Author: gravescolleen

Maker Monday and Coding Bonanza

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Last year we started our Makerspace with month long programming in May.  We did a different workshop every Monday and you can read more in my article in the March issue of Knowledge Quest.  Since we did Maker programming all year, I decided to focus on one thing for May-ker Monday and really go all out.  Students signed up for Code.org‘s “Intro to Computer Science” and came to the library Mondays after school and Thursdays during Advisory.  We made Binary initial bracelets, created games on Scratch, played banana pianos with Makey Makey, skyped with a game developer, and basically had a ton of fun!

It was great to have a focused Maker workshop every week because I had the same kids come over and over again. The “challenge” of finishing the coding levels kept them coming and kept them engaged.
I also noticed the kids stayed more focused because I set up stations for them to complete.
Watch my video to learn more and hear from the kids! (Also on Youtube here)

Visualizing Poetry

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One of my English teacher’s was excited about using a poetry lesson from Dr. Vardell’s Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, but she wanted to take it to the next level with technology.  We collaborated together and came up with this extension utilizing the “Thing Link” app.
Here I’ve visualized the poem “The Deaf Boy” by Marilyn Singer.  We taught the lesson as suggested by Dr. Vardell, and then showed the students how to visualize the poem with this example I created in Thinglink. Once students finished their assignment they scanned a QR code from my computer which directed them to a Google Form for turn in.  This allowed my teacher to have all student project links in one Google Sheet!
Here are the student instructions:
Choose one of these poems and then create a Thinglink to visualize your poem.

  • You’ll need to Find a background image that gives your poem context.  Save it to your camera roll and then open it in Thinglink.
  • Add at least 6 interactive “thing links”  to help us visualize the poem (see example)
  • Put 6 “text bullets” as references next to your interactive link (see example.)
  • Include two examples of alliteration.
  • You must take at least one picture and one video yourself!