Innovation @477 - Hour of Code & Computer Science Education Week 2017

Hour of Code 2017

December 4-10 is Computer Science Education week, also known as the Hour of Code. The focus of this week is to promote computer science opportunities for all students. I've compiled a list of resources and ideas in this week's blog for you to introduce coding into your classroom. Additionally, I have blocked out my schedule to be available to help with coding activities in classrooms. If you would like to work together on teacher your students coding, email the days and times that work best for your class. I will do what I can to accommodate all requests.  😀

The goal of Hour of Code is for EVERY student to get at least one hour of coding completed during the week. ALL students, preschool-high school, can learn some form of coding. See below for just a few of the reasons why introducing all students to coding is important and strides made in our own state to put more value into computer science education. 

Why should all students learn about coding?

Computer Science Education in Minnesota

MN currently has 11,888 open computing jobs 

The average salary for a computing occupation in MN is $90,134. The existing open jobs alone represent
$1, 071, 512, 992 in terms of annual salaries.

Minnesota only had 895 computer science graduates in 2015, only 15% were female.

Only 694 high school student sin MN took the AP Computer science exam in 2016.

Only 39 schools in MN (12% of MN schools with AP programs) offered the AP Computer Science course in 2015-16. There are fewer AP exams taken in computer science than in any other STEM subject area.

Universities in Minnesota did not graduate a single teacher 

prepared to teach computer science in 2016. 

What is already planned in 477 for Hour of Code week?

Primary School - during technology class with Mrs. Anderson

Students will be focusing on code.org plugged and unplugged activities

Intermediate School during tech specialist with Mrs. Baird

Students will complete the Moana, Minecraft or Google Doodle challenge activities on code.org

Middle School during Computer Apps with Mrs. Arens

6th Grade students will use Scratch to practice coding

High School during lunch/advisory

Our Nerd Herd students will be available to teach any interested staff and students how to start

coding right away! This opportunity will be available all month. 

Resources

Hour of Code Classroom Activities - offline, online, pre-readers through high school seniors. There is something for everyone here! 

Hour of Code with Kodable
This app is already available on all iPads at PS, and it can be accessed through chrome on iPads or chromebooks at the IS. Everything you need to help your students complete their Hour of Code. This resource includes plugged and unplugged (no devices needed) activities. 

Hour of Code with Disney
Activites and videos to get your students coding right away. Featuring Moana, Anna & Elsa, Big Hero 5 and Star Wars!

#SeesawCoders
Seesaw is offering several live webinars (K-12) during Computer Science Week that you can watch with your students. They include How Do You Build an App, Product Design,  Jobs in Coding and more! Click the #Seesaw Coders link below to see which webinar is perfect for your class. These are much like virtual field trips where your class will watch live and possibly have the chance to interact with the content. 

Innovation @477 Get To Know You with Technology

Welcome back to another great year in Princeton Public Schools. This year our 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th graders will all have 1:1 devices with increased access for all other grades. With more technology at hand, it's time to see how those tried and true back to school activities can be done using technology!

Erin Franson, 5th grade teacher at our Intermediate School created this great activity that could be used in just about any classroom! It's the tech turn on Two Truths and a Lie where you each student tells two truths and one like about themselves, the class has to guess the lie. Erin has put this activity into a Google Slides format. She will share the slides with her class, giving each students the ability to edit the document. This could also be shared using Google Classroom quite easily!

Once the students open the document, they will find the slide with their name and work on entering their two truths and a lie. Putting student names in the document ahead of time makes it easier for students to find their workspace without accidental writing on or deleting information on on a classmate's slide.
A couple of options for how to use the completed document:

• Project it on the smart board and go through each slide as a class, taking guesses together. 
• Share it on Seesaw (it will share as a pdf) and have students share their guesses using comments. 
• Have students access the document and go to each slide, using the comments feature in Google Slides they can give their guesses. 

Other ideas? Share below in the comments!

Here's the link to the Two Truths and a Lie document for you to use!

Make a Copy, Rename it and put in your own student's names and you are ready to go!

Thank you to Erin Franson (@eefranson on Twitter) for sharing her great idea!

Two Truths and a Lie

Innovation @477 This Year in Tech Integration

My first year as your technology integration specialist has been an incredible ride. I truly never imagined I would have left the classroom, but I am beyond grateful to those who suggested and supported me taking on this new role. My stepson explained it best when he explained my new job to family "she gets to do all the cool technology things she loves and help other teacher even more because she doesn't have to teach a class at the same time." I love getting to work with all of you and am really looking forward to another year of technology integration awesomeness in our district. This last post of the school year features many of the projects we have worked on together this year. Thank you for inviting me into your classrooms, PLCs and planning time.
Jodi Burling

1:1 Access

Our four year implementation of 1:1 device access for all students in grade 3 -12 started this year. The first year of implementation started with iPads for all 3rd graders and chromebooks for all students in 6th, 7th and 9th grades. For 2017-18 our 3rd graders will continue with iPads and we will add chromebooks for all students in 8th and 10th grades. Additionally, we are increasing technology access in our Early Childhood and Primary buildings with classroom carts of iPads for each grade level. Having 1:1 access has allowed our students to take  more ownership of their learning while growing their 21st Century Skills set.
     

BreakoutEDU

Several teachers jumped on the Breakout bandwagon, finding ways to review and introduce material while helping students to refine their 4 Cs (Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication & Creativity). We were able to grow our materials from 2 boxes to 7, allowing for teachers to have smaller groups of students working together and racing against other teams to solve break in to their boxes. This summer I will continue to update our 21st Century Skills website with a list of games that are prepped and ready to play in your classrooms.

 

 

Makerspaces

Through grants from the EdCamp Foundation and Century Link MN the Intermediate School was provided with a mobile maker space cart. This cart includes various items for students to explore, create and learn through play. With the Century Link grant, there are now class sets of Bloxels, littleBits and Lego WeDo 2.0. Class sets will allow teachers to teach their entire class how to use these sets for truly creative, innovative learning. Most importantly students will discover their learning style and new passions and interests while finding innovative ways to demonstrate learning.

The primary school has their own mobile creator space and Lego Lab. This cart includes Lego Learn to Learn, Lego Story Starter, Kinex and other creative products that promote learning and refining the 4Cs through play!

Makerspaces have proved to be a vital asset in districts across the county and across grade levels, which is why we will be looking at expanding makerspaces into our middle and high school media centers in the next few school years, while continuing to grow our spaces at PS and IS.
 

Co-Teaching Technology

One of the biggest parts of my job this year as been co-teaching technology with classroom teachers. Co-teaching allows for teachers to learn new apps, websites or innovative teaching ideas with their students. Several teachers had me in their classrooms this year to co-teach this school year and I look forward to continuing this practice in our next school year! A small sampling of lessons I co-taught with teachers this year include: Seesaw Introduction and Seesaw lessons, iPad apps and challenges, BreakoutEDU, Lego Learn to Learn, Lego Story Starter, Google Classroom, Assistive Technology options on Chromebooks and iPads, Standards Tracker, Virtual Fieldtrips, Google Hangouts with other classrooms in and out of our district and more! Samantha Heitke and I also teamed up to teach Genius Hour with many Kindergarten teachers and research skills with 2nd grade! I'm looking forward to helping teachers integrate more technology in their classrooms next year through co-teaching experiences!



Have an amazing summer!

Innovation@477 This Week 5/12: Appy Hour

Appy Hour is an idea many of the tech coaches have read about in our study of Carl Hooker's book: Mobile Learning Mindset: A Coach's Guide to Implementation. In Appy Hour, you get together and quickly share apps, extensions and websites that are making a difference in your classroom. Our first Appy Hour will be digital, we hope to take these "live" in your buildings this fall!

If you have any awesome app, extension or website to share please send it to your friendly tech integration specialist! 

The QR Code Generator & The QR Code Extension

QR codes are excellent way to get students to a website quickly. Using a QR code scanner on their iPad or Chromebook, students scan the code and are immediately directed to the website. This is a quite a time saver as students of all ages can fumble with entering log web site addresses. This website and extension are slick for creating and downloading codes. 

Once you install the extension, it will show up on the side of your Chrome web address bar. Anytime you are on a website that you would like to create a QR code for, simply click the extension icon and a code is automatically created that you can download.





Chatterpix or Chatterkid
Many teachers are doing end of the year research or genius hour projects. Chatterpix provides a quick, fun and creative way for students to share their learning. In this app students take a picture of an object (or upload a pic they saved) and add a "mouth" to the picture. Then they record their voice sharing facts about that object or person. This project can be finished in short amount of time and students can share the finished project easily in Seesaw or on Google Classroom. Chaterpix or Chatterkid is installed on Primary and Intermediate school iPads.

Example project from 2nd grader sharing what she learned about tornadoes!

Brittanica School

If you've ever told your students to just "google it" you have likely noticed that many students (across all grades) have no idea how to research with Google. Samantha Heitke and I found that to be true in talking about experiences with students. We did some research and discovered Brittanica school is an excellent resource for all students. When you first login you can choose elementary, middle or high school. From there students choose a topic of interest. 

Each topic is written at that specific level, however at the top of each article students can choose level 1, 2 or 3. The levels correspond to Elementary, Middle and High, yet when a student is on the high school page, and selects level 1, the screen doesn't change to the elementary looking page. It simply changes the content to a lower reading level. This will allow all your students to work on the same resource but get the information at their reading level!

Example of Galileo from each level:

Samantha and I have created a lesson that uses all of these sites/apps to create a quick mini-genius hour project for the end of the year. Let either of us know if you'd like it sent to you!

Innovation @ 477 - Seesaw Snapshot

Many teachers in our Primary and Intermediate schools are currently using Seesaw to have students showcase their WOW works, practice early digital citizenship skills, turn in homework digitally and share their learning with others! In this post we will check out some of the projects happening in our K-5 classrooms.

Kindergarten students sharing what they learned about animals!

Celebrating AR Success in 3rd grade!

Using Seesaw to share news with families!

Demonstrating learning in Kindergarten!

Sharing Google Slides Presentations

This is just a very small sample of the ways Seesaw is being used in classrooms! See below for a list of resources for more ideas. Thank you to all the teachers in 477 using Seesaw for truly innovative and exciting opportunities for our students.

Seesaw Teachers Facebook Group

Seesaw Help Center

Innovation @477 This Week - 4/7/17

Breakout Fever

BreakoutEDU is happening in classrooms across the district, Primary - High School! The administrators even checked it out this week! BreakoutEDU is the perfect way to have your students use critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration skills while reviewing content, learning something new or simply building community. To learn more about BreakoutEDU in Princeton, click here! 

Nicole Lehman's class conquered the Attack of the Locks (Star Wars themed) breakout during their acceleration class. Knowledge of roman numerals, musical notes, and reading a new language were put to the test!

The winning admin team! They broke out of the Faculty Meeting breakout in record time, leaving the other team still looking for clues!

All the fourth graders are trying hard to save Captain Digital Citizen's passwords in this game. Mrs. A. Ruzek's group was the first to actually breakout! They did an amazing job of working together and using their knowledge of Digital Citizenship to breakout!

EdTech BINGO!

Teachers across the district are busy refreshing and learning new EdTech skills! We've had several BINGO winners already! Congrats to everyone who has already won BINGO! I'm excited about all the extra calls, emails and questions in the hall I've received as teachers are looking to stretch their skills to win! Remember you can win multiple times until you BLACKOUT your board!

EdTech BINGO Hall of Fame

Seesaw

Seesaw is an app and website dedicated to student driven portfolios. Our Primary and Intermediate schools currently have access to the Pro features through a free Seesaw for Schools trial in place for the rest of the school year. We will be continuing this subscription in the new school year. All teachers at PS and IS will have an account set up (if they don't already) and training will continue to use this dynamic tool. Seesaw allows students ownership and independence in creating and sharing their work with an audience. Parents are able to connect with their student's account to see what learning in being done at school. Teachers have one place to collect student work, track performance, communicate with parents and students and teach students vital 21st Century Skills in a safe place.

Click here to see how Seesaw is being used in classrooms in our district!

Teachers at EC, MS and HS can click here to try out Seesaw Plus for one month! Seesaw is a great choice for all grades! If you use it, let me know!

What Makes a Genius?

This week I had the privilege of co-teaching a Genius Hour lesson with Samantha Heitke, our gifted and talented coordinator, in Janna Ruzek's Kindergarten class. We had a great discussion about how anyone can be genius when they have an idea and are willing to work hard to make their idea work! We put this to the test by taking out the Lego Learn to Learn kit and tried creating a wheelchair. The biggest hurdle in this challenge is that the Lego kit does not have any actual wheels! Students had to look at their pieces in a creative and innovative way to make their project work. Each student created their own version and did a fantastic job of trying new things and persevering until their design was created to their liking! After a gallery walk to see everyone's designs, we decided we we were all Geniuses because of a willingness to take an idea and work hard! 

Innovation @ 477 This Week! 2/24/17

HS Health Project
Erik Jacobs had each of his students do a quick recording of themselves using screencastify or a personal device stating why I choose not use. Students then posted their video onto a padlet that was created for each class hour. These short clips were then uploaded into a playlist on YouTube. Each hour had it's own playlist. With playlists you can select Play All so he was able to show the entire class hour's clips with just one click. The videos created were simple and incredibly powerful. Collaborating this way through padlet made it easy for Erik to collect all the videos, and easy for the students to share. Downloading and uploading the videos onto YouTube was also quick and easy.

This project is a perfect example of technology integration at work. This was a change in a project Erik has always done, using tech tools the project was more student driven than teacher driven, saved resources and made a more powerful statement!

Teachers Going Mobile
In the last few weeks Jodi, Ian and Luke have been setting up all classroom teachers at the Middle School with their new MacBook Air laptops. This is part of a district initiative to increase mobility when it comes to technology. Many teachers have been excited about the speed of their new device versus the desktop and the ability to bring it with them when working out of the classroom! Our Primary School teachers have had their devices for a year, next year our Intermediate School will be have their MacBook Air laptops issued as we work towards moving all teaching staff to the new laptops.

Swivl
We have a great new "robot" in the district! The Swivl is taking observations to a whole new level. It was used last week during observations at the Intermediate and Primary schools. The Swivl holds onto an iPad for filming, the subject being filmed wears a remote on a lanyard and the Swivl follows the subject as they move around the room. This allows for recording of observations without someone holding a camera and without the teacher having to stand in one place....because we all know that rarely happens! Swivl videos are automatically uploaded into a cloud based system and can be reviewed immediately and edited as needed.

How the Swivl can help innovate learning in Princeton:

• Teachers can choose to film their lesson to review independently for student engagement or to review teaching strategies. 
• Observational rounds can involve fewer people in the room. 
• Videos can be shared easily to show the many examples of exceptional teaching that happens in Princeton. Note - we will never share a video without your permission!
• PLCs can do lesson studies without having to arrange for substitutes. 

The possibilities are endless. 

If you are interested in using the Swivl in your classroom, contact Jodi or Eric. 

Innovation at 477 This Week 2/3/17

MakerSpace

MakerSpace is a huge trend in education across the country. This week Princeton joined the wave by adding MakerSpace carts at Princeton Primary and Princeton Intermediate. At Princeton Primary, a Lego Lab & Creator Space cart includes Lego Education tools including Learn to Learn and Story Starter. Both of these tools include standards aligned lessons for students in reading, math, engineering and science. Additionally this cart has Kinex Math and Geometry education kits, Art Tub and a Marble Maze.

At Princeton Intermediate a former laptop cart was repurposed into a mobile MakerSpace. This mobile cart includes a Lego Education Story Starter, many Lego pieces and a Lego table for building and creating, 5 Makey Makey sets, Little Bits STEAM kit, Art Tubs, Learning Games, Maze Challenges, a United States Map puzzle and more. Most of these items were purchased with funds from a EdCamp grant, applied for by the Tech Integration Specialist. 

Why MakerSpace?

MakerSpace (or Creator Space) allows students to develop their vital 21st Century Skills in a fun and engaging manner while still meeting state and national reading and math standards. Allowing students to create and demonstrate their learning in creative ways makes for better learning connections. Look for future Innovation at 477 This Week updates to see how these carts are being put to use!

Podcast

Principal Barb Muckenhirn at PHS, along with two students launched a new podcast this week. Recording of Episode 1 of Now We Go will be available next week. This podcast is a passion project for Principal Muckenhirn, the purpose of this podcast is to talk about some of the things that make our lives go better and keep us going!  Now We Go!  The show is being edited and produced by junior Josh Fuller and will features guest senior Damon Rademacher for the first 5 episodes. 

Innovation is happening every day in or schools. If you would like to learn more, subscribe to our blog for weekly Innovation Updates! Teachers, contact Jodi Burling if you would like help with collaboration on ideas or co-teaching any innovative teaching ideas!