Curtis Makers Present at Region 11

Throughout this year, some of our Curtis students have met on Wednesdays in the library for maker club activities. These activities have changed throughout the year, based on student feedback. Sometimes we were creating with Legos & LittleBits, sometimes programming our Speros & Ollies. Sometimes we were working on green screen creations, and sometimes we were coding in the computer lab, using Scratch and Code.org. 

We have had visitors drop by to see us, one of them being Mrs. Erin Griffith from Region 11 Education Service Center (ESC). She was very impressed with what our students were doing with coding and robotics and asked if we would share our experiences with adult learners.  The group we were presenting to were education leaders from all over Region 11. Mrs. Griffith wanted them to see the way our students were taking charge of their learning and the after school maker club.  Curtis Makers were more than willing to share!  What a wonderful opportunity to tell our story and give our students a voice. The hardest part was narrowing down our presenters because they ALL wanted to share!

Students selected to travel to Region 11 divided up into teams and chose what they wanted to present. They chose to present about the green screen, Spheros, coding, LittleBits & Makey-Makey. The students decided on the things they needed to bring and how they would present. They were completely responsible for their items and their presentation. It was great to see them take charge of this!

When we arrived, our Curtis Makers got busy setting up their stations. The students took great pride in creating a display that would showcase their maker item. Before our presentations began, we enjoyed a catered lunch in the dining area. We were even able to check out their cool Collaboration Station with some moving chairs we are sure we need at Curtis!

Our students presented to two different groups. I shared a little about our journey with a short presentation. As I would get to different parts of our journey, one of our students would come up and share. It was so wonderful to hear their confidence as they told the attendees about what they had learned and accomplished.





The students answered questions as the adult learners came around and talked with them about what they were presenting. They did a great job of sharing their knowledge of what they had brought to present.

I have to say, this was one of those days that affirmed that there is so much right about education today and this generation of learners! These students were well-spoken and clearly able to explain all of the great things they have been doing this year during our after school maker club! They told our story well, and I was so very proud of them!

Here is a look at our day...

#BanishBoredomTour Coming to Curtis!

We are so excited to have recently been selected as a stop on Wandoo Planet's  #BanishBoredomTour! Wandoo Planet will be at Curtis Elementary on Monday, April 14th to get students started using this interest-driven website!

A while back, I received an email asking Curtis students to Beta test Wandoo Planet. A great description can be found here: What Is Wandoo Planet? Our afterschool media club, The Digital Bookworms explored the site, and even talked with our friends, the Technical Difficulties Club at Van Meter, about it. Then last week, the Digital Bookworms Skyped with Lindsey Hill from Evanced Solutions, the company  behind Wandoo Planet.


Wandoo Planet is the world's first kid-powered interest genome project!

Think Pandora, Spotify, or Netflix with a twist. It's a new software platform that empowers children to discover their keenest interests and find relevant books and other content via a powerful recommendation engine. - from Wandoo Planet Website

The Digital Bookworms had already created accounts and were a little familiar with the concept of the website. During our Skype visit, the students were able to hear the story of how Wandoo Planet came to be, and the purpose. Mrs. Hill shared with the students that she had been a teacher for 14 years before going to work with Evanced Solutions. She explained to them that they had a wonderful opportunity to try out Wandoo Planet and give their feedback to make the site better! Through their use, they were making the program smarter, showing it what students were interested in and what they weren't.

Students were encouraged to spend a few minutes listening to the story in the beginning and then clicking on the "thumbs up" sign for things they were interested in, and clicking on the "thumbs down" sign for things they weren't interested in.

Things they LOVE doing, should be marked with a heart--this will be the beginning of their tree.

One of the options ask if you are looking for a specific book or content related to your interest. Students can then type in a title of a book and get the information for it.

The students can also print a list of books and take it to their school or public library, or even to a book store, to find books based on their interest. One thing that I liked about this part was that I could use this to add books of interest to our collection, and the students would have specific books to request instead of just requesting a "drawing book".

The Digital Bookworms spent their entire club time exploring Wandoo Planet. Lindsey shared how important their feedback is, so we created a Google Doc for the students to use to give feedback.  It can be found HERE. Feel free to add your thoughts to it after you use Wandoo Planet. We will give any feedback to the team when they come to visit us in a couple of weeks.

 Being Beta testers for Wandoo Planet has been very empowering for our students. It was great that they were able to ask questions while using the tool, as well as to offer feedback. Lindsey was taking notes as they would share their thoughts. They loved sharing their opinions and being a part of helping Wandoo Planet get even better! 

We can't wait to meet Lindsey, and the whole team, in a couple of weeks, as well as Winston the Owl!  And the great thing is, they are also going to Iowa, to meet our friends at Van Meter! You can read more about that visit on Shannon Miller's Blog! I can't wait for the Digital Bookworms & the Technical Difficulties club to connect in a few weeks and talk about our time with Lindsey, Winston & the whole Wandoo Planet team!

Student Review of the New MakerSpace by Sierra & Kayla

Hey, this is Sierra and Kayla filling in for Mrs. Ford! This is the first time that we  got to see the maker space room. It was so fun there was Legos, K'Nex , and Little Bits. This Maker Space room is fun for kids to Create, Connect, Collaborate! In the room many kids enjoyed the Little Bits! Little Bits are fun creative circuits that you connect to make lights come on, and motors start up! This was a very enjoyable visit, I know that everyone loved it. To be honest though, We believe that 2nd-6th enjoy and use it the most! I would not recommend K-1st to use it because there are a lot of higher level thinking tools in this particular area. To conclude this, everyone really enjoyed this fun Creative Room.

Makerspace Steering Committee

Last summer, the library applied for a grant for a makerspace with our local education foundation. We were awarded the grant, and now have all the items we asked for and are ready to start creating our Curtis Makerspace. Several 6th graders have been asking when we were going to get started with it, so they have been made the "Makerspace Steering Committee" and they met for the first time last Friday. 

This is what the space looked like before we moved the items into it. It was the copy room for several years, and has been a storage space this year. You can see the wonderful peach tint to the walls. ;) It is definitely not an inviting work space right now.

After talking with Nate, Julian and Jett about some ideas for the walls, including a whiteboard wall, a magnetic wall, and a green wall for video opportunities, they were turned loose to brainstorm other components they would like to see in the makerspace.

We are saving all kinds of items for our makerspace, like cardboard boxes and broken electronic equipment. 

It was great to see their thoughts as they brainstormed. We decided to put it on chart paper so everyone could see it and add ideas.

And thanks to some handy 6th graders, our makerspace cart was put together! It was wonderful to see them reading the instructions & working together to assemble the cart.

 The next step is to have a work day to paint the room and get everything organized. The plan is to do that the weekend we get out for Spring Break. 

Friday was a day that the library was functioning just the way I wanted it to. There were classes coming in for checkout, teachers were in there adding Skype to their computers so that they can begin connecting with others, the Digital Bookworms came in to have lunch with me and to help with the WRAD Blogging Challenge post, and the Makerspace Steering Committee was meeting in their future space. It was loud and a little messy, admittedly a little chaotic, but students were making decisions and, as my Twitter friend Shannon Miller has modeled so well, letting their voices be heard. It was a good day! 

If you have a makerspace at your school, please share what types of items are included. 

Media Maker Club, aka Digital Bookworms

As you can see by the title, our students exercised their voice and changed the name of their club. They decided, after some debate, that they wanted to be the Digital Bookworms, and so they are!

 

The club members first worked on creating an account on Biblionasium. We talked about what a great tool this is for not only keeping up with our books, but also recommending books to others. The students were very excited about logging in and making recommendations!

We have been connecting with my friend, Shannon Miller and her students in Van Meter, Iowa.  At our last meeting, we were able to connect again, which was a lot of fun!. After several students from Van Meter performed a song they were working on, we talked about ways we could connect and create. After some discussion & brainstorming, we decided to collaborate on a blog to share different types of projects. These two clubs have lots of great ideas, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with!


Already, students have created videos to advertise our book fair, brainstormed questions to ask other students about making book trailers, and had some of our group members explain how to use Animoto.

At the end, we posed for a group photo that will be a part of our new blog that we are doing with our friends in Iowa. You will have to check it out!
Creative Connections Club


Our goals are to connect, collaborate & create and this new joint blog is sure to help us meet these goals!


 

Media Maker Club - First Meeting

During the Summer Library Check-out, a soon to be 5th grader dropped in to talk books with me (well, AND to check out books!) and shared with me that she consults a video book reviewer on YouTube when she is thinking about what to read next. My  question to her was "Why don't you do that for Curtis students?" Guess what- on the first day of school, Reagan handed me her very first video book review! And from this conversation, back in the summer, the Curtis Media Maker Club was born!

We had our first meeting this past Tuesday, with thirteen 5th & 6th graders in attendance. Just the day before, I had seen something I wanted to share with them. My Twitter friend Shannon Miller, who is a teacher-librarian (and more!) in Van Meter, Iowa, had presented a keynote along with one of her 4th grade students for the K12 Online Conference. The focus of the keynote was transform the way we do things by listening to our students.  You can see it here:



We just watched the beginning so that the students could understand that this was THEIR club and I wanted to know what THEY wanted to accomplish. They brainstormed ideas with other members of the MM Club, and then shared their ideas. I took notes! :)

 

Media Maker Club Notes
 

•Interview teachers & students about books

•Book trailers about new books
•Voice to be heard about my opinion about books
•Book trailers about favorite books, work in groups-Wonder
•Book trailers to encourage others to read books
•Get more people interested in books
•Expose students to creative way of thinking,
•Group, hands-on activities
•Recommend books to students

 

I liked what they were saying! The excitement was building and they kept sharing! It was decided that they would create book fair advertisement for their project of the day. Some wanted to do video and some wanted to do audio, so they split into groups and began scripting out what they would say & do. It was fun to watch the students take on the different roles. Some were comfortable in front of the camera and others were more comfortable behind the camera, but they all worked together and before the meeting was over, we had three videos and several announcements ready for morning announcements.

 

 

 You can check out our videos here:

  

 

The members of the Media Maker Club definitely let their voices be heard during our first meeting! I can't wait to see what creative ideas they come up with for our next meeting! We are hoping to connect with some of Mrs. Miller's students next week and begin collaborating on a project!