Showing posts with label 1:1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1:1. Show all posts

Monday, April 15, 2019

Exploring the Respiratory System with Augmented/Virtual Reality & More in Seventh Grade Science

Students in Kaylene Boos’ seventh grade life science class at Minnetonka Middle School West are studying about the respiratory system. In the past the lesson involved a lot of lecture and note taking. Naturally students didn’t find this past method of content delivery very interesting. Teachers are always improving their instruction, and over the past few years, middle school science teachers have restructured the learning activities to be more engaging for the students. On Monday afternoon when I was present, students were rotating among eight different stations for five minutes each, very engaged in activities.

At one of the stations students used the Virtuali-tee app. This augmented reality app allows students to scan a special T-shirt with their iPad and see the body systems inside the torso of the person/shirt, including the respiratory system. Funds from the PTO were granted to purchase the shirts for each seventh grade science teacher. As pictured, students could hold their iPad like a window into the respiratory system. As they moved it around, they were able to see inside a lung. Augmented and virtual reality show a lot of promise in the opportunities that will be available for learning, and activities this seem to just be the start of what’s possible. 



At another station students watched a video about the respiratory system and answered questions, recording their answers in Notability. At a third station, students completed an online labeling activity in which they had to race to beat the clock identifying the parts of the respiratory system. Another station consisted of sorting vocabulary terms and then photographing and inserting the image of the result into the Notability file. Students also researched answers to questions online and took a Schoology quiz at two other stations and the last station had a model of a working lung made out of a 2 liter pop bottle.

These activities cover multiple dimensions on our Minnetonka Teaching & Learning Framework: communication, collaboration, personalized learning, critical thinking, use of technology for learning, and more. Switching stations every five minutes kept the students active and moving around. They also worked on each activity in shorts bursts, so I did not see them losing interest or becoming bored with the learning. I certainly would have preferred to learn in this manner myself back in school. Plus when I was teaching, I should have designed more active learning opportunities like this for my own students!


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Monday, March 25, 2019

2nd Grade Book Creators Publish Their Learning


Last week I was in second grade teacher Traci Preciado’s class as students were working on writing books on a research topic of their choice. Students eagerly showed me their work and read their books aloud. The topics they selected ranged from animals like cheetahs and sabertooth tigers to Native Americans to British Soldiers. Each student was engaged and excited about producing a book on their topic and motivated to write and find images to illustrate their work using the Book Creator app.


A few weeks prior to this, students had been learning about polar animals, polar lands, and people who live in polar regions. Students had written summaries of each areas and then chose one area to publish as a book. Traci then showed them how to use the Book Creator app and they spent a couple class periods putting in their information. This was practice for their own research project.


The following week students choose an animal, person, or place to research. The wrote questions, researched and read about their topic using Pebble Go, and then wrote about it. They used Book Creator in iPads to type up their writing and insert images. When they finished the class has a publishing fair, inviting in their parents to come in and hear the books being read by students. Traci also emailed each students’ parents a copy of their book electronically as a PDF.
This is a great example of students having voice and choice in their learning as well as creating and communicating their work with an authentic audience, all components of our Minnetonka Teaching & Learning Framework. Traci tied in numerous nonfiction reading and writing skills throughout this project as well. Students were very motivated to learn and use technology to showcase their work.


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Monday, April 23, 2018

More Ways to Inform Parents of How Technology Changes Learning

In a continuing effort to inform parents of how technology is used for learning in school, our  instructional technology coaches in Minnetonka keep exploring new ideas and formats for this communication. In the past I’ve shared about the Minnebytes that have run in our weekly high school newsletter for the past two years with hundreds of examples. At the beginning of this school year, I shared the middle school version of this Minnebytes newsletter for parents and teachers highlighting Minnetonka iPad Integration.

The challenge of grabbing parents' limited attention seems greater than ever. Parents are bombarded with all sorts of messages and information on a daily basis, whether it’s from school, sports, work, or their personal lives. Messages need to be short and to the point, and of course, catchy and attention grabbing. So often it is difficult for parents to understand how technology tools are being used because they remember school before these tools existed and don’t have a background knowledge or understanding of technologies possibilities in education. It is our continued hope that by keeping parents informed of the many ways we are using technology in school for engagement and deeper learning they will better understand its importance and continue to support its use. 

In an effort to better reach parents, recently one of our middle school technology instructional coaches, Sara Hunt, has been creating infographics using Infogram. Three examples are included below. In these infographics she focuses on one specific technology tool students use in our one to one iPad program. She explains what it does, how it is used, includes a link to a video about the app, and includes one or more examples of our students or teachers using this tool for instruction. 








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Monday, April 2, 2018

Minnebytes Year 2: 50 More Examples of High School iPad Integration


For a second year in a row our high school instructional technology coaches are compiling a weekly newsletter highlighting three ideas for integrating iPads in the classroom. Each week as they are out in classrooms working with teachers, our three high school instructional tech coaches see these firsthand. They snap a photo, write a few sentences describing the lesson they observe, explain how the lesson fits in with our Teaching & Learning Framework, and then put each of them on a slide in a continuous Google Slide deck.

This is the second time I've posted about this. Last year I wrote about the first round of ideas shared. These ideas continue to be shared weekly with staff as well as parents. It is a great way to educate everyone about the possibilities and power of using iPads and technology in instruction. We continue to track views of these weekly ideas by both staff and parents using the free analytics tools available through Goo.gl/Google. 

 In addition to these high school examples, ideas are regularly shared at our other schools as well. Take a look yourself at all the great ways teachers and students are leveraging technology for learning!
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Monday, January 8, 2018

More Tips for Successful 1:1 Programs: Ongoing Teacher Sharing, Dialog, Reflection & Colleague Observations

One of the reasons I believe our 1:1 program has been successful is because of our ongoing, sustained professional development, which I've written about in the past. We are now in the seventh year of 1:1, and still providing all of our teachers with about 9 hours annually of professional development related to technology. Whether teachers are in their first or seventh year teaching students with 1:1 devices, they attend multiple training sessions per year. 

 Learning to use the device itself is simple, as is learning how to use it in education to move from traditional paper and pencil environments to a digital document cycle. That part doesn't require ongoing training. The reason we do provide continual staff development for our teachers is to help them use technology in ever new and innovative ways to deepen learning for students and make it more meaningful. (See Beyond SAMR Ladders and Pools: A Framework for Teaching & Learning)

 As part of our trainings with 1:1 teachers, we have found it beneficial to provide them with time to share ideas with one another and talk through issues, whether we are meeting with a group of new or experienced teachers. Originally we called these conversations Roses & Thorns (what was going well and what is not). More recently some of our instructional technology coaches have called it Roses, Buds & Thorns, adding the sharing of a growth area/goal to the conversation.
Our high school instructional technology coaches have called these meetings "Roundtables." Two past roundtable sessions I attended are pictured.  During the first year teachers are in a 1:1 implementation the roses and thorns shared at these sessions tend to be about logistics and classroom management. After teachers are more experienced and comfortable with 1:1 teaching and learning, the topics and ideas shared become much more complex and creative, as teachers share innovative lesson ideas and ways they have used technology to redefine teaching and learning. Making time for the sharing of these ideas is a great way to spread the wealth of information and experience they collectively have and move your program further forward. We have grouped teachers in a variety of ways besides experience; sometimes teachers have been grouped by subject or grade levels, too. During the share time all ideas are documented so teachers can revisit them afterwards.

 Besides sharing ideas with one another, we have also had teachers go out and observe colleagues. I mentioned this in a past post, too. Most recently, our high school instructional technology coaches dedicated 20 minutes of a training session to classroom observations. They asked teachers to visit about three classrooms for around five minutes each, with only one class in their own department. Afterwards they regrouped and debriefed. Teachers shared what they noticed about instruction, student engagement, and the use of technology. 

 This process of ongoing sharing, dialog, reflection and colleague observation is one of the keys to our success and growth of our 1:1 program. You can learn more about our it, iPads, and use of technology for learning in the additional related posts below:

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