participate | Hour of Code

We are challenging CBE schools to participate in the Hour of Code to celebrate Computer Science Week December 7 – 13. This challenge asks students to spend one hour over the course of the week learning how to code. It is for all students, of all ages, in any discipline. Computer programming and coding is becoming an increasingly important skill for learners and job seekers to know.

If you accept the challenge, here’s how to do it:

step 1 | sign up

Visit the website https://hourofcode.com/ca to sign up your school.

step 2 | plan logistics

First, watch this “How To Run an Hour of Code” video. This activity can be done as a whole school, in select classrooms, or by select students. Decide if you want this to be a whole-school event, or if it will take place in certain classrooms or clubs.

step 3 | plan technology

Ensure that all students participating have a way to access technology (a tablet, computer, or other mobile device will work) for one hour a week to participate in the Hour of Code. You can even participate without access to technology with activities teaching the basics of computer science without the use of any technology.

step 4 | prepare your educators

It’s okay if you and your students are brand new to coding. The Hour of Code uses tutorials that students can progress through at their own pace. The tutorials use various different programming languages to take students through the process of creating code. It is recommended that teachers take the time beforehand to go through the tutorial they select for their students so they can help troubleshoot during the event. Another helpful resource is this Slideshow sharing best practices from educators.

step 5 | promote

Get kids, parents, and community excited about the Hour of Code! Send e-mails to parents! Put up posters around the school! Show inspirational videos!

step 6 | celebrate

Celebrate your students’ accomplishment by giving them a sticker, certificate, or by simply acknowledging their hard work. Share their Hour of Code throughout the world with the hashtag #hourofcode or throughout the CBE with the hashtag #cbehourofcode (making sure you are in accordance with the CBE’s Web 2.0 guidelines). Make this learning visible!

Support is available to help you and your school take on this challenge.

1.     The Hour of Code website includes everything you need to get started.

2.     CBE’s Learning will be offering a webinar to help you get ready, outline resources available to you, and answer your questions on Thursday, November 19^th from 4 – 5pm. Please sign up for this webinar through EAMS.

3.     CBE’s Learning specialists are available to help you troubleshoot any issues you run into during the week of December 7 – 11^th. Please contact them at:

Matt Armstrong, mgarmstrong@cbe.ab.ca
Tracy Dalton, tadalton@cbe.ab.ca
Erin Quinn, elquinn@cbe.ab.ca
Tracy Rand, tmrand@cbe.ab.ca
Christos Sagriotis, chsagriotis@cbe.ab.ca

Maker Meetup

The Teacher Exploration Lab in the Future of Learning Lab at the Education Centre is a place where teachers and students can explore innovative approaches to teaching and learning. This space serves as a Makerspace where we can explore concepts such as maker education and design thinking. Learning Specialists will be hosting a Maker Meetup in this space for teachers and instructional leaders to come together to explore these pedagogies and tools, share ideas, and connect with each other.

what | Maker Meetup

who | CBE teachers and instructional leaders. The maker education approach to learning is applicable to all grade levels and subjects.

where | The Future of Learning Lab in the Carl Safran Building at the Education Centre (1221-8th Street, SW)

when | Thursday, November 26th, any time between 4 – 6pm

details | 

• This is a drop-in event. Come whenever works for you (between 4 and 6pm). Please check in at the information desk when you arrive.
• bring | Lesson ideas to share, tools & equipment to showcase, a problem of practice to puzzle through, etc. The more you bring to share the more everyone will get out of this event! But don’t worry if you are brand new to this – this event is for you too!
• Please sign up using EAMS.

 We hope to see you there!

Make It!!!

Did you hear about Ahmed Mohamed, the boy who brought a clock he built himself to school and was arrested because they thought it was a bomb?

Ahmed Mohamed. In a NASA shirt.

Ahmed's clock

We stand with Ahmed! We believe in every child's right to create, to make, and to share.

Speaking of sharing, a great opportunity is coming up at the Calgary Public Library.

Invite your students (and come yourself!) to make some robotics and then take them apart! Sounds like something Ahmed would love.

invite | Sylvia Libow Martinez at the Calgary Mini Maker Faire

Through our district strategy of personalization, learning is transformative, engaging, and active. One approach to teaching and learning is called “maker education,” where students are using tools, technologies, and materials to build to learn, rather than learn to build. Many Calgary Board of Education teachers have been exploring how these concepts open up opportunities for students to build competencies and curricular understandings.

In keeping with this strategy, the Calgary Board of Education wishes to give teachers and school staff an opportunity to see a keynote speech by Sylvia Libow Martinez at the Calgary Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, September 12 at 11am. Sylvia Libow Martinez, along with Gary Stager, is the co-author of the book Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. This accessible and practical book explores the maker movement and how it might be embraced in the classroom. It explores the idea that when new technologies and old, hands-on traditions are combined, a powerful approach to learning can emerge. This engaged, authentic way of setting and solving problems aligns very closely with our district strategy of personalization and the Ministerial Order on Student Learning.

We would like to offer all CBE staff the opportunity to attend Sylvia Libow Martinez’s keynote, as well as take in the rest of Maker Faire, for a special subsidized rate. Along with Sylvia Libow Martinez’s keynote presentation, there will be an Education Stage with many teachers and educators (many of whom teach in the CBE) sharing how making has transformed learning in their classrooms. Please distribute this invitation to all staff you feel would be interested.

When: Saturday, September 12^th & Sunday, September 13^th (Sylvia Libow Martinez’s keynote is Saturday, September 12^th at 11:00am in the Dome Theatre) from 10:00AM to 5:00PM.

Where: Telus Spark

What: Maker Faire is billed as “the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth.” Calgary’s mini Maker Faire showcases the creativity of artists and engineers and everyone in between.

Cost: The cost for CBE staff is $20 plus service fees, which is a $35 savings. This pass will let you into Sylvia Libow Martinez’s keynote presentation, as well as get you a weekend pass into Maker Faire.

How: Please visit http://www.makerfaireyyc.ca/educator/ to order tickets. Please ensure you use your CBE e-mail address when ordering.

For questions about this opportunity, please contact:

Erin Quinn, Specialist, elquinn@cbe.ab.ca or

Tracy Dalton, Specialist, tadalton@cbe.ab.ca

Sincerely,

Jeannie Everett

Superintendent, Learning

Ed Tech Updates - June 2015

Get Ready for Fall - Digital Citizenship Planning

To support you in the process of creating your school's digital citizenship plan, we have developed a 4-step process. Schools will complete a digital citizenship plan by Oct 31 of each school year. School DC plans are to be revised annually in the DC section of the Technology Footprint and reviewed throughout the year.

Content Filtering Action Site

The CBE has launched the Content Filtering Action Site, which allows users to quickly and easily request a URL reclassification, a school filtering level change, or access further supports. To access the site while in a school, go to contentfiltering.cbe.ab.ca or access it through the Technology Footprint.

Dragon Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking

As of September 2015 Dragon will no longer be offered as a system license. Licenses can still be purchased at a school level. Communication regarding this has been sent to Principals.

SMART Notebook Software

SMART Notebook 11.4 is the system-supported software for use with all SMART boards, including the new SMART 6065 flat panel board. Notebook 11.4 also remains available for home use. For home use installation information please go to http://www.cbe.ab.ca/programs/technology-for-learning/Pages/default.aspx

One license of SMART Notebook 2015 comes with each SMART 6065 board, which gives the school the option to install the software on 4 devices. Schools may use Notebook 2015 if they wish to investigate and evaluate its features and value. Client Technology Services and Learning Innovation will work alongside schools to gather Notebook 2015 feedback.

Adobe Software

The CBE has now signed the agreement with the province, for the next three years, which gives access to the entire Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and Elements versions of the software for all schools and Service Units across the system, as well as a teacher home use agreement. The student home use piece is still in negotiations.

The bundles of Adobe software will be available in the third week of September.  CBE has received the license keys and the Client Technology Services Team is now in the process of building and testing the software packages that will be needed to do the installations at schools. This is a necessary first step to ensure that the software will be usable within our network. Once the installation packages are ready, school based technology services specialists will be able to guide schools on where to find them, the choices available, and how to deploy them effectively.

The current Digital School Collection (Elements) and Adobe CS6 licenses will no longer work after July 2015, and these installations will be automatically removed.  Schools should plan for access to begin deploying the new Creative Cloud version of the software in late September, 2015.

Information  about where and how teachers can access the home use agreement for the new contract is not yet available. As soon as it is available, it will be communicated to the system.

Brightspace by D2L

In 2015-16 Brightspace will be open for business starting August 10!  This will be exciting news for our modified calendar colleagues.

Don’t forget to end-date or inactive your courses before you go home for Summer. You can find out more about how to inactivate courses in our Blog. http://www.cbeilc.info/D2L-support/course-management-inactivate-shells/

Read more about what we are working on for next year, including professional learning for August. http://www.cbeilc.info/D2L/?p=757

Questions about D2L? Email tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

Future of Learning Classroom (Education Centre)

The Future of Learning Lab is a room in the Education Centre that houses many innovative technologies and teaching tools. School staffs can book this space to engage in professional learning in the areas of technology, maker education, design thinking, CTF, or any other topic that might benefit from a collaborative, innovative space. Teachers may also arrange to bring students to the Future of Learning Lab for field trips. Teachers and students can explore everything from 3D printing to robotics to low tech tinkering. Please contact Erin Quinn at elquinn@cbe.ab.ca to discuss booking.

last call | Design the Shift

Today is the last day to apply for our summer learning institute called Design the Shift. You can find out more information in previous blog posts, here and here. Please send this blog post to colleagues who you think may be interested - we have a few spots left!

Please contact Erin Quinn at elquinn@cbe.ab.ca if you have questions.

updates | Design the Shift

The Design Team for Design the Shift 2015 has recently met and worked out a few details around planning for Design the Shift. If you signed up for the August 10 & 11th session, we will be working with you to determine a date for our third session. Due to this, this tentative schedule may be rejigged a bit to enable you to go to your schools on August 12 with a plan of action.

Here’s a tentative description of the three days. Keep in mind that the design process is responsive so this is certainly not set in stone!

DAY 1: Design Immersion Day

The purpose of this day will be to immerse you in the design thinking process. In doing so, you will identify a problem of practice that you wish to solve through your task design. In addition, you will have gotten to know your fellow participants and established a culture of creative trust. By the end of this day, you will have an idea of a problem of practice you will solve through your task design.

DAY 2: Inspiration Day

The purpose of this day is to help you think outside the box in designing your learning experience. This day is intentionally designed to inspire creative thinking and generate ideas.

We will be taking some field trips during Day 2 to let you experience learning outside of the four walls of the classroom and gather inspiration for your task design.

By the end of this day, you will have an idea for the learning experience you will design for your students.

DAY 3: Prototyping Day

The purpose of this day will be to use all the inspiration and ideas you gathered to work out a prototype of the task you will engage your students in. By the end of this day, you will have a project plan that you will have received feedback from your colleagues about. You will feel confident in bringing this plan back to your school to try it out with your students.

Some information about support throughout the school year:

To support this work, some resources will be required to bring your idea to fruition. Support will be provided to you to do this. Though we aren’t exactly certain as to the exact nature of this support, this support could come in the form of sub release time for you to collaborate with others, or supplies for your students to use in the task. More details about this will be solidified once registration is closed. 

Registration Deadline

The deadline to sign up is Friday, June 19th. The link to sign up is here.

Questions?

Please contact Erin Quinn at elquinn@cbe.ab.ca or Tracy Dalton at tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

We are so excited about August!

invite | Design the Shift 2.0

In Summer 2014 60+ teachers came together around the challenge: How might we use instructional design to create effective, engaging and multi-disciplinary learning opportunities for our students? Participants prototyped their projects with their students over the course of the 2014-15 school year.  You can find out more about the summer institute through this Twitter story, or by reading the teachers’ stories in our blog.

This Summer (2015) we invite you to join your colleagues in a unique professional learning experience which nurtures professional growth and enhances your creative confidence to develop and enact engaging and meaningful learning tasks. We invite teachers from all disciplines to collaborate in an effort to bring new opportunities, experiences and inspiration to students.

Details

We are offering two opportunities this summer so as to include our modified calendar teachers. Teachers may choose to attend one or the other, but attendance at one full institute is expected. We need a minimum of 10 teachers for each offering.

August 10 & 11 (Modified teachers return to work August 12)

(We will work collaboratively with this group to find a common date for a third meeting)

9:00am – 4:00pm

Education Centre

August 24, 25, 26 (Traditional teachers return to work August 27)

9:00am – 4:00pm

Education Centre

Outcomes

Each participant will:

• create a multi-disciplinary learning opportunity which invites students into a relevant and meaningful experientially focused learning task which brings fine or practical arts together with academics. Ideally this work will be taken up as part of a team.
• prototype their design with their students in the 2015-16 school year.
• document student voice in making their learning visible through documentation, reflection, sharing and engagement in the design process.
• collaborate with the Summer Institute team in gathering data through surveys, interviews and other means to provide feedback and information about the outcomes of this initiative.

Supports:

Support will be provided by:

• External Expertise and Community Partnerships
• Online and Face to Face environments to connect with your Professional Learning Networks (PLNs)
• System Facilitators for ongoing work
• Release time during the school year for collaborative meetings
• Other supports for project implementation

We hope you will join us in August.  Please let us know by filling out this form. And please pass on this information to others who you think might be interested.

If you have questions, please contact Erin Quinn elquinn@cbe.ab.ca or Tracy Dalton tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

design thinking summer institute - MidSun School

Using Minecraft to Demonstrate Learning
Kaushik Tailor

Students at MidSun school had the opportunity to incorporate MineCraft in a meaningful interdisciplinary activity.  Our school Design program had purchased MineCraft Edu early last year, and the summer institute gave me the opportunity to mobilize the tasks in the company of my other colleagues.

In the project, students were provided a scenario where our school had won a 15 million dollar grant, and were asked to Design and create a museum that would fit in the back of the school.  The design constraints were the time they had to complete the task, having to create communication structures between the team members, the cost constraint, and the fact that the artifacts had to accurately connect in with their current learning.

The students were excited  to be working with the Minecraft Museum module in my class. It was clear that this made teaching and learning come alive for them.  To explain, were creating 3D functional hydraulic lifts from their learnings in Science Class, walking through 3D Water cycles, illustrating the isolationist policy of Japan from the Social Studies unit, and having fun demonstrating comma splices. Here are examples of some artifacts:

I believe this project sparked discussions in my school and in our school community of practices. Teachers in my school as well as other schools in our community of practice were impressed that students could be engaged with MineCraft and still yield high quality artifacts. What I found really impressive was this was a great hook for both high and low students. It was impressive  to see students that were typically disengaged from traditional classes to be looking at online textbooks to identify and research potential museum artifacts. Many  were accelerating their learning by researching through digital texts to create artifcats.  Students were also coaching one another on the validity/accuracy of the artifacts, and supporting one another. One student in particular had indicated that he had the wrong idea of what a certain concept was (Aquaducts), and he believes his understanding would not have been corrected had it not been for this project.

I believe it was clear that that both my students and I were actively involved in the design cycle. The students had a variety of design and logistical constraints that they had to attend to. As this was a new experience for both the students and the teacher, we had to collaboratively reflect on our work and make necessary adjustments as needed.

Students were sampled and asked to comment on the experience of the task. Students reported that the MineCraft project allowed them to synthesize the learning from the learning in the other classes in a “fun new way” that allowed them to demonstrate learning in a “more manageable medium”.  Other students also noted that by being able to create “things from other subjects” helped them connect understand by being able to “tie together” and “compare” what they “actually learned’.  One student reported that the MineCraft museum helped the student see artifacts from his other subjects  “in a 3D or virtual way”  and helped him see concepts that he “may not have seen”.  I believe this was a good representation of the experiences from the other subjects.  Ultimately, it was clear that students could still have fun working with MineCraft and still have a meaning interdisciplinary opportunity.

Students had to engage in considerations for the Design Studies Occupational Area and had to articulate the CTF outcomes as they collaborative designed, created, and adjusted their museum to meet the needs of the task.

Career Cruising

offer | webinar

On May 20, join a CBE High School Guidance Counsellor, a CBE Career Practitioner and the experts from Career Cruising in an informational webinar.  

• Learn more about how to access Career Cruising and use it to effectively set learning expectations and monitor student progress.  
• Find out more about  how to use the course planner with the CBE common course guide as your master course schedule. 

When: May 20, 4:00 - 5:15

Where: Webinar 

(we will use Blackboard Collaborate - you will recieve the link 48 hours before the session)

Who: Guidance Counsellors, CALM teachers, Career Practitioners, anyone else looking for a platform for career development conversations
 Register for this event using this link: 

Career Cruising is a web-based career exploration and planning tool that students may use to explore career and education options and create a comprehensive career portfolio. It provides teachers, counsellors, career practitioners and other significant adults with a framework for talking to students about their interests, passions and next steps in planning for success.

2014-15 Updates

The Calgary Board of Education is in year 3 of a 5 year system license for Career Cruising.  This means all CBE students grades 9-12 have access to Career Cruising's career planning tools to inform their decision-making and planning for their future. Career Cruising is also used extensively in CALM, Off-Campus and other learning environments in CBE.

Students and teachers can use the CBE System Login page, located here, to login to Career Cruising.  Instructions are included on the login page.

We are currently updating the course information in Career Cruising so it matches the detailed CBE Common Course Guide. You can find out more about the Common Course Guide on the High School page on the CBE website. This provides all students in CBE with the same information about learning pathways available across the jurisdiction. Schools will need to choose to have this common master course “pushed” into their Career Cruising (CC) environment.  We know some schools have done extensive work to customize the CC environment for teaching and timetabling purposes and don’t want to overwrite this hard work. We will work directly with key contacts in schools to determine the best path for each school.

Career Cruising provides extensive professional learning opportunities, both live webinars and self-paced learning modules. Learning Innovation is also prepared to offer professional learning based on the expressed needs of our schools.

Career Cruising Learning Opportunities can be found here: http://public.careercruising.com/us/en/training/webinars/

 If you have questions about Career Cruising, please contact Tracy Dalton, tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

design thinking summer institute - Ernest Manning HS

High School Football Concussion Study - 2014 Impact Awareness Program (IAP)
Wayde Byemoen

Monitor and collect data on every head impact within our high school football program (all practices and games) at Ernest manning High School.  This program is referred to as the 2014 Impact Awareness Program (IAP).

This project has had a huge impact on both the practical and theoretical aspects of my teaching practice. It has allowed me and the students to bring meaningful, real world data and information from the field into the classroom.  The 2014 IAP has involved and engaged over 75 sports medicine students and 100 football players during the first semester alone. Additionally, it has provided a framework of understanding about similar contact sports and head injuries that I/we discuss during the second semester.  

Work on this project reinforced my belief in the value of cross-disciplinary work for both students and staff.  Not only were students able to bring and represent their experiences and learning from this program into other core courses they taking but the program also served to build personal and professional connections between teaching staff centered around the learning and growth of our students.   

This project from a student perspective has yielded more engagement on a per student basis than any other single CTS project that I am aware of.  This project directly impacts the learning of several hundred students on a variety of levels.  As a result, engagement and enrollment within the Sports Medicine program here at Ernest Manning HS are at all times highs.    

design thinking summer institute - EP Scarlett HS - AP Biology

DIY Biology
Natalie McLeod and Mike McKillop


Our original idea centered around DIY biology and synthetic biology. Similar to the maker space that we visited, there are similar spaces in some cities focused on synthetic biology. We wanted the students to research the ideas around synthetic biology and DIY biology and then write their own proposals. 

The project allowed teachers to let the students explore a very interesting but diverse topic on their own and allow them to focus on their interest. Teachers are unable to keep up with all the rapid developments in field of synthetic biology and this project allowed the students do some of the legwork. We learned a lot from their projects.

For the students, the projects allowed them to develop a number of skills and dispositions that they will be able to further develop in their academic careers. Their understanding of synthetic biology was vastly improved – the general idea of it but for some groups also to a very high level of technical expertise. They saw opportunities for future research as well.  

Some of the most highlighted student findings were:

·        Time management – a project spread out over 4 months and 2 semesters challenged them but also provided opportunities. They really appreciated the small deadlines along the way

·        How difficult creative can be. For many, coming up with initial topic was tough.

·        Learning how to be critical of online materials. Most eventually found academic journals and resources to be most valuable

·        Teamwork

·        Many used Google docs for the first time and found it very powerful

·        Using APA referencing style. Most hated it at first but found it easy to work with after the initial learning curve. They saw the value in it.

·        Having to pitch their project in 5 minutes. Distilling 4 months of work into 5 minutes was challenging but useful. They enjoyed the business aspect of the project as they were competing for funding.

The project stimulated a number of conversations ranging from the nature of scientific inquiry and original research to ethics and environmental issues. These conversations not only occurred in class but also between students as they were working on their projects.

A few weeks after the completion of this project, we observed an unexpected positive outcome of this type of inquiry. During a field study, students were required to develop their own thesis for a snow ecology study and then investigate it with very little preamble. This year, students seemed more at ease with this process than in previous years. 

Having students apply the design process to a project in synthetic biology really had them thinking about the nature of science. It was no longer about the content, the students had to be creative and problem solve using their own knowledge and then search for reputable sources to help them further develop their ideas. Working in teams, they not only worked through technical aspects of synthetic biology but also explored how it could be used to solve environmental or health issues. Topics for the projects ranged from estrogen biosensors, biofuels and disease detection to bioremediation and the breakdown of plastics in the environment.

Students had the time to think deeply about a topic, develop their ideas and learn from their failures. Many for the first time, had to access scientific journals and evaluate current research in a field that they were learning about.