November 4, 2014 by plemmonsa

Mini Maker Faire with UGA EDIT 2000

Today Gretchen Thomas from the University of Georgia brought one of her EDIT 2000 classes to the library for a mini maker faire. She and I have been brainstorming about how to give students more opportunities to come and use the makerspace in the library for tinkering and exposing students to various types of making. These conversations have come from my constant requests from students to come and use the makerspace. I struggle with finding a balance between the standards-based lessons and projects that I offer in the library, weaving in the makerspace into curriculum, and the students’ desire to just mess around with the tools in the space. Gretchen has been coming to lead maker recess times with me.

Today, her EDIT 2000 students brought multiple maker centers for students to explore. These UGA students are mostly undergraduate students from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them plan to be education majors while others have a range of other majors. I love the range of expertise and interests that live within these classes. Gretchen’s students designed a center that would explore some aspect of making.

One center explored optical illusions. These students displayed a book of optical illusions and helped students create a drawing of their hand that looked like it was lifting off the page.

Another center was a cup stacking challenge. These students had multiple clear plastic cups and students spent time stacking the cups into different formations to see how tall they could stack as well as which shapes seemed to hold up better. I loved seeing all the strategies that students tried in order to stack and unstack the cups. They were fearless and really demonstrated what it means to tinker, fail, and try again.

Students loved the paper airplane center. These UGA students had books about paper airplanes and materials for making planes. Students spent time making their planes and then testing them out in the library. I loved watching planes flying around the library and hearing teachers ask “are students supposed to be flying airplanes around?”.

I saw several students refold their airplane to try something new in their design, so once again there was a strong demonstration of tinkering, failure, and perseverance.

Some of our stations involved technology or could be incorporated into technology. One station was space for students to explore how to create speakers for iPods or iPhones using cups and paper towel rolls. Students were eager to take their creations home and try them with their own devices.

One of the most lively centers was the marshmallow launcher. Students used rubber bands and Popsicle sticks to create a tool to launch marshmallows. They tested their creations and made adjustments to see how they could make their marshmallows launch higher and farther. Again, it was fun to see marshmallows flying through the air along with the planes.

Another lively center was Video Star where students got to create their own costumes and form a mini flash mob dance to be recorded in the Video Star app. These videos will be coming soon, so I hope to add a few to this blog post when they are ready. It was interesting to see some students show their personality, come out of their shell, and be totally engaged when given an opportunity to make a music video.

A different take on making was the center that explored spices. These students had a variety of spices that you might put in fall pies and students spent time examining the spices and creating their own mix.

I loved hearing what they planned to do with the spices when they get home. One boy wanted to make a cake for his teacher and even talked about making a new fried chicken recipe.

Three of our centers were facilitated by kids. Two kids were Gretchen’s own kids and one was a neighbor. They had centers on Minecraft, Goldieblox, and badge making. They ran their centers like pros and I was reminded of how powerful it is when we give kids a voice to share their expertise with others.

Our entire 5th grade rotated through this experience across the course of an hour. Students were able to visit about 3 centers. After the centers are assessed and used at another school, they will be making their way back to our school for students to use in our makerspace. I am so thankful to have Gretchen and her students so close to us. She is willing to give any crazy idea a try and see what happens. In this case, I think there were many miraculous moments.

As students left, they had smiles on their faces, energy in their bodies, and ideas flowing in their minds. I invited them to think about how what they discovered fit into what they are doing in their classrooms. I wish that I had been able to have them express some of these ideas before they left, but perhaps I can capture some of these reflections in another way such as a Flipgrid or Google form.

#edit2000 @ugaCOE Ss & 5th grade @barrowmc Ss and a little early morning #makered @plemmonsa pic.twitter.com/BUAgb9t69o

— Gretchen Thomas (@ilovethisclass) November 4, 2014

March 20, 2014 by plemmonsa

University of Georgia #Geniuscon Research Partners

Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd grade class has been participating in #Geniuscon since January. Geniuscon is an opportunity for students to show their “genius” by exploring a real-world topic that matters to them. Students go through an inquiry research process that centers around their interests and questions. This year, the overall question for Geniuscon is “If you could change one thing about your school, what would it be?”

First, students kicked off the project with some brainstorming.

Then, they chose topics and spent time developing questions around those topics.

Next, they continued to develop their questions, fine tune their topics, and make a plan of where to find information or who to ask questions.

While this step was going on, Mrs. Ramseyer and I started having a conversation with Gretchen Thomas, teacher at the University of Georgia. Gretchen first reached out to me on Twitter for another project at our school, and our conversations led us to Geniuscon. Her undergraduate students do 20% projects, which is very similar to what our students are doing. We thought that it would be wonderful for her UGA students to partner with our 2nd graders. Her UGA students would learn about working with kids as well as how we were journeying through this type of research project, and our students would benefit from having an older learner facilitating the research process. Gretchen’s class is not all education majors, which actually brings even more interesting perspectives and connections to our project. Some of her students are football and basketball players at UGA, so the students really liked that too.

Gretchen actually teaches 2 different groups of UGA students who are able to come to our school, so Mrs. Ramseyer worked with her through email to pair up UGA students and Barrow students. Today, the first group of UGA students arrived. We briefly met on the carpet to set the focus and then UGA and Barrow students paired and moved throughout the library to work. Students grabbed a computer from cart and logged into their Google drive.

This is what it looked like:

Using their list of topic questions, they had a conversation with their UGA partner. We quickly saw that many of our Barrow students just wanted to answer their research questions with their own words. This is certainly a valid piece of the process, but students weren’t all thinking about where they might go to research beyond themselves.

Mrs. Ramseyer, Gretchen, and I all walked around and checked in with groups and nudged them to start thinking about where they might go to find more information. There were some amazing things happening in a short amount of time. During the debrief at the end, students shared what they accomplished during the work time.

Here are some examples of what students said:

I learned how to make a spreadsheet and started adding things to it
I’m making a Google form survey to send to teachers
I learned that playground equipment is expensive. Some of the pieces are thousands of dollars.
I sent an email to our principal and assistant principal
I looked at our daily schedule to see where we could put another recess

I wish that I could have sat in every conversation because it was amazing to see the variety of learning going on. One of the great things is that there will be so many students experts on so many different tools and strategies that it will support further learning in the class this year. Students who learned Google forms can teach others. Students who don’t know what a spreadsheet is or how to make it now have someone to ask.

I also checked in with our principal because I had not told her that she might get some emails. She had already read the emailed and is planning to give the student a menu and suggest that she analyze the nutritional facts for the items on the menu. She was very excited about the potential of the project and collaboration with UGA.

We are so fortunate to have a university right next to our school. Thank you, Gretchen Thomas, for sharing your UGA students with us. I hope they learn as much from us as we learn from them.

April 11, 2011 by plemmonsa

UGA Poetry Support

Today the University of Georgia Athletic Association had a day of service in Clarke County Schools and the community. We used these volunteers to support the many poetry lessons that are happening in the media center and in individual classrooms. Along with send twelve readers to go into classrooms, the athletic association also purchased 12 new poetry books to donate to our media center. Volunteers went to 5 classrooms: Ms Spurgeon’s PreK, Mrs. Hart’s 1st grade, and Mrs. Oprey, Mrs. Slongo and Mrs. Beshara’s 5th grade classrooms. They read poetry to students and worked alongside students as they wrote poems for our poetry contest and for Poem in Your Pocket Day.