New Podcast Episode: Teaching Tech to First Graders
#edtech #edchat #elemchat
I just uploaded a new episode of Elementary Tech Teacher’s Journal.
Episode Number 15 for the week of April 25, 2011 (This week’s episode was recorded and edited on an iPad 2 using Garageband with an iRig Mic.)
“Teaching Tech to First Graders.”
http://www.bradflickinger.com/Brad_Flickinger/Podcast/Podcast.html
This week’s episode is sponsored by Atomic Learning.
The “Step Aside Teaching” Method.
#elemchat #edtech #edchat #elearning
The other day I had dinner with a fellow educator and we naturally started to talk about technology integration in the classroom (of course), so I shared a story about my daughter and Wikipedia.
The last week my daughter came home and explained to me about a game she and her classmates play on their smartphones when they are bored in school. They call them “Wikipedia Races,” they like to use Wikipedia because it is banned by most teachers at her school so they feel a bit like rebels by using this “outlawed” website – evil Wikipedia.
The game goes like this; someone names two terms that are totally unrelated and then they race to see how they can use Wikipedia to get from one term the other the quickest, kind of like using six-degrees of separation but with terms instead of people.
Here is the one that she gave me: Turtles and Photosynthesis
What the? Turtles have nothing to do with photosynthesis!
Then she showed me how she won this round just that afternoon.
She looked up turtles in Wikipedia. Then under culture she found that a turtle is used on the Cayman Island’s coat of arms. So she went to Cayman Island, then to scuba diving, then to oxygen and finally to photosynthesis. Voila!
She said that they love playing this at school – weird, I know.
This reminded me of the scene from Jurassic Park when they realized that the female-only population of dinosaurs were somehow reproducing. “Nature will find a way – Nature always finds a way.”
Our students want to use technology to do their school work, and if we don’t let them, they will still find a way to use it. So rather than trying to make our entire population of teachers tech-savvy, maybe we just need to step aside and let the students just do it.
Case in point:
I wanted my 4th grade students to learn how to make video games.
I know nothing about making video games.
So I let them watch some video tutorials on Atomic Learning to get the basics on how to use the free application called Scratch and before I knew it, they were making video games. That’s “Step Aside Teaching.” If you don’t know how to do something with technology, just step aside and let the students teach themselves.
By the way, I now know how to use Scratch because my students have also taught me while they were learning themselves. So check your ego at the door and learn a little from your students.
New Podcast Episode: Teaching Tech to Kindergarteners
#edtech #edchat #elemchat
I just uploaded a new episode of Elementary Tech Teacher’s Journal.
Episode Number 14 for the week of April 18, 2011 (This week’s episode was recorded and edited on an iPad 2 using Garageband with an iRig Mic.)
“Teaching Tech to Kindergarteners.”
http://www.bradflickinger.com/Brad_Flickinger/Podcast/Podcast.html
This week’s episode is sponsored by Atomic Learning.
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Using the iPad in Schools and Classrooms
#elemchat #edchat #edtech #elearning
Last Friday I hosted a local TV show that featured seventh grade students talking about how they use their iPads for school work. We started to show each other apps and such that we could do with our iPads (both the original iPad and the iPad 2) and before we knew it the hour was up and I was freaking out.
The first thing that amazed me was how natural it was for these young students to use this device. The actual iPad became invisible as they used it like a toolbox to look for different tools to help them with their school projects.
I would like to share a few of those ideas here:
Research: Hands down, you can’t beat every student having the Internet on their desks. These students could not be stumped, within seconds they could find out everything about anything. They also had other apps that were specific to an area of research. (World Atlas, Google Earth, CongressPro and This Day to name a few.)
Science: We had a great time showing off the amazing apps like SkyView, Star Walk and Solar Walk, but then we started to use SPARKvue to see how you could data log the actions of the iPad using it’s built in sensors. And finally, of course, we looked at the amazing “The Elements” app to take a peek of what textbooks are gong to be like in the future.
Books: Okay, there are the standard e-book type of books that you can read using iBooks, Kindle or Google Books apps on the iPad, but then there are the books that are apps. We looked at Dr. Seuss, and other titles that are unbelievably cool – interactive and fun to read.
Holy Crud! Apps: We edited a movie in iMovie – on an iPad 2. Then we recorded a podcast using Garageband, took and edited a few photos and then placed them in a report using the word processing app Pages.
My mind was spinning at the end. I am so jealous of these students and the opportunities they have sitting right in front of them and from what I have now seen – I think that most of them are going to take full advantage of it.
But now what do we do as teachers for this upcoming iPad generation?
iPad training tutorials (60+ videos) at Atomic Learning.
Read MoreNew Podcast Episode: The Power of Student-Made Tech Examples
#edtech #edchat #elemchat
I just uploaded a new episode of The Elementary Tech Teacher’s Journal.
Episode Number 13 for the week of April 11, 2011 (This week’s episode was recorded and edited on an iPad 2 using Garageband.)
“The Power of Student-Made Tech Examples.”
http://www.bradflickinger.com/Brad_Flickinger/Podcast/Podcast.html
This week’s episode is sponsored by Atomic Learning.
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