Internet = Truth!

A friend of mine used to (or maybe still does) has an email signature that talks about Abraham Lincoln referencing the truth of all things on the internet.  So let's first admit that the ridiculousness of this signature line is hilarious and I loved getting emails from him strictly for this reason.

Now, lets move on to the fact that there are some people that legitimately believe this to be true.  Not the Abraham Lincoln part (or maybe...I don't know) but the part about whatever is posted on the internet being true.  It's like saying that everything on TV is true or said on the radio is true.  It's not.

Perhaps when these medias first came out and they were revolutionary and unknown and it was FANTASTICAL! (yup...I said it) At that point in time, I suppose it was acceptable to believe that everything that was put out to the world could be believed as true.  We didn't know...but now, we do.
So we can no longer claim ignorance. And it's so important that we teach our children/students that everything is not true and how to differentiate between fact and not-so-obvious fiction.

I recently began working with my middle school students about evaluating the websites they gather their facts from in order to ensure their validity.

Side note: When I said that to them...they looked at me and I was informed that they didn't know what I was saying.  I told them we needed to look at websites and see if the information was accurate and legit.  They understood that.

Anyway...it was kind of a fun series of lessons.  I didn't tell the kids we were working on website validity.  I told them we were working on researching some kind of social justice/current event/make the world a better place website. Of course, I have to model what I expect.  So we visited http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/.

It started with choosing a cause that you have a passion for and ensuring that you are properly educated before you start spreading any message.  So I told them that this particular cause was very near and dear to my heart but I wanted them to be fully educated. Of course many of them were confused having never heard of a tree octopus. It was SO fun to be completely flabbergasted at the fact that they had never heard of this animal!!

Since they didn't know anything about the Tree Octopus, we started researching some basic questions.  Ex. Where do they live?  What do they eat?  How do they breath?  Why are they endangered?  I encouraged them to explore the website and also other websites (not provided by me).

Some classes explored outside the website others stayed solely on the page I gave them.  The ones that started exploring began questioning whether or not these animals were real sooner.  However, they came to me with "They aren't real because I've never heard of them." or "They can't be real because I've never seen one."  To which many other students jumped on board to exclaim that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist...i.e. atoms and molecules.  And the fact that they are only 10/11/12/13 means that they haven't explored the whole world or seen all there is to see.
It was an exciting discussion from a teacher perspective.

As time went on it was very clear that the class was divided as to whether these animals were real or not.  So we finally sat down one day and had a discussion.  No laptops, no computers, no devices.  I very seriously wanted to know what they thought since this was such a hot topic of debate in my classes.  Regardless of what they thought, I needed a solid defense...an explanation of why they felt the way they did.

In the end, I told them that the whole website was fake.  The students that believed it to be fake felt validated.  The students that believed it to be real were frustrated, amazed, and some even thought it was hilarious.  BUT, I got my point across.  Just because it's on the internet, does not mean it is real.

Virtual Field Trips

You know background knowledge is kind of important.  I mean....I think it is.  Especially for the younger kiddos who are just learning about the world outside of the little neighborhood.

So when they start learning about places like Greece and Rome and France and Great Britain...it's all (excuse the expression) Greek to them.  They (most elementary kids in my school) have never been outside the US.  So to study about the history of these countries....there is a slight disconnect.

A teacher friend of mine is teaching the American Revolution right now.  She said it perfect, they love it because they know how it ended...because we live in America...this is how we got to this point.  But with all those other countries, you can't necessarily say that.  The kids don't know how it's different from what they studied because they haven't experienced it.  And in all reality...many won't, for many years.

Here is where vacation planning came in for me.  No, I'm not having them plan a vacation.  (Well I actually had the 6th graders plan a trip to Greece.) But I found some websites that give the kids a tour of famous tourist spots in the country that they are studying.  When going on a vacation, you may want to see where you're going to visit.  What about when you're studying a country, you should see what it looks like now compared to what it was.

Are you studying Ancient Greece?  Try a Greek vacation website: http://www.greecevirtual.gr/
Are you studying Ancient Italy? Try a Roman vacation website: http://www.touritalynow.com/virtual-italy-tours or http://www.youvisit.com/tour/rome
Are you studying England?  Try a London Virtual Tour: http://www.visitlondon.com/discover-london/london-virtual-tour#zwHZOJL4xVSPhEP0.97

And all of this can be done to a degree on Google Earth as well!

Students can compare and contrast, they can talk about where would you rather live; then or now, they can rewrite history....the possibilities are endless!

Side note: this leads to a great conversation about the fact that websites are not just American...each country has their own.  My students' minds were blown when we talked about the .gr at the end of the Greek website!

Now...where will you go?

Map Scales and Google Earth

Do you remember breaking out your atlas to measure how far it was from your school to your house? Or maybe from your favorite vacation spot to your house?  Of course there was also the obligatory worksheet that had perfectly manicured streets with geometric houses, a school, and a library.  All different ways to learn that on the map, the distance is not real...it is a scale.

Now we're so used to using some kind of GPS (Google Maps is my personal favorite) that the concept of needing a scale is completely foreign now.  Even the kids know how to use a GPS app. The skill of reading a flap map, an atlas, is seemingly obsolete!  But, nope, it's still part of the curriculum - and I'm not arguing whether or not it's important, I'm just stating that it is what it is.

So, in technology the last couple of weeks, we have been learning about map scales (to compliment the kiddos 4th grade curriculum).  Since we have computers and not paper maps, we broke out Google Earth and since we have GPS that gives us EXACT distance, we worked on estimating.

The image of the kiddos searching on Google Earth and getting their exact distances from point A to point B (we also brought in some Nevada Geography and measured the important places in Nevada) was amazing!  They are pros!  Then the image of the kiddos using the rules on the monitor was quite funny.  Who ever imaged that we would use a ruler on a computer monitor?!  Not me!!

They really seemed to enjoy the exploration and realizing that a few inches can be anything from a few miles to hundreds (or more) of miles!!

Up next...longitude and latitude?!  Any ideas?!

It's all SUNSHINE and rainbows...

Recently I have taken on the task of the Sunshine Committee.

It's a little bit of a blur as to how it all started and ended with me, but I have to say I'm kind of excited!  I have a lot of support from teachers that have been part of the Sunshine Committee in the past.

With that being said...what's the point of this post in particular?

Yesterday, one of the teachers gave me a binder of stuff from the past years of Sunshine.  I barely know what to do with it.  Have things changed so much that a binder of papers overwhelms me?!

Apparently so.  

Granted I haven't done much, but everything I have done so far has been almost exclusively digital.
Let's run down the list.

Meeting Agendas: Google Doc
Cards (Get Well, Happy Birthday, etc): Word Swag app w/ Pixabay images
Ideas: Pinterest
Happy Hour Interest: Google Forms
Happy Hour Announcement: Word Swag app w/Pixabay images and email
"Binder" to keep everything: Google Drive

Granted, I'm not expanding to outside the digital box but so far what I have works...for me and my team.  I do have to keep in mind that not everyone at my school geeks out over tech like I do.  So of course I made flyers for the Happy Hour and I will print out agendas for meetings, etc.

But I feel more organized...and creative.

"Get Well" image that was made into a card for a teacher out for surgery

The image above was made with @wordswagapp (introduced to me by +Tony Vincent) and +Pixabay images that are found within the app. BONUS: Pixabay images are copyright free so they can be used without attribution.    

Google "Keep"ing It Together

So life has been crazy to say the least this summer.

1) Wedding
2) House hunting
3) Cross country move
4) New job - new school
and all the unpacking and cleaning that comes with 3 and 4!!

So today I decided to stop for a minute and do a quick vlog on Google Keep.  It has literally helped me keep my brain from exploding.

Enjoy!

What can you use Google Keep for?

Pokemon Ideas

I have been playing Pokemon Go for the past 4-5 days.

I've seen the support from fellow educators and friends and I have seen the disapproval from fellow educators and friends as well.  I don't necessarily announce it to the world, but I'm kind of enjoying it. I'm also not going out walking trying to track them down.  I look when I'm sitting at my desk or walking to a meeting or walking my dog.  Right now, Pokemon hunting isn't my priority, but it is something fun to do for a brain break...along the lines of checking my Facebook or online shopping.*

*the kind where you put it in your shopping cart and then close the window...who's with me??


However, my brain has been endlessly (or at least it feels that way) processing and trying to figure out how to make use of this game that has so many people obsessed!

My non-educator friends will argue there is no educational purpose in the game.  I won't argue because, much like their profession - I don't understand their goals and focus, and they don't understand mine.  I'm not looking for a way to make throwing the pokeball (is that what it's called?) and catching the creator educational.  Yea...at it's base, this is not an educational game.  So, why not make it one?  Why not?

So I have done some reading and I have been (like I said) doing some thinking.  Here's my very rough list of ideas...no details yet.  It's all still very theoretical and not fleshed out.
*behavior management - think Class Dojo meets Pokemon
*mapping skills - plot of a Google map where and what you catch - collaborative
*animal research - research the animal different Pokemon are based on - where does it live, what does it eat, how has it evolved, etc.  Assign points based on different aspects of animal characteristics...similar to Pokemon.  Create a Global Pokemon map showing where different animals can be caught and how many points they can get by catching them.  Go even further and plan out adventures...think Oregon Trail...what supplies will you need based on the environment and distance you'll travel. (I'm thinking this one out as I'm typing and getting kind of excited!!)
*literature/SS Go style game - students create a game similar to Pokemon Go with different characters in a story/throughout history.  As characters are caught, the designer also provides some interesting facts that are meant to entice students to learn more.  They can learn more by following clues and "capturing" more information about story/history.

Again all of these ideas are super surface with nothing carved in stone but I would love to hear from you.  Can you elaborate on anything?  Do you want to collaborate on anything?

One Tab

I cannot stand where I have a messy and cluttered desktop.  I can't find anything and I can't see my picture of Disneyland's 50th Anniversary Castle by Thomas Kinkade, both are equally important to me.  That being said, I try very hard to keep my desktop very organized.

I also cannot stand to have a million bajillion tabs open either.  Unfortuately, I am VERY guilty of this.  I leave a tab open because I won't remember it if I close it.  I leave a tab open because I work on it daily.  I leave a tab open because I know I will have to refer to it in a meeting today, tomorrow, or next week.  I'd rather have a million bajillion tabs open than a million bajillion bookmarks, cause at least I know I can close the tabs.  The bookmarks...I'm too lazy and they will stay there for eternity.

Knowing that I have a problem with tabs (the first step is acknowledging it right) I decided to do something about it today.  This summer I went to a Google Summit in Charleston, SC.  One of the presenters, Chris Craft, talked about Chrome Extensions.  So I busted out my black and white composition notebook (yup I like to take notes old school) and looked up what he had suggested. There it was, beautifully printed "One Tab: put multi tabs in one page ---> multiple links to share w/ students".

So I downloaded One Tab.  And in 5 minutes, I had downloaded, figured it out, and my life is now changed!  I hear the angels singing above my head as I do a little happy dance in my seat.

Once you download One Tab, you click on it and it absorbs all the tabs for that page and closes it.  I organized my tabs on each page - work, social, articles to read, etc. - so I did this for approximately 5 open windows.  Holding my breath (because at this point EVERYTHING IS GONE!!!) I opened a new empty window and clicked on the One Tab icon on my extension bar (or whatever that area is called) and it showed me a list with all my windows and all the tabs that were open under each window.  I could restore or delete any of them!

Those angels singing became a frickin' choir!!!