Instructional Videos – Zoom and Edmodo

Within a very short space of time we have all been thrown into a way of teaching that is very different from the routine we have been used to. We have little to no training and have had to adapt very quickly to new ways (for most of us) of delivering our lessons. The videos that I have put together are ones that I have been using to help me prepare.

Zoom:  Video and audio conferencing software.

Edmodo: Communication and collaboration software specifically designed for students and teachers.

Screen Cast O Matic: Screen capture allowing creation of short videos of your computer screen. Including your explanations and instructions.

I have created playlists on YouTube for Edmodo and Zoom, all of which have been produced by an experienced online educator, Russell Standard. There is a single video below explaining Screen Cast O Matic.

If you would like to see all the videos in the playlist for Edmodo (6 videos) and Zoom (5 videos) click on the word YouTube in the bottom right corner of the videos below to view the playlist on YouTube.

Zoom

Edmodo

Screen Cast O Matic

Programming with drones

In 2018 Paul spent considerable time developing his knowledge and understanding of how block coding worked and used this with his 5/6 class to program Sphero robots. In 2019 he has continued to extend and develop his knowledge of programming, using the Parrot Mambo drones with his class.

This Digital Technologies unit involved students extending their knowledge of block coding, learning about drone safety, how to manually fly the drones, understanding and using the Tynker app, and programming the drones through an obstacle course. Students also had to use a variety of interpersonal skills to successfully work with a partner during the program.

As with most technologies being used for the first time the drones required a significant amount of persistence and problem solving. In preparation Paul did taught himself how to use the drones ensuring he knew some of the issues students would face when working with the drones. The students demonstrated considerable problem solving skills and a good understanding of block coding to achieve the end goal of moving their drones through a series of obstacles.

Comments made by the students included:

  • “We had to make sure we put in the correct information to make the drones work, things like height, distance and time”.
  • “I really liked making the drones flip and do 360 degree turns, being able to program the drone was fun”.
  • “It was fun working with a partner to program the drones. I enjoyed interacting with the drone rather than just sitting at a computer”.
  • “We had some problems connecting to the drones sometimes but most of the time they worked well”.
  • “It was fun flying the drones but it was a challenge to program them correctly”.

Links to the 5/6 Digital Technologies Australian Curriculum

Achievement Standard: Students plan, design, test, modify and create digital solutions that meet intended purposes including user interfaces and a visual program.

Content Descriptor: Implement digital solutions as simple visual programs involving branching, iteration (repetition), and user input (ACTDIP020).

Elaboration: Programming a robot to operate independently through an obstacle course.

Students program drones to move through an obstacle course

Putting STEM education into perspective

The DEC Intranet provides some useful resources around STEM including information about STEM learning and its importance, STEM learning programs and STEM learning resources.

One of the resources is a best advice paper titled Putting STEM education into perspective. The purpose of this paper is to clear up misconceptions about STEM education. I have summarised the key points.

  • STEM is not new emerging in the 1990s in the U.S.A. Much as it is now, the driving forces were economic and political. The original focus was science and maths. Technologies evolved within this framework in the later 90’s.
  • There is speculation about what STEM actually is. Some see it as only pertaining to an interdisciplinary focus (Breiner, Johnson, Harkness & Koehler, 2012). While The National STEM School Education Strategy states: STEM education is a term used to refer collectively to the teaching of the disciplines within its umbrella: science, technology, engineering and mathematics; and also, to a cross-disciplinary approach to teaching (Education Council, 2015, p.5).
  • The paper highlights real world examples of connections between the each. Examples provided include connections between two subject areas to all four.

At the centre of the figure is integration across the four areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Again, using the telescope example, current construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope in the Chilean Andes moves beyond technology to become a mathematical and engineering feat, given its seven 8.4m mirrors and aperture of 24.5m. It is predicted that this mega-telescope and others will increase our current understanding of the nature of the universe exponentially (Spinks, 2016). 

  • In more recent times STEM has been seen as seperate to its four foundational areas making STEM a separate entity. The rhetoric communicated around this view is that unless children or students are building, designing and solving problems they are ’not doing STEM’. 
    • STEM as a seperate entity is often accompanied by the idea that the pedagogy is the focus and this will automatically allow students to learn, for example problem solving, problem based learning, collaboration and group work. Missing from this thinking is a focus on ‘traditional’ content knowledge.
    • There is no educational premise for STEM being a separate entity (taught isolated from the weekly maths, science and technology lessons). When taught as a separate entity the risk is focusing on the associated pedagogies with little thought for content knowledge which is required to successfully explore authentic problems.
    • While these pedagogies are effective, content discipline knowledge is a requirement, as is teacher direction and guidance. In actual fact, using these pedagogies appropriately requires considerable skill and teacher expertise (Rosicka, 2016).

What does this mean for our practice?

  • STEM should not be viewed as a new/separate subject to teach.
  • Depending on your previous practice you may need to adjust your teaching:
    • to create clearer, practical links between the STEM subjects
    • to provide tasks that allow students to apply content knowledge from one or more STEM related disciplines to authentic problems.
  • A lesson of building, making, problem solving, problem based learning (at any year level) is not STEM without the underlying scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical principles being explicitly identified and applied.
  • We have identified a room in our school which staff and students refer to as the “STEM room”. We must be careful not to associate this with where STEM is taught. It is one of the many spaces STEM can be taught in our school.
  • We should not lose sight of the importance of content knowledge, careful teacher guidance and explicit teaching. While Hattie can often polarise educators I think he explains this well in the following video discussing why pedagogies like inquiry based learning can fall down without the supporting content knowledge.

How to ask better questions

“Most questions are safe, that is they surface what is already seen or understood, they lead to regurgitated ideas and opinions. In other words, most questions people ask really surface what is already known. Top performers however, they ask questions that go deep. They ask questions that move us from automatic, reactionary thinking to deep thinking, they ask questions that inspire creativity, fuel passion and lead to profound ideas. Most importantly they ask questions that spur people into action.” Mike Vaughan, 2015

The success of a good answer relies on the words we choose. For example, when confronted with a challenge consider two ways you might look at the problem, 1. What should we do? (narrowing possibilities) or 2. What could we do? (widening possibilities). Mike Vaughan, 2015

Do the majority of questions we ask in the classroom fall into the safe category? That is, questions we know the answer to, with a high chance that some or all students will also know the answer. It isn’t that we shouldn’t ask safe questions, they are important and provide us with an insight into the level of knowledge students have. However, if these are the only types of questions we ask are we doing a disservice to our students?

  • How will they learn to apply their knowledge to complex problems?
  • How will they use their knowledge to critically evaluate?
  • How will they use their knowledge to create?
  • How will they know it is ok to ask a question, which they do not know the answer to?

The wheels are falling off technology in schools: Microsoft

This article is written by Microsoft who supply laptops to schools so I will take it with a grain of salt that they don’t see the value of mobile phones in the classroom but I will say it does reflect my experience. I see little use in my HPE classroom for student mobile phones when we have access to school iPads and 1:1 laptops. My general experience is that across the school day phones distract considerably more than they influence learning.

STEM Project – Make your own speakers

Exploring sound in science with your students?

  • How does sound travel?
  • How do different materials absorb sound?
  • How can we amplify sound?

After teaching students about sound and how it works set students the challenge of amplifying your phone. Have students work in groups with each group presenting their ‘speaker’ to the class using your phone as the audio source.

  • What materials worked best?
  • What shapes worked best?
  • What size works best?
  • What other things need to be considered to improve amplification?

 

Click here to access a lesson and resources on sound vibrations.

What is an authentic STEM project? Would creating a phone speaker satisfy the following criteria?

Who is Rube Goldberg?

Rube Goldberg was born in 1883. In 1904 he graduated Berkley College as an engineer which eventually gave way to him becoming a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He continued as an editorial cartoonist for the New York Sun and his fame came from a fictional character he created, Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. Through this character he would illustrate complex inventions later to become known as Rube Goldberg machines.

A “Rube Goldberg Machine” is an extremely complicated device that executes a very simple task in a complex, indirect way. rube-goldberg.com

 

Rube Goldberg in your classroom

How could you use the concept of a Rube Goldberg machine to create a STEM project if a STEM project is defined as the following?

Diagram provided by STEM 500 Primary Educators 

Examples of Rube Goldberg Machines

Click here for an example STEM lesson building a Rube Goldberg machine (NSW Education Standards Authority).

Like to see more Rube Goldberg machines? Just click here!

Green Screen by Do Ink

Green Screen by Do Ink makes it easy to create incredible green screen videos and photos. Classroom-tested by kids and teachers, this app emphasizes ease-of-use and simplicity while still enabling fantastic results. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways. DK Pictures, Inc

“Use Green Screen as part of a project based learning unit…highly recommended..” – Teachers With Apps

“Green Screening and creativity go hand-in-hand.. with the amazing DoInk Green Screen app for the iPad.” – UKedChat

“Recording in it is easy as pie and can be used in elementary, middle or high school.” – Examiner.com

“Do Ink’s excellent Green Screen app is a fantastic addition to the amateur film maker’s armory.” – iPad Insight

“Single best green screen app ever produced…” – iPadEducators

This app is on all of our classroom iPads and combined with the green screen and lighting kit in the STEM centre provides an opportunity for students to create some great videos.

Introduction to Green Screen by Do Ink

 How to use Green Screen by Do Ink