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