Information Overloaded

The weather is absolutely beautiful here today. And I am “one with the high pressure system”. But that is not why I am writing today.

I am absolutely giddy about geocaching and wish to tell you about our PD session. Geocaching involves taking a GPS system and locating caches, or hidden treasures, using latitude and longitude coordinates.

We had the opportunity last week to present geocaching to the Vice Principals in our District. I have one word to describe the experience……fun, fun, fun!

We hid 4 caches in Oromocto. VP’s were placed in groups of four and given 2 gps units per group. We programmed the gps’s with the waypoints and away they went.

We wished to model a math lesson, so we hid fraction playing cards in each of the caches. The winner had to return back with all of their cards and show us that they understood equivalent fractions by matching the pairs.

Here is one of the VP’s after her first find:

Here’s what I learned:

• Some VP’s are competitive
• Geocaching is a great way to build teamwork
• People love “doing” things (adults are no exception)
• You could apply geocaching to any subject….hide Math questions in caches, assemble story starters for Language Arts… you could geocache in Science by placing caches beside areas in nature that you want them to notice….oh the endless possibilities.

So, I was all fired up from the PD session and went home afterward bound to find a cache by my house. [This is where the demented comes in.] So I found one that was close and away I went.

Now, if you have been reading my blog, you will remember that we had record snowfalls this winter. Well, that snow is still on the ground, especially in the woods. And there are underground rivers under that melting snow too!

Needless to say, after my experience, I have decided to forgo geocaching expeditions in the woods until either a) the snow is melted or b) I buy a pair of hip waders. I sank in the snow up to my waist and discovered an underground river when I reached the bottom. :-). But I did find that cache!

We have had a few District Wide PD days this week where the High School Science and Social Studies teachers came in for training on wikis, podcasting, digital storytelling, advanced searches, screencasting and Smart Board. This was an excellent day and a great opportunity for teachers to sit down and experiment with some of technologies they are able to use with their students. Exciting!

On the second day, we had the teachers from our 1:1 notebook school in to do training on advanced searching with Ebsco and E-Library, wikis and digital stories. And I want to talk about my two favorite parts of the day.

Favorite Part of the Day #1:

During the digital storytelling session, I gave the teachers 6 pictures and they were to create their own original story from the pictures. Everybody had the same photos, but what was amazing was the different story lines that emerged from those 6 pictures. We played some of the stories at the end. We had a great time! Teacher PD needs to be engaging, hands-on, and fun in order for it to be effective.

Favorite Part of the Day #2:

After the sessions were over, a teacher showed me an excellent webquest that she developed. She told me it was fairly easy to do because she had previously taught that unit and was familiar with the content. That got me to thinking….when teachers are very familiar with the content, the tech learning curve is not so steep. What a great tip she has given me for helping other teachers who express anxiety over integrating technology into their lessons.

This is true for students and technology as well. A month ago, I brought down some students to do screencasting. They had just received their laptop a month before. We were working on mental math strategies that they were not comfortable with on two brand-new programs. So, I had set them up to fail before we even began……new format [screencasting] to showcase their work, two new programs to build the work [Smart recorder and Moviemaker] and a new strategy in Math……not a good idea!

I guess what I learned from my PD sessions is that in order to learn, people need to be engaged…it needs to be fun….Also, in order to learn, people need to build on what they know. You have to have some familiar ground when you start.

Thanks Cheryl. I had a great revelation from our webquest talk!