When I started this blog, I promised myself I’d try not to become too embroiled in the politics of education or anything else as I shared my reflections with the … Continue reading →

I am pleased to share the following good news. WICHE, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, announced today that WCET, the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, has been awarded a $1,000,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation...

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: Kindergarteners were all about following directions this week with a few fun websites and some Learning.com lessons; First Graders reflected on what it meant to have a good (or not so good) play date; Second Graders were all about the play dough as they mixed their own for the very first time; Third and Fourth Graders worked on their Games in Education research project questions using Google Docs. Week ending 03/01/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: This week’s lessons were all about following directions. I located some fun warmup activities to start everyone thinking about the importance of following directions and the games did not disappoint.  They are on the Kindergarten Symbaloo but I’ll link them here for convenience: Bob’s Tool Shed; Tina’s World; Wubbzy’s Garden; Dora the Explorer - Exploring Isa’s Garden. Students then headed to Learning.com’s EasyTech service where I’d queued up a few lessons: one on simple word processing and two on use of painting & drawing programs. As shown above, kids got positive reinforcement when they were right (and gentle reminders when they weren’t.) All were ultimately successful and learned some important aspects of painting and drawing application user interfaces in the process. What I observed / inferred / connected: This was an "easy day" in that the kids, while challenged by the activities at times, were largely self-directed. I love days like this because I can spend time with the kids that need help while others can scoot along and get through the assignment (and to play time) quickly. Learning.com’s EasyTech service is ideal thanks to its gentle learning curve and audible prompts. What students can do at home: I provided parents with Learning.com EasyTech access instructions at the start of the school year. If you need another copy, or help logging in, contact me! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We started the lesson with a group share about play-dates, and in particular, we had the kids recall examples of good - and not so good - play dates. We unpacked what made a play date fun (or not) and reinforced the actions and behaviors (under our own control) that help (rather than hurt). Taking turns, letting the guest go first / choose the activity, being open to ideas and playing games in new ways all were discused. We also explored feelings that inevitably occur when things don’t go well on a play-date, and, that those things are natural - even best friends don’t get along 100% of the time. We then watched a fun, quick video, Crawford and Harriett Work Together. I stopped the video at times to ask questions, which worked well to break up the presentation and get the kids to think. After the video, I asked students to use ABCYa’s PaintGO to draw an illustration of a time they had a really GOOD (or not so good) play-date. While most created a single illustration, some (like the child above) chose to do both scenes on a two-part image. They illustrations needed to feature the student themselves and the other parties and sufficient detail as to be able to represent what was happening. Further, students had to explain what was in their illustration once it was completed. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson is one of our favorites because students relate so well to the topic at hand and express themselves so easily and vividly, with great details and vocabulary. The ABCYa’s PaintGO program makes it easy for them to express themselves. The Crawford video is short and sweet and the kids love watching it. What students can do at home: This lesson is easy to replicate at home - all you need is a prompt and ABCYa’s PaintGO! Have fun! Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Week 3 of the EiE STEM unit "Improving a Play Dough Process," involved creating the play dough we would be improving and coloring the following week. Using a set of steps (see above) we first made a bit of dough that wasn’t exactly right. We thought about what we’d learned last week about the order of mixing materials and determined that mixing the salt and water first was a better solution (bad pun). So we re-arranged the steps and made the dough. Some still needed to add flour, salt or water, but in the end, everyone came up with a bag of their very own (example shown above.) What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson set new standards for MESSY! Controlling the flour, salt and water proved to be too much for most students as quite a bit of material ended up where it shouldn’t have. Fortunately no kids got too filthy (0ther than hands that needed a good scrubbing). The play dough most kids made seemed mostly okay, but I am left wondering what we could have done differently to ensure more perfect batches. What students can do at home: Make some play dough! The steps shown above are the "approved" process! See how you do! Third & Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We continued working on our Games in Education Research Project by fleshing out the content areas we brainstormed last week. We used Google Presentations to add details to each of the areas, which will form the basis for the actual questions that will be presented in the surveys. What I learned / observed / inferred: Google Presentations is an ideal brainstorming tool, as long as kids follow directions! What students can do at home: Students should remember their Google Account login username and password and therefore should be able to log into Google Docs from home. Ask your child to show you what they know and prepare to be amazed!

Just sayin’… A4: Choose your chats carefully, can be very addictive #satchat pic.twitter.com/8uI9ZU2R2Z — Graham Andre’ (@grahamandre) May 2, 2015

The nine events of instruction are a compelling foundation for Instructional Design. But a learner-generated model is needed too.Post from: The eLearning CoachExpanding On The Nine Events Of Instruction

I am attending a Summit later this week. The University Professional and Continuing Educational Association and the Association for Continuing Higher Education are co-hosting a sold out invitational meeting to consider the Future of Online Learning. Many dozens of learning...

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: This was an ‘easy’ week with Kindergarteners reflecting on play-dates (and social skills) with a graphic reflection; Week ending 03/08/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: We warmed up with some keyboarding activities on the Kindergarten Symbaloo. With inspiration from Crawford the Cat’s wonderful social skills series of videos, we talked about the importance of including everyone in playtime, and shared some experiences along those lines: who was involved? What happened? How was the situation resolved? As usual the kids were literally bursting with stories to share. We channeled that energy into an illustration using ABCYa’s PaintGo application (example above). Students were to illustrate a situation they encountered and what they did about it, using as much detail as possible. Images were then saved to Google Docs. What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson went about as well as I expected except that some kids had trouble thinking of a time when they felt left out (or someone get left out), which is pretty awesome! What students can do at home: Use ABCYa’s PaintGo to recount a similar story or event - press them to include details and to use the painting application’s full set of drawing tools. Check out the entire series of Crawford the Cat videos on YouTube or their website. These are very popular with the kids! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After warming up with some keyboarding activities, students completed a couple of Learning.com EasyTech lessons on graphic design. What I observed / inferred / connected: Students love EasyTech - and I do, too - the gentle learning curve is just right for kids and they provide excellent instruction. They get a solid foundation we can build on in our projects. What students can do at home: We provided login credentials for Learning.com at the start of the year - contact me if you need them! The beauty of this tool is that kids can work AHEAD (and beyond their grade level) to build skills. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: We wrapped up the EiE STEM unit "Improving a Play Dough Process," by adding food coloring to our Play Dough and refining the mixture with additional flour, salt & water. What I observed / inferred / connected: This was a lot harder than I expected! Getting the mixtures right required a lot of trial and error. The food coloring was messy to work with. The final products were … interesting, to say the least! What students can do at home: Have you made any play dough at home yet? Third and Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: As part of our exploration of Games in Education, and to evaluate a cool new service we may be subscribing to soon, we had students check out Sumdog, an extremely versatile, individualized, international, competition-based collection of math fact games. Students log in with their username and password (I created and manage their accounts) and then choose activities in which they compete against players from all over the world. Some of the games are simplistic and rely almost solely on math skills; others are extremely complex and require excellent math as well as reasoning and deductive skills. (My personal favorite is the activity that presents a math fact to solve and then asks students to place the answer as a puzzle piece. It’s crazy!) What I learned / observed / inferred: I love Sumdog so far. Setting up the students was a breeze. I can easily tailor the lesson content (material, difficulty). I also love how they present the math facts in creative ways, often with variables, really forcing kids to think. The variety of games is excellent. Playing against others is also fun, especially when they are competing against each other. This website has single-handedly validated my theory that well-designed games can increase interest in practicing math facts. Now, what we need is a study to determine if there are statistically significant differences in math skill development vs. ‘traditional’ practice methods. Hmmmm, action research… What students can do at home: The login for Sumdog requires students to use this link: http://www.sumdog.com/sch/ncsnj and the username and password they were provided at school. Encourage them to log on and play!

share, share alike!   50 of the Best Google Chrome Extensions by TeachThought Staff Google Chrome is, increasingly, where it’s at.As of April 2014, Google Chrome become the de facto … Continue reading →

Before committing to a stock photo service, scope out the best one for your money. Check these criteria first.Post from: The eLearning CoachStock Photo Sites: How To Choose The Best One

This post is part of my continuing series of weekly lesson summaries. My goal is to give parents & caregivers in our school community the resources needed to extend student learning at home, and to share my professional practice with teacher colleagues around the world in the hopes of improving my craft. Synopsis: It was a smorgasbord kind of week with a variety of activities, sometimes even within the same grade. Kindergarten students learned the basics of hardware input & output while First Graders explored how to go places safely online. Second Graders either finished their Play Dough projects or worked with math facts on Sumdog.com while Third & Fourth graders did a mix of Sumdog.com and work on their Games in Education project survey questions. Week ending 03/15/13 Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: After selecting a keyboarding warmup activity from the Kindergarten Symbaloo, students gathered on the cubes in front of the SMART Board for a discussion/presentation and some SMART Notebook hands-on fun. My presentation took the students through some basic hardware concepts, which I expressed using a variety of easily understandable (and often intentionally silly) examples. INPUT = telling the computer what to do, PROCESS = the computer thinking about what you told it to do, and then doing it, STORAGE = the computer putting information away for when it needs it later, and OUTPUT = the computer ‘giving’ you what you asked for. We do this using visuals representing each of the main devices associated with these functions. We then accessed a SMART Notebook file I’ve used for the past few years that has some very basic interactivity designed to assess if the students understand the information in the previous discussion. Everyone gets a turn, the action is lively, students help each other, it’s generally a fun time for everyone. What I observed / inferred / connected: I’ve been doing this lesson (or a variation of it) for as long as I can remember. It’s important because it gets kids thinking - wondering - how computers actually work. I have in the past used real hardware, passed out among the students … which is great for hands-on learning but a bit challenging when it comes to classroom management. I’ve also wanted to implement some sort of "human computer" using kids to act out each of the parts of the process but wasn’t able to make that happen this year. What students can do at home: Ask your child about the four concepts - input, process, output and storage - and see what they remember from our discussion. Spend some time on the Kindergarten Symbaloo - there are many new activities to choose from. First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After a few minutes warming up with a keyboarding activity of their choice from the First Grade Symbaloo, students returned to the cubes by the SMART Board for a discussion about online safety based on the Common Sense Media lesson "Going Places Safely." We began with a discussion about taking trips with our parents and things we do to stay safe - stay close, don’t talk to strangers, only go places we should, etc. We likened visiting places online to browsing the Internet - and reiterated the need to use common sense in both situations. We watched the well-produced, lively and brief movie clip featuring "Jeremiah" and the things he does to stay safe online: 1) Ask your parents before you go online, 2) only talk to people you know, and 3) stick to websites just right for you. We then shared our favorite websites and what we did on them - from games to art to famous places to websites for television shows - comparing and contrasting them, discussing why they are enjoyable, etc. Finally, students had to create an illustration of a favorite website and what they do there, who they interact with, how that impacts the fun (and learning.) What I observed / inferred / connected: This lesson went about as I expected, except that students were really motivated for some reason during the sharing portion of the lesson. Everyone had something to share. Everyone also had a favorite website they wanted to tell everyone about. The illustration part of the lesson also went easier than I expected as the students had no problem coming up with fairly detailed drawings (and they had no problem offering explanations). We also talked about Internet Favorites (and how to use them) and the importance of having a parent around when you are online. What students can do at home: Have a conversation with your child about online safety and be sure you are both comfortable with what to do - and not to d0 - when surfing the web! Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for many new learning activities. Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After a keyboarding warmup (Typing Pal), students in some classes finished their play dough projects and others worked on math facts with Sumdog. Those working on play dough added food coloring and flour or water to improve their mixtures. It was something of a debacle; play dough is not supposed to look like the photo above. :/ Sumdog continues to appeal as kids are playing the games a lot AT HOME which makes me VERY happy! What I observed / inferred / connected: I clearly need some help with the play dough lesson! I am a terrible cook and this was clearly cooking (just without heat). I’m going to have to find another recipe or get some help from people who have done this successfully! I have to be honest, it’s been very humbling. What students can do at home: I’ve already heard (from students and parents alike) that kitchens all over town are full of students making play dough. First, I apologize for the mess! Second, sorry to say, but, this is awesome, and it’s precisely what I’d hoped to achieve with our program this year. I want kids to be so enthusiastic about what we do in my class that they go home and try it on their own! Check out the Second Grade Symbaloo to see the many new activities we’ve recently added. Third & Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: After a keyboarding warmup (Typing Pal), students continued working on our Games in Education research questions, or, if they were done, worked on math facts with Sumdog. What I learned / observed / inferred: It’s been great to see kids’ reactions to their survey questions being included in our final instrument. I did my best to leave them as-is, only correcting the most egregious of grammatical and usage errors. I want this to be their work… What students can do at home: Check out the Third Grade and Fourth Grade Symbaloo’s as I’ve added a great deal of new content!