Common Sense Classroom

Putting Pedagogy in Practical Practice

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Puzzle Computing Assessment Tool

Karen North from Houston ISD is a 27 year veteran Computer Science teacher who moved down to the elementary level to teach tech apps to K-5 for one purpose: to figure out why students were not coming up to secondary with the skills they needed in order to be able to problem solve.

 

She is involved in research to develp a K-8 curriculum designed to prepare students for there future both in education and in the workplace.

 

She shared video of her 2.9 yr. old grandson developing a problem solving process in order to successfully complete the animal puzzles on the Smithsonian National Zoo website. As he worked out the problem solving process, he became more and more fluent with his problem solving.

 

North is using this same puzzle tool to monitor and evaluate the performance of her K-5 students.  She is monitoring whether there is a direct correllation between the increase in fluency of their problem solving skills and  there ability to perform on assessments of their application of core content learned in the classroom.

 

I found her premise compelling, and look forward to the outcome of her study.  In the meantime, I plan to use this site to assist my own apprentices with their fluency in problem solving. You will see it appear on my classroom blog very soon.

 

Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 5:26 PM by kgustin

Posted on on June 15th, 2009 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Bringing the World to Your Classroom in the 21st Century

Susan Hopper from the St. John’s Episcopal School in Dallas, shares ways to implement projects collaborative projects from around the world.  The information about the project and all of the contact information can be found at the “What’s Happining in the Global Learning Center”

 

Formula for 21st Century Learning:  3Rs x 7C’s = 21st Century Skills

Project is only as good at the partner you get.  Make sure you have guidlines in place for timelines/dates for information exchange. They do this over a Skype call in order to discuss the details live with all teachers involved in the project.

 

The most powerful projects involve 1:1 learning: student to student.

Use a class survey to familiarize the students with the project.

Set up a website for the project.

Students work in the project is posted on the site to be shared with all campuses involved in the project.

 

Teddy Bear Exchange

 Classes exchange a teddy bear, then each class connects for 10 mins. per week on Skype to share what the teddy bear did when it goes home for a week. Some teachers  want to be able to Skype any day when they have a question.

 

Skype Weather Reports with a class in another part of the world.

Grandparents from around the world, Skype in to read to the grandkids that live anywhere. Great way for them to be able to visit their kids when they live far away.

 

Go to the Whats Happening in Global Learning

www.iearn.org to find projects and people connections.

Posted Thursday, February 05, 2009 11:05 AM by kgustin |

Posted on on June 15th, 2009 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Young Learners 2.0

Gail Lovely ran this session from a wiki in wetpaint.

If you click on the links on the Left Navigation Bar you can go through the entire presentation.  Students need to learn flexibility with hardware and software tools.

We need to work at moving from computer as toy - to computer as tool.

She included links to updated Bloom’s Taxonomy in the 2nd link.  This will help guide our thinking as we prepare our young students to reach their highest capability.

Spelling only REALLY counts on the internet.  Students this age should NEVER have to type out a URL, you should be using links that they can navigate.

Kids this young should always work in pairs. Even if you have 1:1 computer/student ratio. Conversation is essential for learning.  Use headphones with splitters – go to geekiest computer repair store you can find for good prices on splitters.

To keep kids from sucking/chewing on earphone/mouse cords: Require them to wipe down cords w/alcohol wipes when enter lab-tastes bad!

http://www.simplybox.com “SimplyBox is a free service to Capture, Share, and Organize ANYTHING you find on the web”

From: “Engage young learners w/ Web 2.0 tools” Gail Lovely, http://www.weebly.com “Easiest way to create and publish a website online

Kerpoof http://www.kerpoof.com/ Fun way to introduce storyboarding & time lining to young students. Good intro to movie planning

Can use http://www.voki.com to give spelling test or give students directions for a task, can even translate for second language learners and their parents.

Use http://yackpack.com like voicemail. Record and send a voice mail to all of your students and they can send one back to you. This is private, only members can access your yackpack. Great for differentiation for students, noone hears anyone elses messages.

You can use http://www.animoto.com or http://education.animoto.com/ for a fun easy way to make cool movies like the one I made of Day 1 at TCEA Easy-to-use build a music slideshow, no editing required; Educators (free) version almost no limits

Use http://vocaroo.com/ to record messages that can be embedded.

Use http://www.skype.com to text, voice, and video conference with classes in another location like jgustin and I did with Miss. Brady’s class yesterday. Scroll down a few pictures and you will see us Skyping on Miss. Brady’s Blog

For scads of teacher tools check out this page of the wiki http://lovelytcea09.wetpaint.com/page/Sites+and+Tools+for+Teachers

http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/ Flickr storm allows you to download and organize pictures in a retrievable tray.

This was an AWESOME session full of too many wonderful links to do justice here.  Go to the wiki link at the top of this post for a complete listing.

“Teach and reward process AND products.”  We need to honor both.

Note: Gail Lovely is @glovely on Twitter. She is one of my Twitter buds that I always learn wonderful stuff from when I am online.

Posted Thursday, February 05, 2009 12:03 PM by kgustin | 0 Comments
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Posted on on June 15th, 2009 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Copyright in the Classroom: Why Should We Care?

Amy Hopkins from Caddo Mills ISD presented information on copyright law and our responsibilities in teaching and following guidelines regarding intellectual property.

The PowerPoint presentations for this session and her other session, “Resources to Use in Your Classroom” can be found at http://tcea2009.wikispaces.com

For an easy guide to copyright law for teachers that can be printed out and used: http://www.mediafestival.org/copyright_chart.pdf

Really good information on fair use laws on some of the slides.  Check it out!

Posted on on June 15th, 2009 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Using iPods to Teach Literacy in the Classroom

Brooke Holt wrote a grant to get iPods for her Kindergarten class.  The grant covered iPods, stories on cd, and some other software to convert PowerPoint to video (Wondershare) although Moviemaker or Photostory3 could do most jobs just as easily if not easier.  It looks like they are using the iPods as a listening center like the lower tech cassette tape, although the video capabilities may take this to the next level.  Students can move around the room which makes it easier to manage the classroom that having all students on the listening center attached to the same tape player.

 

iPods are used at two times of the day.  During Literacy time the iPods are used strictly for reading.  Audio books are the only things they can listen to at that time.  During Mathematics, or free center time, they get to listen to podcasts, audio books, etc.  Coverflow shows a picture of each book and the students can select their book by its picture instead of having to read the title.  I believe that Coverflow is available only on third generation iPods.  Student’s menu options are limited by the iPod settings, but one has gone in and changed settings like language once on accident.  It was changed back easily. 

 

Sources for books are downloadable audio books from online stores like audible, download books from CD and upload it to iTunes, or search the iTunes store. To place the cover art, you might need to do a Google search for an image of the book’s cover.  There are also free downloadable video podcasts in iTunes.  Discovery channel video, Sesame Street podcast, etc.  Many of the podcasts are teasers so you may only get to download one or two of a particular show.  Scholastic has a Weston Woods catalog, which has several Spanish titles.  Class also created their own books using PowerPoint with the students voices and converted them to video for loading on the iPods. 

 

There seems to be an improvement in reading based on recollection of reading levels from previous years compared to reading levels this year.  There is definitely more enthusiasm for reading.

Here is the link to the News 8 Austin story on Brooke Holt’s use of the ipod in her Kindergarten classroom for literacy work stations. http://www.news8austin.com/shared/video/video_pop.asp?destlist=57179

Great demo of what she is doing in her classroom and student perspective.

 

Posted on on June 15th, 2009 in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »