The journey of an art therapist turned education technology expert
“I wish I could take your class!”
– eighth grade parent
It’s going to be a great and very creative semester! Check out the sides:
The post Middle School Curriculum Night – Design/Maker Elective appeared first on The Hamlin Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
At Hamlin, we’re constantly striving to innovate in the classroom, with the benefit of students and evidence based pedagogy at the heart of our choices. ATLIS, a new organization started only two years ago, offers a great conference focusing on education technology specifically in Independent Schools. I’m grateful to the Hamlin community for sponsoring me as I pursued this excellent professional development opportunity.
Sessions included:
I also teamed up with Kelsey Vrooman, one of the founding members of ATLIS, and presented a Deep Dive (1h45min) presentation about Blended Learning (BL). With around 20 attendees, we had a fruitful discussion about BL and how various models are being applied within Independent Schools currently.
Having returned, my mind is now buzzing with ideas! Thank you, Hamlin, for the opportunity to connect with like minded educators and learn from some of the most accomplished education technology leaders in the country.
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Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
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Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
We’re 3/4 of the way through the first trimester in 2D Digital Art, and we’ve been working on a number of projects including:
Many of the projects require 7-8 45 minute classes to complete, including at least one session of in-class instruction and ongoing support. This semester, on average, each project took 5-6 classes to complete. Over 80% of the students had little to no experience using Photoshop before this class. How is it that learning was able to be sped up while accounting for the various levels of expertise? By using blended learning!
How it works in the 2D Digital Art Classroom:
The post Blended Learning in the 2D Digital Art Classroom appeared first on Education Technology Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
Rachel Davis, Middle School Science Teacher and iPad Coordinator, Maggie Jo Feldman, MS Art Teacher, and Alison Trujillo, MS Spanish Teacher, teamed up for a fabulous Earth Day project! Along with the Grade 6 students, they released the Pacific Chorus Frog at Mountain Lake, making it the second native species reintroduced as part of our efforts to restore the ecosystem at the lake.
Here is a brief interview with the team recapping the experience:
Q: What grade level were you working with?
A: Grade 6Q: What were your goals going into the project?
A: To raise awareness for the students so they could understand the human impacts on Mountain Lake. As they learned about it, they wanted to inform the public about these issues and the ways that people could help to restore the lake. Another goal we was to collaborate between subjects: Science, Art and Spanish.Q: How did you roll out the project?
A: Leading up to Earth Day, we took a half-day where students designed beautiful and informative images that are on painted wood panels. During that time, they also created Spanish and English movies to explain the issues the images represented. Visitors to the National Park can scan QR codes attached to the panels to view the videos.Q: If you were to do the project again what (if anything) would you change?
A: The time line was really tough. Next time, we’d like more time to connect with the park for planning purposes. This project would also benefit from more preparation time given to the students for cutting and designing the wooden boards. Looking ahead, we think we’ll also put more of an emphasis on teaching about the history of public art.
View photos on the Precido’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.979761525370337.1073741865.128693360477162&type=1
View photos on Shutterfly: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AcuGzhy3ZuGTDAA
The post Citizen Science @ Mountain Lake appeared first on Education Technology Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
The Hamlin.org Global Citizenship webpages needed to be created, and Dan was preparing for a seminar he was leading about Global Citizenship. We wanted to have visual content to supplement the written/spoken material that had already been assembled. What better than a student created iMovie project to meet these needs!?
Dan Polk, Director of Global Citizenship, and Marisa Felt Bellingrath, Assistant Head of School, teamed up to envision the project and created a proposal for two Grade 8 students, Ava and Bella, to complete.
Jim Lengel, Middle School Tech Integration Specialist, and Liz Beck, Project Manager LMS, were teaching Bella and Ava in the Digital Art Elective at the time of the project.
Q: What grade level were you working with?
A:
Dan Polk and Liz Beck: Grade 8
Q: What were your goals going into the project?
A:
DP: The central goal of the project was provide a broad overview of Hamlin’s Global Citizenship program, one that incorporated the voices of both students and faculty.
LB: Both students who created the video had been in Digital Arts for 5 trimesters. They are iMovie and Photoshop power users and are very talented esthetically. We needed a project that would challenge these students and help them take their skills to the next level – creating digital content that can be used in a real world context, and learning how to work as a part of a team to execute a creative project.
Q: How did you roll out the project?
A:
LB: Originally, Dan asked me to work on this project. While I was happy to help, the timing perfectly coincided with the start of Trimester 2 of Digital Art and the struggle I was experiencing with keeping the course relevant to Ava and Bella.
Dan arranged a time to meet with Ava and Bella during Digital Art. He introduced the scope of the project, as well as its goals and timeline. He and Marisa also dropped in periodically to check on their progress. The students knew I was there as a resource, but overall they managed the project independently and worked on it both during Digital Art and on their free time.
DP: I also provided the students with music ideas, images, and questions to pose to faculty/students.
Q: If you were to do the project again what (if anything) would you change?
A:
DP: I might include a live shot or two of students doing something Global Citizenship related, skyping, working in the community etc.
Ava and Bella’s work is featured on the Hamlin website! http://www.hamlin.org/Page/Program/Global-Citizenship
The post Student created web content appeared first on Education Technology Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
When I read about Ed Tech solutions for the classroom I often get the impression that the concepts are only applicable to older students. Lower School students sometimes get left out, and the more interesting Ed Tech work is integrated in the upper school levels.
This is partially because many lessons are designed to integrate multiple basic concepts, which are taught in the younger grades. But, there are lots of tech tasks that younger students are capable of managing if given the ability. For example, even the youngest students can use an iPad to record a video. However, posting that video for private classroom display is a challenge – most media sharing apps (YouTube, Vimeo, etc…) will only allow users 13+ years to register. This means that either the teacher needs to make an account, which she then shares with the students, or the teacher collects all the videos and posts them herself…not an ideal solution.
We’ve come up with a pretty nifty solution here at Hamlin! WordPress + the Jetpack plugin + VideoPress upgrade.
Hamlin’s WordPress.org Set-Up
WordPress.org Integration via the Jetpack plugin – VideoPress
Note: you can attach your WordPress.com account (upgrade and all!) to multiple .org sites. This is a HUGE money saver!
Success story from the classroom, written by Ms. Andrews (Grade 2 teacher)
Background: The girls started their Family Field Trips around San Francisco. For this project, the girls create a presentation using PowerPoint/Keynote/Google Slides etc…, which they present to the class.
After A. presented her slides to the class, she went home and: took a screenshot of each slide to input the images into the Book Creator app, cropped each photo in Photos prior to putting it into Book Creator, and made a new book in Book Creator of her slide images. She used the sound recording tool to record herself reading her slides saved her project as a video. Then, she uploaded the recorded version as a video to the Blog and wrote a description about her work…all on her own! 
A. said she did this because, “I wanted to be able to share it with my grandparents and other people who live far away, and with people that came over to my house. The steps just seemed to make sense to me, so I did it and it worked.”
I love how confident she felt to problem solve and explore these tech tools in order to create a project that fit her needs for communication, despite it not being a requirement of the project. She shows ownership of her learning and pride in the work she has done on this project!
The ability for the girls to connect school to home and home to school via the Blog, is so exciting and gives me ideas about future projects/uses! To see the girls take what we have done in class and use it independently to communicate their work highlights the value of this tool and why I love having a Class Blog!
The post WordPress for Education – A Solution for Younger Students appeared first on Education Technology Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
Meagan Andrews, Grade 2 teacher, developed an interesting technique for using video conferencing in her classroom. During Reader’s Workshop, where students practice their reading skills, students were given the option to read with with a parent or buddy using Skype or FaceTime.
Ms. Andrews found that parents, friends, and even puppies, jumped at the chance to participate in the classroom from a remote location!
Some initial planning was involved so both students and adults (or canines) had a copy of a book in their respective locations. Together, they explored the book during the first part of the video conference. Once this was completed, the student selected a book from her book box which she read out loud.
“I loved it!!! She is so cute and was so happy. It’s very cool and could make the parents feel really involved from home! Maybe even some of the dads who don’t have as much time to be on campus/involved etc… It works for us! FaceTime is so easy and is on every iPhone so you can be anywhere!”
– Grade 2 Mom
The post Innovative Teaching: Video Conferencing in the Grade 2 Classroom appeared first on Education Technology Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
You’ve been asked to create a 1.5 hour ed tech training for teachers.
– Great!
That training will take place on a Friday afternoon, the first week back from winter break.
– Great!
Wait. Why so confident? What can you possibly do to keep teachers engaged and excited to learn about educational technology on the Friday afternoon after break?
– MaKey MaKey, of course!
The post MaKey MaKey Launch – Professional Development for Teachers appeared first on Education Technology Blog |.
Source:: Liz Beck – Hamlin Ed Tech Blog
