Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match...

Little did I know I would see images of Fiddler on the Roof  lyrics in my head. However, that is exactly what has been happening. A chunk of my position as 21st Century Learning Coordinator is devoted to meeting with teachers individually to customize their tech integration experience. I find myself feeling more and more like a matchmaking service. It goes something like this:

Teacher: I'm interested in finding a tool that will allow my students to share their writing online, without taking away from the tactile process of writing, and that allows them to comment on their work.
Me: Let's take a look at Pixntell. You might like this app. It's free, easy to use, and shareable.
While not necessarily the same characteristics that one would look for in a mate, in a tech tool resource, these are some fine qualities. 

As a matchmaker, there is the responsibility of continuously searching, searching, searching for the holy grail of tech tools. What will be user friendly, fun to use, and easy to share with the wider world? Bonus points if the tech tool is a content creator. While I often feel like I have a strong handle on the current inventory, every now and then, a tech tool will appear before me and I'll wonder, "where have you been all my life?". 

Matchmaking is fun. Especially when a match results in creating a beautiful relationship that fosters comfort, confidence, excitement, and pride. All without the first date jitters.

Born out of a match between a 4th grade Science Teacher & PixNTell

When It All Works Out

The Davis Academy Arcade Banner

Today I had an "it worked" moment that got me excited! For weeks, 7th and 8th graders in the Technology elective have been working hard to create games, which ultimately would come together to create The Davis Academy Arcade. As the project evolved, there were several stages of "aha moments". The first was that while working in pairs, if one teammate was super serious about the tasks at hand, well then the other teammate best get with the program. The second realization was a reminder that often times, the students have much better ideas than the teacher. While I was busy focusing on the teaching and learning aspects of the project- the technology, the designs and the organization of the arcade, the students reminded me that thinking about the add-ons is just as important and sometimes, more important. One student suggested that we charge players to pay and then donate the proceeds to a charity. This led us to pick the Kids Code Free camp led by Tech Talent South. This idea led to another student building a coin slot into their design, which then inspired every team to do the same. Another student was then motivated to actively market the arcade to others to attract more customers. For them, this meant making signs and carrying them through the halls to encourage participation. The third big realization, one of which I know so well and yet really appreciated the reminder, is that hard work deserves an audience. Creating something that spills out beyond our core class and brings people together is so rewarding.

Some students used makey makeys to create mazes, while another team created a racing game in Scratch. They designed their own game controllers, which were in a constant state of revision. One team went through pencil drawn game controllers, to clay modeled game controllers to ultimately settle on a game controller made of play-doh. Two other teams used the Hummingbird robotics kits to create a rolling ball game with a twirling windmill (not so dissimilar from a putt putt hole) and another team created a ball toss game with moving propellers.  For some teams, the game objective proved tricky while other teams had more difficulty in perfecting their designs. Ultimately, however, it was not only a fun learning experience but it was a celebration of our efforts, a chance to invite others into our classroom, an opportunity to do a random act of kindness for a deserving organization, and a time to share our talents.

Figure 1: Evan and Eric's Soccer Xtreme

Figure 2: IT Coordinator & Winner of Amazing Pass

Figure 3 Crowds Waiting to Play Airplane Toss

Figure 4 Rabbi Micah Trying to Complete The Maze

Figure 6 6th Gr LA Teacher Playing the Maze

Figure 5 Middle School Counselor Winning Points at Rollie Pollie

Pimp My Lesson Revisited

I so enjoyed Pimp My Lesson last week! We had some AWESOME ideas that we cultivated as a group. Please post a response to the following question on your own blog:

What did you gain from brainstorming with your peers about a lesson that you would like to rejuvenate? Have you tried out the changes in your lesson and if so, how did it go? How did technology usage improve your lesson, if at all? What was the biggest takeaway from Pimp My Lesson?

Please post by Friday, March 25th. Click on the blogs below to see your colleagues responses:

http://mira03blog.blogspot.com/

http://techscoutlondon.blogspot.com/

http://www.davislsmusic.org/#!blog/c1e90

http://catertolearning.blogspot.com/

www.mrsartzi.weebly.com

http://gilalevy3.wix.com/teacher

Pimp My Lesson

BEFORE PIMP MY LESSON
 

https://pixabay.com/en/bad-mark-student-mathematics-maths-624734/

AFTER PIMP MY LESSON

http://zbpurpleberry.deviantart.com/art/Teacher-Zane-561037944

Do you remember the TV show on MTV called Pimp My Ride in which a clunker was restored to a better state? Well, we will be taking that same concept and applying it to our least favorite lesson for an afternoon of Pimp My Lesson! Please come to the Broadcast Studio on Tuesday, March 8th, along with your most dreaded lesson plan or lesson idea and we will rejuvenate it! Just bring your fabulous self, a lesson that you don't particularly like, and an open mind! 

Tech Scout PD

I have the great pleasure of leading a group of teachers through the Tech Scout PD strand, one of which is participating a second time. The premise behind this professional development strand is to learn by doing. As a result, the strand consists of a series of challenges that encourage participants to innovate outside of their comfort zone. For our recent face to face event, the participants traveled back in time to the fourth grade. By doing so, they were able to get a sample of the experiences that fourth graders have when they participate in the technology exploratory. In addition to learning how to work as part of a team to accomplish a common goal, they must also agree on what that goal should look like by planning and designing a mutually inspiring creative outcome. Then, they have to pace themselves to accomplish their goal within the time allotted. Finally, they have to present their hard work to the participants outside of their design team. 

To say that this experience was fun, would not do it justice. It was so awesome to see the teams come together to bring their creative ideas and past experiences to inspire resiliency in problem-solving as a result of being committed to making something great. The Tech Scouts can continue to visit the Idea Lab with their own classes and inspire innovation within the core curriculum. As an additional incentive, each visit to the Idea Lab falls within the Take a Walk Challenge and is worth three points in earning their digital badges. 

#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.