"Bananza!" Simple ways that I use technology daily and weekly in kindergarten

"Bananza!" is what we say when we get a great idea in my class (thanks to the book Monkey Ono by J.C. Phillipps)  Every day, I love taking photos of my kindergarten students and their work in class.  I don't have parent permissions to publish individual student photos at this point, so I'll just stick with the photos of their work.
Here are the simple technology tools that I use on a daily and weekly basis to support learning in my kindergarten classroom:

• A digital camera allows me to celebrate the students' work and to catch their projects before they are taken apart to create new projects.  The camera also allows me to celebrate friendships in our classroom.  I print out and put photos of friendships in our class photo book as well as putting some photos on the wall as a reminder of the important of friendships and "sticking with your buddy" (from the book Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann)  
• A digital video camera  allows me to film the students as they read independently (or do their best to recall the words from the story.)  My camera (Canon vixia HFR21) is not "top of the line" but it has worked well for several years.  It is important to have a tripod for stability and a good microphone for sound quality.  I experimented with the Canon camera microphone (not so good) and 2 cheap "lavalier" microphones (not good at all!)  I tried having the students use the video camera on my MacBook Pro with a USB headset microphone.  The students loved looking at themselves while they were reading, but the audio wasn't the best quality and the headset kept falling off.  Now, we are using a Shure headset microphone with the Canon camera.  Twice a year, I give families a DVD copy of their child reading (at Christmas and at the end of the year) as well as copies of the digital photos I have taken in class.  In addition to "celebrating our reading" videos, I have made 2 "backwards math videos" with the students in iMovie.  My students must think that I am crazy, because I encourage them to knock down their own block structures or mess up their pattern block designs. When this film footage is slowed down and run backwards, the students see themselves magically creating their towers and patterns out of chaos.  Very amusing...
• Color printers and copiers allow me to create beautiful books with the students.  We have 3 types of books that we create on a regular basis in our classroom.  We make birthday books for each student with pages that say, "I like (name of student who is having a birthday) because....."  The original pages are created with colored pencils and ball point pens, then the birthday book pages are copied in color so that the original can go home with the birthday student and the copied pages can go in our birthday book collection.  We also create "riddle books" with riddles that students create at home based on the letter of the week.  For our "student of the day" books, the students write down stories in a journal with help from their family at home.  Then, I use the color copier to make copies of these journal pages so that we have a back up copy if the journals are lost.
• in the future, I plan to use a digital voice recorder to capture audio of students reading books, telling stories or discussing their ideas.  

These technology tools are so simple, yet they allow me to celebrate the students' learning in the classroom and share their great work with their families...as well as preserve it for students and families to enjoy for years to come.

Thoughts about "Looping" next year

In February, I received this note at the end of the day from one of my kindergarten students. Translation: "I wanted to tell you how much I love the classroom."  At home, this student has a wonderful teacher/mom who has created a home environment where her daughter can freely practice her independent writing and reading. This student loves to write, and she has inspired her classmates to jump out of the nest and try their own wings as readers and writers.  I love being able to celebrate my kindergarten students' progress and provide the materials that they need to go further in this journey...
After receiving this "fan letter" from a student, I started to think about "looping" with my current class of 16 students.  In March, I learned that two of our 1st grade teachers requested transfers to different positions, so I proposed the "looping" idea to our principal and a few of my colleagues.  There are many important questions about this plan...such as whether I can quickly learn the 1st grade standards and curriculum so that I can guide my students and, more importantly, whether I am the "best fit" for some of my current students as they enter 1st grade.   I want the best for my students and their families, so I need to think carefully about this plan.  If my plan is approved, I need to have families think through this option carefully so that they are confident that their children are in the best learning and social environment.
I love my current job as a kindergarten teacher.  My classroom is large and bright.  I have studied the common core standards for kindergarten and Alaska's state standards for language arts and math (which are almost identical to the common core.)  Yet, there are some key reasons why I would like to "loop" with my students:

• We have created a community, with shared experiences and books that record these experiences
• We have special routines, including our "student of the day"journals, our "question of the day" with unifix cubes, our riddle books, birthday books, clean up songs and class mascots ("Gerald and Piggie" from Mo Willem's books)
• We have developed trust in each other, so we can share our ideas, inspire each other to try new things, and enjoy an environment of laughing and learning
• I have developed trust with my students' families, so that they are able to share ideas and concerns with me.  We can collaboratively celebrate successes and solve problems
• As a young student, I had the positive experience of having the same teacher for K/1st (Ms. Soo) as well as the same teacher for 4th-6th grade (Ms. Masuda)
• I have talked to four teachers who had positive experiences with "looping"and staying with the same class for 2 years
• I am a fast learner, and I can use my time over the summer to prepare how to teach "the daily 5" and the 1st grade math curriculum, as well as the FOSS science and the reading curriculum chosen by the district for next year...
• We can "hit the ground running" at the beginning of the year because we will already be comfortable with our daily routines and individual personalities
• My students who are more anxious (2 out of my 16 students) and less trusting of adults (3 out of my 16 students) will start the year with a teacher that they know and trust already

If it is best for me to remain as a kindergarten teacher, I will enjoy teaching a new group of kindergarten students about our special routines.  We will create books together and develop a close community of learners.   However, if it is possible for me to "loop" with my class,  I think that my students and I will be able to have a very successful year in 1st grade.

Designing an online mythology course for CEP 820

Here are some thoughts on the decision-making process I used creating my very first online course, Mythology: A Journey Through Six Cultures.  To view my course, please go to https://www.myhaikuclass.com/cshidner/sixculturesmythology/signup and type in the access code YSP2X.  I hope that you enjoy the resources, videos and discussion questions in this mythology course.
Pedagogical decisions:

• When designing your online course, make sure that you love the course content and have a strong desire to share this content with others.   For my course, it was easy to work with the mythology content and find ways for students to collaborate and share their ideas with each other since mythology is an engaging subject for all ages.  
• Use a clear set of guidelines to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your students in the best possible way.  I used the NEA Guide to Online High School Courses and focused on three key areas of this rubric:  curriculum, instructional design and student role.
• Build your course around specific content standards.  For my course, I used the ISTE technology standards for students and the Common Core standards for language arts for grades 9-12.  I created a "big picture map" of the units for my online class, the standards for each unit and the creative projects for each unit.

Design decisions:

• I tend to be too wordy when designing and delivering curriculum, so I remind myself to use the principles found in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Take Hold and Others Come Unstuck by Chip and Dan Heath as well as their article "Teaching That Sticks" to help me decide which pieces of content fit their 6 principles of SUCCESS: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories.  
• I looked at a variety of LMS providers, then chose Haiku LMS for the ease of use and aesthetic qualities.  Make sure that you look through a number of LMS providers so that you can choose the one that matches the design of your course.
• Get feedback on your course from other people--educators, students, family members, etc.  It helps for "fresh eyes" to look at your course and see what will meet students' needs in the most effective and aesthetic way.  

Pitfalls to avoid along the way:

• "Biting off more than you can chew" is a common mistake for educators and students alike. It is important to narrow the focus of the course so that it isn't overwhelming for you or your students.  This was difficult for me, since the subject of mythology encompasses all cultures in this world throughout human existence on our planet....It helped me to focus on 5 cultures and allow the students to choose a culture to research for the final unit.  The "big picture map" of the units for my online class helped me to stay focused on specific standards and ways that students could synthesize specific information in creative ways.
• Procrastination-- We always forget about this pitfall until the last minute...right?  Especially when you are juggling a lot of responsibilities in your life, make sure that you stick to a schedule of "small steps and goals to accomplish" so that you don't get buried under a pile of work on the night before your project is due.  Make sure that your course has a clear weekly schedule for students to follow so that they don't procrastinate and fall behind in their work.  This weekly schedule will allow you to provide feedback at regular intervals along the way.

Top Ten "Takeaways" from CEP 882 "The Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences"

Before writing this post, I looked at my classmates' blogs to crystallize my thoughts and seek inspiration in their ideas. Seeing the value of a virtual forum in our blogs and FB discussions was my #1 "aha" from this class, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Here is my top ten countdown:

• #10 Focus on keeping things simple when communicating ideas-- this idea from Ashley W.'s blog resonated with me. Plus, it is one of the important concepts from Chip and Dan Heath's book, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and their article, "Teaching That Sticks"
• #9 "Heavy constraints can be a major catalyst to creative thinking"-- this piece of advice is a quote from Andrew L's blog. I agree that the strict time limits and the specific instructions for our CEP 882 projects helped to make me more creative and confident in my ability to try something new.
• #8 Understanding the elements of our own FLOW experiences will allow us to create more compelling experiences for others-- when I am looking for ways to create a classroom experience that is more compelling for my students, I need to tap into my "flow" experiences, such as writing in my journal, playing with young kids, hiking, etc.
• #7 It is important to learn the "vocabulary" for a specific art forms in order to appreciate the details of this art form-- I loved learning the descriptive terminology during our units on different art forms, especially interior design, photography and music. When I work with students, I need to focus on teaching some key terms from this art form so that the students can have a deeper understanding of this art form.
• #6 A system similar to Quadblogging would be a great way to increase communication between our blogs-- I found that I didn't take the time to look at my classmates' blogs, although I would have benefitted from their reflections. When I work with students and blogs, I want to create a system in which students take turns reading and commenting on each other's creative work. When writing my blog for this class, I felt less motivated to do these reflections since I felt that my audience was only 1 or 2 people.
• #5 "Light to walk towards" and other interior design ideas-- I loved learning Sarah Susanka's terminology for her interior design concepts. When I am setting up my classroom environment next year, I plan to review her ideas so that I can create spaces that inspire students and match their needs throughout the day.
• #4 Thinking about transformative experiences for my WOA project on Chris Jordan-- I enjoyed sharing Chris Jordan's work with my classmates with my WOA video. He does an amazing job of transforming powerful information into a creative, visually stunning, memorable format. As a teacher, I need to highlight the most important information and present it to students in the most compelling format possible. Chris Jordan's artwork provides an amazing example of this process.
• #3 Understanding the "Screenager" generation with resources such as the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal-- One art form that might be interesting to include in this course is the art of game design. Jane McGonigal's book shifted my thinking about the compelling (and addictive) games that my teenaged sons play on the internet with a virtual community of like-minded gamers. The game designers know how to create very compelling experiences. In her TED talk, Jane McGonigal provides some interesting historical and cultural context for the importance of games to a wide range of people.
• #2 It is important to ask "outrageous questions" in order to design and create compelling experiences-- This idea comes from Richard Gerver, who gave an amazing keynote speech at a technology conference in Anchorage this year. In order to transform the Grange school in Great Britain, he asked his staff an outrageous question along the lines of "why can't our school be as fun for kids as Disneyland?" I highly recommend reading articles about this school transformation and watching videos of his talks about his vision statement, "Living, Learning and Laughing"
• #1 In my future classroom, I want to create a compelling forum for my students that also serves to showcase their work over time-- In this class, it was wonderful to have the discussion forum of FB and our individual blogs to collect our work and personal reflections. Right now, I am unable to create this sort of forum due to my scattered teaching schedule (grades 2-12 in 3 different schools in a single day) and internet filter issues; however, next year I may be teaching in my own 3rd or 4th grade classroom. I plan to join the Quadblogger community and help my students share their work and respond to the creative work of their peers.

Revolutionary Fashion in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

In my previous post, I discussed the article, "Teaching That Sticks"(2010) by Dan and Chip Heath as well as the article "If Ideas Were Fashion" (2008) by E. D. Wong and D. Henriksen.

This post focuses on the current "buzz" in the movie world--The Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins. In this dystopian movie and book series, the main character, Katniss, becomes a "lightning rod" for the forces of revolution. Katniss is "fashioned" into this symbolic head of the revolution by her stylist, Cinna. To increase her odds of surviving the Hunger Games, Cinna designs outfits that "brand" Katniss as the "girl on fire" and the "Mockingjay" in order to attract sponsors. (Spoiler alert....don't read further if you want to maintain the suspense of the second book, Catching Fire....) Ultimately, Cinna is killed for his role in "branding" Katniss as a leader of the rebellion. I hope that the young people who are reading this series and watching The Hunger Games will reflect on this revolutionary aspect of fashion and style. "Fashion" is sometimes regarded as synonymous with the superficial, ephemeral, inconsequential aspects of our culture. However, there is a way in which identity can be fashioned in a way that transforms our world. One real-world example of this would be the transformation of Mahatma Gandhi from an expatriate lawyer in South Africa to the iconic representation of the non-violent revolution for Indian independence. In his transformed state, Mahatma Gandhi embodied his fight for independence, his frame whittled down by his hunger strikes and wrapped in home-spun cloth. I hope to have discussions with my teenaged sons and their friends about their thoughts about fashioning a deeper identity, such as in Gandhi's life, and the potential for "fashion" to incite revolution, as in The Hunger Games.

The Aesthetic Design of "Teaching That Sticks" by Chip and Dan Heath

When thinking about effective design for ideas in the classroom, I highly recommend this article "Teaching That Sticks" by Chip and Dan Heath. This article echoes these statements in the 2008 article "If Ideas Were Fashion" by Wong, E.D. and Henriksen, D: "The experience of fashion is often characterized by intense imagination, motivation, emotion, and thought....Whether trying on a new outfit or designing a science project, the fashion experience evokes anticipating, hoping, dreaming, wishing, desiring, and becoming." One of the great ideas in the "Teaching That Sticks" article is the educational process of creating a satisfying "aha" moment that follows an motivational "huh?" moment. This "huh?" moment is the curiosity aroused by the "knowledge gap" engineered by the teacher. Instead of presenting students with concrete information, the teacher creates a mystery or a problem to be solved. For example, in a journalism class described by the writer Nora Ephron, "every assignment had a secret--a hidden point that the students had to figure out in order to produce a good story." In my "Work of Art" project, I am studying the graphic artist Chris Jordan who designs large-scale images to illustrate a specific statistic. For example, the 44"x 82" image above is composed of 50,000 plastic bags, which represents the estimated average number of floating plastic trash pieces in every square mile of the world's oceans. By integrating these 50,000 plastic bags into a large-scale, memorable and beautiful close-up of a whale, Chris Jordan has fashioned a "sticky idea" for his viewers. People who view this image are more likely to be motivated to take action on the issue of plastic trash in our oceans. Jordan's goal for his artwork is for people to increase their awareness of their negative collective environmental impact, then take actions on a personal level to reduce this impact.

These examples relate to the way in which the "fashion experience" evokes the mental and emotional processes of "anticipating, hoping, dreaming, wishing, desiring, and becoming." In the article, "Teaching That Sticks", the authors claim that "everyone speaks Sticky....The grammar of stickiness--simplicity, storytelling, learning through the senses--enables anyone to understand the ideas being communicated." When designing images that teach scientific concepts or illustrate statistics, the designer can use the "grammar of stickiness" to create these simple images that tell a story.

Listening to music while reading and writing in Sophomore English

Over the course of my first year as a teacher of a Sophomore English high school class, I have changed my attitudes about allowing students to listen to music while reading silently and working on their comprehension questions in class. The students were very vocal about advocating for this freedom to listen to music, and claimed that listening to their headphones allowed them to be more productive and focused on their tasks. Since an experienced English teacher in our high school allows headphones during individual work time, especially during creative writing tasks, I decided to allow students to listen to music on their headphones. Our school has a policy against listening to music on headphones since the teachers are unable to determine whether this music is appropriate for a school setting. However, teachers can decide to allow headphones and personal music devices in their own classrooms.
I recently researched this issue on the internet, to see what studies I could locate about the effects of music (especially student-selected music played through headphones vs. teacher-selected background music) on academic performance. I located an interesting blog post entitled "Does background music aid or impair reading comprehension?" This posting included results from a study of 7th and 8th grade students who listened to "top hit singles" while peforming on the Gates-MacGinitie reading test. Sunny Lee, the author of this post, summarized the results of this 2-day test with 334 7th and 8th grade students: "The results indicate that overall, background music is actually detrimental to work and study."

However, Lee goes on to say that, "studies have shown that emotional arousal and mood produced by music may be the important factor affecting performance, raising the possibility that gentle, relaxing music could boost cognitive performance under certain circumstances." In my classroom, I felt that there was a positive effect produced by the students self-selected music in the areas of emotion and motivation. Some of the students really disliked the tasks of reading and writing, yet these tasks seemed less onerous when they were allowed to engage in an activity associated with very positive emotions--listening to their own music.

On the blog site, Teachers at Risk, Elona Hartjes shared some of her research into this issue. The quotes from Nina Jackson's (cautiously) optimistic research results match my classroom observations of the Sophomore English students this year. In some situations, the positive effects of music can energize students, increase their motivation levels and boost their level of effort on tasks that they may not enjoy : Nina Jackson In her article “Music and the Mind” suggests that although more research needs to be done, we can be cautiously optimistic about the potential benefits of listening to music to motivate students, improve concentration and study skills. She supports the use of music in the classroom. In fact, she calls music the new teaching tool for the 21st century.

Elona Harjes quotes Nina Jackson as saying,

"Music plays with your state of mind as the electrical energy generated by firing neurons creates brain waves. The music a person chooses to listen to can influence the waves’ frequency, and their state of mind. It’s not only the mind that is influenced by music, the body also responds. Musical messages travel down the spinal cord, impacting the autonomous nervous system that regulates the heart rate, blood pressure, muscular activity, metabolism, and other vital functions…

Energizing music can make your brain exercise longer and harder. It increases speed and workload capacity … music with a strong steady beat can increase endurance, boost effort level, increase motivation and distract from discomfort and agitation."