The closing keynote was very inspirational as Meg Allison and her students discussed transformative technology. Moretown Elementary is a 1:1 school where every student is provided with a Dell netbook courtesy of a grant from e-Vermont Digital Wish. Prior to and throughout the presentation, students were tweeting from through their Moretown Elementary School twitter account; already proving how well Moretown secures their students' privacy. Students use Google Apps for education for many of their basic technology needs. They also use classroom Twitter, Padlet, etc. accounts because of the age group (K-6). Students synthesize newspaper articles, current events, and what they learn through tweets. They create powerpoints because they're still cool and students can learn elements of a good presentation. The students agree it's a great way to go paperless and love that they can email teachers and other students for homework help thanks to Google Apps.
Students wanted the audience to know they do have unplugged time. One student mentioned every Tuesday they go outside on walks with their teacher and explore nature.
Both Meg and the students also highlighted some of the drawbacks of having a 1:1 program. For instance, it's difficult to accomplish tasks when the computer or Internet is running slow. Also, if students don't remember to charge their computer at night, they may not have a computer to work from the next day. (Though I don't remember the solution to this problem....)
It was very engaging to see what these elementary students are doing with technology. This entire conference made me realize just how progressive Vermont is in the fields of technology and education and makes me really excited for next school year!
Friday, June 21, 2013
Dynamic Landscapes The Reader Games reflection
Every year, the librarian and sixth grade English teacher collaborate on a year long reading/ information literacy/ technology program. The program runs from September-May. Every year the theme changes; this year the program was based off of the popular Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. The teacher and librarian used pbwiki for educators to organize the program and created game brackets for each round of the games. I have enclosed the program layout and details below. Overall, I thought it was a great way to engage students in reading and technology.
Program layout
- Pre-game warm up: Whodunit
- Has own wiki
- Two random partners (chosen from 3 different classes) read same book. Partners are mysterious- students receive an envelope with book inside, secretly check it out at the library.
- Students are instructed not to discuss book with anyone.
- Book can only be read at home
- Partners discuss book on Whodunit wiki using fictitious pen names created by teacher (based off book characters). Teachers grade these discussions as assignments. Teachers don't get involved in conversation unless student is not participating.
- End- masquerade- create a mask of book character, elements from story. Find secret partner.
- Hook: Book Trailer
- Students create book trailer based on a certain selection of books.
- Students vote on best book trailer.
- First Round: Author Study- multiple authors
- 2-3 weeks reading
- Usually alternates every other day between reading and writing workshop
- 1 week to create a book trailer based on book
- Students vote on best book trailer.
- 2nd round: Genre study- fantasy
- Fantasy book speed dating
- Read part of covered fantasy book, rotate tables, choose favorite
- Radio show- create podcast using audacity to simulate vintage radio show
- Include certain elements, commercial, sound effects, discuses one part of book (plot point)
- Third Round: DCF March Madness
- Read a DCF nominated book
- Create life size characters (cardboard cut outs?)
- Perform skits
- Final Round: Class Novels
- Each class reads an assigned nove3l.
- Final project choices: create board game, design new book cover, compose a new ending, compose author biography, fold a story, Prezi
Aha Moments for the Teacher and Librarian
- iPad management- saving work, etc.
- Uploading videos to YouTube
- Start next year with a class novel
Dynamic Landscapes Student Blogging reflection
Student blogging was presented by Matt Allen and his students. Blogging is a yearlong project for this class. The teacher moderates all student blogs and ok's posts and comments before they are published. There are many different blogging platforms available for educators and students; this presentation focused on using kidblogs. It helps if the teacher has a healthy, active PLN. #comments4kids is a great hashtag to seek support and feedback for your student blogs from other educators, students, etc.William Chamberlain was noted for being a huge advocate of #comments4kids.
When blogging, students go through the writing process (pre-writing/ rough draft, self edit/ revise, peer conference, edit/ revise, teacher conference, edit/ revise, and publish). All comments get published to student blogs as long as they are not spam. Students without internet access at home write their rough drafts with paper and pen; I was happy to hear they also promote using the public library for internet access.Students blog about the same topic all year long and topics range from Justin Bieber to Ancient Egypt to Video Games. Mr. Allen is considering having students change topics every trimester next year.The main point of blogging is not to monitor students' spelling and grammar. It's about learning how to write and how to express oneself. Rubrics are not used to grade student blogs. Students must write a certain amount of posts but they don't need to be any specific length; just well composed.
I think this is a great approach to blogging and I hope I can bring these ideas back to my school.
When blogging, students go through the writing process (pre-writing/ rough draft, self edit/ revise, peer conference, edit/ revise, teacher conference, edit/ revise, and publish). All comments get published to student blogs as long as they are not spam. Students without internet access at home write their rough drafts with paper and pen; I was happy to hear they also promote using the public library for internet access.Students blog about the same topic all year long and topics range from Justin Bieber to Ancient Egypt to Video Games. Mr. Allen is considering having students change topics every trimester next year.The main point of blogging is not to monitor students' spelling and grammar. It's about learning how to write and how to express oneself. Rubrics are not used to grade student blogs. Students must write a certain amount of posts but they don't need to be any specific length; just well composed.
I think this is a great approach to blogging and I hope I can bring these ideas back to my school.
Dynamic Landscapes Global Friends- Learn and Share
This had to be my favorite conference session. Joyce Babbitt works with students and teachers in her school to facilitate friendships where students learn about different cultures through global pen pals. She started her profile on epals.com and facilitated connections between her classes and Italy as well as other countries. (I can't recall the specific countries and unfortunately the online presentation is not available.) The interactions began as email and snail mail exchanges and then began to evolve. Students recorded video introductions for their pen pals and suddenly started creating claymation videos and music videos of them singing their favorite songs for their friends.They sent each other Christmas gifts and learned how to speak their pen pals' native languages to say (ex) Happy Holidays. Students created "this or that" sheets to decipher common interests and continue to learn about each other.
It was a very engaging experience to hear students talk about their global pen pals, see the videos, and pictures that were exchanged. Many students still interact with their pen pals even after the completion of their school projects. As someone who grew up writing to her own pen pal (though mine only lived in New Hampshire while we were growing up), I really appreciated the impact of this program on these students and I would love to have e-pals in the future. I have included Ms. Babbitt's tips at the conclusion of this post for things to keep in mind when facilitating global connections.
It was a very engaging experience to hear students talk about their global pen pals, see the videos, and pictures that were exchanged. Many students still interact with their pen pals even after the completion of their school projects. As someone who grew up writing to her own pen pal (though mine only lived in New Hampshire while we were growing up), I really appreciated the impact of this program on these students and I would love to have e-pals in the future. I have included Ms. Babbitt's tips at the conclusion of this post for things to keep in mind when facilitating global connections.
Tips for global friends1. timing and putting in time
2. Get parental support
4. Learn and send video.
5. Keep trying; don't give up.
6. Share the Process.
8. Connect and reconnect.
2. Get parental support
- Approval first
- Keep parents updated- emails, videos, etc.
4. Learn and send video.
5. Keep trying; don't give up.
6. Share the Process.
- Share successes with community, school board
8. Connect and reconnect.
Dynamic Landscapes Friday Opening Keynote reflection
I really got a lot from Steve Hargadon's Education, Technology, Social Media, and You! presentation. The world is really one giant learning network. We can facilitate our global learning by participating in the Global Education Conference presented online between November 12-17.
Mr. Hargadon's main point was that technology, culture, and education were intertwined; therefore: Technology shifts ➡ Culture shifts ➡ Education shifts. Technology shifts include the rise of social networking, global productivity, and personal mobility. Cultural shifts lead to an increase in participation, creation, sharing, and engagement in a interconnected society. Some examples of cultural shifts are featured below:
- Participation- yelp, amazon customer reviews, peer professional development, etc.
- Creation- Instagram, blogs, online portfolio
- Sharing- Wikipedia, creative commons
- Engagement- gaming
The technology component of this is rather obviouSs in this growing and changing technology driven world. With the advent of social networking and Web 2.0, culture and therefore education must change to fit a new paradigm and appeal to our students. The students of today do not learn the same ways that you or I learned when we were attending primary and secondary school and therefore, they cannot be taught the same way we were taught. We need to step up and become educational leaders and make the change we wish to see in the world of education. Mr. Hargadon outlined a list of actions for us to become lead networkers and lead learners which I have outlined below.
1. (Re-)Discover Your Interests
2. Build Your Personal Learning Network (PLN)
3. Start Building a Personal Web Presence (PWP)
4. Become a Part of the Conversation
I really enjoyed his presentation because I think we do have to vastly change our way of thinking concerning education and make some serious changes to meet the needs of our students.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Dynamic Landscapes reflections~ Closing Keynote
The closing session Thursday was a set of lightning talks presented by many different educators on a variety of topics. I will link readers to the full presentation here: Thursday Closing Keynote. I have only technically crowdsourced a few of the topics below.
Crowd-sourcing
Crowd-sourcing
- Life in a Day Project
- Kick starter-funds creative projects
- Google Tools
- Interesting Ways series
- People around the world contribute ideas
- 100 Schools Map
- Drop a pin near your school location.
- Used with 100 Days of School celebrations
- Inaturalist.org- science projects
- VT Atlas of Life
- Allows for student submissions, graded like research
- Piggybankr- fundraising site like Kickstarter
- Powerful learning environments created because of digital tools
- Learningwithlucie.com
- Twitter: @techsavvygirl
- Young Writers Project, Music Composition, Kids Blog, Blogger
- 802 YouTube video
Google Hangout by Jess Wilson (Twitter: @wilsonjess) Tech Integrationist- Connecting, sharing, learning
- Meet with colleagues
- Take snapshots of the hangout
- Google Drive integration-share and view files
- Text chat function to have group or private conversations
- Screen share option
- Add video from YouTube
Wonder blogging Twitter: @aimeevt- Wonderopolis+ blogging platform of choice
- New wonder everyday, can search for specific topics, connect to curriculum
- On MONDAY, teachers pick a wonder. Students blog about it for 15-20 mins each day. Students brainstorm ideas
- TUESDAY- students read and comment on friends' blogs, ask questions, add more information
- WEDNESDAY- reveal answer, students add what they learned in a different color
- Common Core iPad app
- P21 toolkit (PDF)
- Wes Fryer- great at this, @wfryer and wesfryer.com
- Chrome Webstore Add-ons
- Teaching channels
- Digital annotations using Diigo
- Interactive Language Arts blog
- Live Binder- Integration into Common Core
- Vermont Department of Education- Common Core in VT
Connect Globally Donna Macdonald- Twitter/ Skype/ Edmodo
- Sept.- International Dot Day (K-1)
- Oct. Global Read Aloud
- Nov. I Spy in the Community
- Research places in the community, create voice threads, comment, with students on Staten Island
- Dec. Mystery Skype- Skype in Classroom
- Jan. Authors on Twitter and Skype, DCF authors
- Feb. Edmodo pen pals- South Africa and Texas
- Mar. World Read Aloud Day, Read Across America Day
- Apr. Poem in your Pocket Day
- May Skype in Classroom- Yellowstone Rangers, weather data across the world, Children's Book Week
- Lego kits $130
- Weedo Software $300
- Take pictures, capture things
- Drawing apps-drawing pad
- Storyboard apps- Popplet, Mindmeister
- Various apps- Corkulous, Scrap it, Feltboard
- Tag cloud (like Wordle and Tagxedo)
- Video and Animation apps- Puppet Pals HD, iMotion HD, iMovie
- Whiteboard apps
- Garage Band
- QR codes
Breaking Open School- Mixed Devices- Wireless access, BYOD
- Tech led workshops, etc.
- Google Sketchup
- Tweeting across grade levels
- Powerful learning environments created because of digital tools
Dynamic Landscapes reflections~Glorious Nonfiction
Presented by Leda Schubert, this session did a great job outlining how to use nonfiction texts to meet the Common Core standards. Unfortunately for me, the presentation focused on great books to use with second graders but I kept in mind that picture books can also be great tools for secondary school students and some of the basic principles we discussed applied to my age level.
- The Common Core emphasizes discussion, analysis, and evaluation.
- Standards are best met by expository, persuasive, procedural, and narrative texts.
- Nonfiction aims to answer: who, what, where, when, why, and how
Different kinds of nonfiction:
- Narrative- tells a story
- Survey- overview of a topic
- Concept- abstract ideas/ classifications
- Specialized- a closer look at a specific topic
- Biography/ Autobiography/ Memoir
- How-to/ Process/ Procedural
- Data- fast facts
- Expository- facts plus additional information
- Disciplinary Thinking
- Inquiry
- Interpretation
- Action
Dynamic Landscapes reflections~ DCF and GMBA
Vermont has a plethora of student choice book awards. They are: the Red Clover Book Award (grades K-4), DCF Children's Book Award (grades 4-8), and the Green Mountain Book Award (grades 9-12). As an incoming middle school/ high school librarian, I attended sessions discussing the DCF and GMBA books.
There were a lot of great books on both lists. I was interested in the overall presentations. We found some interesting themes in the GMBA book lists: fun, fantasy, and horror (and also oddly enough, cancer and dead parents seemed to be popular themes as well.) The overall presentations consisted of book talks and discussions about the process of the nominations, etc. It was recently announced that The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen won this year's DCF award. I look forward to reading many of the books on both of these lists over the summer! I also applied to become a member of the GMBA committee. *fingers crossed*
The book websites are listed below:
DCF Book award
Green Mountain Book Award
There were a lot of great books on both lists. I was interested in the overall presentations. We found some interesting themes in the GMBA book lists: fun, fantasy, and horror (and also oddly enough, cancer and dead parents seemed to be popular themes as well.) The overall presentations consisted of book talks and discussions about the process of the nominations, etc. It was recently announced that The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen won this year's DCF award. I look forward to reading many of the books on both of these lists over the summer! I also applied to become a member of the GMBA committee. *fingers crossed*
The book websites are listed below:
DCF Book award
Green Mountain Book Award
Dyanmic Landscapes Conference: Opening Keynote reflection
In a long overdue set of posts, I would like to reflect on my experiences attending the VITA-LEARN Dynamic Landscapes conference in Burlington, VT last month. I was excited to learn about many new ideas to bring back to my library and meet many new colleagues from the Green Mountain State including some teachers from my school. I can't thank my new principal enough for this amazing opportunity.
I began the conference signing up for the Vermont School Librarians Association and was excited to learn my first year membership is free! I had great interactions with Grace, in charge of recruitment, and met many other VSLA members throughout the conference.
Open Keynote: Moving Toward Iridescence: Space, Technology, Pedagogy, Culture~ presented by Ira David Socol and Pam Moran
This innovative pair discussed the Seven Paths to Recreate Education.
I began the conference signing up for the Vermont School Librarians Association and was excited to learn my first year membership is free! I had great interactions with Grace, in charge of recruitment, and met many other VSLA members throughout the conference.
Open Keynote: Moving Toward Iridescence: Space, Technology, Pedagogy, Culture~ presented by Ira David Socol and Pam Moran
This innovative pair discussed the Seven Paths to Recreate Education.
- Interactive Technologies
- Maker-infused curriculum
- Choice and Comfort
- Connectivity
- Universal Desgin/ Differentiation
- Project Based/ Passion Based Learning
- Instructional Tolerance
Some interesting points they made throughout their presentation:
- The use of wiggle chairs which allow students to move while sitting in class
- Students need for natural light, fresh air, and large muscle movement.
- The worst place for teachers to encourage writing is on a piece of paper. Chalkboards are designed for creativity.
- Most students cap at a sixth grade reading level.
- School libraries are contagious creativities.
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