Time to Sign Up for the Hour of Code

The time is now to get your class signed up to join in on the Hour of Code.  December 7th through 11th.  Each teacher who signs up will receive a $10 gift card.   If every class in the school participates, they could be eligible for a drawing for $10,000 workd of technology.There are many options available for participating.  If your students participated last year, there will be new activities for them this year. There are activities at different skill levels and even opportunities to learn about coding in a fun and hands on way even if you don't have access to student devices in your classroom.

This summer I went to a workshop on coding and computer science put on by Code.orgcode.org.  I think that my biggest take away was the importance of exposure. Although there are attributes to learning coding that make it useful for all students.  (Great problem solving, critical thinking, sequencing, etc.)  Computer Science will not be the field that every student chooses.  But, if we don't provide students the opportunity to learn and explore computer science starting at a young age, we build a generation of students who see coding and computer science as hard, and an unattainable goal.  Students who have the exposure at an early age, see computer science and coding for what it is, a fun and challenging field that they might enjoy and might choose as a career choice one day.

This last year, I had a few opportunities to visit the Google offices in Seattle.  I wish I could provide that opportunity for all of our students. (Except for the part where I got stuck in an elevator for over an hour.)  At the Google offices, you definitely get the impression that computer science is not just for the Big Bang Theory crowd, but that computer science is just down right COOL! I would love for all of our students to have the opportunity to someday work in an environment like that.  Being exposed to these skills, helps build future opportunities.

One thing that I wish I would have seen more of at the Google Campus were women working in the computer science field.  And Google will tell you that they agree.  We need to make sure that we are also exposing our girls to the idea of computer science as a career choice. I actually believe that Mt. Vernon, although maybe off to a late start with the Computer Science opportunities is now making great efforts to insure that our girls are welcomed and encouraged in classes and clubs for computer science.

Besides encouraging you to find a way for your students to participate, I have a challenge to you as teachers.  I challenge you to participate in the Hour of Code as well.  Remember, it is just an hour and you don't have to wait until December 7th to give it a try.  I warn you though, that once you start, it can be hard to stop.  As you "play" with coding consider what learning benefits your students will get from this activity. How can this help them be better mathematicians, communicators, artist and scientists? How can this fit in with what you are currently teaching?  Which of your students might be inspired to learn more?

Learn more and register your class here.  Pin It Now!

Visible Thinking Through App Smashing

I often talk with teachers about the idea that we should balance our student's screen time between consumption and production, going heavy on the production side as that is where students are able to construct knowledge from the material they have "consumed".  Many teachers struggle with the idea of students using the technology for more than just going to a single site and following a prescribed program.  Depending on the site, the prescribed program may be outstanding, but it represents only a little of the amazing possibilities available when we teach our students to use the tech tools as a way to construct new knowledge and show their thinking in visible ways.  I like to encourage teachers to think beyond the boxed programs and help students to begin to develop a whole tool box of useful tools for both constructing knowledge, sharing their understanding and even more amazing, showing their understanding in multiple ways. These tools can provide opportunities for students to ask further questions, show their understanding in a way the makes sense to them, and then celebrate that learning by sharing and collaborating with others.  Just as you wouldn't try to build a house with just one tool, we shouldn't expect our students to build  knowledge in this way.  And most likely, each of us would choose at least slightly different set of tools for performing the same task.  Students should have some choices in tool selection as well.

The idea of App Smashing, encourages teachers and students to start building a menu of appropriate tools and then choosing what they think are the appropriate tools for the learning at hand.  We might use one tool for collecting information, another tool for synthesizing that information and yet another tool for sharing the learning with others.  At first, our tool boxes might be limited and our choices to complete the task may be suggested or very similar to each other.  But as our tool box grows, so do the possibilities. 

So how to we start growing this process with limited time to teach the tools and most likely limited devices? 

One way I have seen teachers solve these issues is by creating task cards, with either an app menu or specific app suggestions for the activity.  If constructed at an appropriate level, even very young students are able to follow the task cards independently.  

Here is an example from 1st Grade Teacher Meghan Zigmond. Students learned and wrote pumpkin facts.   She then created a simple task card using the pumpkin carving app on the ipads.  The task cards included pictures that showed the student what apps to open and step by step what to do. Students saved their pumpkin pictures on the camera roll and then opened up Chatterpix. Students used Chatterpix to record their pumpkin facts.  She then published the videos to YouTube.

  Shared on Meghan Zigmond's YouTube Channel.  Check out all the other cool projects. 

Based on the ideas I have learned about App Smashing and the belief that giving students choice is important, Paula Dagnon and I have built a few App Menus to help you get started doing some App Smashing of your own.  We've tried to limit our list, so that you or your students don't end up with an overwhelming laundry list.  We've also included both iPad and Web Based apps so that you can use the tools appropriate to your classroom. 

What I would LOVE to see happen is that we as teachers begin to build and share task cards for our students using apps and programs we have available in our district.  Let me know if you are interested in doing some collaborative App Smashing.

Resources:
All About App Smashing

App Smashing is the process of using multiple apps to create projects or complete tasks. App Smashing can provide your students with creative and inspired ways to showcase their learning and allow you to assess their understanding and skills.

App Smashing - K-12 Technology

k12technology.weebly.com/app-smashing.html

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Library Media Specialist Get Techy

Several of our Library Media Specialist had the opportunity to attend the Washington Library Media Association Conference this last weekend in Yakima.  After seeing a few tweets from the conference, I decided to ask our Library Media Specialist if besides all the great stories, books, and literacy, did they learn anything techish?.  

Thanks to those who have shared.  Looks like it was a great conference.  I look forward to new great ideas from our very innovative librarians as they incorporate what they learned and what inspired them at the conference.

Monica Hodges from Jefferson picked up some great ideas for using Chromebooks with Destiny and Worldbook.  She also learned about a set of books called Savvy Cyber Kids that is available for free.  (I think that she learned this from her Tech Savvy daughter who is a Senior in Computer Science at the UW, but she did share this.)  And check out Monica’s Library Blog.  The Hodge Blodge. Monica regularly writes about books and other happenings in the Jefferson Library.

Jim Coldwell from Centennial is excited about setting up a Makerspace in his library media center after attending a session on the Maker movement. This is a big movement now, and it is taking root in many library media centers.  I look forward to seeing this idea grow.

Jon Sadzewicz at the high school shared about Piktochart.  Infographics are a useful literacy format and creating them is a great way for students to synthesise large amounts of information into visual and easily interpreted chunks.  There are many free tools for creating infographics.  Here are a few of those tools.

Infographics

Why your brain craves infographics.

Great Information on Creating Infographics

Article about how a teacher taught a lesson with infograms as the product.

Tools:

Piktochart

Google Slides/Drawing

Canva

Easel.ly

Infogr.am

Estevan Vivanco at Madison Elementary learned about how to create a video news program for kids. The students create a script, then revise it and once the teacher gives it a stamp of approval, they record the news interview with a camera.  Students can have access to great lighting and even a green screen and their teacher can edit the video and make it look professional!  The presenter at the workshop also showed some ways to make a cool intro with news-program-sounding music.  Might be a fun thing to try in Mount Vernon!

Dale Fournier at Washington shared that she went to a great session on jazzing up a library website making it more informative, and inspiring for students.  She plans to try a tool called Library Thing to suggest new books to students.  A few other additions to add to a library webpage are One Click Digital and Tumblebooks of the Day.

Eva Greenwald was excited to learn more about Destiny, some great tips about incorporating tools like Screencasting, Photostory, Live Binders, Symbaloo, Voki, and Smore into her lessons and she is interested in exploring the idea of using a service such as One-Click Digital to provide audio book access to our students. (Student's currently have access to this with a Public Library card, but if this service was available in the schools, it could be managed through Destiny. Some neat possibilities.

Our Library Media Specialist are such great resources for our students and teachers. We remember that they know books, but we sometimes forget they they also have a lot of great information on other learning resources and they are happy to share not only the very best book ideas, but also great ideas and resources for research, literacy and more.

HInt How to get the most out of a conference you didn’t attend.

1. Have those that go share a Google Doc and keep collaborative notes that can be shared with others.
2. Find out the Twitter HashTag for the Conference and follow the discussion online.
3. Often times you will find links to the presentations online.  
4. None of this is the same as being there and making face to face connections, but it does open the door to a lot of great resources and free learning.  

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A Few of My Favorite Reads

As a part of my job as a Digital Literacy Specialist, and well really as a teacher, I am constantly reading and learning new things from a variety of sources.  I do my best to share some of what I learn with you.

I use a tool called Feedly to gather the blogs I read into one place so that I can easily sort through and find information to share.

I thought I'd quickly share a few blogs that I enjoy and learn from frequently.

Richard Byrne at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ shares great resources daily.  He reviews new tools and shares tutorials he has created to show teachers how to effectively use the tools in their classroom.

Alice Keeler at http://www.alicekeeler.com/teachertech/ appeals to my Googly and nerdy side.  She shares great ideas for using Google Apps for Education in your classroom and the coolest part is that she creates and shares her own scripts to add even more functionality to Google Apps.

George Couros shares at The Principal of Change http://georgecouros.ca/.  He is a principal at a school in Canada.  He always has challenging ideas about how to make schools and teaching better.

I'll stop there for now and share more later.

I encourage you to use a tool such as Feedly and to start gathering a library of blogs that you enjoy and find informative.  (They don't all have to be school related.) Pin It Now!

Beware the Transformation Trap

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to watch Jennie Magiera's Keynote Speech from CUE 15 online.  I love sharing videos, but this one is about 45 minutes and I struggle to get people to find the time to click a link much less sit down and watch a 45 minute video, but as I watched this video, I wished that my local teaching friends could all hear Jennies speak.  Jennie is a 4th and 5th grade teacher who works with students in an impoverished area of Chicago.  She has built such an amazing relationship with her students and with her teaching style and passion, she has empowered her students to use technology in truly transformational ways.  The activities she does with her students truly show a redefinition of learning.  Not only is she using tools such as Skype and Twitter to help her students have a voice that reaches beyond the classroom, but she has empowered her students with the ubiquitous use of technology in her classroom.  The tools and resources are very much in the background.  The tools are not the important piece, just as we don't think much about a pencil when we pick it up to write, these students don't think much about the tools they are using, they think about the actions they are making by using the technology.  As I said, the video is long, but it is very entertaining and inspiring.  The use of tech doesn't have to be elaborate or hard to be effective.  Students just need to know about and have permission to use the tools available in empowering ways.

How can you expand your students world beyond their classroom? Pin It Now!

When Resources are Sparse, Think Redefinition

Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/mobilestreetlife/

Yesterday I had the opportunity to send out notifications to another round of Early Tech Adoption Team Grant recipients. It is fun to see the responses of those who have received the grant and really hard for me to send the messages to those teams who will need to continue to wait. Due to the nature of the levy, money rolls in over a three year time frame and not all at once. Thus the need for a roll out model and the reality that some teams will have to wait longer that they would like. For this levy we chose an Early Tech Adoption model that encourages those who are ready, to make a plan, participate in team directed professional development and share their experiences with others. It is our hope that with this model, when teams receive their technology, they will already have a plan in place and be ready to start learning and then sharing with others. By the end of this year, we will have placed 28 mobile carts with teams across the district. That is 840 student devices! And the response so far... MORE!!!! We need MORE and we need it NOW! Once teachers get a taste of what can happen when students have more ubiquitous access to devices, they really have a hard time with the idea of sharing one cart with a whole team of teachers. The uses of technology changes when students and teachers have regular access to student devices. So as exciting as it is to roll out these carts and build more and more access for our students, it is also important to note that even though the district is moving in the right direction at speedy and steady pace, we still are in a relative desert to what could actually be utilized for our students. So, with that in mind, we need to be mindful of making the best use of these valuable resources. Sure, there are many great, engaging and in some cases, time saving ways that we can use these devices in our classrooms, but with the resources being limited, it is valuable to plan to use technology that allows you to do things you could not do without the technology. Dr. Ruben Puentedura has developed a model to help teachers identify effective and transformative uses of technology in the classroom.   The SAMR model divides activities into four categories with Substitution being the most basic (and the one most often seen in classrooms,) and Redefinition being the most transformative.  With redefinition, the lessons you design uses technology in a way that allows you to do something you could not do without the use of technology.  Take a look at this video to learn more about the SAMR model.

It is important to note that teaching "below the dotted line"  is not a bad thing.  It is a progression. The SAMR model is a great tool for reflecting on lessons and planning new activities.  Where do your activities fit?  If they all seem to be Substitution and Augmentation, try stretching your thinking and redesigning the lesson with the capabilities of the tech in mind. What more can you do now that you have technology?

"Technology is not a panacea. Not all technology is good for pedagogy. And great pedagogy can and will exist without technology. We have, however, greatly miscast and underutilized technology’s power. When we enlist technology in the service of exploratory learning for all, watch out! On the other hand, if we plod along with standards and assessment using technology only as a prop, we will get what we deserve: a higher level of tedium.” Michael Fullan “Stratosphere: Integrating technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge.” p. 78

And for those of you who are interested in learning more about how to use technology in ways that goes beyond just substitution, I have a Cloud Academy Class just for you. Pin It Now!