Skip to main content

#KyGoPlayGround at #KySTE16

Image by James Allen

 Next week is our 2nd annual #KyGoPlay challenge. To participate, all people have to do is pledge to play for one hour.  It could be to play to learn or to take time out to play to give yourself as break - and you only have to do it for 1 hour total.  

 The idea to encourage teachers to play to learn and to try to create some awareness about the benefits of playing came from a #KyEdChat side discussion one night with James Allen, Marty Park and Chris Walsh.  The discussion got James and I moving and before long we had some research and an idea. 


Finding time to play to learn and share with others isn't always easy when you're teaching all day and managing an after school life.  But the benefits can be tremendous.  To try to further highlight those benefits, James and I hosted a session at our KLA/KASL Fall conference that just provided librarians with the chance to play.  We hauled in a green screen, Makey-Makey, Google Cardboard, Littlebits, Minecraft, and more.  We had informal conversations and did demos and gave people space to figure things out for themselves.  It was amazing!  People were excited and ready to try things.

 After that one hour session we decided to try to go bigger.  We reached out to some great folks that we know at KySTE to see if we could host an ISTE style Playground where people came with the intent to play and learn. As it turned out, they were already working with Mary Ann Rankin and Ryan Kellinghaus the NKYMakerspace to establish an area in the vendor hall, and before we knew it we had an entire room for an entire day of the KySTE16 conference.

 With the help of some awesome educators and students we were able to have live demos of all kinds of things like: a Double robot, augmented reality to
virtual reality including Google Expeditions, to MinecraftEDU on the biggest screen ever. We were also lucky enough to have people demonstrating how to use a Makerbot 3D printer, X-carve and 3D Doodlers and a green screen.

We also had a number of maker style challenges to give people a chance to get their hands on some materials.  The button maker, while fairly popular, did keep jamming on us (thank goodness there were people there with tools to fix it a few times an hour).  We also had an LED challenge, a Build It challenge that
included Brain Flakes and straws and connectors, a Found Art challenge with Washi tape and Wikki Stix, a ST(R)EAM challenge that encouraged people to combine resources from all the areas - LEDs, Art, Build it etc to create something STEAM + Reading inspired.  In the green screen area participants got to hear about how to use iMovie and DoInk to record Green Screen videos.  And the NKYMakerspace crew and some great projects available to talk to people about and even worked on creating a sign using collage techniques and a vinyl printer.

With all the variety, the day flew by.  I'm extremely grateful to the folks at KySTE and NKYMakerspace for working with us on this experience. 

 Here's a snapshot of the day and some of the fun things that were happening. Hopefully next week, you'll get out and #KyGoPlay to learn something new:)



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Library Centers for Kindergarten & First Grade

Center Inspiration After much debate at the end of last school year, I was able to get 10 extra minutes added on to each of my classes for this year boosting class library time from 35 minutes a week to 45 minutes a week for my fixed schedule.  For me, 35 minutes a week, just wasn't enough to pack in all the awesomeness I wanted to achieve.  It seemed like we would just be getting started into something great when it was time to go. I was thrilled to know that this year I was going to have the extra time to work with my classes on research skills and technology projects while working in more time to allow them to browse the shelves and look at books.  That being said, truth be told, I was completely freaked out about what to do with my kindergartners for 45 minutes. Did I mention in my former life, I was a high school English teacher?  Four years ago, my first two weeks in an elementary library were a complete culture shock to me. I was used to walking into a ro...
12 comments
Read more

Project Genre-fy the Fiction Section!

After a lot of thinking, I finally decided to take the leap this summer and move the fiction section of my elementary library from the traditional first-three-letters-of-the-last- name organization to a genre based organization. Now that the project is almost complete, I cannot wait to get the kids back in the library so I can show them! Deciding Factors There are many reasons individual teacher librarians might choose to genrefy their library.  For me, I was driven to start with the fiction section because I've noticed an alarming drop off in students checking out books by the time they get to fifth grade.  This drop off could be for any number of reasons: increased activities after school, loss of interest in the materials they see on the shelf, lack of time, or they could be overwhelmed by book after book organized by letter. I realized, too, that although my 3-5 graders don't ask for "funny" books or "animal" stories, they seem to get stuck on c...
20 comments
Read more

Digital Interactive Notebooks: Getting Started

Post appeared also on FtEdTech It's no real secret that I love Digital Interactive Notebooks.  I create them every chance I get and encourage teachers to use them for everything from long term Project Based Learning (PBL) projects to weekly unit work with vocabulary .   The Interactive Notebook (INB) has long been a staple of the classroom to engage students more directly with their notes.  The traditional interactive notebook often includes traditional student notes, questions, and interactives that students cut, fold, color and paste into their notebooks. You might find graphic organizers, pockets with measuring tools, data charts, and foldables that act as study aides.  In the NSTA article " Science Interactive Notebooks in the Classroom " Jocelyn Young explains the benefits of INB when she shares that " By using notebooks, students model one of the most vital and enduring functions of scientists in all disciplines—recording information, figures, and d...
9 comments
Read more