3 New Things for the New School Year

Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher suggested picking just three things to work with from all of the many ideas and inspirations brought on through ISTE. This is not an easy task! The three that come to mind for me for my middle school math classroom are

• Integrating Minecraft as a means for student exploration of concepts and demibstration of learning
• Teaching coding as a way to build and strengthen student perseverance and problem solving skills
• Building an online library of student-created instructional videos teaching math concepts and skills, similar to MathtrainTV as mentioned by Alan November

With our implementation of GAFE and our purchase of Chromebooks for everyone, the instructional videos are certainly possible and something I have done before as a teacher. While I've never had students create instructional videos, I can definitely see this as a strong learning tool for students as well as an excellent resource for other students. I am excited to use WeVideo to do this, along with a screen casting app, possibly ScreenCastify. My students really enjoyed creating video PSAs last year and did well with Windows Live MovieMaker with very little help from me. 

Coding... We have such a need for this at our school! I am somewhat in shock that so few schools teach computer science in today's world. With a game-writing approach I think my students would love this! Code.org has many training links and Tynker, a collection of coding resources with a teacher dashboard (an ISTE find), is also a possibility. So many coding tutorials and projects to choose from. I think I would like to build this into my class on a weekly basis. 

Of the three that I'm considering, Minecraft feels the most foreign to me. Although I have Minecraft EDU installed on my laptop, I have not yet explored how to build in it, or how to teach 7th grade math concepts with it. Luckily, @MrBrotherton has plenty of resources to share from his own classroom experiences teaching with minecraft. Lots to do this summer!

ISTE2014: Notes from Ignite Sessions, Day 2

So much discussion about augmented reality this year -- I feel a bit behind. I've had Aurasma on my iPad for some time now but admit I have not explored the possibilities! Enjoyed Tricia Anton's talk about AR including creating Aurasma iMovie trailors and AR flashcards as well as using augmented reality as a starting point for writing.
Another big topic at ISTE this year - Genius Time, 20% Time, Innovation Day, Play. Enough pop on this to make we want to explore, even though I only see my students for 65 minutes each day. Jennifer Bond talked about Nurturing Students' Passions with an Innovation Day that was dedicated to students creating anything they wanted to, a "Passion Time." I want to do some exploration on ways to get started with this in Jonathan Jarc also talked about 20% time from the perspective of 20% Inquiry Time, based on a Google idea. I did not realize that Google Maps and gmail came out of 20% time -- very cool! He challenges students to investigate, learn something new and produce something. They keep an activity log and turn that in with their digital product - an app, a game, a video.
middle school classrooms - departmentalized, short meeting time.
Liked Trisha Callella's challenge to close the generational technology gap by flipping the learning. Children teach adults through instructional video. This topic came up many times over the conference. Alan November pointed out that teachers' perspectives often fail to account for the new learners' feelings and process. We've known it for so long! Children can more easily explain to other children something that they have learned. I know I learn material/concepts best when I am asked to teach it to others -- our students do too! Great idea to have students create these instructional videos, both for adults and for other students.
Billy Krakower was the first person at the conference that I heard talking about Mystery Skype calls and I can't wait to try it. What a great way to engage student's curiosity, questioning and problem solving skills!
The more I heard about coding and how it increases students' ability to persist, to overcome failures and to learn from mistakes (Jack Lawicki) the more sold I was on teaching my students to code -- even if I myself am not a coder. I'll learn with them! Another tip from ISTE presenters - learn with them, it's okay to be uncomfortable, put ourselves in the place of learner just like our students.
Loved Tamara Letter's sharing of how she pledged to do 40 random acts of kindness and later took this into her classroom with student bloggers documenting the RAKs. She has inspired me to be a "Raktivist"!

ISTE2014: TakeAways from the Opening Ignite Sessions

My first ISTE and I was totally pumped up after the first round of Ignite Sessions! The format is wonderful for getting across a range of great ideas in a short amount of time - 20 slides, 15 seconds each, total of 5 minutes per presenter. Similar to Pecha Kucha. Really want to incorporate this into PD for our school - a learning and inspirational showcase that provides lots of jumping off points for following your own path.
Presenters and takeaways:

• Reshan Richards, developer of Explain Everything, different ways to do formative assessment, hence, the app! Can't wait to check out his constructivisttoolkit.com.
• Pat Yongpradit, Director of Education at code.org. Hard to believe that in today's world only 1 in 10 schools offers computer science. Mine does not, but I certainly want to get started with it! They are creating a K-5 curriculum and already have so many resources on code.org. Need to educate, advocate and celebrate computer science!
• Rafranz Davis shared about her son who followed his passion for making puppets, a great example of self directed learning. He learned watching YouTube and shared his work with others online. Love her quote, "Never underestimate the power of a kid who is driven by his passion to create." Check Braeden out at Braedensartplanet.blogspot.com. Her charge - "Make sharing a goal!" Learn -- Create -- Share.
• Tanya Avrith on digital citizenship suggests we have students create acceptable use guidelines and says we must look at children as "citizens of a connected world." We have to provide opportunities for them to be actively engaged online, to practice digital citizenship in our classrooms.
• Jennie Magiera shared on PD and the need for authenticity. She suggests developing IEPs for teachers - Individual Exploration Plans. Teacher need connection.
• Thanks to Nicholas Provenzano I now have an appreciation for Phineas and Ferb. My nephew watches this show and I never watched with him to see that it is a show about makers!
• Consider the difference between teaching content and creating collaborative learning spaces. "The new divide is between those who have power and autonomy to choose their own learning path and those who don't," Jennifer Roberts. Makes so much sense! In today's schools, how many students actually get to do this? How can teachers work to find the balance between district pacing guides and student self-directed learning paths?

What a great way to start the conference! Wish I could hear more from all of these presenters!