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Instructional Tidbits: I'm so excited to have Kristin Ziemke with us on Friday. She visited about two years ago and we had amazing feedback and implementation. To recap our learning from last time, feel free to view my informal notes. Kristin is a teacher, learning innovation specialist, Heinemann author, and world renowned speaker. You can often find her on twitter chats for Ed Tech, Apple Certified Educators, and Literacy, in addition to conferences for the same topics. See website here. Follow her on twitter @KristinZiemke. Kristin has worked to customize our learning for Friday. She will be in each grade level modeling an integrated lesson with our students. We will all join her to debrief and learn even more in the afternoon. Be ready to think, grow, share and question! It is wise to bring a device with you in the afternoon (iPad or laptop) in case we do some interactive digital learning activities. Please remember to read the two articles and view the schedule Skip shared in his email on 1/20. Special thanks to our lab teachers for opening up their classrooms and sharing their students for the day!
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Instructional Tidbits: Streaming video can be a powerful tool to integrate into lessons. Whether it is the opening of a unit, a deeper dive into a subject, or background information for a later topic, videos have come a long way since the age of monotonous filmstrips of my childhood. Did you know we have two great places to go for streaming video? Safari Montage and Discovery Education both have popular and exclusive publishers on board, providing excellent educational videos on a variety of topics. Students can login to both products. As with all online subscriptions, LARK reminders and digital citizenship rules go hand in hand when watching videos. Updates:
Instructional Tidbits: What is the best app to keep our students safe online? You! Management, expectations, and monitoring play a major part in teaching our students how to be responsible digital citizens. Although it may seem like old hat, our students need constant verbal reminders, visual queues, and whole class lessons on LARK skills, online safety, copyright, and cyberbullying. Not sure where to start, or what is most effective? I'm here to help! Sign up on my Google calendar and we can make a plan together. Tips for teaching digital citizenship: 1. Modeling goes a long way. Are you citing sources in your presentations or handouts? Do you often copy and paste pictures without giving credit? Do you go straight to Google to find an answer? Why not set your homepage to KidRex or Kidtopia? These are Google Custom Search Engines that narrow down the search to safe sites. Not only is it more safe, it also more valid because it isn't searching everything on the internet. The more the kids see you using these instead of plain Google, the better! 2. Always have a plan. When students are going to be on the internet, there should be a firm plan in place, with a goal and/or learning target. Nothing should be random or left to chance. The plan should include safe search sites (see above) and safe databases (Lori can help you with these). Make sure parameters and expectations have been discussed before the devices even come out. The plan should also have a definite end time. If students know they have to get a certain task done in a certain amount of time, they will tend to be more focused and on task. 3. Enforce your expectations. Just as in any management discussion, clear, consistent, and concise expectations work best. In addition, you must enforce those expectations. Students can be redirected. Privileges can be taken away. More lessons on digital citizenship can be taught. Whatever you choose to do, remember, student safety is our concern. 4. Monitor. Like a hawk...or maybe a LARK? 5. Remember our devices are tools, not toys. Please do not use school devices for recess or free time. It sends the wrong message to our students and parents, and blurs too many lines. Happy New Year! Sometimes it is weird to think about a new year starting in January when you are a teacher, because we are right in the middle of our year! This is the perfect time to reflect on our goals, celebrate our progress, or change course if needed. Your kids already know the routines and structures of your class, they know your personality, and they know expectations. In August and September we tend to set goals that are either too lofty (we're going to do it ALL this year) or too surface level (I just need to get my room ready). As you begin to look at the calendar to schedule your 3rd ITP session with me, I wanted to review a few things... ITP Goals: We introduced ITP goals for technology in August. From qualitative and quantitative feedback I've received, I feel like it is going well for many of you. The ITP allows you to focus on two tech goals, instructional and/or personal productivity. Rather than tackling a million new things, you were able to choose what was best for you and your students in your technology journey. Some of you were able to refocus during 2nd semester and head in a different direction, while others are on a steady path to success. Reminders: Remember your Individualized Technology Plan is for YOU! This isn't an evaluation system. It is a way to grow and meet small challenges, without feeling overwhelmed. It is also a way to differentiate, no matter what end of the technology spectrum you are on. Your time spent with me is still less than a long after school session! In addition, this provides you the opportunity to try some new things without risk, because you'll have support. At the end of the year, you will have success and growth in these areas, and can be the expert! Need an analogy? The ITP is basically the workshop model, drawn out: Mini lessons- 1:1 Training, Tech Tuesday Demos, Videos, Blogs, Google Search, your own learning Independent Practice- Try it out with as much scaffolding as you want from me (remember independent practice and application is the core of workshop; the learner is responsible) Conferring/Coaching- 1:1 sessions 4 times a year (or more, if you want). This ranges from a research conference, to a check-in, to a strategy lesson, and Teaching Point, etc. Really, it is just a conversation. No big deal! Small Group/Share- Tech Tuesday Discussions, Team Meetings No matter what your focus is for 2017, I wish you lots of success! I'm here to help! (Translation: Sign up on my Google Calendar for an ITP coaching session, help with designing, support during a lesson...) :) Kim Updates:
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Instructional Tidbits: Students all over the school seemed to have a great time participating in the Hour of Code last week. I love that everyone from kindergarten to fourth grade can have fun while learning to problem solve, think logically, and persist at a task. The Hour of Code activities are still live, so feel free to go "beyond" the hour this week. I hope everyone has a safe and happy winter break! See you in January! Retrieved 12-12-16 from http://www.funnycaptions.com/
This week's blog is dedicated to the Hour of Code. Please post pictures to Twitter and tag with @brooksteacher and #hourofcode. I posted this to the website for parents last week: What is the Hour of Code? The Hour of Code is a fun and engaging way to expose all kids to computer science. This is a world-wide effort to bring coding to girls and boys everywhere. The Hour of Code is sponsored by Code.org https://code.org/learn. Are kids just playing video games? With the tutorials our students use for Hour of Code, they are exposed to the skills needed for coding in the future. Many of the tutorials look like games, but look a little closer. The students are actually, making something happen, by selecting certain sequences of code. For primary students it may be as simple as getting a character through a maze with up, down, left, and right arrows, but the trick is to think ahead and predict the order which will make it successful. Older elementary students get more advanced with loops and if-then statements. They can even have a peek at the "real" code that is being used in the background. Why would we spend an hour teaching this to kids? The computer science industry will be looking for a large number of people to join the workforce in the future. It has been said that our students will take part in jobs that have not yet been created. Besides computer science, though, coding is a great way to experience problem solving, critical thinking, and strategic thinking. You have to have the end in mind, and develop a strategic plan to get there. You fail and learn from your mistakes. You find a new sense of persistence and resiliency to finish what you started. No devices at home? You can find lessons that walk kids through all of the skills above, but with paper, pencil, etc. It is more about the way of thinking than it is the technology at this age! I hope you take time next week to ask you kids about the Hour of Code at Armstrong, and possibly save some time to look at some of the tutorials as a family. It is also a safe activity for Winter Break! Kim Brooks, M.Ed. Campus Instructional Technologist Armstrong Hour of Code Activities for 2016: http://armstrong.hpisd.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=209097&type=d&pREC_ID=550091 Updates:
Instructional Tidbits: The Hour of Code is back next week! We have had great success participating in this over the years. Coding helps our kids problem solve, think strategically, and learn from their mistakes. See the Hour of Code page on the Armstrong Website for more info. This is linked from the Students page to make it easy for your students to access all of the activities. Make sure your class doesn't miss out on the fun! If your class is going to participate next week, tweet me @brooksteacher with #hourofcode for a prize this week. Updates:
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
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Instructional Tidbits: Don't forget the power of the camera on your student iPads. This is a great tool for kids to capture their work, their process, and their metacognition in any subject. A simple picture or video can turn into a great formative assessment piece to really capture what they know. Videos can be created as a reflection to their work, using your Justand to prop up the iPad steadily. Pictures and videos can be quickly uploaded to Google Drive and shared with the teacher, or loaded to Google Classroom. Try having a share time where students share something they are proud of through a picture or video! Updates:
Instructional Tidbits: Google Classroom is quickly becoming a go to tool for many. It is one place to do quite a bit. You can use it as a resource repository- simply posting links to videos, documents, websites, etc. for your kids to click on. Ramp it up a bit, and you can use it as a discussion board for students to post their comments and reply to each other. This could be a Reading Response, a reflection on their most recent writing piece, and explanation of how they arrived at an answer in Math, a summary of a unit is Social Studies, anything that links to your curriculum. Next, you could build assignments for students. With assignments, you push it out once and it goes individually to every student in your classroom. They must complete the assignment and "turn it in". You set a due date, grade the assignment, share resources within the assignment, and provide feedback. The beauty of Google Classroom is all of the other Google Apps work nicely within it. You or your students can add a Doc, Sheet, Slide, or Form to Classroom. It also accepts outside files, such as Word or PDFs, YouTube videos, and links to other websites. Need more? I made three videos about Google Classroom that are posted on the Video Tutorials page. Don't forget to ask your team what they are doing too! |
AuthorI am an elementary Campus Instructional Technologist in Highland Park ISD Archives
May 2017
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