CUE 2015 and the Growing Emphasis of Code

Let me just start with this: I have been eager to attend the CUE conference since my days of filing PO's for all the district employees who attended, so like 2010! This year, my employer decided to send me and I can't be thankful enough!

Aside from running into amazing former colleagues from El Rancho Unified School District, I also ran into some friends from CSULB's EDTECH program. One of which is doing a brave thesis using Zebra Zapps, an app maker we learned in our program. Personally, it was my least favorite program, but hey, like I said, he's brave.

My primary focus with this conference was to attend as many coding sessions as possible. It is something I am not proficient at, yet realize the value of in classrooms. I am making it a personal goal to spend time learning to code using Code Academy, a free online course, and Hopscotch, a game builder that teaches you the basics of "If this, then that". Many of the sessions focused on the program Scratch, which is aimed at K-5th grade (they offer a Junior version for the littlest ones). However, it's flash based, which means it won't work on an iPad, but it is web based which means anyone can access it from a PC or Mac. It is basically the same kind of idea as Hopscotch. Students build a game/maze by telling the pieces what to do, but the code is contained in these nice drag and drop bubbles instead of something that looks like this:

It's pretty important these days, learning to code. Adam Bellow, our final Keynote Speaker, discussed how he had learned to code as a young tyke through the fascination of 80's games like Oregon Trail. However, somewhere along the boom of the internet, it was lost amongst No Child Left Behind, that left lots of children behind (but we won't go into that). It's nice to see a resurgence in something that kids can create see a real time product. Through these apps and educational tools wrapped cleverly as games, kids are learning critical thinking skills in a more tangible way. They can see the robot move if they tell him. It's amazing and I am looking forward to taking a more active role in my own learning of code. I will be participating in a coding club at my school through the use of Google's Made with Code, focusing on getting girls involved. 

Did you go to CUE? See anything you'd like to discuss? Or are you already infusing Made with code into your class and school? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment.

I'm just going to leave this here...

Personal Learning Networks- EDWEB.NET

Happy Spring Break everyone!

During this time, I am intending on participating in a few free webinars hosted by the wonderful communities at Edweb. If you haven't expanded your PLN, I'd highly suggest this organization. It's simple to navigate, there are tons of groups and focuses, and they are FREE!!! I know how much you guys love free... we all do. There is a great one happening tomorrow afternoon named "What Does a Model Digital Citizenship School Look Like? ".  Hopefully, I'll see you guys there. 

KAHOOOOOOOOOT!

I apologize to those who have been following the Discover Academy's Media Bytes journey. I have been stricken with this terrible cold that will just not go away. I've heard a lot of other people are battling it too this season. If you're one of them, I am so sorry!

Anyway, Media Bytes, bet you want to know what's going on with it, don't ya? Well.... we just wrapped our third (!) session up today! The first two weeks were a little chaotic, but amazing nonetheless. What else could I have expected with 17 little fourth and fifth graders with 1 third grader in a new environment, sat in front of shiny new computers with excited faces ready to learn? It was amazing! All they could say when they first walked in was "MINECRAFT!". Apparently, that's all the kids really want to do nowadays. They asked for it so much, that I put it on the schedule for the future.

We got the kids in and introduced ourselves, played Getting to Know you Bingo, gave them a brief overview of what the next 10 weeks will entail, and then we decided the class norms and expectations as a group. The school these students attend has a mantra of the 3 B's: Be Responsible, Be Respectful, and Be Safe. They came up with expectations, some may say rules, that were pretty in line with the 3 B's. I was impressed. We all signed the chart paper and took our seats. And then... the fun began! I gave them a short little quiz on what we had just covered in Kahoot. In case you've never used or heard of Kahoot, it is amazing! Kids of all ages go WILD for it! Basically, it is a quick formative assessment tool that plays like a game show and has music to boot!


Here's how you do it:
1. Get an account (it's FREE); follow the steps to set up questions OR look through the plethora of pre-created and public quizzes.
2. Select play and have your students join from any device (even a smartphone, it's web based).

3. Once the kids enter the pin, select a nickname and once you see all the participants in the waiting room, hit Start Now and BOOM You're on.

When you're done, you can view results or have them email to you to use as a quiz.

Back to Media Bytes, these kids had never seen this and they LOVED it! They came back the next week talking about it and saying they told their teachers about it. Pretty cool.

Well... that's all for today. I'll post more about the second session later, but I will say this... my high school volunteers are killing it in the assisting arena. Today they were left on their own to teach Illustrator (with an adult in the room) while I was out at the CUE Conference in Palm Springs, CA. Pretty sure it was awesome.

#CUE15

Trillion Dollar Footprint

Last week I attended Los Angeles County of Education's (LACOE) Digital Educator Day. My primary reason for going, aside from networking with other like minded educators, was to explore the digital citizenship sessions. Sue Thotz of Common Sense Media, gave a wonderful presentation on CSM's digital citizenship curriculum. I had explored these options before and used the material for mock lessons, but she showed us a lesson I was so pumped to use when I got back to my school- Trillion Dollar Footprint. Basically, you have one job opening and two applicants. So you do what everyone does- Google them. All their profiles come up and you have to sift through them to determine who is the best fit.

We covered digital footprints the week before in my Blogging Bonanza class, so this was more of a review. I took this lesson and modified it to include a discussion rather than any worksheets. I also posted digital copies of the faux profiles to my class' Haiku Learning page for easy access. Oh my gosh! They LOVED IT! The discussion was wild and loud! They were so engaged (which obviously feels great as a newbie in teaching) and asked for MORE COMMON SENSE MEDIA! I can't wait for a few more lessons and then I am moving forward with applying for CSM Digital Citizenship Educator Certification.

Check out what the kids came up with from the lesson!

After determining Linda was the better candidate to whom we'd give a salary, we moved into blog evaluations. We looked at recommended blogs for kids by kids I found from Pinterest and discussed what it was that made their favorites stand out. I was nervous at first because last week they were so quiet! This week though, oh man! I couldn't have wished any differently. They came up with some really great ideas. Next week, we're getting into the writing process and I can't wait. Check out the ideas they came up with.