CODING

Data Talking

In most surveys we put out to teachers, 'data' and 'spreadsheets' are regular request items. So for the next 2 weeks we are doing just that! 

Welcome to Part 1: a 30-40 skills session, and what we've selected is based on research we have conducted from the many spreadsheets that teachers at Singapore American School have shared with us. Isolating key skills and distilling them into 1 short session has been challenging, but as always, these face-to-face sessions are intended primarily to open dialogue between our teachers, and to establish relationships with our coaches that lead to classroom opportunities. 

Participants should view this session as a taster, and then book their respective coach for more 1:1 advice and assistance with collecting, managing and using 'data'. 





              

                    



NOTE: This session is a continuation of the action-research approach we are pivoting towards with 'The LOFT Professional Learning programme. These are all 'backyard' spreadsheets, developed by individual teachers for their own use in their own specific context. We're interested in this because ultimately we want to build the tools (a Dashboard) that teachers and students need and can use. These individual sheets show us the 'gaps' in our existing structures. 

MINECRAFT

This week in The LOFT, we turn our attention to Minecraft. Much has been said and written about Minecraft since bursting onto the education landscape several years ago, but with the impending release of MinecraftEDU by [our 'friends' at] Microsoft, as well as an uptake in interest in Minecraft by our teachers at SAS: we thought the time was nigh...

The focus on this session as always is to get to the 'Why'. For us, it's a belief that Minecraft taps into student interest; promotes creativity, critical thinking and collaboration; and, it therefore promotes student learning outcomes. And it's just plain fun!

Written and prepared by Keith Ferrell (@kferrell) in consultation with the K-12 Technology team at Singapore American School, this session covers some territory that includes:

How to use Minecraft to engage students to learn and also some of the skills needed to get up and running with Minecraft. There are samples of work that have been down in SAS classrooms as well as other schools, and of course referenced according to our school's Desired Student Learning Outcomes (DSLOs). 

Welcome to BreakoutEDU...this week's Professional Learning in The LOFT. 

'Breakout EDU creates ultra-engaging learning games for people of all ages. Games (Breakouts) teach teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting participants with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem-solve.' (Source: http://www.breakoutedu.com/how-it-works/). 

This week's Professional Learning session focuses on conversations in our PLCs are advancing to detailed discussions about standards and frameworks, and how our students are demonstrating their learning. 

Given the role of PLCs is to define:

1. what we want students to know; 
2. how we'll know when they achieve it; 
3. what we'll do if they don't; and, 
4. how we'll advance those that already have....

....it does at some point come down to how we collect evidence of learning (data) and what we do with it (evaluation). 

This week, we do just that by starting to take a look at how teachers are collecting data, and we provide some tech tips of our own. 

Autocrat: The Return of the Moustache

This is the fourth (and final for a while) session in The LOFT that focusses on productivity. It's the beginning of the year and there are tasks to do right? Well...here we are and again proud to present another 9 sessions for teachers at Singapore American School. 

Session Goal: 

Introduce Autocrat, or
Retrain users in how to use Autocrat

for…

Creating individual documents for Parent Conferences (the ‘just in time’)
Use in the classroom (potential for your students)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SCbZQCotsUWeBGHvNOm63UfiMhvRdhH065ExVYw3cFI

The following is a 15 minute 'Ignite' presentation given by James and Ben at the conclusion of the 2016 Singapore #gafesummit

The Teacher Toolkit - Teacher Dashboard, PowerSchool and Casper Focus

Google Photos Three Ways: PD Session

We ran a Professional Development in The LOFT back in April. The session, we discovered, was a little overcooked. Many teachers had difficulty using the resources we had spent many hours preparing...however, we've used this feedback to come back with something simpler and better!

The idea of this session is to assist teachers to publish photos as easily as possible. So we offer 3 ways to do it. 

1. Create 1 big album in Google Photos and store all photos there. A link gets added to the blog that takes readers to Google Photos.

2. Create individual albums and either create a text or thumbnail that links to Google Photos. 

3. Embed albums (use embed.ly if doing this on a blog, or Insert Album if using Google Sites). 

Dr MAPTest or how I learned to stop worrying and love The Test

Importing Parent Contacts in not many Steps

Step 1

Access your Grade Level Folder which has inside a '.csv' file inside. The folder is called 1617 #BOY #Gmail contacts and you'll find it in Shared with Me on Google Drive. Download your file to your Mac's hard drive (right-select). 



Step 2

In Gmail, change to the Contacts section:



Step 3

More > Import



Step 4

Select your downloaded CSV file



Step 5

Import!



Step 6 

Take note of your new Contact group



Step 7

Rename the Group to your 2016-17 Class Contact

Google Tips and Tricks for Admin! And other amazing information they should know

This 1 hour session is presented 'by request' and the following slidedeck represents some of the issues we see coming down the road at us when we arrive in the room!

These slides will be updated after the session and we hope it serves as a useful resource for our intended audience as well as anyone else out there looking for this type of thing.

#schoolstarts Tech Survival for new Faculty to get you started.

Welcome to the start of the 1617 year! This is a post that stands in support of a session we are presenting to all new Elementary Faculty. It's therefore a survival guide for those new to Singapore American School.

SAS teachers can also access our Technology Orientation document, the content of which we are confident will be extremely helpful.

We are well accustomed to embedding video, or consuming video content across websites and social media. But what about video and other interactive content embedding in video?

This is Touchcast. Video that's immersive and interactive. And classes at Singapore American School are starting to embrace the concept which we will show you in this session.

Plus: it's pretty easy to jump in and make something that's great, with enough features to keep the journey interesting for those looking for more of a challenge. 

Setup:
TouchCasts are available for viewing from http://www.touchcast.com/
Download the TouchCast app. iOS only at this stage. 

Ideal Equipment for class projects

• Tripod
• access to a Green Screen (potentially)
• Microphone for iPad

BREAKING NEWS!!!!......

You may have heard that The Loft was getting a makeover. This week, we invite you to come see what our Creation Stations are all about. Our Creation Stations give students the opportunity to be "Coders", "Builders", "Artists", "Engineers", and "Filmmakers" - creating anything that their minds can come up with. Each of the Creation Stations offers a unique way to integrate with the DSLOs.

With the school year beginning to wrap up, what better way to keep students engaged and empowered. Come check out one of our LOFT PD sessions during the week of April 11th -15th to see how the Creation Stations can support student creativity and innovation within your class.

1. Getting Started. Transitioning from Picasa Web Albums to Google Photos.
2. Creating. Turning pictures into animations, stories and movies.
3. Sharing. Creating and sharing photo folders with students and parents.

Google spreadsheets are often met with an amount of scepticism from teachers as the assumption is spreadsheets are complex and difficult.  The SAS ES Ed Tech Team is hoping to demystify Google Spreadsheets during our LOFT PD sessions the week of March 28th - April 1st.  These sessions are all about learning:

1. Practical classroom uses for Google spreadsheets
2. How to make your data visible with charts and graphs
3. Quick tips on user-friendly ways to view your assessment data