Digital Connections for Learning

 

2nd Assignment due Tuesday, February 21 by 4 p.m.

 

 

 

Opener  What PROPELS YOUR learning?

 

 

What inspires someone TO LEARN TO JUGGLE?

 

     Rewards?

•     $10,000 
•     all expenses paid trip to a place you choose
•     FREE college tuition and total expenses for 2 years
•     a goal IMPORTANT to you

    

1. Would attaining a reward from the list inspire you to learn to juggle and teach others how to juggle? 

     Why or why not?

 

2. What do you want to learn to do with 20 hours of self-tutoring this semester? Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Workshop 1  Self-Directed Learning

 

 

            Dr. Maria Montessori's Principles of Learning support self-directed learning:

 

           1. Point of Interest: something attracts a learner's interest or curiosity 
 
         2. Self Correcting Feedback: a feature or tool provides self-correcting info.
 
               3. Constant Learning: repeated doing builds knowledge, skills, understanding
 

 

 

 

 

      Maria Montessori   Read the page and view the video.

 

      3. Describe three classroom activities or materials that caught your attention. Why did these interest you? 

 

      4. Identify an activity, sport, or thing you learned before college or you're learning NOW that includes ALL 3 of Montessori's Principles of Learning.

      Why did you (or do you) want to learn this? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Sugata Mitra's research suggests that kids' learning is a self-organizing system.

 

View 

 

 Sugata Mitra: Kids Can Teach Themselves   

Reading the video transcript helps understand the words and terms.

 

 

 5. Wealthy schools have resources to purchase new technology that poor schools do not have.

    Why does Mitra believe that poor schools in remote places should receive new technology first for students learning?

 
6. Viewing how the kids all helped each other to learn using one computer, Mitra conclude kids' learning can be self-organizing.
    Analyze how impoverished kids HELP THEMSELVES and EACH OTHER LEARN to use one computer. 

    Describe three behaviors you see the kids doing to learn and teach.

7. Which of your belief(s) or ideas about learning changed or expanded after observing kids learning without adults instructing?

 

 

 

 

Workshop 2  LEARNING with Higher & Lower Order Thinking Skills

 

Solving puzzles starts where on Bloom's Taxonomy?

 

As you were solving the puzzles in class Tuesday in Bob's workshop, consider what you did!

 

8. Where on Bloom's Taxonomy did you BEGIN to SOLVE the FIRST puzzle in the middle of the paper by yourself without assistance?

 

9. List the higher and lower order thinking skills from Bloom's Taxonomy you used solving the other puzzles as a team.

   

10. Did you and your team think the puzzles were surprising or engaging, or too complex, as you helped each other solve them? 

 

11. How do these puzzles inform your understanding about learning and how people learn?

 

12. Which of the six learning/thinking skills on Bloom's Taxonomy are you most often assigned in classes and which do you use least?

      

13. Which of these six higher and lower order thinking skills do you wish you used more in college assignments?

 

 

 

Big Idea Closer  Multimodal Is How We ALL Learn

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pie Chart/Graph

 History of the Earth in a 24-hour Clock from the website, Flowing Data.

 

Video 

 Evolution of Life on Earth

 

14. Do these two resources pique your curiosity or inform your understanding of the VAST lengths of time you are learning about?

   Explain why or why not for each resource.

 

15. Does either of these resources make you think, "This information is interesting!" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resources NOT part of the assignment:

 

Answer to Kong Kong Question

 

 

https://starrcards.com/no-yo-yo-ma-tomonari-ishiguro-aka-black-became-a-world-champion-yo-yo-master/

 

Bloom's Taxonomy updated with digital learning behaviors.

 

Digital Choice Boards:

Black History MonthChoice Board (2021)

 

Black Lives Matter Historical Explorations Choice Board (2020) 

 

History of the Black Press in the U.S. Choice Board (2022)

 

Ancient China Choice Board (2020)

 

 Jerry Lawson, a father of modern gaming systems used ALL TEAMS' BIG ideas to achieve knowledge, to try things, to create his radio station and gaming products.

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/december-01/

Dec. 1, 1955 is the anniversary of Rosa Parks' decision to defy the Montgomery, Alabama, bus driver's order to change her seat.

 

https://www.google.com/doodles/gerald-jerry-lawsons-82nd-birthday

Dec. 1, 1940 is the birthday of one of the fathers of modern gaming and this interactive Google Doodle is both a tribute with behind the doodle information AND a way for students to play games AND program their OWN games!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLQO_RWCOoQ

Behind the doodle is what this video explains-- we see Jerry Lawson explaining what he expects new game developers to do.

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/01/1140063531/google-doodle-games-jerry-lawson

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/17/1037911107/jerry-lawson-video-game-fairchild-channel-f-black-engineer

 

Jerry Lawson's son and daughter describe growing up w/an inventive dad and how he helped them become engineers in these two NPR stories.

 

 

 

 

Inspiring Young Writers with Making, Coding, and Digital Tools, 2019 MASSCue presentation by Torrey Trust, Robert Maloy and Sharon Edwards

 

Teacher Beliefs and Their Influence on Technology Use, R. Shifflet & G. Weilbacher (2015)

Despite expressing positive views about technology, teachers at all levels struggle to use technology in ways that promote student-centered learning.

 

Online Tools for Teaching & Learning

• Site developed by students in Torrey Trust’s classes

 

Dr. Torrey Trust, Robert Maloy and Sharon Edwards published Kids Have All the Write Stuff Revised and Updated for a Digital Age.

 

• We made a free online tool chest of resources for learners including the live links for you to choose from here.

 

•  Digital Connections Toolbox: Tools, Apps and Software for Inspiring and Supporting Young Writers

 

 Poetry 

Verse by Verse, Poetry Writing with Artificial Intelligence

 

Blackout Poems with Google Docs

 

Springtime Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

 

 

Animation

Story Creation 

Squilber

Writer Igniter

 

 Pic-Lits

 

Comics

MakeBeliefsComix

 

Creative Word Play

 

Story Read Aloud in Radio Reading Style

StoryLine Online

 

View video

 Watch: Digital Tools to Empower 21st Century Learners by Torrey Trust

 

View Interdisciplinary STEAM Activities To Do at Home by Torrey Trust

 

 

 

 

Music Video

Eric Idle of Monty Python's Flying Circus, takes us into theGalaxy Song

Galaxy Song lyrics

 

 

Science Interactive

Raindrops

Click anywhere on the map and the wait and see what happens: https://river-runner.samlearner.com/

 

 

 

 

“I don’t see technology as an add-on, a nice option to have. It’s what enables learning and creates an environment that sparks creativity.”

--Badat

Essa Academy Headmaster     

 

 

 

Essa Academy, England: 40 languages, poverty, 100% success

 

• Bullet list three ways students are learning that interest them.

 

• Bullet list three ways teachers are creating interesting learning for students.

10. As a high school student, what experiences with technology were in classes for your learning? 

Were these interesting to you? Please describe why they were or were not.

11. Relate Essa Academy's teaching and learning innovations to yourself as a learner. 

Describe features of this teaching/learning with online resources that would have interested you and propelled your learning in high school classes that you liked to attend and classes you didn't like to attend. 

 

 

Are You Smarter Than Your Smartphone? or How Much Smarter Are You with a Smartphone?

 

The first smartphone was invented in 1992 and was called the Simon Personal Communicator

 

It cost $899 ($1435 in today's dollars)

 

 

People began saying the term smartphone in 1995, although it took till January 2007 for Apple to release the first iPhone at a cost of $499

 

• Ran slow on 2G wireless 
• AT&T was the only carrier
• No App Store existed; no third party apps were supported
• Only Black Background
• Cut/Copy and Paste was 3 years away
• Required a computer to activate
• Could not send pictures
• No Google Maps
• No Video
• No SIRI 

 

 

Do Smartphones Make Us Smarter?

 

Yes	NO
Bill Nye the Science Guy says that smart phones can actually make you smarter, because they help free up memory you’d normally use for mundane information, so you can use it for something else.	Rather than making us smarter, mobile devices reduce our cognitive ability in measurable ways. You are quickly conditioned to attend to lots of attention-grabbing signals, beeps and buzzes, so you jump from one task to the other and you don’t concentrate.

 

Do you think the answer depends on how you use them?