Take Coding Beyond the Hour

Great job participating in the worldwide movement of Hour of Code last week.  We had an amazing turnout.  Let's keep that momentum going!

I feel as educators, it is our job to open the world and prepare our students to succeed at the next level of school and in the real world.  Showing students coding is just opening another door to their future they may have not previously noticed.

Currently, Code.org has 18 different hour of code programs ranging from Star War to Minecraft to coding with Elsa and Anna. They also have programs that are for pre-readers, programs that align with algebra courses, and programs that take up to 20 hours.  There are many programs left for your students to explore.  As a teacher, I assigned my students the courses, gave them the logins, and let them learn coding when they had the availability.  It could be on the student's own time, at indoor recess, or after they finish work.  I found that the interested students would even code at home, after school, and on the weekends.  If they are interested, they will find a way!

I like how Code.org let's a teacher track the progress of each student in an interactive and visually pleasing table. See an example below:

Also, computer science is currently the number one paying job for graduates with bachelor degrees!

For more resources to inspire your students, click here!

 

Fake News

As teachers, we want our students to be safe and to also be lifelong learners who direct their own learning.  We give them many resources and tools to help them succeed and take that ownership.  Our goal has to be that they are able to learn creditably and safely at school and at home, especially when using online resources.  For my part, I want to make sure the knowledge gained is valid and the  information can be utilized to learn.  To do this, I am likely to not only give the students safe search engines but to also show them how convincing uncredited websites look.

The past week and a half, a few of my awesome 6th grade teachers and I have been introducing the research topic by having their students research The Dog Island website.  It is a very convincing website that talks all about how you can give your dog a place to live free range and with over 2,500 other dogs living on 3 different islands.  It gives visiting information, stats, and even weather and food details.  First, we have the student find and blog, using Classroom, about 3 facts based on what they read on www.thedogisland.com and then comment on facts other students found.  We then opened up the discussion whole class deciding and decided if we would send our dogs to Dog Island.  After the discussion, we introduce the safe search engines and remind students that facts and all credible information should be checked and repeated on multiple sites.  Students then use the safe search engines to search Dog Island.  They find a vacation rental sites for humans.  Sometimes, they find a website telling them that Dog Island is fake.  Overall, they find little information confirming any facts.  Many students then come to the realization that it is false information.  We then use that realization to spark a conversation on validating sources, and the best way to complete the task.  The students can be frustrated with this lesson, but they are learning not to trust content and you can see the light bulbs lighting up in the classroom!

Below are some safe search engines we recommend along with a few spoof websites you can use to help make your students aware of the false information on the Internet.

Student Friendly Search Engines

Kiddle.co

Fact Monster

Kids Click

Sweet Search

Don't forget Britannica which is found in Clever!

Fake Research Sites to Get Students Thinking

The Dog Island: http://www.thedogisland.com/
Octopus Tree: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
Spaghetti Tree Hoax: Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm 
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU

What do we do with the old Black Friday ads? Math in the real world.

As with many people this past Thursday/Friday/Saturday, I participated in the frenzy of Black Friday shopping.  After a wonderful dinner with all the trimmings including pumpkin and pecan pie, I fought the post-Thanksgiving-meal snooze, left my sugar-crazed children with my sister, and ventured to... yup you got it... Walmart to join the hordes of people looking for a great deal.  

Each year as I continue to join the after Thanksgiving shopping madness, I walk through the stores, looking at these "drastic" price cuts, wondering what the actual savings are on these products.  Luckily, I live in the age of digital everything!  I whip out my phone, look on Amazon and other sites and compare the in-store sales prices with the prices online.  I then figure out the percentage difference and monetary savings between the original and sales prices.  I ask myself: How good of a deal am I really getting?  How satisfying is the sales price?  Is it worth buying it now?  I then use that data to gauge what goes into my cart.  


Wait... I am using math in the real world!  Your students can too.  Students can use Black Friday (or any sales ads) to find the amount or percentage savings on their choice holiday gift. They can choose 5 items, research the non-sale price for each item, create a table showing both prices, the amount saved, and the percentage saved (if applicable) and then graph the differences.  See an example below:

If you would like to know more or need ads to utilize, please let me know!

Google AutoDraw

Google AutoDraw is a web-based drawing tool that will convert student drawings into awesome sharp clipart like images that students can download and use in projects.  It guesses what students are drawing in livetime to give students suggestions of cleaner images they can choose from for their drawing.  Students don't need to login and can share their image with you by a sharable link or even download the image and upload into Docs, Slides or Classroom as needed. 

I find AutoDraw extremely easy to utilize.  The "Did you mean" feature helps me turn my scribbles into art!  It actually knows what I was trying to draw!  As a struggling artist (struggling in the sense that I can't draw), I find AutoDraw allows me to actually create professional looking pictures that I can be proud to share and use in my work.  I am so proud, I am sharing an image of an AutoDraw I am in the middle of creating.  

*Note - I just drew my amazing image of a fish in orange.  On the toolbar above the drawing, AutoDraw is giving me suggestions I can then utilize instead.

If you would like to learn more about AutoDraw and ways to integrate it into your upcoming unit, please let me know!