Monday, December 30, 2019

EDTalks: Screen Time & Student Well-being, January 13 @ 6pm


I'm excited to join Erin Walsh from the Spark & Stitch Institute as we give two inspiring EDTalks on technology and student health on Monday, January 13,  2020, 6:00-7:30pm at the Icehouse in Minneapolis. Register here. Here are the details:

It's Complicated: Students, Social Media and Mental Health 
Students spend an average of 53 hours each week on social media and other technology – more than any other activity but sleeping. While many assume technology is inherently bad for student mental health, evidence suggests that it can either boost or undermine what young people need to thrive. As more and more schoolwork goes online, both the opportunities and challenges are magnified, and educators need to learn how to respond. Erin Walsh will describe the key ingredients for digital wellness and share strategies to help students thrive in a world of screens.

Presenter: Erin Walsh, M.A, is co-founder of Spark & Stitch Institute, which translates brain science into practical strategies for parents and educators who want to raise courageous and connected kids. A national consultant on digital media and youth, she is co-author of the 10th anniversary edition of the bestseller, Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen, and lead program facilitator for Youth Frontiers, where she directs retreats for educators on the science of stress and why connection unleashes learning.

Raising Tech-Healthy Kids   
Tablets, smartphones, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and more... technology is a central part of young people’s lives today. Keeping up can be challenging, but a positive and well-informed approach can have a big impact on a child’s future and in creating new habits that lead to digitally healthy individuals. Learn simple tips to help both kids and adults balance the use of technology in our lives.

Presenter: Dave Eisenmann, M.A. Ed., is director of instructional technology and media services for Minnetonka Public Schools and a former classroom teacher. Dave has spoken to over 65,000 students, educators and parents about digital wellness and technology use. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University Minneapolis, where he teaches classes on technology integration. 

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Monday, December 9, 2019

Minnetonka Third Graders Go to Space (Virtually) in a Weather Balloon!

Last week third graders in Bettina Grund’s third grade Spanish immersion class at Clear Springs Elementary visited outer space! Not literally, of course. They used our new ClassVR headsets to leave earth in a weather balloon, rise up into the upper levels of the atmosphere, and eventually end up in outer space. Once they made it to space, they visited the sun and some of the planets in our solar system.

I was with them on this virtual field trip and students were so excited and engaged. They worked with a partner and took turns wearing a headset. I noticed two students girls, Ellie and Evie, who were holding hands as they took turns using headset for a few minutes at a time. I sat down with them and asked them about their trip. I learned that they had been studying the solar system already in class prior to this journey. Evie showed me her science packet about the solar system and explained that they learned about satellites, planets, orbits, seasons, and phases of the moon among other things. Ellie explained that they had made moon viewers using a paper plate with a hole cut in the center and illustrated the various phases of the moon on the plate around the hole. They liked learning about the planets and especially enjoyed this virtual field trip. 

While riding the weather balloon ClassVR uses virtual reality providing a 360 degree environment to look around. When viewing the sun and the planets, the ClassVR experience uses augmented reality. So this means that a mini version of each planet appears to be floating in front of the students while they simultaneously saw their classmates and the rest of the room. For students who were not viewing something while their partner was wearing the headset, they could watch along on the screen up front. On the screen, the teacher was displaying her ClassVR dashboard, in which she can see what everyone is looking at or display one person’s view. She could also guide the tour by having everyone see the same thing.

Bettina explained that using these headsets was an activity that she opted to give a try. She found it fairly easy easy to use and this was the second day the students had spent about a half an hour of class visiting the solar system. This activity was combined out only with science but also language arts after the students learned solar system Spanish vocabulary using iStation. The ClassVR experience fit in nicely as an extension to deepen their learning.

Thanks to the Minnetonka Foundation, 24 Class VR headsets were purchased this year. Eight headsets are stored in one portable case, so the three cases are available for our teachers to check out and use all together or in smaller sets. 
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