Education technology and game-based learning resources, tool tips, innovative pedagogical musings, and general "thinkalouds" of a Digital Learning Consultant. Follow my educational journey on Instagram, X , Threads and Bluesky @watsonedtech, my Facebook Page (facebook.com/edtechelixirs), and the blog hashtag #edtechelixirs. Note that opinions are mine alone, and reviews/mentions of edtech products do not qualify as an endorsement. Subscribe to the blog at bit.ly/signupedtechelixirs.
Showing posts with label East Middle School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label East Middle School. Show all posts
Back in May of last year, I shared in Edtech Elixirs that Shelby County launched a vodcast series on YouTube titled "Shelby Speaks: Looking Forward." The videos consisted of interviews with our district educators which focused on answering two main questions: what new things are you trying during this non-traditional instruction (NTI)/emergency distance learning, and how might that transform your teaching or classroom in your future?
In November 2020, I discussed our support for teachers attempting a concurrent/hybrid model of teaching (i.e. teaching students at home and in person at the same time). One of the important pieces of this support was creating a Concurrent Classroom Dashboard Doc, which contains resources, tips and strategies; as part of those resources, we were blessed with Shelby educators who created self-made videos to share what they were doing that was helping them be more effective. Via screencasts, recorded teleconferences, or cellphone filming, our staff discussed everything from hardware configurations to online discussion strategies to virtual classroom management to basic blended learning best practices. In several cases, educators that shared their reflections in "Shelby Speaks: Looking Forward" returned to discuss how their experience last spring led to continued growth and success this fall.
We soon realized that was a lot of valuable footage which could be helpful beyond our own district needs. What could we do with those videos? And how could we further celebrate their work beyond the Dashboard Doc?
The answer to those questions -- and the bringing together of both threads above -- lead us to our newest vodcast series "Shelby Speaks: The Concurrency of Our Classrooms." The videos are on our Shelby County Public Schools YouTube channel, and the Playlist for the series is here. When all editing is finished, we plan on publishing a total of thirteen episodes.
As an excellent example to showcase the series, here's episode 3 with Kelly Hudson. Ms. Hudson, an eighth grade ELA teacher at East Middle, emphasizes the importance of consistency and norms in a concurrent classroom. She also shares her digital organizational structures to ensure that learning is the constant, regardless of where the students are located, or whether it is a synchronous or asynchronous environment:
We definitely are grateful to Kelly and our other Shelby educators who took the time to make the original videos. Special thanks to our district PR Coordinator Cyndi Skellie for editing the footage and publishing our newest series!
We hope you find these educator insights helpful in these challenging times.
Our sixth annual Share Fair (#SCsharefair) will be on Thursday, February 20, 2020! This FREE professional development, open to educators outside of Shelby County, will have sessions on edtech as well as competency-based education successes and strategies.
Last year, I launched a new website for Share Fair that is chock full of resources. The site has pages for Frequently Asked Questions (recommended for first-timers in order to understand the conference structure), Multimedia (pictures and video from previous Share Fairs), and an Archive for press clippings and past presenters/sessions. In order to register for your free tickets, check out the site's Event page.
We have some "firsts" to celebrate!
Gi Boylan is our building tech at Heritage Elementary who will be discussing robots and coding. While this is the second time we've had a building tech present at Share Fair, this is the first time a tech is leading a session alone!
We have not just one, but TWO sessions with students presenting! Rachel Kinsey and her Marnel C. Moorman K-8 students will talk about how they are using single-point rubrics to self-assess their competencies. Kelly Hudson will be facilitating some East Middle students, discussing how Empower and their advisory schedule structure is helping them become self-advocates for their learning.
And speaking of Empower . . . we have a Physical Education teacher presenting for the first time! Billy Smith from West Middle will discuss how he's using Empower to provide feedback to students on their mastery of P.E. and health standards.
Our sessions span multiple contents and include presenters from elementary, middle and high school. For a complete list of sessions and presenters, go to the Share Fair site's Event page or click here.
Mark your calendars, get your tickets, and see you in there in February!
It was March of this year, and as I was walking down the hall of East Middle School, I passed the library. A guest speaker caught my eye. I slid in as unobtrusively as possible, but I could have marched in with clanging cymbals and it wouldn't have mattered; Daryl Woods was keeping middle school students silent and rapt with attention.
Mr. Woods, a manager at NASA who works on programs for the International Space Station, was discussing the final frontier. I saw an object, a bit frayed and worn, being passed among the students. As it reached the back of the room, the last student took pity on my curiosity and gave it to me. It was an astronaut suit glove. Just as some middle schoolers had done, I automatically slid my hand inside. A nearby teacher came over to whisper, "That glove has been in space. It costs $100,000!"
I marveled and made a one-tenth of a million dollar thumbs up.
In all the theoretical, abstract talk about air pressure and solar radiation and the fragility of human life in the merciless vacuum of space that I have read or seen in documentaries, I was never moved as much as I was when wearing that glove. Someone before me had worn this and touched the cosmos. And a pair of these cost more than my house. Space travel was suddenly not as mundane or as easy or as dismissible as our present near-apathy would have you believe. It was concrete; it was now. Interacting directly with the object had sparked something in me -- wonder, and whimsy.
And that is what object based learning (OBL) is all about. It is, as defined by David Smith, a "student-centered learning approach that uses objects to facilitate learning" where students are "interrogating physical artefacts" that become "multi-sensory 'thinking tools'" (per his excellent article "What is Object Based Learning?"). Another powerful OBL definition in under 140 characters:
1/2 Objects that tell human stories and create a sense of investigation. Objects that you have to look at closly to puzzle out #AskACurator
As the source of the tweet suggests, the idea of "object based learning" could easily go back to the best museum experiences, where the intimacy of literally touching history, or peering at something as close as the end of your nose, invites questions and inquiry. However, usually a museum suggests the need for a field trip that entails leaving your school. Or does it?
The public school district in Grand Rapids, Michigan was in steady decline for two decades. Families fled as the academic performance of the schools sank. When Teresa Weatherall Neal took over as superintendent, she needed to shake the system up quickly. In the fall of 2015, one of her boldest moves was placing a secondary school inside of the Grand Rapids Public Museum. As Beth Hawkins details in her article "When Your School is a Museum," the innovative Grand Rapids Public Museum School earned the district a multi-million dollar grant. With students interacting directly with the museum's vast collection, it's a perfect example of hands-on OBL. In a way, it's a "flipped field trip," as the day to day learning occurs inside a museum and home is where they ponder how to next interact with the curated materials or synthesize their schema. (While the original page is part of a site that is no longer online, the school's curriculum overview and different approach to schooling is available here at an archived link.) The Grand Rapids Public Museum School continues to add to its roster and it is on track to be a grade 6-12 school by 2022. (Update: as of July 2025, the school is now named "Grand Rapids Public Museum High School" with grades 9-12.)
Housing a new school inside a museum might be a difficult proposition, especially if you are in a suburban or rural environment with limited large scale facilities. And yet, many small towns at least have a historical society or a small local museum. What if a teacher or a school partnered with them? When inside such a place, what could students learn from their collected objects? What unique learning would they experience? And what projects could the students accomplish that will enlarge and enliven the goals of such a museum or historical society for the twenty-first century?
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The collections inside a museum create OBL opportunities, but when seen as a whole, the museum invites the idea of place based learning, where the museum itself is the centerpoint of learning on multiple topics. (Other examples could be learning about the life cycle of trees from being inside an actual forest, or discussing Gettysburg while walking the battlefield.) But OBL could be seen as the heart of several pedagogical overlapping circles. OBL is often a close kin to experiential learning, as the exposure to an object creates a desire to do and apply in order to gain knowledge. OBL and project based learning also have a relationship, in that both depend on authenticity and impact in the real world. Certainly one or more of these learning strategies could include OBL. So how could OBL alone function as an overarching principle in a class?
Here is where the popular idea of "100 Objects" gets traction. Imagine grounding a class conceptually by teaching history, art, sports, literature (perhaps find metaphorical objects that tie into the text's theme!), math and science through approximately three objects a week. Try searching "100 objects" in your favorite online bookstore and you can see the depth and variety of subjects that apply this idea. It has even affected pop culture, as the below Whovian volume I recently found at a used book store indicates:
In a perfect world, you could pass objects of historical significance around, but there are other options:
Have students interact with digital representations of actual artifacts, manipulating them in three dimensions. Smithsonian X 3D has a growing digital repository based on their own enormous collections. Many of these have built in "tours" that give context and prompt questions about the object.
Use a 3D printer to create and print out objects. In fact, the Smithsonian X 3D site above offers STL and OBJ files you can download and print your own "copies" of artifacts.
Use high resolution imagery. For example, much art has been captured and can be scrutinized in ways that would be impossible to do in person; macrophotography can be great lead-ins to talking about everyday materials from a different perspective.
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We come full circle back to middle school.
A few weeks ago, as I was drafting this entry, my eighth grade daughter had a mock schedule where I traveled through her classes. Her social studies teacher demonstrated how he shares, about once a week, an historical "artifact." It may just be a slide on the screen, but the mysterious objects shown without context or explanation spark questions and creative analysis. What is it? How is it used? How would the use and invention of the object be influenced by the time it was made in? His goal is to get students to think like historians. OBL, practically in my backyard!
If object based learning, with its "multi-sensory" authenticity, creates nothing else but a shift in the pedagogical purpose of a class -- from, say, learning history to being historians -- it has important value. For that alone, it deserves a thumbs up.
Note 7/27/25: The original "Grand Rapids Public Museum School" website is no longer active and now has been folded into its district's site, renamed to reflect grade levels 9-12. I've therefore updated a few links and added a parenthetical above.
Last week was the biggest edtech annual conference in our region, KySTE 2017. I presented on the SAMR model as well as game-based learning, and participated in the demo slam. But I wasn't the only Shelby County staff member to attend and present!
Sloan Burroughs presented on how her students videotape and share their ukelele performances through a Schoology Group.
James Wampler discussed various strategies for using tech to engage with students.
Caytie Burgin talked about being an instructor via Shelby County's Virtual Learning Academy.
While my own presentations created scheduling conflicts and I couldn't see everyone, I know from others and from Twitter that they did great:
One example of an attendee coming back and being a leader in her building is Amy Frederick-Cooper, a science teacher at East Middle School. During yesterday's faculty's learning time, Amy used a tool she just discovered, Classkick, to share some edtech tools she discovered at KySTE. It was a wonderful "meta" and inquiry-based way for her fellow teachers to explore edtech and gain from her experience.
It was, as always, great to talk at KySTE with my non-Shelby colleagues that I unfortunately see much more often in Twitter chats and Google Hangout rather than in person. And . . . as always . . . I brought home intriguing and useful tidbits, tools, strategies and information.
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The Edtech Share Fair is rapidly approaching next week on Wednesday, March 22! If you haven't gotten your FREE tickets, be sure to visit our Eventbrite site to get yours. More information on the Share Fair and its presenters below. Remember, the event is open to Shelby parents and community members, as well as educators outside our district.
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Last, but not least, I have previously tweeted about Innovations for Learning, another great local learning conference in Lexington I have attended and presented at for the last few years. It's free and open to all. The conference itself is on June 1, and registration will begin next month for those who want to attend; however, the window is currently open for presentation proposals. I highly encourage both my Shelby peeps and other readers of my blog to consider submitting your presentation ideas. The deadline is April 18.
It's that time of year again! Shelby County just experienced another week of #HourOfCode (Dec. 5 - 9). Our previous years had memorable milestones, but one thing I could see differently this year was how many of our librarians took a lead in getting students excited about coding. (For this, I have to give props to Sarah Price at Wright Elementary for setting a high bar last year.)
I asked for Shelby County librarians to share their 2016 coding stories via email. Here are some of their responses (slightly edited):
Renae Orange, East Middle: "I have a personalized learning class I teach. We spent our time yesterday coding at code.org. Some of my students are exploring how to take what they learned to build a robot and program it."
Vicki Stoltz, Clear Creek Elementary: "I am introducing a few unplugged lessons for my K-1 classes with 4 little Bee Bots and some floor mats [see the video below]. Dash has also been a big hit with the older kids. Second through Fifth Grade students have been exploring bookmarked coding sites as well."
Jennifer Tinsley, Painted Stone Elementary: "The prior week, we discussed coding vocabulary and did a little intro with Angry Birds from the Code.org website. On Hour of Code week, we used mainly Angry Birds and Star Wars. So far so good! I've even heard from several students 'I want to do this at home'!"
Sarah Price, Wright Elementary: "Everybody is coding in the library all week long on activities found on Code.org (Star Wars, Minecraft, Angry Birds) as well as iPad apps such as Kodable with our kindergarteners. I set up folders inside a Schoology Course with grade-appropriate choices to help them narrow down which program to click. I have been using a few fifth grade volunteers to help with the K-1 classes, and that has been working very well. Having the high school volunteers was nice last year, but I think it is even nicer to be using our own student leaders."
Of course, our teachers independently did their share of coding as well. Tina Eden (East Middle) tweeted out:
A teacher today at East Middle began an interesting discussion with me. She has students that are more comfortable with handwritten notes. What would be an easy way to capture them and save them to their Google Drive? We first briefly began with an "old school" way of doing so, and likely the best way for resolution and image quality -- find a desktop computer, use a scanner to scan the notes, then take the resulting file and get it into their Google Drive via email, a thumb drive, etc. However, this would not only be time and resource consuming, but is a great example of letting "perfect be the enemy of good." Because of our 1:1 Chromebooks for middle and high school, a student has a more than adequate way of capturing these notes right at their fingertips. It also encourages blended learning - a mix of the analog and the digital.
In order to take a picture with the Chromebook, go to the magnifying glass icon in lower left, click “All Apps,” and find Camera. (If you want, you can drag and pin the icon to the bottom tray for a short cut in the future.)
Take your picture with the webcam. You can add filters if you like, set a timer, or take multishots in a row. You might want to turn the mirroring off, especially if taking a picture of text.
If you want to find and use the picture afterward, access the gallery by going to Camera and click on the stacked photo icon on the right. Choose the picture you want to use, then “Save to Disk” option in lower right. Name it and put it in your Drive.
When you want to take a snapshot while in the middle of a Google Doc, go to Insert > Image > Take a Snapshot. The first time you do this, you will need to give permissions for the Chromebook to access your webcam and built in microphone. The snapshot can now be taken and instantly inserted. (Note: this can be done not only on a Chromebook, but any laptop/desktop computer with a webcam.)
There are other ways the Chromebook's camera could be utilized. Here's some examples:
Younger students who are pre-literate could still capture and share their work, such as drawings.
Math students of all ages can "show their work" as both proof of their effort as well as a window into their critical thinking, so that it may be assessed by their teacher.
Students can preserve proof of analog projects (such as a diorama) for digital portfolios.
On non-traditional instructional days or homework, students could be asked to take a selfie along with a code word (given by the teacher at the appropriate time) written on a piece of paper. This will serve as a "check in" that students followed directions and were truly present for their work.
Thanks to websites like QR Code Generator, you can scan QR codes without using a phone or installing a program.
How are you using the Chromebook's camera? Tell us in the Comments below.
As our area is enfolded into the first major snow event of winter 2016 and we have officially crossed into the second half of the school year, it's giving me a chance to take a breath and reflect on where our district is headed.
When the timetable was moved up on our initiative and we decided to get Chromebooks into the hands of our middle schoolers now instead of in August, there was definite joy in the air! Last week, our deployment went even more smoothly than our high school deployment a few months prior. Although we did it in two nights instead of three, there were few hiccups and we have grown into an efficient edtech delivery system. (One of several lessons learned from the high school deployment: have an info sheet with a bar code prepped for every student to make checkout happen at laser zapping speed.)
It's true that I spent time last year prepping teachers for the 1:1 initiative, and our Digital Learning Team has worked with the middle school staffs in the weeks leading up to the deployment....but still, I was concerned. Would the sped up deployment schedule rattle and dampen the middle school teachers' enthusiasm and tech integration? In short, were they ready?
The short answer is: yes, they are ready...very much so!
The long answer is, teachers all over are jumping in with both feet. Naturally, Google Apps are a popular tool and a powerful partner with Chromebooks. But a pleasant surprise was how many teachers are already wading into Schoology -- learning as they go, learning from their students, and learning from each other. At both East and West Middle Schools, educators are putting their feet on the accelerator and not looking back, whether it's in setting their norms, organizing their class, or applying physics knowledge with online simulations. And this was barely 24 hours after deployment!
But Schoology extends beyond 6-12. Our K-5 educators are also embracing it, even when they struggle with less than ideal 1:1 device penetration or tech consistency. Third Grade teacher Nick Cottrell shares his story in the video below. I love how his student surprised him with a feature he hadn't used himself yet!
Technology integration and digital classroom conversion is not for the timid. Failing is likely, fumbling is typical. But failing forward among the safety net of other enthusiastic practitioners of the teacher arts is the key. I am so glad to be inspired by my colleagues and am invigorated to keep up with them.
It does not seem possible that I've reached the middle of my first school year with Shelby, but here we are. On my first day back from winter break, I will officially leave East Middle to start my embedded visit at West Middle. To Mrs. Martin and the rest of the staff and teachers of East Middle, thank you for your hospitality and your willingness to attend so many PD sessions. As for West, I'm already intrigued to see your library's Genius Bar in person!
A photo posted by The WMS Library (@thewmslibrary) on
As part of my mid-year reflection of considering my impact since starting at Shelby, I've examined some numbers and I'm surprised and invigorated. Numbers alone can't tell an entire story, of course -- the personal emails I've received and the hearty in-person handshakes and head nods of thanks and shares of your personal stories of edtech success go a long way, too. However, since I sorta-kinda gave myself a goal of reaching 2500 views on my blog by the end of the year, I thought now would be a good opportunity to look at several metrics. At the genuine risk and probable likelihood of achieving a #humblebrag, here we go!
As of today, I have cleared over 4000 total views to Edtech Elixers. It took me from August to October to hit my first 1000, but since then I have averaged over 1500 a month. Considering only about 700 of those views came from my mom, I'll consider that a success! I hope at least a few dozen of you have stuck around as regular readers.
As I approach my 3 year Twitterversary, I realize I am definitely more active on Twitter. As of several days ago, I passed the 2000 tweet milestone. (To put that in perspective, it took me 26 months to reach 1000 tweets. My next 1000 took nine months.)
On August 9 of this year, I got my 300th Follower on Twitter. Since then, I've acquired many more at a rapid rate (in no small part thanks to Shelby educators!) and got Follower 500 on December 13. My first 300 Followers took 2 1/2 years, but I'm well on track to doubling that amount in six months.
I've just begun utilizing Google Plus, and my numbers there (11 followers) reveal I have a long way to go to rival my other social media areas. However, I'm already grateful for learning from Google Circle communities such as GEG Kentucky, and thanks to Renee Boss, I recently had my first Google Hangout video chat. (Quick plug for Renee: check out The Fund Kentucky, the subject of our Hangout. It has interesting outreach opportunities for both individual teachers and districts -- including grants!)
There is a lot of work ahead in 2015. Besides completing my embedded tour with Shelby schools, we must plan for the beginning of our student 1:1 initiative rollout. I also have some professional development opportunities on the horizon, including a few presentations I will lead at KySTE in March. And of course, I hope that Edtech Elixirs continues to be a valuable and entertaining source of information. I am definitely in a mindset of growth as I will do my best to absorb all outside wisdom, advice, and knowledge to enrich myself and others.
But that is all to come. As the last hours of 2014 tick down, I wish you and yours a happy and safe New Year 2015!
Mindi Keiner-Rummel is a veteran educator. In her 23 year career she has been a teacher, counselor, and administrator. Mrs. Keiner-Rummel has been at East Middle School since 2005, mainly in the role of ECE teacher, but also recently as a Math Intervention specialist.
Mindi is also proof that even after more than two decades in education, you should never stop learning and growing . . . particularly in edtech, which is why she is getting a #ShelbyTUITshoutout. To help her team of teachers gather data on students, she created a Google Form for the first time. Now they can easily submit observation data on the fly, and the information goes to the Form's Google Sheet for later analysis by Mindi. Additionally, she is using Symbaloo. Mrs. Keiner-Rummel first saw it in a differentiated instruction/ELL PD that I had at EMS, and realized its potential for organizing and sharing resources with others in a graphical interface.
Symbaloo is a free and easy tool to use. You create a "webmix" of resources by making tiles that are directly linked to URLs. (No long web addresses to type -- just click and go!) The tiles can be customizable in different colors and icons. Once ready, you can publish the webmix and share the URL for others to visit. You can edit it as often as you like. Symbaloo can help with DI. Imagine color-coding tiles red for one group of students, blue for another, and so on; when students visit the webmix, they know what resources/content/activities they are to click on by what color grouping the teacher has assigned. Of course, you can make many different webmixes: one for each period, for each grade level, etc. It should be noted that Symbaloo is not limited to webmixes created by teachers. Here is a popular video made by a 7th grader where she discusses using Symbaloo to organize her "personal learning environment" (PLE):
Mindi has been working on a Symbaloo with math sites her colleagues can use. Click and check it out! Again, it is a work in progress, but already has several useful sites for middle school math.
Mrs. Keiner-Rummel inspired me to finally make my own Symbaloo. So here's a "Greatest Hits" of my favorite edtech from my various presentations and blog entries so far. Note the deliberate arrangement of the tiles. On the left side is student productivity tools, top center is apps, bottom center is data collection/formative assessment tools that create reports and allow tracking of performance, and the right side is tools that help a teacher better organize or manage their classroom environment. (When you are the creator of the webmix, Symbaloo gives you an embed code to plug it directly into your website, as I've done below.)
Another three weeks have rocketed past, and another embedded tour ends. (Ha! See what I did there?) Thanks to all of Shelby County High School, from Mr. Oakley on down, for making me feel at home. Special thanks to Julie Webb, who was kind enough to open up her library's Kentucky Room to a Cardinal fan such as myself (*cough* 8-3 and coming your way *cough*).
East will be my first embedded Shelby middle school, and I'm looking forward to the experience and meeting the staff.
I am not disciplined enough to stop tweeting for the next six days, but I will likely not blog until after the first of December, my first day at EMS. Until then, have a safe, happy, and wonderful Thanksgiving long weekend!
