Linking Learner profiles with the use of technology

Are you using technology in your classroom? Do you think it is shifting you from practising the attributes of the IB learner profile?

 Let us revisit and rethink......

As one term in my new school comes to an end and we move off to a long winter vacation, it is actually a reflecting time for me on my teaching practises. What is it in this term that I have done the best, for which I can pat on my back? What is it that I need to sit and think and restructure in my teaching pedagogy. 

Well there are so many things I could think of writing but just don't get the time to do so. The most important thing that as an IB teacher which keeps intriguing me is , that "Is the use of technology in the classroom in my class, shifting me away from inculcating the attributes of the Learner Profile in myself and embracing the same amongst my students?''

Finally came across this wonderful Infographic......Read below the infographic to know about my interpretation and connection.....

• The first point in the infographic hints at being a risk taker,by embracing the tech tools in your lesson planning , achieving learner outcomes, enhanced learning.
• The second and third one hint at being open minded, understanding the change, not fighting with it but adapting to it for a better bigger picture.
• The fourth one shows how we are good communicators and knowledgeable by using the various tools and reources to share the information  at the right time, in a convenient form with the students.
• The fifth and sixth point shows we are good thinkers, who can think ahead of time for the betterment of our next generation.
•  We are also balanced and principled at the same time  as we ourselves use the technology ethically and teach our students to so the same.
• The seventh point shows that we ourselves are inquirers , framing questions to solve or portray a problem in so many different ways. And above all we are caring as we care for this present 21st century generation, understanding their needs and tailor making our lesson oblectives accordingly.
• And last but not the least as I write about this , I am being reflective , reflecting on my actions, set goals and the outcomes.

So are you integrating technology in your classroom and have such questions coming up? This was my interpretation. What is yours?

Mobile phones as data loggers in the IB classroom (Part 2)

Is the presence of mobile phones in the classroom empowering you as a teacher and your students...

Video analysis using mobile phone and logger pro...

As a sequel to my last blog post, this one goes to the benefits of another tool in the mobile phones that can be used as a wonderful aid to reinforce physics concepts and get some good Physics labs . A simple video of a motion and then inserting it into logger pro and going for a video analysis.

Recently my DP students have been learning projectile motion. When it comes to this topic they are always excited as the first thing that they can relate to with this is kicking a football. How desperate they become to test the theory on the field. But till now I was not using any strong mechanism to test this theory on the field as motion sensors were not fit for this.

This time we just had an exciting physics class on the field when all the students got a chance to give a football shot. The shot was recorded on their mobile phone and an analysis of the video on logger pro revealed the height of the shot, the range , the initial velocity of the kick and the angle of kick. When they analyzed the motion at different points then their concepts about projectile motion got strengthened. They were amazed to see how the horizontal component of the velocity remained the same throughout.

Analyzing a motion using this feature has actually provoked their thought process and now I can see lot of innovative ideas coming up , especially in design labs. Moreover they can just think out of the box now as analyzing any kind of motion has become so easy.


Waiting to see what wonderful ideas come up next from them.

Mobile phones as data loggers in IB classroom Part 1

How fast is technology changing and is the change useful at all....?

Well this is a question which is nowadays in everybody's mind and between the juggle that goes on sometimes the winner is probably the side which tries to go with the system that has been existent for so many years. But the mind needs to accept that expertise in explaining a concept seems to be slowly moving from the voice of the teacher in the classroom to the gadgets in use with the advanced technology. I have worked with sensors and interfaces in my previous schools , but in my current school I got the chance to get my hands on the new interface on sensors, Labquest 2 and a first rendezvous with it was just a WOW....

In IBDP Physics use of ICT in labs is mandatory and it is split into 5 catagories :

1.  Data logging
2. Spreadsheets
3. Graph Plotting software
4. Database
5. Computer model or simulations

All these requirements have to be fulfilled atleast once and hence teachers have to use sensors as a part of data logging. Sensors are a useful method of collecting data with precision and accuracy and a direct data analysis can be obtained by connecting the sensor to the laptop. We use a logger pro software for handling the data and graphs. What I found new was these Logger Pro installation CDs had a special version for Mac laptops. The Labquest Interface helps to connect the sensor to the laptop. 

The revolutionary change made in this interface is that it is wifi enabled. Hence data collection and analysis is not limited to the one interface but can be obtained in all the laptops and hangon....also on all the ANDROID and APPLE phones in class. The sole requirement is that all of them need to be connected to the same Wi Fi. The interface generates a unique URL with an IP. address, which helps everyone to connect to the page on data collection. So when you press the keep button on the interface everyone can get the data in their device. And being available on the mobile phones makes it so easy for data collection outside labs. So now technology makes data accesible and available to everyone at the same instant.

Thus as technology is changing rapidly, so are the manufacturers, who understand the need for the change. The way this new interface has been developed, data collection happens so instantly in the classroom, whatever be the student strength.

As the students in my present school have a variety of supplementary gadgets starting from tablets to mobile phones, they really get more engaged and enthralled when they see their tiny devices getting converted to data logging instruments. So those who have not tried it, I advice , go ahead and try it and feel the change in the physics classroom.

Kindle in the Classroom

Are you twisting technology to use it to its fullest potential? 

This post is going to highlight the various ways one can access books on kindle and have a wealth of information and knowledge at the fingertips.I always felt that we as teachers have to change , evolve and redesign our teaching pedagogy every year, to customize the needs of the digital generation. It is befitting if we could use the mobiles, tablets and the laptops given to our students in a better way to suit their study habits and at the same time achieve the desired benefits. 

Well Kindle apart from being just a range of tablets with lots of pre loaded and downloadable books has also an application part to it. So those who do not have kindle devices still can have the access to all those thousands of books in kindle on any devices that they have. Yes the good news is that also on a laptop.

Again being an IB Physics teacher, I always keep looking for stuff infused with technology that can help me, my students and also my two sons who are now in MYP 1 and 2.  So an overview of how kindle can be merged into the curriculum in Sciences that we deal with in MYP and DP. 

In Sciences, the scientific method of research and experimentation skill is an important one that we try to develop in the students. At the same time we need to connect our content to various other disciplines and hence an updated awareness of the happenings in all the branches of Sciences is a boon for teachers. Moreover to infuse TOK into the content is another important aspect of classroom delivery in the IB. 

Keeping all this in mind and the time crunch that we always have, I find kindle ebooks an easy and economic means to have access to wonderful books. And till now I have not paid anything for the books so thats wonderful.

Well the above are the books in my Kindle library that I us for my classes as reference. The best are the CK-12 series which are updated constantly.

Few advantages that these books have:

1. They can open up as e-books in your laptop, tablets and mobile devices, so reading on the go
2. All the interfaces have wonderful dictionary to look up to the meaning of any word or phrase
3. Highlighting option with short notes to have all important parts sorted at one place.
4. And most of them is free or available at a throw away price. 
5. All the books sync in all the devices that one use 

So those who have not tried it till now, just start off:

If you are a laptop/mobile/tablet  user..

1. Visit http://www.amazon.com/ and make an account to open up a new world.
2. Go to kindle ebooks
3. Search the category of books and add to your library or send to your android/apple device.
4. Download it into the device
5. At the same time get Kindle cloud reader from the chrome web store for laptops
6. OR download Kindle for PC and sync and download books for offline reading

Kindle ebooks that can be used as references to support the teaching of IB Sciences...

In this context I would like to mention that some books which I found of great use ,especially for the middle school and the high school are the CK-12 series of books which really highlights various aspects of scientific research skills. Moreover this series of books explains what goes behind developing a theory or a law and the differences between these and hypothesis. Interspersed are innovative practical demonstrations.

And of course lots of fiction and non fiction story books and novels for my sons in MYP to explore.So what are you waiting for? Whatever device you have just make an account in Amazon, start using the resources and share your experiences with the worrld.

Exploring the various roles of an IB teacher

Are you exploring yourself  in the various role profiles of an IB teacher?

The last two weeks had been spent in understanding and setting into the culture of OIS. By now I get the feel that an IB teacher is actually an all rounder who can fit into various roles as the situation demands. In every school the roles that I had been given in the past helped me to discover a different ME, learn a whole lot of new things and realize my potentials. Hence I always look forward to a new role with the hope of shedding light on a different potential of mine. This post of mine is dedicated to all the IB teachers all around the world who deliver different roles with dedication and learn from each of them. Just a reflection that all the roles empower us with a new kind of wisdom, preparing us to face challenging situations.

In my present school I have to supervise two CAS programmes , one being that of service and the other action. I am fortunate to get both the activities aligned with my passion. The CAS Service project that I am supervising gave me the opportunity to visit with my student team to a Centre in Kolkata where I came across several little children who came from broken families, especially where the father was no more. Some of them had seen brutal deaths and were dealing with trauma. But an interaction with them revealed so many talented children who knew not only to communicate in English but also were very good instrument players. How smoothly they played their violin and guitar in tune to our OIS students. I really came out feeling so different in a reflective mood. There was so much to learn from these children , the most important being how to make the best use of your available resources and coming out as a winner. Even the way our OIS students taught them simple lessons of coordination and team spirit from music making was worth admiring. I guess my learning from the present generation just changes its form everyday.

Supervising the Action part was equally entertaining and informative. My team is the MUSIC MAKERS. Though I have never got any formal training on music but I am very passionate about singing. However this interaction with the team opened up different channels of knowledge gaining. Since I have students from Serbia, Poland, Bangladesh and India in the team, MUSIC will play a big role in tying us all together and I am looking forward to the kind of piece that is going to come out of it. But listening to some foot tapping music which had lyrics both in Polish and Serbian was mind blowing.Moreover I admired the ease and passion with which they played violin, guitar and tabla.

Well again I did try to mingle a little bit of technology into both. Students have been taught how to make websites in Google Sites and showcase their work. They are really excited. They are loving the editing by many platforms on it and to put up something on their own without a WEB DEVELOPER. also the privacy settings of Google Sites has given a new dimension. So looking forward to another side of exploration....

Skype Connectivity in the classroom

Connecting the previous passouts to the present batch students...

It has been a long time since I wanted to use the skype in my classrooms and really turn the class into a flatclassroom. So that learning was not just limited and confined to the walls of the room. I believe by now that a lot can be achieved by connectivity and so the best way to start off the same was to connect my previous batch students to the present ones. The interactive discussion would benefit both, I felt. The passed out batch could feel what it is like to be mentors and develop leadership skills. The present ones definitely would gain motivation from the previous ones.

Amit connected through skype...

As I had moved from Choithram International , my previous batch of physics students were not known to the present ones. This year in the exam of 2012, Amit Singhi had topped the school results and secured a 43, and thus is on his way to the London School of Economics. Second to him was Hemant Pankaj Pandit who is already in UK to join the University of Warwick. I am glad that they both accepted my invitation to connect and came LIVE into my classroom. 

Amit shared his experiences of being an IB student and how he had actually prepared for the exams, his TOK essay and EE. He emphasized on the following:

1. Reading the textbooks thoroughly, even between the lines
2. Referring to lot of web resources especially MIT lectures and other videos
3. Reading the newspapers and get used to the terninology used currently in BM and ECO
4. Writing a good personal statement 
5. Getting good letter of recommendation for the subject courses applied
6. Targeting a high predicted grade from teachers and working diligently towards it

Amit's score of 43 and his inspiring story really motivated the students .

Hemant engaged in a heart to heart chat with the students..

With Hemant next on board , joining us from UK , the interaction was a totally different kind. He highlighted that keeping a balance between having a good life and getting good scores in IB was possible and this gave our present students some respite. He said that if they are really looking forward to partying harder they should concentrate on their studies now, seriously getting good scores . The serious problem that he felt being an IB student was being motivated all the time inspite of all the pressure. The discussions were then open to clear individual queries.

I felt that the students could connect to Amit and Hemant as they had just passed through the stage that they were passing through.So what have the students gained from this interaction? Are you breaking barriers and connecting to the world. Soon will blog more about skype connectivity for my subject.....

Web 2.0 tools in my Classroom at OIS..

So does the use of technology in class increase or decrease the productive time of interaction between the teacher and students..?

Well , many a number of times I have introduced the discussion of using technology in class amongst educators whom I come across face to face or over the net. These educators are the ones who are not actively involved and connected using the twitter or for whom the mere concept of learning from social networking sites just DOES NOT HAPPEN. I am not criticizing them but trying to explain the sitiuation in which they are because till a few months back I was also in such a state. So this post is to motivate all those educators TO JUST MAKE A START SOMEWHERE.

Although its just been a little less than a year that I have started using twitter and getting connected to the good practices by other educators all around the world, I can already feel the tremendous impact that this has had on the way I use and integrate technology in my class. The best comment I got as of now from my students in my new school is "How do you do all of this at once Miss?". Well I just answer back that by using technology. In this post of mine I will share some of the multiple uses of Web 2.0 tools that I use in my class.

At first I would list why I use the tools?

• To save time in class
• To engage students using the laptops/ipads
• To make knowledge and information available at their finger tips by using their secondary devices such as phone
• To save loads of paper from getting printed and piling on my table
• To ease my work DEFINITELY
• To pass on updated content of my subject
• To ignite critical thinking and make students active learners
• To incorporate personalized learning in class

Using Edmodo...

As in one of my previous posts I had written that mu work of infusing technology at OIS started from using EDMODO in the classroom. Edmodo is a specially made secured platform for teachers, students and teachers. I have already made several groups for my DP and IGCSE physics students. So the first thing they do is log into the edmodo in class. This helps me to

1.  pass important documents to individual groups
2. paste web urls for them to open immediately
3. Paste questions open for ideas 
4. open up the process of peer review on thoughts
5. develop interest for the visual learners
6. post an assignment with a due date without printing it
7. let the student submit or turn the assignment
8. collect answers on edmodo and use the best ones on the active inspire interactive whitebloard flipcharts
9. above all to engage the digital generation in a facebook kind of ambiance without its nuisances

The above screenshot is of the answers of students from edmodo that I just put up on the flipchart. This motivates the kinaesthetic learners. And yes they do google for the difficult ones.

I feel that this process is actually keeping them mentally alert, involving them more in the content than compared to the process of me speaking and they listening or just opening the textbooks.

Using Edmodo during design labs for DP students:

I have often used Edmodo in my DP Physics classes during the days the students plan for a Design Lab. In such class there is actually no sound in my class and the whole class interacts with me just on Edmodo. Benefits are threefolded:

1. The thought process of each student is not disturbed by any sound
2. Still students can go on clarifying their individual doubts by posting on edmodo
3. A peep into what the other student is thinking by looking at their queries posted, the variables chosen by all tend to absolutely different .Hence a branched thought process is induced.

Using Google docs and dropbox in my DP Physics classes:

Google docs is another all time favorite of mine as it lets me in control of the class from my desk itself , letting me know which of my students are working and which are not. I usually create individual student folders in my google drive and in those folders individual word file is created and shared with the particular student with editing rights. 

Hence again on the days of planning a design lab or writing about a TOK connection with physics, I can exactly keep a record of the work and the rate of work of all students from the tabs. At the same time again write individual comments on the word files as the work is in progress. This saves a lot of time. Once the work is completed,the students just drop their labs in the dropbox folders which is again individually made for them and shared with each one seperately.

And obviously edmodo, drive and dropbox all have apps for android. So all the work is available at my fingertip for checking with my S pen of Galaxy Note. This makes my life a lot easier and simpler making more room for muti-tasking. 

Using Wikispaces and ISSUU...

Since I have been maintaining a wiki for my physics classes , my students never feel the lack of availability of resources. Every single resource that I use in class is available on the wiki for them for future refernce. Moreover this year onwards, all my class notes on active inspire flipcharts are being converted to e books and uploaded on my ISSUU shelf for students. This makes the students utillize the class time effectively and productively in solving quality questions rather than copying notes.

So please feel free to share what you are doing in your classroom.Is it challenging enough for the digital generation????

Important points for IB DP students

Presentation by Warwick University at OIS

Today there was a wonderful presentation by Ms Annie Brunt, Senior Liason Officer from The University of Warwick aided by the India Representative Ms. Kanika Marwaha. I was really looking forward to the kind of suggestions that would be given by them for our DP aspirants at OIS. In my previous schools I had seen DP Counselling sessions and University visits, but not something so specific from one of the top University of the world. The difference again is that at OIS we have a strong University Guidance and Counselling team who are actually trained by the IB to do what they are doing. My previous experiences had been encounters with some University Counselors who did not even know what IB actually meant.

But here we had a team of students who were already exposed to the requirements of entry to various Universities all over the world. Ms. Annie concentrated on few key points which students should remember while applying to the University of Warwick:

1. Not to wait for the final deadline but to start working for the documents much earlier
2. To have a very good relation with the teachers so as to get a relevant recommendation letter from them
3. Amongst the 32000 candidates who might all meet the entry requirements the line of differentiation is the personal statement and a lot of attention should be given in framing it
4. To chose different categories of Universities when accepting an offer letter, a dream one, a high , a middle and a low for back up 

She also discussed in detail the various courses available and the subject combinations at SL and HL required for the same. She did give a lot of emphasis on the "Personal Statement and discussed in details the do's and dont's of writing a personal statement. She showed a few examples due to which applications have been rejected in the past.

After the presentation the students had a one to one interaction with her to know more about specific requirements. Ms. Annie found Rit Chatterjee, a new student in DP2 from Bombay to be very focussed in the onset.

Overall a fruitful discussion which I am sure has sparked up dreams in many of the students at OIS. It feels good to be a part of such a dedicated and organized team of people.

A new aspect of doing things...

A new way of doing things or is this the way of doing things?

In all the things that is happening here as I am getting to set in the environment here, there are so many questions that come up every now and then. I always knew that this school was and is going to be different but then I also needed to reflect on what ways is it different. And in due course maybe also analyze how these differences contribute in the making of an individual and an institution.

In this post I am going to discuss three new things that I have come across:

1. Shape of the Day 
2. Tutor groups
3. Monday morning assemblies

Shape of the day..

I so much fell into love with this phrase without even knowing what it was? For those of who are wondering what it is , well it is actually the time schedule of the day which starts with an early breakfast at 7:15 a.m, would incorporate a set of two classes followed by short coffee breaks, a lunch of 45 mins followed by after school activities between 2 to 4. I felt the planning was really nice giving a lot of breathing space for the teachers and students.

Tutor groups...

The word tutor in India is actually associated with those teachers or people,giving personalized or group tutions ,after school hours merely assumed to be responsible for the academic results of a student . But this word and the presence of the turor group had a completely different meaning here. In this school we do not have the concept of classrooms or homerooms and so no classroom or homeroom teacher either. Whole school students are divided into groups under a pair of teachers who are the tutor teachers. The students necessarily do not belong to the same grade. They come as a mixture of various grades.The tutor teacher is responsible for the overall welfare and holistic development of each member of the group and they all work as a team in various activities of the school.   I felt this gave the younger group to interact more and learn from the elder group of students.

Monday morning assemblies

Suddenly one must be thinking why am I blogging about Monday morning assemblies.Every school has it.

But if you see the pictures above what do you notice ? What is the focus ? Not the background as to how it has been decorated or what Charts have been out up or what color has been used. The focus is the students and their thought process. As Mr. Regan had announced that the them of the assembly was LOVE ...we had all the tutor groups presenting on the same theme. But what made it different is that every group had a unique concept behind the representation of LOVE. 

It was so interesting to note that the students when left to themselves can come up with so many different approaches and perception to one theme. One group delved into explaining LOVE as perceived by various subject areas, whereas some went in to depict it as a sweet existence between a married couple. One group along with its tutors went for a song which was just an amazing way of hitting the critical thinking skills. Through the song the group meant to ask ,
"Do we actually practice what we preach? Do our words and action reflect on the LOVE?". .

And trust me the effort was on all from the students. Quite contrary in all the other schools an Assembly meant a teacher had to do all the running and if the assembly was not up to the "MARK", the students were called and told about it for not keeping up to the benchmark. I always wondered what was the benchmark? Something which was predetermined, dictated and had no scope of incorporating fresh ideas, probably.And forget about critical thinking as it was always suppressed by loud phrases of dominance. 

To sum it all the wealth of good practices is just getting uncovered everyday which makes me feel to blog even more of everything....So what new things do you discover in your school everyday? Instead of criticizing are you critically analyzing? Are you reflecting..?

Tech Culture ...

How to set up a culture to connect and collaborate using technology ?

As I have shifted to a new school and referring to my previous blogs, trying to adapt into the new culture . So I wanted to explore the tech culture of the school and ways in which I could contribute.

 To start off, I was just waiting to delve into the tech infrastructure and resources of the school in the last week. As I was so used to the use of smart boards and apps in my everyday class I could not just wait to see in what ways this school had something different and better to offer. After an initial round of survey I could finally gather a sufficient knowledge of the resources available and how easily was it available to a teacher .

 Every class here is actually fitted with the state of the art interactive whiteboard called Promethean board which I had heard of but not used before. There is a projector in each of the rooms and the wiring has been done so efficiently that you just need your laptop, connect the VGA cable and the USB cable from the board and start using. Every teacher's laptop has the software Active Inspire installed and also gets a set of two interactive pens. So starting the class using the board is just a few minutes work. In my previous school the smart board software was installed in the fixed CPU s with the board and we could not connect the laptops. The process used here is much better as the teachers could actually go back and have everything in their laptop for further learning or work. So knowledge was not just not confined within the board on the wall of the classroom.

A quick exploration of the Promethean board exposed a wealth of stuff much greater than what I had used before. So I was quite happy with that.

Then next came was the survey of actually how was technology being integrated in the classroom. The students here, to my relief, do have access to laptops, but not a good idea of how actual learning can take place using the box and how the classroom can go flat. The first thing I wanted to ensure that the students of each of my classes had a virtual platform where they could connect and exchange of ideas could take place in the class and even when they are not in the class. I am an avid user of www.edmodo.com, and so I started by introducing this not only to my students but also in the Science teacher team so that effective connectivity and resource sharing remains.

How effectively I am using edmodo as a connectivity tool in my class will come up in the upcoming blogs. 

The next part would have to be to orient the students to the benefits of the use of apps in the class. So in the next few weeks I would probably pave my way to introducing the series of Web 2.0 tools that would really benefit the students and engage them further.  This would also be extended to the use of mobile phone as a multi tasker in a physics lab. So very soon would be blogging about the same.

Gearing up the new academic year..

Culture Shock or Culture Celebration......

Today the academic year started  with a combined assembly and the best part of it was that the whole school was there including even the non teaching staff. The corridor was adorned with a series of flags from 12 different countries,Germany, Poland, USA, Zambia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Serbia, Bhutan, Tibet, UK, Korea and India, to welcome the students at OIS who were from these countries. I just wondered what brought these students from the different parts of the world, who were culturally so very different from the host country of OIS , India, that too within a year of its inception. There was no strong infrastructure or results as of now that could have attracted them. It is the people behind Oaktree whom all these students have trusted and have faith in, probably, is what had brought them here. 

Today as Mr. Paul Regan started the assembly dot on 8.00 a.m ( which I understood by now that he practices punctuality), I felt that the treasure box which I had seen yesterday was not in a dream and that it would not be taken away. I could use the valuables everyday and probably could even fill the box more. 

As he welcomed the students from 12 different countries to OIS, he significantly touched the issue of being global but acting local by introducing and talking about the beautiful city of joy KOLKATA, where the school is located. He went forth to explain, that the first barrier that the second generation of students needed to cross was that of Culture shock. To deal with this he asked the students to revolve their thoughts around four qualities...Respect, Behaviour, Attitude and Responsibility. In professing these qualities and inculcating the learner profile attributes they would very soon overcome the culture shock and be more near to the third culture...the IB Culture at Oaktree. 

His next topic of discussion was TOK as he announced the next TOK theme of discussion as LOVE and made it sure that the thought process was not just limited to the DP but also percolated down to the little MYP minds. The way he gave examples of how love would mean to everybody made an interesting piece for all of us.


After all of this he lucidly took all of us through a very unique example of international mindedness           
at display in the recent Olympics 2012 at LONDON. A three–tiered rostrum is used for the three medal winners, with the gold medal winner ascending to the highest platform.  After medals are distributed, the flags of the nations of the three medalists are raised. The flag of the gold medalist's country is in the center and raised the highest while the flag of the silver medalist's country is on the left facing the flags and the flag of the bronze medalist's country is on the right, both at lower elevations than the gold medalist's country's flag. The flags are raised while the national anthem of the gold medalist's country plays.So that was celebrating culture.

With this he welcomed everyone to the Internationalism at OIS where not one culture but celebrating everyone's culture was important.

My first day at my new school..

The Third Culture

Today was my first day at my new school,  As I entered I remembered the parting sentence of my previous school Principal Mr. Dilip Vasu, " Rajashree, every school has a culture of its own...try to adapt that. You will be happy. Think of the bigger picture always..."

Till date with whomever I had discussed about the school , whether it was my fellow IB colleagues in India or those abroad in various parts of the world , the only feedback I had got was that this is going to be the next UWC and that I would get the best learning environment of an IB school.

After  attending  the induction programme for the teachers, today ,I again and again kept feeling the gap between my thoughts and the way to express it. For one reason today only I wished to be an English teacher so that I could play with words to express what I experienced today.  Being a person inclined towards Sciences I am very straight forward and definitely short of words but still would try to express the moments of the day, every bit of which was worth treasuring. It was as if I had been exposed to a treasure box filled with valuables and I had just few hours to take as much as I could and believe me I am not exaggerating a bit. So I tried to take as much as I could from the treasure box.

Having worked in four international schools of which the previous two have been IB schools, I could not help but keep comparing between whatever I was seeing and what I had seen before. Rewinding back to a few years, the first day I was introduced to IB, about two and a half years back, so many questions came to my mind in the next few months of my work.But these questions just kept baffling me without leading to any direction.

 During the day's sessions today what I heard from Mr. Paul Regan (HOS) and Mr. Absolum Museve (Director of studies  and IBC)  resonated with the proposed answers to my baffling questions and made me strongly feel that I have come to work in the best IB school in India and in next few years maybe in the world. When  I had actually been exposed to the learner profile attributes ,in my first IB school and saw the work culture around me , I felt it was so contradicting. I always questioned myself that shouldn’t the teachers themselves be embracing the learner profile attributes before they could inculcate those in the students?Are we caring towards each other?  I always felt that IB was a process. It in itself had a culture of its own. The “IB Culture” which immediately connected teachers and students across the world. But somehow in India, with my own experiences and with the kind of information I have gathered from various sources, IB schools are moulded into a customized format to suit the clientele barring a few.

 Mr. Regan in his opening welcome speech , so very well laid down how the ethos of an IB school especially of Oaktree, that had to be built in the coming years. He was so transparent in his communication starting from the Board of Directors to the achievements and the shortcomings of the last year. He summed up the challenges that the school had to face in the first year of inception and would might have to face in future , but being the founder head of three schools his conversation showed that the school surely was in the right hands.  Surely my belief in my new school being a school of excellence was more strengthened.

 Mr. Museve in his conversation started by saying that teachers are the ones who should try to be examples in using these attributes of learner profiles to our students. He again and again stressed on the fact that we have joined an International School and throwed at us the question, what that meant? Was it that we cater to an International Curriculum, or was it we had International students from all parts of the world or was it that we had teachers from all parts of the world.  His discussion then revolved around that it was the “Third Culture” at Oaktree that made it truly international. It was about understanding the culture of the person in front and then , amalgamating our own culture, to develop this third culture where we both were comfortable. 

The  sessions by Dr. Gardner, the Director of Residence followed by Susan’s (CAS Coordinator and Senior tutor) , Ms. Anjaly's (Director of Admissions ) along with Mr. Peter Jones and Mr. Museve’s, all  so well resonated that the prime concern at OIS is the well being of the learners or the knowers. Whether it is the method  of tutor groups or University Counseling and Guidance, the school has meticulously planned every detail and the student is at the pinnacle of importance.

But this did not mean that the teachers had to compromise for something lesser. The later sessions by the HR ,Priyanka, finance person Mr. Das and the transport person Kuntal ensured that teachers were also taken well care of by the polices of the school, be it leaves or availing financial benefits or a grievance cell.

I am living my dream today and looking forward to a new journey ....and to share my experiences with you all....

Making ebooks with ipads

An amazing way to use technology to enhance your classroom engagement and contribution

Well now I have not yet bought any apple product , but that has not stopped me from venturing out the possibilities that they have to offer. In this academic term, the grade 6 students in our school are studying through their ipads and books have been done away with. So I needed to know how to make ebooks with ipads.

I honestly took an ipad from a student for an hour to experiment what I can do with it. So the student had already got this app Book Creator for iPad. So I just had to give it few minutes. It was really easy. I took pics and info from the web and constructed my own ebook of 3 to 4 pages and mailed it to myself. But then wait I have a laptop and an Android phone, and this file was not opening in both. 

Finally after some googling got a solution for it. 

In the Chrome web store I got an app called MagicScroll which I just added to Chrome. I downloaded the .epub file of the book that I had mailed to myself. In MagicScroll I just had to add the book from my hard drive to the library and I could read it.

There was my ebook on nuclear reactors. 

Next was to solve the problem for my android phone. So I followed the following steps

1. Uploaded the new book.epub file to my wikispace page. 
2. Downloaded the book from the wiki on my android phone
3. Got the epub reader app from the Android store
4. Openned the epub reader and imported the book from the option Import from SD. The book was in the download folder.
5. Read the book in my android phone too.

Well amalgamation of laptop, iPads and Android....thats how I would put it.

Educating through apps

Recently after a long inner dilemma,to choose between apple and android, I finally bought myself a Samsung Galaxy Note. Every moment it seems to delight me with all that it can do. Right now blogging from it but without typing. I am simply writing with my s-pen on the screen.
It is so much fun. My entry into the world of smartphones and the App market has just started. Every now and then I am experimenting all the things that I can do with this small magic tool.
As of now writing questions in your own handwriting and mailing it to students just happens in a few seconds. Options available are s-memo, Skitch and even drawing using Polaris office word doc.
The few apps with which I started off immediately are...

1. Annotating student's work happens in no time with iannotate Lite. You can check and annotate any pdf as you would do normally, a hard copy,  with the S-pen and mail it immediately.
2. Another interesting app that I used to teach and clear doubts to my IBDP student was "whatsapp". Though this app is for free Sms to people all over the woold, the way me and my student used it was amazing.

My student had a doubt in one of the questions of a past paper. He took a screenshot and sent me at whatsapp. I solved the question on S-Memo, attached a 30 sec video explanation and sent it. Then he attached an audio file asking his douibt. The ONLINE free chat session with all these facilities really made it so very, easy.
Wait for the posts about other apps that I am going to use from my Samsung Galaxy Note.

Teachers Get Tech Tips from Students

Digital Generation Parents Share Their Wisdom

What is 21st century education?

Global Collaboration with Twitter

What does it take for a person in USA to know about my intentions?....well just my tweets.........

My tweets got published in the story by Vicki Davis
"Conversations about Global Collaboration"
Are you ready to be a part of a story or build one of your own?

Singapore's 21st Century Teaching Strategies

When will India be ready to accept this?

Today Edutopia in partnership with Pearson released the Education Everywhere video series focusing Singapore, this time. These details were stated:

Singapore Fast Facts

• When Singapore gained its independence in 1965, most of its population of two million people were unskilled and illiterate.
• The government invested in education, and by the early 1970s, all children had access to lower secondary education.
• In 2009, the first year Singapore participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, they placed near the top for all tested subjects: fifth for reading, second for mathematics, and fourth for science. See all 2009 PISA scores.
• Teaching is a highly-respected and well-compensated profession in Singapore. All teachers are trained at the country's National Institute of Education (NIE).
• All new teachers are paired with experienced teachers for mentoring, and peer feedback is built into the schedule.
• Teachers are entitled to 100 low or no-cost hours of professional development each year.
• There are approximately 522,000 students attending about 350 schools in Singapore's education system.
• Class sizes are large, especially at the secondary level, averaging 36 students per class.

 It also had the following video showing how tools such as twitter and facebook are  used on a regular basis in the classrooms of Ngee Ann Secondary School, one of the country's seven 'Future Schools'.

The video shows how 40 students in a class can ask different questions using twitter , all at the same time to the teacher. They can even vote for the right answer using a mobile phone.

Do such statistics not affect any educator who sees this video? Will India be ever a part of this series?

Flat Classroom Conference , Mumbai 2012

An amazing experience...........


Day 1 at Flat Classroom Conference ....


The day started with 400 people from all over the world in one auditorium at ASB Mumbai.....I felt like sitting with the whole world. So many people from different parts, irrespective of cultural differences, where all under one roof with a common purpose...."To be the best 21st Century educators,leaders and of course students....". Students and teachers united on a common platform to LEARN.

Next ....at Trident Hotel .....a member of team 9...meeting people from all parts of world for the first time and working together on an Action Project, just wonderful. Seeing students work in groups was even more amazing where they proved that there exists an "Educational Culture" which probably unites them. The strive to understand each other and support the theme "Opening up Education" to the fullest.

Working for 4 hours on a collaborative project we come out with our oral pitch and WOW we then present it to 10 teams of educators from all parts of the world. 2 minutes for each presentation......it was just fire...have a look at the video here....

21st Century Education.....My new form of teaching

Do I have to be on twitter to be a 21st Century Educator? 

Well it is your choice. The kind of learning I have had due to networking on twitter would not have been  possible in any other form. Even if it happened it would have taken ages. But the method of twitter Personal Learning Network (PLN) does come with a big Registration Cost....Your Comittment and Passion to learn.
Now siting in a remote city in India Twitter seems to act as my virtual staff room. "I have to learn so much..........". That is the feeling that I get every day. So many hastags and so many conversations going on with too many resources to catch up. Recently I had been to an Apple Education Leadership Tour.
A two hours hands on work on an Apple Ipad 2 completely changed the way I looked at my learning process and the same that is happening with my students who have such devices in their hands in my class. I made interactive books, edited videos , made my own videos, podcasts and what not. There, I listened to some amazing Apple Distinguished Educators and what goes in their classrooms in their schools. After listening to them when I came back I felt all my Unit Planners should be discarded and I needed to think on all of them again.

The effect of such exposure was evident in my next IB DP Physics class itself which was structured in such a way that it would force my students to think, do and learn on their own with my role being as just showing them the way to the think in the right direction. (maybe as I am still experimenting with my new method of teaching).

I simply designed my lesson plan by making a glog , a Scoop and using an ebook.
The glog was something like this.....(full glog at 


The next day the class had my scoop ....


From resources from Scoop which did not bore them as Powerpoints, I guess...they made their own CCD, in the virtual lab,learnt transfer of charge from a transfer of water in bucket simulation (in scoop). And the results were amazing. I could see and feel the students going through a journey while they were learning Charge Coupled Devices from Digital Technology and that too all on their own. I had to do very little explanation for that. I got energized further by an email from a  student stating"I think you should get more of such glogs...they actually made me question myself over wat we learnt n not jst accept the class blindly!  ". ..Devansh.
So now I feel I have a lot to do to implement all the same content of physics in such a manner where students need to do all the learning and thinking.

All these thoughts of mine got reinforced by a sudden entry in one of the hashtags #21clhk, today in my virtual staff room , twitter.There I stood virtually with all the participants of the 21st Century Learning Conference, sharing all their learning from the keynote speakers of the conference and the amazing resources . Amidst those resources came to know about Education Scientist Sugata Mitra (about whom I had already heard in my Apple Workshop), in details and the influence he had on so many educators.Have a look at this  video......So A New Journey Has Begun Today........Self Organized Education...........

Reflection of SAIBSA 2012

How big is the gap between knowing and being a 21st Century educator?

As I shared in my previous blogs, my journey as an IB educator is taking me through lot of turns where I am fortunately learning a lot and thanks to all the twitter contributors from whom I have been immensely gained a lot. They might have no idea how they have acted as as mentors for a teacher, far of, in one of the cities in India.

This was my second IB DP SAIBSA Job alike Session that I attended along with a Category 2 IB worshop. 340 DP teachers , from different parts of the country all at one place, beautifully and most elegantly hosted by Podar International School, Mumbai.

An amazing introductory Plenary Session by Gillian Ashworth. It was all about Inquiry Based Learning in IB DP. The presentation actually gave me an insight on what actually everyone meant by specifying a 21st Century educator.

After the presentation I seemed to be comforted with the thought that what I had started doing was a first step towards being a 21st Century educator.

But then should it be just "I" or "We"?

This was followed by a whole day session in subject specific room, where we had discussions pertaining to the subject only where the focus was "I do this " and " I  do that", without any directional move towards what our today's students would want "Us to do". I guess we all sitting in the room were sailing in the same boat not having the slightest idea about the changes in the world and methods of teaching.

A very important question kept on sweeping across my mind was " What impact did globalization have on Education in India?". The terms which seemed very common to me were totally unfamiliar to others. Forget about Twitter,Scoop.It., Paper.Li, Diigo, Edmodo, Blogs and Wikis, and anything else that I was using, my co teachers had no idea of a google doc even. 

So how far are we from the reality of what Gillian said in the morning of being a 21st Century Educator?

With my inputs in the sessions about few "technology " tips that I gathered over the past few months, the group seemed to be interested. They were enthralled by me sharing so many resources through DROP BOX and not flash drive. After the session I received lot of thank mails and this urged me to provide them with a collaborative platform. I immediately started a google doc with some problems posted by teachers to me.

 The need of the hour for us educators is  to connect with the vast world of International School educators, especially at twitter and other Social Networking sites. Learn from each other, implement them in our daily teaching and share our practices on a regular basis.

Flat Classroom---being a virtual participant

Well today I am writing this to reflect on why I would like to be a virtual participant in the flat classroom conference to be held at American School of Bombay ASB unplugged , this month. While registering myself ,I have to fill in the reasons for such application in the Virtual Participant Application form. To support this I have to give some websites which would tell more about me. Hence I thought to write a post related to this.


My journey as a teacher started a decade ago, but as a member of the  IB community for the last three years the entire meaning and existence of my profession changed. I realized that teaching was more than just delivering  content from the book. As my new role of being a facilitator the course of my journey changed and at this juncture I can ascertain that I am in a phase of unlearning and trying to understand and become one of many 21st century educators.
Being in India, with the lack of awareness of integration of technology in education (concluded from my observation and interaction of IB teachers of few schools of India with whom I interacted, I soon realized that I have to do a lot of self study and learning  on my own and for that connectivity of mine with the world outside was highly needed.In this venture of mine I have been using wikis, blogs, facebook and twitter as tools to connect.


 In the past few months the use of twitter has really  accelerated this process and now recently I have started publishing my own enewspaper The IB News-Daily.
I felt that if the IB teachers with whom I interact are not on twitter or google+, still with a glimpse of this they can remain updated. I also started circulating this in the network of educators that I had got through twitter, facebook, google+, linkedin and soon saw that people started liking it and my followers on twitter are also increasing. Everyday I do feel the kind of resources and learning I get from others, I should also give back something to the community.

In my school due to the various role profiles that I have to deliver, and with no common platform available for connectivity, I felt a huge need to connect teachers as well as students from my school with themselves and then introduce them to the vast world.outside. Being a TOK teacher I feel that knowledge can be generated only through the interaction of creative and critical thinking. For this the "interaction" was highly needed. I introduced the platform of Edmodo. This helps all of us to stay connected in various groups, resource sharing , maintaining virtual classrooms and professional development. As an MYP PP supervisor I am always connected with the MYP PP supervisors and MYP PP students. Its amazing to see how students even advise each other and come  to some constructive conclusion.

I have also introduced Scoop.it to my students and teachers which is really becoming very popular and helps a lot to be referred back for bibliography in TOK, EE essays and for sharing research work.


As a new TOK Coordinator, I feel all our TOK supervisors and students need to connect and enhance their knowledge by interacting with like minded people throughout the world. In this endeavor of mine I created a TOK page on facebook to connect everyone and share resources and stimulate discussions.

There are many more tools ind interesting stories and experiences which I will share in due course of time. So keep following me @rajashree_basu

Process Journal in the form of ebook

Today one of my MYP students has chosen to maintain her process journal in the form of a ebook as formed by flipsnack. Have a look.
Mahak Jodwal's Process journal 

Reflecting on the use of Web 2.0 tools ...

Hi everyone........

In the last few weeks I do find myself learning more of technology than physics to share with my students. The attractive force for the use of technology in education is somewhat overpowering my passion for upgrading myself in the happennings of sciences. But what I can see is the culmination of the two would come out with a good product.

Till now I did use google docs a lot for many collaborative work amongst colleagues as well as students. Especially a spreadsheet helped me in organizing all my important weblinks for further use and sharing. But recently came across two new tools for active sharing of your bookmarked links and also collaborative work. One is diigolet and the other is scoopit. I have just fallen in love with them. These addons don't have to be downloaded even. Just drag and drop in the bookmark bar.(Chrome). Scoop.it is an amazing method of bookmarking webpages in an attractive way and sharing with others.

Recently converted my TOK bookmark links using scoop.it...http://www.scoop.it/t/tok-for-ib. This is known as curating.Its really easy.

It gives you embed code also for further sharing via websites, blogs and mails. Diigolet is a tool which again gives you the power to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages, share them like that and go for even collaborative work.

Just google and add these two ....it works wonders.....

I also used twiddla in one of my classes where groups of DP students were given 20 minutes of collaborative planning before presenting in the class. They really loved the method of all members in a group working on the same screen , but different laptops. I guess I need to explore more with it.

Few days back came across the web blog of and IB teacher http://neslihandurmusoglu.edublogs.org/...who has made an amazing collection of several Web 2.0 tools on her site and lots more. I learnt to glog from there using www.glogster.com.

So there is no end. Currently working on how to make your e-textbook from all your bookmarks.