Open House Tonight!

We had a successful Open House tonight.  How do I know?  We still had families in the Studio a half hour after the time was up!
Some reflections from tonight:

• Parents wanted to know who the "homeroom" teacher was.  This was one item we neglected to put in the parent folder.  I understand parents' need to have a contact person.  I would recommend a brief note stating who the base-group teacher is along with contact info.  
• Students and parents were super excited to use the iPads that we just unpacked earlier in the day.  We even had some parents helping other parents navigate their way around the iPad.  We put a Parent Survey on Google Forms and had parents complete contact info, volunteer sign up, allergies, technology items at home, and technology comfort level.
• Great vibe of excited kids and parents.  We had several 2nd grade "graduates" that stopped by to see the space too.
• Lots of questions by parents asking how it was all going to work.  So happy to hear their interest and glad they felt comfortable asking those questions.
• Lots of running children!  With no furniture in the space, it was the natural thing for any 7- to 8-year-old to do :)

The Dream Team

Here we all are!  We are fortunate to have two teacher candidates this year (fancy name for student teacher).

Ready Fire Aim

I had the pleasure of listening to Earl Bakken (co-founder of Medtronic) speak today at our district convocation.  He has a wonderful sense of humor and an inspiring story to tell of how it all began for him tracing back to his childhood.
He says that the "secret" to his success has been the philosophy of "Ready, Fire, Aim."  This struck a chord with me because it seems to be what is taking shape as we are planning (more like revolutionizing) everything from our space to our roles and responsibilities as teachers.  I think we need to jump in with both feet, give it a go, and refine our decisions later based on the degree of success or failure.  
I think this idea will help us make quicker decisions.

T in the Road

We did some planning for the first week of school yesterday.  Up until now, we've been moving pretty smoothly with making decisions.  However, they've been rather simple things such as where to put things, how to organize things, etc.  
The topic of morning meetings came up, and this is where we came to the 'T' in the road and had to decide right or left.  The issue is complex:

• students are divided into 4 groups for specialists and lunch because that the is our building's rotation schedule and to have a point person for parent phone calls
• we are using these same 4 groups in our space for Monday-Thursday morning meetings (Friday is the whole lot of us); we are calling these our base groups
• there are 5 teachers who will use the space full-time: 4 "classroom" teachers and 1 EL teacher.  All 5 teachers want to be viewed as the teachers equally and share the responsibilities equally.
• 2 classroom teachers (one of them is me) want to lead our base groups for the first few weeks of school to establish a safe and comfortable feeling for students.  After those first weeks, the 5 of us will rotate amongst all 4 base groups.
• The other 3 teachers want to rotate through morning meetings right away.  

It's a conflict between what we know and trust as a teacher from the years of doing things the traditional way between completely changing things to fit in with our new vision and 21st century learning.  

"Classroom" Design for the 21st Century

We've abandoned the word, classroom, for our new space.  The new name for our space is the Learning Studio.  Within the studio are small and large spaces.  The photo album below has images of the Studio from August 15 to August 24.  

What was in the old space?

• computer lab
• library
• media staff office
• EL staff office
• guided reading library
• classroom (which was formerly the computer lab)
• classroom (which was part of the library)

What is in the new space?

• messy work area with a sink
• recording studio/quiet work area
• glass-enclosed space for ???  
• flexible teaching and learning spaces
• TBD - our students will tell us what they want

Where is the library?

• part of it is in a storage room
• part of it is in the band room
• students and teachers will still have access to books

Where is the computer lab?

• Studio will have @30 desktops and 15 iPads
• Other classrooms will share laptop carts

Twitter in 2nd Grade

We've recently launched our very own Twitter feed for our classroom.  We will tweet every day with something random from the classroom.  We're inviting parents to use it at Open House, and we've got the feed on our website.  Our students will create the tweets later on in the year.

9 Reasons to Use Twitter in School

How Twitter Changed My Life from MinXuan Lee

Google Search Stories

Very COOL! This turns a Google search into a YouTube video.  Now I just need to find a way to use it in the classroom or for PD . . .

https://searchstories-intl.appspot.com/en-us/

Twitter 101

A concise overview of Twitter by Jason Buck.

http://prezi.com/ciubteuuk3vi/twitter-101/

QR Codes in the Classroom

Here is a great presentation by Karen Ogen on how to use QR codes in the classroom.

Some uses I could foresee using in 2nd grade:

• link to podcast of student book reviews
• link to podcast of student explaining artwork
• scavenger hunt for open house or beginning of school year

Potential challenge:  how to check out iPods or iPads at Open House to families for scavenger hunt

Web Tools for Teachers by Type

Here is a very complete list of web tools.  I love how Tim Wilhelmus categorized them in this Livebinder.  My goal is to put together something like this for teachers and students, but at a lower scale.  I'm not sure how 2nd graders can navigate a Livebinder, so I will probably look for a different format for them.

Web Tools for Teachers by Type

Livebinder of Everything Screencasting

Many thanks to Brett Clark for putting this list of screencasting tools together.  According to Clark, it is a work in progress and will be added to based on suggestions from others.

Tools for Flipping the Classroom

He used Livebinder as a virtual filing cabinet.

Wonders of the World - Flipped Style by Google

The World Wonders Project is a valuable resource for students and scholars who can now virtually discover some of the most famous sites on earth. The project offers an innovative way to teach history and geography to students of primary and secondary schools all over the world.

TubeChop - Chop YouTube Videos

Cool tool to chop and share a section of a YouTube video.  The current sharing function on YouTube let's you start at any section of the video, but it doesn't have the option to enter a stop section.  

TubeChop - Chop YouTube Videos

The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture

I love this graphic because it presents the video lectures so commonly associated with flipped classroom as part of the larger picture of teaching and learning and includes a variety of technology-enhanced examples for demonstrating each section.

Source: http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/tag/blooms-taxonomy/

Bloom's Taxonomy - Flipped

Some versions of Bloom's that are making the circuit in the talk surrounding the Flipped Classroom.

Bloom's version (circa 1950's) Here the focus is on lower-order thinking skills.  One has to learn and remember the concepts before they can be applied.

Lorin Anderson's version circa 1990's (former student of Bloom's)  A shift from the use of nouns to verbs and inversion of the pyramid.  Less time spent on lower-order thinking skills.

My favorite version of the new Bloom's (pretty and kid-friendly!):

Sources:  

http://strobertwiki.wikispaces.com/Bloom's+Taxonomy

http://jenniferbrokofsky.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/turning-blooms-and-my-thinking-upside-down/

The Life and Death of Flipped Classroom? But I just got started!

I just came across this article from a Tweet by Kristin Daniels (tech integration specialist @ Stillwater).  The title gave me a bit of a pause, so naturally I had to read it.

The article is written by Troy Cockrum, host of EdReach's show, Flipped Learning.

He makes the following points:

• "There are so many different iterations, it is difficult to pin down what is and what is not Flipped Learning."
• Flipped Learning "is now more accurately the flip of Bloom's Taxonomy (rather than the flip of homework and lecture as commonly thought)
• "It is not what defines me or my class."
• "It is not the only method/technique/tool that I use."
• "But, most importantly, Flipped Learning causes me to re-evaluate every lesson I do to see if there is a better way."

So, Mr.Cockrum doesn't believe the Flipped Classroom has died, but the definition of flipped learning is evolving.

Scavenger Hunt

I like this teacher's idea of creating a scavenger hunt for students to learn about technology tools.  She used Mentormob and created a step-by-step playlist to introduce her students to Edmodo.

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Studyegg: Build quizzes right into your videos

A fantastic find from Rob Warneke - Byron Schools who flips high school math.


Add quizzes to your own videos or those of others, like Khan Academy shown here.


Check it out!