There are tons of math games on the internet. Some are good, some are boring, and some make you wonder where the math is. Occasionally you find a game that really stands out as a great blend of math and real engaging fun. Gate is a game that was shared with me the Institute for Innovation in Education conference over the summer. It's awesome. The story behind Gate is pretty epic, which adds a cool level of engagement to the game. It's art is really hip, and the gameplay is smooth, simple, and works well. You're destroying monsters from another dimension, but in order to use your magic staff, you need to build numbers correctly and quickly. It rewards players for knowing how to compose numbers using base 10 efficiently. As levels progress the ability to move up and down the number line becomes increasingly important. Gate throws in some smart curveballs too, including blocks that float with a certain 'plus' or 'minus' to them. It intentionally exposes kids to patterns of our base 10 system and rewards them by using these patterns to be more efficient. I'd recommend the game for anyone 3rd grade and up who need practice with base 10. It's challenging enough to appeal to proficient mathematicians and offers great insight for all mathematicians. Picture from: https://www.graphite.org/sites/default/files/experience-media-file/mathsnacksgate_ss1.jpg
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I'm really getting excited for computer science week next week. I've been pushing into classrooms and exploring coding and introducing new applications to our teachers and students to help expose them to programming. One of the best apps for introducing young learners to coding is Scratch Jr.
Scratch Jr takes everything about coding and boils it down to it's simplest parts. It breaks down all sorts of barriers kids have had with coding. Reading is not an issue, because all of the buttons are symbols, which means it can be used with Kindergartners or even preschool age children. It allows quick customization of backgrounds and characters with a paint style editor. There is still a lot of complex stuff going on under the hood with Scratch Jr. Yes, a kid can make a cat walk back and forth, but the message system adds a really neat layer to the equation. Scratch Jr uses icons that look like letters to kick off events. Basically, when something occurs with a character it will send a "yellow message" Then there is a matching "if" block that's listening for that yellow message. When the yellow message is heard, another set of actions occur, even on another character. Scratch Jr. is super fun. Kids love playing with it and creating their own characters. I'm going to keep exploring. Hour of Code is something that has become a real phenomenon in schools. Taking the word "coding" and making it just part of the vocabulary. I hear kids talking about coding and making games all the time. What's really exciting is that code.org has really added some amazing stuff to beef up the hour of code this year. Including StarWars and Minecraft themes!
The new themes are really creative in how they incorporate the elements of the franchises they use. The Minecraft edition has students break and collect blocks, place torches, and build things just like the super popular game. The StarWars theme really brings out the characters, and lets you program that cool little droid, BB-8, that everyone loves. Both themes are sure to capture the attention of boys and girls everywhere. What I really like is that it's clear code.org is trying to add some differentiation to the experience. They've added new language, and even the ability to on the fly swap drag and drop blocks for typing commands. This is a big deal as it allows for students who want to push themselves a little bit farther, or for students who are interested in what it would be like to type commands without being totally at the mercy of syntax errors. I'm really excited to kick this off this year, and I can't wait to see the reactions on kids faces. Thinking is always at the center of everything we do here in Brandon. We've looked closely at Ron Richart's work about making thinking visible for the last few years. Something I've worked with many students and classroom teachers about is having students show their thinking about a problem using the iPad. We use the Math Learning Center series of apps to show math processes and really explain thinking. Students take screenshots of the models they've built, and share them different ways. Educreations has been, and remains, a popular tool for explaining thinking. Having the ability to use voice, text, drawing, and images is pretty powerful. Recently, a lot of teachers have been using the built in recording and drawing tools built into SeeSaw. This allows a student's thinking and work to go home in real time. SeeSaw is a pretty incredible application for collecting multimedia and creating a digital portfolio of work for all students. It has some powerful features, like voice recording, and drawing over images. It also allows for the uploading of video. Showing your work has turned into so much more with the iPads. Students are able to capture their work and thinking in a way that wasn't possible before. Probably the single thing I like to do most in my job is co-teach. It's fun, it's powerful, and the kids get a great perspective from seeing it. Typical teaching involves one person who is either distributing the information or a chief facilitator of kids finding that knowledge. To put it simply, the kids in the classroom learn while the teacher teaches. When you co-teach it divides not just the load, but it also mixes up the roles in the classroom a little bit.
We often ask kids to participate in group work, because collaboration is an important skill. Yet, they don't get to see any of the collaboration we do as teachers. They have no model for how a pair should work together. When kids watch two teachers working in tandem it can lead to some great learned behaviors about working with a partnership. They also get to observe teachers learning from each other. Often co-teaching can lead to aha moments from one teacher to another. Phrases like "I'm glad Mrs. ______ shared that example, because I haven't thought of it like that" are great for kids to hear. Watching two adults work together, learn from each other, and have professional dialogue is something our kids need. I'd argue that we need to teach collaboration and allow opportunities for it to happen among our students, but we as teachers also need to participate in it so our kids can see what it looks like in action. Students at OES and HSE will soon be tapping into their inner Steven Spielbergs and Sophia Coppolas as they begin creating their own short films in Brandon's new Elementary Movie Maker club. Each school will have a club with students making films around similar themes of positive choices and behaviors. Students will need to develop, film, and create all aspects of the movies.
I'm really looking forward to students writing stories, making story boards, and working together to create some awesome movies. I think the coolest thing will be that we get to share our films with the world! We will upload them to YouTube and the School District website. We're also planning on sharing our movies at a Brandon Elementary Film Festival! We're rolling out the red carpet for our students and families to come. Look for more information about that soon. In Brandon we've been taking a look at our technology integration through the lens of the SAMR model. SAMR is essentially a ladder that helps reflect on the change to instruction technology is making. After many conversations at conferences with colleagues I respect, I do not consider the SAMR model as a spectrum from good to bad integration. It's a model used for observing and honestly reflecting about the way an instructor uses technology. S is for substitution, which means the tech evenly switches out with the non tech. Did you do a worksheet on your iPad that could be done with paper and pencil just as easily? Then it's a substitution. I see teachers having students using their iPads with the Chalkboard app instead of whiteboards and markers. This is a great example of the substitution. What's neat about substituting with tech is that a functional improvement is often just a few steps away. When using their iPad as a whiteboard, students can screenshot their response, and like magic their thinking is captured on the camera roll. Sometimes students will take that thinking and put it into a presentation with their voice and additional pictures. Now they've totally modified the task. On top of that students may share their video with others across the world, now students have redefined the task in a way that wouldn't have been possible before. Substitution is an OK way to integrate tech into day to day use, and it can lead to amazing projects at various levels on the SAMR scale when it meaningfully fits into instruction. Image from: https://www.graphite.org/blog/samr-and-blooms-taxonomy-assembling-the-puzzle I met a teacher and football coach at a conference a few Summers ago who didn't like the phrase "practice makes perfect." Instead, he argued that "practice makes permanent." I think about this a lot when we look at subscription services to help students independently practice. These services are generally self guided by the student. It is primarily used to enhance the learning that is happening at school, so it is very important that the services meet student need in a "just right" way.
Oakwood and Harvey Swanson have chosen a few subscription services to help foster independent practice. Study Island is a web based service that uses NWEA MAP scores to target a student's areas of need. iXL is an independent math facts and concepts practice that offers quick activities with feedback if questions are answered incorrectly. RazKids is an electronic library of books for students that includes quizzes. I'd like to highlight RazKids as a tool, because all of our students will be using it. It allows teachers to customize book levels, assign specific assignments, and even assess students reading using some neat tools. RazKids is a web and app based service that is accessible from nearly any device. What teachers like about it is how it awards students for reading books and focuses on some general skills that help all students during quizzes. Students really like RazKids because it makes books accessible. There is usually an eyeball and ear button next to every book on the virtual shelf. The eyeball lets students read the book, and the ear lets students hear the book as it highlights the words. This can be really helpful for students struggling to understand or for students with different learning styles. Ask your child to tell you about RazKids tonight! You can log in on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. Part of my teaching each week involves organizing and running some after school learning clubs. The clubs have a specific focus, but students are also given the opportunity to work on homework and receive academic help too. Our first club this week at both Harvey Swanson and Oakwood is a Spanish language club. We are using a free service called Duolingo to help us learn Spanish in a fun way. Duolingo is an interactive website and app that lets the user pick a language to learn in a dynamic way. It has vocabulary recognition with pictures, sentence creation by dragging words, and translation by typing or speaking. It's really neat and they claim 10-20 minutes a day will lead to some serious learning. Students have fun learning at home using an iPad or a personal device at home. As long as they are logged into an account, their progress syncs between devices. We also do a lot of learning offline as well. Yesterday we wrote Spanish color words with chalk and did some Spanish dances like "Cabeza Hombros Rodillas y Pies" ("Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.") It's really fun and the kids can continue their learning independently using Duolingo well after the club is finished. Something that is amazing about the world is how we connect with one another. Educators have an awesome opportunity right now to get connected and learn from each other. There are a multitude of ways to contribute to the educational community for educators, everything from virtual conferences, online learning, to Twitter chats.
As we expect kids to do great work and get connected, we should really become more connected ourselves. October is Connected Educators Month. A visit to http://connectededucators.org/ will provide an overwhelming amount of ways to connect. The coolest part of it is the daily events calendar, where you can find out how to connect any day. It may seem like a lot, but as some of my favorite advice goes: "You don't have to do everything, but do something." |
Bob LarsonInstructional Technology Coach Archives
February 2018
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