I am only one year into experiencing Minecraft, and I am glad that I have taken the chance to understand some of this world. Minecraft is a popular choice when we brainstorm for #goaltime. I was not always ready to help steer student projects into the deeper learning goal than what they are already doing when they craft at home. Playing the game myself has allowed me to understand more of the language and guide projects. This is extra helpful since we now have the ability to use the Minecraft Education Edition with all students in the class. I certainly knew that we would get more play and creation during #goaltime, but a student surprised me with a new way to use the game. She used Minecraft to present her project and her project did not have anything to do with the game! Kat's #goaltime was learning about making a cake...in a coffee mug...in our classroom microwave! Some weeks we had messes to clean up or some burnt smells, but in the end she had a tasty treat and enough to share with all 48 students. The twist was when she setup a Minecraft world for students to walk through. The world signs and markers that share her learning experience. So cool! When a student asked her why she chose to present with Minecraft, her answer was that she knows how to use Google Slides, Canva, PowToon, and other presentation tools. She said it was time to try something new! Check it out below:
The first two days back we have been exploring Thinglink as a presentation tool. Embedded below is an example from the Hawkins homeroom. Students responded to a prompt about their winter break and designed a Google slide with text, pictures, and a link. After a group photo, students tagged themselves with a link to their slide.
What we learned: -The picture is more interactive than I thought it would be. All slides that are linked are fully navigable without opening a new window! -The Thinglink pictures will be a great option for #goaltime project presentations. -How to manage our sharing preferences within Google slides and copying those links to other sites. -The images are not a spot for simultaneous collaboration. One student can edit at a time...and if they don’t save the image when they exit it will lock out others for up to 30 minutes! -Always have plan B: My planning included students “drafting” on Google slides while we figured out how everything works. This was a good thing because the website was not whitelisted until I put in tech request, but was ready to go by the second day. Good thing students had something to work on while we waited for that. This is a resource I had heard about a little, but am glad we finally decided to try it out! On New Year’s Day, Krystal asked all of us in the family what our goals were for the new year...I was impressed and excited to listen Olivia as she was ready to share. She had many ideas, while I did not. I mostly achieved my 2016 goals, but in different ways that I had planned. They were more focused on the product and I found that I during this past year I enjoyed the journey towards them, with roadblocks and new paths, then I enjoyed the payoff at the end. I am now ready to declare 3 goals for the upcoming year, where I will end up I do not know!
Write - 100 words per day, post 1 blog per week (I am obviously doing this right now) Make - 1 new thing per week Ride - 60 minutes on my bike per week Cheers to the new year! PS - Olivia wants to Play (soccer), Learn (more about nature), Run (her first 5k) As I look into the first week back from break, I am excited to try a couple new things right away. First, I will be using Thinglink as a welcome back activity. I have seen this before at conferences and have downloaded on my ipad before, but had just not seen the application for it. Listening to back episodes of House of Edtech podcast, I got the final push. We will give it a try, and I have some scaffolding set up with Google Slides in case the application does not work.
The big new thing is to try my first 3 Act Lesson in math. I am always reflecting and searching how to make math more engaging and real. While I feel there is more for me to read on the presentation and facilitation, I just need to give it a try. The lesson that we will be doing is from Graham Fletchy and is about racing. I had been playing some Mario Kart with the kids over break and was looking myself at the place value potential when the results are displayed. This lesson puts it all together, and keeping with my flipped theme I have put it into Google Slides. I am excited to read more about the 3 Act Lessons and see how this one goes! I do not really feel as if I am a writer, but thought I would choose a more positive title. Beginning with the end in mind, I am working on the making the title true. Today begins my first day of the blogging challenge from AJ Juliani. I am pledging 100 words per day and 1 post per week. I think that this is a very low entry goal, but I do not really know what it is like to sit and write 100 words...hopefully I will see soon that I am exceeding this more easily that I am worried about. I would like to share reflections from my own classroom, celebrate excellence that I see in my building, and thoughts about what I am reading and listening to from my PLN. No one is reading this yet, but that is not the idea. My 2017 is including more process oriented goals than product, and this is the first that I will “be audacious” enough to share publicly.
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Matt HawkinsGull Lake Middle School Archives
March 2018
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