Hello everyone,
On such a beautiful day I hope you all get a chance to enjoy
the sunshine and unplug this weekend. Today, the 6th grade
had an unplugged day (including poetry reading by candle light) and like many
people who took part in the National
Day of Unplugging last weekend, it sounds like they totally enjoyed
themselves. If you’re curious about this whole unplugging
thing (and why it’s in my wired Wednesday) pop by the lab, email or let’s chat
over lunch.
Below are some of the highlights of what’s been going on in
the past few weeks as we use technology for teaching and learning.
What’s working:
-
Teaching in the Lab- York has a fabulous
strategy for teaching in the Computer Lab… walk around the room but teach
from the back of the class, have students turn around and face you (turning
their backs on the distracting computer screen and keyboard). The key for
teaching in this space is to roam, check out screens, and keep their eyes on
you when you want attention.
-
David Montero Is using Edmodo for a
secure online class experience – he is using it as a space for online interaction
between our students and students in our partner school in Sevilla.
http://www.edmodo.com
-
The CRAAP test is taking off – more
here - and we have a few websites to have students test out the
criteria, including:
o Save
the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus – a great hoax and excellent critical
thinking activity http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
What’s wonky:
-
Laptop cart hygiene – we’ve been seeing
quite a few laptops not plugged in when they are put back in the carts,
thank you for increasing your vigilance. And, as Tuney highlighted
at Community Meeting, please keep an eye out for students damaging keyboards
and removing keys.
-
The IT Team has been making a few changes to the
student profile – making it much faster for students to log in
We’ve seen a big improvement and the only snag has been that sometimes the default
printer is not the one that’s closest to the computer. Please have
students check which printer they are printing to, if confusion arises.
What you wish for:
-
An upgrade to our Survey Monkey/
Zoomerang account – this is in the works.
-
Good typing resources – I’ve found a nice
curated list of fun, typing games: https://sites.google.com/site/whiteoaktechlab/home/typing
-
While sitting in on meetings and talking to many
of you in the hall I’ve heard that there’s a desire for some tutorials on
computer skills – from basic to more savy topics – these are excellent: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computers
-
There’s been some ongoing interest in teaching
students how to code –here’s a great interactive, free site: http://www.codecademy.com And for
those of you wanting to teach computer science concepts without a computer
– check out http://csunplugged.org/
CS Unplugged is a collection of free
learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and
puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.
Wildcard(s)
-
At the end of January, I presented at the NWS
Parent Forum – there were 80 parents in attendance and we had a rousing good
time. The focus was on Finding The Right Balance, and we spoke
about how to guide our children in finding the right balance with technology in
their lives (and about how to balance it in our own lives). The podcast
of the talk is here:
and all the resources I used in the presentation are on my teacher page:
http://teachers.northwestschool.org/nws/cseaver/parent-resources
-
Next week is Teen Tech Week – http://teentechweek.ning.com/ - Check
out new books and resources in the library and lab. The purpose of Teen
Tech Week is to ensure that teens are competent and ethical users of digital
media, especially the nonprint resources offered through libraries, such as
e-books, e-readers, databases, audiobooks, and social media.
Wow. Thanks for reading this far!
I hope this has been helpful.
Enjoy the sunshine!
Catherine
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