We're Going on a Google Expedition!

Today students in grades first through fifth at my buildings experienced the Google Expeditions Pioneer Program.  Google Expeditions is still currently in Beta and staff are visiting schools around the globe in order to test with students.  If this is entirely new to you, here is a description from Google itself:

What is Expeditions?

Expeditions combines three things: software built with teachers for teachers, immersive virtual reality content, and devices that are available to any school.

The content

Expeditions are collections of virtual reality panoramas—360° photo spheres, 3D images and video, and ambient sounds—annotated with details, points of interest, and questions that make them easy to integrate into curriculum already used in schools. Partners like the American Museum of Natural History, the Planetary Society, David Attenborough with production company Alchemy VR, and many of the museums and other partners of the Google Cultural Institute are helping us to create custom educational content for Expeditions.

The app

Expeditions are accessed and viewed through an app that allows a teacher to choose a trip and lead a group of students through a virtual Expedition. Teachers are able to point out specific details within the panorama, pause trips to get the class’s attention, play ambient sounds to make the experience even more immersive, and let students freely explore on their own.

The hardware

While Expeditions can be used on devices already in the classroom, they come alive with Google Cardboard. Our Expeditions kit is a collection of all the hardware needed to go on Expeditions in full virtual reality—a tablet for the guide, VR viewers for each student, a speaker to provide ambient sounds and a durable box to transport, charge, and store it all. We know many schools don’t have great Internet service (or any at all) so we built Expeditions to work without it. The kit includes a router that allows Expeditions to run over its own local Wi-Fi network so there’s no buffering, dropped connections or lengthy loading times.

I was excited when I registered to have the opportunity for Google Expeditions to visit one of my buildings and even more excited when I heard a few months later that they would be in the area and my students would have this amazing opportunity.  

Many of the teachers were able to tie these virtual field trips to curriculum, like studying dying ecosystems, or on current extra-curricular projects, like our connection with South Africa.  Along with the virtual field trip comes so awesome talking points for teachers so that we were able to guide our students on their trip.  Students learn so much from opportunities like this that are extensions to their lessons rather than just lecture and slideshows.  They feel as if they are fully immersed in this location and really make some connections!

Places the students had opportunities to visit were:

• Taj Mahal
• Coliseum in Italy
• The Great Wall of China
• Petra
• Rio de Janeiro
• Machu Picchu
• Galapagos Islands
• Preserved Oceans around the globe
• Statue of Liberty
• Ellis Island
• National Parks in California
• Yellowstone National Park
• Kruger National Park in South Africa

The ability offer these virtual field trips to my students is amazing.  Students may not ever be able to experience these locations so I am doing what I can to get them there.  Virtual Reality offers this amazing opportunity for kids from the comfort of their own school or home.

The kids have already begun asking me when I am purchasing them for the building or where they can buy Google Cardboard on their own.  Right now there is a Google Cardboard app for iOS or Android and the actua Expeditions app we used has not yet been released to the public.  But its coming!

Check out the Animoto:

Fund for Teachers Fellow!

This year, a team of fellow teachers and myself wrote our second attempt at a Fund for Teachers grant to go to ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education).  We narrowed our focus and broadened our horizons with this grant so that our learning would not only impact our classroom areas but also impact our school.  

Brief Description of Fellowship: Participate in the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Denver, CO, to enrich the implementation of Next Generation Science Standards and increase student achievement.

We were beyond excited to learn that our grant proposal had been accepted for 2016.  It was sort of a funny story that day.  The five of us were on pins and needles all day.  I believe I must have refreshed my email on my phone every five minutes.  The post said that everyone would know by 3pm, so we waited.... and waited.  I even had our principal, who was out of the building at a meeting, texting me a few different times asking if we had heard anything.  By 3pm we had heard nothing and didn't know what to make of it.  One of the teachers and I happened to be co-teaching a STEM lesson with her class, and as the students were cleaning up we decided to see if they had posted the list on the Fund for Teacher's website.  After it finally popped up I opened the file and there on the first page was not only myself but another team teacher.  I'll admit I screamed a little which prompted the other teacher to scream as well.  I ran to each of the other classrooms to announce that we had received the grant! I sent a message to our principal who immediately responded with a "Wahoo!"  

All of our hard work and research paid off.  We were finally getting the opportunity to go to one of the greatest edtech conferences around to learn how we can effectively implement the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) with technology and STEM.  Each of us is fully aware of what this opportunity can bring to our building as we embark on a new adventure.

Below is part of our Purpose and Rationale

As elementary teachers we are tasked with the job of introducing our students to technology and teaching them how to be problem solvers and higher-order thinkers. Our collaborative team’s goal is to build our understanding of how to teach these skills through project-based learning, implementation of the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards), STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) activities, and technology integration. One of our focuses has been on the SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) model. This model was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura and offers a shift in the traditional thinking of technology use. Our team plans to move from the substitution level of SAMR, completing the same tasks on a computer, to the redefinition level, allowing for new tasks with technology and acquisition of skills that were otherwise considered inconceivable. Attending the ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) conference will give us the needed resources and knowledge-base to fuse the NGSS and the district's STEM initiative with project-based learning and effective technology integration. 

Our suburban elementary school currently houses 368 students with 73% of our student population living in poverty. Ethnic diversity is greater in our building than in the district in every disaggregated group (ELL, SWD, Hispanic, and SES). Students from poverty struggle to retain content each year as their working memory is tied up with worries about basic needs. Project-based learning is more likely to "stick" as a meaningful learning opportunity than a paper and pencil task. The ease of differentiation that project-based learning brings will significantly benefit our students in their use of technology and ability to think critically and problem solve. Students are changing and learn differently than in the past, so our teaching needs to change. We need to revitalize our classrooms for tomorrow’s students. The thinking skills that we can help students acquire will be an asset when they transition to middle school, high school and eventually the workforce. We are passionate about moving student learning forward and creating lessons and projects that prepare our students for the real world. We have already begun creating engaging learning experiences, and we want to keep this trend moving forward. Our kids need this to succeed but we can’t just know it, we need to implement it. We will model for our colleagues how to move from a teacher-centered to a student-centered learning environment. We have seen first-hand how students become more engaged in STEM related activities and we want to see this passion increased in their education. 

Our team needs to see the possibilities for our students so that we continue to see wins in the classroom. Students need to feel that the work they do is making a difference in the world. Their world needs to expand beyond the classroom walls. There is research to support the value of authentic learning. When students are engaged in real-world scenarios and challenges, they find relevance in the work and become engaged in learning. Through the expertise we gain by attending the ISTE conference we can redefine our students’ current learning experiences and get them eager to learn. Our team consists of four classroom educators from grades three through five, and a technology innovation specialist, all of whom are driven to make a change. Together we want to gain professional knowledge with others who have already impacted education. We should be embracing purposeful technology use, and teaching students to create, think, and communicate with it. The ISTE conference is the place where we can see, hear, touch, and learn the ways to best make this shift happen. According to Cheryl Lemke’s article The Change Agents, “As educators, we should be using technology as a critical design factor, in combination with research on how people best learn, to establish new and different environments for student-centered learning” (Lemke, 2009, p.54). We know attending this conference will allow us to be the change agents in our school.

After our fellowship is complete, our team plans to return and debrief.  Our goals are to present to staff our biggest take-aways from the conference, meet collaboratively with grade levels to help plan for the coming year, and to plan and implement a STEM parent night so that we can showcase what our kids have been doing, as well as show parents the power of STEM activities.  We are truly honored and eager to begin this amazing journey.  

We thank Fund for Teachers from the bottom of our hearts that they saw the passion we have for helping our students reach amazing heights and chose us to be 2016 Fellows.

Look What We Can Do in the Innovation Commons!

This year has been so much fun purchasing and rolling out all the wonderful MakerSpace and STEM activities that I have added to the Innovation Commons.  What I have discovered is that the kids need very little direction and just dive into their creation and investigation.  Most recently I ahve been working with Kindergarten and 4th graders.  The biggest take away for the teachers has been they notice zero behavior issues during this time because the students are so engaged.

Here are some of the great things I have added and a little about them:

Snap Circuits - "Snap Circuits® makes learning electronics easy and fun! Just follow the colorful pictures in our manual and build exciting projects, such as FM radios, digital voice recorders, AM radios, burglar alarms, doorbells, and much."
I started with the Snap Circuits Jr and it became so popular that I ordered a larger kit, as well as the Rover and Green Energies Kits.  For students to really begin understanding the working circuits in an explorative way is very important.  They really feel the ownership of making something work.

Contraptions & Structures


Students love using contraptions and structures by Keva.  They design, build, and engineer buildings and marble ramps.    "Young thinkers can build unbelievable ball track structures with this simple stacking plank system. Create ramps, funnels, chutes and crazy contraptions like the "Black Hole" and "Bounce Plate." Then find out if the ball rolls as expected. Fostering unlimited creativity and experimentation, KEVA planks build an early understanding of proportion and balance, while teaching basic principles of physics and engineering." Many view this as such a creative outlet that it's their go to center.  

Other purchases that I have made that the students find amazing:

Osmo

Tiggly

Sphero and BB-8

Dash & Dot

Lego WeDo 2.0

Little Bits

Magformers

Ozobots

K'Nex

Currently my Kindergarten students are working on creating a city for Bee-Bot to be able to drive through.  If you aren't familiar with Bee-Bot, he is a programmable robot for the younger students.  They give him directions by pushing the arrow buttons on his back.  Once they have put in the correct sequence, they hit start and Bee-Bot will move how they have programmed him.  We've used him to teach programming but also to practice shapes, letters, sight words, and numbers.

They are learning about communities and each child chose a different type of building in the community they wanted to build.

The most important thing that needs to happen with the many STEAM activities is the discussion.  Whether it's collaboratively with peers as they work to solve problems or you as the teacher asking them to share what it is they are doing and how are they making it happen.  Discourse is important.  Here is document shared by my district that I have found very helpful.