My first project as a SEEC Crew member was the Hidden Figures Unit that I created over my Spring Break almost a year ago, which is hard to believe! I really enjoyed creating the unit and teaching it to my kiddos. I also saw the value and interest that my students took in it and enjoyed sharing the journey on my blog. When I created the unit, I just taught it to my homeroom students at first. I was not trying to keep it from others, but I wanted to wrap my head around it and see how it all worked before sharing it with others. It was like a pilot program and I made changes throughout the unit as I found more helpful resources. I've been excited to hear that other teachers have been sharing the Hidden Figures Young Readers Edition book with their kiddos too. A few teachers at my school are actually reading it with their kiddos right now. A couple weeks ago, a teacher asked if there was an audio recording of the book. I thought I had found a lot of the resources available and I have to admit that a recording was not something that I had ever searched for during this process! In case you're curious, an audiobook does exist. We thought that it be a great project for students though; creating their own version of an audiobook. We wanted it to be more than just a recording however. So, each group is assigned a chapter and they're focused on identifying the characters and key vocabulary. They will also write a chapter summary and create a wordle to represent the chapter. All of this information will be typed in Google Slides. Using the resources available to students, their Chromebooks, we decided the best tool for them to use was Screencastify. Tech Tool Feature: ScreencastifyScreencastify is an extension for Google Chrome. You can add it to Chrome for free by using the webstore. What's great about Screencastify is that it's easy to use and with the free version, you can record videos up to 10 minutes. I'll be honest, I found that out because I reached the limit! Screencastify allows you to record your voice over your desktop or if you have a webcam, you can also record a video. Since Screencastify is a Chrome extension, it creates a folder in your Google Drive and automatically stores all of your videos there! It acts like any other files in Google Drive, so you are able to share it too. I've been using it to record my desktop and create demonstration videos to teach students how to do something (like create an action plan in Google Sheets). It's a great way to meet the needs of your visual and auditory learners. They are able to watch the video at their own pace and pause it, if need be. It allows students who have been absent to catch up and allows teachers to save their voice from repeated directions. Book Shout OUtA Hidden Figures picture book was released in January and it's great! It's by the same author (Margot Lee Shetterly) and is titled Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women in the Space Race. It's a good way to build background for students before reading the Young Readers Edition, as a way to share the story with younger students or you don't have time to tackle the Young Readers Edition. I would highly recommend it. The illustrations by Laura Freeman are eye-catching and full of color and the book is informative and entertaining. You may know that Scott Kelly has a book for lifelong learners called Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery. I haven't read it because I'm currently engrossed with Riding Rockets - The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by: Astronaut Mike Mullane . You may not know that Scott Kelly also has a picture book called My Journey to the Stars. It's a great combination of illustrations by Andre Ceolin and pictures that connect with a younger audience. In the book, Scott talks about events as a kid and his life as an astronaut. See what he says about the book, in his own words below. The students are in the midst of this Hidden Figures Podcast Project. As they progress, I'll be sure to share!! In my true fashion, I have created resources and a rubric, of course, that would allow you to create your own project in your classroom. As soon as formatting is complete, I'll be putting it in my Teachers Pay Teacher store. Tinkercad resources will be added soon as well. Students are using Screencastify to create a virtual tour of their solar system!! This week, I'm co-teaching what we're calling, Mission Days. We've adapted the NASA & PBS Design Squad Touchdown lesson to incorporate the Purdue SLED (Science Learning through Engineering Design) structure. I've been thrilled to continue to also share space exploration outside the classroom as I embark on my second year in space. A few teachers have been showing the PBS Documentary, A Year in Space , that chronicles Scott Kelly's journey, to their classes. One teacher asked if she could borrow it to take home because she had been talking about it and her husband really wanted to see it. A couple of nights ago when I went out to dinner, the host stopped me. I was wearing my Crew jacket and he asked what my patch was. I explained that I was a teacher who was working on lessons to teach space exploration. His response was "dope". From a teenage boy, I would say that's a pretty big compliment! I can't wait to update you more on all of these awesome space happenings! Until then... Peace, love and space exploration,
- CAPCOM Conrad
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As we work to prepare our students, the Mars Generation, for the future, here's a hilarious reminder of why we teach and why teaching digital skills is so crucial! A Millennial Job Interview by: LA Reel House Media In case the video clip didn't convince you, I've seen the transformation in student engagement and excitement when you use the right technology tool to enhance a lesson. Thanks to Alex, my fellow Crew member, for sharing Tinkercad - and how she uses it in her classroom to integrate space exploration - at SEEC. I've seen it used before in a related arts class setting, but it doesn't have to reserved for that. I hadn't considered using it myself with kiddos until now. I mentioned it to a sixth grade science teacher and she wanted to try it out, so this week, we planned and co-taught 3D Design in Tinkercad. It was a perfect fit with state standardized testing. It is a great tool with unlimited possibility for your classroom! Being new to Tinkercad and 3D design, I wasn't sure how it would go, but the kiddos blew me away! Tech Tool Feature: TinkercadTinkercad is a free online program that allows users to 3D design. The word tinker means to try to fix something, usually in an awkward manner. CAD is actually an acronym that stands for computer-aided or computer-assisted design or drawing. It depends who you talk to. Autocad is a software used by engineers to create models. It's exciting that now students can develop these engineering and design thinking skills. The great thing about Tinkercad's use in education is that if your students are 12 or younger, they can join your class with a code and you can monitor or view their designs. Older students can send screenshots of their progress, so you can keep tabs on them too. Their designs are also autosaved, so you don't have to worry about the frustration that comes with their progress getting lost. It is designed for 3D printing, however, you don't have to have a 3D printer to use it. 3D printers are great, but they are expensive and printing takes time. The more kiddos you work with, the less time each kiddo can use it. Plus, they learn a lot more from the process of designing and tinkering than they would from waiting impatiently for their design to print. Tinkercad also has step-by-step lessons and projects, so if students want to learn more, they can! Day 1Since it was a new tool, we gave them time to tinker. The first day, students created an account and tried out it's features. They entered the class code and were good to go. Day 2The second day, we gave them a design challenge and provided constraints. We wanted the challenge to be something the kids were familiar with, so we decided to have them create a pencil. I never thought telling kids to create a pencil could get them to work so hard! In addition to using Tinkercad to accomplish this, they went through the engineering design process, persevered, learned from and even taught their peers. It was awesome to watch. Originally, we thought about having kids follow along a teacher-led demonstration or doing a step-by-step direction video, but we decided, we should just let them try and they definitely rose to the challenge! We wanted the kiddos to be able to share their designs with each other, so they learned how to take a screenshot and add the image to a class Google Slide for a Virtual Gallery Walk. As we presented student designs for The Great Pencil Challenge, kiddos were cheering on their classmates, pointing out interesting features and congratulating their work!! Teaching TipThe slide deck was basic. Beforehand, I grouped kids by homeroom teacher and titled the slide with their name. It was in alphabetical order by last name, to make it easier to navigate. I got the idea because this is something that has been done for teacher professional development trainings that I've attended. I would highly recommend doing this, as it can get difficult to manage students adding their own slides when there are so many. Things get inadvertently deleted. Since kiddos had editing privileges, a student actually changed the transitions for a more dramatic presentation. We did review a few digital citizenship skills such as only typing on their slide, keeping backgrounds related and only commenting appropriately. Day 3After seeing the kiddos' proficiency with the tool, we introduced the real challenge...creating a 3D solar system model! Once again, we provided them with constraints. We also gave them a few resources and a rubric. Absolutely Awesome ResourcesAllows students to input numbers and calculate the scale. Allows students to see a visual representation of each planet, its features, compare its size to another planet, see images, video clips, a timeline and much more. Days 4 and 5Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was our solar system! Kiddos were given work time to create and make sure they followed the constraints and included all of the necessary components. As students finished, they self- evaluated and peer-evaluated using the rubric. Students wrote their initials to mark their thoughts on the rubric categories. They also recorded one warm (I like how...) and one cool feedback (I wonder if...) statement. In an effort to collect data and get insight from students, they completed a Google Form. The Google Form was focused on how students felt about their ability to use the different features in Tinkercad, evaluation of the program and how they think that they could use it in the future. ExtensionsThe students are going to create Screencastify videos to take us on a tour of their solar system model. We thought that this would be better than a screenshot because it might be difficult to find an angle that shows their entire model. Plus, we wanted students to be able to explain why they made their design decisions and if they would make changes, if they created another model. We also wanted students to evaluate Tinkercad as a modeling tool. Our solar system is large and complex, so a model can only do so much to represent the actual. Want to Try this in Your classroom?Check out my Teachers Pay Teachers (CAPCOM Conrad's Creations) store! A 5E Integrated STEAM lesson plan titled A Student's Guide to the Galaxy is now available that includes rubrics!! The link to my store is above the logo to the right. There's also an exciting new addition to the Hidden Figures Young Reader's Edition Unit - that I created last year - coming soon, so stay tuned! Peace, love and space exploration,
- CAPCOM Conrad |
AuthorApollo 13 fan. Educator. Lifelong Learner. Third generation Boilermaker. Space Exploration Enthusiast. Collaborator. Click Subscribe to stay updated!Archives
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