Category:

Learning with TED Talks

6/13/2013

TED (http://www.ted.com) stands for Technology, Entertainment, & Design -- three broad subject areas that are, collectively, shaping our future. TED is a collection of riveting talks by remarkable people and are free to the world. In classrooms, TED talks add inspiring introductions to core curriculum topics and bring traditional lessons to life. Teachers can utilizeTED.ED resources for flipping video use in their classroom, browse playlists of already curated collections, and use talk “tags” to easily find resources to enhance student learning, and explore mobile app alternatives.

Why TED Talks in the Classroom?

First of all, Great Content!! Below are a few of my favorites
Bring Traditional Lessons to Life - Learning about DNA, show a talk about DNA research.
Real-life examples of knowledge, curriculum knowledge, being put to use in incredible ways.
Show contributions youth have to make to the world!
NETS for Teachers, Standard #1, Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity, Item b. 'Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources." More about ISTE Standards.....
From the TED website, TED Talks focus on the "power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world." What a great message!
And finally, TED Talks connects to Core Curriculum!

Language Arts

Mathematics

Science

Social Studies

A Few Videos Not to Miss!

Reinventing Education

Inspiring Youth

By Rachel Murphy

MIT App Inventor - Canyons App Club

2/27/2013

MIT App Inventor is a program for creating mobile applications (apps) for the Andriod operating system in a drag and drop manner. It was a program which began as a Google Labs project and is now currently managed by Media Lab team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT's App Inventor provides an introduction to programming concepts where students are able "build it & test it" in real world (immediate) fashion.

Why Teach Programming Skills?

Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer. . . because it teaches you how to think. –Steve Jobs

Our policy at Facebook is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find. There just aren't enough people who are trained and have these skills today. –Mark Zuckerberg

Canyons School District is helping interested students learn to program through an after-school called "Canyons App Club." Students from all high schools meet formally at least once a month. Jared Ward, one of the club organizers explains, "Students drive the momentum for this club, they would love to meet after-school every day!" Students in the club range from a very beginning skill level to quite advanced developing C++. In addition, some of the students have completed or are currently involved in the programming classes at CTEC. Club organizers, RachelAnn Murphy and Jared Ward, are Canyons School District Education Technology Specialists at the high school level. The idea for a high school app development club started to take form after watching a few TED Talks by kids who are currently creating apps. These students are amazing and Canyons School District has amazing students as well. And even though the district has a programming course for students, the programming courses isn't always accessible to all interested students. And so, the idea was born to start our very own Canyons App Club.

The Canyons App Club is designed to provide a community of learners, a variety of resources to student, and business partnerships. Each month students earn badges as app creation levels are completed. The MIT App Inventor website provides a wealth of resources in the form of tutorials, forums, and a gallery of created apps. Each of the MIT APP Inventor tutorials teaches a certain aspect of app development and the tutorials get more complicated as they progress. After each tutorial is completed, students are then challenged to use those same concepts in an app of their very own creation.

For example, the first badge level in the app club is called "Hello Purr" ( a creative twist on 'Hello World', the first application programmers typically create). In this app when a picture of a kitty is clicked it will purr. Once students complete this app they receive the Hello Kitty badge and then are challenged to make a similar app of their own choosing. One club student created a missile app and when a picture of a missile is clicked it sounds like a missile taking off. Another student created dinosaur app that roared when clicked. These student who have created their own app have earned the Hello Advanced badge as well as the Hello Kitty badge.

Are you interested in playing along? Complete these levels to learn on your own!

Hello Purr & Hello Advanced
Magic 8 Ball & Magic Advanced
PaintPot & Paint Advanced
MoleMash & Advanced Mash
Quiz Me & QuizMe Advanced
Map Tour – Advanced Tour
Stock Quotes – Web Service Advanced
Colored Dots - multiple screen advanced
Pizza Party - Advanced Data Table
Mini Golf – Advanced Gaming

These resources are helpful starting points:

Kids can create apps - look below!

By Jared Ward & Rachel Murphy

Canvas - A Blended Learning Environment

10/24/2012

Get to know Canvas from Instructure on Vimeo.

Canvas is an online learning platform, from a Utah based company called Instructure. http://www.instructure.com/k-12 Canyons School District piloting the Canvas learning platform with Secondary English teachers as a way to introduce and utilize a blended learning environment. Blended learning combines face-to-face classroom instruction with online activities. At first glance, the introduction of Canvas in the the learning environment is similar to having a class webpage with resources and other course materials for students to access. However, Canvas includes a bunch of added features and interactive possibilities not capable on most traditional webpage creation programs.

Canvas allows a teacher to:

Organize materials by date (agendas) or units of study (modules).
Publish important course reminders/due dates on a calendar.
Push reminders and other announcements to students as often as needed.
Post assignments and grade assignments with a very cool "Speed Grader" feature (which is a mobile app for grading on the go!)
Provide multiple ways an assignment can be completed. (1) uploaded document (2) text entry right on the webpage (3) video submission (4) through a connection to a web service such as a document in dropbox
Create threaded discussion. These discussions can even be graded discussions.
Upload a wide range of link files, videos, images.
Create quizzes.
Conduct synchronous web conferences or office hours for students.

Canvas provides students multiple ways to receive course information. Students are able to add an email account, even multiple email accounts or receive text messages for push notifications. Students can even customize how frequently they receive these notifications. Canvas has created mobile apps for learning on the go. With Canvas, students can no longer say they left their homework at school!

A free trial version of Canvas can be found at https://canvas.instructure.com/register_from_website if you want to take a look at the features yourself. With the Canvas Community Forums and the Canvas Guides, plenty of information is provided to get you started without any trouble.

In the future, Canyons School District may even be able to provide all teachers with a Canvas account in which students are auto-populated from Skyward and the gradebook in Canvas is connected to the gradebook in Skyward! Wouldn't that be fabulous?

Posted by Rachel Murphy