It's difficult for some people to understand that instructional designers can work with any type of content. Here are some ways we do it.Post from: The eLearning CoachInstructional Designers Are Content Neutral

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: Keeping with our end-of-year theme of Internet Safety, Kindergarten had their own lessons and activities on the topic; First Graders learned about the history of the US Flag and Flag Day, then created flags of their own; Third Graders started creating multimedia posters (Glogsters) featuring the Internet Safety tips they gathered in their Google Doc earlier; and Fourth Graders did a variety of projects (different for several classes) for Father’s Day and/or catch up on missed lessons. Week ending 06/07/13 Skip ahead to 1:50 - that is where our Kindergarten lesson begins. Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: This week’s lesson was a bit of a stretch for developing readers, but, I am pleased to report that essentially every one of my students ended up completing the provided tasks successfully. The topic was Internet Safety. We started with a conversation about staying safe online and as I suspected, despite their ages, most already had a pretty good grasp of the basic concepts - always go online with a parent or adult nearby, get help going to websites, don’t share personal information, and so on. We then watched a fun animated movie designed for young children that provided great  information in a friendly, fun format the kids really enjoyed.  Afterwards, we demonstrated and then the students were asked to complete the interactive challenges on Surf Swell Island. What I observed / inferred / connected: I really like the Internet Safety video above (starting at the 1m 50s for Kindergarten students) and the way it approaches and explains topics. It’s never too early to establish a foundation of good Internet usage habits, and this video does so in a positive, friendly way. The Surf Swell Island activity does assume the user is familiar with email and texting but our kids were still successful using it (and learning the concepts) thanks to the gentle way in which errors were corrected and the intuitiveness of the user interface. What students can do at home: Have a conversation with your child about Internet Safety. Watch the video above together. Prepare to be amazed by what they know! Check out the Kindergarten Symbaloo for fun learning activities! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: With the approach of Flag Day, I thought it would be good to review some history and give students a chance to create some flags of their own. We all learned a great deal in the process, including the "Flag Controversy" involving Francis Hopkinson, one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence (New Jersey’s representative!) that claimed to have designed the first United States flag. Fascinating stuff! We reviewed a collection of images I gathered from the Internet of flags for various countries, states, cities, even organizations like the Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts. We had a rich discussion about the purpose of flags. Kids were given the task of creating flags of their own design using this nifty Scholastic.com tool and creating replicas of the U.S. Flag using this site. What I observed / inferred / connected: These activities were a lot more engaging than I expected, the kids enjoyed learning about the history of our flag, seeing how flags are used worldwide, even discussing how flags are created. What students can do at home: Try the nifty Scholastic.com tool (be careful, they’ll surely want to print many copies) and ask your child to explain their design choices. Check out the First Grade Symbaloo for more fun learning activities! Second Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Students used a mapping tool (Google Maps) to determine the safest route for them to get from home to school, and the distance traveled in miles. Using a Google Map with a starting point I pre-selected, students entered their home addresses, then modified the suggested route to (as much as possible) avoid major roads and intersections. What I observed / inferred / connected: In some cases, it was impossible for kids to come up with routes that totally avoided major arteries, but they did their best. Google Maps can be very flaky when customizing a route; kids needed quite a bit of practice (and many presses of the BACK button) to get their maps completed. What students can do at home: Have your child use my pre-selected link to show you the best way for them to walk or bike to school. Discuss the implications of their road choices. Calculate the differences in walking time and miles with the various routes. Even consider walking or biking the route to see how accurate Google’s estimates are. Check out the Second Grade Symbaloo - I loaded several new activities! Third Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Using their Internet Safety Rules Google Doc, students began designing interactive posters using Glogster EDU, a multimedia authoring tool that makes it easy to create informative, engaging and fun interactive posters.  It’s an excellent tool for a variety of projects. What I learned / observed / inferred: Thanks to the gentle learning curve of this software, kids were productive right away. We had some technical problems however that I determined were due to our use of an older version of the Chrome browser, which I fixed. What students can do at home: Students can access and use Glogster EDU at home, they just need their login ID (which is different from every other ID used in the school, unfortunately.) Have them see me for a copy of their login information. Check out the Grade 3 Symbaloo for fun learning activities and skill practice! Fourth Grade What we covered / did / explored: Three of my five classes did different things this week, catching up on missed lessons due to assemblies / Field Day / etc.,  or special requests (i.e., Father’s Day). What I observed / inferred / connected: We spent some time this past week in my "old" computer lab (with PCs, not Chromebooks) and I am pleased to see the kids so immediately productive and effective in that lab. With minimal direction, they easily navigated our network shares, created documents, edited/checked for accuracy and printed without assistance. They are very capable students! What students can do at home: Check out the Grade 4 Symbaloo for fun learning activities and skill practice.

If so, we'd like to ask you to invite you to participate in a survey research project. For the third year, WCET is partnering with the Campus Computing Project to conduct the Managing Online Education survey. The survey focuses on...

Finding a way to visually depict things that are hidden from view can facilitate learning. Create a magnified graphic in 5 steps.Post from: The eLearning CoachHow To Create A Nifty Magnification Graphic

"Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso The last day of school has come and gone, the halls are quiet now. Summer is time to recharge and reflect. Accordingly, my next few posts here will be a retrospective look at the school year. What’s gone well? What could have been better? What changes are needed for next year? First up … our new classroom learning space. Almost exactly a year ago at this time, I found myself immersed in the hard work of creating my new room, entirely from my own vision. Time was of the essence: I had less than 80 days to do it. The process actually started months before as I consulted with critical members of my personal learning network - among them: Christian Long, David Jakes, and Chris Johnson. Early conversations with them made it clear that I had to start by asking students questions. Our first: find out how they like to learn. Interviewing the students was great fun and a terrific way to end the school year last June. They were as excited as I was about what lay ahead. Soon, Christian suggested I read Make Space, the acclaimed learning space design bible by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University ("the d.school.") . He also provided me two fantastic texts on modern school architecture, The Language of School Design and The Third Teacher (by his own firm, Cannon Design. They literally "wrote the book.") These resources were invaluable. They guided me throughout the summer’s work. I wanted to create a classroom learning space that: was flexible, mobile and fun; was all about possibility and wonder; could support the wide range of hands-on (and messy) learning I knew was ahead. The room transformed quickly. The chalkboards came down: IdeaPaint went up: Words of inspiration were added above the bulletin boards: Crazy, whimsical clocks (funded by local and distant families via a Donor’s Choose campaign) were added: Foam cubes (for flexible seating) were acquired thanks to our local education foundation: And finally, we got the requisite tables and the most comfortable plastic chairs I could find for group project and laptop work: And with that, the space was finished, ready for the new school year. Fast forward one year … and a whole lot of learning. What’s gone well? Overall, our student-centered learning space is flexible, fun, and full of wonder & possibility. The "Messy Area" worked out perfectly as we had many, many projects that required "getting dirty." The foam cubes were a HUGE hit, probably the single most popular design item in the space. The projector (thank you, eBay) in the "Messy Area" - not something I’d planned for originally - proved invaluable in many lessons. What could have been better? Our IdeaPaint wall was underutilized - mostly because the finish is slightly off. :/ The SMARTBoard is too high for students to reach easily. If only the windows opened… What changes are needed for next year? I’m going to use different color lines at the back of the room to make it easier for the kids to line up during transition time. Perhaps we’ll add another coat of IdeaPaint? The new learning space was, almost without exception, everything we’d hoped it would be. Flexible. Efficient. Effective. Fun. Just ask the kids! All along, I realized that creating the new physical classroom would be the easiest part of my new program. Next up: a look at my lessons - what worked, what didn’t, and what will be changing next year. -kj-

Been a busy couple of months of elearning road-trips. From EDUCAUSE to Online EDUCA, from WCET to WICHE, from DevLearn to AECT (with a little bit of virtual Sloan-C tossed in for good measure). Literally thousands of plenaries, presentations, and...

You could almost spend your entire summer taking webinars there are so many. Check out this list. Many are free. Post from: The eLearning CoachWebinars In June 2010

What a summer it’s been! I have been incredibly busy since school let out in June. (Hyperactive people like me actually find being "busy" to be "relaxing." Nutty, ain’t it?) I did a LOT of driving. Well over 2,000 miles, with the unofficial summer mission of visiting and photographing as many County Fairs as I could. I took a LOT of pictures. Over 8,000 by last count. You can see some of the better ones here. I spent a LOT of time with other people. I helped run two Edcamp (teacher professional development) "unconferences," one in North Brunswick and another in Galloway Township. I even went camping in Gettysburg with a great group of families from Northfield and beyond. And I met up with members of my PLN (personal learning network) all summer in a variety of places for a variety of reasons. This is all important because it means I had a lot of time - the entire summer - to think. What worked well last year in my class? What could have been better? What do we need to do differently this year? Image credit: http://www.thereformedbroker.com/ What Worked Well #1: Engineering is Elementary (EiE) We managed to get one EiE unit done per grade level last year, which isn’t that bad, considering we were in a brand-new space, had just implemented Chromebooks, and were dealing with a lot of upheaval in terms of pedagogy and expectations. The EiE units were, in my view, the absolute highlight of the year. We got dirty. We made things. We experimented. We failed. (A lot.) We did things that we never had before. It was incredible, pushed us in new directions, and made us all think about our learning like never before. We got recognized for the effort: The Museum of Science in Boston profiled our students in an issue of their glossy (non-Internet) magazine this past winter. We also inspired kids; one second grader started his own business selling his own brand of homemade Play Dough (he’s going to be featured in an upcoming issue of the Museum of Science in Boston’s magazine, too.) I heard many, many stories of kids excitedly bringing home evidence of their learning to share with parents.   #2: Our New Learning Space There is almost nothing I’d change about our new space (except maybe covering another wall in IdeaPaint). Kids love the space and the freedom it gives them. The foam cubes were a huge hit and held up well in terms of wear. We had plenty of space to spread out, and, when needed, make a mess. (Two sinks also helped a lot during cleanup.) The natural light is amazing. Even our traditional tables and chairs worked well. It’s an ideal space for what we’re trying to do. #3 Chromebooks and Google Apps We had some rough sledding in the first few weeks with the Chromebooks but once Google worked out some kinks in ChromeOS everything went smoothly. We rarely had connectivity problems, kids were immediately productive with their Chromebooks, Google Apps was a breeze to use, projects got done faster/easier than ever before. Students got online (and to work) quickly. They figured out features on their own. They shared their work and collaborated. They accessed work from home, continuing the learning outside school. #4 Keyboarding Sounds "old school" to be worrying about keyboarding in a 21st century learning environment but I’m sorry, it’s a crucial skill and one we will continue to focus on. We use the web-based, inexpensive and excellent Typing Pal service, which the kids really seem to enjoy. Several completed the entire curriculum AT HOME on their own time well before school ended. In my experience, the better kids are with a keyboard, the more enjoyable and productive technology projects are. (The inverse is VERY true…) What Could Have Been Better #1 More/Better Use of my Old Lab Between rolling out Chromebooks and a lot of new activities (EiE plus other STEM-related lessons), we didn’t get into my old lab as much as we should have. As a result, kids didn’t have Windows-based lab projects as mucg as we would have liked. We live in a blended world, and kids need experience on different platforms, so, we’re going to fix that going forward. #2 What’s my username? And my password? I truly believe that remembering (and managing) user credentials is the original 21st century skill. We struggled with this for much of the year. Second graders, in particular, had a really tough time, but it’s not really that surprising they had trouble; kids that age don’t use email (the "@" symbol is new to them), they don’t understand that you can’t put spaces in a password, that case matters, and that mistaking even one single password character will stop you dead in your tracks. Computers are not very understanding or forgiving… #3 Infrastructure Well, we had grand plans last year to "flip" my classroom … it just didn’t happen. There were lots of reasons, but the biggest was infrastructure. I recorded a series of video screencasts like the one above, only to discover that 24+ Chromebooks pulling down video wirelessly was enough to overload the network. We came up with a workaround - putting screencasts on SD cards inserted into the Chromebooks - but even that was a little clunky. I’m excited to say however that some pretty massive infrastucture upgrades are underway and will be completed soon enough to revisit this concept again this year. What We’ll Do Differently STEMLAB "2.0″ is going to feature some pretty significant changes … a few of which I alluded to above. We’ll be making better use of my old lab and its Windows PCs for lessons and projects. We’ll be measuring 4th grader technology skills with Learning.com’s Tech Literacy Assessment program. We’ve developed a new, comprehensive, standards-based "skills matrix" we’ll be using to ensure complete and thorough coverage of state technology standards and to measure student growth objectives. I’m close to finishing a skills badging system built with http://www.forallbadges.com/. We’ve coordinated passwords on our network and Google Apps and our various Web services, meaning kids will have only a single password to remember (once they choose a secure one). We’re going to be diving into programming with LEGO WeDo robotics kits. Finally we’re going to be giving kids in Grades 2-4 lots of projects using Wixie, a very powerful, highly intuitive, web-based multimedia authoring environment. And that’s just the beginning. Stay tuned! - Mr. Jarrett

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: Keeping with the reflection I posted recently, our first week of the 2013 school year saw a mix of old and new. Kindergarteners’ first experience in the STEMLAB was distinctly non-technological (a scavenger hunt!) while first, second, third and fourth graders got to be the star in our Grade-Level "Expectations" Presentation(s) created with Haiku Deck. All but First Grade also used the Chromebooks to make creative "selfies" that answered the question: "How do you like to learn?" First graders also got a quick review of the Chromebook which was followed by a performance-based "live" quiz. Week ending 09/13/13 - First Week of School! Kindergarten What we learned / did / explored together: The main goal of our first lesson in the STEMLAB was to get kindergartners comfortable with the learning space, everything in it, and each other. We started with a walking tour (if you haven’t seen the classroom, this picture will help, as will this one.) We talked about the crazy clocks, the nifty foam cubes for seating, the Chromebook laptops we’ll be using, the "Messy Area" where we will be doing our most of hands-on inquiry work (when the laptops are put away). That gave me the opportunity to talk about the science we’ll be doing and a context to introduce the main activity of the day, a scavenger hunt. We gathered on the cubes in front of the SMART Board and watched a quick Sid the Science Kid movie about a classroom scavenger hunt. Students were then sent scampering around the room, magnifying glasses in hand, locating various objects I’d placed for them to discover. Back at their tables, they drew pictures of what they found. We took photos of their discoveries, then everyone shared what they found on the SMART Board. We finished with a few rounds of Sebran (a great, free program you can download and play at home) to get kids comfortable with using the board. What I observed / inferred / connected: This is a VERY talented group of Kindergarteners! I am seriously impressed with their knowledge, energy, kindness towards each other, hunger for learning, and general awesomeness! It’s going to be a great year! What students can do at home: This lesson is super easy to replicate, all you need is some paper, crayons and imagination! You can even extend it as it is presented in the video by emailing photos of the students’ discoveries to friends and family. (We didn’t do that part of the lesson for a variety of reasons…) If you haven’t seen it already, my Kindergarten Symbaloo Page (http://ncs-tech.org/embed/kdg.html) is chock full of great learning activities, explorations and fun. We have one for every grade level! First Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Students and I reviewed a quick presentation highlighting the Chromebook’s hardware and keyboard, which was followed by a performance-based "quiz" where students had to find and identify the various parts on demand, which I verified visually. We used the Haiku Deck application to create "Classroom Expectations" which are now running on a slideshow loop in my room. Finally, we introduced everyone to the "Webcam Toy" Chrome App for a little bit of fun at the end of class. What I observed / inferred / connected: First graders seriously impressed me with their knowledge of the Chromebooks! I honestly expected a lot more "review" would be necessary. Not so! These kids are ready to go! Their suggestions of and their acted out representations of our classroom expectations were excellent, effective and quite humorous! They loved being the "star" of the show! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the single best sound in my classroom is laughter. The "Webcam Toy" Chrome App DELIVERED! We didn’t have much time to explore it but they really, really enjoyed themselves. What students can do at home: Ask your child to share some of the "Classroom Expectations" we came up with. They may not remember many, but I bet they will remember a few! If you have a Chromebook (and I know some do!) check out the "Webcam Toy" Chrome App. There is also a web-based version. We didn’t use any of the programs on the First Grade Symbaloo (http://ncs-tech.org/embed/gr1.html) but it’s worth checking out anyway!   Second, Third and Fourth Grade What we learned / did / explored together: Since these students were all familiar with the STEMLAB, a tour was not necessary, but a review of ‘expectations’ certainly was. I decided to make it into a fun, engaging project by utilizing the free and fabulous Haiku Deck application on my iPad (which I mirrored to my SMART Board using Reflector.) Students took turns suggesting and modeling classroom expectations, which we annotated using Haiku Deck (you can see a sample above). The second part of the lesson involved use of the "Webcam Toy" Chrome App to create "selfies" in which the kids answered the question "How do you like to learn?" What I observed / inferred / connected: The "Expectations" project exceeded my … expectations, mostly due to the way the classes lit up when they saw themselves on the SMART Board as I used the Haiku Deck application to create the slides "on the fly." They generated great ideas, enjoyed acting them out, and were extremely creative every step of the way! I wish I could publish the final product, but I can’t. It is visible in my classroom every day though, please stop by, either at Back to School Night or anytime! I got the inspiration for the "I like to learn by" selfie project from my friend and colleague Christian Long. While I am happy with the results, in retrospect I wish I’d done a better job explaining / framing the question and generating conversation before letting the kids loose. But, it all came out okay in the end. Some of my favorite answers are represented in the animated image below: What students can do at home: Have a conversation with your child about how they like to learn, then explore what that means for them at school, at home, and in life! We didn’t use the Chromebooks but you can check out the grade-level Symbaloo pages here. Second: http://ncs-tech.org/embed/gr2.html Third: http://ncs-tech.org/embed/gr3.html Fourth: http://ncs-tech.org/embed/gr4.html

One of the reasons I attend learning technology conferences is that they offer a highly efficient way to scan the horizon for emerging trends likely to affect learning technology adoption. Conferences also provide a chance to see which "idea seeds"...