Screencasts, CS Ed Week and Micro:bits

We have been busy as usual in the Innovation Lab. The fifth graders wrapped up their how to videos and are currently finalizing CS Heroine and CS Hero posters to celebrate CS Ed Week. In sixth grade we are talking, exploring, and writing simple programs with the MakeCode.microbit.org coding platform and Micro:bit. They will use the radio feature to communicate and identify a CS Hero or Heroine as well.

Grade 5

For the video production project students selected a simple Google Slides task to demonstrate. They captured this demonstration on the school issued Chromebook. Recording and editing were done using the screen recording application Screencastify. Earlier in our course, they learned how to edit an imported video. For this project they created everything from scratch, even the prepared slides.  Click a link below to sample an example. They are FANTASTIC!

Grade 6

We have just begun working with Micro:bit. So far, they have made a simplified version of "Magic 8-Ball" but with 3 inputs and outputs to represent yes, no, and maybe. Students who finished early were encouraged to try showing all 20 outputs as character strings. Now we are exploring the radio feature learning about transmitters, receivers, conditionals, loops, and a variety of inputs to communicate secret messages. 

Micro:bit Starter Projects

Magic 3 Ball Click to try.	Marco Polo Click to try

CS Ed Week

CS Ed Week always falls on the week of Grace Hopper's birthday, December 9. This year it kicked off on Sunday, December 5. To celebrate both fifth and sixth grade students are making posters about a CS Heroine or CS Hero. That said, they are approaching this task differently. In fifth grade they are reinforcing Google Slides skills used to make their avatars by learning how to trace images. They reviewed a list of influential people in CS to help identify a person of interest. Some students picked family members they looked up to and in some cases they selected me as their CS Heroine.

In grade six instead of picking their person, they were assigned a part of their persons name. Now they are writing programs using MakeCode and the Micro:bit to communicate with a mystery partner so they can complete the name and begin their research. Stay tuned and look for your CS posters below. 

Future Coders & YouTubers

These past few weeks my students have been engaged in some fun & relevant tech projects. I haven't found one kid who wasn't excited about learning how to edit videos, some with aspirations for becoming the next big YouTuber... and then there are the robots.

Grade 5

In fifth grade students installed a school approved Chrome extension called Screencastify. They will use this extension to edit and record video. Their first job was to edit and export a pre-made, 1+ minute,  how to video, into a cleaned up version lasting in the ballpark of 45-50 seconds. While installing this extension we discussed learning some basic computer care and responsibility. Later we did some simple Chromebook housekeeping to keep them running efficiently.
The how-to video I created on making a New Folder in Google Drive involved navigating some intentional errors, even a sneeze mid-clip. One of my go to rules for video recording: tape it once, trim out the excess when you are ready to edit. The tools and vocabulary we practiced included crop, zoom, trim (cut), titles, credits, exporting, rendering, saving locally, storing work in the cloud, routers, and our own version of closed captions. Using text boxes with the 5 key points they made their tutorial accessible to a larger audience.
There was discussion about flattening files, connecting some skills we used with Google Slides to Video Editing with Screencastify. For example, when they downloaded their Google Slide file as a .png all of the layers in the slide were "flattened" into one png file. png files have transparent backgrounds and can be cropped to make your character look like they are sitting in a car or looking out a window. Similarly, after exporting their editable Screencastify video into a more universal mp4 file, this new video includes the edits but you don't see them as editable parts like you do with Screencastify. We again talked about downloading the file locally and the need for adding it to Google Classroom or Drive for access at home or from a different device. Here is a screenshot of an editable video in Screencastify. Notice the green zoom segments and the salmon title segment. These will not appear once you export your file as an mp4 in this case. The video is rendered into one clip.

Original	Student Example

Grade 6

Sixth grade students continued using the RootBots, writing code to draw a variety of polygons. When they used the simulator to break codes and make music, they worked independently. This time around they practiced pair programming. With pair programming one student is the driver but both students contribute to the logic, design and debugging of the code. On a given day, one partner is the "driver" and the other our "materials handler." The driver is responsible for typing the code and completing shared documentation. The materials handler makes sure the robots are off and returned to the parking lot, the station is clean, and any borrowed materials are returned to their location for the next class.

Parking Spaces	Polygon Requirements

Take a look at some of the polygons they coded in class this week. Can you count the number of inputs they used? What types of polygons do you see?

Avatars, Algorithmic Thinking, & File Management, Oh My!

Grade 5

Our fifth graders innovators have been busy learning a variety of Google Slides tools to create self made "Digiforms." Remember Color Forms? These digital stickers will be used in other applications when we make comics, stop motion videos and gif files. Check out these beauties below!

After a week of build time we focused on file management and naming conventions, specifically transparent png files which they need to use for Digiforms. We will continue to reinforce and review file types and management throughout this course. 

We are just beginning to learn how to screen record and edit video using a school approved program with the Screencastify extension. We will continue our conversations about data collection, privacy, and using appropriate tools, this time with a focus on installing Chrome extensions. Stay tuned for some epic "How To" videos that our innovators will create next.

I recently discovered that students were installing an extension that let them use fun images for their cursor. Although it looked cool, it seemed to be causing issues with the functionality of their Chromebook. Now that I am aware, I ask them to remove this extension with a conversation about why. The other issue with this particular extension is when they use the custom cursor, it prevents them from seeing the potential in the cursor that comes with the program. That's right, cursors have potential. Do you know why? You will have to ask them about this one.

Be FAB, Abstractions & Algorithms

As we ease into the new school year my fifth graders were busy sharing their ideas about what a positive and collaborative learning environment looks like. They are the experts after all. They get it! They have been doing this for years now. 

They started with a brainstorming activity before using a Google form to share their most important ideas. Since the sixth graders wrote their FAB Constitution last year they had the option to discuss, debate and add amendments after a quick review of our preamble and articles. It was unanimous in all 4 sixth grade classrooms to move forward with the work they had already completed. Our FAB Constitution is based on student voice and a clever acronym to remember to be FAB!

An example brainstorm is below. These are responses shared by groups in one of our classes. You can also see a signed copy of the FAB Constitution from one of my fifth grade classes. 

FAB Notes	FAB Constitution

After learning how to find their seats using the Flippy Do, students continued to explore abstraction as they chose two representations to write a secret word or their name before organizing it onto construction paper for our binary walls. Students used an uppercase alphabet decoder to create their words. If words were completed correctly they were randomly placed around the room for view. If not, students had the option to make corrections and resubmit their work. They always do. 

These "secret" coded words will be used in an upcoming challenge. Eve where students have the option to find a specific word for a chance at an extra raffle ticket. There first optional challenge was to decipher two bytes which I had painted on my toes. :)

In sixth grade we have continued our unplugged journey creating and writing code for human robots thanks to an idea shared with me by Michael Penta. Each class created binary keys to communicate the description of a specific lego brick. They identified color, height (thickness), as well as the width and length based on the number of pegs across and down. Of course we had to orient the bricks first to make sure we were describing the same thing. All bricks at the start and for description purposes must be placed in portrait view to the left of the base brick before we do anything.

After much practice with identifying bricks we moved on to building a common language to describe how the robot needed to behave before observing, practicing, writing, and executing code.

Binary Brick	Practice Code
Finished Example:

21-22 Welcome Back

What a great start to the new school year! My classes, both fifth and sixth grade, learned about our curriculum. First up on our list we focused on abstraction. Abstraction is part of the computational thinking section of the Digital Literacy and Computer Science standards. 

I started by drawing a 🏚, writing the word "house," and how these symbols represent the idea of a house but not the physical house. Then we practiced another form of abstraction, sign language. Ask them to show you how to use sign language to ask to use the bathroom. Finally, we got down to the nitty gritty as we moved on to binary code, also known as base 2, 1s and 0s, or machine language, the most basic form of computer language. 

Students learned about bits (1 binary digit), nibbles (a set of 4 bits), and bytes (a set of 8 bits) before creating and using a Flippy Do to help them convert between binary, base 2, numbers and the more familiar decimal, base 10 number system. 

With some practice and investigation into patterns while we used the Flippy Do they were ready to move on to the next activity, finding their assigned seats. I refer to our classroom as "The Motherboard." The rows around the room are named after computer, things. On Hard Drive you will find our storage section filled with crayons, paper, hanging folders and more. My rolling desk is located at Variable Terrace is its location much like a variable can change. For this exercise each student converted 2 bytes, one for their location and the other for a partner. They used a map of our room to match their number to the street location before checking in with a partner to compare notes and help each other if corrections were needed. Currently they are grouped together by home room or team.

Conversion	The Motherboard

Stay tuned for future updates. On deck, secret messages using UPPERCASE alphabet bytes and then algorithms, another focus of the computational thinking strand of our state standards. Don't forget to bookmark my page for future reference. 

Delightful Digital Drawings

 So impressed with these gems. Students where tasked with showing off the skills they learned when making their avatars. Wait until you see these gorgeous digital drawings they made with some of my favorite photos and their Google Slides Skills.

Apparently we have a lot of cappuccino fans. It was a popular choice. See if you can identify any of the places that they picked. Locations include Georges Islands here in Boston, Beijing, Maine, Mystic Aquarium, a local tree, and Iceland.

Fourth Quarter Happenings

Students are busy honing their digital skills, editing video, learning about different file types, and making awesome creations. They are currently working on researching the meaning of their names. 

One of their first projects was to edit a screen recording. They took a 1 minute and 17 second video and whittled it down to a 45-60 second video. In addition to trimming out the unwanted segments, like my pseudo sneeze and 2 of the three introductions, they explored zooming in on important items, cropping out the background to focus on the content, and exporting their finished product in a more universal format, .mp4. 

Original	Edited Version

Another project they have just wrapped up are making personal avatars. Look out Bitmoji, here comes your competition! 

In this project students used Google Slides to ultimately make an avatar of themself which they saved as a png file. PNG files are special, they can have transparent backgrounds allowing you to use your creation like a digital sticker! During the process they learned about some new tools and features in Google Slides, the polyline, curve, gradient and curve tool. They also practiced using the Arrange tools to organize objects on the screen before "flattening" these layers into one image when downloaded as .png files. 

I'm so excited to see these creations come to life in their Scratch animations which classes are working on now. 

Stone	Coletti

John	Robinson	Morris

Stop Motion, Comics, & Screencasting

We have been busy at school learning about new people, technology and presenting our findings in class. We wrapped up two research projects this past week. The first involved learning about others. Our focus was on Black History and Women's History month. The second project for some classes involved research on a cyber savvy topic like password and privacy, online gaming, drones, social media and mental health and more. Each project entailed 3 components, a research segment including citing sources, building an artifact to share their findings, and presenting their information to educate others about their topics. 

Check out these awesome stop motion videos made with Google Slides to learn about folks students studied in class. Some links are only accessible using student accounts as they are not all original works. Students will need to login to view these artifacts. 

Vernice Armour    Jackie Robinson (click to advance)    Ruby Bridges    

(click play for these) Mae Jemison      Florence Griffith Joyner

Other works from this past week included some How To videos for various tools and features in some of our favorite applications. Here is one showing you how to create a Gradient Background with Slides They are adorable! The videos and the kids. :)

Black History & Women's History Month

After learning new tools and features in Google Slides to create an avatar of themselves, students were tasked with creating a new avatar to demonstrate their mastery of these skills. This project also entailed, learning about a famous person of color recognized for making contributions to our world. As it turns out the project continued into March so we also emphasized Women's History month as well. Students have finished making digital avatars and are now building presentations to show what they learned about their selected person. 

They started by choosing someone from our working list. New additions have been added per student and teacher requests. If someone is missing, use the link on the last slide to tell me more about them.

You too will be impressed by the talent and creativity of these fifth and sixth graders when you view their creations. Show them a few tools and the sky's the limit. See their amazing work, all original, that they made with Google Slides. Drawings were made using photographs as a guide to build these masterpieces. 

Next up, students have selected from a few options to use these creations in a presentation to show us what their research taught them. Students can create a comic or stop motion video with Google Slides, or they can share their learning with Scratch.

Some digital drawings are still being added. See if you can find the following works. There were some favorites so you may find some folks on more than one slide. 

Rhiannon Giddens	Jackie Robinson	Mae Jemison
Sam Cooke	Michelle Obama	Katherine Johnson
Vernice Armour	Simon Biles	Hank Aaron
Mohammed Ali	Eugene Goodman	Ruby Bridges
Will Smith	Ella Fitzgerald	Crispus Attucks
Madam C. J. Walker	Amanda Gorman	Vashti Harrison
Janet Jackson	Kimberly Bryant	Augusta Savage
Benjamin O. Davis Jr.	Lebron James	Elizabeth Freeman
Jaleel White	Michael Jordan	MLK Jr.
Florence Griffith Joyner	Serena Williams	Alice Walker
Marcelite J. Harris	Condoleezza Rice

Jackie Robinson & Michelle Obama were the most popular! 

Can you find all of them?

Slides Are My Favorite

They are at it again. Learning some of the underutilized tools of Google Slides to create a beautiful avatar of themself.

Students explored tools and features including special shapes tools like polyline, curve, and line. They also explored gradient tool to add some color or make a cool tie dye. With all these shapes they had to learn how to use the arrange tool to move layers forward and backward as sometimes an object seems lost when it is only covered by another layer. I'm sure that has happened to you from time to time. Ask you child for some tech support!

 Some of their creations had over 100 layers. I can't wait to see what they do next but before I get ahead of my self take a look at these gems below. 

Check back often as new avatars will be added in the coming days.

So proud of my students for their hard work and creativity. Everything was made by the students using Google Slides. From the tacos to the ripped jeans!

You can do great things!

Hoag	Chaffee	Weeks

LeFebvre	Osterholtz

Future YouTubers Unite!

Before vacation students spent some time installing and using the Screencastify extension so they could record video of the work they are doing on their Chromebooks. On the first day they explored the recording features before editing a how to video creation of mine for making new folders in Google Drive. Students were tasked with cropping out the extra details like the background edges, their docking station, and more. Next they trimmed out my intentional sneeze and any parts that I purposely repeated to get the 1:14 video down to under 45 seconds. Another tool they were asked to incorporate was the zoom tool. This tool was used to zoom in on important elements, like clicking on a button, viewing a pop up window, or naming the folder. They also needed to add a title and export it as an .mp4 file so it can be used with multiple video player platforms. Some students went above and beyond with the title tool adding "closed captions" to expand their viewing audience and be inclusive of those with hearing challenges. This was an option but so nice to see. They are so awesome! See the examples below. 

How to Video to Make	a Google Drive Folder

We will utilize this tool again for future projects, like more how to videos for the tools we are using in class, prerecording a presentation for those who are nervous presenting on the fly, and more. Stay tuned! 

Currently classes are working on building digital avatars of themselves which will be used in upcoming projects. Fifth and sixth graders will use their avatars in other projects during our time together. Each term we further explore these tools with another focus, i.e. presidents. This term we will focus on famous people of color for Black History Month. I'm so excited to see what they create and can't wait to share their awesomeness again you. :)

Welcome Q3 Students & Families

We are off and running on an epic technology adventure. Last week students used a variety of tools to brainstorm, develop, vote and publish our FAB Constitution. An example is posted below. Students First worked together to brainstorm ideas using a Google app called Jamboard with color coded sticky notes. A great resource for other collaborative thinking and creating activities. Take a look at an example Jamboard brainstorm here.  After group work they shared their most valued idea using a Google form. We used these responses to collect their main ideas in a word cloud before exploring other ways that data is collected, represented and analyzed. An example is below. Not only was this data was used to write their FAB Constitution but also as part of a larger discussion on data in general. We used a tool called Pear Deck to review and discuss how data is collected, represented and analyzed. 

Their FAB Constitution with preamble, 3 articles, and signatures. 

Some Word Clouds

Best of Luck!

Today we wrapped up our final projects, played vocabulary Snowman, and some students shared their favorite projects. To learn more about their favorites, use the "Zoom" image below. Click through the slides to find your class. If you shared a project, hover over your avatar to access the hyperlink. If your link does not appear it may be that the link you shared does not work and you need to take a screenshot of your work and resubmit the form.

ALL submitted work must be original, free of personal identifiers (first names are okay), and have the proper sharing permissions. Some student work is shared only to the GDRSD domain and only accessible with student accounts.

The avatars and comics were made with Google Slides. You will see some coding projects created with Scratch and songs coded with the RootBot simulator. They are a creative bunch. 

Enjoy!

Everyone Loves a Parade

The semester is winding down with only one week left. Students are wrapping up projects before completing new activities next week. Stay tuned for a variety of shared project this week and next. 

One project we wrapped up last week was learning how to screen record while making a practice how to video for making a new Google Drive Folder. Feedback was provided and students created a second how to video pulling ideas from a list of tools that we explored in class. Options included Zoom, Google Drive, Classroom, Slides, Scratch, Screencastify and a few random tools suggested by students. With their permission and as long as no personal identifiers are shared, videos will be added to the ABC's of Technology page. It is a work in progress and we only have a few videos at this time. Come back and visit again or bookmark the page for future use. 

Below are the Scratch parades we are building. Sixth graders were tasked with thinking through some simple coding activities before writing some starter code to make their Google Slide avatars come to life in our parade. Stay tuned for changes and new additions as we complete these projects in the coming days. 

Fifth graders will use their avatars to tell the story of our FAB Constitution in comics we are building in class. See what they think a positive learning environment looks like. How FAB are you? See last weeks post to learn why students at GDRMS as so FABulous! 

Screen Recording with Screencastify

Screen recording is a powerful tool that anyone can use to show what they know, help a friend, or just have fun by clicking the record button and utilizing tools on the computer. Students began with a visit to the Chrome Webstore  to find and install the Chrome extension Screencastify. 

Next they watched a short screencast demonstration of making a new folder in Google Drive. Once the raw video file was ready, they watched as I opened in the editor to demonstrate specific tools, crop, trim, zoom in, and titles. Although there are some additional annotation tools, our focus was to remove any personal data with the crop tool, trim unwanted parts of the video clip (a sneeze or dead space), use the title tool to add a title or "closed captions," and zoom to focus on key points in the video like a pop-up menu or button to be clicked.

We also spent time reviewing file extensions as we are now focused on video files, or mp4's in this case. Not to be confused with Chrome Extensions.

Want to give Screencastify a try, check out my tutorial below.

Data! Data! Data!

Data! Data! Data!

In our lesson on data what started as an overview on ways we collect, organize and share data, grew organically into a lot of great conversations and sharing of ideas. Check out our data review Slide which we used with PearDeck, more data collection! Take a close look at the student generated Word Clouds in slides 6-9 that we made with WordClouds.com.

Our conversation started with a previously used Google form and response sheet as we reviewed student data on Hour of Code activities. Review of the response worksheet lead to some conversations about how quickly a computer can sort through lots of data in fractions of a second, unlike us humans.

We continued looking at other collected data, how it is represented and ways it might be interpreted. All the while PearDeck was collecting their data, sharing it anonymously during the live presentation and also compiling it into a Google Doc for my review afterwards.

On Deck!

Students are learning how to screen record to show what they know. Stay tuned!

Their Constitution

Fifth & sixth grade students, the Founding Students, just finished work they started before the break and finally voted and signed the Innovation Lab FAB Constitution. A big shout out to my friend, fellow digital coach and computer science teacher, Zak Kolar, for sharing the script that made capturing student signatures on our digital document. 

Every student in both fifth and sixth grade contributed to the creation of this document in part of our unit on "My Classroom, My Learning." Sixth grade students completed this work last year so they reviewed our FAB articles with a new lens being careful to consider our new remote and hybrid learning environments when listing and sharing ideas.

Their input was entered into a Google Form and later used to create word clouds. Word clouds show the frequency of responses in a culmination of words usually in the form of a shape, see 2 examples from our data collection below. The more frequently the word or phrase occurs, the larger the word or phrase appears in the shape. You will learn more about our work on data collection and representation in a future post.

Before each student signed this document they considered its contents as well as the ideas shared within their groups. Sixth grade students decided that no amendments were needed at this time. Although the tools they use may not be the same and they may learn differently, they believe that a positive learning environment should include and be FAB!

Click to enlarge.

Avatars, File Management & Google Slides, Oh My!

Avatar PNG Files from Google Slides

This week students completed their work building avatars with Google Slides. I can't wait for them to use these creations in upcoming projects. Some are even using their creations for projects in other classes, like Social Studies to show what they know about the American Revolution or Neolithic Times. So exciting!

While making avatars, students explored toolbar buttons, menu bar dropdown lists, tried a few right-click options and utilized some shortcut keys. There are many means to the same end. Check out the graphic below to see the objects and the tools that we explored. (From an earlier post.) 

Short descriptions of some of the favorites are included here:

Zoom for narrowing in on small details or to see the big picture. 

Paint Format, a hidden gem lets you copy the properties of one object (a shape or text) and apply them to another of the same kind. 

So many Shapes, the rectangle oval, trapezoid, callouts and donut shapes. Spoiler alert! You can enter text directly into any shape. You DO NOT need to place a text box over the shape. Word Art yes, text, not necessary. 

Line button. It takes some practice but the curve and polyline tools are a big hit! My goodness they are creative.

Crop (and Mask) to manipulate the image sizes using gutters to make them fit like a true comic. 

Fill Color & Borders were helpful for our avatars when making hair, tie-dyes, and other materials.

     

Check out our digital avatar poster or view our Zoom classes below to see the work that has been submitted thus far. Bookmark it to check in for some late arrivals as some students are still fine tuning their creations. We close each class with an exit ticket. Most days it includes sharing with me using the Zoom chat. Students are always asked to 1) share something that they learned or 2) tell something that they wonder. See some of their actual comments in the "chat" window.