Blog Posts

Iowa has Computer Science Standards!

10/18/2018

Why do students need to learn computer science? Well, let’s start with the numbers. According to the Code.org website, there are 4,328 open computing jobs with salaries averaging at $77,486. With only 364 computer science graduates from Iowa in 2015, it’s clear that there is a need for knowledgeable and skilled computer scientists in our state.

Those statistics certainly attract attention! Perhaps more important for students and educators, is the fact that technology has become an integral part of our daily lives and classrooms. Many students and teachers, alike, carry computers in our pockets (also known as phones) and educators deliver instruction and measure student understanding with apps and tools such as FlipGrid, Dash & Dot, and SeeSaw. Those don’t exist without computer science.

It’s important, no matter the career eventually pursued, that students have foundational knowledge of the core concepts of computer science. This basic understanding of computer science concepts enables students to be informed consumers and creators of technology. Engaging students in computer science learning provides opportunity for student to use coding to solve problems, collaborate with peers, and communicate their stories and understandings with world. Whether those understanding be directly tied to standards, learning targets, or student interests, computer science and coding helps kids change the world.

Picture of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki with quote

The Iowa State Board of Education adopted voluntary statewide Computer Science standards in June 2018 to support teachers and students with computer science education. This adoption was based on the recommendation of the Computer Science Standards Review Team which was made up of Iowans serving in K-12 school systems, higher education, business and related industry. The board adopted the CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards which were developed by the Computer Science Teachers Association, or CSTA. According to the CSTA website, the standards:

“...delineate a core set of learning objectives designed to provide the foundation for a complete computer science curriculum and its implementation at the K–12 level. To this end, the CSTA Standards:

Introduce the fundamental concepts of computer science to all students, beginning at the elementary school level.
Present computer science at the secondary school level in a way that can fulfill a computer science, math, or science graduation credit.
Encourage schools to offer additional secondary-level computer science courses that will allow interested students to study facets of computer science in more depth and prepare them for entry into the work force or college.
Increase the availability of rigorous computer science for all students, especially those who are members of underrepresented groups.

The standards have been written by educators to be coherent and comprehensible to teachers, administrators, and policy makers.”

The Iowa Computer Science standards are comprised of five concepts and seven practices.

Computer Science Standards Core Concepts and Practices graphic

The core concepts help to organize and highlight the five overarching domains of computer science and outline criteria for student understanding throughout their K-12 career.

Many educators, students, and parents are aware of the Algorithm and Programming core concept thanks to organizations like Code.org, events like the Hour of Code, and programming languages like Scratch from the MIT Media Lab. This core concept includes subconcepts such as variables, control, algorithms, and program development and is commonly called “coding.”

There are countless opportunities to connect the Computer Science concepts with core discipline standards, such as using Data and Analysis in Science courses, Impacts of Computing in Social Studies, and Algorithms and Programming in Math. We’ll highlight opportunities to connect the Computer Science core concepts and practices with discipline standards and practice, provide specific examples, and highlight students and educators currently engaging with the standards in future blog posts. Use the hashtags #CSforGWAEA and #CSforIA on social media to join the conversation.

Corey Rogers (@corey_rogers)
Digital Learning Consultant, Grant Wood AEA

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Leveling Up Your LMS Practice

9/28/2018

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Following up on our post from last week on digital learning spaces, we would like to continue to explore the topic of LMSs and how to facilitate learning experiences online. After working in an LMS for awhile, teachers might be wondering, “How can I continue to improve my digital learning space and the online experience for my students?” We have identified four areas that we feel teachers can examine to really scale up their student’s online learning experience. They include:

Communication
Differentiation
Accessibility
Organization

We chose these areas expressly because they align well with some of the key components of blended and personalized learning. We have created a rubric to support teachers in examining their practice in using an LMS in these areas. With respect to communication, we focus exclusively on the idea of facilitating online discussions for learning with students. We also felt that the ability to differentiate learning objects and learning paths to students via the LMS can help support teachers in getting to personalization. Accessibility features in the LMS and the ability for students to customize their learning environment help support all learners. Finally, the flexibility to organize content in different ways in the LMS can help support support teachers making shifts to blended/personalized learning for students.

To support teachers in continuing to refine their practice in designing and delivering blended and personalized instruction in an LMS, we have created this rubric. The below rubric is an image and is linked to a live Google doc with links to additionally articles and learning resources around this area.

We know that the rubric is not all encompassing and there are many other areas that could be identified when considering areas to scale-up in the designing an online learning space. We would love to hear your feedback about what we missed to make our rubric even better.

Gina Rogers & Mindy Cairney
Digital Learning Consultants
GWAEA

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Maker Joy

9/21/2018

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Not only is #havefunmaking the last line that we say of our Think, Make, Innovate episodes, but we really hope that anyone that takes up one of our Think, Make, Innovate challenges has FUN while making! It has been magic to be able to capture these moments as part of past episodes of Think, Make, Innovate.

#Maker delight in next episode of Think, Make, Innovate dropping tomorrow. Want to be notified of new episodes? https://t.co/U0C2Vz6156 pic.twitter.com/HDpc7k6YS9
— Amber Bridge (@abridgesmith) October 31, 2017

Check out the newest Think, Make, Innovate featuring #bcmakers cardboard wearables! https://t.co/p0kRZX7FAQ pic.twitter.com/Ko9dF10RCJ
— Amber Bridge (@abridgesmith) May 1, 2017

Have you checked out the #makerjoy from the #learnersleadersleopards in the latest Think, Make, Innovate? https://t.co/O8N9ZupcEV #havefunmaking pic.twitter.com/KwrvjFSfHh
— The Digital Learning Team (@DLGWAEA) September 21, 2018

Maker opportunities create these amazing moments worth celebrating. Making discoveries in learning through making, it gives you this magical “wow” or “what just happened” moment. You did not know this was going to happen, but It usually hooks you, and gives you a internal drive to want to know and do more.

When you make something, it gives you a lot to be proud about. You get to see and hold your work in your hands. It’s this physical evidence that you did something and you want to say to everyone, “Did you see what I made?” During a maker experience, you learn SO much along the way. It gives you this great opportunity to connect your in and out of school experiences to make and collaborate with others. In the Sphero Boats episode, one student was captured saying, drawing on past experience in science class to jog her classmates memory.

"Remember the science lesson where we had to go into the water?" Audrey, 3rd Grade, Lemme Elementary #havefunmaking

Plus, when you make something, you are eager to share it out with the world! The world? Wait, how am I going to do that?
Well, we hope that we can offer that to you through our online student maker community. If you have your students participate in one of our Think, Make, Innovate Maker Challenges, we’d love to help you share their work with the world by highlight them on our website and resharing through our social media accounts.
Choose the path that’s best for you to share with us:

Email us at makerspace@gwaea.org
Tweet or Instagram us @dlgwaea
Use the hashtag #havefunmaking

We have been working to revamp our #havefuncommunity to showcase student creations from our different maker challenges and love some feedback from you.

Think, Make, Innovate Get Inspired #havefunmaking

You can now see where our makers are from with our new Maker Map.

And you can search by maker topics and get inspired by our makers’ creations. Check out the screen shot below that highlights new search features. You could even pull up one of the examples and to share with the class and ask the student to figure out how they did that or can you figure out a different way to do this?

What else would you like to see added to our maker community? Leave us a comment on this blog to help us best share and inspire your students to get creating!
And of course....
#havefunmaking!

~Amber Bridge (@abridgesmith)
Digital Learning Consultant, Grant Wood AEA

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Researching a Learning Management System

9/14/2018

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As Digital Learning Consultants, we are often asked about Learning Management Systems (LMS). Although, you will probably never hear us recommend one over the other, you will definitely hear us ask some important questions while our school districts are evaluating different options.

What is the purpose of integrating an LMS into your classroom/school?
How do you and your students plan to use the LMS?
What is your current teaching style (or teaching style of your staff)?
What is your current workflow for sharing content, gathering assignments, engaging in discussion, etc?

There are so many different characteristics of an LMS that need to be taken into consideration. To begin, we created a checklist of qualifications to use when narrowing the search for your school district. We feel these qualifications are essential to a powerful and accessible digital learning space. This list is not all encompassing and does not address personal styles of teaching, however we feel that this list addresses crucial components for a digital learning space and online instruction.

Digital Learning Space Checklist

The digital learning space allows for a clean layout and multiple ways of organizing online content.
The digital learning space is user-friendly and intuitive.
The digital learning space is a collaborative environment. Both students and teachers can interact in the digital learning space.
The digital learning space is accessible to screen readers.
The digital learning space is accessible to other stakeholders, such as parents, to increase communication of classroom structure, content, discussions, etc.
The digital learning space provides a collaborative place for online discussion and idea sharing.
The digital learning space has the capability of providing differentiated content, learning activities, discussions for individuals or small groups.

This checklist can support school districts as they begin thoughtful conversations around why and how they plan to use a LMS. Another strategy for selecting an LMS is establishing a small group of teachers who are willing the pilot usage of one or two learning management systems. Creating a survey and collecting information from students and teachers during this pilot period about the ease of use and impact on teaching and learning can provide valuable information in your selection process. Remember, no matter what your selection, adequate training opportunities for teachers allowing with supported collaboration and implementation times will positively impact the teacher and student experience.

Gina Rogers
Mindy Cairney
~Digital Learning Consultants

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PDF Candy For All Your PDF Needs

9/5/2018

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A piece of paper, centered on a brown tablecloth with a cup of coffee to the left and a pen to the right. The paper reads, PDF Candy for all your PDF needs

Click play to listen to this blog post

PDFs are incredibly useful for all kinds of things. For instance, they are a universal file format that works well on all devices and don't need any additional software for viewing their contents. However, they can also be a very frustrating file format. Have you ever tried to split a PDF, merge it with another PDF, or convert it to another format? Adobe will sell you a subscription that will let you do all this and more. Preview on the Mac has a number of useful options for this too. However, if you don't have access to either of these options, you can take a look at a tool I saw courtesy of Leslie Fisher. It's called PDF Candy.

With PDF Candy you can do all kinds of useful things with your PDF. You can rearrange pages, extract text, unlock password protected PDFs, and convert them to all kinds of useful formats. You can add watermarks, use page numbers, delete pages or add to the header or footer of a PDF. All you do to get started is head over to PDFcandy.com and choose the feature you need. Then, upload your PDF and get editing!

Of course, one of the reasons that people use PDFs is to try and make it harder to copy or alter their original work, so be mindful of copyright and respect the rights of the original author. There are a lot of powerful tools at PDF Candy, but as Uncle Ben (and others) would caution, with great power comes great responsibility!

More PDF Tips for Teachers

You can create PDFs in Word or Google Docs. Simply create the document as you normally would and save it as a PDF format instead of a Word or Google Doc format. You can do the same with PowerPoint and Google Slides!
If you upload a PDF to Google Drive and open it with Docs, Google will extract the text of the PDF for you and paste it into a Google Doc
You can save any webpage as a PDF in Chrome using the Print menu. Simply navigate to the website of your choice and then go to File > Print and change the default printer to Save as PDF. This works in other browsers to thanks to the PDF Print drivers on Mac and Windows.
iPhone and iPad users can save websites as a PDF from Safari. Simply tap the Share arrow and looks for the Create PDF. Use the built-in annotation tools to markup the PDF or tap the Share arrow again to choose where you want to send your PDF.
You can scan paper documents and turn them into PDFs with mobile scanning apps like Word Lens, Adobe Scan, Camscanner, Scanner Pro, and more.
Sites like DocHub.com will let you sign a PDF for free using their website or Chrome extension. You can also do this with Preview on the Mac, or with the built-in annotation tools on an iPhone or iPad.
Speaking of annotation, the Google Classroom app for iPad will also let students annotate a PDF if you assign them a map or a graphic organizer to work on in a PDF format.

Have you used PDF Candy before? What are your favorite PDF tips and hacks for teachers?

Jonathan Wylie (@jonathanwylie)
Digital Learning Consultant, Grant Wood AEA

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