#HourofCode

There are plenty of school sponsored events that bring together parents, teachers, and students. None, however, is quite like Hour of Code. We kicked off our 2015 all school Hour of Code this year by hosting a Parent Hour of Code. Students and teachers shouldn't have all the fun, right? One of my favorite moments was as I was giving a brief overview of what it means to participate in Hour of Code, one of the parents said, "I thought this was going to involve problem-solving skills". I replied, "It certainly will. You just wait and see". Sure enough, he happened to be the first parent to surpass level 6 in Anna and Elsa's drag and drop programming. Level 6 is not so easy. Everyone needed his help. For a few minutes, he became the center of our problem-solving efforts as he reworked what he had done two levels earlier to pass level 6. It was an aha moment in which we all recognized that problem-solving, persistence, and patience are key. Not to mention teamwork and the thoughtful energy as we shared information to benefit one another was the essence of our success too. If the amount of fun that I had is any indication of how much fun the others had, then I feel confident that it was a successful hour.

As the day progressed, we saw our littlest learners from mechina to kindergarten dabble in their own coding adventure. They had fun with the Foos and the Kodable apps. We weren't ready to go when the bell rang. Luckily, they were reminded that with parent supervision, they can do this at home too. Code.org is open for business all year long. 

While there were many highlights of the day, another favorite moment was when one hour of code participant was frustrated when their hour was over. About four hours later, I received a tweet with the certificate of completion from that participant. They went home and finished what they had started. Completion certainly adds to the feeling of accomplishment. 

Hour of Code incorporates so many useful skills in addition to those listed above. There is critical thinking, math, logic, but just as important, there is pride in feeling accomplished as new levels are mastered. A community that codes together, learns together.

Book to Art Club

Last year as I was searching online for something other than what I found, I came across the Library as Incubators Project website. Started by three University of Wisconsin School of Library Information Studies students, Erinn Batykefer, Laura Damon-Moore, and Christina Jones, its mission is to demonstrate that libraries are a place to create and to connect. I was struck by the creativity behind this but most significantly, I was struck by the offshoot of this organization, which is the Book to Art Club. It puts a new spin on book clubs by encouraging these events not only to be a meaningful discussion but also a time in which book club members make something inspired by the book that they read. 

I knew we had to sign up and register our school as our own chapter within this larger book to art club movement. Our chapter can be found here. With an impressive list of books that have already been explored in a book to art club, our chapter was able to recycle an art project centered around the book Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead. There is a book to art club pinterest page with great ideas, which is where I discovered creating invisible ink for Liar and Spy. This time, however, we read Prairie Evers by Ellen Airgood and created our own book art out of old dictionary pages. 

I have no doubt that the third book in our book to art club will inspire us to create something great too. We are reading another Georgia book award nominee called Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere by Julie T. Lamana. I already have some ideas brewing for future masterpieces. As a place to create and to connect, our media center is proud to host our own book to art club chapter.

Organized Chaos

It is both a joy and a pleasure to watch the creativity unfold in a technology exploratory that focuses on programming and robotics. When people walk into our Lower School Idea Lab, at first glance, it can appear hectic with quite a bit of movement, not to mention an elevated volume. This, however, is part of the joy. Having the opportunity to make, move, and mingle can be very motivating. There is a process behind our organized chaos. To understand our genius at work, here is the breakdown of our process:

Step 1
Build a Design Team
As a class, we host a discussion about modern day design firms. We brainstorm about what we believe would be succesful traits among a strong design team. We spend a lot of time sharing characteristics of individuals that we believe would be beneficial to have on a design team. The consensus is that problem-solving skills are a must. Then, we come up with interview questions to ask potential design team members.

Step 2
Mix & Mingle
We put our interview skills to test and mingle with our peers to determine who we would match well with on a design team based on strengths and weaknesses. 

Step 3
Contact Cards
Using contact cards and the information we learned from mingling with one another, we create a list of six individuals that we believe we could work well with on a design project. We know we may work well with people we may not have anticipated. We approach this part of the process with an open mind. 



Step 4
Rotations
The design teams are formed as a result of our contact card exercise. It works like a charm every time! After learning the makeup of our design teams, we start our rotations. Rotations include working with the following technology tools:
Building a Robot with Hummingbird Robotics
Coding with Lego Robotics
Programming with Sphero
Digital Storytelling with Scratch
Virtual Reality with Google Cardboard
Constructing a Computer with Kano
Creating Electronic Circuits with LittleBits

Step 5 
Presentation Day
We present our creations. This is where we show what we have learned. We have rubrics that provide a framework for being able to articulate the process. This is a great opportunity for each of us to learn more about a tool other than the one that we just used in our rotations. We become experts for one another as we learn more and share our resources and knowledge. 

After presentation day is over, we rotate to a new technology tool and the learning process begins again. By having the freedom to explore, create, make, and connect, we build upon skills that will make a positive difference in real world problem solving scenarios. We learn to rely upon each other by respecting our different areas of expertise. We learn how to cultivate meaningful relationships that will help us accomplish what we set out to do. We learn to navigate in an environment that encourages us to be resourceful. We learn to be a part of our own strong design team. 

There's No Such Thing As An Expert

I read a quote this morning and although I won't restate it as eloquently here, the general idea is that when it comes to educational technology, no one is an expert. No one is an expert because technology is constantly changing. All. The. Time. As a result, it really does negate the naysayers when they talk about lacking experience in the use of technology. In a way, we all lack experience. So, the question is what separates the novice from the master? It's certainly not having all the knowledge. I'd say it is one thing: attitude.

I regularly check in with amazingly impressive teachers that I have the pleasure of working with and to be honest, I find myself smirking sometimes when I hear someone say they aren't the tech expert nor will they ever be. The truth is we are all right there with you. What separates the amazing from the great is simply attitude. There's one teacher in particular that inspires me. This person has been at our school a long, long time but to me, this teacher stands out for one simple reason: the attitude to embrace change. This teacher is my personal example of what we should all strive to be whether it is late in life or early on in our careers.

Be brave. Lean on each other. Share. Have humor. Be proud. Be the change.

Some Seriously Savvy Students

Every now and then I get carried away.  I know that I do it and yet, I still do it.  This most recent cause of my runaway enthusiasm was the Technology Fair.  For the second year, we have had lower school students participate in what has historically been a "middle school event" for our school.  This year was a bit different, however, in that we had a record-breaking number of lower school student participants.  It goes to show that the power of marketing really is amazing.  I started advertising this year's technology fair during the first week of school.  I sent out constant reminders, emails, tweets, signage, you name it to advertise the January registration date for the Technology Fair.  Basically, I became a nag. Amazingly, it worked.  With the help of the Middle School Media Specialist (@Bookman30022) by registration date between our two campuses, we had approximately 62 registrations for various categories.  At this point, our school was feeling proud.  

Next came competition day.  Again, strong feelings of school pride as we placed in so many different unique categories.  You can't help but get the chills as the Director of the Technology Fair calls up the winning students to retrieve their award.  Interestingly, I happened to be absent that day as I was at Educon in Philly but I followed along so enthusiastically via Twitter and it brought me back to the pride I felt the previous year.  At one point I was sitting in a conference session and I yelled out loud as I was seeing the names come across my Twitter feed.  (Another piece of evidence of my getting carried away.) All of those who won first place then made it to the state level.  Here's what was interesting though: by the time the state round came to be, we all already felt like winners.  Students devoted their own time to these projects and with a little encouragement, a lot of enthusiasm, and superior parent support, they accomplished these remarkable projects that we now all feel so passionate about.  

In fact, it shouldn't end with the Technology Fair.  Throughout the remainder of the year, I am seeking opportunities to showcase the participants' projects.  Today, I showed one of my classes a stop motion animation video created by two 5th grade girls out of Legos.  They told the class how they worked for two months, took 3000 photos, and borrowed equipment from various family members to create the amazing project that we were now watching on the big screen.  The students were dazzled.  I mean seriously impressed.  At that moment, I think they realized that they too can create something remarkable.  

It's hard to understand how something as routine as a Technology Fair can bring out the level of pride that it has but, it has. Personally, I am so proud of the bravery, the courage, the creativity, the investment, the devotion, and the support that the tech fair participants demonstrated. Each and every single one of them.  

Nuggets of Wisdom from EduCon

Each and every day I feel so grateful for my social media PLN. The best is when I come across information that directly relates to something I am trying to do myself.  This usually saves me quite a bit of time.  Even better is when you get to expand your PLN in person and be surrounded by educators that are trying to make a difference in ways that surprise you.  Having recently returned from EduCon 2.7 I was invigorated by the nuggets of wisdom that I encountered.  In the spirit of sharing and intrigued by Tony Vincent's recent Learning in Hand Show about InfoPics, see some of my EduCon gems here:

#Edsec: Information Security and Privacy in the Classroom by @jessysaurusrex

There were so many great things about this conversation.  One idea that I took away is creating low tech moments in your classroom to demonstrate the importance of protecting yourself online.  I did not realize how fun this could be!  Some tactics included bribing your students to change their passwords.  See a student's mobile device laying around?  Do a security check.  Does their device have a passcode on it?  Go on a phishing hunt and identify spam together. Conversations about protecting yourself online should not always be based on fear.

Doodling the C's: Creativity, Collaboration, Comprehension, & Connections by @jgough & @lottascales

Another valuable conversation that I participated in involved the magic of doodling.  Inspired by Sunni Brown's Visual Literacy for a Smarter World, this discussion focused on how doodling can actually assist us in retaining knowledge. When we take notes while listening to information, our brain is competing with itself. However, dual coding theory teaches us that our verbal and visual skills live on two different channels of our brain.  When we practice doodling while listening to information, we can produce valuable notes that encourage creativity and comprehension.  There are two rules to sharing your doodles: 1) admire the doodles of others and 2) look for things to steal.  To test out this theory, we doodled our notes while listening to Simon Sinek's TED Talk, Start with Why. Above you will see the notes that I produced while listening.  After doodling through the TED Talk, we admired each other's work and discovered great ideas to steal. The art of doodling is a skill and therefore, it is something to practice in order to improve.  I love that I've added doodling to my "to do" list.

Rethinking the Purpose, Promise, and Process of Professional Learning by @kristenswanson and @djakes

Besides gaining the value of perspective from having several different parts of the world represented at my table, this conversation challenged me to rethink learning.  The first thing I discovered was to ask who decides the learning and why.  The who answer to this question can usually reveal so much about the influence behind our professional learning.  In discussing the different teaching models between elementary, middle and high school, some participants mentioned that while elementary school felt student-centered, in middle and high school it becomes subject-centered. Why is this?  I have my own ideas but most importantly, it is important food for thought. 

Additionally, there was much discussion about how we can create the conditions in which learning can take place.  A brilliant example that Kristen Swanson gave was in asking the attendees how many of us rediscovered a hobby over winter break.  Almost every hand went up.  I know my hand went up.  Why do we rediscover hobbies over our holidays?  Well, for one, we have the time and two, we have the freedom.  In school, shouldn't we create these same conditions in which all learners can discover and explore their interests?  This has become known as "white space". This idea has really made me think about the power of choice and the power of time and what both of these look like in my classes.

There were so many powerful learning opportunities at EduCon.  I didn't even mention the conversation about social entrepreneurship or what it was like to learn about the big picture in education from the Chief Education Office of Philadelphia city schools or what it was like to chat with Meeno Rami, author of Thrive.  It was simply great.  If you have the ability to choose your professional learning next year, I highly recommend EduCon.