Dot Day meets Augmented Reality

Mark your calendars for September 15th, which is International Dot Day.  This day was inspired by Peter H. Reynolds' book, The Dot, and founded by a great Iowa educator, Terry Shay.  The purpose behind this day is to encourage students to create and celebrate their imagination.  

This year, there are already over 60 countries participating and almost 1,000,000 students taking part in dot day.  This day is also a way to incorporate some global awareness, as students can see how others are creating their dots by following #dotday on Twitter.

There are many different ways to celebrate Dot Day, but my favorite is by using the colAR app.  This app has special PDF's that you can print.  On these PDF's students color and design their own dots.  Once they have completed their design, they open the free colAR app (which is available in iTunes or Google Play) and scan their PDF.  

The dot will appear to come off of the page and you can view it from many different angles just by moving around the device in which you are viewing it.  Kids, are amazed with this app, as this is usually the first time students (or teachers for that matter) have seen or used augmented reality in a school setting.  There are more options to design with this free app, but you have more options if you purchase the paid version.  

As I worked with students, they were amazed with what was happening with their dots and also figured out a way to layer dots on this app so they had one background image of a dot and another dot coming to life over top of it.

How are you going to celebrate Dot Day in your classroom?  Please connect with our students to share how other parts of the world are going to celebrate creativity and imagination with this fantastic day.

Youtube Playlist for Google Classroom Setup

Since Google Classroom has just been released to us on Friday, I am sure a few of you are ready to jump right in and get started.  For those of you outside of the district, check with your IT director to make sure he or she has enabled the Google Classroom feature on your domain. I have created a YouTube playlist to get you started with using Classroom with your students.  I will continue to add to this playlist over the next few weeks as we figure out some of the ins and outs of this great free GAFE tool.

Google Classroom is now available!

What is Google Classroom?

Welcome to the first chapter of the Google Classroom tutorial.  Before we begin, you need to know what Google Classroom is and how would you use it with your class.  Classroom is a new tool  from Google Apps for Education that weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease. It lets students organize their work, complete and turn it in, and communicate directly with their teachers and peers.

For any of you who have used Google Apps for Education with you classes before, you may have realized that organizing assignments was cumbersome...classroom should take care of a lot of those issues. There are many benefits of using Classroom, as it is easy to setup, eases the workflow between students and teachers, enhances communication, and it improves organization.

We are very excited about the ease of workflow Classroom provides, but remember we don't want to fall into using this in the traditional sense of just turning in papers and assignments. This tool should help with workflow, but remember we want students creating with choice, critically thinking, communicating and collaborating.

In the next few blog posts, I will demonstrate how you can setup your Google Classroom account and how you will be able to use it in your classroom.

LanSchool Class Lists

Media Center Change

Being new to the Nevada Community School District, I am quite amazed with the teachers and their dedication to do what is right for the students.  They are constantly improving their craft and teaching to keep students engaged and have authentic learning experiences while trying to keep up with this ever-changing world. Change - a lot of people seem to strongly dislike that word, but change is necessary to continue to improve our practice and stay up-to-date with our students' lives. 

The first change - the district has been used to having a full time librarian so having a technology integrationist take over that position has been another change the students and teachers have had to get used to.  One of the tasks I was assigned was to create a vision and redesign the media centers to meet the needs of our students.   

Our Vision:

The Nevada Community School District’s Media Centers are to be learning commons flowing with innovation, collaboration, curiosity, adaptability, critical inquiry, and transliteracy.

Our Mission:

The Nevada Community School District’s Media Centers are to offer forward-thinking instruction, space, and programming that develops innovative leaders who create content that reaches a global audience.

With the vision and mission in mind, a few of us (Jessie McGaffin, a few students, and myself) gave the middle school media center a facelift over the summer.  Not only was there new staff, there was a lot of weeding of uncirculated books and new furniture.  Some of the staff was a little shocked but the students were excited.  Today, the second day of school, we were ecstatic to see a group of boys enjoying the new furniture before school started.

We have to keep in mind that the media centers are for the students and we want to draw them in to be places flowing with innovation, collaboration, curiosity, adaptability, critical inquiry, and transliteracy.

Back of the media center:

Technology Integration: Where we are and where we are going

Where we are now...
Over the past few years, the Nevada Community School District's administration has made the investment in technology access. Currently, the high school is 1:1 with Macbook Pro's and is in their third year of implementation.  The middle school is getting ready to roll out Chromebooks to the 5th-8th grade students - we are patiently awaiting for them to arrive.

The district has also invested in upgrading the informational technology side to keep the infrastructure growing and on the cutting edge. Last year, they hired two amazing guys, Joe Wakeman, technology director and Jon Kruse, technology support specialist, to run the technology department.

This year, the district hired a technology integrationist, Carrie Hillman, to help teachers and students use technology within their curricular areas.  Before this year, teachers were pretty much on their own with using technology with students.  There are many teachers that have strong technology skills, but it is hard to stay on the forefront of the ever-changing technology world and also teach curriculum, so having this new role will keep moving everyone forward with technology integration.

Where are we going...
We are starting a journey of using technology as a transformative tool rather than just a paper substitute for students at the elementary all the way through the high school.  We need students to create, collaborate, communicate and think critically at all levels, and their are many technology tools to help us get there.  We will be using the TPACK framework, developed by Koehler and Mishra, to blend technology, pedagogy and content knowledge.

We will also use the SAMR model, developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, to move from using technology as a substitute for paper to using it for learning in ways in which it was impossible to do without technology.

How are we going to get there...

• There will be a repository of technology professional development within this blog and on the web.  
• Monthly technology professional development
• Just in time technology professional development 
• Encouraging teachers to continue to grow with technology
• Encouraging students to have a positive online presence. 

Through our current practices and the changes the district has invested in, we will continue to prepare our students to be leaders in the world.