Tech Talk: What's happening at Episcopal?

Mary Katherine Hastings' PreK 3 students had a live video visit with C-130 Air Force pilot and parent Brent Reiss and two co-workers stationed in Qatar.  Using Skype her class sang Christmas songs and learned about flying aircraft half way around the world.  Developing global communities is a very important skill our students need to continually practice, so we are always looking for new Skype or Google Hangouts opportunities.  Using Keynote, PhotoBooth and iMovie students in the 2nd grade have been authoring, illustrating, and narrating videos to build strong writing, reading, and technology skills.  Some students enjoyed using Slimber to design digital illustrations and inserting a snapshot in their Keynote.  As the holidays approach I am often asked, "what are some good programs or apps my child can play, that are creative and educational".  Here are a couple that I would recommend.  A very creative game that has taken many youngsters by storm is MineCraft.  After building a sky-castle out of glass, mining for gold and diamonds, and developing a network of fortified keeps, I have to endorse this most excellent game.  I know many will be surprised to hear me recommend Chess, but no other game exercises higher order thinking like it.  Chess.com and ChessKids.com is an excellent online trainer and playing location for all ages.  You can find members of Episcopal's Lower and Middle School Chess clubs playing every night from 6pm - 7pm on Live Chess.   Have a wonderful holiday season enjoying your families.

Skype with Caitlin Reiss' Father in Qatar

 Captain Reiss and friends talking with PreK-3

What's Happening at Episcopal?

What is a Wiki?  

The use of wikis, websites developed by a community of users, has become very popular among educators.  Wikis allow teachers to share a multitude of information with their students as well as allow the students to collaborate with their peers and their teacher in a safe and secure environment.  One of the most popular wiki creation services is Wikispaces, which several of the teachers here at Episcopal use.  

Natalie Luer's French wiki, LeWikideMadame is one of these examples.  Ms. Luer maintains a page on her wiki for each of her French classes; here she has a link to her Dropbox where students can access handouts and power points from class.  She also provides links to study and review materials that she has created for the students.  Among the other pages on her wiki she has included links to various resources and supplemental materials that the students can use in their studies.  The wiki is also collaborative in nature.  Ms. Luer has created a special page on the wiki where students can add useful resources or interesting French related things they find online. 

Access the resources below to learn more about wikis and how they can be used in the classroom! 

Wikis in Plain English: Common Craft 

5 Ways You Can Use Wikis: Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers) 

Katie Robinson 

Tech Talk: How are we conceptual thinking?

How does the construction of the U.S. Constitution relate to documents like the Treaty of Paris, or The Mayflower Compact?  How do you classify the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell or the American Eagle?  Why is St. Louis where it is?  These are questions that 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders are answering this week through conceptual thinking.  Conceptual thinking involves the visualization of ideas using clearly defined connections to help students critical think complex systems and the evolution of events.  Episcopal Collegiate enhances this process by using software like Inspiration which can also convert a concept map into a detailed outline for a report.  Conceptual thinking doesn't have to happen just in school.  Encourage your children to map out their thoughts and ideas at home using online resources to map ideas and systems like bubbl.us, popplet, and Inkflow for the iPad.

by Christian Rogers

What's Happening at Episcopal?

What is Authentic Learning?  

By definition, authentic learning is one in which activities and lessons are planned in order to structure learning outcomes around the "real life" contexts in which they would be used. Well, that's one definition of authentic learning, but I feel sure many educators would have varying ideas from the one stated above.  Therefore, authentic learning can be many things, and the two activities that were the focus of this week's tech talk do an excellent job of illustrating that point.    

Reconnecting to a text and gathering research for an essay can take on many forms as shown by Tandy Cobb and her Survey of British Literature class.  She developed a project using Fakebook, which allowed students to create a Facebook profile for a secondary character in the play, Hamlet.  Fakebook gave the students many of the same features that Facebook now offers.  The students were able to create a profile for their chosen character as well as simulate friendships and conversations between characters.  Ms. Cobb envisioned the project serving several purposes which included the students studying the development of the character and their relationships to other characters in the play, reconnecting to the text to review plot and character, and finally gathering and documenting appropriate quotations from the text for use in their essay.  This project takes the traditional method of character study and gathering of material for an essay and gives it a creative twist.  

Take a look at two of the Fakebook projects below: 

Ophelia 

Laertes 

Students in Jo Stoltz's eighth grade math classes were given an interesting task on Friday of this week.  Each class learned that they were now the proud owner and operator of an online retailer called CoolShoes.com, and it being the Christmas season they were very busy! Unfortunately, they had a major problem.  Most of their customers do not know the shoe size of the family member or friend they want to purchase shoes for.  They realized that it would be easier for customers to guess their loved ones height rather than their shoe size, so they were tasked with creating a graph and equation that would allow customers to input the approximate height and calculate an approximate shoe size for ordering purposes.  To test their theory they gathered the height and shoe size of each class member and used an Excel spreadsheet to compile and graph the data to investigate boy’s height vs. boy’s shoe size, girl’s height vs. girl’s shoe size, and everyone’s height vs. everyone’s shoe size.  The data compiled in Excel helped them determine what kind of correlation existed between height and shoe size and ultimately allowed them to chart a graph and write the equation to solve their problem.  Once this task was accomplished they were able to input other heights and shoe sizes to complete further testing.

While both of these activities content, learning outcomes, and authenticity vary, they still allow the student to take their learning into a "real world" context which both of these teachers believe is an important part of the learning process.  

Katie Robinson