QR Codes !!!!

When an opportunity arises JUMP IN!!!!

Imagine this...two students eating lunch, get talking about what they brought for lunch and how it was bought at the supermarket.

The teacher starts paying attention to the conversation. The next thing she knows one is saying:

"- so the woman  at the cashier passes the food on this rectangle that goes beep and this appears on the computer, like magic!"

AHA!!!!!

I jumped in immediately... and explained that she is passing the food over a scanner that translates the barcode on the food for the computer.

We looked for barcodes on their food, and then on their boxes of apple juice, and then we found them on books! Soon, all the children were looking for things with barcodes.

So, the next morning, there were 2-D barcodes (specifically, QR codes) posted at various places around the school. I had downloaded an app onto the class iPad, and the children were able to scan the codes to read them. Of course, I had printed the codes the previous evening, and they contained fun messages for the kids to read! (Yes - to read. Sneaky, isn't it?)

Next step: coded math puzzles!

You never know when the kids will get curious about something, but when they do, it can be amazing how much fun - and learning - you can get out of it!

iCity - STEAM

STEAM in the Classroom

Have you ever heard the word STEAM

Science/ Technology/ Engineering/ Arts and Math

Plus Design Thinking. (see previous post)

The activity combines learning about the world, nature & weather (science); designing and building something (technology and engineering); crafts (arts); and an understanding of spatial relationships, and of shapes (math). The activity is STEAM – all in one!

iCity

Now for something completely different!

Yes, it has been quite a while. I have been reading a lot and inventing a lot.

My latest idea is not an old one or one that other teachers haven't done yet, I also have done models before, but I have never done one with Design Thinking in mind.

A while ago I wrote about iTravel and we end iTravel activities by "returning" to New York. 

and when returning to New York (this year) we will build STEP BY STEP a model (last year we had a cooking show for this Unit)

So, we will move from a global view to a local one.

In Model City, the children discuss the elements of a city (roads, buildings of various types, etc.). They each choose an element that they will make (a crafts activity), and then we build a model city. In building the model city we discuss whether the relationship between the various elements makes sense, and the children can move the elements around until they arrive at a configuration that works. While doing this, we discuss the notion of process (Step by Step is one of our Interdisciplinary units). More broadly, this activity also helps us to practice "design thinking", where we use what we know about the world to come up with solutions, and in the process we identify things we don't know yet (and need to learn about!)

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As I read about Design Thinking, I realize that the process of coming up with this activity did follow the Design Thinking process:
- Discovery: I have a challenge
- Interpretation: What does this challenge tell me?
- Ideation: What can I create that might address this challenge?
- Experimentation: Try it and see!
- Evolution: It doesn't always work perfectly right away - iterate and improve, based on feedback from the children and parents, and our own observations.

The first thing we did last week was to decide where the streets would go, and how big the Model City blocks would be, then each child chose a "building". Once they had their buildings, each child traced its base on their own Styrofoam block, and thought about what they would put on the surrounding part of the block (grass, gravel, etc.). Then we glued our buildings in their designated spaces and painted them white. Next, we started a discussion on what our buildings were going to be - shops, apartments, offices, hotels, hospitals, etc., and why, and what kind of things each of these buildings would have and need, e.g., parking. (We will relate this to the neighborhood walk and eventually connect it to our last Interdisciplinary unit: Where Are We.) 

Each child has its own styrofoam block (18 in total), they are all numbered because they must be put together in a certain way. Every class starts with a discussion, with the challenge, we brainstorm, then the child works on their block alone as they are doing the basics. later they need to work with the friend that has a block next to theirs and sort out their common spaces. This model making is about collaboration, brainstorming, overcoming challenges and finding solutions and above all observing the world around us. one of the pre assignments I gave the students was to do a neighborhood walk so when they start looking at the details they can look at the pictures they took and see if their city has what needs.

And yes, we have a long way to go and the discussions are fantastic!

Because in this process the important part (as in most) is the journey not the arrival.

Communication - more on the newsletter

I guess people really do read these posts - I got a lot of complaints from people who don't want to wait to hear more about the newsletter!  :-)

Actually, I will say I was fairly excited myself, when I thought of it. I woke up early on Sunday morning with the thought in my head, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I held out until, oh, at least 9am before waking up my boyfriend to tell him all about it!

As I see it, there are three things to think about: What do you want the children to get out of it? What process will do that for the children and also deliver a finished newsletter? And, what do you need from the school to make it all work?

From the children's point of view, I want them to have a fun experience doing something "cool," partly on their own and partly as part of a team. Educationally, I want them to use the skills they have learned in school (reading, writing, researching, planning) while their focus is on something else, because this is how learned skills become automatic skills. They may even learn some new skills, like how to structure an interview and organize a project. I also want them to develop greater autonomy through working on their own, improve their team skills through working together, and to develop the skill of switching between solo and team work as well!

How will it work? Well, you have to understand that I haven't done this with children this age before, so the answer is, partly, "I guess I'll find out!" :-)   But, I do have a plan.

I am thinking of recruiting 15 students in total, 10 from J4 (age 10) and 5 from J3 (age 9). I plan to minimize the burden on their teachers, but I will need them to help identify the children who will participate. In our school we have an existing process for things not unlike this (for example, there is a Junior Student Council that involves the junior school in events such as Food Harvest), so I will use that process. First, I will ask the teachers to let me come in and describe the newsletter to the class. Then, the teachers will see if anyone is interested. I can take up to 2 per classroom in J4, and 1 per classroom in J3. If we have more applicants than that, the teachers will hold a class vote for who will join us, and we will keep the others' names in case anyone drops out.

I will ask the older (J4) children to act as the team reporters, with each having a "column" to write (actually more like several paragraphs) and the younger (J3) children to act as the photographers for the stories. We will meet for half an hour, one morning a week, before school, in my classroom to discuss our projects and progress, and next steps. Then, one afternoon a month we will meet for an hour so the children can type up their columns on school computers. At first, I will do the editing and formatting, but I hope that by later rounds I may be able to involve the children in that. My goal is to produce one newsletter every 2 months.

So, what will the columns be about? I expect that we will have one on what's happening in each grade (e.g., a field trip) from the children's point of view; a language column (e.g., an overview of the Oxford Reading Tree reading system, by the children); math (e.g., what they think of the Investigations); humanities (e.g., UN Day); two profiles of members of the staff/administration; and 2 guest book reviews by non-regular contributors (could be from younger children, too).

I realize that the up-to-date thing to do would be a blog (like this!) but I'm going to try it as a physical newsletter first. I think that it would be nice for the children to have their work distributed around the Junior School in physical form, so they can see it and see others reading it. I hope that will be a big part of the fun; but if blogging seems to connect better for them, we can do that! The physical newsletter would have 4 pages, printed double-sided on 2 sheets of paper. With 10 columns, plus 2 book reviews, we have 12 columns total, or 3 columns per page on average.

Oh - a very important factor in getting buy-in to this: I will be volunteering my own time! Why? Because I think it will be cool for the kids, and I think it will be a lot of fun for me!

For now I plan to start next term!

Communication

Most schools are very active communicators. They send regular communication out to the parents, letting them know what's going on in the school through newsletters, classroom blogs and emails. Of course, they also communicate regularly with the teachers and staff - and that's still adult-to-adult communications. In addition, the older grades have newspapers and blogs done by the students.

It's much less common, though, for the students in the Junior Schools to produce newsletters or blogs. On the other hand, producing a newsletter would be a fun way for the Junior School students to practice the skills they are learning, outside the classroom environment, without worrying about whether it will be graded. That got me thinking: what would it take to enable the elementary school children to do their own newsletter? After all, we were able to do a book club for six-year-olds, and that worked very well - it's not just for adults!

So, I am working to design a program for a newsletter prepared by 9-and-10-year-olds.

If it is a success I will let you know how it works. If it is not, we need not speak of it again :-).

It is not about doing what you love the most; it is about loving what you do!

The late Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford has been in the news lately. It's a wonderful speech; go and read it now, if you like - I'll wait.

One of the parts of the speech that has been celebrated is this:


"I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

The thing is, that's a lovely idea, but it gets read as meaning something like "do what you love, and the money will follow." That's not what he said, though. Steve Jobs became fabulously wealthy doing what he loved, but Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs: he was one person out of several billion on the planet. His experience was unique. To put it simply, "You are not Steve Jobs".

I wish he had said something in the lines of:

"You might not be as lucky as I was, to be able to do what you love straight away and be successful at it. You may have to choose between things you already love, and things you could come to love, and things you know you will never love. Whatever you choose to do, try to love it because you might spend the next 40 or 50 years of your life at it. It probably won't make you rich, although it might, but you will have spent much of your life in a project you love. There's a lot of reward in that."

Mick Jagger was asked in an interview if he thought that electronic music downloads would destroy the music industry, and make it impossible for musicians to get rich as he did. Jagger said that electronic downloads were making it possible for many, many musicians to get their music out there without needing big record labels. Sure, he said, it probably would be much harder to get rich - but through history there have been very few musicians who got rich. Jagger reflected that he had been lucky to come at a special time, when a lucky few - like himself - got fabulously rich from music. Such a thing had never really been possible for musicians before and maybe, he thought, it would never happen again.

Many people love making music. Few will get rich from it. Many people love making new gadgets, but few will get rich from it. Few people naturally love dentistry, but it may be a better career choice, for some people, than making music. As you decide what to do in your life, you may have to, so to speak, learn to love dentistry. But, in our world, you don't have to - and should not think you have to - do something you could never love. So don't.

Gifted - Interested

I was out for lunch with Finbar this weekend. We went to one of our favourites restaurants in NYC, "Osteria Morini" (if you live here or are in town you should try it out). We were talking about food and I was telling him that it amazes me how much I like cooking. When I lived in London I had learnt to cook, and I liked it, but I was never all that ambitious at the time. I thought that cooking was magic, something only the gifted could do. But now, I have started cooking more ambitious dishes, and I'm having a great time.

He asked, what is different now? I said that now I cook because I am interested in cooking, and not because I need to eat. Because I am interested, I have started to try new things. And, I have learned that it's not magic, it's not limited to people with special gifts. With practice, I can cook too!

Sometimes people are gifted in an area, and it comes naturally to them. It's easy to think they're the only people who can be good at what they do. But it's not true! Someone who is interested in something can practice, and become good at it or even master it. There is research that shows that expertise in a skill depends mostly on practice. Talent helps, but practice is far more important. People with talents tend to practice because it's fun to be good at something. But, people who are interested can practice something because it's fun - and that way they become good at it! The key in education is to try to tap into that effect, to help the children discover new interests wherever possible. Wherever we can find the fun, we can practice without it being work. Of course, for each child there may be things that aren't fun; but what a gift  it is when we find new things that are!