IPW: Integrated Projects Week

The week before spring break, The School tosses aside the "normal" schedule and students sign up for special courses to study something different.  This year I worked with teachers Chris Pappas and Monica Amaro and twelve sixth and seventh grade boys doing "sneaker design."  Though everyone was excited just to design sneakers, we also explored the entire eco-system of sneaker culture from marketing to manufacturing to economics.  Once we started thinking about it from a deep level we quickly realized that one week would not be enough time!

On day one we started by showing Sneaker Confidential, a somewhat outdated but themeatically appropriate video.  Most of the time, when I watch videos with students, I like to pause and explain things that are happening and open it up for quick conversation to make sure everyone understands.  Even though this was only a 45 minute video, it took us almost 2 hours to watch the whole thing!

In the afternoon, students began individual research projects on different brands of shoes.

Over the next few days we bought a pair of size 7 Jordans on 125th street and we tried to sell them at Flight Club  on lower broadway.  Unfortunately they weren't interested because the shoe wasn't rare. We also went to Niketown and tried out NikeID.

The best part of our week was on Thursday afternoon when Puma sponsored our shoe design activity.  Each student designed their own pair of sneaks.  In a few weeks, Puma will send them to us. It's a marketing gimmick for them, and it was clear that each student is now a convert to the Puma brand!  You can view the photographs here:

IPW is the best week of the year.  I wish I got this excited about teaching everything else!

Collaborative writing

In 5th grade we're learning about progress and Moore's law through a study of the history of ipods.  It's lots of fun, with kids researching individual models 2001 - present using both wikipedia as an entry point and Apple's press release library for primary source verification.  After the research about release date, capacity, features and price, and creating a timeline, the students have to collaboratively write a script for a ipod history podcast.

It's been a challenge for a number of groups.  Though we're all on google docs, and we've divided up the script into parts,  I'm struggling to model and show strategies for collaboratively writing high quality text.  We've had conversations about the need to write collaboratively, how much of what we read nowadays is collaboratively written, but talk is cheap.  I need to model an effective approach.  Am I stepping too far out of my discipline as a technology integrator?

Making meaning through combination of pictures and script

This semester, 4th graders are building keynote presentations addressing regions of the USA and the indigenous populations that inhabited them before European colonialism.  The kids have researched, written scripts and collected images (from CC sources of course) in order to put together truthful and compelling documentaries.  This week we began constructing the slides in preparation for narration next week.  Though I wanted to present the 10-20-30 rule (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 point font) that I learned from Guy Kawasaki at NAIS 2 years ago, it seemed a little advanced.  Therefore we focused on displaying images that match the script exactly. I prepared a minilesson that illustrated how the meaning of a documentary will come from the relationship between the images and the script.  An image on it's own leaves lots to the imagination, a script on it's own can create an image in the mind, but is less universally accessible.  The combination of a well written script complemented by carefully chosen images is simply a more powerful way of communicating.  When students do this well, it's an expression of understanding.   Isn't that why we teach?

The New ipod touch

The new ipod touch is the killer device that I've been waiting for. With the internal low res camera and mic, it's now a legitimate device for creating content. Prior to this new model, my biggest criticism was that this device was limited for only capturing spoken language and many of the models did not even have microphones. Though one could buy external mics, they were clunky, easy to lose and made the relatively easy to use interface more difficult.

Anyway, we bought 10 of the new model the day it was announced and I've begun using it with our students. Last week, we took the 5th grade to the museum of Natural History to the Hall of Human Origins. Though they weren't prepared to use ipods to document their learning, I brought it to small groups to see what they would do. I showed them how to use sonic pics, and to talk about a diorama. here's the result.

The joy of teaching media literacy

This afternoon, Hil, Andy and I started our LEO TV/School reporters afterschool class. I was slightly nervous, having never taught a video production class before, but we came in prepared with lots of things to do. We had a group of ten students, mostly 3rd graders, so it would be challenging to keep them engaged for 2 hours.

Our goal was to heighten awareness about media conventions/ story telling and help students begin thinking like journalists.

After introducing ourselves, we began with this video:



What followed was a full 30 minute conversation about the conventions that Spike Jonze used to engage the viewer and bring the lamp to life. Students had excellent insight, suggesting that the lamp was filmed like a baby, that it had a face, and we could see it's point of view. We also introduced the importance of lighting, music and other "mood enhancing" production techniques.

We took notes using this prezi:

Leo TV on Prezi

After a break, Hil suggested that we do a role play to help students begin thinking like reporters. After a group conversation about the journalistic importance of who, what, where, when, and why, Andy approached me with a bunch of books and put them into my hand and I pretended to get angry and storm out of the room. As soon as I left, Hil and Andy directed the kids to write about what had just happened. Some students recognized that I was acting, and the role play was done to give them something to write about. Other students got into the drama and reported as if Andy and I really had a fight. Each student wrote their own "story," shared with the group, and we talked about the different ways to write about the exact same event. Enlightening.

Robotics Garden

We began robotics with 3rd grade last week. After explaining the we were only programming, not engineering, we began with Robolab 2.9. Robolab is an icon based programming language. Students usually program robots to turn by directing the motors to go in different directions for a small amount of time. Today we began learning about power levels. To practice programming with different power levels, students wrote 9 programs, only changing the power variable. The result were pretty flowers. By working together on one sheet of paper, we made collaborative artwork as well!