Group items tagged

"Makers-in the broadest sense, those who make things-and the maker movement have gone mainstream. Featured in articles from the Smithsonian to The Atlantic to The New York Times, today's makers are just as likely to be armed with traditional tools like hammers, anvils, and yarn, as they are with conductive paint, 3-D printers, and computers. They are participating in a movement marked by community norms of sharing, collaboration, and experimentation. They are gathering in libraries, garages, summer camps, and makerspaces. Cities and towns across the United States are paying attention, responding to the buzz with maker-related growth and development: Downtowns are outfitting digital workshop spaces, also knowns as "fablabs"; municipal libraries and church spaces are designating space for making; and now schools are getting on board. It is no wonder that school ears are perked. As businesses, libraries, and organizations lobby for ways to bring making into their domains, schools across the country are building innovation labs. Makerspaces are being carved out, 3-D printers are being brought into classrooms, and hacker/tinkering/maker/tech-ed teachers are being hired-and sometimes trained. There is clear enthusiasm around the tools and the sociocultural impact of maker-related values. Attend a school board meeting where a makerspace is on the agenda and the familiar selling point rings out: Maker education boosts STEM-science, technology, engineering, and math-learning, which will ultimately generate a cohort of innovative, inventive, entrepreneurial-minded young people. But we may be getting ahead of ourselves. The limited research around the cognitive benefits of maker-centered education is only recently emerging. Maker classes, maker curriculum, and maker teachers are being incorporated into educational settings in what appears to be a response to popular media and based, in part, on the hype."

"I always have teachers wanting to know how they can better utilize the iPad in their classrooms. I know that it's very easy when first receiving an iPad to take a worksheet that you have done for several years, and convert it to glass. But glass can be boring too, so I created this Breakfast Club session to give my teachers some ideas on ways to better utilize this powerful tool in their classrooms. So the "activities" that I started coming up with started turning into all sorts of ideas and app suggestions.  I shared all of the ideas with the teachers that attended, but found myself particularly enjoying the conversations that we were having about some of the activities that are taking place in the classrooms at Aurora Public Schools. Our teachers are doing great things with the iPads in their classrooms and it was great to have teachers share and learn from each other!  Here are some of the activities, ideas and apps that we talked about on how to better utilize the iPad in the classroom."

"Game jams have been growing in popularity. In a game jam, teams are challenged to design a game in a short period of time. In essence, game jams are a game about making a game. Students apply systems thinking, user empathy, collaboration, storyboarding, and iterative design, while also learning how to tackle broad, open-ended problems. Matthew Farber, author of Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning, will discuss his use of game jams in his middle school social studies classes, as well as digital game jams in the after school club he advises. He will share resources from the Moveable Game Jams he attended in the New York area this year, including Quest to Learn, in New York City, as well as the A. Harry Moore School Game Jam Day, in Jersey City, NY, which he facilitated."

"Shannon Hyman, a librarian at one of our elementary schools, invited #TechTakeout to her AMAZING MakerFest Day to run ten different stations. Each one of the stations highlighted a tool that the students would have access to in her library. Every 4th and 5th grade student had the opportunity to attend the event and learn about each tool. The students had about 5-8 minutes at each station since we wanted everyone to get a chance to see everything. This was enough time to introduce the tool, but in some cases the students had a hands-on experience. Judging from what the students were saying throughout the day, when we return from winter break they will be rushing to the library to work with all of the new tools!"

"As an administrator, I think about the most enjoyable times I have had at school. Frankly, none of them include sitting in my office doing paperwork, disciplining, or attending meetings. The most enjoyable and productive times I have experienced are when I have been in the classroom observing teachers and interacting with students and teachers."

"Jazzy, one of our high school seniors, already has experience building homes for others. After taking specialized construction and carpentry classes through Milton Hershey School's Career and Technical Education program, she learned how to install flooring and doors, sand and paint drywall, and adjust electrical and plumbing systems. For students like Jazzy, gaining experience in the trades can lead to future success. According to The Bureau of Labor and Statistics, construction careers, along with healthcare and personal care, will account for more than 5.3 million new jobs by 2022. While the trade industry's growing demand is encouraging for students who don't plan to attend college, many students choose to pursue careers in the trades based on their interest in designing, producing, problem-solving and creating."

Last week I spent three days thinking about curriculum and all that it means to teaching and learning thanks to the Australian Curriculum Studies Association's biannual conference. It was three days of deeply thoughtful conversation and learning with just the right mix of academic research and ideas for grounded practice straight out of innovative classrooms and schools. With keynotes by Alan Reid, Dan Haesler, Bob Lingard, Robert Randall and Jan Owen combined with Masterclasses from some of Australia's leading educators there was much on offer. The biggest challenge was deciding which workshop you would attend when every session offered such outstanding opportunities.

"Libraries are essential in a process of giving citizens access to knowledge. In digital times they are needed more than ever before. Get your library card, and you'll be able to borrow a print or electronic book, use free internet, or attend a course improving your digital skills. See also: 12 most talked-about ebook bestsellers of fall 2017 11 exciting ways you can celebrate Read an Ebook Day 2017 Most importantly, however, libraries are the places where you can expect smart and clear answers to even most difficult questions. Neil Gaiman perfectly describes what's happening in digital times: "Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one." In times of the internet, everyone can visit a library without leaving home. It's just a matter of opening a library website, and you can not only borrow an ebook but also ask the librarian an online question."

"Nick Sigmon first encountered the idea of "grading for equity" when he attended a mandatory professional development training at San Leandro High School led by Joe Feldman, CEO of the Crescendo Education Group. As a fairly new high school physics teacher, Sigmon says he was open-minded to new ideas, but had thought carefully about his grading system and considered it fair already. Like many teachers, Sigmon had divided his class into different categories (tests, quizzes, classwork, homework, labs, notebook, etc.) and assigned each category a percentage. Then he broke each assignment down and assigned points. A student's final grade was points earned divided by total points possible. He thought it was simple, neat and fair."

"For too long, the American education system failed too many kids, including far too many poor kids and kids of color, without enough public notice or accountability. To combat this, leaders of all political persuasions championed the use of testing to measure progress and drive better results. Measurement has become so common that in school districts from coast to coast you can now find calendars marked "Data Days," when teachers are expected to spend time not on teaching, but on analyzing data like end-of-year and mid-year exams, interim assessments, science and social studies and teacher-created and computer-adaptive tests, surveys, attendance and behavior notes. It's been this way for more than 30 years, and it's time to try a different approach. The big numbers are necessary, but the more they proliferate, the less value they add. Data-based answers lead to further data-based questions, testing, and analysis; and the psychology of leaders and policymakers means that the hunt for data gets in the way of actual learning. The drive for data responded to a real problem in education, but bad thinking about testing and data use has made the data cure worse than the disease."

"For centuries, the majority of kids who attend school do so for one reason: it is mandatory. Think back to when you were in school, now envision you were offered the following choices: You master the material and receive a low grade You don't understand the material and receive a high-grade Which would you choose? Sure, some would rather master the material, but the majority would aim for the higher grade. In order to transform the learning process from standardization to personalization, we need to help students shift their view of school away from focusing on grades to focusing on their personal self-growth. We need to show them they are not just there because they have to be."

Coding is the enemy of computational thinking," Stephen Wolfram announced during his keynote at the Building Learning Communities® Education Conference. What was remarkable about this comment were the agreeable nods from the crowd. It seemed there was a collective understanding to this notion, and perhaps one that needed further reflection. This year, the conference had several sessions focusing on computational thinking (which, I might add, is incredibly encouraging to see), and in each one I attended, a special note was added: "Coding and computational thinking are not synonymous."

"Teachers are notorious for taking care of everyone but ourselves. The coming summer provides a perfect chance to change that. Some of us will seek the luxury of a true physical, mental, and emotional break from the classroom. Others will leap directly into teaching summer school in order to cobble together a full salary. Or we'll attend more conferences and trainings in the next two months than in the last 10 put together. Every teacher, even those of us in the throes of summer school and professional development, should make time to answer an existential question: Who are we when we're not teaching? Here are four ideas for making the most of that oasis of time between the end of this school year and the beginning of the next."

"I've been playing Minecraft Education-mostly with students or other teachers-for about four years now. My experience came to a head two weekends ago, when I attended MINECON, the annual Minecraft convention and fan fest held this year in Anaheim on September 24-25. I go to a lot of educational technology conferences, but I don't have a lot of experience with "fandom conventions." Experiencing MINECON 2016 as an educator, I found it to be a melding of the two-and a clear indicator as to why the education world is obsessed with Minecraft."

"Like most students at the time, I did not have access to computer science classes when I attended Wilde Lake High School in Columbia during the 1980s. I only stumbled upon the field when my high school math teacher recommended that I take a FORTRAN programming course at Howard Community College. I quickly learned that programming was like nothing I had experienced in school before. Whenever I finally solved a problem, there was a deeply satisfying "aha!" moment. As a result, I studied computer science at Harvard and received my Ph.D. in the field from the University of California, Berkeley. Nearly four decades after I took that first FORTRAN class, I'm a professor of computer science and associate dean at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I was fortunate to have found my passion, even though computer science was not taught at my school. The unfortunate fact is that most K-12 schools still do not teach computer science, and most of today's high school and college students - particularly women - have still had little or no exposure to computational thinking, coding or computer science. There are certainly many students who would make great computer scientists, or who could leverage computing skills to achieve success in any number of other fields, who never take a single related class. Even in Maryland, one of the most technologically advanced states in the nation, only 14 percent of students take a computer science class in high school, and nearly half of the public high schools do not offer any AP computer science classes."

"Though there were a host of professional learning takeaways for me, one stood out as a real actionable item. Funny, this same theme came up at every conference I attended: Celebrating Failing."

"Code for Life is a free program that I learned about while attending the BETT Show last week. Code for Life has a programming interface based on Blockly. Anyone who has used Blockly or Scratch will immediately recognize the similarities when they launch Code for Life's programming interface."

The past five days have provided me with an amazing learning experience as I have attended ICOT 2018. With the conference just wrapped up and with Florida providing another remarkably wet afternoon, here are some initial reflections.  

What might it take to ensure students choose to be in our courses because the value of the learning achieved through mindful attendance is such that they would not want to be anywhere else?

"Starting to integrate technology can be intimidating.  So many choices, new ideas being shared all of the time through social media, blogs, books, Teacher Professional Development, and more. I find the best time to walk away with new ideas is right after a big event dedicated to edtech. With conference season upon us, maybe you recently attended a conference or edcamp or read something and now have a long list of new ideas which can be overwhelming. Or maybe you just are looking for something to change in your classroom or school and need some quick ideas for new, engaging elements to implement in your classroom or with your faculty even for professional development."