6 Yes they can! Kindy kids and iPads!

Last week I wrote a post about how we've been using our imagine lab (makerspace) with our grade 5 students to learn more about circuits which was a great experience that I was able to team teach.  This week, I went to kindergarten to see how the teachers were using the iPads with the younger students in kindergarten.  Wow... what a surprise I had awaiting me!

The kindergarten teachers wanted help using "a video app" to help the kids record their summative assessment posters and the explanations behind them.  When I arrived, they were trying to use videolicious to record in under 1 minute what a group of 6 students had learned.  While this was not a bad approach, we quickly realised that it wasn't what they wanted.  After a few minutes of discussion with the teachers, we decided that the students really just needed to use the camera app to video the explanations.  Quickly, the teachers started organising the kids into groups to start videoing the students themselves while the others watched.  Happily, these teachers were AMAZING, open-minded, risk-takers and took to my suggestion to let the students do the filming.  With eyes wide open, they hesistantly agreed and we began watching the magic unfold!  In that moment, the teachers went from substituting the video for an oral presentation to bravely modifying the learning in their classroom. (SAMR model)

The teachers gave the groups of students an iPad and asked them to practice filming one another.  We reviewed the basic rules of iPad use such as hold it carefully and share with the other students.  Off they went and soon there was a flurry of action as the kids went around filming themselves in all sorts of activities around the room.

Kindergarten students exploring how to take video with iPads via Instagram http://ift.tt/TCsFw9

Click below to read more...

2 Gr5 Inquiring About Circuits with Makey Makey!

Today was a new chapter in the development of our makerspace at our school!  Prior to today, we've been using it to stimulate creativity in our school utilizing recycled materials to create prototypes and design projects.  It's a great space and it is working really well with our English department in helping students think "outside the box" on their assignments.  However, now that the space is about to celebrate it's first birthday, we felt we needed to push it even more by jumping feet first with programming and designing.

We bought some Makey Makey kits last year and have been looking for ways to thoughtfully incorporate them into our curriculum.  We've identified a unit in grade 8 where the students will be using them to make games/ interactive programs with Scratch.  To get the grade 8 students ready, we created a display about Makey Makey and Scratch in a common space in our Learning Center.  The students have been investigating this display for about 2 weeks.  Recently a grade 5 teacher asked if we could use the Makey Makey kits to explore circuits for the electricity unit starting this week.  We've identified this as a unit that we wanted to integrate technology into so it was great to see that we were in the same line of thinking as the grade 5 team.  We met with the teachers and soon decided that Makey Makey would be an excellent provocation into the world of circuits to help students understand insulators and conductors.

We started the session letting the students explore the Makey Makey boards with the purpose of answering the question "What will make Makey Makey work?".  We had set up the computers ahead of time with three different examples of Scratch programs: Makey Makey DJ, Makey Makey Piano, and Makey Makey Drum Kit.  Each group was asked to find materials around the lab that would get the program to run.  When they found something that worked, they had to send someone to the front to write the item(s) on the board for others to see and test as well.  The only "clues" they were given were that one cable needed to be grounded to the Earth part of the Makey Makey and that the other end of that cable needed to be in their hand.

Students investigating what makes a Makey Makey work with found materials in our Imagine Lab via Instagram http://ift.tt/1m5TGyQ

Click below to read more...