App-Master Challenge

What student doesn't love a good challenge? Sometimes we find that students struggle with some of the basic quick tools that can be extremely resourceful on the iPad. So, how do we solve that without strictly doing direct instruction?

Introducing....the App-Master Challenge!

My teaching partner and I have a goal to create student leaders, to encourage students to be the problem solvers and coach others to troubleshoot together. The fun part about this challenge, for every challenge completed, students will earn a badge. What I absolutely love about it, is that students can work at their own pace and challenge their creativity. We plan to cover commonly used apps such as: Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Docs, Slides and Sheets. Hoping students can make the decision on which app may be best for their project in mind.

The first challenge we decided to introduce to the students was in Pages. One of the quickest and very creative editing tools that is often looked over as a 4th and 5th grader is Instant Alpha, or removing the background from around a certain image. This leads into a lot of great discussion points about digital citizenship, copyrights and how they can utilize this tool outside of our lab.

I am only 3 days into this particular challenge and I am blown away by the creativity. The students have had so much fun using the green screen to transport themselves to a favorite destination or setting of their book. Once the challenge is introduced, the creativity is in their hands as they are encouraged to communicate and collaborate with others.

What would make my heart happy is seeing the students begin to coach others, including the teachers, to utilize these tools in their daily/weekly practice. We assume the students always know the ins and outs of their device, but this is one extra step in helping their creativity and leadership expand.

Hour of Code

The Hour of Code is always an event that my students and I look forward to. This year, we were lucky to have some additional resources that allowed us to expand the coding experience past using websites like Code.Org and Tynker.

I'm very lucky to have a co-teacher that is excited to try new activities, like myself. We work very well when planning and smashing some of our ideas together to create a unique experience for our students.

As always, we began Hour of Code this year with the recent Code.org video. The kids always love looking into the world of code from the professional side, especially when it relates to the anticipated movie of Star Wars, the Force Awakens.

For this particular project, students were placed into groups of 4 or 5 depending on class size. I like to use our seating chart generator in Power School, just to really mix the members of the groups up after allowing them to pick their own groups for their previous project.

We then introduced our coding activity using a Numbers spreadsheet on the iPad. Until this year, I honestly didn't realize how convenient Numbers can be to create organized projects for students. In order to get the students a copy of the spreadsheet without having to airdrop to all individual students, we provided them a link/QR code in Edmodo that they could easily download and import into their own iPad.  We walked through each activity, reviewing directions for the stations and taking any questions that they had. We planned on using about 20 minutes per rotation.

Here are some of the stations we planned:
1. Computer Coding - we used code.org so students could create accounts and as teachers we could see their projects. Plus, many were interested in the new Minecraft and Star Wars modules.
2. Fun with Floors - I started using Pixel Press Floors, Floors in the App Store, a few years ago. It still continues to be a student favorite allowing them to code and create their own video game with a different type of code compared to block or script.
3. Ollie's Obstacles - students had to construct an obstacle course for Ollie and then try to maneuver him through.
4. BB8 Bowling - we are lucky enough to also have a BB8 Sphero this year. Students had to use the Tickle Coding App (Warning: Don't have your students search it in the app store) and block code BB8. We taped out a given path on the carpet and students had to work together to program him. Great connection to mathematics, as they had to use angles.
5. Cup Coding - this was an unplugged activity from Code.org. Continues to work on students communicating and collaborating together.
6. Bit Wars - At one of my schools, the class size is much larger, so I added a 6th rotation in using littleBits circuits where students had to create an equipment piece for a Star Wars character. This idea came from the challenge that was given on their website.

Due to winter break and school activities, this project took approximately 4 weeks to complete. Each student was responsible for documenting/reflecting on their experience through questions, fake Tweets, videos and images. Boy, did they love the robotics!

Floors Game Coding

Unplugged Cup Coding

Ollie's Obstacles

BB8 Bowling with Tickle App

For some of my self contained classes, we even tried a bit of Sphero Action Painting! I've always wanted to give it a try and the kids really enjoyed it!

Digital Citizenship Fairy Tales

With 21st century learning, digital citizenship is something our students have to learn. The digital lifestyle will always be with our students and it is definitely our responsibility to work in cooperation with parents to make sure we guide our students down a safe digital footprint.

Last year, my co-teacher and I introduced digital citizenship by having students work on a super hero comic book project. Making a super hero that may resemble them self and then building their comic based on a digital situation that students may face.

Well, our students are now 1:1, which makes it even more important to review safe cyber learning, but it also gives us more creativity to design projects with skills that the students can utilize back in their classroom. In the previous year during PARCC testing, my co-teacher had her students complete a digital story using a green screen and puppets. We thought this would be an interesting route to go having the students take classic fairy tales, but put a modern day twist on the story by involving a cyber safety element. The students loved this project!

With only seeing students 50 minutes, once a week, here is how we introduced it to classes:
*Prior to project introduction, students had a review on digital safety in class.
Week 1: We began class with a video, getting students hooked into the idea. From there, students made their own groups of 4 or 5 (I definitely wouldn't recommend more than 4), and used Edmodo to review classic fairy tale stories that they may or may not be familiar with.
Week 2: Students were given a fictional story organizer, they worked in groups to complete their organizer on Notability or in Google Drawings. They then submitted their document through Edmodo for review and approval.
Week 3: Once their story was approved, students began collaborating on their script in Google Docs. Half of the group worked on the script while the other half began searching for images online to use for their puppets and background scenes. This is a great moment to introduce a mini lesson on image usage rights.
Week 4: Students continued working on their script/images. They were also provided materials that they could test their characters and scenes out with. Each group was given a: Green Screen (made of a display board and green paper), a white note card (for light testing), green straws to attach their characters to and a microphone. We had some old microphones in our lab that fit nicely into the iPads. My co-teacher thought of this as a way to help reduce noise in our small space since we were confined to all working in one room.
Week 5: Students began recording, we used the Veescope Live Free app on the iPads for our green screen.
Week 6: Students used iMovie to edit their film. They added tittle slides, background music, sound effects and credits. Great mini lesson on reviewing how to site sources!

Check our some pictures from our project experience!

Students planning their digital fairy tale

Green Screen recording

#ICE15 Recap

I don't know about you, but after attending conferences for more than a day I get..
1. extremely excited to try new things
2. completely exhausted from late nights and packing my brain
3. Already thinking about how I can improve my presentations for next year

This year, I was extremely lucky to attend our Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) conference not one, but three days! Next to being surprised and attending ISTE in 2014 for multiple days, this comes in 2nd with my longest consecutive conference attended. I can tell you one thing, I will definitely be looking into hotels for next year. Even being local, with not a huge commute, it still adds into the exhaustion with traffic.

There were many great topics that I absorbed and many great people I was able to catch up with and meet.  One of the workshops I liked the most was "Coaching Teachers to Student Success," by @avrarobinson. If you haven't heard from her yet, find her on Twitter. Her coaching resources are amazing and the personalities she created for first timer technology integrated teachers are spot on. Lots of handy tips to help along the way when working to build a partnership with educators.

The maker movement is still going strong. There were many hands on activities and sessions to learn about coding, robotics and engineering. I'm sure this is something that won't fade out anytime soon. Passion based learning is truly important and I wish I had that opportunity in school.  Sylvia Martinez was a keynote speaker and a true inspiration. I also very much enjoyed Jim Sill, who gave a very thought provoking keynote using his past experience in film.

Another area I personally reflected on was my break-out session, of course. Now, I'm normally used to presenting in smaller classroom setups, where maybe 10-15 people attend and it is an easy walk-through in 45 minutes for my augmented reality topic. Well...I definitely wasn't expecting to be presenting in a comedy club, with a room full of educators! While I experienced some technology bumps from this first time larger experience...here are some tips I can offer and suggestions I plan to follow myself.

1. Have a backup plan: the wireless connection wasn't allowing for my reflector app to work from iPad to laptop. Either purchase VGA connects to have on hand or check with your district if there is one you can barrow. Luckily I had one for each device.

2. Stick to your backup plan: While my reflector didn't work, I had planned on using my VGA connector for the iPad. Well, the nerves got the best of me and I presented from my computer the entire time. I definitely regret that.

3. Keep your audience in mind: Speaking to a larger group was quite the surprise. What was a very successful PD that I had practiced in advanced at local education camps, would need to be simplified for a larger group. I had so many materials with me that I didn't even use and felt like I was going too fast.

4. Be proud of your accomplishment: While things may have not gone perfectly, still take pride in what you have done, especially if it was your first time hosting a session of this scale. Reflect on your experience and try again. We always tell our students to learn from their mistakes, so why not follow the same advice?

Thanks to those who attended my workshop and shared your experience on Twitter! Also, a big thank you to my district team, both past and present for supporting me!

HUGE turnout for @iTeacher5th #QRtoAR session #ICE15 pic.twitter.com/uXCXJ6lCmZ
— Jordan Garrett (@jg_jgarrett) February 27, 2015

Loved your presentation @iTeacher5th pic.twitter.com/5pQTGZKN59
— Allison LaFalce (@Allison_LaFalce) February 27, 2015

@TechMinock @Techbradwaid @2GuysShow Great shout out on @DAQRI @DAQRIedu during @iTeacher5th #AR ses @ice_il #ICE15 pic.twitter.com/EHOnFcAcQi
— Shannon Soger (@ShannonSoger) February 27, 2015