Over the past few months I have been working with Shelly Terrell, Jason Bedell, and Chris Rogers on a secret project. 🙂 I am happy to say that I don’t have to keep the secret any longer but can share the project with all of you! In two weeks (July 31st and August 1st, 2010), we will be holding a worldwide virtual e-conference for free! The conference is called Reform Symposium and it is a conference for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. This year the conference is focused on innovative practices in education and what role these practices can play in educational reform.
We have an incredible lineup of presenters and keynote speakers that you can see here.  We hope that no matter where you are in the world, you will join us for parts or all of the conference on these days.
What you can do:
Mark your calendars for July 31st and August 1st 2010
Tweet about the conference using the #rscon10 hashtag so we can follow everyone’s tweets.
Invite your friends, both those you know online and off.
Blog about the conference and then tell us about your blog post on Twitter using the #rscon10 hash tag.
Join the conversations and fun on the Reform Symposium website. You can add friends, start conversations, and chat about the sessions.
Add me as your friend on the website.
Add the Reform Symposium badge to your blog or website to let others know you will be attending.
This conference is for you! We hope that you will join us for fun, learning, collaboration, and maybe even a few prizes. See you there!
What it is: National Geographic Kids is a constant source of excellent activities but their new Animal Jam virtual world is above and beyond my favorite. My students love virtual worlds, they enjoy being immersed in a story, sent on a mission, and interacting with each other to complete adventures and learn. Animal Jam lets them do all of these things while providing a virtual world where they can discover real-world plant and animal information and follow a rich storyline that has National Geographic’s multi-media content built in. Cool huh?! Animal Jam does something else, it excites students to learn more about the real world around them, so when they aren’t playing in the virtual world, they will be excited to learn more about the world they live in. The virtual world is an easy one for students to pick up on and learn, it is perfect for young students and caters to their specific levels of play and developmental stages. Animal Jams will be one of those environments that is as appealing to fourth grade students as it is to first grade students. The online environment is safe and monitored so you can feel comfortable introducing it in your classroom. Each portion of the sign up process is narrated so it is easy for even young students to sign up. The site requires a parent’s email address to sign up, the email is required but does not have to be verified before play can begin. In a classroom setting, a teacher or classroom email address could be used for sign-up. The email address allows an adult to monitor and adjust settings in a child’s game.
How to integrate National Geographic Kids Animal Jam into the classroom: After students sign up, they are entered into the magical world of Jamma where they are introduced to the world. Each portion of the game is narrated making it accessible to early readers, struggling readers, and English language learners. As students explore the world of Jamma, they will find embedded learning about different kinds of plants and animals along with incredible National Geographic images. Animal Jam is a nice environment to let your young students practice what they are learning about online safety and netiquette. As students explore Jamma, they will learn about links, navigation with mouse and arrow keys, and learn fun facts in the process.
Every primary curriculum that I have seen carves out time for students to learn about plants and animals. Animal Jam is a fun place for them to discover this learning within the virtual world. Send your students on expeditions and adventures to find these learning opportunities. As they play in Animal Jam, students can keep an observation journal where they record the plants and animals they are discovering like a scientist would. Ask your students how many of the plants and animals they can find in real life around their homes.   If you are learning about ecosystems and environments, ask students to count and name the different ecosystems they can spot in Animal Jam. This site is ideal for the computer lab setting, make sure to at least begin the game in the computer lab where each student has a computer. After the kids are signed up and familiar with the world, it could become a center activity for your classroom computers throughout the year.
Tips: Right now Animal Jam is in Beta. The world is free to join and play in but premium accounts are also available to students.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Animal Jam in your classroom.
Recently I have been talking to the head of a new school that is opening up in town. The conversation has been rich, and challenging, and inspiring. Sometimes we can get stuck in a rut, talking only with people who agree with us and share our same ideals about education. As a result of these conversations, I have found myself re-evaluating my beliefs about education, the place that technology has, and what it means to teach the whole child. These are all good things, it is good to engage in discourse with people who don’t agree with you. It makes us stronger, as iron sharpens iron. I posted these conversations on my other blog, Dreams of Education. The first conversation is a result of our initial meeting, where I learned that this school did not plan on using technology in the classroom and even viewed it as a detriment to education. It is my email response to the conversation. The second post is the follow-up email that I received along with my response. They are long posts but I encourage you to read them. It is good to see things from another perspective. How would you have responded to a non-tech education?
In addition to iLearn Technology, I keep two other blogs (about to add another): Dreams of Education and Stories of Learning. Stories of Learning isn’t really my blog, it’s your blog. It is a place to share what is working in education. I don’t plan to post my original work often. It is a place to collect and gather guest posts and re-posts of what you are doing every day in the classroom that transforms learning. The most recent post is a must see, it is from edublogger alliance member Henrietta Miller and is a re-post of a post that she wrote for her excellent blog, Classroom Chronicles. This story of learning is about an inquiry unit that Henrietta did with her students about Antarctica, as you will read, the learning stretches far beyond your typical unit on Antarctica thanks to the Power of Twitter.
If you have a story of learning you would like to share as a guest post or as a re-post, let me know about it via my contact form here.
In today’s TED Talk Tuesday, Jane McGonigal offers the premise that games (video games) can change the world in meaningful and positive ways.
She builds her case convincingly. I am currently reading Daniel Pink’s book Drive. There are some similar ties between the two ideas. Blissful productivity, we are more productive when we do things that we have to work at, and think about. When we have some direction and there is meaning behind it.
The principles learned through gaming can be used to solve real world problems. I can’t help but wonder what implications this line of thought has for education. How can we change the daily school “game” so that students don’t just sit on the sidelines, but experience “epic wins”. We all want to know that what we do matters and matters deeply. Games give us this feeling that what we are doing is having an important effect.
Learning should be an act of play. It seems to me that if we can tell a difference between learning and play we aren’t doing one of the right. Consider babies in any species, how do they learn to do life? Through play.
I’m not sure that I can envision what this looks like in the practical sense in the school setting. But I think that McGonigal has something here. What do you think, what could games and fun do for education? How can we use from what we know about games to change education and, in doing so, change the world?
What it is: The BBC is a constant source of excellent classroom interactives and games. Today I ran across Magic Key while working on supplementing MacMillan Mcgraw Hill’s Treasures curriculum for first grade. Magic Key is based on a cartoon in the UK, even if your students aren’t familiar with the cartoon, they are sure to enjoy the website adventures. Magic Key has fun literacy games for kindergarten and first grade students. The games help students practice full stops (sentence endings), sentence order, questions, character characteristics, capital letters, seeing patterns, figuring out new words, descriptions, and words that make sounds. The games are age appropriate, include fun characters, and help students practice and understand important literacy skills. In each game, students enter an adventure where the goal is to collect the Magic Key.
How to integrate BBC: Magic Key into the classroom: The Magic Key games are short and sweet, they give students the opportunity to practice new skills independently. I like to use games like these as a center activity. These types of short games make a great center because they provide students with immediate feedback and are self leveling. Set Magic Key up on your classroom computers as a literacy center for students to visit independently or in small groups. Don’t forget that the interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer can also be a center station! These games are a great alternative to the worksheet (you didn’t really want to grade one of those anyway) and will provide your students with an opportunity to practice what they are learning.
Tips: Check out the teacher section of Magic Key for a description of each game, the curriculum tie in, and (I hesitate to mention) worksheets.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using BBC: Magic Key in your classroom.
What it is: Whiz Kids is a new site developed for autistic children. It was designed to give these kids a fun place to develop life skills. All of the games and videos have high production values, making them engaging and impressive, they feel as though you have stepped into a Pixar movie. Through this one portal, you get 16 interactive and therapeutic games. The games help kids develop essential life skills like empathy, recognizing emotion, making decisions, coping with change, transactions, non-verbal gestures, grouping, schedules, finding a route, and making eye contact. Although these games were specifically developed for children with autism, they are wonderful for primary elementary students and ELL students as well.
How to integrate Whiz Kids into the classroom:Whiz Kids has an incredible back story, the site was created by more 80 students 8 lecturers and 10 autism specialists, the project represents more than 16,000 hours of research and development. The games are tailored to fit the needs of autistic children. If you teach autistic children, these games will help them develop important life skills that will aid them when interacting with classmates. The games would be great for classroom computers as a center activity. Help other students in your classroom understand how they can help the autistic children in the classroom by having them play the Whiz Kids games as well. This will give your students a shared vocabulary and experience to draw on when they are working and playing together in the classroom. Because the games focus so much on character development, they are appropriate for any primary classroom. Help your students learn about complex human interactions like empathy, non-verbal communication, and coping with change through game play. The games can be played and discussed as a whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer, or they can be played independently at a computer center, or a computer lab. After playing the game, practice the skill taught as a class. For example, if students play Robbie the Robot and are practicing recognizing emotion and facial expressions, follow up by asking students to work with a partner making faces and naming the emotion. ELL students can use Whiz Kids to develop character related vocabulary and understanding.
Tips: On the Whiz Kids sister site, Autism Games, teachers can get more information about individual games and how to use them with students. Each game is categorized based on the life skill that it teaches. The game descriptions and suggestions are fantastic.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Whiz Kids in your classroom.
One of the sessions I attended at the ISTE 10 conference was Elliott Soloway and Cathie Norris’s entitled: “From Add-on Technology to Essential Technology: Constructing 1-to-1 Aware Curriculum”. It is hard to go wrong with a session by Elliott Soloway, his humor is contagious.
I was interested in this session because I am currently working on a proposal for a 1-to-1 iPad pilot program and study for next year. I came away with some new perspectives on mobile technologies that I will share at the end of the post. To begin, here is the gist of the session:
“Within 5 years every child in every grade will be learning with mobile technology, it will be bigger than the Internet”- Elliott Soloway
There are 7 billion people on the planet and 4 billion mobile devices.
The greatest challenge we face as educators is to teach ALL kids. We need to teach kids “brain jobs” not “back jobs”. This is 21st Century skills and content.
“Right now looking at all the school data is just like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.” – Elliott Soloway
Mobile technology is the game changer.
In Singapore, Nan Chi Primary school saw a significant increase in tests scores after introducing smart phones in the 3rd grade science classroom.
In a classroom using 1 to 1 mobile devices, not a single child failed to turn in a single homework assignment all year. Why did that happen? Because they are engaged.
Time on task = success
The tools have to be used as essential tools, not supplementary. Supplementing with technology doesn’t move the needle. Essential means that technology is in hand 24/7 students have complete access to the tool. Essential means that students are actively engaged in doing and creating. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other tools being used.
Most things can be done on a mobile phone device.
Mobile devices connect students to the real world. Learning doesn’t end when school does.
When you look closely at the studies that show that technology has no impact, you will see that it is because technology was used as a supplement.
Technology should be like oxygen, invisible but essential.
Mobile devices like the cell phone are ideal because the cost of the device is $0 and what you pay for is the connectivity. It is a cheap solution.
It is about the kids, not the technology. Let them use their own tools.
Mobile devices are growing at a rate of 50% a year, this is the fastest growing technology. We used to tell teachers to get on the technology bus, now we have to say get on the technology bullet train because it is moving!
Elliott mentioned that he doesn’t think that the iPad has a place as a learning device. His reasoning is that it isn’t what kids are using. He argues that kids are using cellphones and mobile devices, that the iPad isn’t natural for them.
Elliott was an excellent presenter. He made some great points about using cellphone technology in the classroom. I have to disagree with his assessment that the iPad isn’t a good device for kids. While I like the idea of using cellphone technology and just paying for connectivity, it isn’t what every classroom needs. The conclusion that I kept coming to is that no classroom situation is the same. While an inner city school with low access to technology and resources might benefit best from a smart phone for learning, it might not make the same sense in a suburban school with more ubiquitous technology access. In a poorer neighborhood you will find homes that lack wireless Internet access, putting an iPad in the hands of those kids might not be as successful as giving them a cellphone that they could use to access a cellular data network. But in a wealthier, suburban neighborhood where wireless Internet is around every corner, an iPad is the perfect device. What I realized is that there can be no one-size-fits-all approach to education. One solution isn’t going to solve the education problems of the world. We need to look at each population and each classroom and choose the solution that makes the most sense for that instance. Education has to be tailored to the individuals, not the masses.
Soloway is right, we keep trying to make the data tell us a new story. Policy makers implement new standards and tests as a way to save education. But that is like moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. Sure things look different, but it is still a sinking ship. We need to cut our losses and build a new ship all together. That new ship should be tailored to fit the needs of the students who are boarding it. For some that means mobile phone technology, for others iPads, and for some netbooks. I can argue all day long for the benefits of the iPad in learning but when we get right down to it, the reason I hold that view is because it is perfect for the student population I work with. It makes sense in our situation. That may or may not be true of you.
iLearn Technology is coming up on birthday number 4!! It is hard to remember a time when I didn’t blog, the 4 year journey has been amazing! I have grown as a teacher, a user of technology, and (I hope) as a blogger. As I reflected on iLearn Technology, I couldn’t help but remember my first steps into the blogging world. It was the summer of 2007 and I had been teaching in the computer lab for 2 years. At the time, I spent my summers searching the web for resources I could use in my classroom. When I stumbled on gems I wondered why no one had collected all of the great education resources in one place. I kept a notebook of the sites I was finding and would jot down a few words (which I later realized were tags) to help me remember what the website looked like and did. I would also write any thoughts that I had about how I could use the site with students. Every once in a while I would stumble on a collection of education resources for the classroom, but I was disappointed by them. Most were just lists of website links, there was no information that indicated what kind of site it was or how it could be used. It frustrated me that I had to click on each and every link to find out if it was worthwhile for my classroom or not. I was quickly becoming a website snob and when I came upon a website of link lists, I would quickly move on. It was too time consuming to sort through 100 website urls for the chance that I might find something worth keeping.
About this time, the iPhone had just emerged on the scene. My husband bought one and promptly jail broke it so that he could stay on T-mobile network. As he searched around the net for iPhone hacks and tips, he came across this little video from @ijustine. Her AT&T phone bill unveiling.
My husband sent me the video with a link to her blog and said “You should start a blog”. I quickly shot back something snarky like: “oh yeah, what would I blog about my Nokia?” Lucky for me, he ignored my snarky comment and told me to start an education blog where I reviewed all of the sites I was finding for my classroom. I wasn’t sure how I could keep a blog going through the school year or how I would find enough material to keep it current, but it was July and I decided to give it a go. You have to understand, when I started iLearn Technology, I had NO idea what blogging was really all about. I didn’t really understand how it was different from a website (other than being updated more often) and I am pretty sure the term RSS was foreign to me. I started it anyway thinking if nothing else, it would be a good place for me to keep track of what I was finding and would be more easily searchable than my spiral notebook. I didn’t really expect that anyone would read my blog. I didn’t really expect to get a following of any kind. Thus began the journey of iLearn Technology.
Looking back over the past 4 years, I am still baffled that I find time to post every day. I am still dumbstruck that you all read my blog and come back for more. I am still amazed that I continue to find resources that are worthy of posts (I decided when I started iLearn Technology, if it didn’t pass the test of my students enjoying it, there would not be a blog post about it). Each year I get a little nostalgic in July and look through my old posts. I remember what projects I have done with students, make note of the sites that my students still beg for, and look forward to new finds. I also try to find something that I can improve on. This year I decided that I needed to make the resources I post about easier to search. In my sidebar, you will see a category list with several drop-down menus. I have categorized all of my posts by grade, subject, and resource type. The new category search lets you search within multiple categories at once. You can choose a grade level, a subject, and a resource (or just choose one or two categories to search). This should make it easier to find resources that fit your classroom needs. My hope is that iLearn Technology can be your one stop shop for finding the very best student-tested resources for your classroom.
I realize that not all of you have been with me from the beginning of this journey, I thank you for joining me when you did and for sticking with me as I continue to learn and grow! Most of the tools I have posted about I still use every year. They are outstanding resources! I don’t expect you to go back through each and every post on the off chance that you will find something that fits your needs, but hopefully the new multiple category search will encourage you to go through some previous posts that you may have missed to find just the right activities for the next school year. As seems to be the case with technology, not all resources have stood the test of time. Some sites have shut down, others are no longer free resources. I am working on amending these posts accordingly but if you come across a site that is no more, leave me a comment and let me know about it. I can offer some alternative resource suggestions and update the post to indicate the changes.
Try out the multiple category search and let me know what you think! You don’t have to make a selection from every category, just choose the options that best fit what you are searching for.
What it is:Rags to Riches takes Lemonade Tycoon to a whole new level with simulated business. In Rags to Riches, students are working to make their band a success. Students play the part of a new band going on tour with a few new songs. As they play the Rags to Riches game simulation, students must make decisions about what the band should do. They have to decide which cities are best for them to play in, what venues to play, how much money to spend on publicity and how much to charge for tickets. Students start out with $100 and must make wise decisions to continue in the simulation. When they run out of money, the game ends and they must start again.
How to integrate Rags to Riches into the classroom: If you teach students like mine, breaking out Lemonade Tycoon in the classroom is met by cheers from some and with eye rolls by others who are “way too cool” for a lemonade stand. For those students, Rags to Riches is in order. The premise of the game is the same, but instead of selling lemonade, students are working to take their band to super star status. This is a great game for teaching students about business, economics, and money. This game is really best played in a computer lab setting where each student has access to their own computer, but if you don’t have that luxury, it could also be played as a class with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. If you are playing as a class, give each student a roll in the band and set up rules together about how business decisions will be made. After the simulation, come together as a class and talk about what decisions had the best outcomes and which led to downfalls.
Tips: Don’t hit your back button while you are in the simulation or your game will start over. This is an important tip to pass on to students!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Rags to Riches in your classroom.
