So, my summer to-do list today is ridiculously long, but while prepping for some upcoming PD work, I got a little excited about some new tools and figured now was as good a time as any to share!
Angela and I love stumbling upon new tech tools that make our lives easier. This summer, after presenting at and attending our first GAFE Summit, we were introduced to a few new ideas that we are excited to use this fall.
Adobe Spark merges graphics, text, stories, and even videos into an amazing visual presentation. It is a quick and easy way to create a video, presentation, parent newsletter or even an invitation to your class Wax Museum. Like many of you, we are also always looking for new publishing options for our students. The templates and font options are endless, and your students will have a blast creating their own Sparks! Check out the newsletter I quickly created to send out to our students and families below.
Our colleague, Michael Mohammad from MoPhysics MoProblems, created a great tutorial video to help his students get started. It's a great resource for students AND teachers! Thanks, Mike!
Collaboration, creativity, critical thinking...these are skills crucial to truly engage and empower our learners to be innovators in the classroom. I'll be honest, initially when I heard about Hyperdocs I wasn't overly excited. It seemed like a Google Doc with a few links embedded throughout. That was something we had been doing in our classroom for years. Then I started following the Hyperdoc Girls on Twitter (my favorite personalized PD option), and I quickly realized the power of these interactive tools. When thoughtfully created, these Hyperdocs will help you shift the way you use tech tools to teach! Give Hyperdocs a shot!
GOOGLE CAST FOR EDUCATION is a new Chrome app from Google that gives teachers and students the ability to share their screens wirelessly. Screens can be shared out to the entire class, or just the teacher's computer. It's an incredible way to increase collaboration and interaction between students and/or teachers!
Learn more about it here!
NEW GOOGLE SITES
And, finally, learn about the new Google Sites update! Not gonna lie, friends, this is a GAME CHANGER, in my opinion! Sites has always been my least favorite GAFE tool...it is cumbersome and not user friendly. We went away from it with our digital portfolios in the past due to this. This update is a total overhaul of the old program, and it is now SO easy to use! Check out our buddy, Mike Mohammad's blogpost and his great video to see its ease of use! Thanks, Mike!
Alright, now back to the to-do list! What new technology tools are you excited to use this fall? We'd love to hear about them!
Yes, I know it is the middle of March and I just realized this collaboration day took place almost a month ago :( I am embarrassed it has taken me this long to post this...Angela and I will both agree that the month of February was a crazy, whirlwind of activity in T.E.A.M. Togetherness. Between the end of the quarter, parent teacher conferences, visitors, guest teachers, amazingly fun activities, even an extra day, the month flew by and this post sat in our "drafts" for far too long.
About a month ago we had another awesome morning with Mike Mohammad's AP Physics students from Brookfield Central High School. After our first collaboration day back in December, Mike and I knew we wanted to get the "bigs" and "littles" together for another day of Physics Fun! Knee deep into our Models and Designs unit, Mike came over to Swanson to observe what we were learning and help me figure out how we could make the connection. When he saw our students would be designing and building self-propelled go-carts, he quickly found a perfect fit!
4th Grade Go-Cart Challenge
Use the supplies provided to design and build a self-propelled go-cart that can move 2 meters on its own!
Our students were divided into groups and given their baggy of supplies. They were super excited about the challenge and were quick to design conceptual models and jump into the self-propelled challenge. Within minutes, Angela and I began to see the students' frustration grow. They could easily design a go-cart that could roll down a ramp, but they were stumped when facing the self-propelled challenge. We let them struggle for a while and listened in for glimmers of hope. As the conversation and collaboration continued, students started to figure out that the rubber bands in their bags would be the most realistic item to get the go-carts moving on their own. Other groups decided they needed larger wheels.
After a day or two of working with their small groups, we met as an entire class to discuss the problems we were facing. We then shared out solutions! That is when the magic started to happen...groups started listening and coaching each other. They started sharing ideas, creative juices were flowing, and the go-cart creations started coming together. The grown ups in the space took a back seat and we let the students take over! We had one group of young ladies quickly meet the 2 meter challenge. We celebrated their success, and then encouraged them to share their design with the other groups. They then went out and became our resident experts on self- propelled carts. Within 4 days, all of the groups when from bags of supplies to functioning, self-propelled carts. They were ready to video their cars in motion.
All groups were able to get their go-cart moving on it's own, so they each had the opportunity to have their go-cart video taped for analysis. Some of the go-carts traveled beyond the 2 meter challenge, many did not. Regardless of the distance, the videos were then sent to Mike's students. They used an app called Video Physics to measure the velocity and acceleration of each go-cart vehicle. The high schoolers then created detailed reports that were tailored to each group's go-cart and, more importantly, comprehendable to our 4th graders. They included graphs and explanations that related directly to our Models and Designs learning. The conversations between the engineers from BCHS and Swanson were amazing, to say the least!
Along with investigating the motion of our student's go-carts, the high school students orchestrated five interactive motion stations. Mike, once again, AMAZED all of us with his creativity and work with his high schoolers. Our kiddos were exploring, learning, and in heaven the entire time! If only my high school science courses were this engaging and fun!!
Station 1: Speed Tubes
In this station the BCHS students showed our 4th graders the basics of speed using color tubes filled with air bubbles. The bubbles rose at different rates and our 4th graders used collaboration, and mathematics of course, to measure the speed of the bubbles.
Station 2: Acceleration Cars
What kid doesn't love a wind up car? Using fun pull-back cars, our 4th graders learned the difference between acceleration and speed. They looked at ways to measure acceleration and they even explored how mass affects acceleration.
Station 3: 1st Law Pucks
Newton's First Law of Motion is often stated asAn object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Using Air Pucks and a TON of interaction, our 4th graders learned more about Newton's First Law of Motion. The Air Pucks, hovering on a cushion of air, helped bring this difficult concept to reality.
Station 4: Energy Coasters
What 4th grader doesn't love roller coasters? This station showed our students the affect gravity has on roller coaster movement. They also discussed free-fall acceleration on other planets. Our students used an awesome simulation tool to build their own skate tracks on different planets. So cool!
Station 5: Motion Sensor Graphs
Our 4th graders have been working with graphs all year and learning the difference between the X and Y axis. At this station, our kids developed a deeper understanding of the X and Y time graph. They learned what different shapes on the graph mean and they used a motion sensor to graph their own movement. They also used this station to practice their Whip Nae Nae!
As I type up these station descriptions, I am thoroughly impressed at what our 4th graders are tackling (and UNDERSTANDING!) with the help of Mike Mohammad and his amazing high school students. I am incredibly thankful for this collaboration time and I LOVE our time together. Also glad that Laura, from Epiphany Learning, was able to pop in and see our two groups in action! One more science unit Mr. Mohammad...the Human Body! I can't wait to see what we come up with next!!
I recently posted about finalizing our Defined STEM sound project. As if that wasn't enough of a final culminating activity, Angela and I collaborated with the infamous Michael Mohammad and his incredible AP Physics students for a fun filled morning of learning! We had been talking about bringing our students together for quite some time, and after some impromptu conversations after the Convening conference, we were finally able to make it happen! Mike's students had been learning about sound...our students had been learning about sound...what an amazing opportunity for both sets of students to share their knowledge with a real audience!
The Thursday before the holiday break, Mike brought over about 50 AP Physics students from Brookfield Central High School. His students were divided into five groups and shared their knowledge with our ENTIRE grade level. All of our 4th graders spent the morning rotating through different stations. The groups focused on the following concepts:
Sound waves and tuning forks
Doppler Effect and Sonic Booms
Sound Uncovered using the app for iPads
Using Makey Makeys and Little Bits to create circuits that make music
Resonance
When I look at that list, it's hard for me to believe that our 4th graders would even be able to comprehend some of these difficult concepts. Mike's students blew us out of the water! They brought the information to life and, through the use of PearDeck, made presentations interactive and highly engaging! From the Sound Uncovered app to the Doppler Rocket, dancing tuning forks to Star Wars sounds...these high schoolers used a wide range of technology tools that made for a morning of fun. Learning about resonance with Little Bits and creating animals sounds with Makey Makeys, our kids (and teachers) had a blast! To learn more about the high school content, check out Mike's blog post about our morning together!
All in all, the morning of collaboration was incredible! Not only did the high school students share their knowledge of sound with our kiddos, our 4th graders had the opportunity to present their sound instruments AND their iMovies to a real audience! The learning was engaging and authentic!
A HUGE thank you to Mike and his students! You WOWED us and can't wait for our next opportunity to collaborate with you! Go-Carts are next...let's do this!
So, I'm a little delayed in posting this. December was a whirlwind of activity, and although I had great intentions of filling my break with blog posts and planning, instead I chose to spend my days with warm cups of coffee and snuggles.
With that said, Angela and I are excited to announce that just before the winter break our students finished their first collaborative STEM project using Defined STEM. I introduced this project in a previous blog post, and wanted to share an update! Our students worked so hard over the last 2 weeks! All of the groups WOWED us with their creativity, collaboration, and ability to come to consensus.
After our students planned their conceptual models and built the physical models of each instrument, they were ready to advertise for the concert AND perform! They worked together to create a billboard and a performance, that they then recorded and edited. Once all recordings were finished, we uploaded the videos to iMovie and the groups edited their movies and finalized them for our class playlist. All members of the group had to play an active role in the video- they could sing, play an instrument, record, and/or edit the movie. Watching the smiles on their faces during their final performances was the best part of the entire project. It made up for duct tape stuck to the couches, cardboard scraps found in EVERY nook and cranny of the room, and junk, I mean supplies, strewn from one end of our space to another...we are still finding rubber bands and string :)
Our classroom was filled with enthusiasm and excitement (and a whole lot of tape!) whenever they looked at the journey and realized it was science time! With our collaboration day with Michael Mohammad looming, we were cutting it close, but all of the groups stuck to the timeline and finished on time. The students of TEAM Togetherness were thrilled to share their instruments AND their finished videos with their high school mentors. It pays to have a real audience!
We are SO proud of these kids and are already knee deep in the planning of our next STEM project! Hopefully it won't take me so long to post :)
Welcome to our journey in T.E.A.M. Togetherness! We are team teachers in a personalized learning environment in the great state of Wisconsin. We (Angela Patterson & Kate Sommerville) teach all day together, and we share 50+ amazing 4th graders. We began our journey over the last two years with our kiddos in 4th grade, and loved them so much that we kept them for 5th grade. We are now starting over with a brand new group of learners! We believe in differentiation, choice, mistakes, second chances, collaboration, and community. Our environment is set up to support the many different learning styles and personalities that we are so fortunate to work with every day. We utilize one-to-one technology via Google Chromebooks and love learning from our students and peers. This blog is our way of sharing the amazing things we are doing, learning, and "failing forward" at! Thanks for visiting!
