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As I reflect on a day spent reviewing and evaluating Educator Initiative Grants funded by the GAR Foundation, I realized that I wasn’t just reading, reviewing and evaluating grant proposals submitted by teachers and schools across the county, I was helping to decide how children are going to be impacted not just next year but many years to come.

We on the team take our role as evaluator very seriously. We work to recommend funding for the best and most impactful proposals. But with that realization on how children are impacted year after year, I couldn’t help but think about how the GAR Foundation has changed the face of my classroom.

A few years ago I had this crazy idea to offer robotics courses to eighth graders. It is hard to do this without a robot. Through a grant funded by GAR, I was able to get two sets of robots and some incredible professional development. This started my interest in teaching more computer science skills to my students. The confidence that being awarded the funds gave me was a springboard into a change in what and how I teach. Now I have two different courses spanning not just eighth graders, but encompassing students from eighth grade to seniors.

It didn’t stop there. Because my administrators have seen how teaching computer science principals through the use of robots is so impactful, they have supported other ideas and projects. Some of those have been supported through GAR in the way of other grants I have written and some funded by the district.

As I finished reflecting on that long day, I was thankful for the GAR Foundation. They are improving the lives of children in Summit County through education and opportunities. Without the GAR Foundation, the future in Summit County wouldn’t be so bright!

 

 

This past Friday we inaugurated a new President. Whether you are happy or not with who the President of the United States is doesn’t matter. This isn’t a political post. What this post is about is how to REALLY make America Great Again!

As many Americans, I have thought a great deal about the slogans the Presidential candidates used over the past two years. I think we all have it wrong. We are looking to a person to make the United States of America the country we want it to be. We need to be looking in the mirror. We need to look inside and ask our selves, “How can I make America great again?”

This picture was posted on Facebook. I love how this teacher used this moment in history to work to bring out greatness in second graders. Read it all the way through. The teacher doesn’t add his/her opinion on who was elected. He/she talks about how we can make this country and this world a better place.

This image got me thinking about the recent First Lego League competition my team competed. FIRST has core values that the teams are expected to follow. They are:

• We are a team.
• We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.
• We know our coaches and mentors don’t have all the answers; we learn together.
• We honor the spirit of friendly competition.
• What we discover is more important than what we win.
• We share our experiences with others.
• We display Gracious Professionalism® and Coopertition® in everything we do.
• We have FUN!

Notice that all of the core values are working together and being kind. FIRST uses the terms Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition. (Click on the terms to see the meaning.) Both are all about being kind and working together. That is what I truly love about the FLL tournaments. (The bracelets shown above are handed out when a student or coach displays either Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition. I am honored to wear the one that I earned at the last tournament. One boy from my team also was given a bracelet. It reminds us that we need to work together and be kind.

FIRST is leading the way to show children and adults that there is a better way. And that way is learning and growing together through being kind and working together. What a wonderful world this would be if we all showed some Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition.

American can only be great if we make it that way! Thank you Kid President for this tweet, “We need everybody to be awesome to everybody. But… not everybody will do that. Thankfully there’s you. You can do that. Go be you.”

Go be you and let’s ALL make America Great Again!

 

This is the second year I am using Minecraft in my classroom. As I did last year, students are creating the community/civilization from the literature they have read in their ELA classes.

This year I wanted to take the Minecraft build a step further. Many of the students are already very proficient in Minecraft. I wanted them to think and problem solve while they built the Gibb Street Community from the book Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman. The best way to do this is by allowing students to use ComputerCraft to program turtles to mine and build for them.

I’m no expert when it comes to programming turtles, but I found some great tutorials on YouTube and sent the students there. (I did watch each video to make sure it was appropriate before giving students the link.) Students watched and learned. I learned as well as we worked through the process together. (The picture on the left is a student standing behind his turtle while it mines.)

I also allowed students to automate parts of their build using redstone. (Redstone is a fictional mineral in Minecraft that acts as an electrical wire to build electronic circuits, circuitry gates, pistons, dispensers, and other machines.) Students built all kinds of cool things. My favorite are street lights that actually work when it gets dark.

To watch students engage in work so deeply is incredible. They demonstrated their understanding of the text by what they were building. It is a good day when you can have a blast and learn a great deal at the same time.
For more on what I have been doing with Minecraft in the Classroom, check out these past posts.

http://www.onebyteatatime.com/minecraft-in-the-classroom/

http://www.onebyteatatime.com/yes-you-can-minecraft/

 

I hope that the Twitter in the Classroom series has been helpful as you start to use Twitter to impact your teaching through the connecting with other teachers from around the world. If you are have stumbled upon this post, you can get to series through the links below. Please follow me at @techlane.

 

Using Twitter in the Classroom

Customizing Your Twitter Account

Tweeting and Following Others

Twitter Chats

 

 

You have a customized Twitter account, posted tweets and you have started following others. Now it is time to start interacting with other teachers. You do this through something called a Twitter Chat. A Twitter Chat typically has a topic for discussion. There is a moderator that posts a series of questions. Those participating answer the questions. The crazy thing is lots of answers will filter in all at the same time. You stay connected with the chat through the use of a specific hashtag. Here is a great list of Twitter Chats on a variety of topics geared for teachers. When in a Twitter Chat I like to use a website called TweetDeck. This seems to allow me to follow along better than using the Twitter website. I also like to use my laptop. It can get overwhelming trying to use my iPad or iPhone. Watch the latest video as I participate in a Twitter Chat. You’ll see how you can learn a great deal and become inspired by those in the chat. These are teachers from around the world.

Now that you have a Twitter account and you have customized your page, it is time to start connecting with others through tweeting and following others. One way to connect with others is to search for topics you are interested in following. You can do this by searching topics or by searching a hashtag (#). You also need to start tweeting yourself. Being a teacher is all about sharing our ideas with each other. Watch the next video for a tutorial on posting tweets, searching for topics of interest, and using hashtags. I will further explain hashtags and how to use them also. Be ready to grow your PLN exponentially.