Last Friday's Digital Notes- May 1

Right before vacation, I intended to email the Digital Notes out, (but figured it was vacation week), so instead you can find it as the previous post or click here to read about some iPad updates, free online Google PD event happening soon, and the beginning of our Shout Out Showcase!

#OfthePeople

On Thursday, Discovery Education held a live online event to discuss the ConnectEd initiative launched by President Obama in June 2013 to ensure all students have access to the best technology in schools & libraries and learning experiences that prepare them for college and career. A 6th grader from Bennett Middle School in Maryland did a fabulous job hosting the event with President Obama!  Watch the recording here (it begins about 22 minutes in)- there were technical difficulties initially. Or check out the tweets.

* Looks like they hold other events.. for STEM/NASA and such so check their website/ hashtag #ofthepeople often (discoveryeducation.com/ofthepeople).

QR codes bring Poetry to the Hallways!

To be or not to Be! Elise Malone’s 6th graders are bringing poetry to the hallways of Blake! Each student chose one of their very own penned poems to record and publish to their classroom’s YouTube Channel. They used that link to the video of their poem to create a QR poster  to share! The poster was made first by creating the QR code and then, importing the image into Notability. Please encourage your students to check them out! (You’ll need a QR Reader app).

Professional Development = Coding + Modern Learner

In our final Advanced iPad workshop, EdTechTeacher Greg Kulowiec’s main thread throughout was to think about the ‘modern learner’ and to have us as teachers revisit or experience what new learning feels like- you know, to get us out of our comfort zone and to focus on problem-solving and collaboration (insert coding)! Our task was to first create or find a representative image of the modern learner, bring that into Scratch Jr. (a very basic, free coding app for k-3 students) and code the characters to present our ideas. 

Check out your colleagues' interpretation of the Modern Learner coded on Scratch Jr.
via this YouTube Playlist.

* Greg introduced the ‘thinking’ around coding with an unplugged-Stack the Cups activity. 
Our Teachers needed many redos until their "robot" completed the code correctly.

Helpful Tips for Some Commonly Asked Questions:

How to Download Music and Video Files to the iPad with Riddle

Can Excellent Lesson on How Students Can Use Scratch Jr. for Digital StoryTelling

Setting the Default Apps with Google on the iPad

Hope you enjoyed this past week's notes!
Diane