How many times have you heard this in your classroom? So much of middle school is developing systems to stay organized: “How do I get to all these classes? How do I open my locker?” And with the addition of technology: “How do I keep track of my school computer? Which Google Doc is the homework in? ”
Let’s look at 4 ways students can learn independence and grow leadership through the care and organization of technology.
I worked with a group of teachers this summer to re-think goal-setting with their students. We know it’s a key component to developing Personalized Learning Plans (PLP), but students reported little engagement in following through on and reflecting about their goals.
In our attempts to think differently about goal-setting and reflection, we decided to approach goal-setting as a visualization exercise. Each of us set a learning goal for ourselves and experimented with visualizing the end result of those goals.
School systems in Vermont and elsewhere are in the midst of a shift to proficiency-based learning. At the early stages, this transformation can feel overwhelming even for educators, even if they’re excited by the idea.
Teachers at Lamoille Union Middle/High School learn about the latest tools and resources available to them in a unique and engaging way. Marc Gilbertson, the Integration Specialist and Meagan Towle, the librarian, carve out 20 minutes in their busy schedules to get together and crank out a short video podcast series called the Weekly Geekto share available resources.
Check out this week’s entry demonstrating three tools to encourage visual and audio engagement in learning.
LMS stands for Learning Management System. An LMS is an application for planning, delivering, managing, and assessing a learning process.
Likely, your school or district will choose which commercial LMS package to deploy (Canvas,Haiku, Schoology and Google Classroom are a few), but how you use it is entirely up to you.
How can technology help make communicating with your students’ families easier? These 4 edtech tools for family communication offer different ways to open the door to your classroom and welcome families inside.
Using the free iOS Shadow Puppet app, I created this brief look at an amazing unit designed by one of our partner educators, Jonah Ibson, at Harwood Union Middle School.
Ibson challenged his students to write their own “hero’s journeys” using the iBooks Author software. By taking ownership of the Hero’s Journey narrative, students are encouraged to create e-books that place them in the hero’s role. The resulting e-books will have a chance to be housed in an elementary school library, and read out by librarians to younger students.
Check out these amazing iBook Authors at Harwood Union Middle School, in Moretown Vermont.
The technology cannot thwart us, it can only make us stronger
I talk with my hands.
As many of you are aware, I was out at Harwood Union High School this past week for the Washington West Supervisory Union (WWSU) inservice day, armed to the teeth with iPads, apps, and tips and tricks for integrating technology into the classroom in a thoughtful, comprehensive and device-agnostic way.
Well, Harwood’s wi-fi network took one look at my plans and passed out cold, a victim of shock and awe, I’m sure!
As I have no wish to cause the wi-fi further damage, let me present all my resources to you here in the pages of our very own Tarrant Institute blog.
Educators are embracing digital tools for planning and sharing
Personalized learning plans, or PLPs, are non-traditional pathways by which students can navigate from entrance to graduation in a way that’s personally meaningful. By studying topics they’re passionate about, students continue to stay engaged; by collaborating on the plans with educators and family, students’ passions can be translated into real-world learning that oftentimes exceeds standards for learning.
But where do digital tools fit into this conversation?
With all schools in Vermont being required to begin implementing PLPs for grades 7-9 by 2015, let’s take a look at 4 ways personalized learning plans are already taking off in Vermont.
A tale of how physics can be successfully essayed on.
How one class of 8th grade scientists at Harwood Union Middle School used Google Docs, Schoology, and iPads to capture long-form essays about Rube Goldberg. Featuring everyone’s favorite tech-tastic science educator, Brian Wagner. As HUMS principal Amy Rex commented, “Exemplar teaching and learning — narrow the field and provide rapid feedback :)”
This spring, Nancy Spencer and her class discovered something amazing about their cheek cells.
The students discovered that by placing the lens of their iPad cameras directly against the eye-piece of a microscope, they were able to take photos of cells that had, until five minutes earlier, been a part of their bodies.
And Spencer discovered that by letting her students lead and giving them the freedom to experiment with technology in their hands, she could still be surprised by what they came up with.
Notability on the iPad
“It’s very exciting that, in all these years I’ve used microscopes, this is the first time for combining the microscope with technology on a personal level,” Spencer commented. “Sometimes I’ve had one in class where I’ve been able to project it onto the screen. But to enable the students to really capture the cells, and put it on Notability? I was able to have them label it and have them write the structure and function of that organelle.”
In this classroom, educator and students discovered that authentic cell biology was possible. It makes a difference when the data you gather is about yourself.
What they did:
Students swabbed the insides of their cheeks and prepared the cells on microscope slides;
Then they placed their iPads’ camera up against the eyepiece of the microscope and took a picture of the slide’s contents;
They used the Notability iOS app to mark the different parts of the cell on their digital image, write up the experiment and share it with the educator;
Finally they saved their Notability notes to their digital portfolios. The students had previously prepared and examined plant cells, so they were able to compare the cell structures of animal vs. plant cells.
Connect with them:
Mrs. Spencer’s 7th grade scientists would love to hear from any class who replicate their cell biology experiment.
If you and your students elect to take the cheek-cell-Notability challenge and are willing to share your experience with Mrs. Spencer’s class at Harwood (Skype! G+ Hangout!, Facetime!, just a blog post!) please get in touch.
Students are creating narrated, curated and portable evidence of their work
Back in November, a group of educators from Harwood Middle School, in Mooretown VT, headed down to the iPad Summit in Boston, to talk about how Harwood has revolutionized ePortfolios, by making their production part of graduation requirements. They’re asking students to document their artifacts using Evernote. Use of the app in this way allows each student to graduate with a fully annotated, personalized digital portfolio, demonstrating what they’ve learned and how it satisfies Harwood’s graduation requirements.
A 1-minute iPad how-to from Harwood Union Middle School science educator Brian Wagner, showing you how to save augmented reality “auras” from the popular mobile app Aurasma, to Evernote.
Augmented reality apps allow users to experience a layer of additional information — usually visual or auditory — meshed with everyday objects and surroundings. Here’s a look at one of our favorites.
Aurasma is a free, powerful augmented reality app for iOS and Android devices. It allows you to embed media items — videos, links, animation, other images — in static images.
(Remember that bit in Harry Potter when they’re walking through the gallery hallway at Hogwarts, and the paintings come alive? It’s a lot like that. 🙂
3. Auras are arranged into channels, and you have to subscribe to a channel in order to view them. So for instance, to get to the Tarrant Institute channel, tap the gray “A” symbol at the bottom of your screen, then the magnifying glass, and search on “Tarrant”.
Tap the gray A…Then the magnifying glass. Search for “tarrant”.
Tap “Follow” to follow our channel and access our Aurasma content. Channels can be public or private, and are useful for grouping content by organization — like a class or school.
4. Check out some of our auras, like this one, an image of the front cover of Kenneth Oppel’s YA Frankenstein prequel, This Dark Endeavor. Point your iOS or Android device at the image below:
Next, we’ll show you how to create your own auras in Aurasma, and talk about how Aurasma’s being used by a science teacher at Harwood Union Middle School, one of our partner schools.
Susan Hennessey, with the help of videographers from Hen House Media, sat down to talk with one of Harwood’s middle grades students about improved technology integration at the school.
Traveled down to Harwood Union Middle School in Moretown VT on Friday to interview some of the students and teachers about the work they’ve been doing this year. So inspiring to hear how excited they are, and how generously they shared their stories. Thank you, Harwood!
The annual Rube Goldberg Challenge is an opportunity for students to engage in their inner creative, design-build personalities. They are tasked with completing a simple task through a complex, convoluted, over the top device that incorporates simple machine physics and creative problem solving. There are limits to their space, time, and materials (nothing banned form school for instance). The machines that are created range from functionally simplistic to extremely clever but all offer students a chance to personalize the experience. The one part of the project that has not been emphasized over the past several years is charging students with explaining their thought process as they develop, test, and redesign their design. The use of several different iPad apps were explored during this project to see how students could benefit from documenting their thinking as they went through a problem solving process.
Half of the student groups used the Explain Everything app to document via video, text, photos their thought process, while the other half used the Aurasma app to do the same. There were some challenges with the Aurasma app because our internet connectivity was poor in the Middle Gym so reaching Aurasma was difficult and the video cannot be edited prior to attaching to an Aura (trigger). The Explain Everything app appears to be better suited for this type of activity; where students could collect their thoughts on different slides or even have multiple videos on one slide.
Students were asked to reflect on the use of their app when the project was complete. Their feedback brings me back to the SAMR model and how it relates to my research question of using technology to enhance meta-cognition In this project, the Aurasma app did not fit the bill very well for allowing students to document their thinking over time. The app and the activity were not well suited; the video cannot be paused and continued, so students were unable to document their thinking over time. The Explain Everything app had both positive and negative reviews from students but with some additional practice with the app, students will be more comfortable with the potential to revisit their prior thoughts and construct new thinking. Ideally, students would have an opportunity to document their process and then be given another similar activity to complete using what they have collected on the Explain Everything app as a guide.
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Brian Wagner teaches 8th grade science at Harwood Union Middle School in Moretown VT. You can reach him on twitter: @swagsci
One of our partner educators, Brian Wagner, teaches eighth grade science at Harwood Union Middle School, in Moretown VT. This past spring, he used Aurasma with his students to bring elements of the periodic table to life in a gallery walk.
The Rube Goldberg Challenge was not a good fit for the Aurasma app as a means of documenting thinking over time, but it proved to be a good tool for students to teach each other about the periodic table.
In essence, students jig-sawed their knowledge about specific sections of the Periodic Table to create a larger perspective about the trends, patterns, and curiosities of table.
Memorizing the elements of the periodic table is a complete waste of time (a personal opinion but one generally recognized as valid).
Understanding the information stored in the table because of the way it is constructed unlocks chemistry at a deeper level. The author Sam Keane in his book The Disappearing Spoon writes that “…at its simplest level, the periodic table catalogs all the different kinds of matter in our universe, the hundred-odd characters whose headstrong personalities give rise to everything we see and touch. The shape of the table also gives scientific clues as to how those personalities mingle with one another in crowds….”
My objective for this activity is for students to begin to recognize the trends and personalities and teach each other about different sections using Augmented Reality. The assignment is presented in the attached file- The Periodic Table Assignment 2013
The students researched as per the assignment criteria and prepared a video presentation of their element group. They were allowed to create the video in whatever manner they wanted- many did not want to be onscreen but talked through their information while writing it out on paper. Some used a chalk board for added effect. Others set it up as a news cast. Each group created a simple Aura (trigger) to activate the video.
The Auras were placed around the middle school Gallery in their respective groups and an iPad was stationed at each of these areas to use for the video presentation. Students rotated throughout the gallery, watching each other’s videos and taking notes about each section. Initially I wanted each student group to prepare an annotated photo of a periodic table with the information they collected. This would act as a summarizing aspect to their learning. Unfortunately there was not enough time to go through the gallery walk and do the Skitch challenge. The following day we lost our Wi-Fi , the iPads were needed for other classes when it returned, and the opportunity was lost.
During the class time with no internet, students took a quick quiz about the periodic table. The quiz was used as a means to discuss their findings further and clear up misconceptions that arose during their research. There will be a follow-up summative quiz (using Socrative) to determine how much information has been internalized. That will be a separate post.
The use of the Aurasma app was received well by students for this activity. They saw the value in researching, outlining, and preparing a presentation that others would learn from.
Because their audience was a little bigger (the entire 8th grade) they took more time to prepare and shoot the video (many with multiple takes to get it right). Their personal creativity was valued and the questions that arose from their research made good conversations that would have been missing from a straight up lecture about the topic.
One of the drawbacks to the app was having to hold the iPad over the Aura while watching the video. However, one student figured out that by double tapping on the video while it was playing would take the video to full screen and allow it continue playing in any position. iMovie would also be a preferred video tool for making the videos more polished.
Unfortunately iMovie is not on our iPads yet, although one student convinced me to download it for him, where he proceeded to take three individual videos his group made into one smooth presentation.
How many times have you heard this in your classroom? So much of middle school is developing systems to stay organized: “How do I get to all these classes? How do I open my locker?” And with the addition of technology: “How do I keep track of my school computer? Which Google Doc is the homework in? ”
I worked with a group of teachers this summer to re-think goal-setting with their students. We know it’s a key component to developing Personalized Learning Plans (PLP), but students reported little engagement in following through on and reflecting about their goals.
