Want to Join The Passionate Learner Experiment?

Developing Digital Literacy to Make an Impact

Where do ideas come from? Reading. Writing. Thinking. Those moments when I am not multitasking and have to focus on showering or driving. Conversations with amazing people. A need that has to be filled. Watching TV. Sometimes the ideas all merge and meld together and a truly beautiful one emerges.

For the past several months, I have gotten to live in a world of my ideas more than ever before and it has been incredible. I have spent many hours alone, moulding my ideas, memories and stories into my book. I have gotten to talk to fascinating people who are following their dreams, innovating and making the world a better place. My ideas have gotten bigger and better through conversations with them.

I have started a business that is dedicated to making learning experiences more magical. I empower learners to understand themselves, make discoveries and solve problems. I have been working with teachers, business owners, entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers. The group I love the most and miss the most is students.

I have a dream to open a grade 4-12 physical school that takes everything I’ve learned through research and experience and apply it, creating a whole new educational model - a prototype that others can learn from and follow.

For a long time, I’ve been saying that’s my “Ten Year Plan” to open a school. Suddenly, I wondered, “Why wait?” Nothing happens overnight, but the first iteration of an Experimental Prototype School of Tomorrow (EPSOT) is formed in my mind and in files all over my computer. Why not bring it to life with a small group of motivated learners who can experiment with me?

The First Iteration of EPSOT - The Passionate Learner Experiment

This is where you come in. My latest idea of how to make EPSOT come true right now might be my greatest one. This is an invitation for you and your child to join me on an exciting journey. On March 22nd, 2016 the families of the inaugural EPSOT class will meet and kick off a blended learning course answering the question: “As a digitally literate person, what can you make in one day?”

Over the next several weeks, students in the course will choose their own learning adventures and be expected to spend twenty-four hours working on their projects.

I will guide them through this experience, collaborating with them, curating information and learning with them through online media (such as email, Google Drive, Google Hangouts, Twitter, individual blogs, texting and/or phone calls). We will also have at least one virtual visit as a group to check up on progress and one in person event in Ottawa, Canada to celebrate and share our learning.

What I am offering is an individualized online learning experience for your child (grade 6-12) where they learn about Digital Literacy. They will learn important lessons through online learning modules that will require them to spend a total of twenty-four hours online, working independently (reading, watching videos, writing), responding to others’ work, collaborating (live and asynchronously) and sharing their discoveries. They will use their newly acquired knowledge of Digital Literacy to complete a self-selected Passion Project answering a guiding question that they will self-select.

This course will be highly dynamic and collaborative. I will create a framework for it and, together, the participating students and I will shape it to fit their needs and interests.

My hope is that this experiment will teach us all a lot. I hope that we will find that we can effectively use online tools to learn more than we’d ever imagined. I plan to use our discoveries and deliver this program to many more learners.

I need for you, as a parent or guardian, to be willing to jump into this experiment with me and support your child's learning. I need the learners’ commitment to participate in fun, interactive learning modules.

The course will be highly responsive to students' needs and can be completed at their own pace and will be shaped by their own ideas. They will explore and make discoveries about Digital Literacy. They will apply that to their self-selected project and create digital content to demonstrate their learning.



This course starts on March 22nd, 2016. If you know of a learner who would be perfect for this Passionate Learner Experiment, there are a few spaces in the inaugural cohort that are still available (as of March 15th, 2016).

You can contact me via this blog or email at shauna.pollock@gmail.com to get more information (including cost) and an online registration package.

Using the Internet for Awesome

Some people hate Twitter chats. I am not one of those people, but I'm always interested to understand WHY people love or hate things. The complaint about Twitter chats is often that they are one-hour long echo chambers about the same topics that have been discussed over and over.

I have benefited greatly from a huge variety of Twitter chats. When I first joined the initially overwhelming stream of discussion topics tied to #edchat hashtags, I liked the questioning format of: How do you define x in education? How do you use x in your teaching? What are the problems with x in education? What are some resources to learn more about x? I connected with interesting people, got to share stories from my classroom and was inspired to try new things.

As I become more comfortable with online collaboration, 140 characters at a time, I want to push the envelope (like my friends Sean "#2pencilchat" Farnum, Doug "#weirded" Robertson and Ross "#totallyrossome" LeBrun). A few weeks ago, the incredible team at #cdnedchat (who l am thrilled to be a part of this year) embraced the idea of a virtual escape room, and #eduescape was born. The chat bucked the convention and participants were issued challenges that they had to complete before unlocking the questions about how to create immersive, interactive experiences in their classrooms.

When the other moderators at #cdnedchat invited me to host a chat about my new book, "Creating Classroom Magic: Using Lessons from the Life of Walt Disney to Create an Experimental Prototype Classroom of Tomorrow," I wanted to do something a little different. Because I believe strongly in practicing what I teach, I couldn't write a chat that stuck to the familiar format. Instead, I wondered if participants in a 60 minute chat could, in fact, use the power of social media and a PLN (Professional/Personal Learning Network), to make magic. Rather than talking about magic, we're going to try to make it. My hope is that we will be able to make a real change to someone in our hour together.

One of the recurring themes in edchat conversations is how wonderful it is to be a "connected educator" on Twitter and how powerful social media is. I want to test those assertions. How powerful can our voices be?

In the 24 hours leading up to the chat, as I refined the format and questions, I tweeted to members of my PLN who I know have wonderful ideas and great networks. I asked them to both join us and retweet the invitation to the chat. Several retweets and comments have made me optimistic that we'll have a large crew present to:

• Amplify our voices, stories and ideas in real time
• Be Brave to share the things that mean the most to us, our students and our communities
• Collaborate to raise awareness or funds (or even items) for something we care about
• Determine causes, stories, issues and ideas that would benefit from our help
• Empathize with others
• Find ways to take action

(extra points if you noticed how that list was organized!)

Some things to think about that will help you participate in this chat experiment:

• Let's do something unexpected. Creating magic is about surprising someone, giving them more than they expected and filling them with wonder. How may we do that using Twitter?
• I am going to try to create as much of a collaborative learning space as possible. If you have suggestions on how to make this better, please share them!
• What do you think to yourself, "I wish everyone knew about...." (I wrote a post this summer after a tweet I posted about a dead raccoon went kind of viral, exploring what I wish went viral, including #unicorns4molly)
• The format may be a little different than you're used to, but we'll use Q1/A1 to sort out our thoughts
• The ideas and stories that engage us might be different. I'm not sure what the result(s) of this chat may be, but want to make sure that everyone feels good about what we accomplish together!
• You will likely become engaged with other participants and want to continue the conversation, you can do so in the chat with the hashtag #cdnedchat, in DMs (direct messages) and/or long after the chat has finished. If you break off and have a conversation or planning session in DMs, please come back to the chat and share what you've planned!
• It's totally fine if you have to catch up once the hour is done! We'll monitor the hashtag for a while afterwards!
• Consider bookmarking interesting links that are shared during the chat so you can come back later and read further.
• I hope that we can be productive, hopeful and have an impact in one hour. I know that we can do all of those things in a day, a week, a month, a year or a lifetime. I hope that you'll find something in this hour that you want to pursue well beyond it. 

If you follow me on Twitter, you may notice that I often post videos, stories and pictures with the hashtag #DailyCry or a description of "all the feels" or the goosebumps said link produced in me. I search for and post things like this because I believe, despite everything, that humans are good. Watching the news, or even scrolling through a Facebook feed, it can be hard to remember this. In addition to exploring tough issues, I think we need to embrace and share the stories of people doing good, and, as Mr. Rogers said, "look for the helpers."


Over the past week, there have been tons of wonderful news stories, and stories of helpers. Here are just a few I found:

• Safyre Terry now has boxes filled with Christmas cards. This young girl was badly burned and lost her family in a house fire caused by arson. She lives with her aunt, who shared a photo of Safyre, by a Christmas card tree, and a wish that the tree be filled up.
• A Florida McDonald's Drive-Thru had a 250 person streak of "paying it forward."
• Sports Illustrated's High School Athlete of the Month is a big brother that led his community in fundraising to create an inclusive playground, so that his little brother, who has Cerebral Palsy, could play with his friends. How did he fundraise? He carried his brother on his back for two treks (totalling nearly 100 miles) he calls the "Cerebral Palsy Swagger."
• Students are wearing orange to support a schoolmate with cancer who was being bullied online.
• Residents of a drop in and rehab centre, who are homeless, donated money to the Children's Wish Foundation. The money was raised by collecting and recycling cans.
• High school students practiced empathy in a project called, "Walk a Mile in Her Hijab" where students who don't normally wear a hijab spent a day wearing them.
• A grade 8 student made a video board to help his friend communicate. Because he was struck by lightning, his friend was unable to communicate effectively. This young inventor created a device ethat his friend can control by moving his head to answer "yes" and "no." 
• This has been an exciting week in Canada, as the newcomers (Syrian refugess) that are sponsored privately and by our government begin to arrive to their new homes. Teach Kids News has an article about the newcomers to Canada (this is a great website that features articles written in kid-friendly language, and has curriculum connections for every news story.
• A children's choir in Ottawa (my hometown) learned and performed a historical Arabic song to welcome newcomers.

Some of the above stories have gone viral. All of them, and so many more, deserve to.

Who would benefit from our help? Let's figure it out together? Edvengers (yes, I went there) Assemble!

I can't wait to hear YOUR stories and help make some magic in tonight's #cdnedchat.

#eduescape - Escape Rooms in Education

My brother, Charlie (this post is dedicated to him, the day after his birthday! Happy Birthday, Charlie!) and his partner, Ashton introduced me to Escape Rooms nearly a year ago. We were in New York City for New Year's 2015 and they insisted that I come play an immersive game with them.

We spent an hour locked in a tiny apartment with a family we'd never met before and, together, solved riddles, puzzles and challenges to get enough keys to unlock a lockbox to let us out of the room.

Immediately, my teacher brain turned on and I began to think about ways to play with my students like this. The idea has continued to percolate as, in the months since I've:

• defused a bomb with my little cousins in Orlando (Shauna's Escape Rate: 100%)
• escaped from a deranged killer's wine cellar in Ottawa (SER: 100%)
• stayed captured in the scariest serial killer basement in Vancouver (SER: 66%)
• escaped from a dream in Vancouver (SER: 75%)
• failed to find a detective's missing daughter in Vancouver (SER: 60%)
• brainstormed with a teacher in Ottawa about how to turn her Hallowe'en Haunted House into an Escape Room for grade 1-6 students
• gotten totally derailed from an American Thanksgiving #totallyrossome chat in a side-conversations with educators about #eduescape - our ideas for Escape Rooms in education
• hosted a virtual Escape Room for educators in #cdnedchat

Tweeting about #eduescape has led to connecting with more educators who are keen to experiment with their students to use Escape Rooms in education. In preparing to talk to two Ottawa educators about their developing #eduescape plans, I put my thoughts down.

Below and linked is a summary of my research, thinking and development of how to use Escape Rooms in Education. There is a link for a Planning Template that you can use, as well as other resources to explore.

I am so excited about this innovative teaching method. If I can do anything to help or support you as you experiment and prototype Escape Rooms in your classroom, let me know!

Escape Rooms in Education

“Escape Rooms are live-action, team-based activities where players discover clues, solve puzzles and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms in order to accomplish a specific goal (usually escaping the room) in a limited amount of time.” (source: Scott Nicholson)

In education, we can use the concept of Escape Rooms in a number of ways to excite learners and help develop their skills, teaching them content through immersive, engaging play.

Why Would You Want to Use Escape Rooms in Education?

In Escape Rooms, students use gameful attitudes and teamwork to solve riddles, challenges and problems.

Gameful Attitude:

Jane McGonigal (author of Super Better, link below) says, “Being gameful means bringing the psychological strengths you naturally display when you play games - such as optimism, creativity, courage and determination - to your real life. It means having the curiosity and openness to play with different strategies to discover what works best. It means building up the resilience to tackle tougher and tougher challenges with greater and greater success.”

Skills Developed: teamwork, delegation, communication, risk taking, attention to detail, perseverance, critical thinking, lateral thinking, time management, optimism, creativity, courage, determination

Advantages of Using Escape Rooms for Learning: engagement, fun, immersive experience, build sense of community, experiential learning

Curriculum Tie-Ins: the sky’s the limit! You can teach or practice any content through the storyline and/or challenges you incorporate in your Escape Room. There are obvious storylines from history and current events that can be used. Challenges can incorporate math, science, technology, art, reading, writing, finances, literature, music, geography, physical activity and other disciplines.

Planning an Educational Escape Room

Key Elements:

A great Escape Room should include the following elements:

• mystery
• to increase excitement, there should be a mystery, players have to wait to see what is in store
• a goal
• set the purpose of the challenges - what are players trying to do?
• Possible concepts:
• be an adventurer
• carry out a heist
• defuse explosive device
• engage with supernatural
• escape an unpleasant place
• find a missing person
• free another person or animal
• gather intelligence
• help create something (potion, cure)
• investigate crime
• military operations
• send a message
• solve a murder
• solve a mystery
• survive
• opportunities for collaborative problem solving
• some challenges should need multiple players to solve them
• multiple challenging puzzles
• variety is best
• time limits
• many Escape Rooms have to be solved in 60 minutes
• gamemaster (the “host” of the game)
• sets the scene, tells the story
• giving hints
• ensure that there is a fair experience and that challenges are working correctly
• intervene only when necessary to allow players to engage with challenges, make discoveries and learn
• debrief at the end
• gamemaster explains any unsolved challenges
• discuss strategies that worked and didn’t work
• how can the challenges be better in the future?
• how can players work better in the future?

An exceptional Escape Room may also include some of the following elements:

• a theme
• consider using an Escape Room as part of a unit and create it to match the time/topic
• a story or narrative
• giving the players context
• build up a backstory
• immersion
• suspend player’s reality and allow them to be in a different time or place
• decor/decorations to transform the classroom
• role playing (including a game master in character)
• red herrings
• false clues to throw players off

Possible Challenge Types:

• abstract logic (a puzzle, like Sudoku)
• assemble a physical object (such as a tower or jigsaw puzzle)
• ciphers
• counting
• engagement with characters
• hand-eye coordination (such as hitting a target)
• hearing
• hidden messages (such as those written in “invisible pen”)
• light (including black lights)
• liquids
• locks
• mapping
• math
• mazes
• mirrors
• morse code
• noticing something “obvious” in the room
• out of the box thinking (using something common in an unusual way)
• physical agility
• prior knowledge
• research using information sources
• riddles
• ropes or chains (such as undoing knots)
• search for objects in images
• search for physical hidden objects
• shape manipulation
• strategic thinking (like Chess)
• team communication
• touch
• visual patterns
• word patterns
• word puzzles (such as crosswords and word searches)

Consider:

• Do you need players to solve challenges in a certain order?
• Does the solution for one challenge lead to something else (for example, do you have to unlock a box that holds a magnet before you can use the magnet to remove a key from a maze?; do you need the code for a padlock that opens a box with a clue for another puzzle?)
• How many players are needed to solve each challenge?
• How can you immerse your students in the story
• What guidelines and rules do you need to set?
• do players have to take turns?
• outline areas or objects that are off limits
• make sure players know that they won’t need to break anything to solve challenges
• Some people are concerned with the name “Escape Room” in an educational context. Here are some possible alternate names: Adventure Room, Challenge Room, Mystery Room
• Will you incorporate a penalty for any hints?
• you may subtract time if players use hints
• What is your success/escape rate?
• Balance how difficult the overall challenge and individual challenges are
• How can we prove that this is learning?
• What are the Success Criteria/Expectations?
• go through your standards/curriculum and make a list of what expectations you will address

To Make This More Student-Led

Use Design Process (loosely based on The Design Sprint from Google Ventures)

• Define
• Collaboratively, define the problem
• How may we (HMW)
• create an interactive, immersive adventure with multiple challenges that addresses X standards/expectations?
• tell a story that players can be a part of through active play?
• Who are our users? What do they need from us?
• Set a deadline: when do we want to launch this?
• Unpack
• Share what you know
• Brainstorm essential elements of Escape Rooms
• Share experiences or stories about Escape Rooms
• Split the task up into steps
• Share Planning Template to help guide your students
• Rapid Brainstorming
• As a group, share ideas for themes, storylines and individual challenges
• accept and record all ideas
• Individually, students use “Crazy 8s” model to brainstorm and iterate ideas
• Remind them of the HMW question (from “Define”) they are solving
• Each student folds a legal-sized sheet of paper in eight
• In each of the eight sections, they have 30 seconds to visually represent an idea to solve the HMW question
• Develop an Idea
• Tell the “User Story”
• Individually, students consider their eight ideas and pick one to develop
• Each student creates a three panel storyboard developing the story for that idea (you can give them a template with three boxes, a page with three large sticky notes or have them create their own)
• the storyboard should have the HMW question at the top and the story should be clear to a viewer without any further explanation
• Feedback
• Students look at their peers storyboards and offer written or verbal feedback in the form of “I liked it when...Next time…”
• Decision Making
• through discussions and/or voting (anonymous or public), decide on which (and how many) ideas to develop further
• Prototype
• Students revise their storyboards and create rapid protoypes of their ideas (make props out of paper, show challenge through dramatic play, etc)
• These are protoypes and should be created so that they communicate the purpose of the element, there is a focus on testing the idea, not in creating something flawlessly beautiful
• Test
• Students test each others’ prototypes and offer feedback in the from of “I liked it when...Next time…”
• Iterate
• Students make improvements or rework protoypes
• Test
• Students’ test each others’ iterations and offer feedback
• repeat as many times as needed
• Put it Together
• Students’ contributions are combined to solve the HMW problem
• Provide product/service/experience to users

Use the ideas above to think about your Escape Room and then fill out the details in this Planning Template.

I hosted an #eduescape Twitter chat for #cdnedchat. If you want to see how to fill out the Planning Template, here is the plan for that game: #cdnedchat Escape Room.

Resources

• #eduescape Planning Template (make a copy and fill in your own information for planning)
• #eduescape on Twitter
• “Escape Room Madness” - blog post by grade ⅚ students in Tiiu Tsao’s class in Ottawa League of Awesome Geniuses blog
• “Peeking Behind the Locked Door: A Survey of Escape Room Experiences” - white paper by Scott Nicholson
• Breakout Edu  - platform for immersive learning games
• Breakout Edu interview - video of founder James Sanders
• Breakout Edu Game Facilitation Presentation
• Super Better - book by Jane McGonigal
• “The Art of the Escape Room” - article 
• The Design Sprint  - Google Ventures