Coding and Design

How courses like coding and design lead to tech literacy

Courses that help students build technology skills increase students’ tech literacy and their ability to contribute to the workforce.

Technology is ubiquitous in the lives of today’s students. As technology users, students access technology for entertainment, communication, and learning. Tech literacy, which has become as essential as reading, writing, and arithmetic in preparing students for the future, encourages students to move beyond the role of technology consumers to becoming technology creators.

Sound like something you want to know more about? 

Click here and read about how coding and design can lead a student to tech literacy >>> CODING and TECH LITERACY

Zorbit's Math Adventure

Zorbit's Math Adventure

How exciting is it to have Zorbit's Math Adventure landed in our math class! This game-based learning program helps students strengthen their math abilities and build a positive attitude towards learning math. It is appropriate for students in Kindergarten to grade 3, and can be played at school or even from home.

Students will meet fun characters, explore far-off planets and complete heroic quests as they learn and apply math. Zorbit's Math Adventure can be enjoyed on a computer, laptop or Chromebook by visiting play.zorbitsmath.com or, on an iPad by downloading the Zorbit Math Adventure app from the App store.

Playing Zorbit's Math Adventure

You choose where you want to play! There are four solar systems in the adventure, each one representing a different grade. Each planet in a solar system focuses on a general math concept like geometry or operations. The teacher may lock certain content, removing it from the game so that students are only focused on the most relevant content. Select an activity and enjoy! Each dot on the map contains a variety of activities to explore. 

Now your students can blast off on a mathematical adventure! 

 

Lisa (OTECA)@NU

Some Websites to Look Into

Lesson Plan Websites: http://www.readwritethink.org/

Student-To-Expert Communication Websites: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/

Real-Time + Recorded Data Websites: http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/

Archival + Primary Source Websites: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/multimedia/index.html#.YDP9-mpKhOc

Skills + Practice Websites: https://www.khanacademy.org/

Exploration + Discovery Websites: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

Enjoy and together you will find your way ... these are best played with a friend or parent

Virtual Learning Falling Short

 How Virtual Learning Is Falling Short on Preparing Students for Future Careers

By Alyson Klein — March 02, 2021

 

It’s easy to imagine that many of today’s 2nd graders—future accountants, computer programmers, lawyers—will rarely see the inside of a traditional office.

The pandemic is likely to accelerate a trend already well underway: allowing workers to telecommute at least some—or all—of the time. That includes those in professions that, right now, are tough to envision in a largely virtual context.

 

You might expect the changes to education during the pandemic—during which just about every K-12 student got at least some experience with online learning—would help get most kids ready for the digital workplaces of the future.

Click here to read more >>>>> READ MORE

Science North - A Website for Teachers and Students

https://www.sciencenorth.ca/

Welcome to Science north! Your one-stop-shop to science resources for grades K-6! This website provides teachers with videos, student handouts, and lesson plans. The lesson plants come with handouts and answers, applicable resources, and curriculum connections for teachers to use when planning their units. The lesson plans provide detailed explanations of the concepts and procedures.

This week in class, I looked over a grade 2 lesson on Matter & Energy posted to sciencenorth.ca, and made minor changes to create a lesson on the properties of liquids and solids, and the different flow rates of liquids! I was able to look over the student handout to come up with my own probing questions and worksheet for our grade 2 students. We conducted a "liquid race", where students predicted what would happen, watched the experiment, then wrote out their observations. Check it out!

Courtesy of Madison E @ NU

Poster My Wall

Students can use the website Poster My Wall to create different media texts to enhance their awareness of consumerism and advertisements. Teachers can use this online platform to help students understand why different media texts are created by allowing them to participate in creating their own advertisement.

Teachers can have students create their own advertisement on Poster My Wall and share their poster in a community circle or gallery walk. This lesson plan idea can be used to teach students media literacy as they will explore the different purposes of the advertisement and their audiences. Teachers can also allow students to further explore their peers work by having them share the impact of different media texts available.
 

Example template

Step 1: Go to the website
https://www.postermywall.com/index.php/l/magazine-covers#.Xm5uRXJKjIW

Step 2: Click Create your own Magazine Cover

Step 3: Select your template (use the browse by size tab to explore the different layouts)

Step 4: Create and customize your template

Brought to you by Gabriella @ NU

Mystery Science

• "open and go" resource that provides teachers with science units and lessons for K-5
• saves you lots of prep time
• provides you with video-based storytelling that engages students with open-ended discussion questions and hand-on activities during and after each lesson 
• there is a fee to access all of the units and lessons that you can talk to your principal about, but if you sign up for a free trial you have access to most of the units and lessons for 3 months

Ontario Alignment

• Mystery Science aligns to The Ontario Curriculum: Science & Technology (2007)
• Each lesson (exploration & activity) is designed to take one hour per week
• Mini-lessons are 5-minute videos that answer K-5 student questions and can be used as a jumping off point to engage learners for a full lesson planned by the teacher

Lesson Extensions 

• Extensions are available for each lesson
• They include assessments and a curated collection of additional activity suggestions, online resources, project ideas, and readings to help extend the learning

This link takes you to an easy to read document of how you can use Mystery Science in your unit plans: 

https://mysteryscience.com/docs/ontario

@Teresa(OTECC)NU

Creating Learning Spaces

                                 

4 ways to create a learning space for difficult topics

Lindsay Lyons, Instructional Coach, BetterLesson
March 8, 2021

Safe learning spaces allow students to explore issues of racism, politics, and more in an honest and open manner.

In a year where the U.S. has been rocked by a global pandemic, the impact of systemic racism, and acts of political violence, many educators have wondered how to create a “learning space” to address difficult subjects.

A “learning space” is both safe and brave–one where students are supported in expressing their views, as well as in challenging them and coming to new conclusions.

As an instructional coach who works closely with many educators, one concern I’ve heard recently is that teachers are afraid to address social issues without seeming to impose their views.

I help them grapple with the following question: How can we enable students and staff to meaningfully talk about racism, politics, and current events in a way that pursues racial justice and enables all stakeholders to remain engaged?

Read more about this by clicking here >>>> LEARNING SPACES

Boom Cards

Boom cards is a platform that allows teachers to use and create digital activities for students. Such as many subjects in all grades, and including coding for younger as pre-K to get used to coding and math programs. Boom "decks" are made up of individual, digital task cards for students to complete. Boom cards are mentioned as the perfect tool to get your students to learn at home. You can use Boom for free. However, a paid account is very affordable and allows you to: Get reports about student progress and activity. And it helps the teacher to create an entire classroom of student logins.

This app enables students to play self-grading Boom Cards on Android devices. It synchronizes with your Boom Learning classroom. From the app, teacher account holders can assign materials to classes and review student performance. The teacher or the parent will need a Boom Learning membership to use this app and it is available to register the account at wow.boomlearning.com.

Boom Cards are digital, self-checking, interactive activities. Students are shown one question at a time and get instant feedback on their answers. If they get a question wrong, they can submit a new answer or "give up" the card and go to a different question if they get stuck.

Teachers can use Boom Cards with Google Classroom, Schoology, SeeSaw, Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas, and more.

How do the teachers share my boom cards with students? The teachers can Assign Boom Cards activities to any class you have set-up. To assign it to an individual student, you need to go to the class tab and click on that student individually. Fast Pin – This allows your students quick access to the cards where they don't have to log-in. 

By Chi N@NU-OTECA

Higher Education - No Longer the Automatic Choice

 

INNOVATIONS in K12 Education

High school students are questioning higher ed’s status quo
High schoolers want lower-cost, quicker paths to careers when it comes to higher ed--and they're open to something other than a 4-year degree.

Want to read more, click here >>>> HIGH SCHOOLERS

Daily Physical Activity for Virtual Classroom

Daily Physical Activity for Virtual Classroom

When I started this semester, I learned daily physical activity is a classroom requirement. When hearing this I wondered to myself "how am I supposed to do that with a virtual classroom?". I didn't think it would be practical or effective until I saw the resource my associate teacher uses for her grade 5 class: it is a YouTube Channel called "Get Kids Moving". 

They have tons of short exercise videos with all kinds of themes ranging from Harry Potter to Batman. The videos feature the instructor demonstrating the exercises while in character and supported by epic background music. Even the names of the exercises stick to the theme of the video. I was very impressed at the quality that went into these videos, and more importantly all the students were following along with the exercises with enthusiasm.

 

Here is a link to the Professor Snape "Defensive Spells" Workout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAUabrugO1g ... check it out

For more links to wonderful "Get Kids Moving", click this >>>>> GET KIDS MOVING

Courtesy of Andrew@NU

Mathies - Educational Games to Engage

Education games can be useful to educators in many ways. To be used in the classroom and at home.  When used intentionally educational games can have real benefits for students. 

Mathies is one website focused on the Canadian math curriculum teachers can use in their classroom, on online learning or students can use at home. Mathies has educational math games for students in grades k-12. 

Not only does Mathies have educational math games, but it also provides learning tools, math activities, additional supports and home supports.  Mathies math games are designed to become more challenging as you play them. 

                    

This website can be a way to engage students in math and have them practice their math skills at home. When students feel like they are playing instead of learning, they are more likely to engage in the math activity.  

You can visit this site at ... https://mathies.ca/index.html#gsc.tab=0 

Brought to you by Alex@NU

Some American Issues - Covid - Can be Canadian Too

 

An American Perspective

Here are the 7 most popular Education Week stories and opinion essays you and your colleagues have been reading. Take a look! Also, don't miss our latest special report, K-12 Connectivity Challenges Now and After COVID-19 which examines what steps school districts, states, and the federal government are taking to improve internet access for all students, now and for the future.  Click the links below to read more ... Sure, it's an American publication, but no doubt the issues and solutions filter into Canada, don't you think?

1. One District's COVID-19 Journey: A Year of Upheaval and Unexpected Insights

2. Reopening Plans, Private Schools, Special Education: Senate Puts Stamp on COVID-19 Bill

3. 'Give Yourself Grace' as You Teach Concurrently (Opinion)

4. A Year of COVID-19: What It Looked Like for Schools

5. How Two Years of Pandemic Disruption Could Shake Up the Debate Over Standardized Testing

6. Most Principals, District Leaders Predict Their Schools Will Be Fully In-Person This Fall

Can Facebook Be Used as a Tech Tool in Classrooms?

We've seen many social media platforms and websites used in education: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube - the list goes on! With this strong use of social media platforms, however, I have yet to see Facebook being used as an instructional tool. Facebook is one of the largest and most popular social media platforms that enables you to connect with and contact people, and post about your life, interests, and opinions. Facebook is a very public website, where almost everyone generally could have access to anybody's profile. From first glance, it does not seem like the type of website that would be appropriate for educational purposes, but I would like to contradict that. In fact, I believe that Facebook could be very useful for education. 

Instructors can create a class Facebook page and invite students to "like" the page so that they receive announcements, current events news, and updates on class projects, etc. There can also be a Facebook "group" created with all of this same information, however, the access to the group is only available to those allowed or invited in (i.e, students, parents, other teachers). Through Facebook, students can engage with the instructor or with their peers through posting comments and replies on the page. Facebook also takes note of what you like or your interests, so you could find many educational videos on there that you can use as a resource for students. Facebook Live is a new feature that is immensely useful in the classroom. It is a tool that allows teachers to record videos which students may view through live streaming, or view later. This is a terrific way to record and share videos of difficult lessons so that students can watch and learn after school.

Pros and Cons of using Facebook as a tech tool...

Pros:

• Easy and straightforward for anyone to use

• Can be used on any device - computer, phone, tablet, etc.

• Can be synchronous (Facebook live) or asynchronous

• Students can access at any time

• Parents can have access to it

• The information can be accessible only to those who are in the group or like the page

• Teacher can have full control of what the students see in these groups/on the page

• Can document class adventures

• Can document any information for students to refer to 

• Teaches students digital citizenship skills

• Can post links, documents, images, videos, events

• Students can use Facebook to make global connections

Cons:

• You must be at least 13 years old to use Facebook. This means that it would not be suitable for younger students, unless they use their parents' account, or if the Facebook resources would be accessible just for parents to keep track of their kids' learning. Facebook would be a good tool for high school students.

• There is the possibility that students can post inappropriate images or texts in the group

• There is no way to guarantee that students will not be researching inappropriate topics outside of the classroom

• Unless students' profiles are private, almost anyone could have access to viewing their profile 

With all of the pros and cons considered, would YOU use Facebook as a tool for your classroom? 

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/10-ways-use-facebook-classroom/

https://www.facebook.com/

Caitlin@Niagara

Coding in the New Math Curriculum

With the introduction of coding to the new math curriculum, teachers are struggling to find ways to incorporate inquiry-based learning in the classroom. Insert: code.org. This website includes free courses and activities for students K-12 in computer science. Teachers can setup a classroom section on code.org, where they can assign courses to students and track their progress. They can also leave them direct feedback through code.org. The website is also a good resource for teachers new to coding to gain a better understanding and develop ideas on how to teach the concepts through the "teacher resources" tab. That includes Lesson plans, certificates, and music filtering. The games available on this website are a great way to show students how to use coding in everyday life. Interactive coding games include dance party, AI for Oceans, and so much more!

                                               
                                               

Try coding.org in your classroom!

Brought to you by Madison@NU (OTECC)

Mars - NASA's Perseverance Virtual Tours

 These are just 3 sites you can visit and have your students explore Mars.

Newsweek

Mars 'Virtual Tour' Gives 360 View of Planet From NASA's Perseverance Rover

Mars 'Virtual Tour' Gives 360 View of Planet From NASA's Perseverance Rover · The sky in Hou's tour has been edited to show it full of stars, so ...

4 hours ago

NASA

NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover Provides First Audio ...

New video from NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover chronicles major ... In the coming days, a 360-degree panorama of Jezero by the ...

1 day ago

GeekWire

NASA releases jaw-dropping video and audio from Mars, with an assist from AWS

Nominate a Junior Geek of the Month Submit a nomination. What the Biden Administration Means for Startups, a Lane Powell virtual event in ...

1 day ago