Ergonomics in the Classroom

At first glance, many people would say that Aiden is sending a text, interacting in some sort of social media, or perhaps building something in Minecraft. Infact Aiden here is writing an expository paragraph on why crime doesn't pay!
     As a teacher I spend a lot of time on ergonomics in my classroom. We have exercise balls to sit on, rocking chairs and even a couch in front of the Smart Board.  Even after putting many hoursa oif thought into how to design my classroom so that it best fits my students' needs, sometimes, haqving a good lean is exactly what my students need. Try giving your students choice in where or how they are working. If a student does their best work standing up, why make them sit down and do work?

The Gift of Time

All of the students I teach have a learning disability. A HUGE misconception, sometimes even in the realm of education, is that people with learning disabilities are not as smart as a person without a learning disability. In actuality it means "A person's learning disability affects their ability to perceive or process verbal or non-verbal information" (Sagonaskaschool.blogspot.ca 12/12/14). Lately I have been giving my students more think time.
     Think time is exactly that, time for a student to think. I ask a question to students and then immediately start counting backwards from 5 on my hands without using my voice. This allows students to organize their thoughts prior to explaining.
     Through this process I have seen two huge successes. First, I've seen an increase in the fluency in which students verbally express their ideas. Second I've seen a great boost in student confidence. Some of the students I have, used to be, children who would "hide" in the back of the class and hope that they would just be passed over. Now my students have taken a lead role in their own education.

A Week in Review

Minecraft in the Classroom

As you all know Minecraft has become a lot of kids' favourite game. I borrowed the idea of using Minecraft in the classroom from Ms. Vader, a fellow teacher. Here is what we did.  Students had to illustrate their knowledge about the organelles in plant and animal cells using a Minecraft design then present their designs on the SMART Board. Student engagement was at its highest all year.

     Check out Aiden's Mincraft cell presentation and more importantly how much he knows about cells.

A Week in Review

Global Settlement Patterns and Sustainability

After learning about different issues that affect global sustainability I asked the students to explain everything they new about what we had learned. In actuality, I asked  students 2 questions from each of the 3 big ideas in the curriculum. The students had to choose one question from each section to answer. They were then given the task of explaining their ideas using the app called "Explain Everything".

A week in Review

Here are all the cool things we did this week on top of our everyday learning!

Popplet...What can you use it for?

Here is a video of a student explaining an app called  Poppplet. Give it a try as it helps us to organize our thoughts prior to writing. How would you use it?

How We Leave Feedback on a Blog... Appropriately.

Blogging is relatively new to us. My class of grade 8 students and I have been looking at other blogs and commenting on them in order to make new connections. My students often post their work to the blog and ask for feedback. Students are getting very good at providing each other with positive, formative feedback in order to help each other to bump up their work.
     We have developed a framework, or formula if you will, on how to leave positive feedback. There are three parts to the comment, positive, to, and try.  First, say something positive. Open by explaining what you like about the post. It's easy to find something positive in anything.  Second, use a to statement. Lastly, add the try statement. Put it all together and you get a great way to help others bump up their work.
     A great way to think about this is by putting yourself in the place of a coach. Pretend you are a snowboard coach. I was a snowboard coach and instructor for a long time and snowboarding happens to be my favourite sport (to add context to my example). In order to get a snowboarder to spin, he or she needs to get air, initiate the spin with their head/shoulders and the rest of the body will just follow (there is a little more to it than that so don't strap in just yet).  Back to the example, a coach would say something like the following to their snowboarder - I liked the height you got off the jump (positive). To get the spin around faster, try twisting your hips in the direction you are spinning once you have initiated the spin.
     There you have it folks. The positive, to and try model of providing positive formative feedback. Please leave your thoughts below! Try using the positive, to and try model!

The Amazing Cue Card Reader!

Check out the first addition to "Tricks and Tips for the 21st Century Learner"!

Coming Soon!

We started a new blog page called "Tips and Tricks for the 21st Century Learner". As the teacher, my goal is to have students and teachers showcase any ideas or forms technology that assist students with learning. If you have any ideas please post them here! Check in regularly for new tips, tricks and ideas to make learning easier!

Do you need to know how to make a wet or dry mounted slide?

In science we have been learning about cell processes and cell functions. We learned that a very important part of studying cells is to be able to create a slide to look at under a microscope.  We decided to create DIY videos about how to make a slide. Here are some of the videos.

Our Experience with Google Classroom

This year we have been using Google Classroom a lot! As the grade 8 teacher, I have all of my students using the platform. I have received mostly positive feedback from the students. During the early weeks of using Google Classroom I got a little bit of push back from the kids. I think it was "growing pains" because the students were used to using a different on-line platform, Edmodo, last year.

I would like to know how you, whether teacher or student, utilize the platform. Also, please explain why you like or dislike the classroom in the cloud!

The Week of November 2, 2014

Here in grade 8 at Sagonaska we had a great week. We learned how to multiply all sorts of fractions (fractions x whole numbers, fractions x mixed numbers and mixed numbers x mixed numbers) and we are becoming fraction ninjas! Next week we are going to wrap up our first geography unit, and we will be having an assessment in mathematics to celebrate how far we have come.

     We celebrated Remembrance Day with a short media presentation  that we produced with Mr. Hayes and the grade sixes. The presentation does a great job of illustrating student learning of World War 1 and the effects it had on Canada as a growing nation. 

Some of the second year students joined in on reading buddies with OMNI. our little buddies had a great time reading and learning about the importance of encouragement. We always look forward to reading with our "little friends" down the hall!

Haley is the recipient for the Terrific Kids Award for November - encouragement! Congratulations Haley!

I am currently in the middle of writing student progress reports which will be going home next week!

The 100th anniversary of WW1

For the last couple of language classes we have been learning the "story" of World War 1.  After learning about the characters, plot, setting and details of the war, we posed two questions to students: 1. What is one thing you remember about the first world war? 2. Why is it important to think about and remember how the First World War shaped Canada?

The last question we asked was, "Did you like learning about WW1? and why?"

How to Leverage Social Media for Learning

If you have been vising our blog lately you'll know we have been trying something new. We tried to get feedback on our writing from people around the world, not just the school. As the teacher, I am glad to say this process worked very well. All we had to do was explain how to leave feedback, and Tweet it out that we were looking for guest editors. We didn't just receive comments from other students and teachers from down the hall, but we got editing tips from as far away as New Zealand (Thanks Mr. Webb!). This peeked student engagement. All of a sudden students didn't see bumping up their writing as an arduous task. Instead, they started viewing as something they needed to do as an author.

Check out the before and after samples!

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October 27 - October 31, 2014

Transformational Technology in the Classroom

Transformational Technology is a way to use assistive technology in the classroom.  In our eyes, it is not a specific type of tool, more of a style of using the tool. As a grade eight teacher of students with severe learning disabilities, one of my jobs is to enhance student understanding of assistive technology.
     Over the last few days we have been talking a lot about why we are here. All of the students know there are three main reasons... three GREAT BIG reasons! First, is reading. Students are emersed in reading and we utilize many different strategies to teach reading. The second reason is self advocacy skills. Students, not just students with LDs, need to know how to get what they need. The last reason we are all here is to get better at using our technology. What does all of this have to do with transformational technology?
     If you have been reading our blog, we have been posting mainly about the different ways we use technology to our advantage. As we have been talking with and listening to, George Couros, we are trying to become "creators of digital media" rather than always being "consumers of digital media". The principal here at Sagonaska posed the question, "Could the students here at Sagonaska have completed the task without the use of their technology?" This is the driving question for transformational technology.
     Can students express their learning without their technology? If teachers OR students answers yes to this question, they are not using transformational technology. Simply put, transformational technology is a way for students to express their learning in a way that they couldn't have without the use of assistive technology. In a time when the internet makes the classroom a global learning space, is it okay to simply consume content rather than create it?

Harnessing the power of the internet.

Thank you to Anne from sagonaskaschool.blogspot.ca, Mr. Hatch from hatcherelli.wordpress.com, John Jennings, Joseph Broughton from musiceducate.blogspot.ca, and Mr. Webb from mrwebbauroa.blogspot.ca for posting some positive formative feedback to our students! We are asking for your continued feedback in the same "positive, to and try..." method for the next pieces of writing.
     If you have never left feedback for us, please be sure to read the blog post titled "Getting Help from the World". This will give you a quick and easy idea of how to positively frame your comments. We look forward to your ideas!

Thanks in advance.

What's Your "Tech Game Plan"?

As explained in an earlier post, the students in my grade 8 class at Sagonaska are encouraged to use a "Tech Game Plan". A tech game plan is simply a way for the students to present their understanding or completing a task in a way they are comfortable with. It comes from the ideas that no learner is the same and therefore there is no prescribed way, for different students, to present their knowledge to me. 

     We take a few minutes to go through new apps, accessibility features on different pieces of assistive technology each week. The students then choose how they want to manipulate their assistive technology to work for them. The prompt I use is "You use whatever you are comfortable with, as long as you can illustrate your understanding of the topic to me". As you can understand, this gets messy. To keep it clean, I almost always create a rubric with the students prior to the task. Rubrics are another great way for students to really grasp what exactly I am looking to get out of the task.

21st Century Teaching and Learning Round Table

Technology in the Classroorm

How do you use technology in your education? Do you peruse YouTube? Does your teacher use a Smart Board? Do you make presentations in PowerPoint? In grade 8 at Sagonaska we are encouraging students to use their technology to be creators! Instead of using technology to simply consume (watch a video or find information about a topic we are writing about) we want the kids to do something they would not have been able to do with out the technology.
     Here are some photos of grade 8 students editing their paragraphs. The special part about this is that all of the feedback they have received to help edit their work comes from people outside of our classroom! Some of the comments come from people we don't even know! All of this is to help illustrate to the students that learning does not just happen in a classroom, learning can happen anywhere! As the students draft and rewrite their paragraphs, I will post them again and again so you too can see the growth!

Cardboard Challenge 2014 at Sagonaska!

Check out our video from our two days of the Cardboard Challenge 2014. Thanks a lot to Mr. Mortaley for editing the video for us!

The week of October 12 through Twitter.

Mr. Di Donato's class is online!

As a grade 8 class at Sagonaska, our three main focusses are; improving our reading skills, self - advocacy, and the use of technology as learning tools. We hope that you will find our blog useful in your learning!