Inquiry Based Research - A project in a 6th grade computer science classroom

Over the past few months I have been working with my friend Becky and her 6th grade Computer Science (CS) class. Her current learning situation is set at hybrid. Half of her class is in person with her in her classroom and the other half joins via Google Meet from their homes. We decided to see how we could support students in learning more about a CS topic of their choice through inquiry based research. 

You can learn more about our project at http://bit.ly/InquiryBasedResearch . We share resources for each step in the process as well as presentations we have created for online conferences. 

Trip to ISTE

I did it! I just registered for #iste2015. 

How exciting! 

I am looking forward to the trip. 

Now I have a lot of question.

For those of you who have been to ISTE in the past:

• Who should I make sure I see?
• What vendors are you looking forward to checking out?
• What have been your favorite sessions to attend?
• Do you go to only sessions or do you take time to go to the vendor area? If you do go, how much time do you spend there?
• Have you volunteered? If so, what did you do and would you do it again?
• I love my shoes and tech T-shirts, but what other things did you pack with you?

For those of you who have been to Philadelphia:

• What should I make sure I see while in town?
• Any food that I should not miss out on?
• How is the airport? How much time do I need to add to get through security and check in on the way back?

Any tips on:

• Money, it is very expensive to go to ISTE!  I have received a $200 scholarship but would love more. Where do you get grants/scholarships to attend conferences?
• I want to meet my PLN in person. What are some meet ups I should be aware of?

I am super excited to go!! If you are going let me know so we can connect!! 

Organized Chaos!

If you have read some of our previous posts you understand how we value our Personal Learning Network (PLN). There are so many different platforms available to connect with others online from all over the world. It is even better when we are able to meet people from our PLN in person. I just got back from the iSummitMN a little of a week ago and I am looking forward to the ITEM conference up in Duluth on March 15. My friend Andrea and I will be running the unconference in the afternoon.

Back to managing your tools for your PLN. I use HootSuite to watch hashtags (#) , follow certain groups of people and post to multiple accounts.

Have you heard of Twitter Chats? Here is a list of Twitter chats by day of the week and time
bit.ly/officialchatlist 
If you are solely using the Twitter application, these chats will be hard to follow. HootSuite allows you to make a stream following a hashtag of your choice. Sunday night at 7pm Minnesota educators are using the hashtag #MNlead to discuss leadership in education. If you want to follow along in the conversation, I would recommend using a service such as HootSuite. 

Typically when you participate in a Twitter chat there is a moderator or two who lead the conversation. They will post a question and  people will respond to the question. To stay organized and make it easier to follow the moderator will use some thing along the lines of Q1) or Q1-  which means "Question 1" and when others respond they will use A) or A1- which means "Answer to question1". If someone posts something of interest, that you would like to comment on, you can reply to the tweet. It is important for you to remember to include the hashtag so that others in the chat will see your comment.

Here is an example of how hashtags, questions and posts at people are used

In my HootSuite account I have multiple pages and each page has a different purpose.

• One page has the top people I follow and interact with. This allows me to easily navigate their Twitter posts and interact with them.
•  Another page is just for information about me. I see when someone Direct Message (DM) me, posts at me (@), and a stream of new followers. 
• My third page is a page of conference hashtags (#). I love to connect with others via Twitter while conferences are going on. If I am in a great session I will Tweet out what I am learning, when I attend EdCamps I typically tweet my notes for the day, and if I am leading Professional Development (PD) I will share my resources. 
• My last page brings us back to the Twitter chats. I went through the list of daily chats and chose one chat per day. If I ever have some down time, I will got to this page and read through previous chats or contribute to a live chat. (Picture above)

My Personal Learning Network has influenced me immensely as a teacher and learner. I have connected with so many wonderful people over the past few years, whom I would have never had the chance to connect with.

Link to picture

Call to action! Have you participated in a Twitter Chat? If not, try one out. I bet you will learn a thing or two! 

Reflecting on #iSummitMN

One week ago I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the iSummit in Minnesota presented by Flipped Education. I am always excited when a new learning opportunity comes my way, and even more excited when it is with this wonderful group of people.

Last year I attended and presented at the Minnesota Google Summit and hope to have that opportunity again this year, mark your calendars it is Mothers day weekend! I love that I can spend an entire day around people who have a common goal and are excited about teaching and learning.

Conversations typically carry on as I leave a session and continue throughout the rest of the day in person and pick up on Twitter when the day is over.

My top two take aways from the iSummit

1. Jennie Magiera's Keynote

Jennie used the three little pigs to help her connect using technology in education to transform the way to you teach. The picture above illustrates how if you use bricks ,just because everyone else is using bricks, and use them the same way you were using straw it won't work out like it was intended to. If you search for her in YouTube ,you can watch her present this keynote at a different conference. Totally worth your time if you have 20ish minutes. 

2. Meeting up with my peps in my PLN

Kayla and I met on Twitter via the #TIES13 hashtag a few months ago. We have connected a few times via Twitter and I was excited to see that she was attending the iSummit. We made it a point to meet up with each other in person and then to get a picture. During AppyHour, at the end of the day, we were exploring how she could use Chirp in her classroom.

I look forward to my next conference! If you want to read more about my the sessions I lead you can visit my other blog that I co-author The Techie Teachers.

Connecting Across the World

I love that even though I live in a small town of 1,000 people, I can connect with people all over the world. Just the other day I was connecting with an educator in Australia. Our conversation started from a retweet of my session materials at the TIES 2013 technology conference by a fellow Minnesota educator. I presented a breakout session on the use of Google Forms in education and shared the link via Twitter. I am sharing my Twitter story with you via Storify

I look forward to connecting with her in the near future! If you are a current Google Forms user and would like to share your materials please do so in the comments below. If you are new to Google Drive and would like to learn more about Google Forms here is the a link to my materials tinyurl.com/ties13gf and feel free to connect with me on Twitter @MrsKalthoff .