With the objectives being to force students to include higher order thinking skills and consider issues of scale, ratio and proportion (in addition to the original objectives of calculating distances and midpoints on a coordinate plane), I knew this could be a a great fit for this activity. The pre-stage of the iPads was a heavy lift. Thanks to @esu3pl and @21centtech, I was able to borrow 10 iPads with the scanners that would enable to project. After that, I used @tearagon7's innovative @Keynote hack to create the rides that we would import into the amusement park. When I finished loading the rides, I turned to the organizational challenge of creating the teams and the jobs for the teams. Knowing this tech might be a harder sell to this specific population, I tired to focus on giving everyone in the group a job that was essential to the success of the project. We did make one change on the fly in between the first two classes. We changed the measurements from just inches to inches times two to make the surface a little bigger. This resulted in projects that were much easier to see and manipulate. Thanks again to @keynote and @armakrapp for making these awesome project possible. Always remember: #everyonecancreate! Link to Lesson Plans HereLink to Park Organizer Worksheet
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I did a "brave."I've taught English and writing based curriculum for many years now (well, a few more than twenty). The farthest I've branched out is journalism at the high school level. I had been itching for a change before I got the job as the technical coach for Gretna Public Schools. To feed that desire the switch things up, I applied to teach computer programming in summer school for Logan Fontenelle Middle School. Luckily, I was approved and I started working with the Apple "Learn to Code 1" materials to design a four-week course. The INTERESTING:
Every year, students create end of the year projects where the only guidelines are to be creative and do some writing. Some students did "8th Grade Survival Guides" while other put together scrapbooks of the year's highlights.
Brianna took a different route. She wrote a song about the highs and lows of being an 8th grader and pretty much hits the nail on the head. I have to say that I was worried about the disclaimer she gave, but after listening, I think the football players can stand a bit of ribbing (and also the second period trumpets). So, please enjoy the musical commentary of Ms. Brianna's end of the year project. ...that's not really a word study.April. That wonderful time of the year when all middle school students and teachers lose "they" minds. As evidence, I give you things I've said in the last week alone:
No one has every accused middle schoolers of being exceptionally logical humans. However, there are some bright spots to the end of the year. Here's one of them. This kid. He is my tech genius of first period. Yesterday, he turned me on to a website called @PaperRater (www.paperrater.com). How can this company have been around since 2011 and I've never found them? (Luckily, I have kids like this dude). @PaperRater uses A.I. to analyze papers. Granted, it's a little clickbaity and I have only used the free version, but things I LOVED were:
The literature says that this program is powered by A.I.. As I said earlier, I don't think this will take the place of a teacher or peer feedback, but it is a great place to start in the revision journey.
The video above was taken using @ARMakr as an example of a dynamic vocabulary lesson for the ELA classroom I have not been this excited about technology in the classroom since I discovered automated grading on @Flubaroo five years ago. Augmented reality is about to take us to the next level in education. Why? Because it's cool and fresh and has limitless potential across the curriculum. Imagine this tech in a science classroom. Students could put the entire digestive system on their body and then point out the parts. What about a tour of Jupiter? For mathematics, teachers could make equations life size and ask students to explain each section by standing in it and pointing. History? What about interviewing a historic figure by having a student hiding behind the image doing a ventriloquist act with the picture? So. Many. Applications. Here's an instructional video showing how to use Keynote to get rid of backgrounds with Instant Alpha made by @tearagon7, an Apple Distinguished Educator out of California. I found her examples on twitter during a wild search for ideas. This easy to follow tutorial has so much potential to revolutionize interactions with material. Check out her video and then see what she's going in her school on her website and in her e-book! Here's Tauren to tell us why Hour of Code at Logan Fontenelle Middle School is fun! It is always a pleasure to work with the teachers and staff at Logan Fontenelle Middle School to put on our annual Hour of Code event. This year was no different. Even though we had to rearrange due to a snow day, we were successful in introducing an opportunity to participate in the Hour of Code programing regime to all of our 400+ students. By leveraging student ambassadors, we brought twenty five guided studies coding fun. As always, my thanks go out to @SchaeferDoug, @VanhesscheTracy, @BellevueSchools and @LFWarriors of making this a coding project to remember.
"And since we all came from a woman |
I'm a technology curriculum facilitator, and I'm excited about integrating technology in the classroom.
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