Collaborating on Cultivation: Our Journey Through Discovering Our PLNs

Callie and I got together to reflect upon our learning over the semester as we cultivated our PLNs. We had a lot of fun creating this presentation and hope you enjoy it, too!

Popplet's for Everything! (A Visual Representation of Sir Ken Robinson's "The World We Explore"

I created a Popplet (my new favorite technology tool) to organize and share a visual representation of my thoughts while watching Sir Ken Robinson's talk entitled "The World We Explore". I hope it makes sense to more than just my brain.... Enjoy!

http://popplet.com/app/#/979613

(I know, I know, providing a link is way less cool than embedding the actual popplet into this post, but the embed code provided wouldn't work.... the "joy" of technology)

Oh wait... I think it worked!!!

Geometry Popplet Scavenger Hunt

This week, we have started our geometry unit in math. I wanted to design an activity that would get the students engaged and also provide an introduction to much of the academic vocabulary that comes with geometry.

Using their pre-assessments, I designed an appropriate scavenger hunt for each of my small groups. After explaining how to use popplet, I sent them on their way to search for geometry in "real-life". They were completely engaged and we were all disappointed when we ran out of time and had to cut the scavenger hunt short on the first day. Tomorrow I will give them more time to complete their scavenger hunt. However, one of the downfalls of having popplet lite is that their popplets were not able to be saved. To bypass this, I had them save and email the work that they had completed to me to compile into a separate document. When completed,  I will print and distribute this document to each member of the group to use as a resource guide for the remainder of the unit.

Listed below are the two checklists:

Popplet Geometry Scavenger Hunt

Angles:

___ Right Angle

___ Acute Angle

___ Obtuse Angle

___ Reflex Angle

___ Complementary Angles

___ Supplementary Angles

___ Adjacent Angles

___ Vertical Angles

___ Angle Bisector

Triangles:

___ Scalene Triangle

___ Isosceles Triangle

___ Equilateral Triangle

*Challenge: Can you label these triangles according to their sides AND angles?

___ Right Triangle

___ Acute Triangle

___ Obtuse Triangle

___ Equiangular Triangle

Quadrilaterals:

___ Rhombus

___ Trapezoid

Figures:

___ Similar Figures

___ Congruent Figures

Popplet Geometry Scavenger Hunt

Lines:

___ Intersecting Lines

___ Perpendicular Lines

___ Parallel Lines

Angles:

___ Right Angle

___ Acute Angle

___ Obtuse Angle

___ Straight Angle

Quadrilaterals:

___ Square

___ Rectangle

___ Parallelogram

___ Rhombus

___ Trapezoid

. . .



ACTIVITY UPDATE
A few days later...
The compilation of their emailed popplets did not work well. I decided to purchase the real version of popplet on my iPad and allow them to collaborate as a group on the scavenger hunt activity. This created a better finished product that will be a great resource guide for them throughout the unit, however, it was not ideal, from an engagement standpoint, to have 5 students working on 1 iPad.... I will continue to think about how to best utilize this resource but for now they did make 2 very cool finished products! I have printed them out for them to use throughout the rest of the unit.

Here they are!
(well almost... they will be, as soon as I figure out how to embed PDFs into this blog...)

Here they are (really this time)!

Look for the Helpers

As I was driving to school Tuesday morning, mindlessly flipping through the radio stations, distracted by thoughts of the terrible event in Boston the day before, wondering how my friends and family were coping with a tragedy too close to home, and questioning whether I should/would, and, if I did, how I should/would discuss the event with the students in my classroom, I heard something on the radio that has really stuck with me. 

"Look for the helpers," said the radio announcer.

He continued to explain that even as a positive person, it is often extremely difficult to find the positive in such a shocking and tragic situation. His emphasis on looking for the helpers- focusing on all of the people who responded with bravery, kindness, and empathy was exactly the perspective I needed to make some sense out of such a senseless act.

What can often be found is that the "helpers" greatly outnumber those few who unfortunately chose to enact violence and cause suffering. First responders were at the scene in minutes, courageously helping everyone they could, Boston blood banks overflowed with people's generous donations, and social media was able to aid in providing a means of communication when other methods were not working... just to name a few.  

And it is the small acts of kindness, the ones that will never make it to the news, but will be talked about at the dinner tables, and office meetings, and among friends and family that should also be celebrated.  These acts, not the violence, are the part of the event that should be focused on and communicated. Although Marathon Monday will never be quite the same, and my whole heart goes out to each and every person who has or still is suffering from the terrible event, we must find the positive and always remember to look for the helpers. 

At the Bruins game last night, the entire building reverberated with everyone in the TD Banknorth Garden singing the national anthem and the overall feelings of solidarity within a city that will not accept nor be defeated by such senseless acts are incredible. 

#bostonstrong 

When technology truly is amazing...

Oops! So I wrote this the other night before our virtual class and forgot to post it... better late than never I suppose!

When technology is truly amazing...

As I wait for the google hangout to begin that will be our learning and technology class, I am thinking about how truly connected technology has made us. Currently, I am sitting in my mom's living room on Plum Island in Massachusetts. My class, normally held in Mother Rosalie Hill Hall at the University of San Diego, San Diego, California, is virtual tonight. Without this, I would either 1. not be able to enjoy a special dinner with my mom after class or 2. have to miss class to be able to have a special dinner. For me, tonight, technology has made both of these things possible and I am so grateful!

Action Research Tagxedo

So I'm obsessed with tagxedo. It is such a cool visual representation of ideas! I took my Action Research Introduction and created one...

I love the words that really stand out! Makes me think (or at least feel like) I'm on the right track with the direction of my inquiry project!

Tagxedo Creations in the Classroom

Every two weeks, the students have the opportunity to explore a Junior Scholastic magazine. Often, on the first day it is presented, we choose one article to focus on. In this issue, there was an article on the economic promise of multiple African countries. This aligned perfectly with the culmination of the students' global journey research projects on a chosen African country. 

After reading the article together, answering some questions, and discussing different parts, I asked the students to form five small groups. Their task within their group, was to create a word splat (brainstormed list of words) that related to the article as a google doc. This could include words from the actual article, reactions to the article, feelings around aspects of the article, etc. I explained tagxedo (unfortunately I wasn't able to show them/create it right there because of incompatible software for the iPad and school computers) and what these words that they were brainstorming would be used to create. I had them share their google docs with me and that evening I created the tagxedo shown! 

I projected the image the next day during their time to work on their global journey projects and they all loved it! I will definitely use this tool again! I found it to be a fun and effective way to get students to think about a certain topic and what words are important. It presents the student produced information in an extremely interesting and visual way. Now if I could only get it to work at school for the students to do themselves...