Use a postcard template for students to practice writing in smaller chunks than a full-length written assignment.
The following templates can be downloaded and shared with students so that they can customize both the content and the design without the fear of "the blank page."
Use this activity as an exit ticket, an end-of-unit review, a mini book report, geography practice, or even grammar practice (use one of each of the 4 types of sentences in your postcard).
Early finishers can add a photo or drawing on the second slide and design the front of the postcard as well.
Considering applying to be hired as one of Santa’s elves? Complete a written application and demonstrate your toy making abilities with Keynote! Learn some Keynote skills along the way. All it takes is your imagination and you can prove to Santa that he should hire you as his next lead Elf! Download the Keynote file here
Enjoy some elves-in-training from Mrs. Sladek's Writing classes here:
And a sneak peek into the toy-making process of these elves:
On December 10, 2019, ten teams of middle school students from ESU 8 schools put their minds to work designing app prototypes for community challenges.
We started the day with a kick-off on the power of learning to code.
Every student accessed an App Design Journal(in Keynote) and began customizing their journal to document their journey.
We utilized Challenge Based Learning as a framework for our day's learning. An overarching challenge "Use app design to solve a community challenge" was presented.
Then three community experts presented Big Ideas & Community Challenges for the student teams to ponder.
Teams each decided on which Big Idea/Challenge they would take on and immediately got busy investigating through guiding questions and activities.
One of the coolest things learned was how easy it can be to create an app prototype in Keynote. After watching this app developer share his WWDC presentation, teams quickly started creating app prototype design plans, storyboards, and hyperlinked Keynote slides to showcase the main features of their thinking.
The day was culminated with an App Showcase where teams presented their app prototype in rotations sharing a 3 minute pitch and time for feedback from visitors. During round 1 half of the teams presented three different times, while the other half of the teams served as feedback givers. Then in round 2 the roles were reversed. ESU 8 professionals joined the app showcase and were impressed by the ideas and quick turnaround on product by the student teams!
Teachers and students alike were anxious to get back to their schools and explore coding and app design with even more learners.
It seems like “DaNcE pArTy” is the common theme to celebrate this year’s Computer Science Education Week (otherwise known as “Hour of Code”)!
December 9-15, 2019 is the official week that is designated as this year’s Computer Science Education Week, but of course you can host an “Hour of Code” ANY TIME with these free resources:
From Code.org:
Say hello to Dance Party 2019 With the Hour of Code only a few weeks away, we’re excited to unveil the latest additions to one of our most popular activities, Dance Party! You can look forward to new backgrounds, new coding blocks, and new music from artists like Lil Nas X, Nicki Minaj, Panic! At The Disco, Jonas Brothers, Pedro Capó, and Katy Perry. There’s even a brand-new Dance Party character designed by middle schooler Genevieve P from Edison, NJ! Read more on our blog.
From Apple’s Everyone Can Code:
Excerpt from https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/11/apple-expands-everyone-can-code-to-bring-more-coding-resources-to-teachers-and-students/
"New Everyone Can Code Curriculum
The new Everyone Can Code curriculum builds on existing interactive puzzles, guides and activities to make learning to code even more approachable and connected to students’ everyday lives.Everyone Can Code Puzzlesis an all-new student guide to Swift Playgrounds where each chapter helps students build on what they already know, experiment with new coding concepts and creatively communicate how coding impacts their lives. Acompanion teacher guide supports educators in bringing coding into their classrooms with helpful ways to facilitate, deepen and assess student learning.”
This year’s Hour of Code Facilitator Guidefeatures Dance as students program a virtual MeeBot character to dance and then make a video of it. The new Swift Playground activities to accompany this activity are featured in the Swift Playgrounds library. You could even purchase an actual robot that you could build and then program to interact with your code. Even without this purchase, students can have hours of coding fun with dance moves and the virtual robot inside of Swift Playgrounds.
All powerful aims for today's classroom. Yet the first two without the third leaves learning in a void.
It is exciting to see a renewed interest in Challenge Based Learning following last week's Leadership & Learning event put on by Apple's Community Engagement Initiative team.
During the Academy, educators and school leaders used the CBL framework to guide their work as they developed an app prototype to address a community challenge.
Participants ENGAGEd in the Challenges presented by expert guest speakers, they INVESTIGATEd the issues by asking Guiding Questions, participating in Guiding Activities, and analyzing the results, and they ACTed by creating a solution in the form of an app prototype and sharing their work in a massive app showcase to gain feedback.
Even more importantly, educators thought about how they could transform their learning communities through Challenge Based Learning.
"We spend time on engagement, but engagement is fleeting. Ownership of the learning should be the goal."
For a supporting workshop we created the attached resource and we'd love to share it with others as well. It is an interactive hyperlinked presentation that only runs by tapping the images and icons on the slides. Download from the dropbox link, open in Keynote, click PLAY, and "choose your own adventure" through the wealth of curated resources and examples it contains.
Herbert Spencer said, "The great aim of education is not knowledge but action." CBL allows us all to take action and make a difference. Join us for new and greater challenges to come!
This week, October 14-18, is Digital Citizenship Week.
Digital Citizenship Week is a good time remember to incorporate DigCit lessons into our classrooms and school culture. However, like with other similar campaigns, we shouldn't limit our students' exposure to this important topic solely during this week. The following are some current resources to jump start DigCit activities this week and throughout the school year.
Use the latest films from ILovePublicSchools to spur discussion with students and faculty. The Mind Inside: Episode Two was released just last Friday and it tackles a highly sensitive topic (suicide) and the implications of social media on today's kids. If time or nature doesn't allow viewing of the full length film, then perhaps watching the 3 minute trailer would be enough to launch healthy discussion with our students about their digital device usage in today's world.
There are two sides to every issue. DigCitCommit is a new coalition working to promote the positive side of digital citizenship. Included on the site is a DigCitCommit Challenge where prizes can be earned for classroom projects.
Also, the following links take you to additional Digital Citizenship resources for teachers:
Google's Be Internet Awesome curriculum— including 26 ready-to-teach #digcit lessons powered by Pear Deck, 6 Flashcard Factory vocabulary lists, family resources, and more.
Students from ESU 8 who attended this year's Nebraska Digital Citizenship Symposium created positive campaigns to take back to their school and community for DigCitWeek 2019.
O'Neill High School
8th grade students from O'Neill High School created the following video PSAs to share with students at both the Elementary and High School buildings.
In addition, this O'Neill High School Digital Citizenship team appeared on Eagle Eye Broadcasting- Daily Announcements during DigCit Week and shared their message.
West Holt High School
7th grade students from West Holt created a social media campaign with graphics shared on their school twitter channel all week long.
Ewing Public School
6th and 7th grade students from Ewing Public School organized a TikTok challenge for Digital Citizenship Week.
Thank you, ESU 8 students, for showing all of us how we can each "Be the One" to make a difference online.
