First Week Struggles
I have decided to use this Blog as a record of our first big stab at getting Blended Learning up and running at our school. A little background on the purpose of this blog. In May we were officially chosen to be a Blended Learning School through a very generous grant from the Janus foundation. Most of the schools chosen only picked specific grades and classes to move forward with the project but we decided that if we were going to do this, we were really going to jump in and do it school wide. This offers us a unique opportunity to be a IB school and a Blended Learning School all while implementing CCSS. We have enough pedagogy to kill a small animal. Nonetheless, onward and upward we go.
I have spent all summer trying to think about hat this is going to mean for my students and my practice. I almost feel like I am a first year teacher again. What structures will the kids need? Where to even begin? When in the heck is our technology going to arrive? What LMS do we want to use? How do the computers offer new opportunities for inquiry and engagement in the world? How in the world do we get the parents on board? Zoiks!
Like I said, I am trying really hard to use this Blog to record our struggles and victories and to act as a record for next year when we want to try and add onto the work we have already begun. I want to use this as a professional reflection page for myself in the distant hope that it might help others struggling with how to get this amazing beast off the ground in their own school.
So far, we have gotten the kids on-line and established their Google Accounts. I have 23 very excited emails in my inbox of kids who have never sent a email in their lives! We also discussed the Essential Agreements around emails and the need to understand the severity of what will happen if they would choose to cyber bully someone via the emails. We have also established a wiki space with our partner school in Malmo, Sweden. We hope to get the kids first international project online next week.
The kids will use some Guiding Questions to research the name of their partner student in Sweden. They will turn this project into a short Animoto movie to introduce their buddy to the class. Once the Wiki is live and all of the kids are logged in I would be happy to share it with anyone in education who happen to stumble on my blog. I will also embed our essential questions here for anyone trying to start a Blended Learning opportunity with a partner school in other countries. We are also going to set up folders in Drive for every Unit of Inquiry that will operate as digital portfolios. We are also creating some Blended Learning Playlists in Math that I will also post for reflection and maybe (fingers crossed) some insight.
Our first unit of inquiry is on Civics. We have been having the kids examine Maslow's hierarchy to discuss WHY the rules in our classroom have to be in place to ensure safety and security. This will allow us to get to all those yummy higher level things like Creativity and Critical Thinking. We have been apply this thinking to technology and how we should respect and treat people in a digital classroom. We have also watched some great TEDed videos and lessons on equality and a great high level video entitled Who Invented Writing? I am hoping that these discussions will be base builders for Socratic Seminar. Also on deck this week is showing the kids how to use a Goggle Word Doc to record their reading everyday to help with their AR testing. Not bad for a first week and that is without the technology getting here on time. Just wait till we get those Chromebooks in the class. Please feel free to pass on any ideas or questions you might have if you have accidentally ended up here. More to come soon.
Keep mixing it up,
Janine
So far, we have gotten the kids on-line and established their Google Accounts. I have 23 very excited emails in my inbox of kids who have never sent a email in their lives! We also discussed the Essential Agreements around emails and the need to understand the severity of what will happen if they would choose to cyber bully someone via the emails. We have also established a wiki space with our partner school in Malmo, Sweden. We hope to get the kids first international project online next week.
The kids will use some Guiding Questions to research the name of their partner student in Sweden. They will turn this project into a short Animoto movie to introduce their buddy to the class. Once the Wiki is live and all of the kids are logged in I would be happy to share it with anyone in education who happen to stumble on my blog. I will also embed our essential questions here for anyone trying to start a Blended Learning opportunity with a partner school in other countries. We are also going to set up folders in Drive for every Unit of Inquiry that will operate as digital portfolios. We are also creating some Blended Learning Playlists in Math that I will also post for reflection and maybe (fingers crossed) some insight.
Our first unit of inquiry is on Civics. We have been having the kids examine Maslow's hierarchy to discuss WHY the rules in our classroom have to be in place to ensure safety and security. This will allow us to get to all those yummy higher level things like Creativity and Critical Thinking. We have been apply this thinking to technology and how we should respect and treat people in a digital classroom. We have also watched some great TEDed videos and lessons on equality and a great high level video entitled Who Invented Writing? I am hoping that these discussions will be base builders for Socratic Seminar. Also on deck this week is showing the kids how to use a Goggle Word Doc to record their reading everyday to help with their AR testing. Not bad for a first week and that is without the technology getting here on time. Just wait till we get those Chromebooks in the class. Please feel free to pass on any ideas or questions you might have if you have accidentally ended up here. More to come soon.
Keep mixing it up,
Janine
