Upper School Launch Grant: Blogging site

The time and training I received to work on Haiku was very important for me. It was a new platform for me and I needed to have the time over the summer (and the year)  to learn how to use it and also explore whether I needed to use other platforms or not because of possible restrictions with using Arabic. I was (and still am) interested in making Haiku the second textbook for my classes. This grant helped me begin this project and explore options and figure out what will and won’t work for my classes.

My main interest was to offer the students a place to engage the language through blogging but that did not work out as I had imagined so I decided to use Haiku for projects instead and from there try to develop the pages where students find a place to engage the language outside of class time.

I use Haiku now to share links of songs and movies that we watch and talk about in the class…each class has access to material of the previous year and I also post my assignments and syllabus. I also found out the more I use Haiku, the more interest the students have in using it. It is also my goal for next year to connect grading with homework assignment to make it easier for students to keep track of their missing assignments and stay up to date with their grades.

-Amani Abu Shakra

Upper School Launch Grant: Flipped Classroom for Vanguard trainees

 The students who run, write, and produce The Vanguard’s eight issues a year do so with very little reporting experience and no journalism course to drive or direct their efforts. The 10-person editorial board meets with me once a week during Activities and then once before each monthly publication date for an all-out, all-day (and sometimes all-night) production effort to lay out the paper and send it to the printers. Much of the learning is peer-to-peer and goes on behind the scenes, with feedback conversations filling Google docs and running over email from writer to editor, editor to editor-in-chief, EIC to faculty advisor, and back along the chain. Discussions about reporting are more likely to happen during 5-minute hallway interactions or 15-minute lunch breaks than in a controlled and contemplated learning environment.

The Vanguard is by nature a very results-oriented undertaking, then, with much of the process invisible to the novice and daunting for the more seasoned student reporter, who has learned by doing, to explain. The Vanguard “classroom” is by nature already flipped, and with so much to learn, so much to practice and pass on from production cycle to production cycle, it was a perfect candidate for some flipped classroom curricular attention. Over the summer I used a launch grant to learn some new applications in order to deliver task-specific journalism instruction in accessible, appealing ways. I focused on interviewing skills.

Using the presentation software Haiku Deck —which, as far as I can tell, has no relationship to the similarly named online platform that hosts our courses— I built student editors two tutorials to share with new writers as the editors guide them through the process of preparing for and conducting interviews with their sources. The slide format helps the editor pace the conversation, and the visual format makes the steps more memorable while differentiating the material from the slew of word docs and manuals already in the writers’ possession. Here they are:

https://www.haikudeck.com/copy-of-the-art-of-the-interview-part-i-education-presentation-pX1ZZB0GDP#

https://www.haikudeck.com/the-art-of-the-interview-part-ii-uncategorized-presentation-xq3fxa7rMV

I wanted to learn Haiku Deck because I’m interested in effective visual storytelling and in easy access to millions of high-quality images already available through Creative Commons. Using it is fun. Beyond applications to The Vanguard, this year I wound up inviting students to build their own Haiku Decks at the end of our Pride and Prejudice unit. The instructions were to present the novel from one character’s point of view using no fewer than 15 and no more than 25 slides and featuring no more than 25 words per slide. I got some hilarious distillations (and the students earned some extra credit while becoming still more tech-savvy). Here’s one from the character Charlotte Lucas, BFF to the protagonist Elizabeth Bennet:

https://www.haikudeck.com/app/edit/Mj3Br0lZtz

I also learned to use Creatavist, a multi-media storytelling platform I heard about at the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Because Creatavist can easily embed sound bites and audio files (not to mention images and videos), it helped me complement the how-to decks on interviewing with something more interactive. On Creatavist, I took a not-so-good interview conducted by one of the editors and broke it down for the others, commenting along the way about what was working, what wasn’t, and where the opportunities were for better follow-up questions and changes in the conversational dynamic. It turned into a really cool-looking online resource, sort of like a two-way textbook chapter. To build it, I wound up learning how to convert ma4 recordings into mp3 files and how to trim mp3 files in Quicktime. (I also learned how not to trim audio files in Garage Band).

Here is the link to the interview assessment tool I built on Creatavist:

https://creatavist-rdc712q.creatavist.com/vanguardliaminterview

I also created a Haiku site for The Vanguard where students can access and revisit these and other reporting resources:

https://bbns.haikulearning.com/akornet/thevanguard/cms_page/view/14004027

All of this was fun. Screenshots of the Haiku Decks’ first slides are attached, in case you want to use either of those as an image for the blog.

-Allison Kornet

Makey Makey Launch Grant '14-'15

Participants: Maria Elena Derrien & Carol Fine

During the 2014-2015 school year, we explored the use of the MaKey MaKey kits to see their usefulness in the science curriculum. We purchased five kits and spent time tinkering with them to understand how they could enhance what we do. Makey Makey kits as described by their creators are “MaKey MaKey is an invention kit for the 21st century. Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It's a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween.” We used the kits during the electricity unit in third grade. Kids had to discover what materials allowed the Makey Makey kits to work and what didn’t to reinforce the concept of conductivity. In addition, we used the Makey Makey kits to host a club during the winter months with students in the New Wing. The Makey Makey club was a big hit! Small groups of students tinkered with the kits and designed their own project. Projects included making human bongos, musical staircases, musical sipping straws, typing with fruit, triggering a video about locks when a door opened, and a digital water fountain prank which took your picture as you took a drink! Please see the link attached to see the kids in action. We also used Makey Makey kits during our Winter Family Science Saturday Extravaganza. The Makey Makey station was one of six tinkering activity centers that families could explore.

We enjoyed tinkering with the Makey Makey kits and finding ways to control the computer with everyday objects. We found the ideal use of the kits was in a more open ended, less content driven setting like the clubs and the family science Saturday event. The kits encourage creativity and problem solving, but required more time that could be given in the structured nature of an electricity unit. As a result of our explorations, we decided that Makey Makey kits would best be suited to an informal educational setting like an afterschool club, a family science saturday, a makerspace, or during club times at the Lower School rather than being a staple of the science curriculum.

To see more information about the MaKey MaKey kits please visit:

http://www.makeymakey.com/

To see the kids in action using the MaKey Makey kits please click:

https://vimeo.com/120057880

Below are two photos from the Family Science Saturday Maker Extravaganza.

2nd Grade Admission Map Project

This year 2nd grade learned about Maps in social studies. During this time, they thought about how the school needed a map to help visitors find different buildings on campus. Below is a summary of their learning exploration in Technology and the process. Click on the link below to read more about each step in the map making process. 

2nd Grade Mapping Project

At the end of the project, 2nd graders used maps they brought into class as examples for what they wanted their campus map to look like. You can now find these maps at the Lower School Admissions office.

1st Grade Pixel Exploration (January - March)

This year's 1st Grade has been very passionate about the game Minecraft. During Technology class we followed the students' curiosity of what makes Minecraft characters "look like blocks".  Below you can read about our exploration journey.

Come and see the 1st Grade Minecraft Pixel Portraits at the Lower School in the Lehner Center (1st floor)!

What Are Pixels?

Introduction:
While using a drawing software called Kid Pix, 1st grade students were very interested in talking about why the stamps in the program looked like they belonged in Minecraft. The first graders began to make observations about the different stamps.

Why do the stamps in Kid Pix look like they belong in Minecraft?

“They can’t be from Minecraft because there are something [objects] that don’t exist in Minecraft” – Hakan

“Only some of the things look like they are in Minecraft. The things that look like they have blocks in them could be in Minecraft” – Skylar

“Some stamps have square edges and some stamps of smooth edges. The smooth edges [stamps] can’t be in Minecraft.” - Salar

“I know that the squares are called pixels” – Jonathan

Pixel Play
“What is a pixel?” – Skylar

“They are apart of pictures and scenes.” – Jonathan

“When you write letters or notes you can find a lot of teeny tiny pixels in them.” – Alex

Research:

Students create pictures on Kid Pix only using stamps. A few students experiment with the “Edit” button. The class visits each other’s computers and shares what they have learned.

Student Quotes:

“I found how to edit a stamp. You go to the pencil button and click on it. Then you can change the stamp however you want. “ – Salar

“If you click on the eraser tool the whole stamp will erase [the stamp]!” – Ryan

“You can make your own stamp if you erase the stamp that was there” - Danny

“You have to move the mouse slowly or the squares don’t line up.” – Ben F.

Pixel Play Part 2

Research:

Graph Paper Sketch

Students create a picture on large graph paper. Each box represents a pixel. First graders then recreate their image in the editor screen on Kid Pix. Students can then create a picture using their stamp as many times as they would like.

Pixel This!

Research:
Students play an online game on the NASA website called Pixel This. After playing the game we learn, “each square is called a "picture element," or "pixel." The more pixels there are, the more details we see. This is how digital cameras work.” 

Student Quotes:
“[Looking at the screen] The “O” looks like its circle because it is smooth, but I think they are square pixels” – Chloe

“A pixel is a square” - Finely

“You can make things out of them. Like the picture on the computer.” – Carl

“Pixels are really small but they can be big” – Emma

“Pixels are made out of even tinier squares that form something” - Ben F.

Are Pixels Important?

Summary:
Students watch a short clip of how pixels are used in TV screens (color and black and white). The class discusses where else they might find pixels.

“They make up everything we see on the computer or iPad or TV.” - Sofia

“The [projector] screen uses pixels! You can see the pixels in each letter!” - Alex

“Pixels can be different colors” – Chloe

“It [pixels] can be any color” – Riley

“You can draw with pixels to make a character.” -Ryan

Pixel Portraits 

Project:

Students create pixel self-portrait (Minecraft character) with a photograph, graph paper, and Kid Pix stamp editor. Before starting their self-portrait the class discussed what symmetry means and how symmetry can be used in our pixel drawings.

*In Math students have been learning about symmetry.

Step 1: Take a photo of each student.

Step 2: Draw an outline of head, arms, body, legs, and feet on graph paper. Check that both sides of portrait are symmetrical with the other.

Step 3: Add facial features and hair to the portrait. Students do not need to make these features symmetrical.

Pixel Portraits: Coloring 

Step 1: Students start with coloring their hair color. 

Step 2: Students then add color to their face and then work their way down their portrait. 

Pixel Portrait Feedback

Summary:
Students have been talking about giving feedback to their peers in homeroom. In technology, the students continue to discuss how to give or get feedback and how it can help improve their work. After coloring their pixel portraits students take a museum walk and give one person in the room feedback about their work.

“I notice that you colored outside of the line. It might look neater if you color in the lines.”

“I like how you made a flower on your shirt.”

“I notice that you made it [the portrait] really small.”

Digital Pixel Portraits

Summary: Students build their pixel portrait in the stamp editor on Kid Pix. They use the feedback they receive from their peers to make improvements to their digital pixel portrait.

How Are Pixels Used?

Research:
The class watches a fast forward video of a digital art designer using pixels to create animated characters like Wreck- It- Ralph and Fix-It-Felix.

“You can make video games out of pixels.” – Alec

“A pixel allows you to make characters.” – Giselle

“I was playing a computer game at home and I drew my character using pixels.” – Elizabeth

“My computer game doesn’t use pixels, it looks more real.” – Salar

[In response to Salar] “ The pixels might be teeny tiny and you couldn’t see them.” Jonathan

Knightly News YouTube Channel

Upper School students publish periodic videos to YouTube highlighting recent events. Check out their YouTube channel, and here is one example:

Middle School Science Club Builds Sleds

3/2/15

SET in the City!

The seventh annual SET in the City- A Day of Career Exploration in Science, Engineering & Technology for High School Girls will take place on *Saturday, March 28th, 2015*. Students begin the day at Boston University, travel to area venues including Harvard, Emmanuel/Merck, Simmons, Northeastern, and Biogen for lunch and laboratory activities, and end the day with a keynote and college student panel at Google Cambridge.

The program will begin at 9:00 am and conclude at 5:00 pm. Participating students will take part in hands-on activities, hear from and interact with students and professionals in SET fields, learn about cutting edge research that will change the world, and find out how to prepare for careers in Science, Engineering, and Technology. Interested students may find out more information and pre-register for the event online at http://www.bostongirlsstem.org/setinthecity/.

 The registration fee is $20.00 which includes lunch and all transportation. Students who are eligible for a free lunch program may attend for a reduced fee of $5.00. Please note, we are not able to host large groups from any one school and reserve the right to limit registration to ten students per school. This event is sponsored by the Boston Area Girls STEM Collaborative, which includes representatives from the following organizations and institutions: Boston University, Emmanuel College, Harvard University, M.I.T., Northeastern University, Science Club for Girls, Simmons College, UMass Boston, and WGBH.

Family Science Saturday Is a Maker Extravaganza!

[Reposted from http://www.bbns.org/page.cfm?p=782&newsid=214]

The winter Family Science Saturday held last week centered around inventing and tinkering in order to solve problems, learn how things work, and create.

Beginners through sixth grade students were able to visit seven stations and try various challenges. The stations were staffed by the Lower School science and technology department, as well as by four Upper School students – Sophia Scanlan '18, Tali Sorets '16, Claudia Inglessis '18, and Ethan O’Reilly '16. Parents were asked to let their children take the lead, rather than jumping in to make the project work or work better.

The Lower School students had a chance to useMakeyMakeys to type by touching fruits and vegetables or play a keyboard by touching play dough. They also created structures with marshmallows and spaghetti, and one structure was even strong enough to support a block! Other great activities included building cardboard structures, electric greeting cards, wind-up cars, and bristle bots.

BB&N Teachers attend STEM forum at Harvard

Last Wednesday, February 18, a few BB&N educators were able to attend the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Forum "A Space of Their Own?  Girls, Women, and STEM."  In attendance were Lower School Academic Technology Specialist RM Pellant and Upper School math teachers Mark Fidler, Chip Rollinson, and Mike Bernstein.  HGSE advertised the event as follows, "Girls and women are significantly underrepresented in many areas of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and STEM professions. In this group conversation, we will discuss what factors contribute to female underrepresentation in STEM, why female underrepresentation is problematic, and how to support broader participation."  The event was moderated by Karen Brennan, Assistant Professor of Education, HGSE, and the panelists were:

• Kimberly Bryant, Founder, Black Girls CODE
• Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College
• Jane Margolis, Ed.M.'88, Ed.D.'90, Senior Researcher, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
• Stephanie Wilson, Astronaut, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

At the Askwith Forum, panelists discussed what factors contribute to female underrepresentation in STEM.  Watch their discussion here.

Below are some of the takeaways from Mark Fidler:

"A major focus of the "Girls and STEM" panel discussion at the Harvard Ed School was on girls and computer programming. Discussion touched upon the impediments to girls entering the field at all levels - elementary school, middle school, high school. college, and in industry. There was discussion of racial and economic factors, too. Mike Bernstein, Chip Rollinson, and I attended. Mike and I felt that the most important suggestion for us was to make introductory programming experiences fun, not scary, and social. This week, the EPC approved an Upper School programming course designed to be all three of those. At BB&N, we have a much higher female percentage of AP Comp Sci students than at most schools. Mike and I are committed to improving that with our goal being 50%."

Lastly, below are a couple of related resources shared by Chip Rollinson:

• http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/20/jerry-lawson-game-pioneer/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/how-elementary-school-teachers-biases-can-discourage-girls-from-math-and-science.html?ref=topics&_r=0

A few more resources related to the event:

Harvard Gazette: Code Like a Girl

Black Girls Code

Black Girls Code Founder Kimberly Bryant on Inspiring Students to Pursue STEM

Tech Spotlight: Kimberly Bryant, Founder of Black Girls Code

-Megan

Art on Display at the Upper School

The Art Department is at it again! The Gallery Talks last Thursday evening were a huge success and a lovely way to hear from student artists about the process of creating their pieces. Congrats to the Art Department on creating such a lovely evening and for putting up the Winter Student Art Show! And, a special thank you to Lanie for acting as the emcee for this event! The students that spoke about their art work included: Alex Evenchik (Ceramics), Ezra Burstein (Ceramics), Callie Costello (Advanced Painting and Drawing), Julie Peng (Introduction to Painting and Drawing), Peter Mankiw (Introduction to Painting and Drawing), Marin Lang (Advanced Photography), Emma Rashes (Introduction to Photography), Alex Fecteau (Design and Architecture), Kofi Yankey (Woodworking), and David Nazemi (Woodworking).
-from Katrina Fuller's Thursday Announcements and Reminders

Thanks to Andrew Warren, we now have a video playing on a loop in the faculty lounge as well as on the TV screen outside of the theater.  We have five videos of students talking about their art work at the winter student art show followed by three student-made music videos, produced for Warren's year-long"film and video" course.

Video Tutorials in the Upper School Spanish Classroom

To follow-up on Katrina's articles regarding sceencasting in the classroom on Nov 13th and 23rd, below is an update with a little more information from Rosario.

I use tutorial videos in my classes in order to maximize Spanish language use by my students during class time so they don’t have to be quiet listening to me in class but rather busy talking, collaborating, asking questions. This way class time is centered on the students and I can give instructions on the expectations for a Project, on what to do if I am going to be absent in class, on a grammar review or on how to prepare for the Final exam through a video tutorial that is more engaging. Students are still going to hear me say it in Spanish but they will listen to me at their own pace, as many times as they need to and will have to take responsibility figuring out what is expected of them. Having a class website makes it really easy to post everything for everyone.

Here are samples of all different technologies I’m using to make them: 
Camtasia (Tareas del Proyecto)
Powtoon (Gramática y Vocabulario básico)
Screencast-o-matic (Como preparar para el examen final)
Videoscribe (Práctica de audio)
and Explain Everything (Tarea para el bloque C). 

-Rosario 

Green Screens at the Upper School

This is a very exciting and busy week at the Upper School with students wrapping up final projects and preparing for exams.  I just spent this last A block in two classrooms, one Spanish and one French, working with students making movies using green screens.  Students in Spanish with Gaby Gonzenbach and Caroline Meliones are using the World Languages department iPads to make movie trailers using the Green Screen by Do Ink app, while students in Brigitte Tournier's French class used the classroom flipcam to film scenes in front of a green screen.  The footage was then imported into iMovie and combined with a photograph of a beautiful hotel lobby to create a stunning scene.  What fun projects!

Robotics Team wraps up their competition

Congrats to the Upper School Robotics Team for their outstanding finish at BB&N’s first VEX robotics competition! The team competed on Saturday, November 22 at North Andover High School, coming in fourth place out of 22 teams in the qualifying rounds. The day ended with a paired alliance playoff round, and our team ultimately earned runner-up status! For a first year team, this is truly an outstanding finish! Congrats to Mike B for all of his hard work, and to students Kofi, Sam, Jack, Vishnu, and Josh!
-Katrina Fuller

BB&N Robotics Team Update

A big congratulations to the BB&N Robotics team, who competed yesterday at North Andover High School against 21 other teams. Our Knights made it all the way to the finals and were runners up! This is the first year of the team and they did such a wonderful job!!! 
-Katrina Fuller

Need to Explain Everything? Part II

Last week’s news update shared examples of the videos that Kelsey and Christine created using Explain Everything (if you haven’t checked out their videos yet, then you should do that!). Since the last news update, I’ve heard from several other teachers about the technology that they are using in their classrooms, specifically in regards to creating instructional videos. This seems to be a hot topic right now and something that many people are interested in experimenting with. Mariah has been using instructional videos with a flipped classroom model for three years, pairing videos from other sources with her own videos. Students in her classes are used to watching instructional videos; she assigns the video and follow-up questions for homework at least once per month. Mariah has experience using the (free!) screencast-o-matic software and she’s also exploring using Camtasia (BB&N purchases a license for this software). Currently, Mariah is working on creating a library of videos (on Google sites) that the math department can utilize and share with each other, seen here in its early stages.

Rosario also uses Explain Everything, as well as Camtasia, Screecast-o-matic, and Powtoon to create instructional videos for her classes, something she has been doing since last year and loves. The videos that Rosario creates often explain a grammar point, give instruction on homework, provide an explanation of a group project, or explain how to use a particular tool. She posts all of her instructional videos to the class Haiku page and has found it to be very helpful for giving instructions. Feel free to check out Rosario’s Haiku pages, found here and here, but also available through your own Haiku page. She has posted tutorials that she created using Camtasia, Powtoon, Screecast-o-matic, and Explain Everything, so you are easily able to compare these technologies. Seriously, check out some of this- you get the gist of it, even if you don’t understand Spanish. Here are some YouTube videos: here and here and here

If you are also using any of these technologies and would like to share your experiences, let me know! If you are looking to bounce some ideas around and talk to an expert, feel free to see Mariah, Rosario, Kelsey, Christine, or Megan! Megan also wants to remind everyone that she’s here to help you with the technology you use or would like to try in your classroom. One of her favorite parts of her job is being able to connect the dots and help teachers connect with one another about how they are using technology. She always wants to hear about these wonderful ways of using technology to enhance the student experience, then help teachers connect with one another to further their own learning. To see what’s going on across all campuses in regards to technology, continue to check out this tech blog.

Speaking about cool uses of technology in the classroom, have you heard about Poll Everywhere? Al uses this technology on a regular basis in his classroom as a tool for quick formative assessments. Al started using this software a few years ago and has found it to be incredibly helpful in quickly assessing the learning within the classroom, allowing him to decide whether or not he needs to re-teach a topic or can move on to the next topic. If you are looking for a quick way to get an immediate and anonymous answer from every student in the class, ask Al about his experiences with Poll Everywhere!

-Katrina Fuller

Upper School Student Robotics Club

Three cheers for the new team on campus this year- the Robotics Team! Mike Bernstein kindly offered to coach the team this year and has been spending many hours working with our students getting ready for the upcoming competition. Students are excited to try out their new robot at their first VEX Robotics competition at North Andover HS on Saturday, November 22. For more information about the VEX Robotics Program or to check out a brief description of this year's Skyrise game, go to the Web site here: http://www.vexrobotics.com/wiki/Skyrise or watch the brief video describing the game's objectives at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ-5H3JVtPs#t=47

Seriously, you should watch this video... the game involves alliances, autonomous periods, driver-controlled periods, building skyrises, blocking opponents, taking out enemy robots, strategizing, and lots of things that only the robotics students will understand!

-Katrina Fuller