IT's Elementary

Empowering, Encouraging, Equipping Educators and Students

Entries Tagged as 'Learning'

How Do We Help? Part 3

March 10, 2013 · 2 Comments · Connected educator, Learning, Tech tools

Flat Classroom in Yokohama finished today, but it is far from ended. You can see an incredible final student presentation here. The videos are awesome and awe inspiring. What passion and desire to make a change. While some of the students were furiously working on this presentation and videos the rest of us continued our learning.

The teachers and students not involved in creating the videos or final presentation were learning about emerging technologies.

  1. 3D Printing
  2. Cloud Computing
  3. Crowd Sourcing
  4. Digital Identity
  5. Electronic Publishing
  6. Flipped Classroom
  7. Games and Gamification
  8. Gesture-based Computing
  9. Open Content
  10. Social Media
  11. Virtual and Remote Laboratories
  12. Virtual Worlds

The teachers divided into 12 groups and 2 students joined each group. We did some research to find out about how one of these are or might be used in the classroom and then the students moved from table to table sharing with the teachers. Once again, the poise and knowledge and insight of the students was wonderful. You can find out more about these on the Flat Classroom wiki or wait for the K-12 Horizon white paper to come out. There are so many things to explore and learn about, but the best thing to do is to choose 1 or 2 and become comfortable with those, then add to your tool box. Find others in your school who are willing to collaborate or who have chosen some different tools and then share your expertise. No one can know or begin to image all that is possible, but little by little with the constant sharing of ideas we will all grow and learn as educators.

Since it is Sunday evening and I have school tomorrow morning, this will be short. But check out the Flat Classroom website and look for a conference that you might attend in person or virtually. If you want to see photos from the conference there are many on Flickr. A HUGE thank you to Julie Lindsay and Kim Cofino, along with all the other presenters and behind the scene workers. It was a fabulous conference!

 

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How Can We Help? Part 2

March 9, 2013 · 4 Comments · Connected educator, Learning

Day 2 of Flat Classroom 2013 is ended. WOW!

How our day began!

2013 Flat Classroom Conference

Such energy and fabulous  ideas of how to use Web 2.0 tools to collaborate, create and change our world. We started the day with Future Learning Action Talks(Flats). Alan Levine began by sharing several amazing and inspiring stories including how and why the web was created: to have a common space we can share. But even its creator, Tim Berners-Lee could not have imagined what it has grown into. Today, anybody can link to anything. How will we help our students to create a vision of what they can do to use the web to change the future? Yesterday I was fortunate to attend one of the sessions Alan did on editing sound and creating a story just with sound. Maybe that will be one of the activities I use at summer camp. Here are 2 of the websites he recommended: audacity and free sound.

Sharon Brown-Peters from the American School in Bombay shared next. Sharon’s passion is educational technology and service projects.  Many have seen the following video but if you have never seen it, please take 3 minutes to watch.

Sharon was also sharing her photojournalism project. So often when a disaster happens the media is there, but after the initial crisis who is there to tell the stories of the rebuilding? One of her students has worked on to tell the story of a girl in India. Students can reach out to other students and share their stories. Some of these stories may be “picked up” by the larger news agencies. It is “Your Voice, Your Choice.” How will you use your voice to change the life of even one person?  Next February will be ASB Un-Plugged.

We spent a good part of the morning working on a storyboard to pitch our idea of Temporary Spaces.

Flat Classroom Conference Japan 2013

Here is the google doc presentation we pitched. We heard 8 student teams pitch their ideas and 7 teacher teams. So many great ideas on how we can make a difference. Tomorrow we will hear and see the final presentations of 8 student teams and 6 teacher teams. We only heard half of the group today and each half chose 4 student teams and 3 teacher teams.(I think) There will also be one virtual team presentation. It was interesting that bullying was a topic mentioned by 2 of the student teams. One of the groups will present Bullying anonymous tomorrow. Another student group is We C.A.N., their idea is 5 steps: spread the word, collect money, hire people in a disaster affected area to clean a neighborhood, have the neighborhood cleaned and repeat. Not only helping to clean up, but giving back to the community by hiring local people who may be without a job. Another student team is called Internection building a community with the international school community as a way of reaching out to local areas that have experienced a disaster. The last student team from our group is working on Donations with Organizations. All of these ideas came from the students and tomorrow we’ll see from the other group of students as well.

The teacher’s ideas were equally inspiring. The three top ones in our group were 4+1. The idea that we have school on 4 days and the 5th day is a day for creating, service projects, etc. Google has done this with giving their employees 20% of their time to play and create what they want. Another one is Smashing Stereotypes by connecting schools to help tear down stereotypes. The last one is the Shoji Foundation. One of my favorites was Kids2Kids. This was somewhat along the lines of what Sharon had shared with students telling the stories. But sending disposable cameras to an area and allowing the children there to take photos and tell their story. The collaborating class would work with editing those stories and getting them out on the web. I would like to try something like this with the orphanage we have a connection to in the Philippines and with a school in Kenya that I know of.

After listening to so many pitches and being challenged to think about how we can provide  platforms for changing our world I would have thought we were done. But Julie Lindsay had one more activity for us – Kung Fu 2.0. Each teacher was asked to choose a favorite Web 2.0 tool to pitch to another person. We stood in 2 lines facing each other, the people in one line had about 2 minutes to share their idea with the person across the line. Then we moved down the line and the opposite side shared. We did this for 4 rounds. I shared Storybird a great writing tool for individuals and collaboration. I heard about SketchUp and InstaGrok. What a great way to share new ideas and create interest among colleagues.

As I reflect on “What is next?” my mind seems to be swimming. I know I want to begin by contacting the orphanage in the Philippines and Kononia Education Centre in Kenya and see how my class my connect and collaborate with their students. I also want to share with my colleagues and encourage them to connect to other classrooms. Our senior students are all required to do a senior comprehensive project where they choose a global issue and complete the following.

  • A research portfolio
  • A writing portfolio
  • A hands-on project
  • An oral presentation.

What I would like to see is our elementary teachers connect their classes and begin building the foundation of volunteering. Then some of our middle school students become involved in Flat Classroom conferences where they interact with other students from other schools who want to make a difference. By the time they reach high school they will have seen problems with a variety of possible solutions. Choosing  a problem and creating a hands-on project will be easy and they will already be familiar with resources and tools they have used in elementary and middle school. I know the staff at my school are always eager to help, especially in a disaster, but how can and will they translate that into the classroom? Hopefully one step at a time as they see what can be done. What will you do to make a change?

If you want to see some of Flat Classroom check it out here or visit the wiki.

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Google Apps for Education Summit

February 10, 2013 · 4 Comments · Connected educator, Learning

Just spent 2 incredible days of learning and connecting at Google Apps for Education Summit Tokyo. The theme was Passion, Play and Purpose. How do we bring those into the classroom? The Keynote speakers:  Rushton Hurley, Jim Sill and Wendy Gorton were very inspiring. Also enjoyed sessions by each of them and a few other presenters: Linda Hayakawa and Kaori Hakone, Travis Ion and Chris Smith.

“Technology in the hands of a good teacher can make great things happen.” by Rushton Hurley the creator of Next Vista for Learning. His website is well worth exploring along with his Free resources. Technology levels the playing field and we have to accept that sometimes our great ideas will bomb, but with the students’ input we can work to create something even better the next time. Rushton also did a workshop on Getting Teachers to Go Google – What to do and not to do. He used an analogy from the theme song for Beverly Hillbillies.

Jed and his family moved to Beverly Hills, but fundamentally didn’t change. Am I moving forward? Or am I holding on to ideas and ways of doing things that need to change with my new environment. I need to stay true to myself, but am I willing to try some of the new fangled gadgets that could and will make parts of my life easier or am I just going to keep on doing it the way I’ve always done it because it is familiar and easy?

Rushton reminded us that it really isn’t about the technology but about exploring and connecting with our students and possibly other staff members. We all know that our schools and our own teaching can use improvement but when we talk of “changes” many people become fearfully. Respect that fear and allow lots of opportunities to play. One other analogy he made was of a red button. A child will push it to see what happens, adults will ask “What does it do?” before pushing it. We all need to find that inner child. I can relate to that as for a long time I was reluctant and scared to “try” new things on the computer. I had a bad experience that I wrote about here. In the last year and a half with the encouragement of Coetail I’ve taken on many new challenges with technology. In fact, next school year I will be the elementary technology facilitator for my school.

Jim Sill was the keynote speaker this morning. He played Madonna’s song, Material Girl. What kind of world are we living in today? A Twitter World, An Instagram World, A YouTube World, GoPro World. What kind of world do you live in? How can I foster creativity in my students? Sir Ken Robinson states, “We teach creativity right out of kids.” Young children come to school believing they are great artists and well they should. We are all created in the image of God, God is the creator of all things and it was good! How would you fill in the blanks:

We are living in a ___________world &                                                             We are ______________ girls/boys.

Wendy Gorton is a lady with an incredible amount of energy and passion for helping others to learn and be connected. Her passion is infectious and even though she speaks like a bullet train, the learning happens. I got good resources and ideas. I look forward to sharing some of her resources with others as they fit into the curriculum.

Some of the workshops also gave me practical help in creating forms, documents and wikis. One form I created was

I have 8 responses already that I look forward to sharing with my students and then having them fill out the same form. I still need to figure out how to create something from the spreadsheet and answers but that will be for another day. Thank you to Chris Smith for the ideas and time to play.

The one bad point of the whole weekend was that I have laryngitis and was not able to talk with anyone. I’m glad for twitter and a pen and paper. If you have the opportunity to attend a Google Apps for Education Summit I would HIGHLY recommend you attend and if possible take along a few colleagues. I’m glad for my Coetail cohorts I could reconnect with but was lonely being the only one from my school. Next time, I’m taking someone or more that one with me!

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Goal Setting

January 6, 2013 · No Comments · Learning

On Monday, I will be having my students look at the list of “hard things” they wrote in August and reviewed in October. Our school wide theme for this year is “Do Hard Things” based on this book. Each student and class was encouraged to decide on what “hard thing” they would do this year. I want them to reflect on how they are doing, but also decide on some goals to set for the rest of the year. I’ve also decided that I need to set some goals and share those with the students. Before I share my new goals I’d like to share some of the hard things I’ve done and the process I’ve gone through to determine my goals.

Last year I decided to try  some hard things, some before the school year even began. In April I started a program designed to make healthy and smarter choices. With the jump start in April I continued walking and eating less and have lost about 20 kg. I’m still working on toning up some of the muscles and want to keep the weight and inches off. In November I went on a zip line through the jungles of Thailand and rode an elephant through the jungle.

I also made a decision to step out of the second grade classroom and into a new position(more on that later).

Last Sunday, during the children’s message the kids were encouraged to “Eat this Book” a program from Blackhawk church. I decided to check it out. Last year I had started a program to read through the Bible but lost traction somewhere along the way. This year I’ve downloaded the app to my iPhone and so I can listen to it. I’ve been listening in the morning but it may go to when I’m making dinner. At least I’ve started and plan to continue.

Last week a friend posted her blog on facebook. As I read it, I was reminded and challenged to set my priorities straight. Then I read Ann Voskamp’s blog, I had read her book One Thousand Gifts last year and although I have tried to write down my blessings I keep falling short. I am trying to tweet 3 each day. My 3 for today. My bag-my iPhone with photos + many apps not just for telephoning, my fridge-ham and veggie soup for lunch, my heart-family. Each day has a new challenge to find 3 gifts. Some days are more challenging than other days.

As important as giving credit to my father for his many blessings is I know I need to know him more and so I am taking the challenge to memorize Romans 1, 8, and 12 this year. I am hoping to find a walking buddy who I can say the verses to and who will hold me accountable.

So tomorrow before I ask the students to write their goals for the rest of this school year I want to share some of my goals with them.

  1. To memorize Romans 1, 8 and 12 by December.(They can ask me how I’m doing and hold me accountable too. Maybe I need to put my name on the Bible memory chart.)
  2. Read/listen to the Bible everyday so I can read through the entire Bible by December.
  3. Participate in a book discussion on teaching matters most by McCann, Jones and Aronoff. This will happen with other department chairs beginning the end of January.
  4. Write on this blog 1-2 times a month.
  5. Keep on walking everyday.

Although the Coetail course has finished I know I need to keep on learning and growing as an educator. Next school year my position at school will change. I will no longer be in the second grade classroom as a teacher but I will be the elementary technology facilitator. I will continue as head teacher and will probably have some other responsibilities. I am really excited about the change but know it will be a challenge and I have much to learn. It was interesting that when I told my son, he asked,”Are you having a mid-life crisis?” My one daughter said, “I can’t believe it!” When she lived at home I was always asking her help with the computer! I am not having a crisis and I am very thankful for the Kim Cofino and the other wonderful instructors at YIS who have given me confidence to step out of my comfort zone and work with the other educators in the elementary department to continue to integrate technology.

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ICEC Chiang Mai 2012

November 24, 2012 · No Comments · Learning

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3 John 1:4 NIV ”Teaching Children Truth” was the conference theme. ICEC (International Christian Educator’s Conference) is sponsored by Association of Christian Schools International(ACSI). The conference was hosted by Grace International School, Chiang Mai, Thailand and held at the Empress Hotel, Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was well organized and nice to be able to attend the workshops right in the hotel and conference center next to the hotel. Thank you to all who made the conference what it was.

What are some of my take aways from the conference?

Beginning with the first general session – Living the Christ-Centered Life by Dr. Bill Brown from Cedarville University. Dr. Brown asked, “Where have all the dreamers gone?” There is a loss of spiritual foundation, of truth and morality and of meaningful symbols. What do we celebrate in our schools? What awards and rewards do we give? How do we restore the dream? Begin with Jesus, live a life of example~loving and serving the Lord. Where have all the dreamers gone? They are in my classroom. What am I doing to provide them with opportunities to have a vision of how they can impact the world for Christ?

The first workshop I attended was Finding God in Children’s Literature by John McCracken from Indiana Wesleyan University. He asked each of us to write about “Where have I seen God in unexpected places?” The Bible is full of unexpected places God shows himself. He continues today to show himself in many unexpected places including children’s picture books. But to find God in secular literature you need to study the God of the Bible and understand his character and his truths. To lead students to find the truths in literature we need to begin with the “grand conversations” and not the comprehension questions. Start with the BIG IDEA not the inconsequential details, reflect on what God’s word says, support children in a deeper meaning of the text and point to the truth. Dr. McCracken shared Arlene the Sardine by Christopher Raschka. It is a book well worth checking out and reading. What is the truth in the story? Arlene wants to be a sardine, but what is it that she needs to sacrifice to get what she wants? Read the book to find out.

It was amazing and encouraging to hear about how God is working in many countries in Asia and around the world. An offering was taken on Friday morning to support ACSI Leadership Training. One leader equips hundreds of educators who transform thousands of students. A total of $5016.41 was collected by the 600+ educators at the conference. In the old Spiderman movie there was a line, “With great power comes great responsibility.” As educators we have the power to influence, to dream, to impart truth but mostly a responsibility to pray for our students.

Friday morning, Dr. Tim Stuart, principal of Singapore American School spoke. 90% of all students are at risk of not reaching their potential. The “privileged” students that many of us interact with in international schools are at an even higher risk than many of the traditionally “at risk” students. Our students are more likely to “self-medicate,” have anxiety disorders, depression, and more. What is the definition of “success” at your school? Generally we think it is a person who gets a good education and therefore will get a good job. They will have power, influence and wealth. But our definition should really look at the contribution a person makes to society not the acquisition of things they take from society. We need to see each student as “full of potential” not “full of risk.” We are working with the sons and daughters of the King of Kings. We help our students and children develop character by walking through adversity with them not shielding or protecting them from adversity.

Dr. Jan Dormer from Messiah College spoke about What Makes a Good Language Learner? “Language learning time should be invested wisely in activities that result in real language acquisition. Clear learning goals and an understanding of personal learning styles can help the learner to use language learning time strategically.” We even had the opportunity to participate in a lesson and learn some Portugese.

In the Job Alike Session I was glad to learn of some other ACSI schools that are using Daily 5. There is a wide variety in the training and knowledge of best practice in teaching strategies and in curriculum. At CAJ we have many wonderful opportunities for professional development and continued growth as an educator.

Mark Mc Crindle, a social researcher and trends expert from Australia talked about Christian Community in the 21st Century. Did you know that YouTube has 60 hours of uploads every minute? Google has 4,700,000,000 searches a day? Generation Y and Z are connected through more than 200 social media sites. How do we create an Authentic and Engaging Community that Generation Y, Z and beyond want to be a part of? Our community needs to be defined by its center, what is at the core. Members need to not only belong but also contribute. Belonging is not dependent on contributing, but contributing enhances and fulfills one’s belonging. Our community is comprised of friendships and family and functional networks. “Strength of a community comes from its legacy and traditions, yet the survival of a community depends on its relevance and innovation.” Several years ago, one of the teachers would dress up as the founder of our school and come and tell my second graders about how God spoke to her in a vision and how she found the property that is the present location of CAJ. Maybe it is time to resurrect Mrs. Akichika to help our school community understand its legacy.

Tom Thompson was a special speaker on Friday evening after dinner. Tom was the youngest son of Ed and Ruth Thompson who were killed in Vietnam in 1968. Here is their story told by Ruth’s brother.

Martyrs: Ed and Ruth Thompson from The Alliance on Vimeo.

Saturday morning I gave my workshop on Integrating Technology into the Elementary School. The resources and slide show are on the Technology Resource page. I was pleased to have about 20 participants. Hopefully I was able to share some of the journey we have taken at CAJ and some of the excitement in seeing students share their learning and of communicating with others around the world. I truly appreciate all I’ve learned from Kim Cofino and through COETAIL. I did give a plug for COETAIL and the wonderful workshops help at YIS.

Joy Manda a fourth grade teacher from Faith Academy-Mindanao, Philippines shared It’s All in Your Head! Why Some Children Can’t Stay Focused. She gave more information than we could possibly take in during the 75 minutes. Several things to remember when working with AD/HD students:

  • Every person with AD/HD is unique
  • What works for one may not work for another
  • Everyone must find the mix that works for him/her
  • The more approaches that can be woven together the better

“Brain scans have shown that the frontal lobe of a person with ADD has a decreased blood flow and decreased use of glucose which is carried in the blood. As the person tries to concentrate the blood flow decreases even more. The  pressure  of  a  situation  causes  the  brain  to  “shut  down”. When the stressors go UP the executive function goes DOWN. Telling a child to “pay attention” just adds to the stress. Find ways to engage and redirect the child with attention issues. Be a coach and an advocate for the child who is struggling.

The last general session was Dr. Bill Brown talking about Christ Centered Schools. He challenged us with 4 crucial questions we need to be asking:

  1. What is our school doing to ensure our students are receiving an education of EXCELLENCE?
  2. What is our school doing to equip our students to ENGAGE OUR CULTURE with the heart and mind of Christ?
  3. What is our school doing to develop LEADERSHIP?
  4. What is our school doing to drive into the minds and hearts of our students the most important truth of Christianity – GRACE?

The conference offered an opportunity to connect with other Christian educators and to see how God is working. One part that I was disappointed in was the pre-conference session I went to on Best Practice. Although the speaker gave a few practical examples of best practice, he did not use best practice as he read slides jammed packed with words. I came away with an interest in learning more about why some schools are no longer teaching printing but going directly to cursive writing. A few years ago I had a student who came from the states and had been taught cursive in 1st grade. I thought it was a bit strange but also had to wonder as his cursive was beautiful while when I tried to get him to print it was almost illegible. Do students need to learn printing? Prior to John Dewey in the 1920′s no one learned to print. I would also like to try “Inside-Outside” circles to review vocabulary and bible memory verses, maybe even math facts.

I hope to post photos and some of the things I learned about Thailand and Thai culture on our classroom blog or Fluffy’s blog since he joined me on the trip.

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Technology Integration Vision and Roles

November 13, 2012 · No Comments · Learning

About two years ago the Elementary division at Christian Academy in Japan(CAJ) began plans to integrate technology into the classroom. One of the first activities we did as an elementary staff was think about what 21st century learning is and is not. Our discussion were focused around an article that our principal gave us to read and two questions.

  1.    21st Century Life: How has the world changed and what are the implications for education?
  2.   21st Century Students: How are students today the same as their predecessors and how are they different? How do we respond to the differences?
Some articles that could be a good starting point are listed here: although there are many other articles that may be more suited to your own school.
One more article that is filled with questions and maybe a good starting point is 8 Guiding Questions for Conversations about Becoming a School of the Future.

Then we collaboratively worked on a technology integration vision statement. One of the key points that we decided on was “authenticity.” Technology is best taught not in isolation in the computer lab, but in context in the classroom with real assignments. “The natural use of authentic technology within the classroom setting, just like the way we use paper and pencil without any second thoughts, is always what I’m striving for.” (Kim Cofino) We also keyed in on “Curriculum drives the technology.” Using some of our student objectives(ESLERS) we created our vision statement:

  • RL 1 Understand subject content and skills
  • RL 3 Integrate content and skills from different subjects
  • RL 5 Use appropriate learning strategies
  • DT 4 Make creative products and presentations
  • EC 1 Communicate through writing, speaking, reading, listening, graphs and charts, and the arts
  • EC 2 Integrate different forms of communication
Vision for Christian Academy in Japan Elementary technology integration
  • Use current and appropriate technology across the curriculum to generate and enhance authentic opportunities for students to understand and integrate subject content and skills, make creative products and presentations, and to integrate different forms of communication.
We then worked on writing some goals.
  1. Outline expectations of classroom teacher, technology integration facilitator, administration
  2.  Start with one unit: How can technology enhance this unit? What assessments will be best done using technology?
  3. Use the collaboration framework
Using a framework similar to this from Mont’Kiara International School Technology Integration curriculum planning wiki, we created our own roles document. We don’t have teams at each grade level so we only had the classroom teacher and IT Facilitator Roles on our document. Each teacher was given a copy and highlighted the areas we felt were important.
We also used Kim Cofino’s Collaboration Cycle to discuss our roles.
Each classroom teacher was asked to choose one unit and work with the IT facilitator on how technology could be used in that unit. All of this was done in the spring before we planned to integrate technology. By fall the teachers were asked to integrate technology into 3 units in the year. Grace set up a blog with a pages for the teachers to input the units. Although some units were put into the blog, this didn’t seem the easiest way to share our information.
We are still working on how to best utilize our IT facilitator. Last year, our first year she did a lot of research behind the scenes and help in setting up classroom blogs. She came into the classroom when we asked her, but often there was not the collaboration prior to her coming into the classroom. This year she is coming into each classroom once or twice a week to support  the teachers with technology but there is still the lack of collaborative planning, which may be due to scheduling. These are challenges we need to continue to work out as we continue to work on increasing our student learning through the use of technology.
After we completed our vision and roles discussions we were asked to write questions, training we needed and what our next steps would be. My first step was to apply to COETAIL where I have learned a lot and have met other educators who are working at being 21st century educators.

 

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Moving Forward

September 26, 2012 · 2 Comments · Blogs, Coetail 5, Learning

It hardly seems possible that we have been in school over one month already. Time is flying by. I finally was able to finish the introductory video of the teachers who work with the second grade students. I wanted it done for Back to School Day, but that didn’t happen:-(

Teacher Introductions from Jean Hino on Vimeo.

Their jobs are: Andrea Wordell – Language arts, Tamara Hershberger – EAL support, Denise Owen – Music, Junko Takahashi – Guidance counselor, Esther Tsuji – Resource teacher, Ruth Ingulsrud – Librarian, Rich Enns – Support teacher, Lois Seely – Art, Marie Schraven – Resource teacher,  Craig Eby – PE, Morris Yaegashi – Japanese, Naomi Langager – Japanese, Ikuyo Hayashi – Japanese, Grace Yamato – Technology.

My self-introduction included personal information but it is very difficult to coordinate that many people!

Wednesdays are our “Technology Time” in second grade. We actually use technology most days, but Grace Yamato comes into our classroom on Wednesday mornings and we use the laptop computers. Today we had the students working in groups. One group received instruction from Grace on taking photos, our class blog posting is here. The others were working on Typing Pal and IXL.

My morning started with our Elementary Divisional meeting. As head teacher I work with the principal on curriculum and with the other teachers. Recently we had a 2 day workshop with Dr. Virginia Rojas(hope to write a post about that soon). In our meeting this morning we wanted to use the Moodle we created about 3 weeks ago for follow up. Yesterday we posted a 3-2-1. This morning as I tried to unsuccessfully add some of the teachers I managed to take myself and everyone else off! I still don’t know what I did! I wasn’t success at fixing the problem, but our technology coordinator did add everyone again. I briefly looked at the Moodle this afternoon but noticed some things were missing. I guess I need some more lessons on the Moodle in the next week.

I’ve also been working on adding some resources to our class blog for a unit we are studying about the water cycle. I’m still not sure what is the best way. Presently it is on the side bar, but I think I may change that. I really need to take some more time to figure out what will work best with the blog. I am excited that our class blogs are open and the students and some parents are making comments. There is still much I need to figure out, but one step at a time.

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Visual Literacy in the Classroom

February 12, 2012 · 4 Comments · Coetail 3, Learning

This week as part of the Coetail course we were asked to read several articles about visual literacy in the classroom. Renee Hobbes in her article gives examples from kindergarten through middle school and high school of media literacy. No students are too young and we do a disservice with older students if we don’t teach them the critical thinking and evaluating skills they need for all types of media. ”Media literacy is not a new subject area and it is not just about television: it is literacy for the information age.”

The second part of our assignment was to find a photo to use to support our curriculum using Creative Commons. I was glad to learn there are advance searches that can be used. This search allows you to find photos and other media that do not have “all rights reserved.” My problem was to choose a curriculum area that could be enhanced by using a photo. We are presently in the midst of practicing and preparing for several readers theater plays by Jan Brett. Most of the students are also in the middle of the writing process to create their own “Goldilocks” story. We have just begun practicing for World Maths Day and World Spelling Day. In Bible class we are beginning a unit on the parables of Jesus. I began looking at some of the objects in the parables but couldn’t find anything that I thought second graders would relate to.

My problem: How do I find an appropriate photograph when I don’t know what I want to use it for? Finally I had an inspiration. This month we have decided to emphasize “empathy” in our elementary classes. I began looking for photos that were tagged “empathy.” I looked through several pages and then I saw one that touched my heart and I thought second graders could respond to.
A childs BFF

By Ulrica http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulricaproduction/4937239031/

I want my second graders to discuss the photo and create a word bank/idea bank on chart paper. Some of the questions I will ask them to discuss are: How do you think the teddy bear got there? What words might describe the teddy bear? What words might describe the child who lost the teddy bear? After a class discussion I would ask the students to individually journal about: What connections can you make with the child who lost a favorite toy? What could you do if your friend lost his/her favorite toy? I also hope that by creating a word bank the students may find some new words and ideas to use in their writing.

On another day I would like to continue the discussion about the elements of the photo. Why do they think only the teddy bear is in color? What if it was all black and white? All color? Would it create the same feelings?

We are taking a lot of photos this year for our classroom blog. Each of the students is getting a chance to be the class photographer. Every photo tells a story.  Are you telling a story with the photos you take? Maybe at this point show some of the photos the students have taken and have them evaluate their own work.

I know as a teacher, I’m seeing personalities in the photos that some of the students have taken. Last week I gave cameras to two of the students as they went to Art and Music. The one student took 6 photos in music class, mostly of the same person/people and all from the same angle although 2 were close ups. The other student took 23 photos from various angles that showed the teacher, the students and even the final product.

Earlier in the year when we were mixing gingerbread cookies one of my photographers did a great album of the process. Each ingredient that was added had a photo. Only one photo showed a few of the students who were working.

As I learn more about visual literacy I know there will be many more lessons to share with my students. These lessons will hopefully be reflected in my own photos as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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YouTube and Me

January 17, 2012 · 2 Comments · Help, Learning, Tech tools, Uncategorized

I am by far just a beginner in using YouTube. Last year, the 1st grade teacher helped me set up my own channel. Last week one of the Japanese teachers at the school was showing a video of my students reading a story. I helped her connect the computer to the projector in my classroom and stayed to watch. When it was done, I asked her to send it to me so I could upload it to our classroom blog. The next day she said that it was too big and she couldn’t email it. So I suggested she send me the YouTube url. She said that she didn’t know how to do that. I told her that I could help her. Another Japanese teacher was standing there and asked to join us. After school all 6 of the Japanese teachers showed up in my classroom to learn how to set up YouTube. It was exciting to see them helping each other. I mentioned that there was a way to categorized the clips and one teacher asked me how. I had to admit that I really didn’t know, but went home and spent some time that evening making playlists and adding clips. That may seem “old hat” to many, but it was new to me. I just did my first playlist with my iTunes in November. It was interesting to see that with YouTube I could make some of the channels private and some public. Today I used one of the channels in the classroom and I need to remember to put a link on my classroom blog so the students can go and listen to the songs and practice them.

I have seen Vimeo clips recently and decided to check it out after Brian Farrell from the Coetail course recommended it. I did register and now have some exploring to do once report cards are completed.

I would appreciate hearing any pros/cons of YouTube vs. Vimeo. Why do you like one?

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Hyperlinks, WWW and 2nd graders

December 4, 2011 · 6 Comments · Coetail 2, Internet, Learning

What are hyperlinks? What is the world wide web(www)? How can I relate all I’ve been reading to my second graders? I really didn’t know where to start and even as I read various articles I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. But this evening I got my daily update from Diigo in Education and followed one of the links. I was interested in learning more about Warren McCullough’s Web Stuff – ICT Supporting the Curriculum. From there I looked at School intranets. I did some exploring on a student page and teacher page and then went to Intranet K-6. (This also reminded me to ask our tech staff about electronic portfolios.) I continued to explore and look at the library page where I found Interlace. I continued my quest when I saw Dinosaurs, a topic my second graders are presently learning about. I already was familiar with Zoom Dinosaurs but found some other great links. One that I plan on using with my second graders this coming week is Dinosaur Database from the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Not only can this be a resource about dinosaurs but I can use it to help explain to the students what is the www and what is a hyperlink.

So, here is the beginning of my lesson for this week. Today we are going to be looking at a new internet site about dinosaurs. But before we look at the site, I want to tell you a story. As you know I am taking a class about technology.(I leave school early once a month for the class.) I do a lot of reading and the other night I was looking on the internet for information that would help me as your teacher trying to use technology in our class. I get daily updates about articles that other teachers around the world find interesting. I look at some of them, read some and ignore some. One of those articles caught my eye and sent me on a delightful path. The article sent me to a site from Australia. When I got to the site, I started to click on some of the links that were there. When you click on some words that are highlighted, they take you to a different page, that is called a hyperlink. I eventually came to this page.

Screen shot to highlight links

Since we are studying dinosaurs I am always on the lookout for some new and interesting websites. We already use Zoom dinosaurs so I knew I didn’t have to look there. But the Dinosaur Database looked interesting so I clicked on it.  This hyperlink took me here, where we will be spending some time today.

Dinosaur Overview

But, before we look at those “terrible lizards” I want you to think about this. We live in Japan, I was looking at information someone in Australia wrote, that led me to a Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, USA. All of this information is collected in various databases where anyone can search for it. Knowing how to search and where to search are important skills we will continue to work on this year and every year. Now, let’s find out about Bucky the teenage t-rex.

There will be some discussion involved during this presentation, but obviously this is just the beginning and I know my students will be anxious to see the dinosaurs.

There were various other tidbits I gleaned this week in the reading. 20 Things I Learned About Browser and the Web had me checking my privacy settings on my browser and learning about some of the apps available for my browser. I am not sure that I agree with one of the statements from the article, “The movement of many of our daily tasks online enables us to live more fully in the real world.” I have to wonder how often we become so engrossed in a game, texting, a search or what we are doing online we forget to live in the real world. I remember a few years ago sitting at a McDonald’s restaurant watching a “couple” who were obviously on a date, but were both texting other people on their phones. Overall the article gave a lot of interesting and easy to digest information about what is the web.

A book, not on our reading this week, that I would highly recommend is Web Literacy for Educators by Alan November. It is easy to read (I read the entire book this weekend and also attended a concert, church and a council meeting. I wasn’t just reading!)  and has easy to follow lessons/activities for the reader and for students. We can either prepare students to tap into the most powerful tool yet created or allow them free reign without the necessary resources to understand or interpret what they find on the web. I hope that I am able to challenge the students who I work with to be responsible learners, discerning thinkers, productive collaborators,effective communicators and faithful caretakers who can use the tools available to learn and share their learning with others.

 

 

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