A new beginning to a new kind of school year

Welcome to Digital Literacy and the 2020-2021 school year!  There is so much information that is coming at parents right now, so I will keep my greeting as short and to the point as I can, and continue to answer all those great questions that you have as they come up.

First, my name is Angela Flickinger-Pierce, or Ms. Pierce, and this is my third year teaching Digital Literacy at DAMS.  Many of your students know me already, as I teach both the 5th and 6th grade sections of Digital Literacy, and I had most of your students last year!

As 6th graders, your student will explore many different types of technology including robotics, the engineering design process, graphic design, coding and online safety and digital citizenship. With the virtual start to the school year, our Google Classroom will look just like the Google classroom of their homeroom teacher, and we will share information in a similar way. Additionally, to help your student stay organized this year with Virtual Learning, I will be posting a "Week at a Glance" document on the stream that will show exactly what the students will be doing each day for the week. The rotations of Encore this year are 5 weeks long.  The "Week at a Glance" will include all of the links that students will need for the week. Assignments will all have due dates and be found under the weekly topics.  Your student will get a project grade each week for a total of 5 grades for the rotation. Grades are based on showing understanding of the ISTE standards, and are 4,3,2,1, with 4 being advanced and 1 showing that the student has not yet showed their understanding of the concept. Students with a 1 or 2 will be greatly encouraged to continue to work towards a 3, and extra one-on- one help is ALWAYS available. Just let me know. 

Details about the start of the school year can be found in this Encore Newsletter.  It gives details about the start of the school year, a video introducing all of the Encore teachers, a form for the "Family Connection Days" on September 1 and 2, and has contact and office hour information for all of the Encore teachers.  Please let me know if you have any information about the newsletter. 

Finally, I will use this blog to share information throughout the rotation.  You can look back on prior posts to see resources for a number of different activity ideas, staying safe online, and past student projects.

Welcome, back, everyone!  I know that this is a different start to the school year, but we are going to make this work and learn, and I am here to help you every step of the way!  I will leave you with pictures of my children from this summer. We spent most of our time outside, or gardening and baking.  My daughter Rachel is a senior this year and applying to study Marine Science at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and my son Henry is 5 and will be attending 4K this year. 

Websites, websites, websites! Information for families about privacy for students

This summer, I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on the work that we did as a school and community with Virtual Learning. I have been working on a class this summer to support my work as a teacher of technology called the ISTE Certification Class.  One of the issues that gave me pause is surrounding Digital Citizenship and the resources we are using online.  As we watch out students navigate an online world, it is often important to think about privacy and the type of information that websites, including educational websites, are gathering about its users. As part of my class, I did research on three different common educational websites that we use, and the information that the websites collect. I wanted to share my research with everyone this week, just in case you need a break from the summer sun and want to explore some new resources! 

Interland: Interland, according to its creators "is an adventure-packed online game that makes learning about digital safety and citizenship interactive and fun. Here, kids will help their fellow Internauts combat badly behaved hackers, phishers, oversharers, and bullies by practicing the skills they need to be good digital citizens." It is a game that has been played in many classrooms, including Digital Literacy!  Interland's privacy document includes a great tutorial about Cookies (A cookie is a small piece of text sent to your browser by a website you visit) if you are interested in learning more. From their tutorial on how they are collecting data, I delved into what is actually being collected when you log on.  As students play, there is less information collected than on other sites I found. Common Sense Media, which is an excelllent resource for parents looking to find more information about privacy rating for websites, has not yet rated Interland, but the parent users have given it a 5 star rating based on what they know about the Cookies from the site.  Google's privacy document on Interland says that they collect "information to help students maintain their levels in the game, age and demographic information, and information that might help identify additional educational opportunities for students interested in playing Interland." The last part of their privacy policy gave me pause, though one can expect that a free game with such good content would be used for marketing other apps and games by collecting information.  My vote: Interland is a safe game, and collects a minimum amount of personal data from your child. 

Exploratorium: Exploratorium is an actual museum in California, but it just happens to have a website that goes into all sorts of interesting science-related topics, and is a great resource for kids who want to explore some experiments on their own.  Exploratorium is rated 4 Star for privacy by Common Sense Media, and I did a bit of exploring on my own to make sense of the information they are collecting.  In their privacy policy, this site says that it "is collecting data on what pages are used, where you explore, and how long you stay on certain topics."  For me, this is information that I can understand that an organization would want.  What students are most interested in and where they are spending the most time helps form what new content will be updated.  As a teacher and a parent, this is helpful to know.  In this sites privacy policy it collects more personal information such as email addresses, mailing addresses, age, demographics, and other identifiers ONLY if your student wants to access parts of the site that require you to put in your information.  As a choice-based submission, this site's privacy policy is great for kids.  Talk with your student about adding information online about themselves, and consider coming up with a family policy about when they should ask before adding addresses, age, birthday or other identifying information.  Check out this site, however!  There are great activities for students of all ages, and things you can explore as a family. 

So I leave you this summer with these things to think about as your students spends time online.  I know that I rarely actually read the long, fine print in Privacy policies, but hopefully this information that I shared with you today might make you curious enough to take a peek.  The following questions I borrowed from Common Sense Media as a way of evaluating the websites that your students are looking at: 
1. Does it collect person information, and is that information then protected with a password?
2. Does the site tell you when it is collecting this information? 
3. Does that data stay with the website, or can it be shared with marketing (third-party)? 4. Does it collect your location?
5. Is the website collecting information from children under 13?

While you may not always think about your privacy, it doesn't hurt to check out what is happening!  As always, shoot me an email with any questions that you may have about this information, and hopefully you are enjoying the last bit of summer with your students!

A funny way to start a week

Last week, I challenged my wonderful 6th grade students to do their best to make me laugh!  

I have included a few of my favorites below, but more will come out in weeks to come.  

I just heard about a restaurant called Karma. There is no menu.  You get what you deserve...

 

When do astronauts eat???  At launch-time!

So my friends said "what rhymes with orange..." I said..."No it doesn't..."

How do trees get into a Chromebook?  They log on...

A thief broke into my house last night and started searching for money, so I woke up and started searching with him...

Beyond jokes, everyone has been doing fantastic work on their Digital Timeline projects. We will continue to work on our timelines this week and next.  Grades for Empowered Learner will be posted this week, based on everyone's hard work on their Food Truck projects.   An empowered learner is one that can take an active role in their learning, use technology and make choices to show what they know and what they can create.  A behavior grade for this project will also be posted. Remember these grades serve as a check-in, but will be entered as no-count.  These grades cannot bring down anyone's great Digital Literacy grade, but can be counted to bring up a grade.  An added note: I will be reaching out to a few students this week to ask permission to share some great examples on this blog and with the Norski Network team. If you receive and email from me, please respond before Wednesday of this week.  Your work will need to be sent to Ms. Clarke for inclusion by then. 

I miss all of my students so much!  It probably goes without saying, but it is my students that make me a teacher.  While I see everyone during our office hours, and I have been talking with everyone through email, I still very much miss seeing everyone's smiling faces and hearing your ideas in person.  Stay strong and safe!

We survived our first week!

Phew!  We made it through our first week of Virtual Learning!  I have seen such amazing work being done on your food trucks already. For those of you who have had a chance to join me during my office hours, thank you!  It helps to see everyone, and hear about the things that you have been working on.

I have a couple of important things to share with you today;

1. As a follow-up to Mr. Becker's announcement, we WILL NOT be switching classes when the quarter ends.  You will be staying part of Digital Literacy until we return to in-person school.  You may have questions about this, and I am happy to answer all of them!

2. You will have the entire week after spring break to work on your food truck.  If you happen to finish before, you will only need to work on your daily warm-ups for Digital Literacy.

3. After our Food Truck project is finished, we will start a Digital Days Documentary project which I will explain when we return from break. 

Thank you to everyone!  You have taken a new situation, and made it work.  Have a great break.  I hope that you can enjoy some time outside.  Let's all hope for nicer weather!!!

Happy first day of Virtual Learning!

Good morning and happy first day of Virtual Learning!

I hope that everyone is feeling good about the work that they will be doing this week.  I have had a few common questions that came up over the weekend that I wanted to address today.  The first, can we work in groups on our Food Truck projects?  The answer is, yes, absolutely!  The Food Truck Project was originally meant to be a group project, one in which we practiced our best Global Collaboration skills. If you would like to, and feel comfortable with the technology, reach out to a classmate using Google Hangouts, share your template with each other and find a way to collaborate. You can also work alone if you would like. 

The second question is when the quarter ends.  I have had several questions about this, and the last day of our quarter is April 7, the Tuesday after our scheduled Spring Break.  On Monday of that week, I will be sending you the Google Classroom codes to join your next class, and on Wednesday, you will start that class for the 4th Quarter.  There will be more information on this later.

As some of you remember, I have three chihuahuas.  My favorite is George, and I have started to make memes using funny pictures of him.  Below is the first of many!  

Virtual Learning and our Joke of the week

I know as a teacher and a mom, much of my time lately has been spent worrying about the many changes that we are facing as a community, school and country.  As your student's Digital Literacy teacher, my job is to make the virtual learning that we will be doing as stress free as possible. I will be posting answers to common questions here on my blog, but also  know that I am available for questions during my posted office hours of 9-10 am daily in 

Google Meet and by email throughout the day.  

My office hours are pre-scheduled, and your student will be able to follow the link that I will share in Google Classroom to access me during my office hours each day. Additionally, all of the classroom work that I will be sharing will be through Google Classroom.  Your student has been using Google Classroom for my class since the beginning of the quarter, and will be using the same classroom for virtual learning.  

On Thursday, I will be introducing our final project for Digital Literacy.  The last day of the quarter is two days after our scheduled Spring Break.  The students were working with different types of Coding last week, but because of equipment that we were using that we no longer have access to,  we will be ending our Coding unit and grades will be based on the wonderful work that your students have already done on their final projects. 

The final project for Digital Literacy is a Food Truck project. Students will be using the Design Process to plan and create a Food Truck concept.  The slideshow that I have shared includes videos and examples.  It may take several days to work through the entire slideshow.  I encourage you to think together on the concept, logo and menu items for your student's food truck!  Sharing ideas together will make the project more fun.  

Again, please let me know if you have any questions about anything-I am here to support you and your student throughout this entire process. 

I always post a joke of the week in my classroom, so instead of having our joke on our whiteboard, I will be posting our jokes here!  This week's joke:

Why is March the most popular month to use a trampoline?
Answer: It’s spring-time!

I said I posted jokes, I didn't say they were funny...stay safe and be well!

Off to a great start...

We are starting in on our second week of Digital Literacy, and we are already off to a great start.  The students have been exploring graphic design in Canva, while creating a poster that shares a few things about who they are.  Canva is an online graphic design program that the students will be able to use throughout the quarter, and is also a great resource for other classes!  There are many different templates and graphics to use in Canva that go well beyond what you can do in Google Slides or Docs.

Thank you to everyone that sent donations for our class!  We all appreciate having the pencils, Legos, ziplock bags and containers.  It helps us keep our classroom running smoothly. 

I just wanted to share a reminder about Teacher's Conferences that are coming up towards the end of this month. I will be available from 3:30-7:30 in my room on both nights on February 25-26 for conferences.  Because I teach both 5th and 6th grade students, there can sometimes be a line to chat.  If you would like a particular time for conferences, please let me know in advance and I can make sure to block off that time.  I will be sending out an email to you later this week with options for conferences.

As always, please reach out with any questions that you may have!

Is it really true that it is the third quarter already???? How did that happen!

I sent a letter home with your students yesterday, but I wanted to post this information here again for you. I will use this blog to share interesting things we are doing in class, pictures, and fantastic student work. 

For those of you who did know me from Digital Literacy last year, let me share a little bit about myself. My name is Angela Flickinger-Pierce, and this is my second year of teaching at the Deforest Area Middle School.  I love it here!  I love the students, the other teachers, the community, the parents,  I just love everything about being here!  Before I was a teacher, I worked as a Marketing and Fund Development Director for non-profits in the Madison area.  I realized my true passion was working with children, and I went back to school to become a teacher.  I was certified in 2018, and just completed my Masters of Education this past May.  I live in Poynette with my husband, daughter, son, chihuahuas and chickens. My human family (minus chickens and chihuahuas) can be seen below!

This year, Digital Literacy is going to be a little bit different.  Instead of having class every other day like last year, we will be meeting everyday for a quarter.  For 6th Grade, we will explore;
-Digital Citizenship, or learning how to be safe online
-Coding, using different programs
-Robotics
-Graphic Design 
-Engineering Design Process 

We will also work on everyday skills such as vocabulary, typing, collaboration, reading comprehension, and becoming learners that problem-solve, think creatively and know how independently attack whatever work we are doing. Digital Literacy is a Standards Based class, meaning that the grades earned in this class show what we are able to do according to a standard or skill.  The standards used for grading in this class are the ISTE Standards, or International Society for Technology Education linked here. We will start our quarter by breaking apart these standards, and thinking about what each of these standards means.  Every project completed by your student will include a rubric outlining the ISTE standards that they will be graded on.  You may have questions about these standards-please feel free to ask!  


I will be sending a parent letter home with your students on the first day of class with some other basic information about homework, missing assignments, one-on-one mentoring or tutoring time, and grades.  Additionally, I will be sending home a document with a Digital Literacy Wish List and Volunteer form.  I welcome anyone willing to give their time, from ten minutes to hours!  If you are at all interested in getting involved in the classroom, please fill out the form.  I have linked the form here as well. 

Finally, as we start out this new and fresh school year, I just want to say that your student's hopes, dreams, happiness, comfort and sense of self is my first priority.  If there is anything that you would like me to know about your student, please reach out!  I am here before and after school and can be reached by email and phone. It's going to be a great year!

The end of the quarter...

It is hard to believe that our quarter is ending so soon!  My superstar 6th grade classes have worked so hard since the beginning of the school year.   From coding to food trucks, we have been through so many different technologies over the past 10 weeks!

We started out the quarter learning about Canva, a graphic design program that you can use to create fun and innovative designs.  While learning about Digital Citizenship, we learned about Prezi and Powtoons.  While coding, we learned about the Circuit Playground Express, an external circuit that has lights, sounds and so much more!  We used Makecode to create a code for Harry Potter's Sorting Hat, Digital Literacy style.  We also learned how to code using MIT App Inventor.  As a group, we struggled with this technology, and learned that sometimes troubleshooting a technology can be very frustrating!  We also completed some very fun coding projects in Code.org.  

Our quarter is ending on a Food Truck Design Challenge.  In groups, we are working on completing the concept of a Food Truck. The students are currently working in groups to create a concept, logo, truck design wrap, menu, slogan and presentation.  We learned a new vector-based software called Vectr.  Vectr allowed the students to create logos.  We also learned about a great resource for finding colorful and interesting templates for Google Slides called Slides Carnival.   All of these software programs are accessible to students here at school, and may help your student create some really impressive projects in classes throughout middle school!

Finally, encourage your students to keep exploring technology and working on those great fundamental skills we have been practicing all quarter.  Typing Club, Newsela and Readworks, Quizlet and Code.org are all available to your student through their Google Classroom and Clever, and they can certainly keep practicing!  Thank you for sharing your students with me!  If any of your students are interested in continuing to explore technology, you are welcome to check out the after school clubs.  I will be running a Robotics club for four sessions. The first one starts this evening, but there will be opportunities to join in January, March and May. Please feel free to email or call to get more information!

An exciting few weeks in Digital Literacy!

The past three weeks have just flown by, and we have already accomplished so many things in 6th grade!

First, the students showed a little bit about themselves while learning a new program called Canva. Canva is a graphic design software that can be used online and includes templates, images, different fonts and layout ideas.  It is a great program that students can use when creating projects for other classes throughout middle school and even into high school.  Each student had to create a poster about themselves adding images, text, and even small animations that told the story of who they are and what they like.  I learned so much about all of them as they shared their work with me.  Everyone did a fantastic job!  Take some time to ask your student about their poster, and look at the wonderful graphic design work they completed while becoming Empowered Learners (one of our ISTE standards.  The link is included here if you would like to review) and exploring a new technology.

Last week, the students again were able to become Empowered Learners by working in a program called PowToons to create an engaging slideshow about the 7 Habits for Highly Successful people.  The students have been learning about the 7 Habits in their Norski and Advisory times.  If you are not familiar with the habits, I have included a link to a resource here.  We talked as a class how to use different resources and tools to learn new skills, and we used our best perseverance skills to trouble-shoot and collaborate.  It was a hard task for the students, and there were many opportunities to learn how to ask a good question when they were stuck!  Next week, I will be posting some great examples that the students created!

Finally, this week we started work on our Digital Citizenship projects.  The students will be learning yet another presentation software that they will be able to use in other classes called Prezi this week.  We will be working more on the instructions for Prezi, because it needs a lot more explanations.  This platform will be used to show what the students are learning about being Safe, Respectful, and Responsible online.

As always, I am happy to answer any questions that you might have!  Feel free to email, call or stop by.  I am still looking for more parent volunteers as well.  If you have the time, I would love to include you in our classroom!

Welcome to 6th Grade Digital Literacy!

I can hardly believe that the beginning of the 2019-20 school year is just around the corner! It seems as though I just said goodbye to all of my wonderful 5th graders and now suddenly they are coming back to me as 6th graders!

For those of you who did not have me for Digital Literacy last year, let me share a little bit about myself. My name is Angela Flickinger-Pierce, and this is my second year of teaching at the Deforest Area Middle School.  I love it here!  I love the students, the other teachers, the community, the parents,  I just love everything about being here!  Before I was a teacher, I worked as a Marketing and Fund Development Director for non-profits in the Madison area.  I realized my true passion was working with children, and I went back to school to become a teacher.  I was certified in 2018, and just completed my Masters of Education this past May.  I live in Poynette with my husband, daughter, son, chihuahuas and chickens. My human family (minus chickens and chihuahuas) can be seen below!

This year, Digital Literacy is going to be a little bit different.  Instead of having class every other day like last year, we will be meeting everyday for a quarter.  For 6th Grade, we will explore;
-Digital Citizenship, or learning how to be safe online
-Coding, using different programs
-Robotics
-Graphic Design 
-Engineering Design Process 

We will also work on everyday skills such as vocabulary, typing, collaboration, reading comprehension, and becoming learners that problem-solve, think creatively and know how independently attack whatever work we are doing. Digital Literacy is a Standards Based class, meaning that the grades earned in this class show what we are able to do according to a standard or skill.  The standards used for grading in this class are the ISTE Standards, or International Society for Technology Education linked here. We will start our quarter by breaking apart these standards, and thinking about what each of these standards means.  Every project completed by your student will include a rubric outlining the ISTE standards that they will be graded on.  You may have questions about these standards-please feel free to ask!  

I will be sending a parent letter home with your students on the first day of class with some other basic information about homework, missing assignments, one-on-one mentoring or tutoring time, and grades.  Additionally, I will be sending home a document with a Digital Literacy Wish List and Volunteer form.  I welcome anyone willing to give their time, from ten minutes to hours!  If you are at all interested in getting involved in the classroom, please fill out the form.  I have linked the form here as well. 

Finally, as we start out this new and fresh school year, I just want to say that your student's hopes, dreams, happiness, comfort and sense of self is my first priority.  If there is anything that you would like me to know about your student, please reach out!  I am here before and after school and can be reached by email and phone. It's going to be a great year!

A visit from a Web Developer and a whole lotta apps!

It has been awhile since I have posted an update on our class.  When the weather turns warm, the days seem to race past!

Earlier this month, we had a visit from real web developers from Noble Applications.  I have included a link to their website here.  Steve and Brandon brought an interesting new app that they have been working on for knee surgery patients.  The kids were able to try out the sensors and see how their movement was recorded in the app.  Steve and Brandon also answered many of the questions that the students had about what an average day was, their favorite parts of their job, and what sort of education they had to have to be a developer.  We appreciate all the time and effort that Steve and Brandon gave us and hope they will join us again next year!

In class, we have been working on building apps in MIT App Inventor.  We have worked on creating small apps with tutorials such as a drawing app called Paint Pot, and some larger apps using some code that was given to us such as the Germ Guide app. We learned the different between the Designer View, which shows us the user interface (what it would look like on our phone) and the Blocks View, which shows us the code. It has been a tough project, but I am super proud and impressed with the hard work that all of my students have done!  They have struggled with some of the concepts, but are continuing to work and make progress!!!

With our day off added back in  due to the snow days this winter, we took a day off from coding to practice the Engineering Design Process by building bridges in class.  I had so much fun watching the students create, problem-solve and collaborate to build a bridge strong enough to hold a bucket of blocks.  I have included some of the pictures from that day as well. 

As always, please let me know what you have for questions!  As we work through some of these projects, you may hear your student voice some frustration about the process.  I have been reminding everyone that sometimes the most meaningful lessons we learn is when we fail, and that learning how to fail and try again, is the best lesson of all!

March-ing on towards spring with Apps!

It has again been busy these past few weeks, and I realized that I had not posted an update on our 6th Grade Digital Literacy classes in more than a month!  While I am not sure how that much time passed, there are many things to share with everyone!

Now that we are past our Algorithm work, we have been exploring MIT App Inventor through tutorials that we have been working on in our flexible classroom groups.  If you are interested in looking at the platform that your students are working in, the link for MIT App Inventor is here.  The students have been very involved in creating an app that you can doodle with, an app that you can program to talk to you, and another simple game app that involves a ball bouncing around the screen.  

I think that your student will tell you that getting to this point has been challenging.  Between logging into two different sites at once, connecting tablets through a code, and downloading a companion app on our Chromebooks, there has been more than enough opportunities for trouble-shooting and problem-solving with technology!  I appreciate the patience that the students have showed, and how they have been working together to help each other out. 

This week, we will be starting to build a Germ Fighter app using our PLTW instructions.  The students will have parts of the app already built for them, and they will work together to create the rest of the app during class.  For this lesson, students will be able to work at their own pace to complete the project. If your student needs any additional help from me, I am more than happy to work out a time after school, during Norski Time, or even during lunch/recess to help.  Sometimes, a little one-on-one time can help make the projects go better during class.

As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.  I am here to help in any way that I can!