Everything we do is made better when we do it with someone else. This exact same principle can be applied to learning. The theme of MassCUE’s recently held 2015 summer workshop was just that: Better Together—Working with Your Librarian and ITS to Build Great Projects. After all, education is no different; some truly innovative and revolutionary results often stem from collaboration among groups of students using technology.
The day-long event took place at the brand new (not even fully opened yet) Concord-Carlisle High School and featured dozens of impressive speakers and workshops. The goal was to educate all in attendance on the importance and practicality of giving today’s students the chance to collaborate to enhance their education experience. We are extremely fortunate to have been able to attend and, we must say, we learned a lot about how children can collaboratively use technology to attain the true 21st century STEM education their teachers want to give them!
The event kicked off with keynote speaker, Alana Parkes, Exhibits Content Developer at the Museum of Science, who addressed the crowd about the new exhibit on display at the museum—The Science Behind Pixar. The science that goes into creating the displays and movements of characters and other objects for their movies is truly incredible. Besides creating the perfectly displayed image, she explained how Pixar artists need to design features that will hold people’s attention for more than just a few seconds since, after all, much of Pixar’s audience is comprised of young children.
Here, Parkes explained, is where art intersects with STEM. Art, technology, science and creativity are inseparable in animation and art drives and challenges the digital technology being used, which, in turn, inspires the creation of the art. What we often don’t realize—especially young kids just starting out their education careers—is that it is a mixture of art and science that causes things to move forward. Art truly is an entry point for STEM.
By being engaged with hands-on learning activities regularly in school, say with the innovative and academically discounted Raspberry Pi, art will begin to provide a context for STEM learning while, in very much the same way as animated graphics, catching the eye of students and holding their attention long enough for them to retain the material effectively. Going from a paper sketch to a beautifully rendered 3D image that almost realistically depicts the real world in the form of a cartoon doesn’t just happen, Parkes says. It takes great knowledge and constant exposure to variation, mathematical functions, physics and other computer programs to create these incredible graphics. The science is the key. And the knowledge is what turns that key.
The work that is done at Pixar is so incredibly complex, but, at the same time, takes an enormous amount of creativity to accomplish. Designers need to enter countless points into computer programs and having a math background is absolutely essential. Math is a creative endeavor—believe it or not—and this belief is something that needs to be amplified in our schools starting now, according to Parkes.
Surveys have shown that as many as 65 percent of students are genuinely interested in computer science courses, but unfortunately due to money concerns and lack of equipment, many schools are unable to offer them or offer a full-scale version of them, though Educator Discounts are available. Practical applications for math knowledge and proficiency continue to pop up everywhere, however, and it’s the creative skills that students almost subconsciously learn and apply that help to get jobs done in the 21st century.
Parkes closed out her keynote with a quote from a Pixar engineer: “Computers don’t make movies. People do. It’s [about] technology. It’s hard and messy, but it’s fun.” Achieving STEM proficiency is just that—hard work, fun and likely necessary for the future.
Following the keynote address, a 5-member panel took the stage to share with the educators in the audience how they can use certain products to bolster their EdTech repertoires and help improve education now. First up was Jim Marshall, a representative from the eBook company, Rosen. He spoke about the modern ability we have to provide each individual student with their own notebooks so that they can take ownership of their own education, adding to the capabilities of traditional textbooks. The goal is to extend learning in the library and the classroom by tying the technology use to the already established curriculum.
Next up were a pair of men from Scholastic Library. “The Paul’s” as they were referred to (Paul Davis and Paul DiCrescenzo) spoke about supplements that can be used to greatly enhance the Common Core and the efforts made by educators that go into teaching it. Their key database, Science Flicks, is appropriate for all age levels and covers all Common Core needs. Customization options also allow for users to change the reading levels on the fly and this is an evolving resource that teachers can make great use of in the classroom.
John Schuster from Media Flex OPALS then took the microphone to discuss further available materials for supporting Common Core. Media Flex is designed to provide platforms to put different open-source eBooks all in one place. Since the use of digital resources in education is skyrocketing, their system is extremely useful. It is also very presentable and child friendly.
To close out the brief panel presentation, Eric Weiss, Executive Director of the MHEC, described the company as a purchasing consortium serving libraries throughout New England. The Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium allows those in the education community to make bulk purchases of education-related products for up to 40 percent below their normal costs. Their mission is to help schools save money so that they can instead spend it on their students and bettering their education.
The rest of the day was broken up into three different information sessions and, of course, lunch. Each attendee had the option to choose from a few different presentations for each of the three sessions. We went to “Using Technology to Research, Collaborate and Create in the Library, Classroom and Computer Lab” for the first presentation, “Infographics: An Alternative to Mundane Reports” for Round 2 and “Real-Time Technology ~ Real-Time Learning” to close out the afternoon. In the interest of time and space, we’ll share our experience and wisdom from Session 1.
The collaboration presentation was led by Kim Keith, Donna Griswold and Shannon Carlson of M.E. Small Elementary School and focused on steps for successful collaboration among technologically inclined teachers as well as educational applications that can be used to foster creativity. Some of the most important things to do when embarking on a collaborative learning mission are to establish relationships, discover rapport (a common interest or like) and identify your own teaching skills to better use them to create cohesive lessons while keeping in mind each person’s strengths and weaknesses.
One of the biggest things they iterated was the necessity to get comfortable with communicating on the fly. As teachers, you don’t have a lot of free time during the school day and hallway chats and emails are often your best way to brainstorm ideas. Establishing a set timeline is also important so that everyone knows when their work needs to be completed, who’s working on what and how each team member can differentiate the material. This will lead to increased comfort with collaborative projects, which will lead to more important outcomes, such as taking risks, in order to grow.
As with many aspects of K-12 education, there are a lot of moving pieces and openness and honesty upfront is the best approach. The projects don’t have to take the whole school year—one or two months is fine, but be sure to agree on a suitable time frame that works for everyone. As long as they continually keep students moving and collaborating, the project is working. Be the first to embark on this kind of collaborative journey and other teachers will be sure to follow suit. You don’t even need any formal training to put it together. This example was essentially patchwork, created on the fly by three dedicated teachers.
Throughout the course of their projects, the threesome used a variety of apps to help kids learn. That list is fairly long and always growing. It includes:
PebbleGo: A database to gather information and increase engagement
Pic Collage: Picture editing app for any photo you can find
Perfect Video: Dub in student’s voices to create a talking picture of anything you’d like
Each have very high potential in the EdTech classroom and promote values such as feedback, engagement, creativity, editing and production and are even highly beneficial for kids with learning difficulties.
To add even more fun and make projects much more in tune with the 21st century, try some innovative EdTech tools to help you get comfortable! There are so many to choose from and we offer a bunch with academic discounts. The aforementioned Raspberry Pi is great for teaching through games and can also play HD video plus you can get it for only $32.00 with an academic discount! Tools like Bare Paint, Makey Makey, and 3D printers are also stellar ways to get kids collaborating! And you guessed it—academic discounts on those products as well! Our Appsolutely section is also perfect for teachers! We select meaningful technology that will enhance a student’s education and provide regular postings recommending the best educational apps you can download and use right in your classroom! Look for it on our site!
Overall, it was a very productive day in the classrooms of the brand new Concord-Carlisle High School. We were privileged to attend, interact and, most importantly, learn!