Minnetonka Research: An In Depth, Highly Advanced High School Research Program

This year Minnetonka Public Schools launched a research center for our high school students. The program provides on site laboratories with specialized equipment and allows highly advanced high school students to pursue authentic research. They work in partnership with mentors from the surrounding scientific, industry, and university community to research an answer to a math, science, engineering, or social science question of their choice. There are currently two research courses available to students starting in their sophomore year. A prerequisite is passing an  AP or IB math or science exam.

This happened after four years of planning and preparation. The idea was brought forth through our idea hunt, an annual process in which all staff partake to crowd source innovation (see Minnetonka Schools: Innovation is Now Our Strategic Plan for more info). Starting last summer, a few classrooms at the high school were remodeled and outfitted as science laboratory spaces. Equipment was donated by many area businesses. Students each have their own lab bench space to perform their experiments and have access to the lab every day of the week.

Students work with teachers and their mentors on detailed project proposals, learn project management, budget skills, keep detailed journals and lab notebooks, learn scientific writing and communicating, read research articles, and more. Student projects that involve human subjects, animals, or pathogens go through a committee process for approval and oversight. The projects themselves are complex, such as:

Inhibition of Bacterial Conjugation Through Regulation of Transfer Genes traA, traQ, and traM with Phosphorothioate Antisense Oligonucleotides in Escherichia coli.

Other student research projects include in more basic understandable terms include:

Self healing plastic as an artificial muscle

Researching cancerous liver cells

Developing an assistive bicycle stabilization system

Health study of Indian women

Improving bacterial DNA polymerases

Hearing these students explain their projects is amazing! Watch a DecemberSchool Board meeting in which staff and students presented about the program. Students in the program post to Beyond the Glass, the Minnetonka Research Blog, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays--check it out for more details. You can also follow @tonkaresearch, check out the Minnetonka Research website and contact Kim Hoehne, the program director.

Over 40 More iPad Integration Ideas for Elementary, Middle, & High School

Last week I presented at the Ed Tech Teacher Innovation Summit in San Diego along with one of our middle school principals, Dr. Paula Hoff, and one of our high school instructional technology coaches and science teachers, Patricia Price. We presented another edition of "Tonka Teacher Talks." We showcased over 40 Minnetonka 1:1 iPad teachers' examples of iPad integration in a variety of elementary, middle & high school curricular areas. We explained how each example fit into our Minnetonka Framework for Teaching & Learning and moved beyond SAMR to create more meaningful, deeper, and engaging learning experiences for students. 

The presentation is a collection of over 40 great things happening in Minnetonka classrooms daily harnessing the power of iPads for teaching and learning. It has many links to examples of students' work as well as some links to videos. Elementary examples are on slides with a green background, middle school examples have a yellow background, and high school examples are on a blue background. We are fortunate in Minnetonka to have so many great teachers doing amazing things with their students. You can view the slideshow presentation below.  

Related posts:

• Tonka Teacher Talks at ETT San Diego iPad Summit 2015
• Minnetonka Top 100+ Ideas for 1:1 Integration in 5th grade, English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and World Language

• One Year Later, Green Screens Are Everywhere in Minnetonka Schools

• Minnetonka Students Create Green Screen Videos with Do Ink

• Math: An Overlooked Subject in Non-Tablet 1:1 Programs 

• An Easy Way to Weekly Inform Teachers & Parents of Great Technology Integration

• Beyond SAMR Ladders & Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning

• App Smashed Presidential Rock Bands as Alternative Assessments in US History

• Students Explain Everything and Increase Test Scores

• Mt. Rushmore 2- Beyond Four Presidents

• Students Learn to Visualize a Process: A Valuable Life Skill for Everyone

• My Christmas Ed Tech Moonshot Wish: A Marriage Between Apple & Google
• Free iBook about Minnetonka's 1:1 iPad Apple Distinguished Program: Four+ Years Transforming Learning

• Bigger, Better, Faster: New iPads Coming for Year Six in Minnetonka's 1:1 Program; First Devices Cost $0.38/school day 

• School's (Almost) Out, So Keep Your iPad for the Summer

• A Big Bang for Your Buck: The iPad for $0.44/day: Less than a Chromebook

• Tip #1 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Execute the Rollout Carefully and Deliberately 

• Tip #2 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Differentiate Teacher Training

• Tip #3 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation: Use Schoology as the Classroom Hub

• Tip #4 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation- Make Full Use of the iPad as a Formative Assessment Tool 

• Tip #5 for a Successful 1:1 Implementation- Make Classroom Management an Early and Continuous Focus

• Great 1:1 Program Evaluation Questions for Student, Parent, and Teacher Surveys

• Minnetonka's 1:1 iPad Student Training & Setup Checklist & Flipped Student PD 

• Balancing Choice and Control with a Half Million Apps

The Difference Between Educational & Entertainment Screen Time

A recent question from a parent wondering about screen time limits in our classrooms made me realize that not everyone is aware of the difference between educational and entertainment screen time. Many of today's parents grew up at a time when most, if not all, screen time in their childhood was for entertainment purposes. There were no eBooks, educational apps, and many fewer (if any) computer programs for learning. Parents my age or older likely grew up at a time when the only screens in their school were an occasional TV/VCR wheeled into the classroom. This was also a time when our own parents warned us about spending too much time in front of a television screen, or later, perhaps too much time video gaming at an arcade (and eventually video gaming with a console connected to our television). Also, at this time we didn't hear anything asking us to consider the content on the screen, the only focus was on overall screen time limits. 

Until a year and a half ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics had long suggested limiting a child’s total screen time per day. Then in 2015, the AAP revised their screen time recommendations. They now encourage parents consider the content on the screen itself before deciding whether or not there should be any time limits. The AAP recommends limiting recreational/entertainment screen time to one to two hours per day for children over age two (source). There is no screen time limit for educational content and use. More tips from the AAP about children and media.

Personally, my wife and I limit the amount of entertainment screen time our children spend per day to about an hour: we have our kids limit their video gaming time to 20 minutes a day, setting a timer before they start playing. We also try to keep the time spent per day watching a television/Netflix show to 30 minutes. On the weekends, we do allow more--often they may watch a movie or two. The time our kids spend daily on screens for educational reasons doesn’t count toward these limits. We’ve made it a rule that homework needs to get completed after school first before screens can be used for entertainment, and hopefully this is creating some good habits for our kids to follow in their future!

The revised AAP recommendations were long overdue and I'm thankful they finally were made. However, in the past decade or so while there was exponential growth in the field of educational technology, the unrevised AAP recommendations remained in place and were a source of confusion for parents. As educators, we need to remember that many parents still aren’t aware that the AAP made these changes and still think that all screens are equal. We also need to realize that just because we share this information with parents once, we can’t expect that everyone will hear it and know it from this point forward. It will be an ongoing educational task. There will likely be new technologies that become widely adopted that may need revised recommendations and AAP guidance once again, too. Hopefully it won’t take quite so long!

Related posts: 

• The Digital Media Diet: Differing Types of Entertainment Screen Time
• Tech Free Family Dinners Focused on Gratitude

• Be Where Your Feet Are: #RealTime with Those Around You

• Best Age for a Kid to Get a Cellphone with Internet Access 

• Five Ways to Raise Digitally Balanced JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) Kids in a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) World

• Techcognition in an Attention Economy

• Over 1/2 of Parents Keep Digital Devices Out of Kids' Bedrooms Overnight

• Happy Sweet 16! Now You Can Snapchat. (34% of Parents Don't Allow It Until High School.)

• Curbi: Great Option for Filtering and Monitoring an iPhone/iPad/iPod

• Quick & Easy Cell Phone Web Filtering for Kids (*and limitations)

• Parenting with Purpose in the Digital Age... It's Complicated

• Parenting in the Digital Age Part 2: How Much Should Parents Snoop?

• Technology & Relationships- 15 minute interview

• Crazy Busy: You Are Letting the Screen Strangle Your Soul

• New Year's Resolution: 3 Ways to Cut Back on Digital Distractions

• My First Apple Watch: Solution to Distraction?

• District Digital Citizenship Committee: Tonka Schools Campaign to Raise Awareness of Cyber Safety at Home

• What's in a Name? Digital Health & Wellness vs. Digital Citizenship 

• The Teenage Brain +Dementia of the Preoccupied

• Raising Digitally Balanced Kids: Cybersafety Resources

Minnetonka Linear Algebra 8th Graders Use Bootstrap to Code

Recently eighth grade students in Sarah Beron’s Linear Algebra class at Minnetonka Middle School West showcased their Bootstrap projects. Bootstrap is a coding curriculum that uses a “video game development programming pedagogy” while reinforcing algebra concepts for middle school students, integrating it with math curriculum rather than making it an add on, elective, or after school club. In Bootstrap, students need to think through problems, troubleshoot their code, come up with solutions, and understand programming behind the scenes. Because of its emphasis on the close ties with mathematics, Bootstrap helps students who may traditionally struggle with math see connections between their learning and something in real life with which they are familiar: video games. (Bootstrap Overview Video)

Last summer along with other Minnetonka teachers, Sarah attended a Bootstrap training to learn more about the program and plan to use it with her math students this year.  The curriculum is free, and Sarah used the lessons for Bootstrap 1 with her math support class for a 24 day unit. In Bootstrap 1, students “create a simple, 3-character game involving a player, a target and a danger. They design what each character looks like, and use algebraic concepts to detect collisions, handle keystrokes, and determine how they move and interact.”

The students I spoke with found the program fun and enjoyed applying their math skills to a real-life situation in order to make the video game that they were designing. One thing Sarah really liked about Bootstrap was the fact that it required students to pay careful attention to details. When their program wouldn’t work if they missed a single character, number, or symbol they would have to debug it in order to figure out what went wrong. She wants her math students to use the same skills in algebra, such as paying attention to whether or not a number in an equation is a positive or negative and appreciating the importance of these details, too.

The students completed numerous exercises in a workbook to learn that basics of coding and then used the WeScheme program to write their code. It was a lot of work for the students but they benefited from it. They were able to see and experience the importance and value of math skills and see computer coding as a possible future area of study and career. Math students taught by Rhonda Lundgren at our other middle school will begin their Bootstrap unit later this week. Bootstrap is one of many tools used in Minnetonka Schools to teach computer programming and computer science. More on the Tonka Codes Program:

• More Than an Hour of Code: Tonka Coding & Computer Science Programs Now in Year Three

• Video Game Design and Computer Coding at High School

• 7,843 Hours of Coding this Week @TonkaSchools

• Computer Coding Starting in Kindergarten

• Minnetonka Elementary Coding

• Details about the Curriculum and Program

• What's Cool in Our School

• Minnetonka Summer Coding Camp

Adobe Spark Post: A Powerful Visual Impact in Lessons, Presentations, Twitter and Blogger

It's long been said that image is worth 1,000 words. In today's day and age, not many people make time to read something that's 1,000 words long, so it's even more important to choose powerful images too carefully select and use powerful images in order to make a powerful impact. Recently I remember seeing something about the likelihood of a Tweet without an image even being read, and it's pretty dismal. I can't remember exactly where I first heard of Adobe Spark Post a few months, but I've become a fan.

For anyone like me who is not a graphic artist or super creative when it comes to ideas on how to create an title slide or social media image, Adobe Spark Post is a wonderful tool. You can simply enter in your text and it will automatically suggest a picture and font, layout, and color scheme. If you want, each of these components is also easily editable and with a few clicks, you can alter the look and feel completely. You can upload your own images, too. 

  

  

I'm somewhat embarrassed to even show a couple of my own examples, but I think by doing so you'll see the power of using a tool like Adobe Spark Post. Above are two recent before and after title slides from my presentations at the Minnesota TIES technology conference last month. Think about the feeling each image conveys about the presentation content and quality. The Adobe Spark Post title slide is much more professional and engaging. As the Head & Shoulders Shampoo commercials that were on TV when I was a kid use to remind us, you never get a second chance to make a first impression!

Recently I was reminded of the importance and power of a good, eye-catching image and headline. In our local Twin Cities paper, an article explains how area restaurants are actually selecting their lighting, decorations, color schemes, and even table and plate colors to best showcase their restaurant on Instagram through customer photos. (How Instagram is changing the game for Twin Cities restaurants). While I personally don't take pictures of restaurants or food I eat and post them to any social media channels, I know that many do. It's another example of power of images in today's world.

In our 1:1 iPad program, Adobe Spark Post is one of the many apps available to our students to use as they create products to showcase their learning. Visual literacy is an important skill for today's students. We should all pay attention to the images we choose and use and make an effort to create engaging and impactful title slides in our lessons for students, presentations, and media posts. Adobe Spark also has a page creator and a video creator, so there are a lot of possibilities for education you should check out. 

Recent Posts about Minnetonka's 1:1 iPad Program:

• Minnetonka Students Create Green Screen Videos with Do Ink
• Math: An Overlooked Subject in Non-Tablet 1:1 Programs 

• An Easy Way to Weekly Inform Teachers & Parents of Great Technology Integration

• Beyond SAMR Ladders & Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning