Learning to use Seesaw to draw and record

Seesaw drawing Day 1

Blended and Personalized Learning Conference

I wanted to attend this conference as technology is once again being heralded as the source for individualizing learning and this seemed like a good conference to get some updates on what is happening in schools. 

Lunchtime speaker Richard Culatta, former head of the US Office of Technology Education and recently named Rhode Island's first Chief Innovation Officer talked about being very careful about the words we use in describing "personalized learning". The definition in the recent National Technology Plan is the following:

Personalized learning refers to instruction in which the pace of learning and the instructional approach are optimized for the needs of each learner. Learning objectives, instructional approaches, and instructional content (and its sequencing) all may vary based on learner needs. In addition, learning activities are meaningful and relevant to learners, driven by their interests, and often self-initiated. (tech.ed.gov/netp/)

This definition sounds more like our efforts to implement Genius Hour based on individual student passion for learning than the companies that are providing branching learning using algorithms that are largely unproven and untested. In a recent blog post Alfie Kohn spoke to the use of "personalized" vs. "personal" learning:

If you haven’t given much thought to the kind of intellectual life we might want schools to foster, then it might sound exciting to “personalize” or “customize” learning. But as I argued not long ago, we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with personal learning. The first involves adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores, and it requires the purchase of software. The second involves working with each student to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests, and it requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well. (http://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/ed-tech/)

As I ponder this new trend I find that I continue to be dubious about the potential for corporate solutions for meeting the cognitive needs of our students. While I think that there is a place for online practice and even tutorials, the time must be allotted for teachers to review student progress, meet with students and work closely with colleagues to determine the learning paths for students.

As an update, today (4/26/16) Will Richardson posted about his concerns about personalized learning "products".

Hour of Code - Computer Science Week - December 7-11, 2015

For the third year our students will participate in the Computer Science Week "Hour of Code" in early December. The materials and resources that are posted on the HOC website support learning by tens of millions of students worldwide.

Our plan is for first graders to use the iPad App Kodable, gathering all the iPads so that each student has one for the class time that day. The 2nd graders will use the web version of The Foos to explore planning steps, repeating and building some programming loops. Third grade students will use the Lightbot Hour of Code site to move into the next levels of logical thinking and programming. By fourth grade students have a wider range of experience with coding and programming so they can learn to program the Frozen characters, create in Scratch, solve puzzles in a Minecraft game, build a Star Wars Galaxy and more. Students enjoy revisiting the Blockly Angry Birds Puzzles, coding a Flappy Birds game and many other activities that introduce the concepts of programming and game development.

Why Teach Google Earth: what are 2nd graders learning?

Second graders study communities, with one focus being our school garden and observing plants and animals. To help with learning about butterflies the technology connections include using the Journey North materials on the migration of monarch butterflies.

The teacher uses a classroom projector to show students the maps that show the path of the butterflies as they migrate to Mexico. After students have seen the maps they can use Google Earth to visit the states that they have seen pictured on the maps. As a literacy skill they learn that there are two letter post office abbreviations that they can enter in the search box to "fly to" a new state (e.g. MA, NH, MN, TX) and then zoom in and out to view the overall colors and features of the landscapes that give them visual cues as to the topography. What can they see when they travel? (Questions: Does the state of Minnesota look like the state of Texas? What do you see? What do you think the land looks like there?) What is going on in their minds as they change the view to go closer and then zoom back out to view the state boundaries and country borders? Is there a mathematical-spatial learning process going on?

Recently I've been reading about "partner learning" and the power of having students talk out loud about their explorations and questions. For this session using Google Earth we paired the students and had a "navigator" enter the search text and a "pilot" who pressed Return or clicked on Search to "fly" to a new destination.

What are students learning as they "fly", "zoom" and explore a virtual earth? The engagement in the room is full of, "What ifs?" and wondering as they talk about going N, S, E, W, look at the geographic features like lakes, mountain ranges and deserts. They are talking about countries, continents, oceans and more as they move around and explore. They are asking basic questions about typing on the laptops, finding letters, the space bar, delete key, etc.

A classroom teacher wrote a blog post about the session and the inclusion of a follow up activity where students went to see their own homes and explored the town. Part of the power of this lesson was the collaboration between the classroom teacher and my role as instructional integrator.

EdCamp OOB

July 28th was the first Edcamp launched by a team of Old Orchard Beach educators. Over 100 area instructional technology, media/library and classroom teachers gathered to share ideas and learn from each other. The structure of this Edcamp was the usual plan of an open board that becomes a set of sessions when teachers put stickies up and organizers move them around to combine ideas and place sessions.

I attended sessions on "Genius Hour", Makerspaces and apps for early learning. I have a new set of resources to share from each of the sessions. Alice and I both attended the Makerspaces session, the notes on this shared doc.  Mike and I went to the session on implementing the Genius Hour concept. I would like to work with teachers on the possibility of implementing a spring fourth grade unit, Billy Corcoran share his doc that describes what his 4th grade classroom did last year along these lines. He used his literacy block on Friday mornings. 

I spent the 3rd session with Libby Corcoran who is a special educator who is also an app developer. I will be reviewing her app The Reading Train with our Kindergarten team. The app allows for individual logins and is organized into leveled books. Students can hear the books, read on their own or record themselves reading. Libby also has .pdfs of the Level 1 books that can be printed and sent home with students. I was very impressed by her story of becoming an app developer and I think this app may well be just what we have been looking for as a way to support literacy learning with the K iPads. Libby also shared a list of apps that she thinks are of value; this will be helpful as well in getting started with our second year of iPads in K and our third year in first grade.

Teaching and Learning with iPads - USM 2015

USM EPC 576 Teaching and Learning with the iPad

This summer there were fifteen K-12 educators who spent the middle week of July working toward new ways to use iPads in their classrooms. The collaborative and individual projects shared on the last day of the course were the highlights of the week. My goal in teaching the course is to give teachers enough of a start to bring about something significant as the school year unfolds.

Engaging Learners Using Technology - Yarmouth Course

The week after students finish classes is traditionally the beginning of the Yarmouth Technology Course, this year entitled Engaging Learners Using Technology. A group of about twenty educators, three who are not Yarmouth teachers, met to challenge themselves to look at an instructional area or unit that could be changed to increase the engagement of learners through the use of technology. The animated, collaborative conversations culminate in "Shark Tank" style pitches for project ideas submitted by each individual or team. There will be a half day on a Saturday in September for teachers to get assistance with projects and then the final day will be presentations by all participants on a Saturday in October.

Second Graders Learn to Program with "The Foos"

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Second graders used "The Foos" for Hour of Code in December. There has been considerable interest in returning to this problem-solving, logical thinking activity this year. The website: http://thefoos.com has links to download the free app for iPads, iPhones, Android devices and computers if families are interested.

Girls Who Code through YCS After School

Following the ideas and activities from the Hour of Code, this is the first year that we have gathered a group of fifteen girls to focus on the ideas of logical thinking and programming. The resource page for the class serves as starting point for the group to create, collaborate and design.

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RI Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit 2015

This past weekend was the first Rhode Island Google Summit. Google educators joined members of EdTech Team to offer sessions to 380+ educators from Rhode Island and neighboring states. During each Google Summit the sessions range for the technical information needed for administering Google Apps in a district to how teachers can use any and all of the Google products in classroom settings. 

I offered sessions on using GAFE with iPads, Blogger: The School to Home Connection, and Jazzing up your Sites and Blogs. I attended several sessions when I wasn't teaching and came away inspired by ideas for empowering our students to collaborate with each other and share their products beyond the confines of the school.

EdTech Teacher Google Jamboree

Alice Barr, Mike Arsenault and I joined 200 educators at Google Boston headquarters to learn and share the ideas of curiosity, creativity and learning that matters. The message from the EdTech Teacher presenters and the panel of Google employees was that schools should prepare students to be flexible thinkers, thoughtful collaborators and continuous learners. 

Jennie Magiera (who blogs at http://www.teachinglikeits2999.com/ and on EdWeek) showed stories and videos from her life as a technology support facilitator in the Chicago public schools. A big takeaway for me was to help our kids share their messages more on YouTube. Here is a video by some of Jennie's students that was shown at the recent White House Film Fest:

I'm thinking, what if we did a persuasive writing project that had some students select an iMovie trailer or another video format to share their message? Can we support that given the time constraints that exist? What learning goals would be met by doing this type of project?

Jennie also did a session on using tablets. In her case the devices were Nexus 7s, but the activities could also work with an iPad. We toured the Google building with a scavenger hunt list. Our assignment was to take a selfie with each item, put the photos into a group Drive folder which was also in a shared folder so that everyone could see them. This would be a good faculty session for building the concept of shared Drive folders as well as familiarity with taking photos with mobile devices. Then we explored using the app Explain Everything to create screencast videos that could then be sent to Drive for shared projects or viewing.

Other sessions focussed on using Chrome apps and extensions for things like screencasting or video notes and creating "plan your own adventure" YouTube videos.

ACTEM Mini-conference 2015

Once again ACTEM is offering some half day sessions for teachers and school technology personnel. The southern sessions are being held at South Portland High School. Sessions are described here: http://actem.wildapricot.org/event-1819928 and the website for all the workshop resources is here: https://sites.google.com/a/yarmouthschools.org/actem-2015-mini-conference. It's great to have the opportunity to work with small groups of teachers from many school districts. Thursday we will be at Hampden Academy to work with teachers from schools in that area.

Background of 1:1 iPad Proposal for Grade 1

Maine Digital Festival - Project Login

Project Login set up the first Digital Festival to coincide with robotics competitions held at the Augusta Civic Center. I volunteered as part of the networking I do with others in the state. I worked with children of a range of ages who were exploring the Hour of Code activities on computers and tablets. For photos and more information, this is the link:
http://projectlogin.com/news/over-200-attended-first-maine-digital-festival

Hungry Fish Math App

What makes a good app? This is a question that is often asked, by educators and parents. There are numerous rubrics for reviewing and lists by subject and age. We have found that we focus our use at Rowe School on a few apps that have a range of skills that fit our standards, utilize the touch screen and movement features of the iPad, adjust with the student as s/he learns and supports individual progress through the learning for the many students who share iPads.

This fall we are teaching first grade students to use Hungry Fish independently for building number sense and an understanding of the process of addition. As concrete learners they are building on many experiences of seeing quantities combined and put together to make smaller amounts into larger amounts. The process of memorizing addition facts and moving beyond counting single items is a cognitive development that is a fascinating process and one that takes each child on their own path of accomplishment.

How does Hungry Fish fit into this learning process? A student sees a fish with a total on it and bubbles come onto the screen with numbers on each one. In the screen shown above, the student would use a finger to move the 1 bubble to the 2 bubble (or vice versa) and they blend into one bubble showing the value of 3. The fish pursues bubbles that match the amount shown on the fish or students move the bubble toward the mouth of the fish. The fish responds to being "fed" bubbles by getting larger, if no bubbles are available with the correct amount then the fish gets smaller and smaller until a message comes up asking the student to try again.

There are many aspects of this "app" that make good use of the features of the iPad. The colors are vibrant and appealing, the students are drawn to the friendly looking fish and they like taking care of it by feeding it. There is pleasant music in the background, or in a busy classroom the sound can be off and it doesn't affect the use of the app. The student is making something happen on the screen by combining numbers and visualizing amounts that could be put together. There isn't any timer operating, bubbles appear and fade in a random fashion that keeps students interested. At times I have found that I want to prompt the students to always combine two bubbles to make the "correct" answer. The more I have watched them play I have realized that there is value in combining and seeing the results of the combinations, whether they match the fish or not. The motivation of feeding the fish and moving on to a new fish seems to have an effect all by itself of moving students to match the amount on the fish whenever they can.

One of the goals of our use of iPads is developing independent learners who can use an app and adjust it to an appropriate level for their own learning. Each time a student completes a fish the app moves up in difficulty level. Students learn what the best level is for them to work effectively on the math learning and how to reset it when it moves ahead too quickly. This video clip shows a few seconds of student interaction with the app.

On a random basis the students are given the option to change the colors on the fish when they finish some of the screens. While this may seem like a waste of time during math lesson it is very motivating for students and it encourages them to think about color, design and creative choices. 

The app includes a version of addition that has a fish that is an adversary to the hungry fish. This fish eats any combination that is not a match for the hungry fish and if it gets large enough it eats the hungry fish. This game doesn't appeal to all, but for some it is a choice that adds a challenge of accuracy that they are ready for an keeps them engaged. As they are ready students can move to the other operations: Subtraction, Multiplication and Division.

Thinking about 1:1 Laptops and Innovation Learning

I came away from the annual ACTEM conference this year with questions about where we are going in Maine with personalized learning (Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning was published in early 2011 and sent to all Superintendents). The schools that have been piloting standards-based learning and 1:1 iPads are modeling an ungraded, individualized approach to elementary education that is far from the more traditional, whole group instruction going on in most schools. What is best for students? I wonder what direction we will be going in the majority of districts that have not been included in the pilot programs.

Based on the powerful learning opportunities I heard about in some sessions I couldn't help but wish for more iPads and a 1:1 scenario for our early learners, perhaps even through 4th grade. I'm trying to figure out if that is a proposal that we should be putting forward as we think about the next few years of planning and K-12 expenditures for technology. In the meantime I want to push us to make the most use of the the 1:1 laptops we have in the 3rd and 4th grade classrooms.

What does that look like? It looks like using the computers to record reading, take pictures and videos, having kids draw, using online tools like WeVideo for collaborative video, Voicethread, Animoto, and Comic creators. Teachers can use Kahoot!, Socrative and Google Forms for interactions between teachers and students on their laptops.

Upcoming team meetings and times in classrooms are important times for conversations with teachers about these expanded ways of using the laptops. We have an energetic set of teachers who are all using all of our technology resources as part of their instructional process. A challenge I see is putting more of the autonomy on the students to show us how they choose to learn and then to share that learning through writing, drawing, video or whatever medium they find best for expressing their ideas.

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Google Apps for Education and iPads - ACTEM 2014 Session

Hour of Code - Grades K-5

SCRATCH for Teachers at MIT Media Lab

In the beautiful facility on the 6th floor of the glass and metal structure that house the MIT Media Lab I joined an invigorating group of 250 international educators here to learn more about using Scratch in learning settings. Over coffee I reconnected with Maureen Tumenas who always has great ideas and latest teaching explorations to share. I met a 17 year old high school student from Mexico who is a budding coder who also teaches coding to "junior school" students. We talked about the issue of encouraging more girls to explore computer science and programming and apparently in Mexico they offer a girls only option after school which I am doing for the first time this winter.

Mitch Resnick started us off with a keynote on where we've been and where we are going with Scratch. One of his key points was that the concept of learning to code is limited, but the true power is coding to learn. We teach writing as a literacy, how can we teach exploring with coding as a literacy? The 4 Ps he emphasizes are Projects-Peers-Passion-Play.

They are generous with breaks to collaborate and meet educators, so far I have met people from Mexico and Italy, as well as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas and New Hampshire. The weather is drawing us outdoors to enjoy the Boston Skyline.

The morning session was presented by the authors of the newly released Scratch Curriculum Guide which is available from: http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/guide/. They are working on a younger learners' guide as well as a set of student pages. The title "Creative Computing" stays with the theme of the purpose of Scratch being the individual creative element supporting exploration and not just procedures. 

During the session I learned that one of the ways to have students reflect on their program is to add comment blocks into the program and that I can set up a "studio" to collect projects online.

The afternoon session focused on math concepts that can be explained by creating projects in Scratch. The presenter's resources are at http://sites.jcdsboston.org/scratchmath/. The group discussion included ideas about connecting projects to various subject areas.