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ON THE ROAD...
I love to travel. Meeting people and seeing new places is always exciting, but when it also includes a Day of Making then I get REALLY energized! After 5 hours in my car soaking in the beautiful upstate NY scenery followed by a delicious dinner with Diana Wendell, SLS Director & CIS Coordinator of Madison-Oneida BOCES, and her wonderful colleagues I was ready for a full day of collaborating, sharing, and learning!
AN ARTICLE BY MADISON-ONEIDA BOCES...
I enjoy connecting with other teachers and librarians across New York State. I find that our situations and goals are more similar than different, and it gives me a good perspective on what is going on in libraries and classrooms off Long Island.
CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR VIDEOS...
From these videos you can see what great sports these librarians and teachers were. I am confident that their students are in good hands, by seeing how creative and open-minded these educators are. They really know what it means to have fun learning again!
ROLLING OUT A NEW BRAG TAG PROGRAM...
We all have those teachable moments in our lives, and this was one of them for me. But it was also a learning moment. During this workshop I was able to beta test my new "brag tags" program. Combining ideas from Brad Flickinger's Reward Learning With Badges: Spark Student Achievement, a discussion with my new friend Wanda Terral at Edcamp USA last month, and a request by Diana to incorporate standards into our workshop.....tada....I now know how to document learning during my Genius Hour program! Not only did I give brag tags during activities, but the participants gave them to one another and even themselves. Now, that's empowered learning!
Here are my Brag Tags for AASL and ISTE Standards. You can add Common Core Standards, if you like.
BLING YOUR BADGE...
"Bling Your Badge" is an introductory activity that combines low tech creativity and simple circuits. With paint markers, clear badges, lanyards, LED's, coin batteries, and tape participants created badges that showcased their personalities. This simple activity has so much learning "bang for your buck"!
MARBLE RUN...
So Dollar Tree was already out of pool noodles, but on a quick stop to Home Depot I was able to pick up some pipe insulation. It may have been more expensive, but the foam was SO much easier to cut and manipulate. This group were my guinea pigs, and such troopers! I had never done this with a group of educators during a workshop, but I plan to always make this an activity. Through collaborating, communicating, and critical thinking magic truly happened as individuals formed pairs, then teams, and then worked together as a full group. The dynamics that I witnessed during this activity truly made my heart sing. :)
"JUNK IN A BAG" CHALLENGE...
When my little sister used to come home from birthday parties, my mom would ask her how the party went. After sharing details about the games and the cake, my sister would inevitably rummage through her goody bag. Or as she would call it..."$%&^* in a bag." So, I've modified this challenge for schools and call it "Junk in a Bag." What are the rules?
BLOXELS VIDEO GAME DESIGNER...
When my little sister used to come home from birthday parties, my mom would ask her how the party went. After sharing details about the games and the cake, my sister would inevitably rummage through her goody bag. Or as she would call it..."$%&^* in a bag." So, I've modified this challenge for schools and call it "Junk in a Bag." What are the rules?
BREAKOUT EDU...
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 School Libraries Work! (2016) by Scholastic, I read it right after my trip to AASL in Columbus, OH in November. IT FIRED ME UP! You can find it here if you haven't read it yet: http://www.scholastic.com/SLW2016/index.htm. I was already excited to share, collaborate and inspire from my experience in Ohio. I came home ready to put the kids in charge, empower them, and let them drive! BUT, then I saw the data Scholastic had gathered, it was astounding, “75% [of students] have no idea how to locate articles and resources they need for their research. 60% don’t verify the accuracy or reliability of the information they find. [and] 44% do not know how to integrate knowledge from different sources.”(2) Well, there were my Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) for the year! But how do I do this if I am supposed to let the kids drive? Enter the STREAM, the evolution of adding research (reading) and arts to the STEM program: https://www.impactoneducation.org/programs-for-students/s-t-r-e-a-m/. With this program, I could design student centered research projects, connecting them to both Science and Social Studies curricular topics, but then hand over the reigns of the project to the students. I created materials (graphic organizers) to guide the students to better research techniques (scholarly sources, accurate information, and MLA citations), I curated digital tools (BrainPop/Gizmo/Tinker-Ball) to create an engaging introduction, and then started collecting recycled materials to stock up the Makerspace students would be using to create. Did I mention my kids are aged 8-10? Grades 3-5. So, when I looked at their SCIENCE curriculum, Grade 5 was getting ready to study Sound and Light, Grade 4: Properties of Liquids, and Grade 3: Simple Machines. PERFECT! Our district adopted the Stripling Model of Inquiry about 5 years ago because it seemed to connect to all grade levels with it’s W.I.C(S).E.R acronym. Wonder, Investigate, Construct/Synthesize, Express and Reflect is prominently displayed on the wall in each library, and taught in grades K-2. By the time the kids come to me, they are familiar with both terms and process. I can concentrate on the resources. The librarians of Colchester do this with fixed library lessons, now called Information Literacy. We collaborate with a Technology Specialist (which I used to be) and the other building Specialists (Music, Art and PE) to integrate and achieve STREAM. We are also fortunate to share the class schedule with the Tech Specialist so that we both have fixed classes, Genius Blocks, Collaborative Blocks and planning. Building the Grade 5 lesson with my team, we considered: CONNECT: Students were challenged with a mystery tune (Twinkle, Twinkle..but shhh, don’t let it get out) They were provided a table of materials, water, and an iPad. Materials included: glasses, cans, cups, pencils, pens, and paper. They were given a graphic organizer to plan out their strategy, and also record what happened. Off they went! So engaged, and PRODUCTIVE! Small groups worked together to figure out the tune, recreate it with the materials, and then document their work with the iPad, photo or video. (42 minutes or one class period) WONDER: Students explore an interactive game on BrainPop Jr., and a quick video about sound. With their background knowledge filled in, students were given a graphic organizer to record the instrument they were curious about, and their findings. I made sure to include a place for a citation, and annotation (remember we want kids to use scholarly resources and cite them!) (42 minutes or one class period) INVESTIGATE: students explore digital, print, and video resources. MUCH OF MY TIME is spent guiding students to understand the importance of using J.U.N.K (okay I made this up):
SYNTHESIZE/CONSTRUCT: Time to put together the pieces! Figuratively in this step. Students use their findings to sketch, plan or design a way to replicate the instrument they have just studied. I gave my students some choices here too! Students can go low-tech with pencil and paper, mid-tech with a Google Drawing, or high-tech with TinkerCad (3D design and printing) Students created a sketch, used text boxes to describe what they were using and how the pieces and parts helped to make and/or change the instruments sound (remember those essential questions?) (42 minutes or one class period) EXPRESS: LET THE FUN BEGIN! Student brought in recycled materials the thought they would need to build their instrument. There are no rules here but one, CAN’T BUY ANYTHING! We let them have the run of the library space here, just monitoring for kids who needed help. I did bring in my “big girl scissors”, hammer and hot glue sticks. I just got to walk around, poking holes in stuff or cutting plastic bottles in half. SO MUCH FUN to just let the time develop into what it will. The hardest part for kids, stopping. We had a bit of clean-up so we would stop after about 35 minutes of building. They were so upset, would have loved a 90 minute block, just to let them go...but 42 minutes it is! (84 minutes or two class periods) REFLECTION: This is both for the students and me. Did they learn anything? Students are equipped with their instrument, their graphic organizers and their sketches. They are given a rubric for the project, and asked to self-evaluate. The rubric asks them to evaluate the quality of their findings, and their involvement. I use their work, their self-evaluation, and some video, to fill out the rubric myself and come up with a “grade” 1,2,3 or 4, which is what we use on our report cards (rubric is aligned to this scale) Time to find another topic! SCHOOL LIBRARIES WORK! A Compendium of Research Supporting the Effectiveness of School Libraries. New York: Scholastic, 2016. PDF. "STREAM." Impact on Education. Boulder Valley Schools, n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.
Like my younger self who eagerly awaited the delivery of the Weekly Reader, I checked my email hourly on the 20th of the month for the arrival of my Bitsbox subscription. Within in short time I wrote and modified apps to create hopscotch games, to design new constellations, and to put on a fireworks show. I also learned new programming vocabulary including arrays, randomness, and looping. Bitsbox had me at hello! So what is this new coding product that I am in love with? Bitsbox is a "Code of the Month" subscription service that helps students learn Javascript through authentic creation. The website is free, however, there are 3 pricing plans for the kits:
Children (and adults!) can create their own accounts, and then type the codes provided to create the apps. Extension activities include questions, challenges, or suggestions to change a part of the code to experiment with the output. To make typing easier, the creators (Scott Lininger and Aidan Chopra, formerly of Google), encourage new programmers to use laptops, desktops, or Chromebooks. After the user types the code and presses the green arrow, the app runs in the virtual tablet onscreen. Then he or she can share the app through social media, or access the app on their tablet or smartphone through its QR code.  I appreciate Bitsbox because it reminds me how I used to teach my students how to code using HTML almost 14 years ago. My students typed simple HTML code that I had written for them into Notepad. Then they saved it as a Notepad file and also as a webpage file. Through toggling back and forth between screens, they experimented and learned about color, commands, and proper punctuation. Bitsbox offers a similar, though simpler, experimental platform. I plan to introduce Bitsbox for students after they complete the Hour of Code program. Bitsbox helps users to progress to the next level by crafting fun projects that require input of code. Try Bitsbox yourself and you'll be "appy" you did: https://bitsbox.com/
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Kristina A. HolzweissEd Tech School Librarian Archives
July 2021
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