Unit 6: Respectful and Ethical Minds

There are several ways that I allow my students to collaborate online.  One that I have used for two years now is Kidblog.org. I have implemented the use of student comments in Kidblog to teach online etiquette.  I did this by modeling, modeling, modeling and role playing and assessing comments over a period of weeks to help students understand appropriate and helpful comments as opposed to feel good or hurtful comments.  We discussed in length magic words that should always be in comments and ways of wording suggestions that make their classmate feel supported and help them to learn.  For instance when giving a push students can say, "You can make your writing even better by...". The students connect with other classrooms in our building through Kidblog as well.  My students can share ideas with others through commenting on their posts and vice versa.    

Another more recent discovery I have made is ePals Global Community.  I signed up for a project with Macedonia to collaborate on solving a global problem with another 2nd grade class and I put a project out called Mystery Skype, that allows my classroom to collaborate with another second grade classroom in a mystery location (hopefully in South America).  The two classes will have to create questions and research their own answers. Then they will ask the questions over a Skype call to find out where the other classroom is located.  In addition, we will be creating a Prezi presentation with our ePal to showcase our locations. This will support collaboration among students and allow students to practice being respectful and using ethics.  

All of these activities support respectful and ethical minds because it lets students have the opportunity to work with diverse students and consider different perspectives. As noted in the interview with Vicky Davis and Julie Lindsey, this will also help students understand that "they are not the center of the universe" and that other countries in the world have different schedules, holidays, time zones, ways of life and priorities.  The more we expose students to these experiences the more we can instill in them respect and ethics.  Students need real world exposure in order to learn this type of thinking and acting.  It is not something that can be taught in isolation.  


Works Cited:

Juliani, AJ. (2013, March 11). Flattening classrooms and engaging minds with global education: an interview with vickie davis and julie lindsay. [Video file]. Retrieved from  http://educationismylife.com/flattening-classrooms-and-engaging-minds-with-global-education-an-interview-with-vicki-davis-and-julie-lindsay/

Unit 5: Spotlight on Strategies Reflection and Link

What instructional goal/challenge does your SOS address? 

Geocaching is a form of collaborative and active learning that addresses many challenges.  The most critical of these being student motivation and engagement.  While geocaching, students are problem solving, cooperating, using map skills and technical skills while actively engaged.  Students must work together and focus to complete the tasks.  This gets them talking and listening to each other's ideas to create their own understanding.  Students are motivated because they are using technology to accomplish the tasks and they have specific tasks to complete.  This strategy supports what the Center for Teaching and Learning has to say about student engagement, "Research has demonstrated that engaging students in the learning process increases their attention and focus, motivates them to practice higher-level critical thinking skills, and promotes meaningful learning experiences." 


What additional value does the integration of digital media bring to your idea in terms of students’ understanding of the concept or topic?

Digital integration helps students understand the concept by motivating them, engaging their senses and minds and in this example getting their bodies moving.  The old saying 'hands on, minds on' can easily apply to using digital media in the classroom. This is an excellent way to strengthen 21st century skills while actively engaging them in content.  Students are more likely to learn the material because they are actively engaged and motivated by the GPS devices and the iPad clues and videos.  Without these tools students may be active but not as engaged.  According to a case study conducted by SRI International, "students were able to handle more complex assignments and do more with higher-order skills because of the supports and capabilities provided by technology." In addition, they go on to say that the use of technology for an assignment is highly motivating to students and it builds self confidence.  If students feel confident and motivated they are more likely to take risks, make mistakes and learn from them. More over technology is valued in our society, they see their parents using it for work and their teachers using it for instruction, giving them technology makes them feel powerful and connects them with the real world way of doing things.

Here is the link to my Spotlight on Strategies Smore flyer.

https://www.smore.com/ccse




Bibliography:

faust, J. & Paulson, D. (2013). Active learning for the college classroom. 20 November 2013. Retrieved from http://www.calstatela.edu/dept/chem/chem2/Active/

Hall, T. & Strangman, N. (2009). Background knowledge. Retrieved from
http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/backgroundpapers/background_knowledge#.Uotv9MSkrgo

Engaging students in learning. Center for teaching and learning. University of washington. Retrieved 20 November 2013, from http://www.washington.edu/teaching/teaching-resources/engaging-students-in-learning/

SRI International; technology and education reform. Effects of technology on classrooms and students. Retrieved 20 November 2013 from http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html

Unit 5: Creativity in the Classroom

I decided to put out a survey to my second graders in regards to what apps they would like to do to be creative in class.  The majority showed interest in creating videos using animoto.  We will be creating short videos in small groups to reteach a concept learned in class.  Last year my students made a how to video on calendar math, another group did a spotlight on an author and another group taught us about verbs.  After the videos were scripted, filmed and edited we shared them with our families and the class.  The whole class voted on creating posters in piccollage.  The students can create posters to demonstrate their understanding of a concept or to activate prior knowledge by doing a word splash.  They can also create posters to introduce themselves to each other.  The next item they were all excited about doing is making digital postcards to write friendly letters and share with their families concepts we are learning in class using the app photocard.  These can be e-mailed to the parents instantly and the students can add their own photographs or pictures.  The last project the whole class voted on was creating postcards from punctuation marks.  The students take on the role of a punctuation mark and use story buddy to create an image showing the punctuation mark on vacation somewhere.  Then they write a letter to our class explaining where they are, what they are doing and why it is important that they come back to our class soon.  These are then printed and displayed in the classroom.

When I asked the class what technology they like that we are using in the classroom now to be creative they said that they enjoyed using the netbooks to write on kidblog and using the smartboard to watch videos clips about a topic, learning through Prezi presentations like the one on book genres, listen to songs to learn a concept and playing games.  They also enjoy using manipulatives like base ten blocks on the smartboard to work through math problems because it is easy and fun.

The things they like about the iPads now are magnet letters to practice their spelling patterns, storypatch and scribble press for making books, puppet pals where they can retell the story using puppets of the characters and settings from their book, and voicethread where they take a picture of the book they are reading and then do a verbal book review and read their favorite part.

Unit 4: Creativity

First of all, I have to say that this Ted Talk was fantastic.  The way Sir Ken Robinson explains things is so on point and logical.  My favorite quote was "creativity is as important now in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status."  

So now considering the question; do I think schools kill creativity? Yes, in many ways schools are forced to teach students with an emphasis on left brain thinking. We expect them to learn to read and write and do arithmetic in a uniform and neat way and then demonstrate what they've learned by performing on tests. Students are asked to sit and work for hours on end and when they do not sit still and follow status quo we request testing and have them medicated. Education is in many ways designed in a box and if students do not fit in that box they are typically unsuccessful and leave feeling that they are not good enough, smart enough, perfect enough, etc. I have seen this personally and professionally with students over many years and it is heartbreaking to watch.  Several of these students dropped out because they were so at odds with their environment it was too much to take.  People can only handle so many failing grades before they feel like throwing in the towel and walking away. To many of these students school seems pointless. They can either change who they are and how they learn or leave.  We should and can offer these students another choice; a better choice, by bringing more of what plays to their strengths into the forefront.  

We need to start taking into account that our world is changing, that degrees aren't the only way to be successful, that creativity and 21st century skills are vital and innovation is what is driving our society at the moment. Digital media, while not the be all end all of our solutions to creativity in education, certainly can ignite creativity in our students.  Project-based learning is one way students can use technology to create.  Digital storytelling for example is a powerful way for students to share experiences, research, history and more.  Apps like Puppet Pals makes retelling stories fun and interactive allowing students to be creative as they practice and learn comprehension skills.  Online learning contracts utilizing a variety of web tools to explore topics that are motivating and interesting to individual students help foster creativity. In a simpler way media can be used to offer students brain breaks giving their bodies a chance to move and increase circulation. Online videos played on the Smartboard with simple dance moves reenergize students and challenge their gross motor skills. My class loves to do the Gummy Bears Song and the Sid Shuffle as they transition to the next subject. The app PicCollage allows my students to arrange timelines, word splashes, character traits, sequencing events and dozens of other topics in interesting and creative ways.  

Just this week my class used the new app colar mix to bring their illustrations to life and write stories about them.  If you want to get kids imaginations going this is the app.  Their illustration come off the page and are animated.  I took pictures of the students holding their illustrations in their hands.  The stories that came from this were full of wonder and adventure and still met all the requirements of a narrative fiction writing piece according to the common core standards.

If we as teachers can think and live outside the box while still meeting the standards and other pressures put on us, we can reach and nurture our students' innate creativity and talents.  Media is a great place to begin this process. 

Unit 3: Prezi Presentation

Media-infused presentations, like the Prezi I created, can help in developing disciplined and synthesizing minds in many ways.  First according to Topic B in Unit 3, there are nuances that make content from a video, a song, a lecture, a text or a podcast more or less meaningful for different learning styles. My prezi contains many examples of video, podcast, images and text that help students gather information and bring it together in order to make sense of book genres.  Offering students several different ways of accessing information and organizing it into a presentation helps them to connect with the information in different ways and allows them to develop ideas to discuss in small groups and with the whole class.  With the vast amount of content available online students will benefit from having it narrowed down and packaged neatly into a engaging presentation. This will help them focus in on the content being taught in easy to digest bits. Through these learning opportunities each student's unique learning style will be addressed and they will begin to synthesize the information by bringing it all together in a way that makes sense to them.  Media makes it easier than ever to reach all of our student's learning styles at once and create rich discussions in order to begin to build understanding.

In addition to creating whole group learning opportunities, these presentations can be used in centers to reinforce and assess students' understanding.  Projects, reflection papers and many other assignments can be linked within the presentation to have students further demonstrate their thought process and mastery of the content.  As noted in Topic C of unit 3, we need to understand that evaluating and assessing synthesis is not typically something that can be measured in a traditional form. Therefore, I would have my students work in triads using PicCollage to gather or take photos of examples of a particular genre and add text supporting why these examples qualify. Then they could present these posters to the class and discuss their work with the class to gain other perspectives.  As a culminating activity, I could also have them create a guide book, video or podcast that could be used to help us determine the genres of books we read a-loud in class.  They could accomplish this by using StoryPatch, StoryBuddy, iMovie or VoiceThread to explain the attributes of each genre they learned.  This would give me a formal assessment piece from which to judge each student's ability to synthesize the information presented.  

Below is the link to my presentation which is being used in whole group instruction and centers to reinforce the concepts taught.

Prezi Presentation

Works Cited:

Topic B: digital synthesis. Wilkes University. Web. 13 November 2013

Topic C: assessing synthesis. Wilkes University. Web. 13 November 2013

Unit 3: Synthesizing Mind

This eduClipper Board will be used for the soils unit that I teach my second grade students.  It contains videos, interactive websites that they can explore to answer questions they have about soils, songs that teach about soils and an infographic showing how to build a compost pile.  We will use all of the online tools in class to enrich and support our lessons.  As a side note, I am sharing this website with my team, I love it!


Educlipper Board on Soils

Unit 2: Blog on Digital Media

This writing prompt would be used as part of our South America Landforms unit.  Students will write a least 5 sentences telling what happens during the rest of our adventure in the rainforest.  They would have to use some of the vocabulary we learned in this unit to describe the setting and what the characters see and do.