Collaborative inquiry.
Using IPads, can we bring the outside world to our students to teach them the 21st Century Learning Skills they need to be successful in the world today?
Project Focus
Good teachers have always helped students discover the value and relevance of new skills and knowledge. Because children now live in a world of almost unlimited streams of trivial and profound information, of enormous opportunity and difficult choices, helping students make vital practical, emotional and social connections to skill and content is more important than ever. To help students make these meaningful connections, teachers can create a 21st century context for learning by:
- · Making content relevant to students’ lives
- · Bringing the world into the classroom;
- · Taking students out into the world
- · Creating opportunities for students to interact with each other with teachers and with other knowledgeable adults in authentic learning experiences.
Teachers can use examples, applications and setting from students’ lives, community and modern workplaces to frame academic content. They can expand the classroom experience by bringing in outside experts from the community. They can use the community as a learning laboratory. Today, technology makes it possible to bring the world into the classroom and to get students out into the world with “virtual” outreach and excursions into the physical world. Technology also makes it possible to change the dynamic between student and teachers, allowing students to pursue topics in depth and at times, become experts in charge of their own learning.
In these ways, students can see the connections between their schoolwork and their lives outside the classroom, now and in the future. These connections are critical to developing students’ engagement motivation and attitudes about learning. Moreover, research shows that this kind of contextual learning in rigorous school-to career programs leads to positive results for students as well, including higher academic achievement, lower dropout rates, better attendance and better college preparation.
Action Plan
The classroom will no longer remains limited within the four walls but extends its horizons to the nook and corner of the world and makes the teaching-learning process more meaningful. These IPads will provide learners with the chance to experience different modes of communication, and thereby help the teaching style become suitable to verbal, visual and kinesthetic learners. When there is a love of learning there is lifetime learning and with the use of computers, the entertainment factor, the involvement of students in their own learning process guarantees to help the students become a lifetime learning.
In BASES courses the idea is to bring the students into the outside world but with the use of IPads you will be able to bring the world into the classroom as well. There are a number of cameras that are live and show interesting things (animals, zoos, museums, areas, etc) for students to see. With the help of the SEAs in the course, each student can take a Virtual Tour once every two weeks, where students will have the ability to visit new places, experience new customs (virtual cameras from other worlds), seeing new animals, visiting zoos and parks in other areas that they would not otherwise see. There will be a web site rally to assess for learning. See the list below for some examples and click on the some of the linked words to get to the link:
Smithsonian National Zoologial Park – animal cams http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/WebCams/
The National Zoo is in Washington, DC. on Eastern Daylight Time. The best time to view elephants here is between 6 and 9 a.m., and again between 3 and 8:30 p.m. The picture should automatically reload every 20 seconds!
Virtual Wildlife Cams
Check it Live. A Facebook account that has a number of live cameras all over. http://www.checkitlive.com/
Locations: United Kingdom, England, Cornwall, Chichester, Polzeath.
There are sites to watch sports like surfing, golf, diving, and sailing.
There are zoos (26 of them), and Wildlife Conversation, Glastonbury, wildlife parks, animal sanctuaries to name a few. Over 200 cameras in the UK.
Museums to view and walk around.
Google Museum – http://www.googleartproject.com/ an Art Project created by Google. It’s a new tool that puts 1,000 works of art at your fingertips. You’ll find a selection of super high-resolution images of famous works of art as well as more than a thousand other images, by more than 400 artists—all in one place. And with Street View technology (like Google Map street view), you can take a virtual tour inside 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Tate Britain & The National Gallery in London, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Outdoor Parks and National Monuments on cameras. See below:
Acadia National Park - View from McFarland Hill looking northeast.
Big Bend National Park - View of Sierra del Carmen in Mexico.
Blue Ridge Mountains - View of Brasstown Bald, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests, Georgia. Streaming video.
Cape Cod - Views from 8 locations. Refreshes at different intervals.
Capitol Cam - Views from atop the Metropolitan Square building, Washington, DC . Refresh not listed.
The Continental Divide - View from the kiosk at the entrance to Glacier Basin Campground.
Crater Lake - View of this Oregon National Park. Refresh not listed.
Denali National Park - View from Wonder Lake.
Estes Park, Colorado - 6 views.
Glacier National Park - 9 views from around the park.sh every 5 minutes.
Grand Canyon National Park - View from Yavapai Point.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park - View from Look Rock.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park - View from Purchase Knob.
Joshua Tree National Park - Views from Belle Mountain looking southeast.
Lake Tahoe, California - Views from Ski Run Marina and Harveys Resort. Refreshes every 5 minutes.
Mammoth Cave National Park - View Of Green River valley looking north-northwest.
Mammoth Hot Springs - View of this Yellowstone landmark. Refreshes every 30 seconds.
Mount Rainier National Park - View from Paradise.
Mount Washington Summit - Several Web cams on and around Mt. Washington. Refreshes not listed.
National Mall and Memorial Parks - View from the Netherlands Carillon looking east.
Niagara Falls - View from the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel, Ontario. Streaming video.
North Cascades National Park - View from visitor center, Newhalen, Washington.
Old Faithful - View this landmark in Yellowstone, Wyoming, with time until next eruption. Refreshes every 30 seconds.
Olympic National Park - View of Lake Crescent looking southeast.
Pikes Peak - Views from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Refreshes every minute.
Point Reyes National Seashore - View of Point Reyes Beach.
Santa Catalina Mountains - View looking across the University of Arizona campus in Tucson. Refreshes every 5 minutes.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park - View from the edge of Giant Forest looking southwest.
Smoky Mountains - View of Mt. LeConte. Refreshes every 30 minutes.
South Beach - Views from the Clevelander Hotel in South Beach, Miami. Refresh not listed.
South Dakota - Views of Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands and more. Refresh not listed.
Statue of Liberty - View from Manhattan. Has some shots.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park - View of Painted Canyon.
Vail, Colorado - Various views of Vail.
Yosemite - View of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, California.
Yosemite National Park - View from Turtleback Dome.
Yosemite Valley - View of the valley in Yosemite National Park, California. Refreshes every 3 minutes.
Earth Cams - http://www.earthcam.com/network/ around the states and around the world. Includes Canada but in Montreal and in Niagara Falls.
After doing virtual tours, students can go there for explanations of anything. Their product is 'explanation'. A great site of short, explanatory videos that addresses all sorts of interesting concepts from how to protect yourself from zombie attacks (a halloween spoof) to understanding how borrowing money works. There should be some interesting pieces here that can be used in all sorts of different ways in the classroom.
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Evidence of Student Learning
Assessment for Learning
Pre-assessment survey of Student skills on some of the applications they have.
Mind mapping
Graphic Organizers
Journals (both visual and written or in picture format), oral interviews.
Rich Performance Task (Web Rally)
Quick Response
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Assessment of Learning
Growth Portfolios
Exemplars of student work on a web site.
Self-assessment
Presentations
Oral Peer Assessment
Evidence of Staff Learning
Teacher will Tweet learning, concerns, “What if” moments, “A Ha” moments, problems, and some of the best and worst experiences in the classroom with the permission of parents of students. No names will be mentioned.
