6A Best Practices--Using Technology in Math

3 h)  Teachers apply a variety of technologies to meet students' learning needs.

This year 6A has been exploring a variety of technologies, including the use of Ozobots.  Ozobots are mini robots that are coded using colour combinations.  These codes can be done using markers or using and iPad app.  Students are quite fascinated with them because they are able to follow the tracks they make using markers.  Even more exciting, the Ozobot can be coded to perform different actions like spinning and going backwards.

We use centers in 6A as a means of spiraling the curriculum.  Ozobots are a great way to explore angles in the math curriculum.  This past week, students were challenged to create a race track that had different requirements, among them the use of different types of angles.  At the end of the math block, the students would line up their tracks and race their Ozobots.

This task had a variety of purposes--

• to review types of angles
• to code using colour blocks with the Ozobot
• to work together as a groups to plan and execute the drawing of a race track that meets the criteria within the designated time limit
• to problem solve (inevitably the students will have to work out something...tech never goes according to plan)!

The students were actively engaged and when circulating it was great to hear the use of math vocabulary throughout the room.  Most groups worked well together, but one group struggled to communicate and discovered that as a result, their track and codes were not as effective as the other groups.  Also, in having a debrief after, we talked about how we could modify the assignment and what changes they would make.  For example, one group had not fulfilled all the requirements and they might get a time penalty or delayed start if that happened again.  In a couple weeks this challenge will resurface in center time
and we will implement the suggestions of the students.

Keeping up with Tech

One thing is for sure- technology is always changing! I find that using social media is a fantastic way to find out about new tech tools, and learn about updates to old favourites. 

Over the summer there were lots of updates to Google Classroom and Drive. If you want to check them out, here is a great article that summarizes all the new features: Google Updates You Might Have Missed

Here are a few different people you can follow and places you can follow to help you keep your technology game up-to-date!

•  Follow "Free Tech for Teachers" on Facebook. The author is always in the know about new updates and cool tech tools
• Hop on Twitter and give follow these awesome tech people:
• @edutopia
• @ditchthattextbook 
• @ShakeUpLearning 
• @Alice Keeler 
• @rmbyrne
• There are SO many other great people to follow, you just have to explore a bit!
• Search the following hashtags on twitter
• #edtech
• #googleEdu
• #ipaded
• Check out the blog- If you scroll back through old posts, you will find lots of different tech ideas. Also, the more we share and post, the richer the resources we have access to on here! 
• Collaborate/chat with coworkers. Even in different division, our teachers are doing amazing things with different tech tools that have the potential to be used throughout the school. 
• And you can always bug me! 

Its important to remember that while technology is awesome, it needs to be meaningful as well. The goal of technology in the classroom should be to improve student learning, and so as teachers we need to look at how we are using the technology to do that. Sometimes we might need to use a different tech tool, or find a more traditional approach in order to ensure students are receiving meaningful learning opportunities. 

Get Epic!

Hey everyone! Below is the link for that Get Epic! website I emailed you all about a couple weeks ago. If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, the website is filled with e-books. They have so many different categories and genres, and many of the books have the option to be read aloud. Some of the books even list the A.R level! The website is absolutely free for educators, which is pretty great. I myself, have been using it a tonne since I discovered it. I often will play one of the read aloud stories to them during snack time. My kids look forward to this everyday. I encourage you all to check out the app as well. Both the website and the app are really quite easy to use. There is even an educator's dashboard where you can add and manage student profiles and view their reading progress. Oh! And there's also teacher resources available as well. Take a look at it - hopefully you and your students will enjoy it as much as me and my students do.

https://www.getepic.com

Technology and Literacy

These are some of the great resource ideas that were pooled together and talked about
during our Friday PD session!
Check out the links below

1) Scholastic Story Generator  - A generator that comes up with a prompt for some creative story writing. Teachers have the option of letting students type out a story in the program and also drawing a picture to go with it.

2) Trueflix - A site that lists categories in Science and Social studies each having many books per category. The books open up for fullscreen reading and the book can be read aloud to the students depending on whether they tag "Read on" or "off". 

3) Bookflix - Our third scholastic site that also has tons of books for students to read. Each book on the site can either be watched as a video, read aloud to them by a narrator, or simply read as is.
There are also resources listed at the top right of each book that include lesson plans and key words for ESL/ESD learners.

4) Black and Gold Div II - Math, LA, FLA, Science and Social studies from 4-6 are listed here, with a ton of resources to take from specific to Alberta Curriculum. It has tons of good projects and activities for the classroom as well as achievement indicators for each.

5) Readings A-Z - A website with another ton of books categories in 30 levels from aa to Z2. Each book is printable and project able. They also come with lessons with extensions for comprehension, phonemes, grammar and classroom discussion ideas.

6) Voice Note II - Available in the Chrome store free, this app allows students to record Speech to Text in a separate window.

7) Speakit - Another app but this one is the reverse, Text to Speech for those students that struggle to read independently or who may want to select a given word that he/she cannot pronounce. Once installed through your students google account, a small speaker will appear on the right side of the URL bar. They may select text and press the speaker button to have it read to them.

Thank you Tech group!

Taking Google Drive to the next level

Meaningful Technology Use

Similar to last year, the Google Summit has been overloading my brain with awesome resources, tools, and ideas that I can take back and use in my classroom right away! One thing that I thought I would share are the following two images. While they aren't new and hopefully everyone has seen them before,I thought I would share them because they are a good reminder about how we should be meaningfully using technology. 

The first is called the TPAK model. It emphasizes the importance of balancing content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and technological knowledge in order to create the most meaningful learning opportunities for students in our classroom. All three need to work in collaboration in the classroom. The second image is called the SAMR model. It highlights the progression of technology use, and how it should ideally be used so students can redefine their knowledge. When we are using technology in our classrooms, we need to reflect on the purpose for using it, and ensuring that it is leading to meaningful learning. 

TPAK Model

SAMR Model

Prodigy Math Game

If you are looking for a fun math game to use with your students that is engaging, but actually requires them to solve math problems, look no further than prodigygame.com

This awesome online platform aligns with the ideas of game based learning. You create a class, and then students create a wizard avatar. Through solving math problems, they build up their avatar's skills and talents as they play the game. 

Cool features of this site include:

• You choose the grade level of your class
• The problems require students to use mental math and problem solving skills
• You can create assignments that line up with certain topics and you can differentiate the level by individual student. When you create an assignment, it pauses the natural flow of the game and gets the students to do those questions
• It collects assessment data on how the students do on the assignment questions 

I would say that the game could be played for sure down to grade three, but possibly even at the grade 2 level. Check it out! My students LOVED it!!

Plickers

This week I came across a really awesome formative assessment tool I thought I would share. It is called Plickers. I had attempted to type out an explanation, but then I found the youtube video above that explained it way better than I could have! Essentially, you need to go to plickers.com and create an account. You also need to download the app on your phone. Each student is linked to a card number, which is shown below. You take a photo of them holding up the cards in the app in response to a question and it gives you a graph of responses. 

 

If you try it out and have questions feel free to come see me. We used it for science today and the kids thought it was really fun! 

#HourOfCode

I decided that I would introduce my class to the hour of code. Basically, as the video above mentions, the idea is to introduce as many students as possible to Coding during this week.  After reading a lot about it on Twitter, I realized that even though it doesn't specifically align with our outcomes, it does teach students a whole bunch of essential skills that they need to learn, such as problem solving, communicating, patterning, enhancing their understanding of technology and engaging them at a difficult time of year. Below are the sites that we used for our hour of code:

www.madewithcode.com/projects
www.crunchzilla.com/code-monster
scratch.mit.edu
studio.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1
codecombat.com

You know that it is a worthwhile activity when students say things like "This is a dream come true" when you tell them what you are doing an hour of coding.