Is coding the new literacy for 21st Century Schools? If so, how can it enhance a transdisciplinary program of inquiry? This past December I initiated our school’s first ever Hour of Code, the global event that introduces coding through games and activities, both online and offline. The Early Years to Grade 5 classes who participated…
Introducing Google eBooks! Great for: grade 2 and up who have google accounts classes with shared laptops (or 1:1 laptops) no iPad classrooms (therefore limited book creation apps) low tech students; language learning; learning support needs (collaborative element takes pressure off individual performance) pre-cursor for more complex eBook creation apps (ex: iBooks Author; Keynote etc) Why…
What skills do students learn through eBook creation? In Grade 1, students are working on a How We Organize Ourselves unit of inquiry. They are investigating private and public spaces and looking at what brings people together. During the collaborative planning meeting, teachers discussed a way to document their progress during the unit and we…
Field Trip to Santi Rama School for the Deaf UOI: How We Express Ourselves CI: People can create and manipulate messages to target specific audiences. To introduce ourselves to students at Santi Rama School for the Deaf…Grade 4s prepared an ASL version of Owl City’s “Fireflies”! The purpose of this trip was to build a…
UOI: How We Express Ourselves People can create or manipulate messages to target specific audiences. Finding Out: The Function of Advertisements This week students used a series of visible thinking tools to find out more about how messages are manipulated and created to target audiences. Student-chosen adverts As a homework tasks to get them thinking…
Emily & Erin pave the way for ASL in 4J! This week we were lucky to have a special presentation by Emily & Erin on ASL (American Sign Language). Since our current Unit of Inquiry How We Express Ourselves focuses on communication and targeting specific audiences, these 2 students took action to share their learning…
Planning for the Grade 8s In the first week of school, Mr. Brian invited our grade fours to be clients for his Grade 8 DT project: Kite Building. We were thrilled to have an opportunity to collaborate with Grade 8s! Last week students had a chance to design their ‘dream kite’! For homework, students explored…
Today during my Grade 5 EAL class, I decided to trial a new (free!) online visible thinking tool called ‘Mural.ly‘. Its claim is that it is ‘Google Docs for Visual People‘, which couldn’t better define myself or my EAL learners. Using Mural.ly with Beginner EAL students: Tuning-in to UOI vocabulary Students are able to upload…
We’ve now had a week’s buffer to think and reflect on our Grade 5 Exhibition How the World Works. What a journey it was! It seems miles away now that students and teachers have had a week’s holiday to ‘decompress’ from the long but rewarding journey! Some Challenges in review… This was definitely a challenging…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfA33JyA0UgGrade 5’s challenge For each student to publish 3 e-books before June 12th, 2013! What kind of eBooks? 1 non-fiction about the Exhibition Journey 1 fiction/non-fiction about ANY topic of our choice 1 non-fiction for our next UOI: Where we are in place and time How do we create these eBooks? Use iBooks…
Innovative Learning 