- Okay morning everyone, happy Friday,
hopefully you can all hear me,
give me the thumbs up if you can.
Excellent.
All right so my name's Owen Neal,
I'm over from Seton Catholic College in Western Australia
and I've got the Deputy of Teaching and Learning with me,
Campbell Brown, who's gonna stand to my right.
We're gonna talk about increasing accessibility today
and how to foster an inclusive classroom.
So I'm gonna try and run through an example
from our school, a real example of how you can use
some Microsoft tools to really help those kids
in maybe Foundations classes, bottom end classes,
but also how they can move out to other classes.
Anyone who has struggles with reading, creating confidently,
addressing questions,
you can use these tools for those kind of things.
So first of all a bit of context,
so really when I think about the expectations
that we've all got as teachers that would be the top,
and then reality's down there at the bottom.
And that's not to mention those kids
in the middle of the road and those high flyers
where we try and cater for every individual student
in our class, but can we do that realistically?
I don't think we can without some help.
What I'm gonna talk about today is the help
that you guys can all use
via some Microsoft tools.
So our context, Seton Catholic College in WA,
we've got about 12% of our students
on what we call a Curriculum Access Plan
but we're noticing a difference year on year
as students come in, the more our students are diagnosed
or we're not quite sure but this year in year seven
we have 15% of our students on a CAP.
So in a normal classroom that might be three
or four students, you might have students with an IEP.
How do you cater for those students
as well as catering to the needs of the middle group
and also your high flyers at the top end?
So I'm gonna bring Campbell in now,
he's gonna talk a little bit about a perspective from
the Deputy of Teaching and Learning
and his kind of considerations on how we do this
as a school.
- I apologize I'm losing my voice,
so if this lasts two minutes it might last 20 seconds.
So my role as Deputy of Teaching and Learning
is very much underpinned by our staff obviously
being at the best in the classroom.
And I always use the notion with our students
of being safe and happy,
and if they're safe and happy they're going to learn.
We worked out about three years ago
that we don't ask the teachers that question enough
and in asking teachers that question,
do you feel safe and happy?
They're very happy but they feel overwhelmed
by the demands of teaching.
And that demand of teaching then takes away
from their effectiveness as teachers.
So the example Owen's using here today
is one of these absolute number one issues that teachers
felt was obviously not allowing them to be at their best,
was this notion of trying to provide access to
and equity in our curriculum to all students.
In doing that we worked with our educational psychologist
and Owen and the IT team and we've come up with some ideas,
and this is one example,
of ways that we can adapt the classroom
so that not just the teachers are feeling much happier
but also those students with learning needs
are feeling safer in the classroom, not overwhelmed,
not anxious, not feeling like they're not learning
and this particular example through Microsoft
and the learning platform is not only working
in the classroom at Seton
but it's making parents and students a lot happier as well.
Owen's gonna run through it and I'm happy to answer any
questions at the end of the presentation.
I've probably got to the end of my voice
so I'll pass you back to Owen, but thank you.
- Thanks Campbell.
So the example I'm gonna show,
basically in this class we use a thing called Sector.
If any of you have seen Sector before,
our learning management system,
indicates any students who are on a plan with a green dot
you open this class up 22 out of 23 students
have got a green dot.
So that's essentially what the teacher's working with.
So trying to get to a point where this is led
by the students, where the students kind of
create their own learning experience
rather than the teacher having to wander around
and do that for them.
Obviously for that to happen we have to empower
the teachers to be able to do that themselves.
They bring it into the classroom,
the kids pick up on that, and then we get to a point
where the kids do it as second nature.
So I'm gonna show you now this kind of framework.
First of all I think this is great,
this isn't mine, I'd advise anyone to get on
the magic Microsoft Educator Community website.
You can run through a course, it breaks it down
into these four areas.
How do we get the students to consume the content
independently?
So whatever we provide for them
they walk into the class, they're able to do that
without us standing over their shoulder,
without us having to point them in the right direction.
Then how do we get them to create something confidently
with what they've leaned?
There's lots of mediums for them to do that,
I'm gonna run through a few today.
How do we get them then to work together?
How can they collaborate with someone else
in a different class who hasn't got
the same struggles as them, who hasn't got the challenges
with reading and writing?
And finally how do we get them to organize everything
efficiently so it's all there.
They don't have it at the bottom of a locker,
the teacher can access it whenever they want
and it's there for them without really having to
work too hard.
All right so I'm gonna jump into the demo part of today
and I'll try to run through those four stages there
that I've used as a framework and that you could use
in your schools as well.
And then I'll refresh at the end and see if you've got
any questions.
So first of all we're gonna have a look at OneNote.
Now the teacher I was working with was in year seven
and they basically had a persuasive writing unit
they were working on, where they looked at fairy tales.
They got the kids to analyze the message in a fairy tale.
What is it really saying?
What does it teach kids?
What kind of influence do these fairy tales
have on children?
And then they'd write an argument based on whether
they think they're a good influence or a bad influence.
So for these kids, they don't like to read,
they really don't enjoy it, partly because
it challenges them and then they find it difficult.
So I introduced them to Immersive Reader.
So essentially with the Immersive Reader,
you click on View, there it is it's inbuilt
into the new OneNote app.
You can put any PDF in there and it will pick up
on any text and it will read it out to those students.
So I'll show you how it looks.
So they can jump down, you can get to any point
in that text.
Start from that point, you can have the word read aloud.
In the Settings you can mess around with grammar,
the kids can decide how big they want the text to be
or the color of the background,
some of them prefer a colored background.
They can change the font
and then they can change line focus.
So say for example they wanna go line by line,
they hit Play.
- [Immersive Reader] Hansel and Gretel's
father was a woodcutter. - Microsoft picks up
on the text, hope you can all hear that.
- He was very poor - Reading aloud.
- and the family didn't have much food to eat.
- You watch them in the classroom,
as soon as they get access - The day came
- to this, off they go. - when there was hardly
any food left at all. - They just love it.
They're amazed by it. - "What are we to do?"
- But we want them to get away from that, "Oh wow,
"this is a cool IT tool." - cried the father.
- And this is just second nature, "I struggle
"with reading, I'm gonna - The stepmother,
who didn't like Hansel - "read as I hear it aloud
"in my ears." - and Gretel, said,
"We must take the - So I'll quickly jump on
to the next example. - "children into the
"thickest part of the forest and leave them there."
- I'll just pause here.
You can change the voice,
there's various different accents, whatever the kids suit,
and it suits to them to it'll remember their settings
so the next time they come in they can work with that.
So those kids would access that story
then they might have something to work on,
they might wanna create something with what they've learned.
So you can embed whatever sheet you've created
or questions in there,
they can have that read aloud.
They can access the Word document by opening that up
and I'm gonna show you how these tools work in Word.
So they've listened to you talk,
they've read through the story,
maybe they'll try to create something for themselves
but they can't understand the question they've been asked,
they can use Read Aloud.
But actually once they've written something,
once they've created an answer or a response to something,
they can check their understanding
and check whether it sounds right.
So in terms of their creating independently
they can use that, so I'll run through how that works.
In View you've got Learning Tools.
Open up the Learning Tools ribbon.
Again you've got Line Focus, Page Color,
they can increase the text spacing.
Hit Read Aloud.
- [Read Aloud] Encounter new vocabulary or grow as readers.
It can be a beneficial clue
to see where the - And it'll read from any
point in the text - word sounds are
broken down. - So when they're
trying to consume that content
that you've created for them - There is one more
Learning Tool that can help - it helps
when they've created something - students with reading
materials in Word. - themselves, they wanna check
their understanding, they wanna check
how things sound, - The Read Aloud command
allows students to hear - they can use Read Aloud.
- the words that are on the screen.
- The point of me getting to this
with the students in those - This is so powerful
powerful for students to - classrooms, it wasn't easy.
And I had to work, - hear back what they
are in the process - put a lot of time and effort
in with the teacher first - of comprehending.
- of all, when it got to the point
that she was amazed - Early readers
as well as proficient - by what these things
could do, amazed at - high school
students - the reactions she saw
on the students, - would often rather
- that she wanted to implement - guess at reading
- that without me having to - a word, than ask
another person - stand over her shoulder
as Head of ICT and say, - how it sounds.
"This is what you should be using
"in your classroom." - With Read Aloud,
- All right. - students can--
- So we've had a look at how they can consume content.
Another idea to have a look at is Edge.
So in Edge if they click on Reading View
whatever text is on that website it picks up
and they've got access to Read Aloud.
So if you click the three dots.
- [Read Aloud] The story of Hansel
and Gretel: Summary, - again they can have whatever
text is on that website - Symbolism,
and Interpretations. - read aloud to them.
So you want them to do some
background investigation. - Owlcation.com.
- You want them to have a read
of what someone else has put - Five minutes read.
- in terms of an analysis
of that fairy tale. - Updated on February 10th
2017. - They can go to the website,
they know they can access Read Aloud,
- Tolovaj Publishing House.
- they're not gonna struggle, they're not left there
just thinking, "How do I
"access this stuff?" - the Wolf and
Seven Kids can be - "I don't know how to
read it," and they give up. - used an example of a
relationship between legends and first fairy tales.
- So in terms of consuming content you've got OneNote,
you've got Word, you've got Edge.
They all run with the same suite of Learning Tools,
it's all inbuilt.
It's just a habit shift, they need to be aware of it
being there, how it works, and then they can move on
to using it as second nature.
So if we talk about creation, I've shown you Word,
how they can create something in Word and have it
read back to them.
But another option is Dictate.
Now you've all heard my accent
and you might think, "I'm not really sure
"what this guy's saying half the time."
But I've used dictation and it actually picks up
on what I say.
That's the option up there.
Read into the microphone, if that student really struggles,
they understand what's going on, they could probably
have a conversation with you and explain things,
but actually trying to put it down in writing
is really difficult for them,
they can use the Dictate function,
convert their speech to text.
Press Read Aloud, make sure it makes sense.
There you go, they haven't had to actually physically type
or write anything down.
Another option in OneNote
is asking the students to insert an audio recording.
So it's an option I give students when they're doing a test.
These students struggle to write.
They can have the test read aloud to them,
they can then audio record their voice,
you can go back in and listen to that,
you can add annotations in OneNote after they've done it.
So just giving these students choices,
I think that's what technology's done for us now,
but we have to get to the point
where it becomes second nature and they use it
without any prompts from us.
All right we're gonna have a look at a few
collaboration things now.
So first of all you've got Word.
We all know that, probably if you've used Google Docs
or Word you can share that and we get our students
to share that document with anyone they're working on
in a group.
In OneNote you've got the collaboration space.
There's an area of OneNote where the students
can work together.
Again, they're using OneNote, they're using Word,
they've got access to the whole suite of Learning Tools.
Once they get in the habit and realize it's there,
they're gonna use it more often.
If they wanna create something with their learning,
so they might have, as part of a group, they're giving you
a response to fairy tales and whether they're
a bad influence.
They might wanna create a Sway,
which puts together their argument, their group's argument,
on what they think about fairy tales.
Again they can share that Sway with their group,
they can all work on it at the same time.
They might wanna draft their work in OneNote,
they might wanna draft their work in Word,
use the suite of Learning Tools
and then move that information into the Sway
once they're finished.
All right, finally we're gonna look at organization.
How can we get our students to organize efficiently?
Well again we go back to OneNote.
With these students we find
the days where you used to give them bits of paper,
they get lost.
Some of these students might use two or three
different work books, and they open the page
and they've got maths there, three pages down the line
they've got science, everything's all over the shop.
You give them something like OneNote,
you teach someone how it works,
they're using it day in, day out, without having to
try too hard, it's all there.
The teacher wants to go in and access it
at a time and a place that suits them,
it's all there for them which is one of the benefits.
And that'll happen once you empower teachers
with this information, they see what it does,
that motivates them to bring it back to the classroom
and use it.
And you get to the point where someone like me,
whose job it is to help teachers integrate this stuff,
I don't have a lot of work to do
cause they're doing it for me essentially.
All right, I'll jump back in and if anyone's got
any questions I can run through them at the end.
So just to refresh your memory on how I break this down,
it's great to use this as a way to introduce this stuff
to teachers.
You could run a session on each one of these things
individually if you wanted to,
but this really works for me in terms of how it might work
in the classroom.
First of all getting those students to consume that content
without you having to do anything.
They create their own learning experience,
they're empowered with the tools and how to use them.
You just walk around and see how things are going
and intervene when you need to intervene.
But if we go back to before the advent of something like
Learning Tools, those kids are sitting staring at a screen
wondering what they do.
Some of them might just get on with things
and be compliantly disengaged, some of them might act out
and play around cause they're not sure
what they should be doing, who knows.
Now they've got this tool, they use it,
everything moves forward as it should.
Secondly how do they create confidently?
So I showed you guys Word and OneNote
and how they can use Learning Tools there.
In terms of Sway they can work together
on a collaborative project in Sway,
where they get a different way to create something.
Think about design, how things look, but also collaborate
with the people in their group
and they can do the background work in Word
or in OneNote and make sure what they're actually putting in
to their finished article says what they want it to say.
Finally you've got organize efficiently.
So in terms of students' work, how they gather that work,
how they work through it, how the teacher accesses it,
we've found OneNote just makes a massive difference.
We had a learning management system,
that allowed us to present content to our students,
it allowed us to sequence lessons.
But they couldn't do anything with what we put out there.
OneNote means the students can have a copy
of everything you put on there, they can store that
in their own space, they can edit that work
whenever they've copied it in.
You can go and have a look at it at any time you want.
You can add feedback, you can add comments,
it just ticks all the boxes in terms of a learning tool.
And if you haven't used it please have a look.
And Learning Tools is there, it's across Edge,
it's across Word, it's across OneNote.
And as I've said once the teachers and students
see the power of it, it just becomes second nature
and they begin to use it all the time.
All right, I'm just about there
and you can ask any questions you might have.
Now I've trialed this already,
you're gonna have to get really close,
almost give me a cuddle if you wanna scan that QR code.
But you can take down that shortened link there
and have a copy of those slides.
I'll put this slide back in a second.
At the very end you've got lots of links there.
There's links to lots of resources,
there's links to the Microsoft Education Community,
all the stuff I've been talking about today,
it's all out there.
It's free, it's easy to access,
you just have to put the time and effort into it
and do that with your staff back at school.
So I'll put that back there, if you type in
the bit.ly link down at the bottom, or take a picture of it,
you can access it at your leisure.