SAMR -- integrating technology

Over the next few weeks, I'll be digging to find ways teachers are integrating technology into their classrooms. Specifically, I'm looking for activities and ideas teachers implement to move from "Subsituting" technology for paper to a "Re-definition" of their classroom. The SAMR model is a great way to see whether or not your activities or assignments either Substitute, Augment, Modify, or Re-Define the activity with the use of technology:

Image credit: Sylvia Duckworth, via @DavidGuerin

Alice  Keeler has some excellent ideas on how to re-define your classroom using technology. She suggests using a classroom website (I use http://stecktech.wikispaces.com/). According to Alice Keeler, this allows for:

• students who are absent to access the work
• differentiating directions and tasks
• making information accessible anytime anywhere
• helping parents to support their children in their learning
• collaborating with other teachers
• consistency between class sections
• the near elimination of downtime in class
• the teacher to work one on one with students or in small groups
• the teacher to provide more high-quality feedback

I'll be continuing to gather ideas for the next couple of weeks to see how others have integrated technology and re-defined their classrooms with it.

EdCamp Denver -- Session 3 -- Genius Hour

How do students have voice/choice in their learning? Have we set up time for students to choose what they learn?

Genius Hour: students have an hour each week to learn what they want to learn and present it in a way they choose.

How it's been implemented?
-"I Wonder" day: students create a higher level question, research it, share it at the end of class
-Bad Idea box -- share out all the bad ideas you can think of (gets students to be comfortable sharing their ideas
-Project Based Learning: create higher level questions to drive research, research their question, create a presentation to share through podcasts, videos, slide presentations, etc.

Bloxels: video game creation with an app
-build a map of the video game with actual blocks & take a picture of the blocks in the app
-set the rules of the game: how to jump, shoot, run, etc.
-similar to Minecraft
-students can create and share their game boards

Resources:
20 Times: http://www.20time.org/ 
Launch Book: http://thelaunchcycle.com/ 
Project ideas: http://www.20timeineducation.com/20-time-ideas
Google expeditions: https://www.google.com/edu/expeditions/#about 

EdCamp -- Session 2 -- Audience for Kids

I'm attending my 2nd session of the day at EdCamp Denver:

How do students share their ideas and reach an authentic audience?

Sharing platforms:
-Kid Blog
-Edublogs
-Seesaw -- this can be used as a digital portfolio as well

Ways students can use blogging:
-sharing essays beyond 4 walls (parents, community, etc)
-sharing their understanding of the daily goal and what they learned
-sharing resources they've discovered
-reflections
-answering prompts
-sharing anything they've created (podcasts, 

Importance of students reaching an authentic audience:
https://www.edutopia.org/article/value-of-authentic-audience-monica-burns

Teaching how to blog:
-Citizenship -- how to share and respond appropriately
    -practice on paper --> write a post on paper; gallery walk w/ sticky notes
    -provide exemplars for responses
-Peer review & feedback -- have students use a rubric to guide their responses
-Writing in short, concise paragraphs

EdCamp -- Session 1 -- Project Based Learning

For the first session this morning (Feb 3), I'm attending a Project Based Learning group.

My overarching question or goal for the session:

How can you implement project based learning across curriculum with technology?

PBL ideas for Literacy
-Asking higher level questions -- power in having students drive their own learning
-Evaluating sources
-Discovering resources
-Primary Sources
-Note-taking skills

Can we move beyond the 5 paragraph essay to present learning (not that writing isn't a critical skill)? How does technology change the project? SAMR model can assist with this.
-Presentation of learning -- podcasts, website creation, movie making, blogging 
-Research -- finding primary sources online (databases), interviewing primary sources (skype, google hangouts, social media)

Project Ideas:
1) Man left a treasure in Rocky Mtns & wrote a poem with hidden clues
    ->analyze the poems for clues
    ->Google Earth to use their clues
    ->Present their theory

2) Mysteries of the world (crop circles, Galapagos Islands, etc)
    ->research, read articles
    ->presenting their argument