Up Your Twitter Game

We are less than one month away from our February institute day! One of the ways to share what you learn that day or show appreciation for the presenters is to send out a Tweet on Twitter using #CSDFebInst. Live Tweeting at conferences and other professional development events is a great way to share what you've learned, show your enthusiasm, and provide feedback to presenters.

Maybe you're not on Twitter, or perhaps your Twitter game is lacking. No worries -- it is very simple to ease yourself in to Twitter. In the past, I've shared with you a 10 Day Twitter Challenge. I pose this same challenge to you today. If you're not on Twitter or don't use it terribly often, this challenge will be a great way to get you used to using Twitter in a professional way, and then you'll be prepared to Tweet up a storm when the institute day comes!

If you're already on Twitter, I have an idea for you, too! Check out Tweet Deck! This is a great way to get the most out of Twitter with minimal effort! You can see your news feed and notifications all on one screen -- all while monitoring a particular Twitter account or follow all the Tweets with a particular hashtag. I started using Tweet Deck this year, and it has really improved the way I use Twitter to learn what's happening in the education world! If you log in to Tweet Deck today and set it up to follow the hashtags #ChannahonPride and #CSDFebInst, you won't miss out on any of the great information about our school district and our institute day!

Unsure how to get started with Twitter or Tweet Deck? Get in touch with me and I will gladly help you get set up!

Addendum: after I wrote this post, I hopped on Tweet Deck for a bit and one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter, @cybraryman1, sent out this link to his page all about Tweet Deck, so check this out for more information and help!

Real Life is in 3D

As you may have heard, this year Channahon School District 17 acquired two 3D printers -- and they're really cool! But one of the "problems" with 3D printers is trying to figure out how to use them in meaningful ways. Sure, it's fun to have kids print out name plates for their doors or lockers, but how does that tie in to anything at school?

One way to connect using the 3D printer to what is happening here at school is find things in your curriculum that lend themselves to creation and visualization. For instance, I know Tony Urbanski has had some students design pyramids based on the pyramids they studied in the Egypt unit for social studies. There has even been talk about having kids try to create a model of the Great Wall of China. Can your kids find a geometry tie-in with what you are doing in math? What about cells, atoms, or other science-related items? Scale models of homes or famous locales studied in literature? Creating a new musical instrument or a piece of sculpture in music or art? The possibilities are endless -- ask your students for ideas! They are sure to come up with some very innovative ideas!

If you're thinking about implementing some 20% time/genius hour opportunities, have kids do some research into practical things they can design and create. Here is a recent real-life example. The picture below shows two items. The white item is a piece of plastic that was used in my master bedroom closet on the end of the wire shelving unit. It connected the bottom of the wire shelf to the top shelf. It's probably only 2 or 3 inches long. The white one is broken; that means that the bottom part of my shelf was sagging and in danger of bending or ripping out of the wall, causing me to have to consider buying a whole new shelving unit for my closet or trying to scour the internet for a replacement piece (I don't know the manufacturer for the shelves or what that thingy is even called, so if I miraculously found the right piece online, I'd likely have to pay a few dollars for one little piece of plastic).

The white piece: broken connector. The green piece: 3D printed replacement!

OR a replacement could be 3D printed! I brought the piece in to Jeremy and asked him to experiment to see if a replacement could be printed with the 3D printer. After taking measurements and designing it, he printed one for me but discovered he didn't make it strong enough. It broke before I got the chance to try it out in my closet. So, growth mindset at work, he re-engineered and another one was created -- and it is now in a new, happy home in my closet, holding my shelves together!

I asked Jeremy to work on this because I didn't have any kids who were available to work on this for me, but had there been kids I could talk to, I would have approached them first. This might seem like a silly project, but this gives kids an authentic audience for their work. They are helping someone solve a real-life problem. It doesn't have to be as grand and benevolent as a prosthetic limb; it can be fixing someone's closet.

My 3D printed shelf thingy doing its job in my closet :-)

If you would like to find a way to offer your kids the chance to try 3D printing, let me and/or Jeremy know. We can help you come up with ways to fit it into your curriculum and show you and your kids the applications to do the actual creating.

SAMR -- Where Are You At?

I was thinking over break about my job and how much fun it is -- I almost don't want people to know how much fun I have because it hardly seems like work sometimes! This is my 4th year acting as Instructional Technology Resource Teacher, and one of the things I first shared with everyone when I started this job was information about SAMR. This got me thinking....I wonder where we are now in the SAMR model? There have been so many changes over the past 4 years -- addition of technology, addition of tech staff, new leadership, revised vision. Have we moved up the SAMR ladder? How can we keep progressing? What can I do to help teachers keep moving? These questions are what keep me trying to stay on top of the ed tech world!

As a recap, SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. Here is briefly what happens at each level:

• Substitution: Technology is used as a substitute tool (maybe like typing an essay instead of handwriting it).
• Augmentation: Technology used as a substitute tool also helps improve the learning situation (could be like using an annotated online text instead of a hard copy book).
• Modification: Technology allows for a learning experience to be redesigned (possibly like using Google Cardboard to have students take virtual field trips instead of only looking at pictures or watching a video).
• Redefinition: Technology allows for the creation of entirely new learning experiences, maybe not even previously possible (like the concept behind the Dream Lab at the junior high, where students use their own personal inspiration and experiences of empathy to work on projects to change the world whether in big or small ways).

I challenge you to look at the learning experiences happening in your classroom and answer the following questions:

1. Where am I -- S, A, M, or R?
2. Where do I want to be by the end of this year? Next year?
3. What do I need to keep moving from S to A to M to R?
4. What can I get Renee to do to help me? (This is a shameless plug for myself, designed to find new ways to get into your classroom so I can have fun trying new things with you and your students!)

For help with this, check out this terrific website with all sorts of resources to help you with SAMR, including connecting SAMR to Bloom's and examples of how things we see in so many classes (note taking, researching) look as they progress through the SAMR model.

A Creative Approach to Growth Mindset

As teachers, we personally understand the concept of growth mindset and how important it is for us and our own personal professional development. We also see the value in it for the kids in our classroom as well. But developing and appreciating a growth mindset in students can be difficult. Kids often like easy answers and easy tasks; productive struggle can be exhausting! It might be challenging to get students to see the benefit of a growth mindset, say, in language arts, because that might require things like writing multiple drafts of an essay, incorporating feedback, and meaningful self-evaluation. These seem daunting or mundane tasks, especially if a student isn't a particularly strong writer. In science, it might mean having to redefine a hypothesis or start an experiment over from the beginning because of an error in measurement or calculation. Kids can be reluctant to do these things because it can feel like a lot of work or they just don't see the benefit in trying again.

One way to show kids the value of a growth mindset might be to reference the arts. For instance, a student in choir who has a solo performance likely doesn't sing perfectly the first time around. She might have to spend extra time memorizing lyrics, pay attention to feedback from the choir director about her tempo, and listen to herself singing to check her pitch. Then sing again. And again. And again. Growth mindset.

A student in speech club or in a play follows the same process. He will have to learn lines and rehearse them, get feedback from the director about onstage behavior, and practice in a mirror to evaluate his facial expressions and physical gestures. For weeks. Growth mindset.

This is also true for artists, dancers, and athletes. It's how kids learn to ride a bike or do a trick on a skateboard.

Helping students develop that growth mindset in an academic class might be less challenging if we show them that growth mindset is a part of their life already. By relating what they see when they run plays at basketball practice to correcting their math errors, we just might get kids to see the value and learning in productive struggle and making mistakes.

As a quick side note, this also underscores the absolute necessity and importance in arts education. By having students take classes in physical education, drawing, painting, cooking, or sewing, or being in sports or in speech, drama, or choir, students experience learning through mistakes, feedback, and self-evaluation.

Check out this article from Edutopia about the connection between the arts and growth mindset.