Presentations at One School One World

An impressive number of projection screens were used at our biannual celebration of world cultures to show images and videos of those cultures.

Pictured below is an older technology which has an image on a screen being lit from behind.

US Spanish Class at Podcasting Studio

Podcasts have gained considerable popularity these days. As an instructional medium they are effective for language teaching because podcasts bring words into focus--how they are spoken and expressed. 

Professora Gabriela Gonzenbach has done impressive podcasts with her Spanish students for the past few years. The photo below shows a few of her Spanish students recording a podcast at the Podcast Garage, a community recording studio, an amazing facility in Cambridge. 

This project is a great example of instructional practice that builds on traditional technologies (theatre and radio) while incorporating digital technologies and connecting a classroom lesson with community resources.

Library/Tech Classes Supporting Middle School Technology

At the beginning of the school year, the librarian and academic technology specialist provided a library orientation and taught information literacy and technology classes to all 7th and 8th graders. Our curriculum supports the middle school’s 1:1 laptop program and ensures that our students have the skills to succeed in our technology-enriched school environment. The program includes:

• MS Digital Community Culture & Rules
• MS Technology Use Policy regarding the safe and ethical use of technology
• helping students log onto their school online accounts 
• exploring strategies for organizing online work (gmail, google docs, etc.) 
• showing students how to access and use the MS library website and catalog 
• an introduction to available print and electronic resources
• a review of the Academic Honesty Policy and Copyright Law and How to Avoid Plagiarism
• instruction on how to cite sources properly

Technology in English Classroom

"Two technology initiatives, facilitated by and co-developed with Svetlana Grinshpan, are now mainstays in the English curriculum. The first initiative is the To Kill a Mockingbird blog, which enables students to share their analysis of complex ideas in the novel. During the course of their reading, each student posts and comments several times. The blog not only enriches students’ dialogue about the novel, but it also creates a lasting resource as they need to pull those ideas together and organize them into a final essay. They are much better prepared for this final essay in terms of organization, crafting thesis statements and providing quotation for support as well.

The second initiative, The Outsiders Yearbook, has been adopted by most of the English department. Students “research” an assigned character thoroughly and create a yearbook page that demonstrates understanding of the complexity and nuance of that character. In addition to writing a short essay in that character’s “voice,” students dress as that character and use green screen technology to create yearbook-style photographs of that character. They compile their writing and photographs and create a layout of their work on a “yearbook page.” Students have great fun with the project, and it elevates their understanding of subtleties of characterization and motivation in the novel. "

Betsy Canaday, MS English Department Head

Wellness Wednesdays

This year Stefanie Haug, MS Counselor (called "Ms. Stefanie" by students) is piloting an artsy way to help kids explore parts of themselves and relax. It's a monthly drop-in activity in the Makerspace called "Wellness Wednesday." She already hosts with Nurse Joanna a weekly drop-in lunch, called Mindful Lunch, where students can chat and explore the ways their bodies and minds are connected and how to navigate stressful experiences that arise. Wellness Wednesdays is a monthly drop-in where kids can create things on a similar theme of mind-body and stress reduction.

The first of the monthly Wellness Wednesdays explored the power of positive messages and random acts of kindness. The new Head of School inspired the idea with her story of Kindness Stones. Building on that, Ms. Stefanie and Ms Grinspan, the MS Tech Specialist, led students to consider uplifting messages and how to display them on rocks. Over 15 students dropped in and decorated rocks with messages for friends, family and for the community. Strolling around the MS campus, you'll come across many rock 'pep talks' sprinkled around the building with messages like "you rock!"

Upcoming monthly crafts remain a surprise until the week they're announced.....however the next craft combines socks and sleep......to find out more, stop by the Maker Space on a Wednesday. The next Wellness Wednesday will be Nov 15th and then Dec 6th.

At the end of September, MS Maker received a much needed update to the space – installing a sink, cabinets, new workspace, and a better organized flow for students.

6th grade technology class — lots of hands up for our bridge design project!

US Rocket Club

Another student club offering this year... Rocketry!  Students meet in room 136 Thursday at X Block. Here is an example of the type of competition the club might enter this year...

US girls interested in engineering can visit MIT!

MIT’s Women in Aerospace is hosting an event on October 15th for high school girls interested in aerospace to come tour some labs at MIT, hear from a professor, and hear about what it's like to be an engineering student. It is a repeat of the event we did last year, but with different labs, lecture topics, and a different Professor speaking, so that people can repeat if they wish. There will also be lunch provided and a quick lesson on a fun topic in aerospace (basic rocket stability or simple airfoil principles or something along those lines). It should be a really fun day and a good way to get an idea of what opportunities there are in the aerospace field!
If you could please share this event with students you think would be interested, we would really appreciate it! If you have time to send it along to other teachers you know in the area also that would be awesome.

To register for the event, students should fill out this google form:
https://goo.gl/forms/rxcn14vFcHD9XOO02

The deadline for students to register is Oct 8th.

Throwback Thursday - Tom Dacchord at BB&N

Close to ten years ago, Tom Dacchord led a faculty meeting thinking about the impact of technology on teaching and learning. Thanks to the wonders of video-tape conversion technology and abundant online storage this video is for the first time ever available for public viewing...

Tom Dacchord at BB&N Faculty Meeting 2007 from BB&N School on Vimeo.

Leveraging Google Apps for PG&E

In my role as new faculty mentor, I have spent quite a bit of time using and discussing the student surveys that were implemented several years ago. In that time, I have often wondered if there was a better way to provide teachers with feedback from their students. One of the things that is important for student learning is their classroom experience, and I believe if we gave them more of an opportunity to reflect on and share their thoughts with us, we could all benefit, students and teacher alike. Not only does this provide teachers with concrete data and feedback, but it also empowers the students and provides them a voice in the conversation about teacher growth and development.

So over the summer and during the 16-17 school year, using Google Forms, I developed a survey that was similar to the one originally created by Charlie Ruopp, the then Head of Academic Affairs. Initially, the technology used to create and disseminate that survey was Survey Monkey. My hope was that by using Google Forms, faculty would have more flexibility in the creation of the survey and  in data analysis.

Timeframe

• This summer will be research and development
• Test it out at the first quarter
• Tweak it for the semester
• Re-test at semester
• Implement for EOY
• 17-18 School Year - Dept Heads discuss more revisions

Please click here for a Slides Presentation that further explains my process and progress. Also here is a sample of what I developed with the help of the MS Faculty and Administration.

"Apples Up" Music Video by MS English Teacher Ethan Rossiter

When Middle School English teacher Ethan Rossiter heard the phrase, "Apples Up," at a faculty meeting earlier this year,  he was inspired. Mr Rossiter, who is also a children's music practitioner, began marinating the concept for musical treatment. Saying "Apples Up" is a signal used by teachers to re-focus students' attention during lessons when laptops are in use. When students close the lids of their MacBooks, the Apple logo on the lid is pointed up towards the sky. (The same logic applies to phones; putting the phone down on the table with the Apple logo up means that the screen is down, so it is no longer in use.) "I thought it was a super-catchy phrase," Rossiter says. "That's when the idea for a song started."

"I had never made a music video before, and it was definitely envisioned as just a fun, creative project," Rossiter says. "But I guess my hope is that schools and families could use the song and video as an entry point into a discussion about technology."

After an afternoon of filming and many hours of editing, the final result was a fun, extremely catchy, and thought-provoking pastiche about the intersection of technology and student life.

Although Rossiter wrote and performed most of the music, he leaned on the various talents of BB&N students to bring the video to fruition, including drummer Callie Heppner '27, the daughter of Ethan's MS colleague, Christa Crewdson.

"Aaron Kaufer '17 did all the shooting and editing, and the success of the video was really because of his editing," Rossiter says. "Charlie Heveran '17 and Thomas Mandile '17 were also very involved in the acting—they were in every shoot. And two eighth graders, Katie Gould and Jessie Scheer, choreographed the dance."

LED Circuit Stickers in 2 D Art

In the last couple of years, students in Stephanie Moon’s Drawing and Painting Class art class combine traditional media with Chibitronics. Chibitronics was created by a Ph.D. student named Jie Qi from MIT who combined her passion for craft, art, and engineering and created a DIY manual and kit to that made circuits and LED light accessible to the public.

In class students explored the instantaneous pleasure of designing a circuit and making something light up. Students designed a project to incorporate LED lights within their semester-long drawing and painting exploration. The one requirement was that the drawing had to stand alone--it had to be as visually effective alone as with the circuitry enhancements.

Science Night 2017

This year's 8th grade Science Knight was billed as an evening of Chemistry Connection. Students prepared demonstrations, created poster boards and prototypes of their inventions. Their invention can be a brand new technology or a new application of an existing technology and address one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as set out by the United Nations in 2015. Here is the link to the Chemistry of the Future Videos

Students created a prototype of their inventions using many materials and supplies in the maker space (cardboard tubes, cereal boxes, glitter, electronics …) These are some of the questions students have tackled: Why is spider silk so strong? Why does chocolate taste so good to humans but is toxic to dogs? How can hair be used to solve crimes? Can beet juice be used to melt ice on your driveway?

Summer STEM Opportunities for Upper School Girls

CODEBREAKERS

Boston University is pleased to host CODEBREAKERS, a four-week summer program providing an introduction to the fundamentals of cyber security, a field that combines the studies of computer science, forensics, law, and computer programming to protect networks, computers, programs, and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access.

Students will participate in a four-week session of lectures, hands-on training, and day trips to technology companies to receive an immersive and supportive introduction to the interdisciplinary field of cyber security. CODEBREAKERS provides a unique opportunity for high school students to be introduced to career opportunities in the exciting field of cyber security, as well as to be mentored by women who are program coordinators or invited guest speakers.

The program will run from July 10th through August 4th Monday-Friday from 9:00-3:00 pm. Young women currently in 9th or 10th grade who live within daily commuting distance to Boston are eligible to apply. Students do not need any background or experience in cyber security or computer programming is needed in order to apply, only their interest and enthusiasm.

For more information and to apply: go to: www.bu.edu/lernet/cyber


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SUMMER PATHWAYS

BU is pleased to host the Summer Pathways program July 7-14, 2017. In its eleventh year, Summer Pathways is an exciting seven-day, residential program for high school girls entering their junior or senior year in September 2017. The program targets girls from Boston area high schools who show promise and/or interest in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). Tuition is $675 and includes room, board, all travel and activities, and an overnight at Thompson Island in Boston Harbor. Scholarships of up to $575 are available to students with demonstrated financial need.

Over the course of the week, participants in Summer Pathways have the opportunity to gain first hand knowledge of a wide range of careers in STEM disciplines, and also to interact with successful women at all levels of science and engineering -- undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and members of industry.

Participants live in a BU dormitory along with their peers, and during this week, engage in many hands-on science activities, visit laboratories and a local industry, hear from a career panel, and learn about the college admissions process. On Thompson Island, they will develop communication skills and experience a process of self-discovery through team building exercises.


For more information about the program and to apply, go to: www.bu.edu/lernet/spathways

The Augmented Reality (AR) Sandbox is taking shape.

Working through a school funded Launch Grant, Lower School science teacher Ms. Derrien has teamed up with Technology Specialist, Tony Cai and Makerspace Mentor, Joseph Heitzman to bring an augmented reality (AR) sandbox to the Lower School campus. Stay tuned as this project is built completely from scratch.

Kahoot! and other games in the curriculum

Playing a Kahoot! game is a very popular MS classroom activity. Students and teachers create games in world languages, music and science. Kahoot! is a web-based tool that allows asking a consecutive, quiz-show type questions using a game-based format. Students respond by joining a game through a unique number using any mobile device.

A list of other teacher's favorite classroom games:

• Quizlet Live - create a collaborative classroom game
• Socrative is a student response system that works across all devices. Teachers can ask a number of different question types and gather student data for formative assessment.
• TinyTap - create fun games, personalized puzzles, question and answer activities, turn reading a book into an interactive activity, make a tappable sound boards.
• Quia - an online platform to create quizzes, games, and assignments online. There are wide range of games: flashcards, matching, challenge board, hangman, rags to riches, pop-ups and more. Examples of student created 7th grade games in history:

• Dominican Republic
• Guatemala
• Belize

Explore the use of Sketchup in Latin

In the 8th grade Latin classroom, Tony Breen uses Sketchup to expose his students to multiple aspects of architectural construction and lets them get a glimpse into the various phases of the building process.

Sketchup Assignment:

Construct a monument (temple/victory column/arch etc.) to commemorate one of the following:

• Religion 
• Janus Mars V esta 
• Historical Personae 
• Cincinnatus
• Constantine the Great Hadrian
• Horatius
• M. Agrippa
• P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Romulus

Incorporate a decorative element or elements which indicate some aspect(s) of the god/goddess or which refere to an episode of the character’s achievements. Somewhere on the monument indicate a likely date for its dedication (e.g. a cornerstone).

Prepare a short report (5 or 6 sentences) describing the story of the monument: to whom is it dedicated? What are its dimensions? What specific motifs does it include (types of column etc.)? Any symbolism in the monument?

Creative use of Voki in the Spanish Classroom

Margaret Hardy, MS Spanish teacher, had a special assignment for her 7th grade students. They were asked to create a mystery Voki avatar. The identity of each avatar (the student's name) would be kept a secret, but the avatars would describe personal information about a student: is it a boy or a girl, height, hair and eye color, home town, siblings, hobbies....

In class, it's a listening comprehension activity. As each avatar speaks, students listen to guess it's identity The game is not over until all the facts are recalled and the avatar's identity is revealed.

http://tinyurl.com/gtp5v2b
http://tinyurl.com/z8ll6hs
http://tinyurl.com/zf5hbwl

Videoconferencing with the school in Morocco

An 8th grade Arabic class partners with a school in Morocco. Through several video-conferencing sessions (using Skype) the students learn about each other’s cultures. Later in the semester the class will write a play in Arabic, while the school in Morocco writes a play in English. Students will exchange plays and perform them for each other via video-conference.

Creating a Timeline in the Latin American Classroom

Seventh graders used our new maker-space to create Latin American timelines. These multi-colored timelines cover their country’s history from colonization through modern times and have the following requirements:

• The timeline must be to scale 
• The timeline must have a key to show scale measurements 
• Years should be listed on the timeline at regular intervals 
• A list of 15-20 important dates in the history of your country must be included
• Include extras to enhance your timeline’s appearance (drawings, pictures, etc.)

QR Codes Book Display in Middle School LLC

Want to find good books to read over break? The Library Learning Commons (LLC) faculty has created QR code book displays in the first floor foyer window display. QR codes consist of black squares arranged in a square grid on a white background, which can be read by the QR reader app on a smart phone or iPad. A QR code is really just a website URL, but it allows phones, iPads, and other mobile devices to easily pull up the website by scanning it with the camera, rather than needing to type in a long URL. This makes it easier to bring a visitor to a website to get more info.

To read the QR codes:

• Download QR Reader for the Phone app to your Phone 
• Scan the QR code with your phone to read a review from Goodreads

Coding with Scratch in 8th Grade Math

Inspired by an array of digital screens projecting an interactive pattern simulation during our field trip to the Museum of Science this fall, MS math teacher Randi Currier, challenged 8th grade students to use the Scratch coding environment to create their own interactive art exhibits. Their task was to incorporate geometric concepts, such as angle measurements in relation to number of sides. Students applied coding skills of program structure, variable declaration, iteration and conditionals to create their exhibits. They brainstormed ideas of what makes an interactive exhibit engaging: 

• Interesting visual effects 
• Variables with sliders 
• Color 
• Sound 
• Random elements 
• Immediate feedback 

Below are the top five exhibits, voted by the students:

• Jack
• Veronica
• Veer
• Christina
• Nanako

Student Ingenuity on Display at Upper School STEM Fair

When Lily Druker '18 and Ali Plump '18 assumed leadership roles in the Upper School GAINS club (Girls Advancing in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) they knew they would be overseeing a fascinating variety of innovative ideas. Impressed with the energy and commitment they witnessed, the two decided that the entire school needed to get involved.

"We just wanted to come up a fun way to share all of these great student ideas with the community, but we didn't want to make it a stressful thing," says Plump. "So we came up with an optional fair that anyone could get involved with and bring their projects or ideas to the table."

The result? Nearly 40 students volunteered to present. And on a Friday afternoon in later winter the Upper School community room was packed with students and faculty alike, eagerly checking out the myriad concepts on display.

Among the many exhibitions were homemade Van der Graaf generators (capable of creating a visible electrical charge), cathode ray tubes, models of energy efficient smart homes, space telescopes, chemically altered "healthy" caramel, software designed to cater course curriculums to specific student learning styles, and many more interesting projects.

Click here for a gallery of images from the STEM fair.

Top 10 Tech Tips for Power Users

1. Use canned responses in Gmail.
2. Use voice dictation in Google Docs.
3. Use priority in-box with unread, starred, everything else in Gmail. Unread or star emails that need more action later.
4. Use reminders in Google calendar as to-do list.
5. Set up VIP contacts in iPhone for notifications of important emails.
6. Save your iPhone voicemail by emailing them to yourself.
7. Set up a hot corner on your mac to lock it when you walk away.
8. Enable 2-step verification to log into Google.
9. Use a password manager like DashLane to save unique passwords for every website.
10. Command-tab to switch between applications on a Mac if you are multi-tasking.

To view more tips, please visit our Tech Tips web page.

The Augmented Reality (AR) Sandbox creeps along

Finding time in her busy teaching schedule isn't easy, but LS Science teacher Ms. Derrien continues to construct the AR Sandtable.

To accommodate the range of students (Beginners - 6th) who will be using the table, she had to customize the height of the cart and drill new holes in the leg supports.  Chaulk up the drill press as another tool that Ms. Derrien now knows how to use!


The projector and Kinect camera need to be positioned 42" above the surface of the sand.  Below, Ms. Derrien attaches the projector mount and supports for the camera

Too Nice to Stay Inside!

The 4th graders took the laptops outside as they continued to explore what is possible with their new design tool - SketchUp.

 They are preparing to map the electric usage of the BBN Lower School Campus.  Stay tuned!

Does it get better than this?

The Ultimaker Arrives

Fresh out of the cardboard box

The LS Maker-space received a new addition today with the arrival of its sencond 3D printer, joining our Form1+ is an Ultimaker-2.  We have high hopes - and a lot of work for this printer.  We equipped it with PLA filament and had it up and working in under 45 minutes.

Getting right to work.

The first prints were stock objects - the Ultimaker robot and a stacking cup

Upper School AP Physics Students Descend on the LS MakerSpace

Watching Clifford at work

Cardboard prototypes

US AP Physics students used Clifford, the big red laser cutter, to cut pieces need to secure their solenoid engine.  Initial prototypes were completed in cardboard to finalize sizing and placement.   

The final cuts were made out of 1/2" plywood - a bit of a struggle for old Clifford, but he was able to make it through.

The Laser Cutter Helps Bring Mapping Alive in Spanish Class

The 5th grade Spanish teacher Omar Machado enlisted Clifford - our big red laser cutter to engrave a 3'  of a map of South and Central America in plywood.

Students then used Playdough to color code the map, carefully following the detailed contours of each country.

Organizing your Desktop

A clean, organized desktop can make our day go smoothly.
Here is a link to a handy, step-by-step guide to organizing your desktop.

http://www.wikihow.com/Organize-Your-Desktop

Take a deep breath. Play. Learn.

Image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEMFvWY8ma4

Being in the moment requires a quality of attention that engages all our senses. Last night we witnessed this quality of deep attention and focus as the Patriots and the Falcons faced off for the Super Bowl. Players have to attend with all their senses indeed their whole bodies as they play. Indeed they most likely enter a state of "flow" (see mihaly csikszentmihalyi's work) during play. And some athletes choose to take a few minutes to attend to themselves in-between play as well as we see LeBron James above.

This quality of deep engagement and attending to the world outside oneself or within oneself is related to mindfulness. But of course the image of football players is far from the image of mindfulness that most of us have come to accept. Mindfulness conjures up an image of a person meditating in a beautiful setting unlike LeBron above who is taking time to breathe amidst the high level intensity and noise of an arena.

Mindful attention is being present in the moment with all our senses. Mindful attention is slowing down enough to breathe deeply and engage with the world in which we find ourselves be it a sports arena, a sports field, an indoor classroom or a beautiful setting like an empty beach.

Research shows this kind of engagement with all our senses can in fact facilitate learning.
"According to the researchers, it is easier to learn vocabulary if the brain can link a given word with different sensory perceptions." Read more

Slo-Mo Feature of Phone Camera

This "telephone" I carry around in my pocket has amazing features. The slow-motion capture is pretty cool! Have you tried it?

This image above is inspired by an image from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation's 

Mindfull Bells Sounds page.
Thich or Thầy in Vietnamese refers to teacher.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a teacher, a peace activist, a poet and writer

who continues to teach about the importance of living in the present moment.

"The only way to truly develop peace, both in one’s self and in the world."

Thich Naht Hanh was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize by MLK, his close friend.

In honor of MLK let us take a moment to 

PAUSE & BREATHE