Recently my environmental science iPad pilot class used the Pages app (yes, the same program Mac users are familiar with) to create invasive species posters. These are not just any posters, but “NOT Wanted” posters. I can’t claim this is my idea, as environmental science teachers have issued this assignment for years–just do a quick Google search. The basic idea was to produce posters about invasive species on our campus made in the spirit of old west (USA) “Wanted” posters for notorious criminals.
NOT Wanted Poster Example
My students were able to create beautiful posters with relative ease on the iPad2. Then, I had the students put up the posters all over the Kindergarten Hall in our school. After about a week of letting the younger students see the posters, my students came in to teach a brief lesson on invasive plants. The students designed and led the lesson.
Senior Teaching Kindergarten
Then, the older students organized the students into groups and took them outside to tag the invasive plants pictured on the posters. Each student was given a small piece of colored flagging tape to tie around a plant.
Tagging Invasive Bamboo
The Kindergarteners were told that they were tagging the plants so that older students could come cut them down on Earth Day. And, indeed, older students from our service club came out to remove the invasive plants.
Students Remove Wisteria
Did the iPads make the difference? No, of course not. But, it was nice to be able to create and revise the posters without booking the computer lab. My students, most of whom had never used Pages, loved the Page app and were impressed with the professional looking posters they produced. Me, I was thrilled to see my seniors engaged at a time of the year when they are ready to check out…
*You can read more about the project and see a slideshow of the students in action here.
My colleague, Matt Scully, brought this nifty video to my attention. If you have 20 minutes, watch this video documentary about Larry Mitchell’s 5th grade class…
*Here is link to full size video on YouTube if you want a better view.
Wow! Are those kids engaged? I’ve dabbled in using the iPads for a science class (http://pdsblogs.org/costarica/), but I’ve achieved nothing like this. Using iPad or another tablet, is this the future in our classrooms?
Last week I wrote a short post lamenting the onset of senioritis in my AP Environmental Science students, and a plan to deal with it during our energy unit. So, my plan was:
Mr. W-handles the fossil fuels
Students-handle the alternative energy sources
Groups of 3 produce 3 products for their lesson:
1. A 15 face-to-face presentation
2. A blog post (homework for classmates to read/watch/respond to the night before the presentation)
3. A handout with key takeaways that students can reference on an open-note test
Well, now we are a few days into turning my class of over to the kids. I must say I’m pretty pleased thus far. The kids are producing short blogs as topic “teasers” for classmates to view the night before (as homework) they present their lesson in class. Here are some of my favorites thus far:
In a way, I’m watching a small experiment in “flipping” my classroom. I am intrigued by the notion of “flipping” or reverse instruction, but I have yet to really try it myself. Perhaps our class blogs can become a good vehicle for hosting a flipped classroom next year? Even if I don’t flip my classsroom next year, this type of activity validates our blended classroom.
Regardless, I hope the activity is boosting engagement a at critical point in the year. Overall, my kids are writing (for a more authentic audience than just me), searching the web for good video content, and helping each other understand the technologies. Next, I’ll do some sort of evaluation when we are done to see what the kids think of our little teaching project.
*Yes, I do step in to clear up misconceptions and “teach” too….
Back in action after a week away from computer screens…’twas a nice break.
Ok, so I teach mostly seniors AP Environmental Science. It is that time of the year-many have started to fall ill with senioritis or if not, they are trying to fight it off. I’ve heard many schools offer AP courses as one “treatment” for this disease in hopes of keeping seniors engaged during the period after college acceptances are received but before graduation. Of course, no teacher can expect every student to stay engaged during every unit all year long…
Whatever-the students are probably tired of listening to me at this point. And, I’ve got this ridiculous amount of material to “cover” on energy resources from the College Board APES syllabus. There is NO way even one of these kids can possibly master all of it. So, I’m gonna share the load this unit.
THE PLAN
Mr. W-handles the fossil fuels
Students-handle the alternative energy sources
Groups of 3 produce 3 products for their lesson:
1. A 15 face-to-face presentation
2. A blog post (homework for classmates to read/watch/respond to the night before the presentation)
3. A handout with key takeaways that students can reference on an open-note test
Will it work? We’ll see…check back in next week for links to student blog posts.
A student wrote this on the board the other day. She really struggled first semester, so I was really pleased to see it when I walked in the room. Gotta love 7th graders…
Matt Scully (our instructional technology head) and I had a cup of coffee yesterday morning and started brainstorming the possibilities of running my AP Environmental Science classes off iPads next year….
possibilities
I’m excited, but trying to get my mind around using an iPad as a portal or passport for learning environmental science. As I look at the napkin, maybe portal isn’t the right metaphor. Seems more like a Swiss Army Knife as I look at my doodle…
Is my main reason to replace printed text for my subject, now obsolete almost immediately after printing? PDF “etexts” already exist for many college texts. Digital texts with hyperlinks and animations are in the works. Some good online course content resources already exist (Hippocampus seems like an option).
Or, is the goal to harness the collaborative creative power of social media that I’m already using? Right now, my kids have to wait to go home or the computer lab if we want to access our class blogs, flickr project, etc…While social media has been great for asynchronous collaboration, how would having iPad access during our face-t0-face time change our online interactions? Can I leverage the device to shift my class to a more student-centered environment?
I guess I’m struggling with the why. Why use an iPad as an instructional tool? A Swiss Army Knife has lots of gadgets and gizmos, but sometimes you just need knife…will this just be a big distraction for kids who need to focus? Any advice?
So, we are in the midst of exams and closing out 2010. My thoughts are already turning to the first units of 2011–how can I find some new wrinkle/motivator/hook to re-energize/re-engage my classes. In my last post, I was kicking around how teachers can use video game design intentionally to engage students. Since then, I’ve been researching how I might best use the popular video game SimCity as a part of a unit on urban planning in my environmental science class. I want to shake things up–to suck them in to the topic, to give the kids some creative control and to have them apply urban planning principles in the game to design a sustainable city…
Usually by the start of second semester, we’ve all settled into our roles in the classroom. What I fear is when we, as students and teachers, slip into playing the “Game” of school. I read a great little piece on the “Game” a few years ago in Classwise, a print-only newsletter “for busy educators.” The two-part article was based on the book by Robert L. Fried, called The Game of School, which I have not read. The passages that struck me most described a classroom culture where:
People think they’re teaching and learning…But nobody is really learning much beyond what it takes to pass the next exam or cover the textbook chapter. The Game begins whenever we focus on [just] getting through the school day…We should worry if our young people are beginning to confuse…the idea of obeying the teacher with learning…When we allow ourselves to gear ourselves up so as to complete school tasks that have little meaning for us aside from the value of getting them done and over with, we lose touch with our own learning spirit. We tend to become compliant rather than creative, docile instead of courageous, inwardly passive instead of assertively engaged…We become game players by reflex, and learners only on occasion.”
We all want kids to behave, but we don’t want to set up that kind of game, do we? If we don’t design our classes to avoid this situation, then we have the “Game” by default, don’t we? This year I have even discussed the idea openly with my seniors early on. When my teacher “spidey-sense” detected kids playing the game early on, I made up this slide and put it up in class one day:
Click to Enlarge
After I put this on the board, one of my seniors explained the concept of “sandbagging” to me. Basically, if you knew right away a course was not going to challenge you, then you could find the minimum effort level and settle in for the year. From then on out, the sandbagger could just go through the motions…
So, if we do want to use game design in our courses, we better be conscious of creating conditions that avoid this type of game for students to play with us. What do you do, as a teacher, to defeat the “Game” of school?
Of course, once I started picking through my Google Reader account this week, I found that someone else already wrote my post! Check out this enlightening post called “Teach like a video game: Use assessment as learning and motivation,” by teacher Ryan McCallum. Wicked cool comments by his students on why they spend so much time gaming…
We worry about “digital natives” being sucked into the virtual world and it competing with our assigned school work, right? What if we, as teachers, did this (design courses like games) with more intention? How can we better exploit motivators built into video games? How do we skillfully create that wanting, liking…engagement, in our students? If we already do, then do we need to make sure we point these motivators out to kids?
