Election Day

Election Day

ISTE Notes

As promised I am posting some of my notes from my experience at ISTE2012. This is a compilation of some of the presentations, links, and resources that I enjoyed and want to share with my colleagues. Enjoy!

Links to check out:

Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry by Carolyn Staudt, The Concord Consortium

http://www.concord.org/ 

**This is a must! Free online inquiry activities and projects you can set up for classroom. You need probes but they are not too expensive. 

Making Innovation Teachable by Suzie Boxx

http://t.co/6bPP4Ks9

Tools to Bookmark, aggregate, curate by Shelly Terell

http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2012/06/14/goal-10-spread-your-knowledge-15-tools-to-bookmark-aggregate-curate/

Roundtable Notes by Mike Gallaway

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s76/sh/88179d70-bc7a-41d8-82d6-f5b022f62887/ae656405e37d67a4426ba4da9d718800

Learning Visually with Critical Thinking (Infographics) presented by Diana Laufenberg

http://laufenberg.wordpress.com/keynotespresentations/learning-visually/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-bloghttp://

www.gapminder.org/downloads/card-game/  

Free Teacher website (place to share lessons)

http://www.sharemylesson.com/

http://www.teachersfirst.com/

Project Based Learning websites 

http://web.me.com/gingerlewman/Gingers/Welcome.html

http://www.LifePracticePBL.org/

Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything

http://www.schrockguide.net/index.html

10 Useful iPad Resources for Educators - SimpleK12

http://blog.simplek12.com/education/10-useful-ipad-resources/

Apps that look good:

Puffin Web Browser http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/puffin-web-browser/id406239138?mt=8  Allows you to view videos that need flash on the iPad! (I tried it and it works!)

Kid pix for iPad http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kid-pix-deluxe-3d/id406222580?mt=12
Good for storytelling! Kids can record themselves as the characters and add costumes.

Videos:

ISTE Videos posted on YouTube channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/istevideos?feature=results_main

Sophia: Free memberships for teachers allows you to use instructional videos or post videos for you class (flipped classroom)

 http://www.sophia.org/

Tubechop allows you to grab video clips from YouTube, chop them, and share so you are only using the part that you want to use

http://www.tubechop.com/

Student Projects:

Students at ISTE

http://blog.iste.org/students-educators-iste-2012/

Students Promoting Agriculture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48H7zOQrX3U 

Memorial Elementary School Weekly Podcasts

http://www.youtube.com/user/MemorialElementary?feature=watch

ISTE 2012

Earlier this week I had the amazing opportunity to participate for the first time in the ISTE conference. By participate, I mean attend, since I was not actually presenting. As a first time ISTE attendee (newbie) I was overwhelmed with choosing which ticketed workshops to attend and with filling my planner with non-ticketed sessions throughout the day. Luckily, I had my good friend, Jennifer, at my side to navigate through the mass techies. The very first workshop was a bit of a disappointment. However, that was not due to the material or the presenter, it was because I was a novice and had chosen a workshop that was geared towards technology system administers and not classroom teachers. From that point on I was pleasantly surprised to see that the workshops I had chosen where right up my alley. I learned a ton and gained way more resources then I will be able to use. I quickly realized that I need to pick a few key areas to dial in on and implement next year. Therefore, I  plan to implement QR codes and Science and Math inquiry using technology throughout my projects and curriculum. I also hope to expose my students to SketchUp, info graphics, and many more cool tools. My wheels are certainly spinning while I try to organize all the ideas and resources I have attained. I hope to post all the notes I took shortly, but until then, I want to leave my final thoughts about ISTE 2012. First, I was so impressed with all the presenters that I was lucky enough to see. I am sadden that I was able to attend a small fraction of the workshops offered. I also wish the free ticketed workshops were not limited to one a day. On top of that, each free ticketed session was limited to one hour when they clearly had three hours of material to cover. (The conference certainly makes money off the paid sessions and Exhibition floor.) On the flip side, I loved meandering through the Student Showcase and Poster sessions. The students were inspiring and such a true representation of what PBL and authentic teaching/learning can do. My goal is to have my own students presenting at ISTE in the years to come! Stay tuned for my notes.

Collaboration

For our final project of the year we wanted something that would allow students to apply the 21st century skills they have learned and also provide a sense of closure to our school year. With two months left we still had to cover the Social Studies standards addressing American symbols and knew this would be our launching point. So, after covering basic facts about several American symbols and how they unite people, our class began to investigate our driving question, “How are we represented through symbols?”  

Our students, supported by the teachers and several experts in the field, studied symbology and explored different types of symbols and icons in order to understand how common interests, values, and beliefs are represented. Students then applied these abstract concepts to the real-world when they determined that “collaboration” was a common value at our school that could be represented by a symbol. Students were excited that they would design a symbol for collaboration that could highlight our school’s commitment to the 21st century skills.That was when the real work began. As a class we decided to collect evidence on how different groups of people collaborate at our school by creating a video of interviews from students, teachers, administration, parents, and board members. In addition, we wanted to document our class’ collaborative experiences by publishing a book. The class was broken into six different teams consisting of the Symbol Design Team, Interviewing Team, Video Recording Team, Video Editing Team, Writing Team, and Publishing Team. Every student participated in each part through continual feedback. This week we will be presenting our symbol, which has been incorporated into a wall hanging, at our school's Town Meeting.

I was so impressed by the students’ level of interest and engagement throughout this project. In addition, it was a wonderful learning experience for myself. I found that by creating teams in which tasks had to be completed at separate times made it much easier to manage and support each team. This final project was a true reflection of students’ development of critical thinking, problem-solving, self-management, communication, and collaborative skills. Here is a little from the last page of our first grade book.

“Well here is what we have learned.  What you need to do to collaborate is share ideas with your teammates.  Responsibility is important when collaborating.  You need to set goals in your team.  And the last thing is you have to be able to work in a team.” -Reid

“This is what we have learned about collaboration:  do not be off task and practice being in a team.  We have to work together in a team, do not goof around, do not fight, set goals with your team, participate and listen to your teammates.” -Coco

“I learned that sometimes it can be hard to collaborate with others.” -Reagan

“What I learned about collaboration is to never give up and keep focusing on what you are doing.” -Landon

“It is hard sometimes to collaborate because it is hard to think of ideas to share, but it is also fun to collaborate.” -Will

Help Save our Oceans

It has been a long time since I posted to my blog. Way too long! I spend so much time following what other's are doing via Edmodo and Twitter but I thought I should finally share the cool things my first graders are up to. Here is a brief snapshot of our latest project. We will be presenting to the public at the Festival of Whales next month. 

My first grade students are really fired up about our current project where students are  investigating how we can protect our ocean and encourage our school community to create less trash. For this project, our class is using a project calendar to ensure that everyone is aware of our project goals and deadlines. We launched it just over a month ago with our entry event. Students came into class and encountered a carpet littered with trash! Immediately they were intrigued, and wanted to know how we could have so much trash end up on the ground instead of in the trash cans. Students formulated hypotheses of what they believe happens to trash that does not make it into the trash cans. The following week, students took photos during a nature hike of everything that was man-made and not a part of the natural environment. Then they sorted, organized, and graphed the data. This past week, our class took a field trip to our local beach that is directly affected by our watershed. We put students' ideas into actions and spent some time cleaning up the beach. We also did scientific testing of the water. Students tested the dissolved oxygen level, ph level, nitrate, and phosperus. In teams students are working on a variety of products such as informational pamphlets, a song, a PSA video, Keynote presentations, a watershed model, a pledge form, and posters. Each product was selected by students in order to create high levels of interest. We also brought in experts from OC Waterworks, The Ocean Institute, and The Surfrider Foundation to present. 

Day of Discovery

Yesterday I was able to attend Discovery Education's Day of Discovery conference. Although I had to start my day extra early, drive an hour and 45 minutes, and give up a beautiful, sunny Friday I was not let down. This conference had a lot to offer and it was all for free! Thank you Discovery Education, USD, and Lindsay Hopkins for organizing a wonderful event.

As soon as we arrived we were greeted with lots of helpful DE staff, beautiful decorations, a nice breakfast, notebooks, and other goodies. The day started off with a general session meeting followed by the first two individual sessions. After the first two sessions, lunch was provided, and then we attended another two sessions. The day ended with a general closing and a prize giveaway. The only bummer was not being able to attend all the sessions that were offered. Although some of the tools and information may be repetitive for more advanced tech teachers, a lot of it was new for me. I had heard of some of these sites but have not used them in the classroom. In addition, I was blown away by all the things I could do with Discovery Education beyond just streaming videos and songs for students. Now all I need is the classroom to implement it all in. If any of my fellow teaching friends would like help developing lessons are implementing them in your class I would be thrilled to help! 

  

Tech Ed Tools Wiki   is the link to the Wiki page I used for note taking during the presentations. I wanted something that I could share, change, and add to as needed. I am more excited about all the training resources and links that they will be emailing out to us (those who attended the conference) within the next few days. If I can, I will share them as well.

Time to Celebrate

I made it through CSUF's Masters of Science program in curriculum and instruction! Graduation ceremonies and celebrations will be this Sunday, May 22nd. While I'm supper excited I am already wondering what I will do next. I always like to have something to challenge myself and should I dare say for fun? Yes, the master's program was both of those things for me. My husband knows me way too good, just the other night he said, "I can't wait to see what your next project is. You always have something going on." I love that he is so supportive. Of course, I have to hit the job hunt hard. Any cool leads would be much appreciated.

I also know I will look into volunteering. I found a local place that is looking for a volunteer instructor to teach Excel to unemployed adults every other Friday night. Sounds good but I also really want to find something that will allow me to add to my limited Spanish skills. I am also toying with the idea to get certified in scuba diving so I can enjoy some underwater adventures with my husband. We shall see what is in store for the summer!