@BloxelsBuilder

 

Thanks to @DonorsChoose, we have 2 bloxel boards in our classroom. The students used graph paper to make designs and thank you cards for our generous donors.

 

The students were so excited to try out the boards to create new characters, backgrounds, and objects to create new games using the Bloxel App. 

 

When the creations are made on the hands-on bloxel board, the students can then scan their creations and then use them for further creation.

 
The had great fun finding digital pictures to copy on both the hands-on board or the graph paper. Can't wait to see what they continue to create!

Small schools are important

For some, its easy to say to just close down the smaller school sites. But small schools are a center of these bush communities. They provide employment, meals, and also are gathering places where athletics or arts can happen. Whenever a small school is closed down, families either have to move to another community or stay where they are and not send their children to school. Online homeschool is not a viable option for many of these people where a monthly internet service can be close to $350.

I am working at the largest school in the district and they have been hit here by school choice. Almost the entire 9th grade class & is spread out to boarding schools, which means that the enrollment is down here. I have an assistant who went to a boarding school last year, but returned this year who says that she didn't like it there because of bullying.

As a parent, I do believe in school choice. I was privileged enough to attend private schools and as my sons grow older, I worry about sending them to public school. If a voucher program were to be instituted in Alaska, it would have to be to attract students from the larger school districts to come to a boarding school at one of these rural schools where they could get a smaller class size and more personalized instruction. It CANNOT be to open more charter schools in a large district where there are already options.

These bush schools need to be a priority. I never realized how much they need support till I started working here such as access to formal Physical Education, Arts, and Music instruction is needed or support for libraries outside of school hours. Governor Walker says that they want to ensure excellent education every day and so, we need to raise up the schools that we already have instead of trying to open & maintain more.

When the larger districts serve more students, its easier to think about their needs outweighing the needs of these smaller communities. These smaller communities are important. They are unique and distinctly Alaskan. Their constituents don't have loud rallying voices, so its often easy to forget them. These small schools matter.

Analog #booksnaps

I love the idea of using snapchat, but was hesitant of enrolling my younger 3rd grade students on there so I found the app: Skitch that does many of the same things such as taking pictures and being able to add text or drawings on top of it.

I am going to use it for our Iditarod Reading Challenge. Each student will keep a reading log. They will use booksnaps to take a picture every 5 pages and write a reflection

or a connection 

or identifying spelling or vocabulary words. 

I'm pretty excited. The skitches are then saved to their camera roll and I can share & compile them for others to see in the class & offline. It should be fun! 

Self-Directed Class

After the break, I start to release control in the classroom to give the students more responsibilities. I've done this with Preschoolers/Kindergarteners and they absolutely love the chance to be "teacher"


The Principal announced that the gym was under maintenance today and instantly one of the students was up at the white board taking a vote to see if we would play outside or have centers this afternoon. They wrote in the times & dates for the Basketball games onto the classroom calendar. They proactively remind and make rules "You are making us wait for you, so you are going to get 2 minutes off centers"

For our reading direction instruction piece: I've started letting one of them have the answer key and read the answers out to the students.




During GeniusHour:

-We got a funded for a 3D printing pen (3Doodler), so they have been busy making designs from their invention convention a couple months ago. Others are now asking to put together a donors choose project so they can get other materials they need for their projects.

-2 students are busy programming Dash & Dot.
-Using the ipads, they have been making stop motion movies using clay, animation, and even a live-action superhero film. There is dialogue, sound effects, and music.

-2 bloxel boards are due in the mail soon, so they will be able to start programming with that as well!

I have such a remarkable group of students. So thankful.

#SpellingBEE

We are ready for the Spelling Bee! It is next Friday at the school.

We have been practicing our words & spelling rules for months! Our in-class spelling bee had to go several rounds because everyone was spelling correctly!

The students had fun creating Bees for our fliers to put up at the school, AC store, post office, & tribal office building!

Kahoot! created a jumble feature, so we were able to practice spelling through that program. The students noticed that the symbol on the yellow was supposed to be a circle, but showed up as a square on their ipads, so we wrote to Kahoot, so they could fix it.

Grade Level Proficiency vs. Continued Progress

As we start our Winter Benchmark testing, I began to think hard about the whole Grade Level Proficiency vs. Continued Progress.

I had a student who started at a 4 in math computations. At winter, they are a 16, which shows a tremendous growth. However the majority of their classmates scored in the 50s (and around 20-30 in the Fall) At the beginning of the year, they struggled with basic addition computations, having to add on their fingers while the others were learning about multiplication. I supplemented: while the others did multiplication fact games, they would do addition ones. I sent home materials to practice at home. They were exposed to multiplication concepts even though they didn't understand it, while they built up their fundamental math skills.

There has been the big question that our principal posed: "Do we teach to mastery or do we teach for exposure?"

I think in math, it is very cyclical. Our first unit was on the commutative, distributive, and associative properties of multiplication. After winter break, our units are on the commutative, associative, and identity properties of addition.

I love the idea of education as a spiral where you re-visit terms & concepts at different points to check your understanding rather than spending time on one term & concept till you have "mastered it" I believe true mastery happens when you still remember something even after not being exposed to it for an amount of time. 

#ASTE17

https://www.aste.org/aste-2017-conference/

I am so excited to be presenting at the ASTE conference this year. For years, I have made it my professional development goal to present and get to learn from other educators. The last two years, I presented at the AEYC-SEA (Early Childhood Conference), so this leap into a larger forum of Technology is big!

I am really excited about my topic- Your Digital Footprint: Teaching Digital Citizenship Online & Off-line. I feel especially in this age where social media is huge, you really need to start teaching & acting like someone is always watching!

I am also so excited to learn from Alice Keeler & George Couros. I'd love to be like them someday. This year, my goal is to write my book.
------------------------------

My students received Time for Kids where there was an article about a boy who attended school as a "robot" because he had surgery and couldn't leave. They thought it was such an interesting concept and when I told them that I would be missing school a couple days to go to the conference, they thought it would be cool if I could appear via skype to teach them.

Every semester, we do an awards ceremony here. The students all get awards for most improved scores, being helpful or kind, but the most coveted is the PERFECT ATTENDANCE award. I had 2 students who missed 1 day of school last semester because they had to fly to Dr. Appointments in Fairbanks and 2 who were sick (throwing up for one day.) and they thought it would be so cool if they could get perfect attendance by appearing in class that way.