Tech Innovators and Altruism

Digital Degus, you continue to amaze me.

 

Proposal: Fin’s idea: If we win $5000, we give each of the other schools $1000, so we’d still have $3000 left

Sharing of ideas:

Pat: We could donate $1000 to RE Wilson for technology, too

Gabby: I think we SHOULD donate the money, because what could we do with $5000?

Fiona: We should get a few iPads for the primary classes – it’s a great way to learn, for the first stages of learning

Hunter: I don’t think we should join the winners up, I think the other schools will have all kinds of expensive equipment already. I think we should take half and give it to RE Wilson and take half of it and give it to another charity.

Vickie: I think it’s a really good idea. You really want to win it because you really want to give it away, because then we can share what we have with other people.

Madi: I think Finley’s idea is an awesome idea, I think we could give some money to RE Wilson and Fielding. We do a lot of charity work and we could give some to one of the charities.

Ethan: I totally agree with Hunter. We were born at the same day at the same time! I think giving $1000 is a little much, I think $250 or $500 or $750.

Kaleigh: I think it’s a good idea, but would we give some money to other classes in our school too? Would we still be able to get apps for us too?

Miguel: I say we should keep $4000, because all the computers in the computer lab don’t really work and we can supply the other classes with new tech and give the rest to charity.

 

Mel: Ithink we should give $500 to Fielding and $500 to RE Wilson and $500 for a charity and $200 for each of the other schools if they are runners-up. And the rest can come for us and if we have leftovers, we can give it to charity. To me, it’s too much. Kinders should have at least one mini-iPad per class. We have SO much and if you compare it to another school, our class might have more than a whole school! We use them, but I think other schools might need more.

Fin: Maybewe could do some Kiva donations or UNICEF donations. I noticed that everybody is agreeing in a different way. There’s no right and wrong answer.

Thomas: It’s important to remember we might not win. The computers in the lab are REALLY slow and a lot of them are down. I like Finley’s idea, but maybe not $1000, maybe $750 or $800, but save enough for iPads for the younger classes.

Liam:I think we should give $500 to the other two schools, RE Wilson and Fielding. And then we can split the rest of the money between all the classes at Churchill. Would we be able to get a giant cheque or a regular cheque?

Dan: I think we should give however much money RE Wilson needs to go on a field trip and to other schools to go on field trips.

Jack: I think that we should give $1500 to RE Wilson and $500 to Fielding and the rest for our computer lab.

Hunter: I really think we should donate to hospital charities. Maybe someday, if someone had cancer and got better, they might grow up and become a billionaire!

Gabby: When we’re going to Fielding, maybe they could come to our school sometime.

Erika: Maybe we could give half of the money to a hospital and half of the money to RE Wilson.

Fiona: I really like all the ideas, but remember that the reason we entered was to get more technology for schools. We could maybe enter something else to get money for charities in general. I really like the idea to get technology for RE Wilson and Fielding and some for the runners-up. If we were to win and give some to Fielding, we could give it to them on the field trip.

Pat:I think that we should be careful how we say this. Something like, “In our minds, you guys are all winners” instead of, “Nice try, too bad”. That might sound like bragging and we’re not a bragging school. We only have a ⅓ chance of winning.

Molly: I thought maybe we could give half of our money to Uganda because they don’t have any technology except for the principal.

Miguel: Some of the computers in the lab were made in 2001 and many of them crashed. Isn’t the money supposed to be for technology in Ottawa?

Hunter: Even if we don’t win, we could still fundraise for technology for the little kids at our school. We could give iPad lessons or something. Our class is pretty techy and could do iPad lessons for fundraising.

Fiona: If we win and if we keep any money, I think the primaries should come first and we should the same amount of money for each class and they could get the technology that they need. We don’t know if they’d really NEED an iPad.

Miguel: We could get some iTunes gift cards. If we win, we could buy some more computers and screen covers (iGuys) for the iPads.:

Math: Working with Coordinates

 One of my very favourite things about having all the great tech in our class is seeing how well all the Digital Degus learn in different ways on different days and differentiate their learning about any topic. When Kit was reviewing how to read a map with coordinates, students tried a whole bunch of different activities. Some read a giant map of Gatineau Park in a sort of "Treasure Hunt".

 Some students played an Ancient Civilizations low-tech version of Battleship.

 Thomas and Haydon played an app called "Coordinates" that lets you go on a Treasure Hunt, design your own maps and find hidden shapes.

Our New iPad, Ivy!

So we just got a new iPad and we named it. It may sound weird but its fun. Here, let me show you. We now have 13 computers in are room! now we have 8 student computers and 2 class computers and 3 iPads. we our so good with technology. and the iPad that's green is called Ivy!

IPad App Review: Uzu - by Fiona

Uzu.
Uzu is a very cool app were you get to put different fingers on the screen and move little specs of light around. It might help you relieve stress or it might help you calm down.
I definitely recommend this app to you.

Here's Haydon enjoying Uzu on the bus, on the way to skating!

Madi's Fractured Fairy Tale!

Puppet Pals is an app and you can record a story by using your voice and have characters and backgrounds. I did my Fractured Fairy Tale on this. I used paper as a script. It's easier because you don't have to type it up. It was very fun and awesome, you could have any character that's on there and you could change the setting as you were recording. It was very fun.

Madi's Fractured Fairy Tale

-by Madi

Meet Isaac! - by Thomas

This is Isaac, Shauna's iPad. This is where we do all our Tweets and Skype with our student teacher, Anna, on the iPad. The people who are Tweeting get to use it. He has two cameras, an inner camera and an outer camera. He has arms and legs so you can hold him better. He's got lots of features, like lots of apps on him. The kids in Room 209 really like using Isaac 'cause he's really cool and fun to use.

This is Isaac!

-by Thomas

Shauna's Learning - iPads in the Classroom and Sir John Jones

On Wednesday night, I was lucky enough to go to a Lead the Way event run by the Parent Engagment Committee and the Leadership Committee in the OCDSB. I met all kinds of wonderful students and learned about the projects that are going on in their schools.

My friend, Jodi, is a teacher at Adrienne Clarkson and did a project last year with 20 iPads in her grade 1 classroom. She brought three wonderful representatives from that class (they are now grade 2s) to demonstrate the success of the project. These two students were enthusiastic and knowledgeable and were happy to show me some of the great tasks they knew how to do on their iPads. They even had business cards with QR codes (we need to try this in our room!)

Adrienne Clarkson students showing me their iPad skills!

I also got to talk to a student from Leslie Park P.S. about her school's Kindness Club. Their school is tiny, it only has 128 students! 22 of them are in the Kindness Club and they meet at lunchtimes each week. They promote kindness within the school and community. They have a Pay it Forward Day where all students receive 2 kindness pins that they can give away to someone who treats them kindly. They also raise money through Freezie sales, bake sales, fruit and goodie sales, clothing sales and a garage sale to support the Ottawa Mission, Ottawa Humane Society, CHEO, Salvation Army and Christie Lake Kids.

I was inspired by the amazing, innovative projects kids and teachers are working on in our wonderful school board.

This is what a real knight looks like!

 The inspiration of the evening continued as I got to see a real live knight - Sir John Jones - speak! He talked about creativity and individualization in education. I laughed and I even cried during his presentation!

I was pretty excited when he used the word "daft"! Sir John is British and it's a pretty British word, but I think he'd fit in well in our classroom!

Who do you think will get the best marks on this test?

 I hope you can see this cartoon. I really think it says some interesting things about education!

Sir John Jones talked about the future and told the audience of students, parents, community members and school staff that 80% of the jobs that you students in Room 209 will have don't even exist yet!

He reminded us teachers that it is so important for students' voices to be heard in the classroom. He said that classrooms often look like "30 children showing up to watch an adult work"! Many classes have the teacher talking 80% of the time. He suggested we try to switch that around and have the teacher talking for only 20% of the time and the students talking for 80% of the time.

 I want to talk about this in class. What do you think are the things we do most in class? What are the things you would like to do most in class?

Sir John said that the job of teachers is not just to teach students the subject, but more importantly, to teach students to love the subject and to feel passion for learning. He calls teachers "Magic Weavers".

A lot of the things Sir John said reminded me of the work we're doing in Room 209. He showed us a list of the skills students develop in Finland. They are called "Citizen Skills" and reminded me of our Class Expectations.
Citizen Skills in Finland
-Thinking
-Teamwork
-Creativity
-Initiative and self awareness
-Personal responsibility

He also showed us the list of big ideas in education in Singapore.
Education in Singapore
-Teach less, learn more
-Problem solving
-Curiousity
-Collaboration
-Organization

He spoke about his ideas that matched our "Outside the Hoop" thinking. He talked about being creative, breaking the rules, and taking risks.

I also loved what he said about great mathematicians. He used the word "resilience" to describe the perseverance that mathematicians show by never giving up. I think we should add resilience to our list of assessment criteria for Mathtastic 521!

The best piece of advice he gave, I think, and I hope you've read all the way to the end of this, is: "Find something you are passionate about, and find someone to pay you to do it. You'll never work a day in your life." I'm lucky that I am passionate about teaching, and I hope to help you all get on the track to finding your own passions this year!