One STEAMy Summer

This summer was quite different than most of mine have been in the past.
A typical summer for me deals with either working 6 weeks of summer school and avoiding the endless home projects that need to be completed or when summer school is cancelled, working tirelessly at home.  This summer I got the pleasure of helping children build a SkyRise.  Now, before we go into the details, let it be known that I had absolutely no previous experience in building the things.  Also, I may want to mention that SkyRise is simply the name of the game format that the VEX Robot Competition Committee is hosting this year.  I want to reiterate, I have no previous experience whatsoever with building VEX robots, the programming behind them, nor the game that is being played.  So, it was intimidating to be hosting a camp full of young, enthusiastic, crazy smart children that are ready to dive into this world and take their knowledge back to their schools.   With some luck, they will take the strategies learned into their futures and paychecks.

It all started with learning about the NOVA Systemic Solutions program back in the 2013 summer during another program I was taking; George Washington University's Teachers in the Industry.  SySTEMic Solutions has one goal, STEM.  Most everyone in the education world is familiar with this term by now, but for those of you who are not, STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.  It is basically a call to arms for the education community that if you are not incorporating these types of programs into your schools then you are failing your students from being ready for future jobs.  In the past I have also been privy to hear the acronym changed to STEAM where the Arts were also to be incorporated and I am a firm believer in this term being thrown around more than the former.  I guess you can argue that Communication needs to some how fall into this mess of letters and before you know it, the acronym will be so long that we will right back to where we started.  Whatever happens, the bottom line is that it is good to have initiatives since it keeps programs and communities focused.  Believe me, the education program needs to be focused during this day and age.  And when I speak about the education community, I am including parents, business, and other community members.  Right now, we are tied to the old ways of what was needed or what we know and trying to find time to teach the new ways of what is needed.  But all of this is another story for another time.  Back to the craziness of the summer.

Last school year, I was told that I was able to order robot equipment to begin a Robot Club at my school.  I though it would be pretty straight forward, but this was no small task.  I went to the VEX website and quickly became overwhelmed.  There is so much information on there that it is easy to become bogged down by terminology, different robots, different robot programs, different..............well, everything.  The website is almost like being on a different planet if you have no experience at all.  With a few hours behind me trying to search for some hope within forums, on websites, on FaceBook, I did what any of us would do, I tried to get in contact with someone that knew what they were doing.  And alas, I had some guidance, but still didn't know what I was ordering when I was adding to the ticket in the checkout cart.  I simply had to trust my guide.

Fast forward to this summer when I was able to be a camp counselor for Robot Camp.  There was a full day training on how to run the camp.  Within the group of people were a few veterans, of one year, a bunch of newbies, including myself, and current students in high school that were able to have a robot club at their school the previous year.  During training, the instructor spoke so quickly, so fragmented, and threw around the terminology as if it were our native tongue.  I was surprised when I heard she was a high school teacher when in fact she should have been a professor of programming at a University.  She had no regard to her audience and was speaking strictly to people with previous experience.  Needless to say, I walked out of training feeling stressed because by next week, I have to know what I am doing.  And this my friends is where the coolest thing happened ever in my teaching career.

I let the students teach.  That's right, the students who were in high school that had one year experience.   They were now the experts and I was following their guidance.  Granted, I was an expert in classroom management which I would have never expected that out of them, but to go from being the expert in my classes, all of the time, to being the students of people half my age, was a very cool feeling.  You hear about it all of the time, students teaching each other or presenting a piece of who knows what to wow the teacher, but to rely solely on the students' knowledge for one whole week and lean on them was awesome.  They got to work with teachers and learn what it is to be professional at their jobs and in turn, we got to learn about the programming and building of these incredible robots.  I think it took an absolute helpless moment like this before I was able to open my eyes to the idea of letting the students do the teaching rather than it all come from me.  Of course, this program is way more interesting than straightforward mathematics, but there is some sort of dharma within here and I was finally able to see it.

So the layout of the camp was this:

• Build and Basic Programming - Day 1
• Perform Scaffolded Challenges with Robot and Modify Construction & Programs - Day 2 & Day 3
• Prepare & Compete in Team Competition - Day 4
• Compete in Individual Competition & Breakdown Robot - Day 5

This layout wasn't the structure we were given to follow, after a few tweaks it worked best for our group.   Ultimately,  I believe that the campers got more out of it with this layout.  These were long 7-8 hour days so we had to keep the kids moving.  They learned everything from how to program their XBOX/Playstation like controllers to being able to move the robot using BlueTooth by pre-programming their robot to move for any given amount of time.  This is what we called "autonomous" mode and it is part of the competition.  15 seconds to be exact and try to have your robot score as many points as possible.  There was also the second part of the competition which was 105 seconds of using the controller.  At the end of the day we would reconvene as a whole class and watch some pretty cool videos.

The construction came with a basic 25 step book that allowed all groups of 4 to build a "ClawBot".  This taught them the ideas behind the building, the gears, the tools, and the terminology.  However, they were quick to find out that this basic robot was no match for doing anything worthy within the SkyRise arena.  This is where the kids were encourage to modify their robots, create engineering journals, and restructure their programs so that they were able to do even more with them.  Some amazing transformations came from these tasks.  What is an interesting side note, the groups with the most experience in robotics usually aimed to far with the materials given and were not able to ever really get their robots to do much when it came to game time.  The groups that worked well together and were new would simply add a little, then test, then add a little more, then test again.  Pretty impressive formula that worked well for a one week camp.

At the end of the week, we celebrated everyone's accomplishments just like you would at any camp.  We wanted everyone to leave them with a craving to continue with these types of programs at their schools.  I feel like we did just that.  Some were a bit deflated because they didn't win or didn't get their robot to do exactly what they wanted, but I would pin it as high as 98% of the campers did enjoy their time.  By the end of the four week stent, I was able to help with programming, build extras onto the robots, and pretty much provide the basic level course knowledge needed.  I also watched the high school students in which I worked with begin using some classroom management skills.  It took a team and I was really pleased with mine.

So now I'm ready.  I'm ready to get the club started for next year.  I have already ordered all of the parts and have enough ready for two teams if the club decides to fill up with that many students.  I will run the club the way I know how and that is by following our camp layout.  Being able to go through the process four times was really helpful for trial and error.  Since our club will only be able to meet for about 20-30 minutes a day, one could imagine how long it will take to complete the programming and building necessary for a basic robot.  If it took these students 8 continuous hours, then with all of the breaks along with putting away the materials and getting them back out, not meeting every day and so on, I'm thinking it will easily take 5 - 6 school weeks.  I have the contact information for one of the other schools and I can't wait to be able to bring our students over to them for a competition.

Dessert for your Class: Kahoot and Socrative

Formative assessments can actually be fun.  What??!!  I know that doesn't sound too crazy, but that's because some classes are just pure fun and the students elected to be there.  But what about the majority of the classes that the students don't have any say in and required by the state to be there, a.k.a.............the core curriculum.  How do you consistently connect to most if not all of your students in your class, multiple times during a class block or period?  Here are two companies, Mobitroll and MasteryConnect, that have it right.  They have created Kahoot & Socrative.  Together, they are a powerhouse and will cover most of the formative assessments that a teacher, YOU, can present in a lesson.  They are both like little tools that act as dessert for your brain.  So my goal here is just to give you an idea of the magic within these two tools and why you should be turning to them for formative assessing in the classroom.

In the beginning, there was the raising of hands.  Do you understand it?  Raise your hand if you do.  Then we moved on to thumbs, and cards, and colors, and shapes, and then we found out that the only reason that students would acknowledge that they understand something is that they didn't want to hear you repeat yourself and wanted class to be over so that they can get their work done.  They wanted to play with the material being presented to really see if they understand it.  It's not that they are totally disengaged with the material, they just became disengaged with you.  So, one major thing we need to make sure we do is give them a brain break from you and the absorption of new knowledge every 5-10 minutes to let them play with the material.  At the same time, we need to use their understanding on every one of these breaks to steer the ship of our lessons..............for the most part anyway.  

Each of these sites has their benefits and I believe you should eventually be using both.  I don't feel that either of these sites will work well if you are trying to use this as a way to flip your classroom.  These are more for the on-the-fly, in-class engagement..............and they rock!!

The greatest part about both Kahoot and Socrative is that students can use their own device or a computer that you have in the classroom.  

 If you've ever been to a bar / restaurant with those quiz games that flash up on a screen and they set a device down at your table, then this is what Kahoot is for your classroom.  You get points for answering correctly and the quicker you answer, the more points you have the chance of earning.  A leader board will be presented on screen as well.   Kahoot, is dedicated to the formative learning that you need to do some prep work for.  Not a lot, just some.  You need to know what questions you are going to want to assess in class.  Now, if you're anything like me, sometimes I have a hard time doing that because I let the class dictate what kind of questions I'm going to ask.  So I have to scaffold questions that help them build the understanding and terminology that I want to see.  Questions that I thought I could ask I couldn't because of the absence of some basic foundational knowledge.  However, you probably have some major concepts that you want to hit up on.  Kahoot works perfectly for that.  You simply post your pre-made question on the board, students log in on their whatever (devices),  and they answer the questions.
  

Very similar to the Promethean ActiVotes that we used a few years back.  

The only drawback to creating a quick engaging Kahoot that I can tell is that you will want to put up an image with your question to make it pop!!  I found myself quickly taking screenshots of SOL questions using the program SnapIt! on our school computers since it is typically a pain in the rump to try and write any mathematical notation in any program other than one dedicated to math.  Science and History teachers will probably find themselves doing the same.  At home, I've become a master at Shift-Command-4 for taking snapshots on the Mac.  But that's it, that would be my only argument and it carries weight to most every online program out there.  Kahoot has a timer embedded on each question that gives the students some sense of urgency.  It also provides instant feedback.  Answer the question and it pops up on the screen with anonymity.   Wrapping up the day, getting feedback throughout your lesson, or getting ready to give a quiz, test, or major unit review?  Kahoot is your jam to use.  It's seriously engaging, fun and so easy to use for both student and teacher.  It really will change very little that you do in class other than make it more engaging and give you instant feedback on where your lesson needs go.  Heck, play a couple out of the "share" community and see if it will fit in your class.

Socrative is the other beautifully designed formative tool for engagement and feedback.  I personally used this for a year, but would've mixed it up with some Kahoot as well.  Every time I asked the students to hook up to Socrative, they were engaged.  Some would get on their phones and some would jump on the computers.  Students who may not have had internet access and were to lazy to go to a computer, I paired up with a student and had them answer the questions together.  Basically, simple classroom management.  What makes this program powerful is that you can use it on the fly.  

If you are the type of teacher who works on the fly with your formative assessments, you will probably be leaning on Socrative.  

As with Kahoot, you can pre-populate questions and have a prepared, scaffolded questionnaires.  You can display your questions on the big promethean board or not.  

My most used and favorite feature was the "quick question".  It allowed you to ask something on the fly and students would use their device to answer.  No preparation needed.  A glorified raising of hands or cards if you will.  One added feature that raising hand would not allow for is that students are allowed to type/text their answers if you asking for something other than a true/false or multiple choice selection.  Obviously, this holds most/all students accountable for providing feedback.  As part of the Fundamental Five crew, this is actually one great way to have it implemented.  Small groups discuss and then type in their feedback.  From the teacher perspective, you simply assign the task using your phone, tablet, or computer and then receive the feedback once you close the question session.  There is also a cool game called "space race".  

This is a perfect game where students should be teamed up and have the collaborate to answer questions.  As they get them correct, their rocket ship moves across the screen.  They watch the other teams' progress as well which makes it a fun way to wrap up a day or a whole unit.  The final feature that I used all of the time was called "exit ticket".  Again, this has to be a prepared questionnaire, but it is a great way to have the students summarize what they have learned if you knew what you were going to ask them at the end of the day.  Otherwise, go ahead and have them answer another "Quick Question".  

At the end of the school day or at the end of the class, you can go back through the data of the exit tickets or quizzes that you assigned and get feedback or use as summative assessments.  Again, very easy to implement and very easy to build your pre-existing curriculum around.  Unlike Kahoot, Socrative provides students and teachers with a downloadable app.  However, it is in the projected works to provide a downloadable app for Kahoot users.

So, the question looms, what will you choose, if any.  They are both fun and engaging products that provide you with the feedback you are looking for.  You do need access to the internet to engage in using these products and may find that your success rate goes up with more and more high schoolers having data plans.  Middle schoolers are still all over the place with whether or not they even have a cell phone so you may want to lean towards a computer in the class or simply stick to the ActiVotes, ActivExpressions, or whatever it is that your program uses for interactive feedback.

CatchUp with SketchUp

 

A few weeks ago I decided to procrastinate on some school work and began to play with Google's SketchUp.  I watched an educational video where a history teacher incorporates the principles used in SketchUp to have his students recreate buildings from the era that they are studying.  They then, post those to a webpage that they create and write about the significance of the era, the building, and any important folks of the time.  It sounded as the class is collaboratively rebuilding an awesome history book.  Immediately I was into it.

I knew I wanted to look into it for Geometry class since it is free and it can

help me to apply some of the rules that we learn in the class.  The program itself is pretty complicated, however, I found that it also offers some tutorial videos that were recently produced.  These videos take you through so many aspects and break it down into all of its simplicity.  Within minutes, I created a three dimensional house where I could walk through the door and explore the inside.  One of the cool things that I thought about while doing this was that I was probably going to use this program to help me finish my basement sometime in the future.

So back to the educational value for my students.  I wanted them to experience some of the power of SketchUp.  I noticed one of the other math teachers does a tessellation project with his students at the end of the year.  I was finishing up the semester with my students and I told him that my students would be able to create something just as good as his best or even better.  My goal was for them to design their projects using the tool and then recreate it using colored pencils.  What I found out was that it took a really long time if they were to recreate it so I nixed that idea.  I showed them how to do different tessellations each day for a week and gave them 15-20 minutes to create their own designs using the principle learned.  On the week of their midterm, they were to design a unique tessellation that had a theme and incorporated at least two tessellations.  What was created was amazing.


One student created a design that portrayed the game MineCraft in 2D.  Another student created a snowflake using some of SketchUp's 3D features.  Other students never finished, but to give you an idea, one created a design with Black Widow spiders and another student was creating a windmill out of fans.

I am so blown away by the power of this program that I need to sit back for a minute and find out exactly where it can be incorporated.  If I were to introduce this early in the year, who knows what could be designed by the end of the year.

Anybody KHAN do it!!

 

Well, this week I received a bunch of messages from teachers and friends alike.  "Did you see the 60 minute video on Khan Academy?"  Now, I have seen Khan Academy before, linked some of the videos to my lessons, peruse the app once and a while...............but what was all of the hype about?  Why so many messages in such little time?  I'm finally just accepting the fact that I am the geeky friend of some people.  Whatever the case, it was time to see what this video was all about.

 

So after watching it, I went into the website and started playing with the program.  I noticed first of all that there was a lot more to it than just a series of videos.  Although there is an enormous library of videos teaching the subject at a surface level, there are also a lot of skills tests that are associated to a lot, but not all of the videos.  See if your an expert at addition and if not, you can watch a video and go back to practice your skill.  A little energy bar lights up as you get questions correct and points are accumulated for something.  If you get questions wrong you lose progress in the energy bar.  You need to fill the energy bar in order to show some sign of mastery.  There were also many other incentives dealing with "badges".  Collect badges and become elite.

 

Anyway, I was interested from it on a teacher's end as well.  So I opened up both of my google accounts, that's right, I said it, both of them.  One as a student, one as a teacher.  I wanted to see how easy it was to manage and as I predicted, it was very easy.  It was easy to create classes, add and delete students from the class and it was easy to see their progress.  It would collect all of the data that they accrued while they were on the site.  How many attempts at a problem, how long they were on an exercise or video, whether or not they need help or if they showed mastery.  It had everything.  They are currently linking everything to the national common core and trying to get their video collection done for all of their skills lessons.  It was quite extensive.

 

I am not one to wait around, so today I tried it out with the students since I've been having them complete any assignments on a black and white page in a while.  They loved being able to try it out.  They were into trying to get the little energy bar up so that they showed completion.  One girl must have done over 50 problems and it gave me time to work with her.  It did not have a video associated with it, but I did not mind showing them how to do a couple of their problems.  The more a student gets wrong, the more it seems they need to get right to show mastery.  Later on, I checked out the progress report as a teacher and it had everything that I witnessed.  Even the girl who was having trouble was red flagged on my account.  It wasn't hard to get them on it and to start having them practice.

I can easily see this type of skills based format become a main part of education.  I like the idea that they are receiving the surface level teaching from someone else along with a quick practice.  Watching some of the videos on the site it shows how to implement it into the classroom and I can see me do something of this nature.  Have students work at their own pace until a few of them reach a certain checkpoint and then have them go a little deeper into it with an authentic problem.  On the other end, in use with an authentic unit, this could be the overt knowledge that they get and then can create something with their knowledge..........a rap........or a video.  Something.

There are a ton of other videos in Science and Economics as well.  I'm not sure if they are as streamlined as the math, but they are there as a one stop shop.  Pretty cool stuff.  I definitely see me utilizing it in the future.

 

My Light Bulb

Driving down the road the other morning I'm sitting there thinking about the music.  A little bit of 80's rock, jamming out to "Tarzan Boy".  I haven't heard that song in forever and I start reflecting on the first time I heard it.  My parent's study, on the lime green chair over my JVC boom box.

Out of no where, it hits me.  The light turns on in my head and I'm now thinking about how easy it would be for me to incorporate a Wiki into one of my lessons.  My students are in AFDA, a high school course dedicated to functions and algebra.  However, one of the sections is learning all about financing.  I have a few seniors in my class and the rest juniors.  I thought, they are soon going to be going to beach week and I remember watching a video when I was learning about Wikis by a group named CommonCraft.  They broke it down to a quick and easy 3 minute video that just made absolute sense.  Basically, wikis for dummies.  

I decided to take the idea that CommonCraft uses of building a camping trip using a wiki and have them build a Beach Week trip using the wiki.  Now, I have done the same with middle school, but this one had to propose a little higher math.  Since some of them have jobs, the propose questions would be, "How many hours would you have to work in order for you to save up for beach week?".  They will need to research the taxes that get taken out of Virginia paychecks, think about car rental places and insurance, look up rental properties and so on.  I even think that they could use part of the Wiki to do a price budget of food like we did my summer program when we learned how BlackBoard could help out in collaboration.

So, I'm not sure what sparked this idea to pop in my head.  In fact, it was quite frustrating and I missed the rest of the song.  Luckily, I was on Pandora and I quickly jumped over to Spotify to put it on my playlist.  Problem averted and Tarzan Boy was back to bless the airwaves in my car.

Commutes and Podcasts

For a few years now I have been listening to podcasts.  When they first came out, I was listening to them sporadically and had no interest in hearing what other people had to say about stuff.  That's how I felt about them.  People simply talking about stuff because they had nobody to talk to in their community that would listen to them.  BUT, some part of me thought there was some value and I didn't forget about them.
I started looking for topics that I was always researching on the web.  Technology STUFF and education technology STUFF.  Once I had a focus of what it is I wanted to hear people rant and rave about, I was hooked.  My library is not extensive for podcast, but it keeps me interested for the duration of my hour ride to work sometimes when I don't want to listen to music or the stupid news AND I don't want to be listening to all of the thoughts in my head.  I simply used them to get ideas to research later on the web.  If you're reading this, you probably are in the same course and you probably like your job enough to enjoy researching new stuff.  I get all of my podcasts from iTunes, but here are some of the things that I listen to and their sites.

The Tech Teachers - 2 teachers that are easy to listen to and talk about sites that could be used in school and technology affordances.

The Tech Chic Tips - A podcast with tips for educators about using technology in instruction to engage students. 

Ed Tech Crew - A weekly podcast about technology in education.

November Learning Podcasts - Cool interviews with educators who are pushing the edge.

Teacher 2.0 - Short snippets aimed to harness e-learning tools and engage students.

School Sucks - Sometimes it's common sense, sometimes it's crap, but it does provide me with the other side of the coin and help me think about what's wrong with education.

MathGrad - Mathy stuff connected to real world concepts.  It helps me bring ideas into my curriculum.

Political Thinking In Your Head

So I came across this article a few weeks ago that my wife sent to me.  Now, just to give you a quick idea of who I am, I do not like how politics are handled these days, I have not and never will solely sell myself to one "party", and I think the games that are played in the political ring are childish and unforgiving.

With that said, this article struck a nerve with me.  Not because of politics, but because of how different sides of the political ring think.  In the research conducted, people are hard wired to think the way they do based on genetics and obviously some learned behaviors. In a nutshell, Republican will stand their grounds and not bend, they want to see things stay the same.  Democrats are a little more wishy washy, but want to see change and progress made by taking chances.  Two opposite sides of the coins.  It summarizes the article by stating that if Democrats want to see change happen, then they must stay convicted to one item and not jump around to a bunch of different ones.  That would be the only way that the two "thinking" groups could ever find a common ground.

I was amazed that this same song and dance truly happens in education.  There are those that want to keep it the same because it is what they know and it is safe.  There are others who are progressive and want to see it change at the rate of society.  I would really like to know who will win this all out war of ideals.  What did make the most sense though is that if we do want to see change in education, we can't change it all over night.  We need to stick to one thing, back it up with data, and sell it to the people who are digging their heels in the ground.