades. There are other add-ons like autoCrat and Flubaroo which I have tried on my own but not with the class yet because I am also trying out other apps.

Now the snags... For this to work, the teacher has to be rather competent on the computer. A good understanding of how the filing system works is very important. I think for many teachers at the moment, this issue alone would probably be deterrent enough. The next thing is typing skills. Speed typing not just helps but makes a world of difference. If you are one of those two-finger typists, it is going to an uphill task to clear 40 essays on Drive.....

....which brings me to the note taking apps on the iPad. As you can see from the picture, I have quite a few of those apps. My current favourites are Notability and Inkflow. The latest addition is Notes Plus which I just bought because they had a one day sale which knocked off 90% of the price. I could't resist it and I have just spend the whole weekend trying it out.

And of course, my girl as usual became my first 'student'. The fact that the iPad is based on finger gestures is alone to make it 'superior' over Google Sheet/Doc, I feel. Hand gesture means most people should be able to use it minus the requirements like the ability to type fast or of having a good understanding of how the filing system in a drive should be organised or even the inner workings of all these mumbo-jumbo techie terms. The add-ons require more understanding too as locating certain files can be quite a challenge.

Notes Plus... I am very pleased with this app. It is a note taking app. And it does precisely that. With either your finger or stylus, you can type, write, doodle, draw... basically, you can do just about anything you can do with a paper/pencil and a pen and more. And you can keep all your work in neat little digital notebooks which you can carry with you or store them in the Cloud. Notes Plus has a built-in browser, which means you can directly capture or import PDF files into your notebooks. It also is capable of this little neat trick of transforming your handwriting into typewritten words. This is a good feature to make your work searchable. And you can always print your work of art out too if you feel the need to touch paper or hear the scratching, scribbling, swishing or rustling paper sounds.

These apps also serve as a teaching board... much better than the traditional boards. You can draw, annotate, highlight and switch among materials with great ease. And for me who run a class with two projectors, I am beginning to learn that the possibilities are actually quite endless.

The only thing I wish for now if I can have something like Doctopus/Goobric functionalities with these note taking apps. Because somehow I feel, Google Drive is still basically doing things the old way with a new twist... We are still stuck in that MSOffice way of doing work. It's an efficient way of doing things but feels a bit sterile very often.

On the iPad, the experience is dynamic. You can be more creative. You can see more colours, curvy lines... stuff which don't make your work feels like a mechanical piece. There is order but there is chaos too, which I think can be a good thing in a learning process. Cos your work has this machine feel yet at the same time, the human touch.

Gesture as opposed to the keyboard. We have the Android tablets too now... and they are catching up with the iPad... but for now, though I like what I can do with Google Doc/Sheet, I still feel apps developed for iPad (or Android based tablets) are more versatile, dynamic which allows creativity to flow more.

And how I wish our classrooms can be equipped with iPads. That will be a beginning to a paperless school.

Using Google Doc In Class

It is when we get down to things that we learn what works or not and the problems that we'll encounter. Trying out Google Docs in class was an experience which was overall quite positive. With 40 over students in my biggest class, the challenge was there alright. 

Little details like making sure students don't stray and that they stay focused were my main initial concerns. But that proved to be the least of my challenges. I started my very first lesson by putting onto the screen a step-by-step instruction. With the exception very few students, getting Google doc started was not a problem. The few problems were due to my assumption that everyone would have a Gmail. Turned out, quite a few did not use Gmail. But that was mostly sorted out by the 2nd or 3rd lessons. 

What I like about Google Doc is the immediate collaboration that I could do with my students as they worked on their writing. I think I have never been able to 'communicate' with this many students in one lesson when writing is involved. It has always been a challenge to navigate a packed class and bending down to their tables to try to read and comment on their work. With Google Doc, I literally breezed in and out of the students' writings. And to make everyone more aware of each other's work, I projected the collaborations on the projector screen. The effect was quite amazing. 

Instant remarks meant I was highly involved in each student's effort. I could amend, comment, correct, provide suggestions and even leave short notes to individual students as they worked on their writing. This increases the students' abilities to respond just as quickly too. It's been two weeks and I have already seen increased involvement and interest in quite a number of my students who before this seemed more detached. I think my being able to get back to them fast has something to do with it. Somehow, I feel Google Doc makes the connection between teacher and student more real... something akin to a more personal instruction. And I think this makes process writing a walk in the park...

It is only my second week, but I feel the students seem more engaged and interested. Maybe it is the novelty of this being new. But maybe too, being able to collaborate this way makes all the difference.

On my part, one of the first things I realised on the first day was the need to have a proper nomenclature and structure for the filing system. Being digital means you can't hold them in your hands and I think many of us old timers might miss that familiarity. By the second week, I was receiving up to 200 emails a day from my students. I had to work things out myself so that each student's work could be filed up and recalled. I have a rudimentary system in place now. It'll get refined as I go along, I am sure. 

I think trying to carry this out might be quite daunting to many teachers at the moment due to the lack of competency and familiarity with the computers/tablets/apps/softwares. I have discovered that; efficiency, speed and a clear understanding of how Google Docs, proper structures in digital filing, feeling at home with technology and even good typing skills, all play a role in easing us into this classroom of the future. 

On another lighter note, I am now receiving emails at home from students telling me that they have done their corrections and asking whether I have any more work for them. One of the other thing I learned is this. I think many of our students are not used to the computer as a learning tool. For many, it is more for pleasure than learning. Many are still not aware that tablets are slowly changing the way we learn and we need to know how to use it to that end.

I like the idea of not having to sit at the table and mark my exercise books. I like the fact that I can now check on my students' work in between this and that... I call it stealing time. Being able to put essays 'in the cloud' means I am able to access it anytime and if you can manage it well, it means utilising your time to the maximum.

Teaching Writing With Google Docs

I started nibbling on the Drive after I ran out of space in my Dropbox. Up till then, I figured I had no need for the Drive. But at the end of last year, I attended a course on the Chrome books. There I met a guy who used to work for Google and I struck up a conversation with him. He made me realise that Google Docs had its uses too. I went back that day and immediately tried out the flubaroo scripts and Google Forms.

Was quite amazed with what I could do with it. I experimented with it for a couple of days, created a few forms and sets of questions. Unfortunately, I had no place to try it out. And so, the whole thing just sort of faded into the background.

That was till middle of this year when I cleared up an unused computer lab, which is where I carry out all my classes now. About 2 weeks ago, despite it being exam season, I embarked on another journey of discovery. I tried out Google Docs in class... to teach writing. It is now possible to do what I had learned the year before because I had at my disposal 41 units of chrome books.

And so I started with my classes. But before that I brought my gal and my friend's kids to the lab for a trial run. It was pretty amazing... the result. I felt I could make it work.

However, getting students to listen when the chrome book screen is staring at them is no mean feat. Our young has a fascination with the computer screen and it is often hard to get their attention when the screen is on. Chaos reigned because it was something new for me.

Much to my surprise my students were not as savvy as I had expected, but they learned fast. Many didn't know about the uses of Drive, let alone Google Docs. One thing though, teaching the young wasn't very difficult. They have no phobia. But the patience developed over the years from teaching my senior citizen friends helped a lot in dealing with the chaotic moments teaching the young. It is easy to get flustered...

I started with a short writing assignment... a postcard. And going by the response so far, I think using Google Docs to teach writing is quite cool. The initial wonderment when the kids felt when they realised that I was right there in their documents as they worked on it was quite priceless.

It was a rather steep learning curve for me. I had to figure out how to go around the problems a they presented themselves. You can imagine how chaotic it was with one voice calling out from one table he could not browse, and another voice saying she had no gmail account. Then yet another bringing his chrome book to me saying that it can't be turned on. One more would pipe out that her mouse pointer on the screen was very big.... the list is unending. My phone was used to verify so many new accounts that it was barred by Google! All these, while I was trying to sort out my own filing system and getting back to the students... Patience memang is a virtue.

But despite all those chaos.... learning still took place. Both for me and the students. Practical skills! I felt like my brain is on the overdrive these past weeks. So many files, so many students asking for attention for the littlest problem. And trying to keep a cool head... I think I got really good training in crisis management from this episode.

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel if you persists. It's been 2 weeks. And I am more settled. And I think to be able to use Google Docs to teach writing is quite cool. The experience has convinced me all the more that we need a rethink the way most of us teach.

Details to follow on the 'moments' be they the 'aha' ones or the 'Oh crap!' ones...

Bad School Heads

I think there are too many bad heads around now. I think many of our check and balance mechanisms have gone into sleep mode or have rusted from decades of rot..... complacency, inefficiency, incapability, ignorance. That's just to name a few. And when school principals who appraise good teachers with a bent of vindictiveness get away with it because the check and balance mechanisms have failed... I just wonder how much more we'll rot.

A school with a head interested only with his teachers kowtowing to him can only be bad. No one is perfect. But when you have principals who can yell all kinds of deragoratory names on students and verbally pummel lady teachers (cos lady teachers are easier to bully), then I think most of us will probably agree that we might have a bully. And that is bad enough. Such people do not tolerate dissent. They are bent on releasing all hell if you dare question.

But when his vindictiveness is not checked by his number 2 in appraising teachers, I think it is a reflection too of how many good men and women we have left in the upper echeleons of our service. We have too many boot polishers and lickers now. I guess they are the products of our system, a system that is reeking with too many ineffiencies.

Many lament the sad state of our schools. PISA and TIMSS standings have been sliding. I think it's not just the slow responding curriculum or teachers who are the problem. Very often it has to do with the heads. When heads want to win more competitions or just focus on more of everything that can be applauded, seen and measured, then the building of the unseen such as character, a discerning mind will cease. Heads... many of them are too busy chasing their own agendas. Students become mere statistics.

We bend too many rules and insist on the long rod of stiff rules when it suits us. Funny how I didn't feel that my school had double standards when I was a student but now my students feel that they should bend standards to their advantage.

Officers from the MOE did come down to check this principal after some teachers wrote to the Ministry. He was transferred out of the school into another equivalent position in the Education Department. But as for the damage he inflicted... well, they remain long after he is gone. Appraisals are subjective. Most of us think we deserve better but I think it is still quite easy to set apart a good teacher. Then again, being a good teacher in class is not the most important thing in most schools now. Painting a good picture for everyone to see is.... and if you have to compromise your classroom work to achieve that, eyes generally get closed... well, partially closed at least.

We stoke our own egos. We live in our own castles built by our own minds. Teachers might often feel that they are better than appraised. But I think it is high time the Ministry comes up with a better check and balance mechanism. Maybe it's time too a section of the appraisal for the Principals and Senior Assistants be made up of appraisals from their subordinates, the teachers. We talk about accountability all the time. Perhaps this form of accountability should be considered as part of the check and balance mechanism.

As for this particular former Principal, maybe he was a victim of bully when he was a kid. Maybe he was subjected to much ridicule and name calling from young. Apparently word has it that he left the same trail of modus operandi every school he has held positions of authority. Heads worked their way up.... One wonders how such a head became a Principal in the first place.

In a world where collaboration, cooperation, cooperativeness are supposed to be keywords.... it feels like we are still quite entrenched in the old autocratic ways of the feudal world. This in a land where most things start from a wrong foot... by connections first, then race... then the rest of everything else. Disheartening....