"Kids Can Do Amazing Things!"

by Colleen Worrell, Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator

 

Chris Lehmann, the Principal of Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a magnet school in Philadelphia), was an inspiring keynote speaker at this year's MassCUE. He talked about SLA, where students learn in a project-based environment and the core values of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection inform every course. Yet for me and many of the other attendees, it was his thoughts on why we need to help students become "Thoughtful, wise, passionate, and kind" that stood out. He encouraged us to remember that kids are capable of doing amazing things and to consider ways we can best support and encourage them to discover and develop their passions. This, he argued, is the only way to truly develop life-long learners who can and will help to make the world a better place.

 

MassCUE's annual conference brings together educators from across the state to share ideas and best practices. It also give technology staff direct access to vendors and other specialists, allowing them the time and opportunity to explore tech tools and services that might benefit their district. 

 

This year had a great showing for Hopkinton, with teachers and administrators attending and facilitating sessions. HHS teachers Fred Haas and Sterling Worrell led a session entitled "Building a Student Journalism Program: Empowering Project-Based Learning & Digital Literacies." HPS Tech Director Ashoke Ghosh shared tips on launching a 1:1 program. Elmwood School's Lauren Mack presented on "flipping" the elementary classroom and Hopkins School's Nili Bartley led a session on "going digital" with Animoto. Finally, I led two think tank sessions (one on 1:1 laptop programs and another on blended learning).  A number of other teachers including Devon Grilly (Science) and Shari Meyer (English) from the HS, Linda Colby (Tech Integration Coordinator) from the MS, Christine Gniadek and Stephanie Doty (Elementary Tech Integration Coordinators), and David Bernstein (4th Grade) from Hopkins were in attendance and brought back great ideas to try out in the classroom and share with colleagues.

Great job everyone!

 

“George, it’s Over”: Breaking Up in US History Class

by Colleen Worrell, Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator 

It’s mid-October, not April 1st. However, that didn’t stop Ms. Williams and Ms. Potito from hatching a plan to fool their students today -- all in the name of learning. Their 10th grade US History students are studying the American Revolution and the teachers used a fake break up note to set the stage for an activity designed to help their students reconsider the significance of the Declaration of Independence.  

“Hey. I’m not sure how to start this letter…" 

Class began with a break up note that each teacher allegedly “found” and read aloud to the class. (Full Disclosure: they later told their students that they would never share anything personal about a student, especially out loud in class!) The letter had “AC” breaking up with “GB” for a variety of reasons, including being taken “for GRANTED” and wanting to “see what it’s like on my own.” Students tried to guess at the initials (“must be two Freshman!”) before each teacher shifted the discussion back to the topic at hand by playing a humorous music video, “Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration.” The video caught students’ attention by remixing Timbala’s popular song “Too Late to Apologize” in order to playfully comment on the historical moment surrounding the Declaration. Only after they watched the video and responded to hints from their teachers (“hmmm, the video reminds me of that break up letter I found…”) did students realize that the note was a hoax. They laughed as they figured out that they had been played. Many students commented on the fact that they should have known; after all, “No one breaks up in a letter anymore.”

Students enjoyed bouncing thoughts about the video and its images off of the fake break up letter their teachers used to set up the activity. The discussion helped to set the tone for the in-class writing assignment:

To show you understand why the colonists wanted to “break up” with King George III, you will create a break-up letter yourself, but with a twist. Because no one really writes letters anymore, you will write a series of text messages between you and the King to explain WHY you want to break up using all the nitty-gritty details that we’ve studied in class so far.

Crafting their text messages with break up songs like Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Ever Ever Getting Back Together” and Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River” playing in the background, students drew on their understanding of the events leading to the Declaration of Independence, as well as their own creativity and sense of humor, to construct their digital break up scenarios. The two classes merged to create a sort of narrative role-play, with one student taking on the voice of the King and the other the Colonists.  Using a shared Google Doc, each student pair simulated text messaging back and forth in order to “break up” in a thoroughly modern way.

Toward the end of session the teachers prompted them to think about consequences of their carefully chosen words: “How do you want to leave it? What are your final words going to be? Do you ever want to work with them again?” (See this Sample Break Up Texts to see how one pair of students ended their “relationship”).

In the wrap-up for the lesson students shared some of the reasons their texts pointed to as a reason for the break up. Their examples linked events like the Boston Tea Party to larger issues of representation and self-governance. As importantly, students were able to reconsider their original misconceptions about the Declaration of Independence. Rather than signalling the end of the Revolution, as they originally thought, the document was the start of a long, complicated process. In the simplest of terms, the Declaration was a break up letter.

Put to song and translated into contemporary “text speak,” this is a lesson that these US History student are not likely to forget.

Back Up Your Files

by Ashoke Ghosh, Director of Technology

The most important practice you can develop when using a laptop is backing up your work. Hard drives can fail or become corrupted. If this happens you can lose all of your important files. Please don't wait until it becomes a problem (i.e., the night before a paper is due) and all of a sudden your files are gone. Here are steps to take to make sure this doesn’t happen to you. 

The Bare Minimum: The first step students should take to make sure this does not happen to them is to use Google Drive as much as possible. Since all Google tools and apps store files/work in the cloud, students can access their work anytime, anywhere, with any device. That means if a laptop hard drive fails, you still have access to all of the papers, videos, slide presentations, images, etc. in Google Drive. Google Drive allows you to upload all of the most commonly used file types (read this Overview to learn more) and has loads of space (30 GB). Additionally, Picasa (the free photo sharing site from Google) is great for storing videos and photos. We encourage you to take advantage of this free storage and backup system that comes with students' hillers.org accounts.

 The Safer Bet: Google Drive can’t do it all. The best way to back up all of your files quickly is to purchase an external hard drive and use Time Machine, the built-in backup application that comes on your Mac. I would recommend buying a 500gb external drive or larger unless you are only going to save small files. You can purchase them from stores like Best Buy and Staples or you can get competitive prices with online retailers like Newegg and TigerDirect.

Once you have your external drive, follow these instructions for using Time Machine to back up your laptop: Time Machine Basics (video tutorial) and Mac Basics: Time Machine (how to site).

There are also cloud solutions, which are convenient but can be more pricey over a long period of time. Many vendors charge by month or year and you can expect to pay at least $60/year. Here are some vendors to explore if you are interested: Carbonite, Dolly Drive, Justcloud, Sugarsync and Mozy. 

We encourage students to stop by the Tech Center if they need advice on backing up their Macbook Airs!

AP Bio’s Jello Lab

by Colleen Worrell, Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator

 
Michelle Odierna’s AP Bio classes are having fun learning with jello this week. The jiggly blocks of pink are part of a lab on the limitations of cell size. As I visited the class, students were happy to explain that they were working in groups to learn how molecules diffuse through the cell membrane and the cell’s surface area limits how large cells can get. The lab assignment posed this question to the student teams: “If you put each of the [jello] blocks into a solution, into which block would that solution diffuse throughout the entire block fastest? Slowest? How do you explain the difference?”

Each group of students worked together to plan, design, conduct, and document their investigation. The pink jello would be cut into different size cubes, added to a beaker, and covered in an acidic solution so the students could measure the rate of diffusion. Along the way students would record the procedures, claims, observations, and data. At least one student in each group had a laptop open and worked to add relevant information to a shared Google doc. They worked collaboratively, asking questions, finding answers, sharing ideas on steps to take, joking about jello (and the inability of certain students to cut a straight line in a piece of jello!), and determining what information they might need to successfully complete and record their lab. Students also used their phones to take photos (before and after images of their jello cubes) which they would use as data to support their claims in the lab reports each of them would write up.

Conversations happened throughout as students wrestled with pink jello, typed in their Google docs, measured their cubes, and tackled calculations to support their claims:

“Will a lopsided cube work?”

“Does it have to be perfect?”

“This is the best cube you’ve made yet.”

“Mrs. O, do we need to know how much acid is in the beaker?”

“Make sure you are putting this on the Google doc and it is shared with everybody.”

“Would it be easier to cut of the clear part and just measure the pink part that’s left”?

“I can’t grab it. It’s jello!”

“Can I try that?”

“Absolutely, it’s fun.”

“Hey, take a picture of that with my phone for me.”

"What was the final dimension?”

Students negotiated slippery cubes of pink jello, laptops, smartphones, and plastic rulers throughout these conversations, all the while learning about diffusion and osmosis. "Ms. O," one student remarked, "This is fun."

Next step: writing up their lab individual reports. Keeping with the science lab theme of this post, my claim is that students won’t find this part half as fun the lab itself.