Students Project on Online Safety

Online Safety 

Password: Bulldogs

Vimeo is a great tool that allows you to share your students work with parents and family by publishing password protected videos.  I was able to get permission to share this video publicly.

The Endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox

San Joaquin Kit Fox pups enjoying life

To see my prezi on why we need to save the San Joaquin Kit Fox, a local endangered animal, 

click here! 

Today, many of them make their homes out of sewers

Fair Oaks 2.0

Why iPads?

iPads break down the 4 walls and let students show their learning in ways that works best for them. Students are not only able to communicate their knowledge to the inbox of the teachers desk, but now to the world.  Technology is not killing student writing, it's redefining it.

Digital Portfolios can be carried from grade k-5 and up. Students can create a blog that all of their work goes to (writing, videos, pictures).  Teachers can view student blogs to see what they have accomplished.  Students can keep track of their work and celebrate their accomplishments.

Digital Citizenship

Click here to see how the Lester B. Pearson school board rolled out iPads in their district.

Click here for how they mapped out curriculum in the fields of communication, awareness, information literacy, and safety.

• K Cycle 1 - Kindergarten 
• Cycle 2 - 1st & 2nd grade
• Cycle 3 - 3-5th grade
• Secondary Cycle 1 - Jr. High
• Secondary Cycle 2 - High school 

Lesson Plan to introduce digital citizenship in your classroom

So, why is this important?

The world we know made of post offices and phone calls are long gone. Face-time, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are the new norms of communication.  We need to teach students to be safe online and protect their digital identity.  

What must teachers cover?

• False perception of privacy - just because privacy settings are on, doesn't mean they are private.  Anyone can screen shot and reuse.

• Before posting anything just ask yourself:

1. Would your mother approve?
2. Would it embarrass your grandma?
3. Could it hurt you from getting a job?

• Their Google name from now on will be their future resume.     

• We need to create a culture of kindness online.

• Outreach to parents is important to teach about their child's digital footprints. 

• No sharing passwords or any personal information (full name, phone number, address etc.)

Creating Independent Learners

Teachers will be replaced by robots if all they do is teach content. Any iPad or iPhone can do that. We need to teach students to build relationships and engage in meaningful ways with the world.

Digital Haversack - have a class site (google sites) that does everything from giving students directions, syllabi, list of resources, announcements, how-to videos, and wish lists for parents.

Easy to access. Have the website bookmarked on the iPad with expectations students go straight to it from class and get started. Keep all the links for their searches here so they do not have to google.

Calendars lets students and parents have access to important dates as long as save the dates to their devices.

If students are absent they may see what was done yesterday and the day before.  Even do it from home!

An agenda may look something similar to:

1. Welcome - important info and sign in at google form

2. Independent activity - come in and get to work, no down time.

3. Research activity - we can't always be the sole provider, we need to teach them to look up what they are curious about.  Google is the new literacy.  Share daily tips on digital citizenship.

4. Collaborative activity - what do you want them to do and how do we want them to interact?

5. Discussions - students can do this if no one is ready to collaborate.

Lastly, take pictures of students success and celebrate them on your website!

Inquiry and iPads

30-45 minutes a day:

1. have students ask questions about a new topic or theme.  Hint: They will not be able to ask good questions without knowledge.

2. Read a story / teach a lesson and ask students to take notes, along with and questions or thoughts gained.

3. With their knew knowledge, have students deepen their questions.  Group students based on similar inquiries (3-4) and have each group become experts in their area of study.  Groups can research then share information found on a blog to compare notes.

4. Demonstrate understanding. Students will take their discoveries and create a media project to present to the class.

5. Go public! share learning with families, friends, and other students interested in the topic.

• Find more information on running your inquiry class on Mrs. Wideen's Blog
• Lesson plans of primary grades animal inquiry project on the iPad

Story Telling

This is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling that weaves images, music, and voices together to give a deep dimension to characters, situations, and experiences.

Framework- Collect, relate, create, donate

Students have different set of standards when they know their work will go out past the teacher. Active learning environments are not a carrot and stick method. A cognitive activity may end up something like this:

Story telling begins with a script, its personal, uses readily available material, includes universal story elements, and is published to the world.

CCSS: Construct a story, sequence and summarize, edit and proofread, use descriptive words, use words to create imagery, understand copyright.

App Smash

Defenition: using multiple apps to create a multimedia project.

Why? To ont limait students curiosity to one medium.  Take fractional thinking and create coherent shareable stories.  Don't let their ideas die out on paper or in the app.  Send them off to the world.

1. Start to create something
2. Export to camera roll
3. Push it into another app
4. Export to a camera roll
5. push the project into another app.
6. Final destination - online!

Explain Everything makes Visuals

iMovie adds music and voice

                          

 

Helpful Apps

Chirp - Sends out a quick message or URL to all iPads in the class ("5 minutes left")
Easybloggerjr - takes projects and converts them to your blog
Evernote

Wordpress

Bookcreator- great way to make and publish ibooks

Paper53 - turns anyone into an artist (great for making books and backgrounds)

Telegami - makes a mini avatar that talks

Vimeo - a user protected Youtube

Garageband - customize music

Issuu

Green Screen

PuppetPals 2 HD - create a puppet show to tell a story.  Can use students as puppets.
News-o-matic
Pocket zoo
Brainpop
Animal Planet
InstaGrok
Wonderopolis
Skype - Especially if you are away for the day to communicate with your class!

Helpful Sites

Kidrex - Safe search engine for kids
SchoolTube
ReadWorks
Tween Tribune
Time for Kids
Readlists

Professional Development

Teachers Guide to Google Forms

QR Codes in the Classroom

Ipads in the Library

References:

All of this could not have been discovered without the help of Alice Keeler, Kristen Wideen, Samantha Mora, Greg Kulowiec, and many others at the EdTechTeacher iPad San Diego Summit 2014.

EdTechTeacher San Diego

After spending 2 days listening to wonderful presentations by keynote speakers has really helped me redefine my vision of the future of education. Like many teachers, I want to bring technology into the classroom but not sure how to integrate it in a successful manner with minimum support.

Breaking down the fear that teachers and parents have may be the first step. Teachers need to understand that technology is not destroying writing (i.e. cursive) its giving them a more accessible way to communicate their voice. The iPad itself gives students a chance to voice their opinion in a ways they never could before. Instead of 3 students raising their hand, 30 students can publish their identity anyway they want and teach the entire world.  Students will hold themselves to high standards when they know their work is going past the teachers desk. The same media becomes transformative to them.  "Technology isn't killing their ability to write, it's defining it!"

Next, to calm the fears, students need to be taught digital citizenship. From making school rules, to understanding their identity online. The new résumé in this world is a google search. Having no identity online is just as bad as having a bad identity. Students need to discuss safety and the importance of their digital portfolio. Practicing taking pictures of students, asking the student if its okay to keep or delete, will help students know what is safe to display and what is not.

Moving forward, the school needs to communicate their plan and the importance of the digital world with parents. Technology nights with open forums to help parents connect with The digital classroom.  Being able to view their children's success online would make any parent proud.

Teachers are relationship builders.  Students know they can get their information from a google search. Teachers will become absolute if we continue to do the same thing machines can do. Teachers need to become facilitators land teach kids how to access and use the digital world correctly.

There is so much positive attributes in teaching students to conduct a positive digital role in this world and create media instead of consume it.

I would love to discuss ideas and ways to transform your school. Lets collaborate!

Shay

Ask a Scientist - Peer Collaboration

        As an aspiring science teacher to elementary students, I rarely know everything about the subjects I have yet to teach.  While text books are a great source of information, sometimes the best learning comes from ones peers.

       We are finding out in school now how important academic conversations are having on students abilities with content.  So in learning myself, I asked an open-ended question to my colleagues that may not be answered with a simple yes or no from a google search.  I asked, Could cancer cells adapt to the point where it infects bacteria and therefore become an airborne agent?

      Cancer is a very important issue as it is taken the lives of many in my family, including my father.  Growing up not knowing how hereditary it is has made me lean towards science in my youth for answers.

      After discussing with my colleagues and professor I have realized that a healthy persons immune system would be strong enough to attack any bacterial cell invaders.  This idea that a healthy person could fight it off is reassuring, but it led to deeper questions from my colleagues who asked, "What about the exploding number of people who are not considered unhealthy and have compromised immune systems?"

     These hypothetical questions really help develop our critical-thinking and is something very important for our youth to develop.  Some colleagues even developed thick plot lines for movies based on this idea.  I like knowing that all it takes is to be around the right person when ideas are being shared for something remarkable to happen; whether it is finding the answer, or simple making a movie to entertain.  When questions are asked, things are put into motion.

The United States History - Using "Prezi" as a Medium

Prezi is a new generational platform that uses the cloud to save your powerful looking presentations.  Instead of creating hundreds of slides in PowerPoint, Prezi uses one large canvas that lets the user zoom in and out, almost infinitely. This lets people tell a story across a landscape of infinite space.

While fonts are limited and it takes some time getting used to, the benefit of using google image search to easily input any picture desired makes this program a goldmine.  There is no copying or pasting in this program, just simply drag the image from the toolbar and you can have your way with it.

Many videos show a wheel that is used to help guide your editing.  However, in the program I could never get this magical icon to pop up.  I had to use everything manually, and with some time, was able to produce the same results without it.

Creating my first presentation, I was not able to use all the features Prezie offers, yet, I was still able to create a spectacular and captivating presentation that I believe is an accurate description of how the Americas became populated.  The idea stemmed from questions my students had during a history lesson.

What the program did best was to allow me to use a map to tell a story.  Often this is difficult when students have limited experience with the geographical references.  Prezi becomes even more powerful in describing things in relation to each other.  It is hard to describe a molecule or how infinite space is.  This platform would be excellent at showing the planet and then zooming out to see the sun, solar system, milky way, next galaxies and so on.  Working backwards one could show a human, then zoom in to the fingernails and show organ systems, organs, tissues, cells, molecules and then finally atoms.  This process would really help students visualize how small/big things can be.

I truly think Prezie is a highly engaging tool that could be used in a wide variety to teach all kinds of concepts as well as have students make their own masterpieces.  With the use of cloud technology, these student presentations can be shared more easily than a PowerPoint on a flash drive.

Lastly, I am using blogs in the classroom, and this format allows my students to create Prezies and post them to our class blog.  I am really excited to see how this works out in the class.  If you have any experience with this please let me know, I would love to hear your experiences and ideas!

The United States History - shortly told to explain the overall picture to my 4th / 5th grade combo class

Genetically Modified Food

One content area I think is extremely important in science and to gain interest in students is the food we eat.  It is something we all relate to, but not many know how it is being produced.  I would want to awaken student’s interest and motivation in science with the food they eat.

Showing a film like Food Inc. is one way to scare a bunch of kids to turn to vegetarians, but it is not only the meat industry that is creating poor quality food.  Students need to weigh the idea of genetically modified seeds and their impact on food.  Is it good that we all have huge seedless watermelons for cheap? Or bad that we are not getting the simple bacteria needed to help build our immune system. 

Since I work with 5^th graders I would only show part of the film that deals with the seeds farmers use. I would want them to discuss the benefits and repercussions. I also think its important to see how it works.  For an activity I would have students grow plants in the class, but half of them use some kind of Miracle Grow to see the advantages.  Do the plants taste the same? Even if they do is this something you want in all foods?  

Teaching students to be ready for the 21st century is teaching them to think about the world around them.  Farming and food consumption is looking to be a huge topic for the next generation.  There is no common ground or fair regulations and needs to be heavily reformed, monitored, and improved. 

Below are some resources one could use to help stimulate classroom activity.

Resources:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/lessonplan3.php

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.gen.lp_bioengfood/

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotechnology/sakko.html