Technology in Education: Notes from the Closet

For the past month my STEM partner Tom and I have been assigned to work in the "SWAS" room (a 'school within a school') with a group of 7th and 8th grade students.  For science we started with a unit on the human body, exploring the various body systems.  I found some fantastic content PowerPoints (with note templates) from another teacher's science blog.  Once again, I can't say enough about the power of a Personal Learning Network - this teacher made their materials available on the Internet for others to explore and they definitely helped us (see his blog here ). As a culminating activity we had the students trace themselves and work together to label a body system.  Groups were given websites that had facts about the human body.  They used these sites to develop QR code questions.  The final products were displayed in the SWAS classroom and on our STEM bulletin board in the main hall.  See the pictures below.       ...

Setting the Scene This year Leland became one of Chicago Public Schools' STEM schools.  The designation brought about additional support staff placed in the building to help build the capacity of the teachers and help move the STEM initiative forward.  Our school has a STEM Technology Specialist (me!) and a STEM Math and Science Specialist- my partner, Tom. It's great having a colleague to bounce ideas off of.  Since we are housed in the same "closet" we have a lot of time to communicate and talk about ways to grow the school and our faculty.  We are a great team and support each other's specialties. One day after the middle school science fair we talked about how our science boards had a long way to go.  Being a Welcoming School (merging 3 student bodies and different teachers from across the district along with a new administration) has had it's challenges.  The science fair was one of them.  We talked about the need to express to the teachers...

As Leland Elementary begins the new year it’s always a good idea to go back and revisit previously established goals.   One of our STEM Integration Plans for Year 1  involves project-based learning.   The goal from CPS states  “100% of students in all grades have been exposed to a project-based, real-world, hands-on approach to learning Science, Technology, Engineering [year 2], and Math lessons aligned to CCSS , NGSS , and NETS .” To that end, this post is meant to provide you with some background regarding project-based learning.   Future posts will provide examples of project-based learning activities that can be done with students, including using iPads. Project and Problem Based Learning In many instances these terms are used interchangeably.   While very similar they are in fact different.   Both instructional strategies rely on inquiry to solve real-world, authentic problems or questions.   These projects are usually open-ended ...

This week we will have our Open House event to invite our parents in to learn more about Leland Elementary.  Parents will have an opportunity to see their child's classroom and meet their teacher.  They'll see banners like the one above displayed when they enter the building designating us as a STEM school.  But what does that mean?  This post will explain a bit about STEM beyond the acronym of S cience- T echnology- E ngineering- M ath and how it will impact the students at Leland Elementary. In early September the CPS STEM Specialists came together to meet with Pati Sievert, the Director of STEM Outreach at Northern Illinois University. We began by brainstorming a list of what STEM is: Integrating real-world problem solving using technology Encouraging a love for learning about our natural and man-made environment Project based learning (better for early grades) Problem based learning (higher level thinking skills- problem and solution) Prepar...

http://goo.gl/qtM4EU Today I spent the day in a training session with a presenter from Discovery Education titled "Powering Up STEM".  The professional development would allow the technology and math & science specialists from the STEM schools to experience a lesson from a fourth grader's perspective.  This post will walk you through the lesson as well as provide some of my additional notes.  The lesson is centered around a fourth grade fractions unit. Photo Inquiry We began by collaborating in Google Docs.  This part of the activity needs to be set up by the teacher prior to introducing the lesson to students.  The presenter in our session used  http://linkyy.com to shorten the URL- Google Doc URLs are extremely long and are easy to type in wrong so they should always be shortened.  There are several services out there that do the same thing:  https://bitly.com ,  http://tinyurl.com  and  http://goo.gl are some alte...

An Interesting Summer My final post of the 2012-2013 school year focused on the closing of May Community Academy , my educational home for twenty years.  When I left the building I packed all of my belongings, not sure if I would see the inside of the building again. Looking for a job after so long in one institution was a strange experience.  While I received many inquiries my options were somewhat limited; I am four months away from becoming full vested in the Chicago Teacher Pension system and gaining access to my sick-days financially (in the Chicago Public School system you need to work for a minimum of twenty years in order to receive compensation for any benefit days not used).   I had some offers that were interesting but didn't work out to be what I thought.  I had other offers that weren't a good fit for my abilities at this time in my career. In July I learned I was assigned to Leland Elementary, the "Welcoming School" that inhabits May's buil...