SMART amp sandbox!

Inspired by a conversation with former SMARTian Heather Lamb and SMART Exemplary Educator Emil Waldhauser I’m creating this blogpost about the use of SMART amp in the classroom as a student tool. Particular not as a teacher tool at all, because from my point of view SMART amp is designed for students as a sandbox to learn, collaborate and share and not a teacher tool used for creating presentations.

At several SMART teacher conferences such as SMART amp champs in Madrid and Global SEE Summits in Calgary I’ve noticed that loads of SEEs look at SMART amp as the new online version of SMART Notebook and keep requesting to have the identical features as SMART Notebook. Great, but no. SMART Notebook is primarily a teacher tool to create interactive presentations in the classroom. SMART amp on the other hand is primarily a student tool which can easily be used outside the classroom and even across time zones and country borders.

If you’re the kind of teacher that is not ready yet to let the students find their path themselves and are more comfortable with a teacher-centered approach with less student involvement you might want stick to SMART Notebook. As I see it the ways of their use are so significantly different that they should not be taken into consideration as tools that can be interchanged in completing a particular lesson objective, especially in terms of the teacher’s approach.

So, what bothers me a bit is that loads of teachers are creating the most beautiful presentations and lessons within SMART amp, whilst ‘mine’ are actually not for sharing purposes, due to the fact that most of the time it’s been used by students as a sandbox. Students are the owner of their own learning process and responsible for their shared sandbox. Then again not all teachers teach this way and therefor should not force themselves to use this platform, which I refer to as: The Sandbox.

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SEE, friend and power-user of SMART amp Emil Waldhauser:

"The term sandbox coined some time ago but people have become aware of the meaning after Minecraft was released and got hugely popular. Undoubtedly, it is generally accepted as a great educational software that enables teachers and students be creative. And that is why I see a parallel between these two. The creativity and learning process is what students expect to be happening in contemporary classrooms. Using digital technology makes it more feasible than ever.

SMART amp is a perfect tool to collect all great, not so great ideas and completely odd ones to reflect the process of creating and developing an idea or concept. Its purpose is to reflect the stream of actions that lead to a particular goal that is set off with a question as well as to give as whole a picture as possible to enable learning from it and provide some food for thought.

As in Minecraft, students first decide what they want to create (we might try to forget the word ‘achieve’) and then learn ways of doing it to get completely immersed in the process of creating to discover some unexpected ways and occasionally come up with something slightly different and even greater than they anticipated. SMART amp becomes a building site heaving with workers where the process is what is important and eventually becomes the working process log. It is not a presenting tool as we know it to impress others with glossy final idea.

So, you hopefully got the impression what SMART amp’s purpose can be but what is the teacher’s role then? Well, a teacher is actually the Minecraft software, providing students with possibilities and tools. In the end, a teacher is the thing everyone takes for granted and even does not pay any attention to it but is in fact the label and the thing that lets it all happen."

Rewind 2015

This past year was - professional wise - a very good year. At the beginning of 2015 I was invited to do a talk for new students (6th graders) and their parents about future education and at my school was selected to speak at BETT (London, UK) with friend and SMART Exemplary Educator Emil Waldhauser about the Global Collaboration projects we did with our classes. Throughout the year I did some other presentations during the 'week van de mediawijsheid' (digital footprint week) at two schools in our community and a presentation about SMART Notebook and interactive whiteboards at at a geography teachers conference. And at last but not least I made it to the European part of the EdTech team ... How about that?

I also was selected to attend SMART amp Champs (Madrid, Spain) and the global SEE Summit (Calgary, Canada) with friend and colleague Henk-Jan van Mierlo amongst many others whom I got to meet again at these SMART professional development conferences which were amazing and gained me a lot. I even got the chance to speak at a staff meeting at SMART HQ which gained me SMART kapp iQ for my SMART Collaborative Classroom. Very happy with that!

Besides the use of education technology in my classroom such as the multiple SMART Boards, the new kapp iQ, 1:1 iPads, SMART amp and Google Classroom I did a few field trips with my classes. The trips to SEE Cédric Mainil in Belgium and to Emil Waldhauser in the Czech Republic were the best. I introduced LEGO in my classroom, and am just getting started with that ... al this passes by in this short video that I created. Enjoy.

Ashram College - SMART amp Champs

Begin juni ben ik met Henk-Jan naar Madrid geweest om een training van de nieuwste software SMART amp™ te volgen samen met 10 andere geselecteerde docenten uit Europa. Op de twee-daagde scholing waren docenten uit Tsjechië, Spanje, Finland, Zweden, Engeland, België, Duitsland en Nederland aanwezig en de training werd verzorgd door de ontwikkelaars van SMART amp™ uit de VS en Canada.

In Madrid zijn veel ervaringen uitgewisseld tussen de docenten, die allen met een ander onderwijssysteem werken en zijn wensen vanuit de lespraktijk geventileerd met de software ontwikkelaars. Dit waren voor zowel de docenten als de ontwikkelaars van SMART amp™ hele vruchtbare dagen en gaat SMART amp™ nog leuker en beter worden!

SMART amp™ is online software waarin leerlingen erg makkelijk samen kunnen werken binnen eenzelfde project. Je kunt het zien als een digitale poster waarin leerlingen tekst, plaatjes, filmpjes en websites kunnen toevoegen. En met elkaar kunnen overleggen via de chat functie, die door de docent ook gevolgd kan worden.

Er zitten meerdere voordelen aan het werken met SMART amp™. Eén van de voordelen is dat leerlingen er aan kunnen werken wanneer ze willen. Het enige dat nodig is om gebruik te maken van deze software zijn inloggegevens en een apparaat met een internetverbinding. Groot voordeel voor de docent is dat er met een simpele muisklik is te achterhalen wat de bijdrage is geweest van elke individuele leerling.

Binnen SMART amp™ kan je als docent ook toetsen en quizzen klaarzetten. Voor de docent biedt het de kans om veel makkelijker contacten te leggen met andere scholen (eventueel ook in het buitenland). Leerlingen van beide scholen kunnen dan in hetzelfde document werken. Ondanks de afstand en een eventueel tijdsverschil.

Vooral voor de onderbouw leerlingen is SMART amp™ zeer geschikte software om PO’s in te maken. Met de tablet en een internetverbinding kunnen ze in de school maar ook thuis werken aan de opdracht wanneer het hen uitkomt.

SMART amp Champs: Global Collaboration

The promised follow up about my Global Collaboration project that was started in March, when I invited nine schools from different parts from the US. Each school was linked to a group of three students in my class and the topic was the US and together all my students gained loads of information in order to have a good geographical view on the US.

In order to collaborate I needed to create and share accounts within my domain. Within SMART amp the students could chat with each other and share the content in the workspace. Language wasn’t really an obstacle, due the fact that the English language is mandatory in the Netherlands and they could always use Google Translate. ;) The Time difference (from 5 to 9 hours) wasn’t an issue either, due to the fact that this assignment wasn’t real-time-based.

But now … I’ve learned a new cool feature in SMART amp. Workspaces could be shared with others outside the domain, but …. they will need to have a SMART amp license as well in order to open and work in the workspace-file and make it work. How about that! I really like this feature and saves me a lot of work whilst collaborating throughout the world.

SMART amp Champs: discussion on pedagogy

When SMARTamp shifts your teaching from a teacher centered style classroom manager to a more coaching teacher and the curriculum is more student driven, perhaps rules are necessary. In order to gain learning and have respect of others’ work.

Should you be using rules when using SMARTamp in your classroom? Should these rules be created by students themselves or should they be created by the teachers? This should be considered in order to make this work I guess.

Rules when working in SMARTamp could be:

• don’t touch or remove work that others created.
• don’t spam the chat
• don’t spam the workspace

Or from a different perspective, when you focus on the things that are allowed:

• respect opinions
• respect property

In my experience and opinion I think that you as a teacher should first give them time to play. ‘playtime’ is not working, but getting to know the workspace, the way SMARTamp works and have them express inappropriate language as well. They'll learn. Especially when they realize that not only you the teacher, but others in the workspace and perhaps from other countries as well. It’ll take time, be patient as a teacher and they’ll start creating their own content real soon. Make this a students centered workaround and not a teacher driven/centered thing. It’s all about pedagogy …. again.

SMART amp Champs expectations

As you could've read I'm going to the SMART amp Champ event in Madrid with other SEEs from Europe, such as Emil Waldhauser (CR), Sergio Gonzales (E), Tapani Raitanen (SF) and from the Netherlands and The SMART Showcase School I teach: Henk-Jan van Mierlo.

I do hope to gain a lot from the SMART Amp Champs workshops lead by Heather Lamb and Ainhoa Marcos. From the next school year on we will start at my school with a total of 6 classes that'll work with personal devices (Apple's iPad) and I've noticed in the past school year that SMART amp really helps and can take learning to a certain level that works perfectly with personal devices. My headmaster would love to see that more teachers will work with SMART amp, especially since we have a few power users in our school. In my opinion we could and should be an example of best practices with the use of SMART amp in classes that bring mobile devices such as iPads, Chromebooks and laptops.

In order to become an expert user I am looking forward to work with and learn from other SEEs that attend this SMART amp Champ Summit and hope to bring back a lot of new ideas, tips, tricks and tools on how to use this collaborative platform in my SMART Collaborative Classroom and throughout the school. I will keep you posted!