Six months before the special day, we asked all the students for the 'hardest question they can think of'. I pulled the keywords from the approximate 1000 questions they asked into a word cloud (image 1). We used the word cloud to design the activities. The activity I facilitated tried to help with the topics of 'people', 'human', 'life', 'brain' and 'teamwork'. We shared a few motivational quotes and stories, then helped the students through a personality assessment. Each student learned more about their own personality and how to work with different kinds of personalities. The students, experts, teachers and school leaders seemed quite happy with the results.
This was the second year we ran the activity, but the twist this year was that I wasn't physically in the auditorium of the school. I was thousands of miles away in London, whilst the students were all in a room together outside Washington DC. We tested Google Hangouts and Skype as our live video software, and we ended up going with Skype. I was able to see and hear the entire classroom, interact with the participants and share my screen as well.
Its truly fascinating to read about, and participate in, these changes that are being tried in education. I think it may be the pure fact that school leaders are willing to take risks and try new things that helps the students the most. It might not even matter if the model 'works' or not, it might be all about leading by example to show that creativity, innovation, experimentation, adaptation, communications and resilience are key attributes these days.
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| Image 1: Word Cloud of Keywords from Questions |
Great insights and work, John. What were some of the differences between the in-person vs. virtual interactions? Did it provide a significant difference to be there?
ReplyDeleteGreat question, thanks Jeanne. We asked the students the same question at the end, and the overwhelming reaction was that they preferred as much virtual interaction as possible. I think they see it as empowering? Its interesting how similar it was, for example, I think I can say one student was somewhat 'acting up' in the front row (he was watching himself on video and enjoying playing with paper up in the air). Just like in-person, I didnt even need to comment directly, I could just 'look' at him, involve him and behavour changed. Certainly the most stark difference is the physical ability to walk around and change the direction/volume of my voice (or any voice in the room). But lets be honest, only the really best do that anyway, right? As good as it might be, its still probably true that there isnt a current technology thats 'as good as' sharing the same air. We're pretty close though, and a lot of it is attitude/mental. It might be time to leverage and re-think a lot more of this - maybe in some kind of oscillation between in-person and virtual?
DeleteThanks. Great information. I often find that doing some face-to-face events help to guide the virtual ones. Doing the virtual interactions allow you to connect to more people.
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