ICS Tech Blog

Practice your Web Search Strategies to solve the Google-A-Day Puzzle.

How fast can you solve the problem?

What strategies did you use? Which were the most successful?

The grade 2 students went to Dinosaur World this week, so they are excited to learn anything about dinosaurs. Today they investigated the dinosaur videos on PBSkids.org. One of the girls turned to me after a few minutes watching the videos. She pointed to the man on the screen and said, “He is a paleontologist!” I was amazed that she knew the word and could pronounce it. They obviously had learned more than that the T. Rex was a large dinosaur. They had learned which scientists study old, extinct plants and animals, that some animals become extinct and about being careful searching for fossils. It seems the fossil search was a highlight of the trip.

Grade 8 Project
Enduring Understanding:

• Visual art reflects individual, community, and cultural differences throughout the world.
• Visual art can portray different views, opinions, and interpretations.
• Art influences technology and technology influences art.

Guiding Questions

1. What is the purpose and meaning of your art? What is the purpose and meaning of the art of the artist or museum you selected to study? How does it represent you and your culture?
2. What are the purposes for which cultures create art?
3. Who owns art? How is art saved, displayed, distributed and licensed?

Design Cycle

• investigate
• design
• plan
• create
• evaluate

Technology Standards
Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:

• interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
• communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.

Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students:

• plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.

Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:

• exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students:

• select and use applications effectively and productively.
• transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

View rubrics and student products on the wiki: http://icscreativearts.wikispaces.com/home

Art Book pages by E. Prendergast

Enduring Understanding:

Students will understand how ancient civilizations developed and how they contributed to the current state of the world.

Essential Questions

1. How did the earliest civilizations begin and develop?
2. How has their development contributed to the world we live in?

How did physical geography influence the location and success or decline of early civilizations?

1. Identify the major physical features of the regions where ancient civilizations flourished.
2. Describe how these features influenced the success or decline of the civilizations.
3. Compare maps of these ancient civilizations to current political maps and make inferences about the continuing affects of physical geography on cultural development.

What role has religion played in human development from ancient times to modern?

1. Explore the importance of religion in the cultural expression of ancient civilizations (e.g. customs, artistic expression, creation stories, architecture of sacred spaces).
2. Identify key tenets of the major world religions (i.e. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism).
3. Analyze how religious ideas influence current issues.

How are the systems of power, authority, and governance used to establish order in ancient civilizations still present in today’s modern governments?

1. Identify forms of government within these civilizations.
2. Compare those forms to existing systems of governance in today’s world.

How did the people of early civilizations use innovation and technology to meet personal and community needs?

1. Identify innovations in manmade structures over time (e.g. irrigation, roads, building materials) and their influence on meeting needs.
2. Examine the evolution and importance of writing.
3. Identify cultural expressions that reflect these systems (e.g. architecture, artistic expression, medicine, philosophy, drama, literature).
4. Compare social classes, vocations, and gender roles within ancient civilizations.

Rubrics and samples of student work are on the class wiki: http://icsworldcultures.wikispaces.com/home

Treasury in Petra, Jordan

Essential Questions based on UbD unit at
http://www.uen.org/core/socialstudies/sixth/eueq.shtml

Grade 5 Solar System Unit

Enduring Understanding: While the composition of planets varies considerably, their components and the applicable laws of science are universal.

Essential Questions

• What predictable, observable patterns occur as a result of the interaction between the Earth, Moon, and Sun?
• What causes these patterns?
• How are planets and other objects in the Solar System similar and different to Earth?
• What implication does this have for the existence and sustaining of life?

Supporting links and videos are on the Grade 5 science wiki:

http://icstampagr5science.wikispaces.com/Solar+System

NASA Apollo 8 mission image

Grade 4 Florida Research Project

Enduring Understandings:

1. Studying history helps us to understand Florida today.
2. Geography, location and climate affected the development of Florida.
3. Florida was settled long before the Europeans arrived in 1492.
4. European influence on Florida had a lasting impact.
5. Good citizens work together to solve problems and to make a difference.

Guiding Questions

1. Who were the first people of Florida and how did they use their environment to meet their basic needs?
2. How have the different cultural groups in early Florida influenced our state?
3. What are the characteristics of the geographic regions of Florida?
4. Why is Florida’s location important culturally, politically, and economically?
5. How has Florida’s physical geography and resources contributed to people’s decision to make Florida their home?
6. How has Florida’s physical geography and resources contributed to people’s decision to make Florida their tourist destination?
7. How do the citizens of the state work together to solve problems?
8. How can citizens make a difference?

Resources

• Ecosystems of Florida – by US Department of the Interior
• Florida Heritage
• My Florida – government site
• State of Florida on visitmyflorida website

Student Products are on the class wiki: http://icsflorida.wikispaces.com/

An Anhinga dries its wings after fishing in a fresh water pond

I was happy to finally meet Kathy Schrock, whose work I have followed and used for many years. Her website is the basis for a large portion of the research model that we use here at Incarnation. View Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Almost Everything.

A few other good website to check out are:

• Creative Commons for information about what art and music can be legally used
• Rushton’s Resources Powerful and Free Resources for Teachers and Students
• Next Vista for Learning – An online library of free videos for learners everywhere
• CK-12 for flex books – Can download books and customize
• Recommended list of apps for education

Heidi Hayes Jacobs, President of Curriculum Designers, Inc, presented a keynote session and a breakout session. I attended a workshop of hers several years ago, so was delighted to have a chance to say “hello”. (I have used her curriculum map concepts to organize curriculum since then. The Curriculum by Design presentation that I did for ICS that referenced her work is available for viewing on Slideshare.)

At FETC she asked the following questions:

• How can we prepare students for the future?
• Who owns the learning? Do students?
• 12% of the 21st century is over and students are time traveling. They have 21st century at home but 20th century at school. What year are we preparing student for?

We need to help students with the following:

1. Social production – Example: Wikipedia
2. Social networking – Example: Curriculum21.com
3. Semantic web – At least once a teaching unit, it should be upgraded with a new resource. Have a faculty meeting that just allows teachers to experiment and share new technology. Examples: Tag Galaxy (Enter a word such as childhood, then click on a bubble to go deeper – Wordle.net (creates word clouds) – Zooburst (digital storytelling pop-up books) – Visual Thesaurus  
4. Digital literacy – related to media literacy – related to global literacy. Examples: Check out Earth Pulse website on national geographic – Gap minder –  Museum Box to replace dioramas –
5. Global literacy – Brazil has a huge growing economy and middle class. Also Russia and India and China. We don’t study geo enough, we must also study geo literature, geo politics, geo economics. Example: World Mapper (this one is a wow!) -

Keynote: Michael Wesh, Anthropologist, spoke about the need to move students past being knowledgeable to being knowledge-able which means we need to help them develop their knowledge-ability. We must find ways to inspire them and to being them to wonder. He said, “A great teacher can bring life into anything. A great teacher can bring wonder into anything. A question inspires wonder and inspires ideas. A question is: a Quest for mastery, Embraces our vulnerability, Invites connections”

• Wonder flourishes where there in inspiration and where they feel safe.
• Quest for mastery requires freedoms to learn
• Vulnerability requires Freedom to fail
• Connections require Freedom to love

Empathy is lower than in the past. We see birth and death and life intimately and daily because we live in a “capsular civilization ” with TV, phone, computer.  We are numbing ourselves, which also numbs ourselves to joy. But there is a solution, the media are not just tools, they’re a means of communication. They mediate how we relate. (This brought me back to Fr. Rice’s message to use technology to communicate and to build communities.)

View From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able, an 18-minute video and a short version on TED, of the topic he presented at FETC.

Bishop Noonan’s Welcome on Sister Caroline Cerveny’s Cyberpilgrim’s Blog

Fr. Lawrence Rice’s Keynote:  “The Church is the original social network,” says @lrice. “If tech is not facilitating it, we are doing it wrong.”  Fr. Rice discussed ways to use technology to increase communication within our Catholic communities. He suggested that we put the bulletin online rather than printing so it can be accessed at any time; allow online discussions so there is two-way communication and not just a one-way push of information; use online databases to gather information; allow online donations and contributions without the need of a signed piece of paper; translate publications into appropriate languages and make them available online; etc. He recommended that we read the book from Gutenberg to Zuckerberg

• Another book to consider reading is Brandon Vogt’s The Church and New Media.

Read Fr. Rice’s Blog: Corporalworks.com

Marketing using Digital Storytelling: My presentation at a Learning Session at Interactive Connections: Marketing using Digital Storytelling