Schoology Discussions in Science

My class has been using Schoology as our classroom Learning Management System all year.  It has so many great features that makes it easy to gather work, give quizzes, give students feedback and communicate with my students.  The feature that I have been exploring lately is the discussions.

Jennie Magiera shared her love for this feature with me a while ago, but using it with students has been really powerful.  Setting up the discussion is very easy, it is located in the Resource section, under Personal.  Simply select, name, and post to the course you want to have the discussion.

Students see the discussion as an upcoming event.  Once the students join the discussion they add comments by pressing the plus sign in the corner, or can add comments to other students' posts. The discussion formats to nest the comments under the original post that makes reading and seeing conversations within the discussion easy.

I use discussions for different purposes, but for science I have been using them as my opening KWL idea generator.  We started a Land and Water unit recently and my students brainstormed alone first then added ideas to the Schoology discussion.  They start "know" comments with K: and "want to know" or "wonder" with a W: so we can determine which category the comment belongs under for the conversation.

So far these features are similar to most other discussion tools you could use with students, but the best feature is the "filter by user" tab at the top of the discussion.  This tool allows the teacher to not only see the number of comments by user, but highlights the student's comments to quickly find and view student by student comments.  I used this tool to easily grade 30 students contribution to the KWL conversation and see the quality of contributions.  Some students only had three comments but all were high quality and shared content understanding, another student may have ten comments but are low quality, "I agree," or "I had the same question."  Not only does it make evaluating the discussion easy, it can be used as a coaching tool for students.  Students can learn to be a stronger contributor to a conversation by seeing a filtered view of the bigger discussion.

Unlike other discussion tools, Schoology archives the discussions and they remain available and organized in the Resource section.  These could be used as a portfolio type of item to show a student's growth in discussions over time.   They could also be shared with students who may be absent on the actual day of discussion to review and add ideas after the initial discussion.  I will share the original KWL discussion with students after the unit of study to compare the new concepts and learning.  I want students to be able to see the growth in their understanding from experiences in the Land and Water unit.

#PLAYDATE14 Learning

I was so thrilled to have three solid hours this weekend to "play" with some tools that I was familiar with but had not had the chance to dig in and explore.  I am so grateful for my fabulous team of PLAYDATE organizers for putting on an event that allows educators to geek out, hang out and learn together.

Google Scripts
I was able to spend some time exploring more with Google scripts during my first session.  Although the scripts are complicated it is a great way to share Google documents with students or groups of students and also stay organized in a paperless classroom.  Andrew Stillman has created a wonderful site to learn about scripts at New Visions CloudLab.  I plan to use Doctopus to share documents for my research groups in the next few weeks.  Not only was I able to play with scripts more, people shared amazing uses of scripts during the playoff.  My favorite was a teacher using mood check ins with students and then create a FormMule to email her a reminder to discuss any issues with students who indicated a problem.  Easy to track, easy to remember and simple once installed.  Jennie Magiera shared some new and exciting features are coming from the genius team of script writers in the next few weeks!

MaKey Makey
I have been wanting to explore some of the hot "makers" items out there, but did not have access or the resources until PLAYDATE.  Bill Steinbach was extremely generous and brought a trove of makers materials from his own classroom and let teachers explore and play.  He truly made the session a makers space.  I was able to explore the Makey Makey tools with other educators and I am so excited to get them for my students.  The basics of a circuit, conductors, and electronics are all at work with these fun tools.  The front and back of the Makey Makey let students see a simplified version of the task and the "behind the scenes" version of it for more advanced understanding.

Educators
Beyond any tools or session was the learning that happened by working with others.  I was able to talk to educators in every session and share ideas, hear new ideas, learn, brainstorm, problem solve and laugh in every case.  We were able to celebrate our discoveries together and learn even more from those who shared on twitter and at the playoff. Just as that was one of the best parts of my day, I want to remember to give that gift to my students when they learn and explore.  Learning is playful, exciting, joyful, social and fun.

Twitter Tuesday Inspires an Act of Kindness

My students participate each week in a school chat that we call Twitter Tuesday.  We tweet with a few other classrooms about a topic and share the hashtag #ntalearns.  We have done chats since the beginning of the year, but we were inspired by the prompt a few weeks ago from Wonderopolis, "how can you pay it forward?"

We started by watching the video from the Wonderopolis site, but then our conversation turned to how we could do something in our own community, and pay something forward in our world.  They always participate in a Today's Meet to discuss the topic of Twitter Tuesday (see below). My students wanted first to donate money, but I also work in a place that money can often be hard to come by, but we wanted to support something local.  We came to a vote and decide to support The Greater Chicago Food Depository with a food drive and also host a movie night one evening at school to collect monetary donations.  My students researched the charity, found out statistics about food insecurity in Chicago, and how donated food was distributed within our community.

They were able to create a flier for the food drive and the movie night and set a goal to donate 400 cans which is about one per student in our building.  They have been working hard over the last week to donate themselves, spread the word, set up and host a movie night, and count and collect the food donations.


Through this small work of having a conversation online with fellow school mates, my students were empowered to act, and act in a way that benefited others.  They did the work of researching the charity, the problem, and then created a ways to support the organization within their school community.   This work falls outside of my curriculum map, but it is driven by students and students' passion to impact their community.

In the end, they raised over $45 from their movie night and beat the goal of 400 cans by collecting 611.  I am so proud of the actions they took and the hard work it took to organize and implement a school wide food drive and fundraiser!

Elementary Kids Code

Last week was Computer Science week and The Hour of Code was a promoted event to raise awareness about computer science and coding.  I am not a coder, nor do I have any experience with code, but the website from Computer Science Week was filled with tutorials for all ages and devices.  I tried one myself before introducing it to students and I was excited to have them code in class.

The students had such a good time coding.  They were also practicing problem solving, thinking sequentially and collaboration.  They had two coding mentors join us virtually, Alex Soble and John Contreras, and were able to ask questions to a person who codes as part of their profession.  They found out about different languages, how coding is used to make apps for devices, but the most exciting answer was coding allows creativity, when you code you have the power to create anything you have imaged.  It was inspiring! They also worked with first graders to teach a younger student how to code on the same program they just completed.

Many wanted more time, want to continue to code and are interested in knowing more.  The website above is becoming more robust and I am hoping to find local resources to support computer science. Ira Socol, shared the CoderDojo movement to create coding communities to teach children about the science of computer coding, we are lucky enough to have local chapter in Chicago.

If you were interested in computer science week I recommend spending time learning and allow students to explore coding!  See the excitement in the videos below.

Learning in an Agile Learning Space

My students have the privilege of having an agile learning space with Bretford furniture. The furniture is mobile, tables and chairs with wheels, that can be arranged in different ways depending on the needs of the learners. In my classroom my students are the drivers of the setup and design, they discuss their ideas for the design together, they arrange the furniture and then reflect on how the design worked for the task and purpose. As we learn about how learning space impacts our classroom, I wanted to share some ideas.

I looked up the definition of mindfulness to share with students.  The definition reads, "the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something."  I wanted to hear from them what they think they have become more mindful of as this year has progressed.  The furniture has given each of us a way to be aware of how our classroom feels, and how learning happens in the space.  I think I can speak for myself and my students to say that the experience has lead to an awareness that it can be flexible and ever changing, but also that it is important to what and how we learn.

If I asked my students before this project started the purpose of desks, chairs, space and a classroom I imagine they would say something similar to my own idea: places to write, sit, and learn.  I have found that in experiencing and exploration of how space can change has caused me to view the entire learning space as something different.  It is about finding a space that is quiet, or spacious, or close and collaborative, or zoned for different types of experiences.

The most interesting thing I have seen my students do in the learning space in the last week is using the space that is not occupied by furniture.  The design we have been working with for a few days leaves a large portion of open floor space next to a work center in math that students can choose to be independent or collaborative in.  There have been groups of students who have created a collaborative work space on the floor to be able to literally “put their heads together” and work.   I have also seen student who find other surfaces to be the “desk” or workspace,  students who are standing more, students who are using more of the classroom as space to learn, not just the desk and chairs. (See the first clip in the video below for a visual example.)

Having students become aware of the possibilities of the furniture is excellent, but having students use other spaces and choose how they want to learn, and for my kids specifically knowing they DON’T have to ask, is really monumental for me and for them.  They are getting to know themselves as learners and making decisions about how they work best in our space. They are now aware that our classroom is more than desk configurations, its about how we can use any space to be comfortable and have our needs met as learners.  

Asking students to reflect is a task many teachers do, but to ask them to reflect on learning space is something new for me, and it's empowering for students. In their reflections, I have found they are actually thinking deeply about the learning experience. How furniture and setup impact sharing ideas, collaborating, having access to materials and environment that is conducive to thinking. When we let students reflect critically about space, learning and preferences we are empowering them to advocate for what they need, give them voice to set up a space that will work for others too, and become the driving force in the classroom.

I recently discussed the impact of agile learning spaces with Don Orth on the Mobile Reach podcast with Jennie Magiera and Sue Gorman, if you still want more information about the impact of learning spaces.

Examples of students learning in the spaces created by students.

Student reflection of how space impacts learning.

Writing a Student Multimedia Science Book

My students have been using multimedia science journals for the last year and I wanted to push the work into a student written book about a science topic.  I have created iBooks in the past, but I wanted students to create a multimedia book with text, pictures, and video.  We started building the book over the last few days using Google Docs to start writing the text.

We started by discussing the features of a nonfiction book and then highlighting the content we learned over the last few science labs about magnets.  Students then accessed Google Docs for the first time with their group of five.  There were some successes and challenges with students sharing a document and composing.  Here is what we learned:

• Writing is produced faster because each student can see the writing and add to it easily.
• Everyone can see the ideas and add on or make changes. 
• Students can work on different "parts" of the writing at the same time and move and combine in the same document.
• It's confusing when everyone is trying writing at the same time, at first, taking turns is important so everyone can see what is being composed.
• When you edit others work its important to ask first.

My students were able to make it work, but the ideas they shared after about the successes and challenges are important to remember when asking kids to work in collaborative documents.  Our biggest take away around the challenges is that communication and common courtesy go along way when working together whether in a document, on a project or just in life.  We need to remember when we ask kids to collaborate with technology we are still asking them to work together and that requires a lot of teamwork, compromise and patience. Here are some of the ideas they presented to make collaborative writing easier:

• When you want to change or add on to someone else's writing ask, "Are you finished, I had an idea to add on." or, "I wanted to change your idea to say this, do you agree?" 
• If you want to move an idea from one spot to another ask the group if they agree with your revision.
• If you want to delete an idea explain to your group what you want to delete and why.   

As adults, these ideas may seem obvious, but to nine year olds they need discussion and stating.  In those ideas above about working together it comes back to the key principles of respecting others ideas and work and using communication of ideas to make the group's work stronger.  That can only happen when ideas and work are respected.  

I am writing about this, because we often look at the technology tool because of the ease it brings, or the ability to allow kids to collaborate easier, or it allows our students the ability to do work that was not possible before, but we often leave out the culture that is needed in our space to allow those tools to be used effectively.  Students want to have their ideas shared, valued and respected.  Our classrooms have to provide the culture for collaboration before we provide our students the tools. 

Here is a sample of some of my students' writing.  These were composed in a group and revised and edited with me and the rest of the class.  

Capturing Field Trip Learning with Mobile Devices

Mobile devices have changed the way education is happening in my classroom and my school. But,  there has always been a step back when we take students out of the classroom to do learning on a field trip.  We don't have the same tools, the same space or the same learning experiences.  But this was the case even with early technology, teachers and students often didn't like taking pencils and notebooks either.  Taking the devices has been an area of concern on a few levels; losing devices, lack of internet connections in museums or outdoor spaces and how to connect students' learning on the field trip and stay within the device capabilities and the teacher's objectives.

A few years ago, Jennie Magiera and Anita Huffman created Keynote slide decks for students that were used as a template for students to filled in information.  Anita used these with science experiments and Jennie and I used them on a field trip.   I decided to create a mashup of the Museum of Science and Industry's m.stories  and Keynote features to create a slide deck for my students as they explored the museum last week.

I used slides with pictures and bullet points and used some sentence starters from the m.stories like, "This reminds me of..." or "I never knew that..." and placed those in the Keynote bullet points.  I titled the slide for the area I wanted the students to record the information and a space for a picture from that area as well as the prompt for the group's ideas and thinking.  Students had two exhibits I required, but then I created generic slides titled, "Museum Location" for them to change if they were exploring another areas.  I also included the prompts: connections, wonderings and interesting thoughts.

This Keynote creation was one they had to collaborate with the other members of their group, share ideas and thinking and capture learning through words and images.  Viewing the work allowed me to  experience what the students did in their group, even though I was only with 10 of the 60 students I teach for science and math.  They were able to view each others and make connections and have conversations after we returned because they were able to capture their learning using the devices.

The most improved part of the experience for me was the workflow.  I was able to create the Keynote template slides on my Mac and place them into my courses on Schoology.  My students were easily able to access the slides, open on their iPad Keynote and then submit the finished Keynote back as an assignment on Schoology.  (The students had to access and open in keynote and upload to Schoology AT school, the museum is still not wi-fi friendly.)  The final step is for me to share the files through Schoology as an course update with the file attached for students to view other group's work!

Here are some samples of the students' keynotes: