Hour of Code – Computer Science Education Week

Hour of Code 2013 is a great event to get students excited about computer science and what it really means to be a computer scientist.  The graphic above is pretty cool and powerful.

During this week, millions of students around the United States will “code” for at least one hour and be introduced to computer science.  All of our students play video games or phones, tablets, computers and gaming consoles, so they can understand this concept.  So, how fun and cool would it be for them to create their own game, or app??  I encourage you all to sign-up and have your students participate for at least one hour this coming week.  Here is a link to the educator resources – http://code.org/educate/hoc If your students don’t have access to the computers or devices, there are activities for unplugged classrooms, too.

Here is an introduction video about this awesome event:

In my class this week, I plan to :

• Show the introduction videos to get the students excited
• Allow my students to go through the tutorial for beginners section
• Write their first computer program – Angry Birds themed

• Go through the Light-Bot App for the iPad
• Code on the iPad with Hopscotch and Kodable
• Let them try and create their own game on Tynker
• Use Minecraft Pocket Edition on their iPads to create an CA Indian Village
• Go through some of the Unplugged activities

I hope you join my class and millions of other students during this week for the Hour of Code!!!

Here is another short video about the Hour of Code:

NewsELA

NewsELA is AWESOME!!!  This is a Non-Fiction Literacy and Current Event website for your students.  One of the best features on here is the ability to change the student lexile reading level.  That feature alone can help you differentiate and level the articles for all your students of various levels.  The second feature that is how it relates to the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and the Anchor Standards for English Language Arts – PLUS some articles have a quiz that is rigorous.  Also,the quizzes occasionally have questions where the students have to use text evidence and click the paragraph or sentence the answer is located.

Did I mention that this is FREE?  Yes, it’s all free and all you have to do is register and give your students the class signup code, then they sign up themselves.  Another thing is that it works on tablets, PCs, or other handheld devices.

Teachers can assign articles for students to read and take their quizzes on.  It keeps all the data in your “Binder” and show what standards the students are doing well or struggling.  My students really like the articles because they are highly interesting, current topics/events.  They are separated into these topic areas: War & Peace, Science, Law, Money, Kids, and Health.

I have really liked having classroom discussions on certain articles and having them write some opinion/argumentative writing.  They share and provide evidence from the article or their personal knowledge to support their argument, which is very powerful and fits right in with the CCSS.

Sign up and get your students reading some great non-fictional articles to peek their interest in current events happening around the globe.

A Few Websites to Checkout!

Here are a few great sites that I haven’t mentioned on my blog, but they are great resources for all teachers and people in education.

The Teaching Channel is a great tool for videos that show teachers doing lessons.  The lessons are extremely helpful seeing them in real life classrooms, not just hearsay.  I personally love the Common Core lessons and new ideas to engage my students in meaningful, rigorous lessons/activities.  Plus, when you sign-up for updates, you’ll get a email with new videos that relate to you!

Edudemic is another great site that includes many articles and updated daily with articles that show how to add more technology into your 21st Century classroom.  Get lost with this treasure trove of great resources.

Teachers Pay Teachers has been around for a while now, but I never really looked into it.  This website is pretty AMAZING… I find so many resources created by teachers, and there are many FREE things on here that you can use right away.  There are many great things to buy on here, and you won’t have to re-create the wheel.  Have fun getting lost in resources on here…

Do you have any other sites you visit often?  Leave a comment to share yours!

I’m Back…

I have not posted in two months, so I have a few things I wanted to post since then, but it has been a busy year already.  Implementing the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) and finishing up my Master’s Degree in Educational Technology has taken up much of my time these past few months.  So, needless to say, I missed sharing my thoughts, ideas, and web tools for education.  I hope you find the following post useful!

Reading Comprehension Tool – Read Works

A great reading comprehension tool – ReadWorks

Common Core Teacher

Here is a great tool for Reading Comprehension.  ReadWorks.org is a FREE site that has:

• Leveled reading passages (grade level or lexile level)
• Novel Units
• Lesson Plans
• Worksheets/Graphic Organizers
• Comprehension Units
• Skills/Strategy Units

When you sign-up for a free account, you save things to “My Binder.”  It allows you to refer back to lessons or units you have saved.  Another thing I really like is the abundance of informational non-fiction texts/passages – which is new for Common Core!  The passages also have questions associated with them.  Create an account and start using this great site.

 

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Infographics

If you don’t know what infographics are, don’t be alarmed!  I just learned what they are over the summer and in simple terms they are a way to visually represent information in a professional and easily understood way.  Here is one I just created for my current Master’s Program class for technology staff development:

Here are a few infographic sites:

http://www.easel.ly

http://visual.ly

http://piktochart.com/

http://www.infogr.am/

 

California Mission Project – Minecraft

Here is one of my students – Julian E. from my 2012-2013, 4th grade class at Railway Elementary School. This is built with Minecraft – PE on his iPad Mini for his CA Missions Project – Mission San Luis Rey. I was truly impressed and amazed at the detail and the content of this project. I hope more students and teachers use this in the future as an alternative to the arts & crafts model we did as kids.

State Testing

As many of you know, State Testing is a very busy and stressful time for many teachers, parents, administration, and students!  My school district is about one week away from the beginning of our testing window, but I know many of you are already testing – Good Luck!  Throughout the entire school year we have been preparing our kids for these few days of testing, and it will “show what our kids know!”  I agree and disagree with that statement.  I do believe testing is important and beneficial to students and teachers, but it shouldn’t be the “end all – be all!”  I know during this week ahead, I will be spiral reviewing almost everything we have learned/taught this year and the students will try to refresh their memories or hopefully some will get that “light bulb moment” as we review key concepts.  I try to be as positive as I can be and encourage them along the way.  In the past couple years I have incorporated a couple songs and videos to get them motivated to do the best on the test.  Here are a couple things I have done with my class/school, please feel free to show and share with your friends and students!

CST Song & Video

Our school also uses an instrumental version of Taio Cruz’s song “Dynamite” and I have created new lyrics for our state test to encourage the kids to do their best on the test!

Here are the lyrics – Dynamite – CST Lyrics

It’s time to rock the test and show what we know!!  Good luck everyone!  I would love to hear about how you get your students ready for state testing or any motivational tactics you use.  I look forward to your comments!

Mission San Juan Capistrano – 4/3/13

Here is video I created with my Flip Camera and digital camera! This is much longer than what I expect from my students’ projects coming up. Here is a link to that project posting – http://wp.me/p2YoXX-2K

When Did “Fail” Become a Four-Letter Word?

This is my opinion and a little stray from my normal technology blogs!  You may disagree, but I think most teachers will agree!  I wish more parents of students would read this and think about it!  Here we go…

I think most of my teacher friends and parents out there have seen our education system change a bunch since we were a student in the classroom.  We didn’t have all this technology at our figure tips and the world wasn’t so ever-changing or fast!

When I ask my students to “try” something new, they say “But, I have never done this before!  What if I get it wrong?” or they are “Scared” to even try it because they may fail or do it wrong.  This is what our education system has created lately – a student who must have multiple choices (A, B, C, or D)!  If an open-ended question or scenario is given with little details, they are stumped or tell themselves “This is too hard!”  Many won’t even try – unless they are bribed or rewarded with something.  Whatever happened to getting the right answer(s) or working hard or learning from your failures?  We have really thwarted creativity and critical thinking skills…and we wonder why our country is falling behind other countries in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) areas.  In my opinion, this is one of the main reasons why other cultures and countries have passed us by.

Also, I feel that some students learn at an early age that “Failing” is bad.  I am not really talking about their report card, but more about learning from your failures.  We need to change this is our classrooms and teach our students or children that:

Failing is the First Attempt In Learning! 

I try to tell my students about Thomas Edison – the inventor of the light bulb.  I ask them what he did and a few students say he was an inventor of the light bulb, and I ask them if he got it right the first time?  The majority of my students know he didn’t, and then I ask how many times he did his experiment (great Scientific Method introduction)?  I will get the answers 10, 100, 500, etc.  Do you know the answer?

He failed about 111,000+ times before he got it right!!!  How many of us would keep trying like that and learn the power of perseverance?  I know I wouldn’t have went that far, but I know that I can use the power of technology, experts, friends, etc. to help me learn anything.  We need to teach our students and kids how to fail and steer them in the right direction – knowing how and where to find the answer is the key!  I think that was my “real life” lesson I took from college, along with starting something and finishing it.

I really hope parents and teachers let their kids know that we learn from our failures.  We can’t tell our kids, “No that’s wrong!” or “Let me do that for you.”  If we continue enabling them, they will never be able to think for themselves and expect to have everything laid out for them – life isn’t always an A, B, C, or D test, sometimes “Life Happens” and we need to adapt and learn on our own.

Let me step of my soapbox…

I have wanted to type this for a while, but I just hadn’t felt the need to until my wife showed me the image above about what “Fail” really means!  Thanks wife!