John Hammons‘ 9th grade Engineering Exploration I students digitally designed propellers using Autodesk Inventor software. Students printed their designs with a 3D printer and then added the printed propellers to cars the class had previously built. Through trial and error, students were able to experience first-hand how each propeller’s design impacted the movement of the car. Suggestions for propeller improvement could then be made based on observations during the trial runs.
This hands-on exploration with digital design and 3D printing is a great example of real world application in the classroom. Students are not only creating objects that they’ve imagined, they are developing problem solving skills that will be useful well beyond TC Williams High School. Keep it up Engineering Exploration I students! Great job!
Engagement and enthusiasm reached new levels at Ramsay this week, as 5th grade students participated in the second of their 2-part robotics lesson, using a Hummingbird Duo robotics kit to plan, create, and test out a two-wheeled robotic vehicle!
TIS Bobby Offterdinger reviews basic robotics and helps students plan their project.
After reviewing the basics of hardware, software, and circuitry, the students decided as a group to create a “object avoider” robot. They next planned out the specific actions that their vehicle would complete. In the end, they decided upon a robot that could move forward, and, when encountering an object in front of it, would stop, turn 90 degrees to the right, and move forward again.
Students test out their “Object Avoider” robot.
Within thirty minutes, the students had not only completed their robot, but also were able to add a visual component to the vehicle’s movements. When the robot stopped, a light turned red. As it turned, the light turned purple, and as it moved forward, the light turned green.
With the last 5 minutes of the class period ticking away, they decided to add an additional sensor that would detect sound levels. The students programmed the robot to stop if the sensor reached a certain sound level. This enabled them to yell at the robot to stop if it was about to roll off of the table!
Students collaborate in building their robotic vehicle.
With clear STEM and project-based learning connections, the Hummingbird Kit proved to be a resourceful classroom tool. For more information about the Hummingbird Kit and robotics in ACPS, please contact your building TIS or the Instructional Technology Coordinator, Daniel Foreman.
On Saturday, January 31st, two George Washington Middle School students presented at an international, student-led virtual conference about technology in education. The Student Technology Conference 2015 included presentations and participants from around the world. GW students Jenny Martinez and Mikaela Pozo authored and presented a session called “Is Google Drive For You?” These seventh-grade students gave their presentation in both English and Spanish. Attendees from the Philippines, Ukraine, the Bahamas and many cities in the United States were very impressed with the girls’ knowledge about Google Drive. Watch a recording of their presentation.
Students met during their lunch to select a topic for the conference, propose a session and finally, to prepare their presentation. They wanted to present about Google Drive because they feel that this technology has had the biggest impact on their learning in school. All secondary ACPS students have access to an ACPS Google Drive account. Jenny and Mikaela created their presentation in Google Drive using the Google Slide feature. This allowed them to revise and edit in real time. It also gave them an example of the usefulness of Google Drive for their presentation!
Not many kids are willing to come to school on a cold, wintry Saturday morning, but these girls were excited to share what they know with the world. Jenny and Mikaela used a product called Blackboard Collaborate to web conference with attendees from around the world. The girls logged in, tested their video feed and microphone, uploaded their slides and began their presentation. It was exciting to watch students and teachers log in from around the world. Jenny and Mikaela were able to explain how Google Drive has impacted them as well as answer questions from participants about how Google Drive works. The session was very well received and and the girls are planning on presenting at the conference again next year!
5th grade students at Ramsay recently were given the opportunity to get their hands on a Hummingbird Duo Robotics Kit. The students began their lesson with a brief introduction of robotics terminology, learning the differences between hardware and software, as well as a basic overview of polarity and circuitry. Within minutes the students had attached multiple LEDs and sensors to the Hummingbird, easily manipulating the terminal tool to complete circuits. The lesson continued on the software side, where students learned about expressions and sequences in CREATE Lab Visual Programmer.
Ramsay Students begin their Robotics adventure!
Once the basics were covered, the students challenged each other to create different types of robots. The projects started out small, with one student challenging another to create a robot that would blink between purple and red when a rotary sensor was turned. This led to more and more complexity, culminating in the students creating a 2-wheeled vehicle controlled through sound, which moved across the table until the students yelled at it to stop.
Students use the terminal tool to add components to their robot.
The lesson itself lasted a mere 45 minutes, though, by the end of the period, it was clear that the 5th graders had grasped the basic understanding of programming the Hummingbird. In our second lesson, students will have the opportunity to build a robotic vehicle with a chassis that they built at home!
Jen Ushe wanted to change things up for her STEM Engineering Classes by using stations with her students. Additionally, Jen wanted to integrate technology into this lesson. Jen’s solution: QR Codes, Robotics Apps, and Google Forms! First, Jen pushed out directions for students via the Amplify Class Feed and directed them to download QR Droid from the Amplify Market. Students followed the directions on their tablets and then broke into small groups for the stations portion of the lesson. Each station featured two QR Codes created using QR Stuff.
Students scanned the first QR code with their tablet’s QR Droid code reader and the QR code took the student to the Google Play Store for the required apps. Students then downloaded the app that they would use for the particular station activity. Her students worked in the app, following the directions that had been previously shared via the tablets. After completing the work, students scanned the second QR code, which took them to an Exit Ticket in the form of a Google Form so that Jen could assess students’ progress.
The students enjoyed scanning the QR codes and moving around the classroom to complete the various activities. Students were on task, engaged, and motivated to participate. We heard several student comments expressing how much fun they were having in class today! For this stations activity, Jen used Code Academy and the Lightbot app. Additionally, she had students view a YouTube video and then respond using the Google Form. The fourth station required students to create a program which would allow their robots to draw a line. Jen followed up this lesson by having students respond via Piazza, an online newsfeed and discussion board tool. Students responded to the question posed by Ms. Ushe and also to each other in order to build collaborative practices. This was a terrific lesson and the students had a blast!
“What is this magic?!?” That’s what students were saying this year when they were introduced to Aurasma in the TC Williams Media Center. This app lets students scan images to discover secret videos and animation that appear on their device screen! The media specialists used Aurasma to help teach students about different resources available in the library while also keeping them entertained and engaged. Students used iPads and followed scavenger hunt instructions that led them through the media center, scanning posters and books along the way. Each scan brought up interview videos with teachers, students, and media specialists discussing what was available in that area.
Aurasma works using “targets,” which are the images that get scanned, and “auras,” the video or animation that appears. Teachers can use the Aurasma Studio site to connect videos (that they have either made themselves or found online) to different images. Then, these Auras get published to the teacher’s personal channel. All students have to do is download the app and “follow” their teachers channel to have access to the Auras the teacher has created. Math teachers have been connecting example problems to how-to instructions for solving them, and English students have been using it to create interactive posters and presentations. At the Elementary and Middle schools, students have been creating book trailers to inform their classmates about the fantastic books they have read.
The Aurasma app is available for iOS and Android, which means most students can use personal devices to interact with your class in a whole new way!
More and more eReaders are becoming the go-to devices for readers everywhere. We love the ability to carry 50 books at time with us on the airplane, to never lose our place because our bookmark fell out and to search names of characters to find when they were first introduced. The English Language Arts department atGeorge Washington Middle School wanted their students to have these same advantages. In the winter of 2013-2014, a 6th grade co-taught Special Education and General Education class began using Nooks for the first time.
The immediate reaction was more than positive. Students loved the layout of the device and had fun discovering all the features available to them. We all love to personalize our devices and Nooks are no different. Students learned (and taught each other) how to change the background image, adjust the font size to suit them and even adjust the orientation to the style they liked best. The ability to make a book their own was a new experience, and it makes a difference, having a book that you can change and modify increases student ownership in the device and increases their interest in reading the text.
Beyond the personalization of Nooks, students were able to practice a number of different during reading strategies. Students can highlight passages that they find significant, much the way readers in a book club will underline sections they want to share of come back to. Students can also use the embedded dictionary to look up words they don’t know. For reluctant readers, the ability to find out the definition of new words without asking the teacher or physically using a dictionary (and thus showing the whole class you don’t know the word) is a gift. Watching the students read on their Nooks, you can see them smoothly using all these techniques and empowering themselves to be better readers.
As this first class tests out the Nooks and we see the progress they are making, we look forward to expanding the use of the Nooks to more classes and for more novels. Students will be able to check out eBooks from the school library and the public library. We will be able to load novels that specifically match individual student lexile levelsand increase their access to non-fiction texts. As we move forward, these devices will continue to give students access to relevant devices, literacy skills and personalized details which increases their interest and engagement with a wide variety of texts.
This is what you’ll often hear in math classrooms across middle school classrooms in ACPS. Dimension M is an online, multi-player video game that requires students to answer math problems to earn points and power up. In other words, students log on, design and avatar and enter a virtual world where they tackle challenges and avoid obstacles. Their main goal is to answer math questions that show their knowledge on topics from properties of multiplication, to estimating results, to calculating rate of change. As you can imagine, students are leaning forward in their seats, shouting with enthusiasm, and begging for more time to play.
Across the nation, schools are seeing that games can be “effective tools for teaching complex ideas because they:
use action instead of explanation,
create personal motivation and satisfaction,
accommodate various learning styles and skills,
reinforce mastery,
provide interactive, decision making context (Charles & McAlister, 2004; Holland, Jenkins, & Squire, 2002).
William Ramsay Elementary School began working with iPads in the Fall of 2012. Seeing a need to improve literacy in the Primary grades, the school improvement team looked to technology to help supplement the wonderful learning already existing in the classrooms. Having used iPads the previous year at Polk, TIS Bobby Offterdinger worked with Ramsay to develop an action plan involving the purchase of 4 class sets of iPads. Since acquiring these devices, students have been primarily using them to engage in think-aloud activities and to extend their literacy knowledge.
