My Teaching Space

This post corresponds to day # 5 of the +TeachThought 30-day blogging challenge, focused on reflective teaching through blogging.  Interested in joining the challenge?  It's not too late! 

As a technology integration specialist at a STEM elementary school, my teaching space is flexible, and it goes wherever I go.  I love to collaborate, and I spend pretty much all of my days in other teachers' classrooms.  But I also love to embrace teachable moments (I love being a learner through them as well), and so am completely comfortable with the idea that any place could become a teaching/learning space. 

Here are two photos that represent my teaching space.  The top one shows our school's engineering lab, which is a shared space where I facilitate many lessons when not in teachers' classrooms.  The bottom photo shows one of our school courtyards.  This photo represents the flexibility of my teaching space - I'm often on location with students as they're learning to help guide and support their use of technology to document, research, share, or collaborate around their growing understanding of a concept.

If I could write a wish list of things I'd like to include in my teaching space, I think my top (philosophical) request would be inquisitive students who are willing to be risk takers in their learning. Speaking more tangibly, I'd also love an Apple TV or Chromecast for the engineering lab, along with some posters about inquiry, the importance of failure in learning, and our school's maker manifesto (currently a work in progress).  I'd also love to have another monitor in the e-lab to showcase students' digital work and maybe even to facilitate collaborative conversations within small groups of students (to display screens, etc), or with outside experts (G Hangouts), or even other students around the world. While I'm at it, I'd also like all students to have access to an iPad or Chromebook whenever they need one or the other...

How about you? What's on your wish list for your classroom or teaching space?

A Few Things I Love About Teaching

This post corresponds to day # 4 of the +TeachThought 30-day blogging challenge, focused on reflective teaching through blogging.  Interested in joining the challenge?  It's not too late! 


Some people always knew they wanted to be a teacher...but that really wasn't me...

image:  http://thenounproject.com/term/school/10119/

You see, my mom was a teacher and is now a school counselor, and my dad is in IT, and I distinctly remember telling them both at some point in my childhood, "I never want to do what you do for a living".  I was convinced I wanted to find my own way and explore my own options.

After majoring in global studies and Spanish, I worked in the business world for a few years.  But, it just wasn't very fulfilling for me...so, I began volunteering with kids in my spare time, and before long, I realized that I was happiest when I was with the kids.  So, I decided to go back to school to get my teaching license and got a job as a paraprofessional in a school.  Once I completed my teaching license, I got a job as an ELL teacher.  This is now my sixth year of teaching, and my second year as a technology integration specialist at a STEM elementary school, and I love what I do!

Looking back, it's pretty funny to think that I told my parents that I never wanted to be a teacher or work in IT, since now I do a job that integrates both fields...I guess the joke's on me!

image: http://thenounproject.com/term/heart/219/

So, what do I love the most about teaching?

Three things...

• I love the energy, enthusiasm, curiosity, and passion that form an inextricable part of teaching and learning.  They're contagious, and they pass back and forth between teachers and students as new learning occurs and interests are ignited.  
• I'm a lifelong learner myself, and I love to be surrounded by and a part of continuous learning.
• Most of all, I love to step back and see what kids can create when given the chance. I'm constantly amazed, inspired, and energized by all of the awesome things kids can do.  
• For example, today a student of mine showed me that he created an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge animation on Scratch. It was awesome.

What do you love the most about teaching?

Reflective Teaching through Blogging

What better way to jump start the school year than participating in TeachThought's Reflective Teaching: 30-day blogging challenge for teachers?  The +TeachThought challenge is focused around reflection and connecting with other educators through blogging, and prompts are provided for each day.

The challenge encourages teachers to blog everyday in September, but since I'm just jumping in now I'll reflect on the first three prompts in today's post.

1.  My Goals for the School Year

This summer, a colleague asked me about my goals for the 2014-15 school year, and although I didn't have a very polished answer at the time, her question provoked some good conversation, and I've narrowed my goals for this year down to the following three:

• I will encourage, support, and integrate app-smashing while working with my staff and students.  
• Reasoning: app-smashing allows for student choice in how they show what they know.  It also gives students a chance to show their creativity, and to think outside the box.  
• I will continue to integrate coding and computer science education into my work with students, and into projects and lessons in various grade levels and content areas.
• Reasoning: after spending the summer teaching coding to kids, and doing a fair amount of coding myself, I'm even more convinced of its value for students.  The skills developed through learning to code, such as collaboration, persistence, and problem-solving, apply across subject areas and grade levels.
• I will model the maker mentality for my students by being a maker myself; sharing my failures, successes, and milestones of learning, and by celebrating the process over the product.
• Reasoning: our school was awarded a grant to create a makerspace this year.  Our makerspace will be an undefined makerspace, as it's not confined to a physical space in our school.  Instead, we can bring it to any place through the materials we use or simply through our mentalities and the language we use with students.  I think that's powerful... and, I just really love making things (this week, I wore a shirt and a skirt that I made, and I can't wait to make more!)...  

2.  New Technology for this Year

This year, I am excited to try out Chromebooks with students.  I was recently awarded a grant to purchase Chromebooks to use for coding with 6th graders, and I can't wait to get started!  Chromebooks are so cost-effective, powerful, and easy-to-use... I think they will be popular with students and staff alike.  I bought myself a Chromebook this summer (an Acer c720p), and I absolutely love it.  I rarely use anything else!  A big bonus from an integration standpoint is that Chromebooks are compatible with Flash, which is perfect for coding on Scratch, and I've heard that they can also connect to Arduino and Makey Makey kits.  I also love that they run (virtually) everything through the cloud - no need to download, print, or save to a shared drive.  I'm still deciding which Chromebook model to purchase for school.  I'll be sure to post updates as the year unfolds.

3.  An Observable Area to Improve Upon

I recently went through the first round of ENVoY training, and I'm excited about the power of non-verbals in teaching and learning.  I've already enjoyed trying out some of the non-verbal classroom management strategies, such as above pause whisper, which is a technique to bring a group back together.  I tried it with students and also with staff, and was impressed by how well it worked.   The clearer and more intentional I am about my non-verbal messages to my audience, the clearer and easier to understand my message will be to them (hopefully). 

I'm looking forward to blogging about reflective teaching this month!  I'd love to connect and hear about your thoughts and experiences.  Feel free to leave a comment below, or connect with me on twitter @wilsandrea.  

Screencasting and English Learners

I just want to put this out there:  I [finally] finished my masters!!  I graduated in May, after turning in my 120-page Masters' thesis (that'll leave a mark).

Here's how I looked after my graduation ceremony:

My masters is an M.A. in English as a Second Language, and my thesis was a case study of 6 3rd grade English learners.  In my research, I was interested in finding out if screencasting seemed to help develop the fluency and complexity of English learners' math language.  As it turned out, it did (especially for those students with developing levels of English proficiency)!

Check out these slides for a quick summary of my research and findings:

So what does this mean for the classroom?

1. Offer screencasting, and the instructional scaffolds that support it, as an option in students' learning opportunities
2. Provide a structure for academic language development and an authentic context for all students to practice it
3. Include opportunities in your students' learning for self-assessment and reflection, as both are important to the development of language and content knowledge
4. Engage students in peer-teaching opportunities - they're low-risk experiences for learners, provide authentic audiences for content and language practice, and they give students a chance to reflect on their understanding of the content.  

Inspiring Girls to Code [for Good]

"Now that I've started programming, I never want to stop!" --Quote from one of the 6th grade girls I mentored as a part of the Technovation Challenge

I mentioned in a previous post that I mentored a team of 6th grade girls this year as a part of the global Technovation Challenge.  It was an awesome experience, both for me as a coach/mentor, as well as for the girls who participated, because it gave them an opportunity to create and program an app that helped address an issue or problem in their community.  My team, the #WVRCodeGirls, created a homework planner app, called Plan4U.EDU, to help middle schoolers stay more organized.  They were programming with a purpose in mind.  I liked to tell them they were coding for good.

At the end of the Technovation Challenge, many teams in MN celebrated by attending an event called Appapalooza.  Appapalooza gave all of the MN Technovtation teams a chance to pitch their apps, show a demo of their app, and describe the issue it addressed.  It was so powerful to see and hear from the teams of teenage girls about the issues they feel are important, and the apps they created to help their peers and the community address and prevent these issues.

I'm definitely planning to mentor/coach another Technovation team next year.  Interested?  Check out TechnovationMN's website for more info: http://technovationmn.org/

Our team at Appapalooza - photo: Satori Photography

Another excellent opportunity to inspire girls in programming is KatieCoderDojo, free 2-hour coding sessions for girls in Scratch and App Inventor at St. Catherine University.  It's so inspiring to see what the girls create!  And, no previous coding experience is necessary, so it provides a great intro to coding for girls.  I really enjoy being a part of the mentor team for these events!

The next KatieCoderDojo is August 12th at St. Catherine University - interested in signing up a girl you know?  Here's the link to the Eventbrite.

So, how do we get more girls interested in coding?

Here are my thoughts...

• give girls opportunities to try out coding
• give them a purpose for coding
• connect them with other female coders; mentors and peers
• encourage them to stick with it
• give them resources to explore and let them know of opportunities, like TechnovationMN, KatieCoderDojo, and Google's Made with Code

My colleague, +Karla Juetten recently sent me an article entitled, How not to attract women to coding: Make tech pink by Kristen V. Brown.  It makes some great points about the gender gap in computer science, and why 'making tech pink' is not a successful way to get more females interested.

So, girls, be confident, dare to dream, and let's get coding...for good!

WVR Code Project

In an effort to bring regular, hands-on opportunities for coding and programming to the students at my school, I started a recess coding and programming group that I'm calling the WVR Code Project.  We meet once every two weeks (I wish it were more, but it's a start!), and 12 students each from grades 1-6 are able to participate.  The students usually rotate at each grade level to allow a variety of kids the opportunity to try out coding and programming.

I built a website to act as a "home base" for our WVR Code Project.  Check it out at wvrcode.weebly.com (Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress!).

Many of the younger students have loved programming with the Kodable app, and have really started to get the hang of the vocabulary and different commands.  They love unlocking new levels and new fuzzes!  We are working on coaching one another through challenges without giving away the solution - we have a strict "no spoiler alert!" motto!

With the 4th-6th graders, I am encouraging the students to set up user groups for the various different platforms and programming languages they are exploring.  Our largest group so far is the Scratch group, but we also have students who are learning JavaScript through Khan Academy and CodeAcademy, and others who are programming with apps like Kodable and Hopscotch.  In addition to reinforcing the "no spoiler alert!" motto with this group, we are also working on reflecting on successes and new learning after every session.

I am getting super interested in coding and programming myself, and have been mentoring every month through some awesome organizations that meet locally - CoderDojoTC and TechnovationMN every month.  These organizations provide free coding and programming session for kids (and at some events, just girls) on the weekends.  I leave these weekend sessions feeling energized and inspired by the incredible ideas and talents these kids demonstrate!

Through my experiences mentoring with TechnovationMN, I learned about the Technovation Challenge -  "a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring girls in technology and entrepreneurship. In the program, middle school girls work in teams to develop mobile apps, conduct market research, write business plans, and create a “pitch” for funding. Each team works with both a classroom teacher at their school and a female mentor/role model from the technology industry. The challenge culminates in a competition where teams compete for funding to take market their app. The goal of the program is to inspire girls to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders and entrepreneurs. Technovation has reached over 1,000 girls across the country, and hopes to reach 2,000 girls this year as they expand globally."

I decided to start a Technovation team at my school and am so excited to get started this week! I'll be coaching and mentoring and team of four 6th grade girls. We decided to call ourselves the #WVRCodeGirls. Our first task is to learn the basics of App Inventor, which I've been learning and exploring through my mentoring opportunities.  I can't wait to see our team's ideas take off!

http://thenounproject.com/term/embed/5484/

I'm honestly loving geeking out with coding and programming. My next adventures include teaching myself Ruby, and joining a programming learning circle to collaborate with other Ruby users and try out what I'm learning...we'll see how I do!  In the mean time, I am also really enjoying participating in #kidscancode Twitter chat, which happens every Tuesday at 7pm, Central time. Join us, if you can!

#mnedchat live via Twitter and HOA

Last night, we tried something new as a part of our normal, Twitter-based #mnedchat.  We wanted to draw on the idea that everyone is an expert and has expertise to share, and at the same time, add a new dimension to our chat.  So, we decided to host a Hangout on Air with a panel of local educators who were interested in / passionate about this week's topic: creative learning spaces.  The Twitter side of #mnedchat continued to serve as a space for conversation, sharing, and questioning, and in addition, also had the added layer of acting as a backchannel for the HOA.

A group of us worked together to come up with the chat's questions, put together a doc for inspiring resources on creative learning spaces, and collaborated on a vision for how the HOA and Twitter conversations would come together to make sure as many #mnedchat participants' voices as possible could be heard.

It was such an energizing event to be a part of!  Here are a few of my reflections after the fact...

• It was so fun to see, hear, and be a part of the interaction between the Twitter chat and the HOA. Shout outs/mentions, retweets, questions, answers, and conversations happened across both mediums, and made for an in-depth discussion of ideas around creative learning spaces.   
• I was glad the HOA panel was comprised of local educators who were passionate about the topic. I think it would have changed the tone if we would have featured a world-renowned expert instead.  I liked that it felt casual and that the panelists were regular #mnedchat participants with ideas to share.  I hope that this feeling 
• Next time, I would like to strike more of a balance between the HOA and the Twitter chat.  I was moderator of the HOA this time, and so found myself focusing a lot on the discussion there.  Next time, I would like to be better about tweeting out the ideas that really resonated with me during the chat so that I could have a quick reference of those ideas later.
• Another aspect I would do differently next time would be to pay better attention to the Q&A feature through HOA.  After the chat ended, I realized that there were three questions in our Q&A that I never brought up during the hangout.  The Q&A is such a cool feature, and it was exciting that people were using it to ask questions!  Next time, I will have that feature up within my hangout screen so I can more closely monitor it.

I'd like to give shout out to the group of amazing people who helped plan and facilitate #mnedchat last night: +Nicholas Christensen,  +Caleb Lee , +Kimberly Hurd Horst , +Brian Boothe , +Shaelynn Farnsworth .  A huge thank you, also, to all who participated in #mnedchat last night - thanks for all of the great ideas and conversation!  I feel so fortunate to have such an awesome PLN.

If you missed the event, feel free to check it out whenever you'd like:

Check out a summary of Tweets from #mnedchat via +Kimberly Hurd Horst 

Also, please feel free to add to our collaborative resource list on creative learning spaces:

We also created a Padlet for people to post ideas on how to transform a 'traditional' classroom space into a creative and innovative learning environment.  Check it out (and add your own ideas) here:

http://padlet.com/wall/mnedchat12814

Thanks again for tuning in, everyone!