Welcome to the Innovation Manual!

Welcome to the Innovation Manual! Room 1: How can you further innovative practice? ? Room 2: What kind of learning do you wish to further? Room 3: What kind of teaching do you want to further? Room 4: How can you build a frame story for a 5D activity in the classroom? Need help? Click on the hint bot! Room 7: How can you use field notes to evaluate and develop 5D practice? Room 6: Utilizing inter- institutional collaboration Room 5: How can you adapt 5D to your classroom? Hint-bot

1. How can you further innovative practice? • Task Card: • In order to develop learning practices it is necessary to do something innovative before anything new can be created. That is why we have focused on innovation when discussing development of school practice. It is necessary to think about what innovation means in specific contexts. • What does innovation mean to you? • For what or whom is it a good idea to be innovative? • Do you think everything should/can be innovative? • What is your reason for being innovative? WWW-bot Hint-bot

2. What kind of learning do you wish to further? • Task Card: • Your 5D team has decided that the children are going to learn how to use digital cameras and power point. they are not familiar with either of these. • How would you plan the activity/learning process, and what are the reasons behind your choices? • How much would you structure the way in which the children solve the task;how much would you let them work out things for themselves, and what are the reasons behind your choices? • If you were going to write the assignment as a task card to the children how would you present it? WWW-bot Hint-bot

3. What kind of teaching do you want to further? • Task Card: • Traditionally, children in a classroom environment work with almost the same material at the same time, with only one teacher present. In 5D, children use a maze and task cards and work with different tasks at the same time; they also have more adults to help them. • What are the greatest benefit and challenges for you in working in a 5D setting? • What do you think might be the greatest gain/challenge for children in a 5D setting? WWW-bot Hint-bot

4. How can you build a frame story for a 5D activity in the classroom? • Task Card: • One of the purposes of a frame story is to involve the children in the tasks in an enjoyable and meaningful way. The frame story can create a reason for the children to associate with the task. There are many types of frame stories and many ways to approach these. • What kind of frame story do you think the children in your class would find meaningful? • What would you like a frame story to facilitate in your project, and why? • How can you motivate the children? • How can you find a reason for the children to solve the different tasks? • How can you stimulate the children's imagination and construction of meaning? • How can you create a common narrative around the activity? • What other questions need to be answered? WWW-bot Hint-bot

5. How can you adapt 5D to your classroom? • Task Card: • Imagine you decide to start a 5D site in your classroom and you want to have two hours a week in the computer room. At the same time you are under pressure to fulfil all your curriculum requirements and as always, you are pressed for time: how will you deal with this situation? • How can you balance the learning goals of your curriculum with the learning environment of 5D? • Would you like to combine a 5D project with your regular curricular goals or keep it separate? • Can you combine subjects where you have specific learning goals with a 5D activity which may result in a different kind of learning that is not so easy to measure? • What do you need to think about and plan when starting a 5D project with regard to technical facilities, time schedules, access to computer rooms, the age and number of the children, available software, internet access, technical support etc.? WWW-bot Hint-bot

6. Utilizing inter-institutional cooperation • Task Card: • You as a teacher have decided to start a 5D project in collaboration with researchers and undergraduate students. Each of you enters into the collaboration with a different background and different goals: • As a teacher you know the children and are responsible for their learning and for fulfilling the demands of the curriculum. • The researchers are interested in specific subjects for their research. • The students are interested in learning research practices and gaining experience in working with children/researchers. • What could be your main objective of the collaboration? • What roles will each group play with respect to creating and running your 5D activity? WWW-bot Hint-bot

7. How can you use field notes to evaluate and develop 5D practice? • Task Card: • When doing something new to develop current practice or gather data for research it is necessary to observe, reflect upon, and evaluate what has occurred within the scope of the project and determine its effect on all involved. It is necessary to reflect upon what to change and how to introduce improvements. One way of reflecting upon and evaluating experience is to write field notes. • How can you utilize the practice of writing field notes to reflect on and evaluate what you do? • What kinds of questions would make your field notes relevant to the type of innovations, reflections, and evaluations you wish to make? • How can this reflection change what you do and further new innovative practices? WWW-bot Hint-bot

How can you use the innovation manual? • You can run the Innovation Manual in the power point presentation in one of two ways: • From start to finish, beginning with page 1 and clicking on NEXT to continue. • By choosing your own order, and clicking in the maze showing the different rooms with questions on page 1. When you are done with one room, you click on the UP link which takes you back to the maze and so on. • In each room you will find a task card containing questions about the main problem to be solved. • Each room contains a Hint bot and a www.bot • The hint bot comprises sub-questions related to the overall task card question. • The www.bot contains relevant links to literature text on the 5D.org website; it is a useful source of inspiration and helps you to formulate questions and reflect on possible answers

Hint bot for room 1 • Hint Bot: • The formal definitions of innovation are: • the introduction of something new • a new idea, method, or device • Innovation can mean many things, from implementing a new theory to introducing a new game, or starting a process of innovation by doing something new. • Let’s look at an example of an innovative practice: changing teacher-child roles. Imagine that you have decided to let a child teach you a computer game, thereby inverting the traditional teacher-pupil relationship. Imagine you are sitting next to the child in front of the computer. Consider the following: • •How would it feel to be quiet and listening while the child is active and speaking? • •How would you feel in this situation? • •How would the child feel seeing you in this situation? • •What would you do if the child said things you thought was ‘wrong’? • •Do the children respond to you in the same way when/if they think you are wrong in class? Why or why not? What if they were to do so? • In this example, innovation is created by changing what you do and by not knowing what will happen. • How do you think changing traditional roles by modifying the normal teacher-pupil relationship would affect the classroom environment and your teaching methods? Why would you want to be innovative in this way?

Hint Bot for room 2 • Hint bot, page 1 of 2: • Imagine that you assign the children a digital story telling project and that you want them to create a storyboard, take digital pictures, write a text, and then create their film using PowerPoint. You guide the children in choosing their groups, and hand them a template they can use for their storyboard. Instead of teaching them how to use the cameras and technology step-by-step, you just hand them the cameras and let them figure it out for themselves: • •What do you think the children will do? • •How would the children react to you in this situation? • •Do you think that some children work better or worse using this method? Why? • •In what way will this method either further and/or be an obstacle to children with different ethnic backgrounds and skill levels? • •How do you think they would utilize the knowledge of their peers as compared with traditional teaching methods? • •How concerned would you be that the children may not be doing/learning what you think they should be? • Would you let the children make their own mistakes rather than teach them the correct method from the start? • Move on to next page >>

Hint Bot for room 2, page 2 • Hint bot, page 2 of 2: • How would you feel if the children knew/learned more about the technology than you knew? • What could you do to support the children who usually need a lot of help/structure? • Is this method feasible for the children you teach? Why/Why not? • What would be the strengths and/or weaknesses in this project if the children worked in groups or alone? • What would be the strengths and/or weaknesses in this project if the children choose their own subject for their movie? Why? • What kind of support would you need from your colleagues? • Can you make a connection between this example and your everyday teaching practices? • How do they reflect/differ from each other? • << Go back to previous page

Hint bot for room 3 • Hint bot: • Your team decides to use the maze and task card in accordance with 5D philosophy. The children choose their task card as they go through the maze. This means that the children will probably not be working with the same material at the same time. • How do you feel about not teaching the same material to the whole class but instead assisting the children with different tasks? • How do you think the children would feel working on a project they have chosen themselves and at a difference pace to the other children? • In what ways do you think the method can further and/or be an obstacle to ethnic diversity among the participants? Why? • In what ways do you think the method can further/be an obstacle to the children’s different skill levels? Why? • How do you feel about engaging in a learning environment in which you might not know what all the children are dealing with and where there are other adults helping the children? • How would you feel about not knowing what all the children are doing and sharing with each other? • If you work with the children on a more individual basis or in smaller groups, what do you think could be the strengths and/or weaknesses of this kind of learning with respect to the children’s' learning processes?

Hint bot for room 4 • Hint bot: • Imagine that you are starting a 5D project using 3D virtual worlds in conjunction with another school in another country. Instead of teaching the children how to use the program step by step you create a virtual wizard to direct their task. This wizard asks the children to help him/her build a new virtual community because the former has been destroyed by a computer virus. In order to solve the task the children need to learn how to build a house. In this way, the frame story facilitates the task of "how to build in 3D virtual worlds," and makes the children learn how to use the program in a playful (and perhaps also meaningful) way. • How would you create a frame story that makes the children believe in it or associate with it in the classroom environment? • How would you create a frame story that gives the children a meaningful reason for completing the task specified therein? • How should the frame story be introduced, and who is going to introduce it? • What do you think needs to be done to make the frame story an ongoing one? • What will the difference be between a frame story that is open to the children's imaginations and one that is closed and orderly with an ready constructed ending? • How does the type of frame story chosen affect the format of the questions in the task cards e.g. how does the children's experience of the frame story differ according to whether one uses open questions which promote discussion or closed questions with only right or wrong answers? • How much or little would you incorporate the children's interests and/or make the children cooperate in the creation of an ongoing frame story and why? • What do you think a frame story can offer the social environment? How does this depend on the type of frame story as well as the amount of time spent working within it?

Hint bot for room 5 • Hint bot: • Here are a few things to think about. You can pick the questions you find relevant: • What kind of subjects and in-school activities will fit into the 5D learning format? • Which subjects are relevant for integration with 5D? • Would you rather base the 5D activity on one subject or have it span many subjects? • Do you have access to computer games or programs that can cover both requirements? • Will you have computers in your room or a separate computer room? What limitations, if any, will be imposed on your computer and technology usage by the location of the computers (i.e. time allotment, number of computers for student use, programs/games available, internet access, etc)? How will it work if you have to move between your classroom and a computer room while carrying out a 5D activity? • Will you have technical support? Are you good at using computers? Are the children? What will you do if your technical skills are below the level of the technology you are using? How can technical support from your colleagues or from the children help you? • How much time will you utilize in a 5D activity? Will it occupy a large piece of your teaching schedule or is likely to be a minor activity?

Hint bot for room 6 • Hint bot: • Collaboration between teachers, researchers and students can be complicated but can also be very beneficial for all involved. There are many important questions to think about when beginning inter-institutional collaboration: • What roles will each of the members play? Who will be responsible for what? How will the interactions between groups work? • How can the groups collaborate to support one another in their individual as well as collective goals? • What are the expectations of each group involved? • If you wish to involve older students, how can you support them to make 5D meaningful and relevant in terms of their studies? What type of responsibility will they have for the children as what are their responsibilities in terms of research results? • How would you feel about co-operating with several adults in the classroom at the same time? • How will more adults in the classroom affect what you are doing? • What would you need from your colleagues to feel you are getting the right kind of support and the chance to reflect on your teaching methods and collaboration? • How does the presence of more adults affect the children?

Hint bot for room 7 • Hint bot: • One of the main ideas of a 5D site is that it is both a learning environment for children and a research field at the same time. This means that educators, researchers and students can try out new ideas in reality and, by writing field notes, they can reflect on what worked and what needs to be changed. Field notes are a vital part of learning from experience and for improving teaching methods. • If, for instance, you would like to find out how you can facilitate learning between the children involved in the site, you might ask questions in the field notes about how the children work together, what kind of knowledge they are sharing, how knowledge flows, when the children do not want to work together, and so on. • Here are some questions to help you think about how to design and utilize fieldnotes: • Who will write field notes? • Who will read them? • Will the field notes be observational, contain personal reflections, or both and why? • How often will field notes be written? How many people will write them after each 5D activity? • How can everyone use the field notes for their own benefit and for the common good? • How can you analyse the fieldnotes to reflect on the experience? • Will you share the field notes with assistants, educator, and researchers or will they only be used by the researchers? • If you use the field notes to write an article or a research report, how will you ensure that the children and participants remain anonymous? • What will you do to make sure the experience gathered from the fieldnotes will be used to further develop the learning environments?

Welcome to the Innovation Manual!