This has been a crazy couple of weeks. Emotions run high, lots of uncertainty, COVID numbers increase... hard for both teachers and students to get back into a rhythm of learning. I actually learned a lot this past week, attending the STEM 4 Innovation conference, the Future of CS conference and a Friday night Leslie Fisher webinar on what's new with FlipGrid. Next week brings FETC, a free virtual conference.
Attending virtual conferences, while not at all like meeting people and talking with them in person, has been a great way to stay in touch with other teachers, with what is new in the tech integration world and learning more about how to help teachers with the pivot from f2f to remote learning. I was fortunate enough to snag a ticket to the Future of CS conference and 2 things really stood out to me. One was the role of AI or artificial intelligence in our everyday lives and how we can best begin to or continue to teach these basics to K-12 students. The other was the fact that technology is inherently biased along racial and gender lines. I attended an incredibly informative workshop run by Vicky Sedgwick, Alexis Cobo and Kelly Powers. Vicky has kindly given me permission to share the slidedeck. There are embedded links on the slides and an amazing amount of additional resources linked on the last few slides.
The other takeaway from this conference was from Dr. Nicki Washington's final keynote called, Do You *Really* Want an Inclusive CS of the Future? She points out in example after example that “Racism isn’t a BUG, it’s a FEATURE.” I hope to get access to a shareable recording of this one, as I think everyone would benefit from hearing more about this issue. It was a very powerful presentation. We also received complimentary passes to view Coded Bias- which I also highly recommend.
Ideas to Share
Teaching Social Justice is More than One Lesson
Hyperdocs to help teach social justice. This blog post includes 5 hyperdocs to help students process the recent events and to work through ideas on social justice.
Teaching Social Justice is More than One Lesson
Big Deal Media published a series of articles on Media Literacy today. Images are linked to the resources.
If you are interested in media literacy, be sure to sign up for NewsLitCamp with CNN, coming up on Jan. 26. https://newslit.org/updates/all-educators-newslitcamp-with-cnn-worldwide/
More math...Mathigon is an excellent online math resource. It's "the textbook of the future".
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I got this in an email today from Steve Hargadon and Library 2.0. This looks like an excellent mini-conference- just 3 hours of learning, tomorrow, Wednesday 10/30/19 3-6 EST. Free and it will be recorded as well. It's not just for librarians! Check it out!
"We're excited to announce our third Library 2.019 mini-conference: "Emerging Technology," which will be held online (and for free) on Wednesday, October 30th, from 12:00 - 3:00 pm US-Pacific Daylight Time (click for your own time zone). Tomorrow’s technologies are shaping our world today, revolutionizing the way we live and learn. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Drones, Personalization, the Quantified Self. Libraries can and should be the epicenter of exploring, building and promoting these emerging techs, assuring the better futures and opportunities they offer are accessible to everyone. Learn what libraries are doing right now with these cutting-edge technologies, what they’re planning next and how you can implement these ideas in your own organization. This is a free event, being held live online and also recorded. REGISTER HERE"
I've been meaning to share this link for a while now. I love this site, SmARThistory, https://smarthistory.org/. It reminds me of Google Arts and Culture, but is easier, at least for me, to navigate and seems to have been curated with educators in mind. I like the collections, the images, the videos and they even offer free books that you can download as pdfs. Here's a couple of videos to watch from the beginner course: Introduction to the Visual Arts, informative and funny. Do check out the web site for a lot more!
While I am in my social studies folder, have you used Facing History.org? This is their mission statement, "Facing History fosters empathy and reflection, improves students’ academic performance, reinvigorates teachers, and builds safe and inclusive schools."
Aimed at secondary school teachers and students, I found a nice mix of material- some for students, other for professional development for teachers. You can check out their recent course (microcredentials offered), Teaching with Current Events: Practicing Media Literacy and Understanding Human Behavior by clicking on this link. They also offer a lending library of materials, as well as a large section on teaching strategies. I like the database, which sorts by subject, media, lesson, featured collection and much more.
I recently attended Edcamp Worcester and tried out a site that was new to me, called Ever Fi. It has some good units to try out. I'm not quite sure what you would call this sort of digital platform. Here's their blurb- "EVERFI empowers educators to bring real-world learning into the classroom and equip students with the skills they need for success–now and in the future. Thanks to partners who share this mission, EVERFI’s online resources for teachers are available at no cost."
So, for example there are courses in finance for K-12, courses focused on wellness, on SEL, etc. It's free. A teacher I met from central MA, really likes it and demo'd it for all. It is worth checking out. The one unit I am particularly interested in for K-6 age is The Compassion Project- aimed at grades 2-4. They even have a financial literacy course for grades 4-6. If you teach middle or high school there is a far greater selection of courses to choose from. Whether you use some of this for bell work, or an intro to a subject or as a mini course on its own, it is worth your time to check it out.
These last couple of weeks I have been inundated with science professional development, science in the STEAM lab and over the weekend, computer science PD. What could be more fun? I really enjoyed learning more about Project Lead the Way recently. Our students, grades K-6 at HES, along with middle school students at Hopkins, all participated in the Massachusetts STEM challenge. I worked with grades 3-6, on Zero Energy Waste, making and testing solar fans. The curriculum was robust, with a solid 10 hours that could be worked into a gen ed classroom easily. I enjoyed, and from the sounds of it, the students enjoyed, making and testing our solar fans. I hope to have our school begin to participate in the PLTW program.
I also got to test out the NICERC curriculum for microbits. I love using microbits in the STEAM lab. They are inexpensive, versatile, easy to use and can be integrated into the curriculum. I hadn't tried out the NICERC curriculum (it's free) and found it easy to follow. It is an NGSS based curriculum, and is phenomena driven. Here's their blurb. "We’re the National Integrated Cyber Education Research Center (NICERC). We offer grant-funded cyber, STEM, and computer science curricula and professional development to K-12 educators at no cost. Our goal is to empower educators as they prepare the next generation to succeed in the cyber workforce of tomorrow." The focus is 3 fold- STEM, computer science and cyber science. I spent most of the time working in the STEAM fundamentals program: "STEAM Fundamentals is a project-based, hands-on curriculum designed to engage students in real-world applications. In each module, students study natural phenomena and investigate fundamental concepts while developing social, observational, descriptive, and higher-order thinking skills. Each module develops concepts in a logical and practical manner that students can relate to and teachers can easily implement." Right now they have units for 2nd and 3rd grade, with 4th and 5th coming soon. We played around with the force and motion for 3rd grade. We also spent time with the STEM EDA curriculum. This one is aimed at middle school, grades 6-8. The modules are well-developed- and fun. Did I mention that it's free? Want to check it out? You do have to sign up to request access.
Looking for free STEM lesson plans for K-5? Snoopy may have something for you from the Space Foundation.
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AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
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