Track 2 Thing 17 Coding

     This is one of the first lessons that has been pretty difficult for me. One thing was finding the quiet time I needed to get something accomplished was very tricky; and, the second thing  was that the concepts were a bit puzzling. I certainly could tell characters to follow directions and I could follow directions, but the problems were what to do with what I did. 
     Anyway, here is what I did: 
     I started by watching the videos on the Cool Tools site. I watched and completed "An Hour of Code".    I worked with Blockly.  At code.org I completed "One Hour of Code" and got my certificate (see below).

     My hope is to continue with more of this during the summer and to get some kids to try this, too.  After code.org, I moved on to Khan Academy and began their "hour". I onlu got through the first two parts and will get back to that at a later point. I got these items accomplished during some staff development time where my administration was kind enough to let me work on this.  :) Because I wanted to see several different organizations offerings, I moved on to CodeAcademy and did the "Animate Your Name" lesson. That was fun and I got it done. I still have not figured out what I can do with the code I used. It doesn't seem to embed here or at my library's Weebly site. But, I will provide the link so you can see Melinda in all its colorful glory.  :)

Melinda

 By doing this, I could better understand the importance of commands and the order they are used.  I also realize that punctuation for coding is also important.  
     Next, I downloaded several apps for my iPad: Kodable, Hopscotch and Daisy the Dino. My next mission was to  find some apps for my Nexus 7s and let the 5th and 6th graders play around with them. Although, I have found many fun and educational apps for the iPads, I have learned there are not nearly so many for androids. I did find a great article at Common Sense, which I am posting.

Cool Coding Apps and Websites for Kids

     From this article, I decided to download Light-bot, the free version (an hour of code) and then purchase the Light-bot Programming and the Light-bot Coding Puzzles.  Next week I plan to set the Nexus 7s out for the kids to try.  Here is the review from Apps Playground, a British site:

Light-bot is the latest app teaching kids to code by Stuart Dredge.

     While I was searching for apps for androids, I found other articles about apps that I liked:

Five iPad apps trying to teach programming skills to kids

How and Why to Teach Your Kids to Code

Teach Kids how to Code, Make Apps and 3-D Models With These Tools

Teach kids programming A collection of resources

Tynker is the latest iPad app aiming to teach kids to code

     I also discovered a couple more great tweeters to follow. That was a big plus!  :) 

     What I learned from all of this is that we need to be teaching coding to our kids. At first, I thought it would be for older students, but now I realize that it is another item that works with young students. For our school 4th-6th graders might be a good group to target.  I hope it is something we will see more of soon.  I shared some coding articles with others and hope to share a few more.  All in all, this lesson turned out to be very informative, interesting, and one that I (we) will need to re-visit here at Colton-Pierrepont.  Thanks!

Thing 16 Do Your Own Thing

Tools for Staff

     I have been bouncing back and forth from the list of articles on apps to the tools that I have learned about and like. It is my hope to have created a document that is useful to the teaching staff here at Colton-Pierrepont.  
     I read several of the articles on the tools I like. I have found and/or created descriptions of most of them.  My hope is to use this is as a part of my annual Board of Education presentation. Although I hope to add a few more tools to the tool list and to give a bit more description to those items which need it, I am basically done. It is now time to share it with you.  :)

Independent Project ~ Tools for the Staff

Thing 15: App-palooza!

So Many Apps, So Little Time

         After reading several articles from Edutopia and the blog assignment post, I think that I will try setting up a "pocket library" for CPCS. I have not decided on the age level yet, but I may go with PK and K because we have iPads in those grades plus I have a personal interest in apps for the very youngest children.  :) I will be working on that for the next few days. Then, I may try one for our high school students because that would be fun. I will report more when I have collected some apps.  Because we are a "mostly" Google school, I will explore Google apps that our students can use with their Chromebooks, too.  I am starting with Kathy Schrock's lists:

Bloom' Apps and iPads in the Classroom

     After reading a lot of articles related to apps, I have decided to hold off on the "pocket library" for now because many of our resources could only be placed in the library via a QR code because there is no app, as such. I might work on that for my independent project. Instead, I am creating a Google doc that is a database of articles and lists of good apps for different grade levels and subject areas. That way I can share it with my staff. They can pick and choose what they want.  Link will be forthcoming. 

Here is the link to what I put on my list:
Articles that Review Apps for Education

     After all the reading and searching I have done, I now realize there is a huge number of apps out there available to educators on all kinds of subjects and to do all kinds of things. It seems that the end user needs to pick and choose the apps with which he/she is most comfortable and not what someone says should be used. The variety is huge and the quality of the apps very varied.  I think that there is a lot of opportunity for designers to come up with apps for kids because there are great ones in some fields, like science. But, other subjects could use work.

     Last, I am including a link to an article about handheld devices and children that recently appeared in The Huffington Post, just a sort of aside, but something about which we need to think and of which we need to be aware.

10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12

Thing 14 Social Reading and Book Stuff

Thing 14 Social Reading and Book Stuff should be fun...can't wait!    

     Here I am running way behind, again.
     I started by going down through all the information that was presented. I have been a part of Goodreads for a long while. I am going to try to use the widget on my library page. I looked over LibrayThing. It looked fun and interesting but, I am learning from past experience not to get involved with too much.
     I did register for accounts with Riffle, BookBub, and BookGorilla. I decided to try all three and see which I liked best ( more to come on that later). I have had a membership to WeGiveBooks for several years and love it just as a change of pace to use with my K-2 classes.
     Several days later:
      I decided to see if I can get a Goodreads widget to work here first. So here we go:

Melinda's bookshelf: currently-reading

The Storyteller

by Jodi Picoult

tagged: currently-reading

Enchanted

by Alethea Kontis

tagged: currently-reading

Tampered

by Michele Martin Bossley

tagged: currently-reading

     Hurray! It worked. So, I will try putting it on my library page next.  :) Hurray! That worked fine, too. I just need to decide where I really want the widget.  :) CPCS Library: Your Information Place Right now it is underneath the slide show of new books. Any suggestions on a better placement are appreciated.  :)      Sometimes I just can't believe what I miss. That is how I feel about LibraryReads. I signed up for thier monthly newsletter and can't wait for the next one already. I love reading about what others are loving.         In the past few days I have gotten information from both BookGorilla and BookBub. So far, I am feeling that what comes from BookGorilla is more the kind of stuff I would try.  I even downloaded a couple of the freebies to see. However, I know some students who would like some of the suggestions from both. That is positive.  :) I haven't done much with Riffle and will probably let that one slide.       WeGiveBooks has been a organization I have used and supported a lot with our library program. They always have several titles to use at different holidays and for seasonal themes.  Our students enjoy listening to me read but watching the story via a projector. This works especially well with a large group of young students.         I am still working on ways to deal with the few ebooks I have added to our OPACs. I have to spend some serious time trying to make them easily accessible to our students without a ton of logins.  Hopefully, that will happen sooner than later.  But, for now, I am loving Goodreads, WeGiveBooks and BookGorilla and LibraryThing ~ some new to me, some old friends. I am excited to share new tools with my older students and staff, making this lesson another one that helps out here in the day to day business of school librarianship. That's success!

Thing 13 Media Skills

    Well, here I go...Media Skills ~ I  am running about two or three weeks behind, but chiseling away at this topic. I have finally come up with an idea for a (very) short video. Coming up with an idea was the hardest part of this topic's assignment, I think.  :)
     
     Okay, here is what I did and what I learned.

• I looked over the two links under Photography in Education.
• I used Quozio and made a couple of quote posters.
• I watched "How to Make an Animated Gif". 
• I made a silly little Dr. Seuss gif using book covers and a couple of my Quozio posters.

• I "transformed" a photo to use, too. First I used Pixlr Editor and layers to add The Cat in the Hat to my circ desk. Then I added the text to the saved image using Picmonkey, because I just love Picmonkey! I went back into the Pixlr Editor and put my little cat's conversation balloon around the text.  

• Then, using Animoto, I worked on a little video that is PR for Read Across America Day. It has my transformed photo and some other little pieces. I could not get my little gif slideshow to run within Animoto. But, the video clip was not too hard to do. Here it is embedded (I believe) below:

RAA Day PR

     I did try using Wordle but could not figure out how to save it. I seemed to be able only to print it.  That was frustrating because I wanted it in my slideshow.
     There are so many interesting tools to still look over and great articles to read. But, for now I am wrapping up my work with Thing 13. Added to my list of tools I will continue to use  and get my students to use are Pixlr Editor and Animoto. Picmonkey was already #1 on my list.  :) 

Thing 12: Social Learning & Learning Management Systems

     When I read the title of Thing 12, I was a little overwhelmed by the thought of what it would involve. But, I started slow and watched the two videos from Schoology and Edmodo. I realized then that working at pretty much a Google School, I might want to do some exploration on my own of all that Google can do for me. We had some recent introduction to Google+ and I have been looking at building communities for the groups I am involved with. So far, I have set up two - for two professional groups ~ our school mentor program and our shared-decision making team.  I belong to one of the student communities but I did not set it up.

     Then, of course, I got really busy and put off working on Thing 12 for several days.  That turned out to be a good thing because when I returned and started going through several other resources listed, I realized that I really can use Google for this assignment. I read all about Mightybell and began to set up a "student circle" in Google+. 

     An aside ~ At our school, we have, as a faculty, unofficially decided not to "friend" students on FaceBook. But, with Google+, we are trying to teach and work with our students to model good social media behavior.  We have several circles and communities of staff and students.

     Today, I joined the Mightybell Book Club. I don't really have anything to contribute to that right now. Hopefully, when things are a little less busy, I will. I have been a quiet member of Goodreads for a long time ~ just to see what people are reading and keep track of my own.  I really like the looks of Mightbell, but think most of what it can do, I can do similarly with Google.  We are going to be doing a school-wide staff read after break which we had intended to blog about. I could see Mightybell working well for that, but again, we will probably use Google+.  My hope is to watch and learn what Mightybell does and then apply that to Google+ and eventually set up book groups that look about the same as groups in Mightybell.

     I love Edutopia and have followed them for a long time on FaceBook and Twitter. I registered as an official user  several days ago.  I now joined several the their groups in order to get more specific information to share with my teachers and staff.  I find that they have a lot of offer!

     I have read about edWeb and decided to join that one, too. I am not sure how much I will use it, but I have read information from there that I like ~ so, I am giving it a try.  :)
     My focus for now is going to be on developing more connections to our students via Google+ circles and communities. I have started posting information for the students on the many books being made into movies, on being a good digital citizen, and giving back to your world and your community; all focuses for us at Colton-Pierrepont this year. 

     I also read the article entitled "Facebook, Edmodo, and Schoology. Oh my! Choosing a social network platform for learning". Reading down through all the different elements that were compared made me realize that Google can do almost all of that with its ability to share, create forms and docs for quizzes, polls, etc. and linking all together easily in Google+.  (I linked it so I can get back to it quickly from here.)  :) It might be worth adding to the list of resources that is on the Cool Tools Page ~ just my two cents.  :)  Thanks, this piece (which I originally thought I would not be able to deal with) has been really educational and helpful for me. 

     December 19 Update ~ Some positive information! I have already reached one of my goals for this course and that is to learn enough to help staff here with some of the projects they do. 

      After posting the information here on my blog, I went back to edWeb and registered. I joined several communities that sounded good, read through their "about" information, set up my profile, and did some searching. The next day one of our middle school teachers, who had just recently attended a Google Summit weekend in Montreal, came in to talk to me about one of her ideas. After she explained to me what she wanted, she said, "but I just don't know where to find another teacher from away who would want to do this with me." 

     Light bulb! I told her about my social learning assignment and EdWeb. I explained that you could search for different subjects and groups (communities) and told her I would do a quick check for middle school science; which I did. I emailed her and, later, she arrived at my door and said, "can you show me that site?" I showed her what she needed to do and off she went to do it. The following morning she ran in and told me she already had a contact who was interested in her collaborative idea. She was thrilled and so was I!! For me, this is a big piece of what Cool Tools for School does for me. I love learning to use these tools but when I can take one and say to a teacher that I think it would work for him/her, that makes it even more worthwhile.  

 

 

Thing 11: Mapping & Geolocation Tools

      It is exciting to get started on the next round of "Cool Tools for Schools".  I have been doing a lot of exploring using my laptop, my iPhone and my iPad.
      I started several days ago and read through the information. Geolocation is definitely not something that I am comfortable with and so this seemed challenging. I loved the thought of doing a Google Lit Trip. But, because a couple teachers and I just finished working together on A Long Walk to Water, I am going to save that for another year but will hopefully have time to work on it later. I think that novel would make a great Lit Trip. 
    I started off exploring the new Google Maps, took the tours, added some pins, and looked at several Photo Tours. I moved back and forth from my desktop to my devices. I feel better now about Google Maps and what can be discovered.
    I decided that History Pins seemed like something I wanted to learn more about and so I created an account and began a small project called "North Country Libraries".  I have only added three pictures and pinned them to maps, but it is a start.  I like the "History Pins in Schools" and will continue to explore that more.  The "activities and downloadables" section has some great, fairly simple ideas to use with classes.  The one thing I am having trouble with is figuring out how to just find some of the collections.  I don't see a way to really search, but I am still looking. :)
   One of my favorite places to visit when I need to de-stress is located in the Adirondacks near Santa Clara, NY. It is called Madawaska Pond and is truly beautiful. I thought maybe I could add a picture on the map; but, I didn't see a way to do that. I did successfully add a marker to the spot I love on the collaborative map.  I am adding two pictures here so that you can see it, Polly.  :) 

   The things still on my "to-do" list are using QR codes to do a scavenger hunt and to definitely create a Google Lit Trip.  I feel better about mapping and geolocation than before I began and I have several ideas that seem like I could incorporate them fairly easily into some projects we do. Hurray! I think that is good.