Tech Thursday & Tinker Time Join Future Fridays!

In an earlier post, I described Future Fridays which take place during the lunch periods at VHS to allow students to experience latest technology and concepts in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).  Now, we've added Tech Thursday and Tinker Time which occur at SMS and VES respectively.  Both events were wildly popular with the students and will become a monthly event during the 2016-2017 school year.

Spheros, Spheros Everywhere!

You may have noticed the mesmerizing colored lights of the Sphero robots rolling around the hallways of VHS.  As part of our STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) integration efforts, we have acquired 12 of these versatile robots to incorporate into projects and lessons in all classes.   Currently, we are using them in our art classes for painting abstract portraits and gain experience in long exposure photography.  Next year, we are planning to use the Spheros to power student-constructed Roman chariots when learning about ancient Rome in 7th-grade social studies. We are also using the robots in Biology at the high school to conduct our own experiments in genetics to study the inheritance of traits.

Spheros can be controlled by steering the robot with the driving part of the app on their mobile device, or can be programmed with simple block code.  Most of the students have been driving the robots using their smartphones as the remote control, however, I am hoping that as our comfort level with this technology increases, students start coding their own Sphero programs.

If you would like to use these within your classroom, please let me know and I will find a project that correlates to your curriculum.  For more information on Sphero Education, please visit http://www.sphero.com/education.

Future Fridays

     This past Friday, during Vermilion High School lunch periods, we held our first Future Friday symposium providing our students time to explore some new technology trends and tinker with some traditional STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) tools, such as robotic kits and building blocks.  A favorite included the banana piano, created by using a program in Scratch and the MakeyMakey, a device which can turn any conductor into a keyboard.  The Sphero robot was a huge hit with its maneuverability, speed, and multi-colored lights.  Students were astounded when they were magically transported to a museum through a VR (Virtual Reality) app using the updated View-Master.  And it wouldn't have been Future Friday without the versatile Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer that can be used for a limitless number of projects and applications.
     Future Fridays were started to incorporate STEM concepts for our high school students and solicit their ideas about creating a Makerspace at the high school.  A Makerspace is a creative work place for the members of a community to put their ideas into practice.  Many libraries, such as the Cleveland Public Library have converted a portion of their building into a Makerspace and are now offering access to equipment and services, such as 3D printing.  For instance, you can create a 3D file (.STL file) from home, send it to the Cleveland Public Library, they print it out for you on a 3D printer and you pick it up a week later for a nominal fee.  More and more schools are following this trend and are devoting resources to setting up their own Makerspace areas.  The idea is to provide students the opportunity to use their imaginations to invent solutions to problems while learning perseverance, for most solutions are achieved only through a process requiring numerous attempts and modifications.

Makey Makey Banana Piano

Sphero SPRK Robot

Raspberry Pi

View-Master VR

Become involved as a teacher in your building by contacting your principal.  We are currently looking for volunteers to form a STEAM (Art too) committee.  If you are a student and would like to get involved, please begin by completing this form: http://goo.gl/forms/f5FvrQqTzw 
You can also contact Mrs. Bengele for more information.

Workings of an EdCamp

On Saturday, April 16th, Katie Cseh and I attended EdCampNEO held in Mentor High School's state-of-the-art Paradigm center.  It was the first official "EdCamp" I had attended and was unsure of what to expect of this new trend sweeping the nation, however, I had heard this format of professional development was exceptionally worthwhile.  So here is a summary of how it worked.

The morning began at 8am with an appetizing breakfast spread complete with bacon and eggs!  During the first hour of camp, while dining on our scrumptious breakfast with like-minded colleagues, attendees were asked to complete a Google form to submit a topic they would like to discuss with the option to act as moderator for the discussion.  Being a moderator simply means that you are willing to try to move the conversation along - not present or dominate the discussion.  This made the atmosphere considerably more laid-back and non-threatening.  Also, it made all participants accountable for being active contributors to the conversations they joined.  Meanwhile, the coordinators of the EdCamp were actively posting topics and assigning rooms to host the proposed discussions.

After sessions and moderators had been established, participants were able to view the schedule and decide which sessions they were going to attend.  There were only 3 back-to-back sessions, each lasting about 45 minutes.  If we did not find the conversation to be stimulating, we were free to leave one and enter another.  Between each session was a 15-minute break, which allowed teachers to get coffee, and discuss ideas that had been shared in their previous session. Each session began with a brief introduction of the participants and the moderator asked the first question to get the ball rolling.  After that, the discussion was in full swing.  Some of the many diverse topics included using rubric tools, preparing our students to be career-ready, and providing our students a global platform.

The 3 sessions were followed by lunch from a food truck with gourmet cheeseburgers (how awesome is that?) with a student DJ playing some music requested via Twitter by the attendees.  We also had a talented student do a dance routine (dinner and a show!).  Towards the end of lunch - and this was a great idea - 20 participants were asked to share one strategy or tool they found to be most helpful in one minute or less with the whole group. So, in about 10 minutes everyone was able to walk away with additional items from all of the sessions.  The EdCamp concluded with a multitude of drawings for some really cool items, everything from signed books to tech tools to office supplies.

If this sounds like an experience you would be interested in, you're in luck!  The next EdCampCLE is going to be held at Kinsner Elementary School in Strongsville on May 21st!  I'm in, are you?

You can find more information about EdCampCLE at https://edcampcle.wordpress.com/ 





     

The Power of Backchanneling

Backchanneling is the process of having a side conversation during a presentation.  Basically, it is the modern way of passing notes.  This can actually be a powerful learning tool for students during certain class activities, just as it is for teachers during a professional development training (c'mon, teachers backchannel ALL the time).  So, let me give you an example of the learning potential of backchanneling.

Back in February, Mrs. Jessen's Honors Biology class participated in a distance learning program through WVIZ/PBS Civic Common ideastream and in cooperation with the Great lakes Science Center about Lake Erie algal blooms and their wide-reaching impacts on water quality.  For the first 20 minutes of the program students were engrossed in listening to the discussion between the expert panelists partaking in the forum, which included politicians, scientists, business leaders, city leaders, and community activists.  Then, as the conversation progressed, engagement in the program began to wane.

Suddenly it hit me - why don't I create a shared Google Doc, so that students and teachers can post their questions and comments about what they are hearing from the program?  (Duh, yes I'm a tech coach.)  So, I quickly created a doc, shared it with Mrs. Jessen and her class, and KABOOM - meaningful dialogue between students and other students, and between students and teachers started happening.

Here are some of the comments and questions from the shared gDoc:

• If the protists causing these algal blooms are toxic based on the number of genes expressed, can we find a way to alter those genes to prevent toxicity?
• They mentioned that the Toledo incident happened mainly because they only had 1 water intake, I think.. Is Vermilion the same or do we have more?
• What kind of bacteria or viruses can limit algal blooms? I feel like that may make the problem worse depending on what is used

(full conversation available here)

See what I mean?  So, what are some tools that we as teachers can use to promote appropriate student backchanneling?  Obviously, Google Docs as the example above illustrates is an effective tool.  Not only can you monitor the conversation and chime in, but you can see the revision history of who said what.  Twitter is another option, although one that you as a teacher have less control over.  However, it may set up an ideal situation to integrate a conversation with students about responsible digital citizenship.  Along the same lines as Twitter, but more visual is Instagram.  TodaysMeet, Socrative, and GoSoapBox are other free sites that allow your students to answer questions and post discussion items.  Please contact me if you would like to further explore backchanneling in your classroom!

Kindergartners Researching? Yes We Can!

About 2 months ago, with the support of Regina Lowe, I devised a digital multimedia project for her Kindergarten class - creating a field guide of common Ohio animals and their adaptations.  We began the project by showing the students all types of field guides and had a class discussion about what the books are used for and the information they provide.  Then we asked the students if they wanted to create their very own field guide and the answer was a resounding "Yes"! (I love the enthusiasm of a kindergartner).  We then used maps, first finding Earth, the continents, North America, the United States, Ohio, and then finally Vermilion.  The students all had identified Ohio and had a dot on their maps in their research journals indicating the approximate (and I do stress approximate) location of our city.
(Link to the Field Guide Project Plan - complete with standards!)
(Link to the Research Journal here)

As a class, we came up with a list of animals that live in Ohio.  Most of the animals students listed were mammals, so I thought I would incorporate a bit of classification into the project by showing them some common birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and other mammals.  Each group created a poster of an animal group identifying some of the major distinguishing features of that group.  For example, the group having mammals drew lots of hair on their illustrations.  Once the posters were created, we played a game, where we randomly choose an Ohio animal and then every student stood by the poster in the room showing the group that animal belonged.  (We are still working on reptiles versus amphibians.)

After the students were acquainted with a variety of Ohio animals, it was time to select everyone's own animal to research.  Students were chosen by random to select their animal, which they then illustrated on the first page of their research notebooks.  Next, I conferenced with each student about the questions they had about their animal.  We received questions like "How do turkeys make a gobbling sound?", "How does a largemouth bass live in the winter?" and "How far can a bullfrog jump?".

Now, the hard part.  How was I going to research with each student to find the answers to their questions about their animal with only a few short weeks to finish the field guide?  (I had given myself an April 21st deadline since we arranged the Erie Metroparks to give all the Kindergarten classes a live animal demonstration that day.)  I considered using a safe search engine such as KidzSearch or  Safe Search For Kids with a text-to-speech tool, but was concerned about the quality of information each student would be able to comprehend.  In the end, we were fortunate to have 3 teachers (thank you Mr. Kacur and Mrs. Lowe) and 2 high school students (so very grateful to Jocelyn and Haylie) researching one-on-one with each student.  Every student was able to have individual time discussing the information we were discovering about their animal, which ended up being the ideal situation.  This drives home the need for strong collaboration between our teachers both within and between buildings to provide that support needed to take on these more daunting student projects.  

To construct the actual book, we are considering using Google Docs or Slides, downloading the product as a PDF and then uploading to FlipSnack.  Or, we could use iBooks Author and publish to iTunes U or the iBooks Store.  Perhaps we will use both to discover pros and cons and blog about those in an upcoming post.  In the meantime, be on the look out for our published field guide coming soon!

PD on the Go Part 1: Time to Join the Flock

Welcome to the first post of my new mini-series "PD on the Go"!  As professionals in a rapidly evolving field, teachers need to be in the know on current educational practices and new information being discovered in their subject area.  Of course, time is always the issue when juggling a teaching career, extracurriculars, and personal life.  Therefore, PD must be delivered in an efficient manner which leads us to  . . . . Twitter.  Yes, it is a social media tool, however, within 5 minutes of scanning your Twitter feed waiting in line at the grocery store or in-between commercials of your favorite TV show, you will be able to gather a surprisingly ample amount of up-to-date information about your field.
Check out my tutorial below to get started with your own Twitter account and then follow me @jbengele!

Start Accessing VR Now!

 
I have acquired 2 View Masters allowing students to engage in Virtual Reality (VR) learning experiences.  All you need is a viewer, a smart phone (usually a 5 or later depending on model), and VR apps, most of which are free.  Below is a listing of the VR apps I have found categorized by topic.  Click on the hyperlinks for a description of each app.  If you are interested in using these with your students or finding a VR experience that suits your curriculum, please contact me and we will set it up.

History
WWII Dog Fight Simulation
Mausoleum of Helena
View-Master Destinations (Acropolis, London, and Chichen Itza)
Ancient Egypt (multiple available apps)
Colosseum (in Cool Tour app)
War of Words (also could be a literature experience)

Science
Planetarium
In the Cell
In the Brain
Liftoff (SpaceX Simulation)
Molecule

Miscellaneous
Discovery (Let's Go Places, Mythbusters, Secret Space Escapes, Wildlife, Survivorman, Planet, etc.)
Flight Simulators
Driving Simulators
Jaunt (variety of content, including news events, such as Syria)
Unimersiv (variety of content)
Orbulus (variety of places)
Star Wars
Art Gallery

Learning at the OETC16

A few weeks ago, a group of Vermilion Teachers from each building attended the Ohio Educational Technology Conference, or OETC, in Columbus.  We learned about STEM resources, useful apps, tech tools, and everything in between.  Below is a shared Google Sheet with some of our takeaways from this major yearly conference.  I was privileged to present a session on grading add-on apps for Google docs. 

Our Takeaways
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XpO3VcEV6UIvaADC0vlcyjKpX8Fnxw-UhHfxKjygL3g/edit?usp=sharing


Me Presenting at the #OETC16 (& my session resources linked below)

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8TiFJuM8rqia3Q2LVNqdlNPdEk&usp=

sharing

Virtual Reality Quickly Becomes an Education Reality

Just this week alone, I have seen, heard, and read about how virtual reality is impacting education and even life itself.  In both instances, Google Cardboard was used, a simple cardboard viewing box which holds a smartphone allowing a 3-D view of a picture, video, game, etc.  Students and teachers are using the technology to take virtual field trips to the sea bottom and even Mars.   Doctors are using this virtual reality to perform surgery and save lives.  Check out some of its applications below.