30 Day Book Challenge

30 Day Book Challenge

The challenge is for students to get excited about reading. I want student's to read a new book for the next thirty days that they haven't and may haven't come across. It is important for them to realize not to judge a book by its cover but by its themes/content. I encourage all of them to give their book ago, they picked it for a reason (based on descriptors).

Organisation/Set Up

- Look around at the words that describe each book

- Think about three that would interest you to read

- No one unwraps a book until the end 

- We will random name generator.

- When your name comes up, you can get up and choose a book

- Tell the class the three words used to describe your book and keep it face up on your desk

- Just because you have this book doesn't mean you are safe

- The next person who gets up can take a book and then they can choose to keep the book or steal another

- You only get one steal at the time of your turn 

- The person who goes first gets to steal at the end

- Before opening you are allowed 30 seconds to try and swap with someone if you are not happy – however swapping is not compulsory. Stealing is!

- Once everyone has a book we will open them up one by one. 

Where to next:

- Students to blog about their book

- They can take the book home and read it during silent reading time after each break for 5mins

- Added into homework rotation 

- They can swap their books once they have completed it 

P3 Reflections:

Ronan

P3's teacher contacted the National Library and asked for a load of new books. She spent time wrapping them up and writing key words on them. We returned from the weekend to a surprise, a whole lot of books were wrapped up and we got to pick our own book based on three key words. It was great we didn't judge a book by its cover. I got a book called 'Call of the Rhino'. I think it's great and I can't wait to do it again. 

Estelle

Today we had a session in the second block where did a form of  'Secret Santa' with books. 

Miss Downard wrapped up 23 books, one for each student, making the cover non-visible only writing key words from the story on the wrapping so we couldn't judge it by its cover and used the random name picker to let us pick from the books one at a time, However you were also allowed to steal, but only once because you either steal or pick from the piles of books in the center of the mat. 

Once it got to me I chose a book with the words "Dystopian, save the future and girl main lead" but this book got stolen off me by Maya so I had to pick a new book of the floor. I ended up with 'Perks of being a wallflower' and so far I am enjoying it. 

Alexa

Blog Reflections

Last week 1/2 my class went to Devon (Sports Exchange) and the other half stayed behind at school and organised/ran a tabloid sports day for the remaining students at school.

Once my students came back I had them reflect on their week. I was impressed with the length and content of their reflections.

I am aiming to have them put more work and effort into their blogs. Last year I pushed the use of their individual blogs and whanau engagement/interaction. The class I have this year are very sporty and take on a lot of extra curricular activities, it is very rare that I have a full class because of this. It has been hard to manage their blogs because of this. Some students have lots while others seem to have very little.

Alexa's Reflection:

Rawinia's Reflection:

Estelle's Reflection:

Casey's Reflection:

Tegan's Reflection:

ICT Discovery Day

Today I had a whole days release. Normally I would use this time for testing, however last week half my class were out at a sports exchange in Taranaki and are still very tired. I realised that today would be a pointless day to test because I wouldn't be getting true results of where they are at.

I decided that I was going to have my own professional development day!
This was very exciting, I got the ULearn breakouts out and began looking and highlighting what interests me, as I was doing this I found a few programmes, apps and tools that I hadn't heard of. I then began to explore all of these.

I looked at the following tools:

- Booktrack Classroom
- Nearpod
- Adobe Voice (App)
- Google sites
- Pond



Booktrack - This website is a great concept.
I wanted to be able to use it with my current novel study, I didn't realize you have to have all the text typed out. I think it would be best used with a story they kids have written themselves. They can then use booktrack to set the mood for their story and include sound effects.

Nearpod - I need more time with this site.
I want to have a play when my class is in the room because it looks as though there is a lot of interaction. I like the concept of it. I would like to observe someone using it effectively.

Adobe Voice - A definite winner!!
Loved this. I played on it for 15 minutes, it was simple and effective. I made a quick PSA on social media and the current trend of having 1000+ friends.
I love this because I know all students in my class would have success with this app and its free!

Google Sites -  I have heard of and I know a lot of people that use them.
I decided to have play and create my own. I want to create one that is for my class to log on to and get extra support through a range of rich tasks.

Pond - I had been meaning to log on to this when I received the 'Pioneer Educator' package a few months back, today I had the time to look at the content on the site and add my own.

Modern Learning Environment - Change the pedagogy & change the space

A modern learning environment goes hand in hand with changing your pedagogy.

I learnt this on #ulearn13 when I went to Mark Osborne's presentation on MLEs.

I took  a lot of key ideas from his talk and then was able to consolidate them through the #edchatnz topic of modern learning environments last week. 

When I got back from conference I started a Google Doc and had my class collaborate on what they perceived a modern learning environment to be and what their dream classroom would look like. We then brainstormed what could we do with the space and furniture we have. We decided to downsize. We got rid of bulky cabinets, desk and went and found some funky chairs from various rooms around the school and borrowed some bean bags from another teacher who isn't using them.

We then designed our ideal classroom on Minecraft. Students created our current layout and trialed where the furniture would go before deciding on the final outcome. This was great because instead of physically moving it, not liking it and causing chaos, they were able to work together and have the trial and error period virtually. This created a safe space for students to share their ideas and justify why they believed it should be their layout that was chosen.

 P3 decided that they should be able to sit where they like as long as they are on task. I posed the question 'how will you ensure no one is going to be left out?'. They couldn't answer this right away but asked me if I would let them show me. Giving them this ownership has worked well so far and I am seeing more leadership qualities emerge in my students. They are becoming more independent and reflective learners and are beginning to use their initiative. 

I then ran this lesson with two other classes with my class as the tuakana-teina. The purpose was for the two other classes to begin to use Google Docs and Minecraft as an effective tool in their learning. I look forward to seeing the other two classes final products and how their rooms change based on their student's needs. 

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My dream spaces can be found on my Pinterest board - Modern Learning Space

Gamification - What is the learning?

+Annemarie Hyde asks on almost a daily basis "What is the learning?"

This is a simple question. As teachers when we teach something we always have a learning intention/objective in mind, that we want our students to achieve. When teaching in a digital classroom, this is no different. Yet it seems that as a digital teacher we are having to justify our tools and learning more often. 



Ken Shelton in his Keynote at #Ulearn13 discussed the concept of 'Transformation'. He posed two questions:

1. What does it mean to transform?

1. What does it look like to transform?

The message that I took away from his talk was to embrace the opportunities that technology provides us, and the ways we can utilize these within our teaching practice and education. Transforming is about changing our practice and not about replicating things we already do by substituting our old ways. 

I loved his video he used on the 'Fun Theory'. I am firm believer that student's are going to learn more and be more engaged if we can make the learning fun. This is evident in the two videos below.

In my current teaching practice I am trying to prepare students for future learning by teaching students think for themselves. This to me means, not standing at the front of the room and delivering the curriculum but having students take an inquiry approach and think for themselves. In doing this students would be selecting the appropriate tools to research, collaborate, communicate and present their learning. This is something that would need to be facilitated by the teacher and set up as a classroom culture for learning. 

This leads me into Gamification. I am so passionate about this, that I get so frustrated with having to constantly justify its merits. I was very thankful and felt privileged to attend Stephen Knightly's talk on 'Game-Based Learning' and come back with concrete evidence of the relevance and learning that can be had through games within education. 

Stephen's messages that resonated with me:

"If you are teaching students mathematics then teaching kids to code would validate that mathematics like you wouldn't believe"

"If you want higher order thinking - make a game! Have your students create the content instead of just consuming"

"Games we deem invaluable like GTAV still have their merits. Games like this teach economics - I wont buy this gun, I will save up for the better quality more expensive one - delayed gratification" 

"GTAV is the most sophisticated city ever created in a game. It has more working parts than the space station. You could spend 200 hours exploring one small corner of the city before engaging in any illicit activities" 

"The video game cycle is a recipe for self motivated learners - Clear Goals --> Right Tools --> Challenge --> Feedback" 

"If students aren't engaged in a game, it isn't because its not sexy, it is because it is dull and boring"



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Games are good at creating behavioral and attitude change. Ecological, educational, mental health, political messages and challenges have been addressed with games.  There is a growing field of research into the psychological and social principles underpinning effective games.

Gaming in the classroom definitely has its merits. We can use Ken Shelton's idea of transformation to underpin our curriculum and values. I firmly believe in teaching the 'whole' learner and not just delivering a curriculum. 

Below are some Ted talks that a pro gamification:

How do I feel about the VLN?

How do you feel about the VLN?

After many months of +Annemarie Hyde telling me how amazing it is I have decided to join.
I am apprehensive of the fact that I struggle to keep up with Twitter (I go from super inspired and active to non existent and back again).

I can't believe I haven't joined up sooner, I mean who wouldn't want free PD online, anytime and anywhere? The best part is it is all NZ based help, resourcing and learning. I can subscribe to what I want or need and comment and contribute at my leisure  If I really want I can simply read and hitchhike from other peoples ideas.

The downside of this is over time my email becomes clogged because I can't keep up with all the posts. I do feel some what pressured to get my intellectual side out and make some philosophical or in depth posts about pedagogy and education (sometimes I feel its a bit of a battle in certain threads). Instead I try to make posts on areas I feel are strengths.

I made my first post:

I am still having to actively engage myself in the VLN. A lot of the time I just go in read, I don't really know how to share my ideas in written form that make sense to others. I think as I develop my leadership side more I will be involved in more active sharing.

Does anyone have any threads that they like to follow?

Share them in the comments.

Reflecting with another BT

Reflection time!

Professional sharing is at its best once again. Monique and I both started at Mokoia Intermediate at the same time. I am very fortunate to share the beginning teacher journey with someone else and be able to bounce ideas back and forth and round and round. Even though we are in a small school we seem to never even have a chance or the time to sit down and share what we are doing.

Monique was kind enough to offer to teach me how to make sushi (my favourite!) and in turn I shared with her my blog and resources I am using in my classroom. I was able to get some awesome ideas from Monique (maths certificates and challenges + daily paragraph challenges). I shared with Monique my vast collection of resources (so many we ran out of USB sticks and had to resort to a hard drive) and my classroom blog, PRT blog and my evidence of learning blogs. 

It was so nice to be in a relaxed environment with all the time in the world to chat and reflect. We shared behaviour strategies, maths strategies, engaging lesson ideas and just had a good general catch up on how we have found everything over the last year and a half and what are next steps and goals are. 

How did we get hooked into Minecraft?

Our journey with Minecraft at Mokoia Intermediate has only been brief, but we are certainly heading towards bigger things.

We began with only a Minecraft club which wasn't very big and ran one lunchtime a week last year. As Minecraft became more of a phenomenon so did the eagerness to join. Lunchtime became lunchtimes and a few students become too many for the limited server space we had.

Our DP then decided to dedicate the spare server we had to being a Minecraft server (this stopped a lot of the lagging and crashing of the game), this server allows for 60 people to be on at one time. At the beginning of this year our school introduced an arts block. During this block each teacher is allowed to choose their own specific focus within the arts curriculum and run this every Friday. Arts block was a huge success and Minecraft was definitely one of the more popular options. When we ran it again this term we got a shock, 86 children wanted to join up (this is huge when our roll is a little under 300). Unfortunately with only 60 spots we have had to have a waiting list. Instead of one teacher taking this it is now two of us.

Running Minecraft with 60 students (mostly boys) would sound like a nightmare to some, however it completely runs itself. Students who are experts become the teachers and the students who are beginners want to learn from other students. As a teacher I just ensure everyone is safe and happy.

As I learn more and more about what you can do in Minecraft I am beginning to set up challenges and goals for the students to build or inquire about. The learning in this game is mind boggling to me. How can a game with such poor graphics provide so much creativity?

I am loving that with the help of my students I am becoming an expert and I am thinking of new ones to embed it into our curriculum.

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Next term our literacy focus is poetry. Below is a video of students reading a poem and recreating the poem within Minecraft. What a fantastic idea.




Another video I stumbled across (mentioned in a post below) was a time lapse video of a community of people collaborating to build an amazing city. As a class we watched this and discussed the idea of collaborating to build an ancient civilization (which is our social studies focus next term), I then took this idea next door to the Year 8 digital teacher who immediately wanted to jump on board. We as two classes are going to use Google Docs (for the planning) and minecraft to construct an ancient civilization . We are going to trial this as being student led and facilitate when necessary. Very exciting!!

Minecraft Lesson Ideas

I have been scratching my head to think of all the learning opportunities I can utilizes Minecraft for. I decided that it was time to jump onto the VLN and check out some of the Minecraft forums and discussions. I feel like I have hit a goldmine of teachers with like minded thinking. I am a very give it a go teacher and love trialing new programs and activities within my classroom.

One of my students wrote a very interesting reflection on her experience with Minecraft - Kayleigh (Minecraft: What is the learning?). I am often reflecting on the learning experiences we do as a class and I am beginning to encourage my children to do the same. I like them to recognize the learning they are doing and take the initiative to further this themselves. My mentor made an interesting comment about how sometimes the learning we are intending to occur is not always the learning that the students achieve. 

Lesson Ideas (Love these, I have listed below the ideas I like the best in each curriculum area) 

Literacy

1. Write a procedural text on how to craft an iron pickaxe
2. Write a story about a character that falls in to the world of Minecraft. Illustrate your story with screen shots from your Minecraft world.
3. Through the Minecraft chat, explain to your teacher who is on another computer how to make herself a crafting table.
4. Your character in Minecraft is called “Steve”. Research why he is called “Steve”
5. Create a 10 question quiz using the Minecraftwiki then swap with a partner. 

Social Studies

1. Recreate a village/town based on a culture you have researched
2. As a team, create a self sufficient community that includes different roles and responsibilities for its members. 
3. Create a set of laws, or a constitution for your Minecraft world. Firstly appoint someone in you class as the king or queen, and have them create the laws. Then after a week or so, create a new set democratically. How are the two sets of laws different?
4. Appoint a King or Queen and give them absolute power for a week. Now try another week but this time using the ideals of democracy.
5. Cooperate with a class in another school/country to build a “perfect world” together. You can use other collaborative tools such as Skype and Google Docs to help.

Mathematics

1. Steve has a very simple house with no windows and just a door 2 blocks high. The floor area of his house is 20 square meters. The capacity of his house (or the internal volume) is 80 cubic meters (each block in Minecraft is 1 cubic meter) What is the least number of blocks Steve could have used to build his house?
   Build Steve’s house.
   Using the same number of blocks,  is it possible to build Steve a house of the same height but with more volume?
2. A village in a Minecraft world is about to start farming. They have hired you to find out what is the most efficient way to get food-they are choosing between bread, cows and pigs. Use the Minecraftwiki to calculate which type of farming returns the most energy (food bars) for time spent farming.
3. Work out the minimum number of blocks you need to make a building with a volume of at least 75 cubic meters. Use Minecraft to test and improve your designs.
4. Work out the ratio of Minecraft time to real world time. (1 MC minute = real minutes?)

Computer Science

1. Use Java to create a mod for Minecraft
2. Create a texture pack for Minecraft

The Arts/Design

1. Compose the lyrics (English) and music for a national anthem for your Minecraft world.
2. Take a screen casting of your Minecraft world (or you could use timelapse screen shots of you building something), then use a program like Garageband to add music to your video. The music should fit the feel of your video. Here is an example