Technology in the Middle » In the Classroom

Flat Stanley in a Flat World

pwoessner — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:53:43 +0000

A few weeks ago, a delightful likeness of Flat Stanley arrived in my mailbox courtesy of my friend’s daughter Emma. In her letter, Emma asked that I take some photos of her flat self so that she could add my location to their classroom’s Flat Stanley map. Only too happy to oblige, Stanley traveled with my family to Minnesota for the holidays and went snowmobiling, saw a giant fish, and learned to make Scandinavian rosettes.

This approach to introducing the Flat Stanley series has engaged young children for decades. And while I appreciate the classics as much as anyone, I thought it might be fun for Emma’s class to put a contemporary spin on the project. After uploading the image below to Flickr, I asked my Twitter network to say “hello” to Flat Stanley. The response I received was simply incredible and truly humbling.

Within seconds I had a response from New York. A few minutes later, visitors from Virginia, Georgia, and Pennsylvania had sent their regards. In the course of 24 hours, more than 450 people viewed Emma’s flat self and left nearly 80 comments from across the country and around the world.

While Emma is far too young to grasp all the implications of living in a flat world, the generosity of the people who participated have set her on the path, given me a new appreciation for the power of professional networks, and will hopefully inspire other educators to provide students learning opportunities that reach beyond classroom walls. Thanks so much for sharing in the experience and taking Flat Stanley on the journey of a lifetime!

N.B. If you’d like to say “hi” to Stanley, you can visit his Flickr page or leave a comment below. Cheers!

Comics in the Classroom

pwoessner — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:04:55 +0000

Whether you regard them as comic books or graphic novels, “sequential art” has emerged as a popular and powerful method for engaging students. Although in education circles this medium is typically associated with language arts and viewed as a literary genre and/or strategy for enticing reluctant readers, a recent presentation by noted Marvel Comics artist Jerry deCaire demonstrated that mathematics is the essential key to his craft:

As deCaire notes, “I am convinced when students learn how math plays an integral part in the things they love, such as comics, they are more inclined to take a second look at the subject they are so often afraid of are just simply not interested in…My hope is to gather from the math student an appreciation and even respect for the arts as an equal partner in the world of academia, and to inspire art students to reconsider what is too often a negative response to their core subjects; the art student may be stunned to learn that the geometry in math can be a great assist in the creation of a well-informed drawing or painting.”

While few will ever attain deCaire’s level of talent, students can create fun and meaningful comics regardless of their artistic or mathematical abilities. As a compliment to deCaire’s visit, our seventh grade pre-algebra students used ArtRage, Comic Life, and Issuu to literally illustrate some basic math concepts. After selecting a topic, students were given a quick tour of Comic Life and set to work storyboarding images and speech balloons. Since Comic Life does not include an image library, students were given the option of using stock clip art (a nice collection is available here) or drafting their own using ArtRage on the Tablet PC. The final comics were exported and combined into one PDF document, then uploaded to Issuu and converted into an online book:

Hopefully our inaugural, math-based foray into comics will inspire others to explore the benefits of incorporating graphic novels into the curriculum. For those wanting to learn more, Scholastic’s Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom is a free, clear, and concise resource for teachers and librarians new to the concept. Comic Life is cross-platform and offers a free 30 day trial, and while ArtRage works best on a pen-enabled device, the Starter Edition is free, cross-platform, and includes eight basic painting tools. Creating one large comic book requires combining PDFs, and although we used Acrobat Professional, free tools like PDF Hammer will more than suffice.

Whatever your resources or experience level, if you give your students the opportunity, you’ll be more than rewarded by their efforts; comics aren’t just for kids anymore, but nobody understands them better.

Preparing for H1N1: Distance Learning

pwoessner — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:16:42 +0000

Like most schools across the country and around the world, the potential for an H1N1 outbreak has necessitated some intense planning and preparation by our faculty and staff. As an independent school with rather unique and demanding operational needs, the possibility of having to close for an extended period of time poses a very real threat. In the spirit of asset-based thinking, we have leveraged this unpleasant possibility into an opportunity to explore interdisciplinary distance learning.

Using Moodle as a delivery platform, each of our grade-level teams designed a 10 day instructional unit centered on a broad theme. Recognizing that ill students will have difficulty following a prescribed timeline and should not be expected to carry the same workload they would if healthy, the units represent approximately 10 hours of learning activities that can be completed on a fairly flexible schedule. Although only our students can enroll in the Moodle courses, guests can preview and explore each of the units:

5th Grade: Leadership

PeaceJam is an international education program built around leading Nobel Peace Laureates with the goal to inspire a new generation of peacemakers who will transform the world. Using their work as a foundation, the 5th Grade Leadership Unit includes 12 activities that encourage students to begin thinking about themselves as leaders who can embody our school’s motto of “Changing Lives, Changing the World.”

6th Grade: Discover St. Louis

The 6th Grade St. Louis Unit provides students the chance to virtually explore different aspect of the St. Louis community. From favorite local foods to famous celebrities on our Walk of Fame, the activities help students understand and appreciate The Gateway City.

7th Grade: The World In and Around Your Home

From the bedroom to the backyard, your home is filled with opportunities to learn and apply math, science, languages, and everything else studied in school. The 7th Grade Your World Unit explores the world in and around your home through the lens of academic classes.

8th Grade: Music All Around

There are numerous ways to look at music; historically, as a scientist, as a mathematician, as an artist, and simply as a human being. The 8th Grade Music Unit engages students on the topic from these and other perspectives.

The infusion of technology into these units is rich and varied. Collectively, our students will have opportunities to read and respond to blog posts, complete and analyze surveys, collaborate on project wikis, ask and answer questions in a forum, compose and share music, create multimedia presentations, submit work electronically, use Wimba Voice to capture audio responses, and participate in real-time learning activities using DyKnow and Wimba Classroom.

Hopefully our community will be spared from a flu outbreak, but if we should need to close, we are prepared. And if our luck should hold we are excited about using these units at the end of year. Either way, these established and emerging tools are helping us make sure that learning never stops.

Programming With Scratch

pwoessner — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:43:17 +0000

Computer programming has changed considerable since the days of FORTRAN and BASIC. Today, tools like Scratch can be used to engage and teach even young students fundamental programming concepts. As described on their About page:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

We have developed a six day Scratch unit for 7th and 8th grade math. One class period of each six-day cycle is devoted to Scratch, effectively spreading the lessons out over a six week period. During their course of study, students learn simple terminology, are introduced to the principles of object-oriented programming, and create original animations and games that are uploaded to our Scratch Web Gallery.

Unit Details/Resources
The complete unit is available for download as a zip file and includes objectives, activities, materials, and homework. Alternatively, the major handouts can be found in this unit summary and the “lecture notes” have been combined into a Slideshare presentation:

Mini Scratch Unit

View more presentations from Patrick Woessner.

Scratch is much more powerful than most users realize and a six lesson unit, even when taught over an extended period of time, provides students with a good overview that leaves room for future exploration. Scratch enthusiasts should visit the Scratch website, Learn Scratch, and Collen Lewis’ Scratch page for additional project ideas, and encourage their students to learn a bit of programming; with Scratch, it really can be fun and easy!

Water Rockets and Quadratics

pwoessner — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:33:58 +0000

When I was a physical science teacher, one of my students’ favorite activities was to use water bottle rockets to explore Newton’s Laws of Motion. Eighth grade algebra teacher Nancy Pierson and I recently hauled my old launcher out of storage and designed a three-day lesson that combined rocketry, quadratics, and real world data.

Utilizing the scientific concepts of action-reaction and aerodynamics, students constructed and launched a simple 2-liter water bottle rocket. By measuring the time of ascent and descent (and ignoring air resistance), they were able to calculate the height and velocity of their rocket using a quadratic function. Although we were not able (as originally intended) to film the flights in order to more accurately determine values for time, we did compare field data to projected calculations made using free rocket simulation software.
Rockets Away Rockets Away pwoessner

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Sheet Music & Lyrics Health & Medicine algebra Physical Science

Regardless of how well their rockets flew, by combining math, science, and technology, the students developed a greater appreciation for quadratics in the real world and came to realize that there is more to learning that simply substituting values into an equation. The formulas and functions will fade from memory, but hopefully the experience of working with authentic data (and having a bit of fun) will stay with them for a lifetime.

Pop Art Serial Prints and Photoshop

pwoessner — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:38:15 +0000

In the 1960s, Andy Warhol created several “mass-produced” images from photographs of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Jackie Onassis that cemented his status as a pop art icon. Warhol’s classic screen prints can never truly be replicated, but the spirit of his serial images can be explored digitally and appreciated artistically thanks to the power and versatility of Photoshop.

Our 7th grade visual arts students created their own interpretations of Warhol’s work using a simple procedure that included filters, layers, and an understanding of color schemes. The complete process, beginning with a “green screen” headshot and culminating with a composite image, gave our students a chance to expand their horizons and experience their own “15 minutes of fame.”

Enjoy!

Learning, Like Youth Soccer, Can Be Messy

pwoessner — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:53:04 +0000

This weekend my seven year old daughter played her last soccer game of the spring season. Her team, the Angels, has been together for quite some time and the girls practice almost year round. Because of their skill level, they “play up” and compete (successfully) against eight and nine year olds. In short, and while I may have a bit of proud-parent bias, they are not a bunch of little girls picking dandelions on the field; they are a formidable soccer team.

Their final game, however, did not begin particularly well. The conditions were horrendous; mud and standing water covered most of the field, the wind gusted from every direction, and the temperature fell rapidly as evening set in. The Angels, unaccustomed to such an environment, quickly fell behind 0-2. Their coach, suspecting the cause of the girls’ poor play, finally yelled across the field, “Angels! Stop worrying about getting dirty and start playing the game! Sometimes soccer gets a little messy!”

Whereas their opponents had no concerns about running through water or kicking up mud, my daughter’s team was focused on staying clean and couldn’t adapt to the situation. Although they did manage to score a goal thanks to a mistake by the opposing keeper, they largely ignored their coach’s advice and trailed 3-1 at the half. Things were not, as they say, looking good for the home team….

As I paced the sidelines waiting for play to resume, I couldn’t help but compare the Angels’ plight to that of our algebra-geometry students who have been learning Scratch for the past several weeks. They, like my daughter’s team, have been well “coached”; they understand the fundamental principles of mathematics and generally have solid problem-solving skills. When asked, however, to apply their abilities in an environment where there is no one “right” answer or single model to follow, many have floundered.

The issue for the struggling students was/is not a lack of understanding but rather a lack of experience learning in messy conditions. They vastly prefer the “blue skies and freshly cut grass” of structured problem sets and finite answers to the untidy process of designing programs. A learning environment in which each student is working on a different task is a truly messy, yet essential, academic experience; life requires thinking and thriving under diverse and sometimes less than ideal conditions.

Just as the Angels’ coach could not take the field for his team, the math teachers and I could not and cannot personally fix every student project. As adults, whether coaching or teaching, we sometimes need to “stay behind the line” and remind our young charges that if they use what they’ve learned and aren’t afraid to jump in and get dirty, they will succeed. Encouragement, coupled with good instruction, can go a long way….

As the girls lined up for the start of the second half, my daughter ran over to me and said, “Dad, you’re gonna have to do some laundry tonight.” She wasn’t kidding around, and neither was the rest of her team. When the final whistle blew, they had prevailed 4-3 in what was probably their best-played game of the year. She was covered in mud from head to toe, soaked completely though, and went home wearing nothing but my over-sized sweatshirt.

Later that night she called her grandparents to tell them about the game. They were very proud of the two goals she scored, and while I shared their enthusiasm, I was probably more pleased with the mess in the laundry room. Hopefully, the Scratch projects that are due in a few days will also reflect the efforts of kids who were able to adapt and not afraid to get engaged in a messy environment. Much like grass stains, a challenging, effective learning experience can leave a lasting impression….

Global Collaboration: A Polish Perspective

pwoessner — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:06:07 +0000

Mike Fitzgerald, a 7th grade History teacher, recently described how he created The International History Detectives wiki to study the Second World War from a global perspective. One of the project participants, Aleksandra Blalteberg, from Junior High School No. 4, in Gdynia, Poland, crafted her perspective on the project and graciously agreed to share her experience with a wider audience. Enjoy!

Junior High School No. 4

When Mike first wrote to me with the invitation to the WW2 project I thought – ‘Great! That will be an interesting experience for my students.

They are really interested in global collaborative projects and simply being in touch with students from different countries. We have already exchanged mail with schools in China, the Philippines, Japan, Italy, Romania, the USA and the United Kingdom. Every exchange is different in a way and brings different, sometimes quite surprising experiences connected with learning new cultures and finding out about different ways of living. All in all, global connection between classes and individual students make school days more exciting. That is why when a new school year starts kids usually keep asking me if I find new pals for them.

And what luck! This year I did not even need to look for a new project ideas – Mike of MICDS found us via epals com. At first I thought about students and classes only and it did not cross my mind what impact the project would have on myself as a person. Although WW2 is a topic familiar to me and so it is to Poles of my generation (due to history lessons taught at school, plenty of books and films based on that time we have read/seen and thanks to many personal stories we have heard and been told about), I realized I may need some self tutorial as I am not a history teacher myself.

Day by day, talking about the project and exchanging ideas with Mike via emails, I found myself more and more involved in the project theme. Being on the net for quite different purposes, not connected with our collaboration topic, I most often somehow ended up with new links and new information on WW2, also on the facts I had not been taught at school. And I did enjoy the research though I had not been interested in history before the project started.

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The Battle of Gdynia

On the other hand, reading all the responses written by the students of the countries participating in the project and looking at the compilation of photos made by Mike and Pat, put up by them on the wiki page, I could see the war from a new perspective. It appeared not only as a matter of a nation or nations – global in general – but also as people’s fortunes whose lives had been influenced and changed by the time of WW2 no matter where they had lived then.

To sum up, the project and its collaboration benefits go beyond the usual school learning environment experiences. It has made the learning and teaching authentic and interesting. It has also involved both students and teachers. Shortly speaking, just a great idea – worth following by other educators and experiencing by themselves and their students.

For more information, I would encourage you to visit The International History Detectives and read the student responses from Aleksandra’s class.

Collaboration 101

pwoessner — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 02:23:46 +0000

After Mike Fitzgerald wrote his guest blogger piece, In the Classroom: Global Collaboration, I received several inquiries concerning the resources that can facilitate collaborative endeavors. I recently addressed that issue when leading a Teaching and Learning Committee (TLC) Study Group session and thought it would be beneficial to share some of our experiences in the Middle School:

Projects

The International History Detectives is the site Mike created for his World War II project and was designed to ““connect schools from around the world in the collaborative pursuit of history.” To date, students from six countries have shared how their families and communities remember the events of the Second World War. In time, the History Detectives will expand to include other projects, grade levels, and participating schools/countries.

Many Voices for Darfur is the result of a collaborative effort between Mr. Mayo, a language arts teacher from Rockville, Maryland, and Mrs. Drexler, an elementary teacher in Florida who “started this project with their third and eighth grade students to spread awareness about the genocide taking place in Darfur. We invite students all over the world to participate.” We have several advisories who will be creating responses and hope that their voices will make a difference.

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ProTechT was developed by Plano, IL educator Scott Smeech and “is an open project for students to explore and promote what it means to be a good “Digital Citizen”, how to use technology ethically, and how to be safe online. We ask the students to help us define these terms for their generation, demonstrate their skills and promote positive use of technology.” At present, we have five advisories participating in the project and hope to expand the concept to the entire 7th grade this fall when we implement our 1:1 Tablet PC program.

Management Tools

You may have noticed that all three of these projects were created using Wikispaces. While there are many wiki tools available, Wikispaces is a popular choice because it is easy to use, ad-free, and they will upload your student user-data upon request. Teachers interested in learning more should visit Wikispaces for Educators.

While Wikispaces is great collaborative tool, it is often desirable and necessary for teachers to communicate in real time. The ProTechT organizers use Skype for a weekly conference call and group chat. Each Sunday evening, one of the ProTechT teachers initiates a call to the other group members and, using the Internet, we have a free VoIP conversation that can include the sharing of links and downloads.

Making Connections

Mike used ePals to locate all of the schools that participated in the History Detectives project. Billed as the world’s largest K-12 connected learning community, ePals connects students and teachers from 200 countries and territories. In addition to being a resource for finding partner-schools, ePals also offers student email, a blogging tool, and other useful features for the classroom.

ProTechT and Many Voices for Darfur came to my attention through Twitter. I’ve written about Twitter before, and it is an invaluable tool for making connections and creating a personal learning network. Just this weekend yet another collaborative opportunity presented itself; creating classroom activities with teachers in New Jersey and New York using Google Earth.

Ning is another great resource for teachers seeking to connect with other schools. I covered the basics of Ning earlier this year, but several new networks have been developed since that post, including The Global Education Collaborative and Digi Teen. Those new to Ning may wish to start with Classroom 2.0 and explore Distance Collaboration.

Lessons Learned Thus Far

Creating and/or participating in collaborative projects is easier than you might imagine, but there are a few things to consider with respect to the resources we’ve utilized:

Unlike MediaWiki (the tool we use for in-house projects), Wikispaces does not have a Discussion tab. Students seeking “back channel” communication will need to use the mail feature and “spamming” can be a concern, so advise accordingly.
Because ePals is based on e-mail, it can be difficult to transition participating teachers to a different tool for a project (i.e. Wikispaces) because they may come from an “e-mail mindset.” Stress and demonstrate the benefits of your tool of choice.
It takes time to build a Twitter network. If you know an established Twitter user, consider asking him/her to reach out on your behalf while you grow your follower/following list.
Ning networks (and their groups) are only effective if the members are active. Posting to the main page may yield better results because it will reach more people.
Collaboration does not have to be global to be effective; students can have a meaningful experience with the kids down the hall if the teachers create the opportunity.

Options Abound

For anyone considering a collaborative project, there is certainly no shortage of available resources; these examples barely scratch the surface of what is possible. The key is to craft an idea, reach out, and work through the process with your new-found colleagues. After all, that’s what collaboration is all about!

In the Classroom: Global Collaboration

pwoessner — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:14:52 +0000

One of the main goals of this blog is to share examples of how technology can support teaching and learning in our classrooms. The following post was written by Mike Fitzgerald, a 7th grade History teacher, and describes how he created The International History Detectives wiki for global collaboration. He crafted his reflections and graciously agreed to share his experience with a wider audience. Enjoy!

In November of 2007 I attended an educational conference in Indianapolis, Indiana simply called “Global Learning.” The presenter Alan November stated something rather simple. He said that in an age of free global communication there is no reason that classrooms should not be talking, learning, and networking. With that small seed of an idea I drove back to St.Louis with a new plan.

Within hours of returning home I was online looking for classes to work with for both my 6^th graders who were studying the Middle East and for my 7^th graders who were about to start a unit on WWII. After blanketing the world with polite requests for collaboration things began shaping up. My 6^th graders were set to work with schools in Turkey, Lebanon, and Morocco. My 7^th graders were set to work with schools in Germany, Denmark, Japan, the Philippines, and most importantly Junior High #4 in Poland.

In the past our unit on WWII was handicapped by our geography. This year, with some simple email connections we were able to put American students on the ground around the world with communities and people who have very vivid memories, great questions, and an interest in sharing stories. Cities such as Gdynia proved to be a goldmine of first hand information for American students to supplement their own research. Poland offered vivid stories and images of invasion, concentration camps, and families torn apart, and my students were able examine perspectives that were not to be found in our text book.

My students were involved in two projects. One was collecting and discussing input from around the world on WWII, and the other was interviewing someone in their own life who had a connection to the war. The combination of the two projects proved powerful. The process connected them with friends and family who told amazing stories of their youth, they were able to social network with other students on the other side of the world, and we managed to slip in a good deal of history when they were not looking. Another surprising aspect of the projects was getting a professional boost myself. In a short period of months I have retooled how I teach and how I will teach in the future.

Technology also determined how the project would end. Considering I was using the internet for overseas contact, I decided to look domestically for the conclusion. As a result of just a few minutes effort using emails I found three US museums (see below) who agreed to take our class interview projects for safe keeping in their archives. I was overwhelmed by the interest in our work and was amazed when the US National WWII Museum in New Orleans asked to have us provide links and information for their website.

In conclusion, some simple email and wiki-site contact with a handful of schools brought the WWII period to life for Midwestern students in the US like nothing else could have.

| View | Upload your own

For more information on Mike’s project, please visit the The International History Detectives and the following museums:

The National WWII Museum (includes a link to the project)
The Missouri History Museum
The St. Louis Holocaust Museum