Something hit me as I was bookmarking websites today, "I have a lot of tags that are not useful so I should go through sometime and fix them." Finding information and referring to it is something I use all the time. Looking at some of the tags I have used, I find many that are not so descriptive.
Then, for some reason, I wondered what students today do. I don't know why I went in that direction, but I realized (remembered?) that curation is a skill I should teach more.
Come to think of it, teaching how to organize a hard drive or Google Drive is another skill they should learn -- or at least learn different ways of organizing.
Who inspired you to do creative work (a friend, a mentor, or a teacher)?
This question is a hard one for me, probably too hard. I wanted to talk about a past teacher. I can think of a few teachers who were influential:
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Grade 10
Grade 11
Several in college
This list gives me for an idea to make a post of the most memorable lessons from my own schooling.
The teachers' areas of specialization are also interesting because they weigh heavily in social studies and in college, I chose international relations, a course of the social studies group of subjects, as my major.
How did that shape your approach to teaching?
I don't remember much about schooling before high school - my mind was always focused on things outside the classroom, but I do remember a shift from junior high to high school and college. Assignments moved from more project-based learning to essay/writing assignments, then to lectures and essays in college.
I remember a unit on communities in junior high were we were asked to interview all our neighbors in what we considered to be our neighborhood. So, we first had to decide and justify what we consider to be our neighborhood and identify it on a map before going out and knocking on doors. In high school, I had a new (to teaching) teacher that had us simulate the Cuban Missle crisis. I don't think his lesson went according to plan (we always opted for the nuclear option) but it made us look at the even a little differently and I still remember it as an interesting way of teaching.
The traditional center rotation involves students moving from one area to another, and at each stop, they learn something new.
When I used centers in elementary school, I needed students to be able to pronounce words properly, but I couldn’t always be right there to correct or help them. I started using QR Codes to give students access to an audio recording of words they were to pronounce. Another one was when reading in groups, point a QR Code to a URL of a recording of the book they were reading so they could listen before starting to read.
That would be one way to give students access to other information they could consume on their own.
Another way is to create a Google Drawing (or Slide you can embed in a blog) that has icons of the media type you are linking to (via Eric Curts). Have text you want students to read? Put an icon of a Document in your Drawing and add a link to the icon that leads to the Doc. Have a movie you want students to watch? Put an icon of YouTube and link to it. (Think of the DragonGate graphic.)
Another way to do this is by using a HyperDoc. In this example, the teacher has put the information students will need to know, along with a place for them to write notes on their learning.
Consumption vs Creation
It is great to have students use technology, but how can you use technology to have students create? Always try to push students to the top of the pyramid.
A photo posted by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on
The above picture was taken during the "maker club" activity I am supervising. It is an after school activity where students can work on what they are interested in within certain parameters. One of them is coding, and the above student was working on a website for a client of his.
Yes, a client. This student freelances as a web designer.
I am sure he does more. He has presented at technology conferences because he is an expert on internet security.
He is also in my MYP Design class.
During the maker space time, I asked what he was working on and he told me. After thinking about it for a little while, I wondered if he might rather work on his own projects during class. He would still need to do the things he would normally have to do for a design project - he would just be doing a different project.
I asked him if he would be interested in trying this for the next design cycle and he was very eager.
This is something he will be doing again next semester, but I wanted to give him something meaningful in the meantime.
Computational Thinking is often related with Computer Science. That makes sense, they are related. The problem is when the thinking ends there.
Did you know you can use Computational Thinking in any subject?
The following quote is from Google's Computational Thinking Course:
Computational Thinking (CT) is a problem solving process that includes a number of characteristics and dispositions. CT is essential to the development of computer applications, but it can also be used to support problem solving across all disciplines, including the humanities, math, and science. Students who learn CT across the curriculum can begin to see a relationship between academic subjects, as well as between life inside and outside of the classroom.
This MOOC from Google guides you through ways to integrate Computational Thinking into the courses you are teaching. It is a great way to introduce yourself to computational thinking.
Google CS First is a new Google resource for computational thinking. CS First gives access to resources for activities that can be integrated into any subject area.
