NOW Classrooms, Grades K-2. Meg Ormiston
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of each chapter so you can use this book with your team for professional development.
Chapter 1, “Learning Technology Operations and Concepts,” is unique to this book and helps you navigate the addition of digital devices and technology to your classroom. K–2 students are just starting out in technology and school, and you should teach them a few lessons before you dive deep into technology projects so that they understand the functionality of the technology they use. We call these technology fundamentals technology literacy. Additionally, we cover some essential classroom learning management system (LMS) basics to help students understand how to log in and upload content to personal and shared folders.
Chapter 2, “Embracing Creativity,” has students work with digital images, capture video, and record audio files as they collaborate on projects. You may or may not enjoy the selfie culture, but K–2 students love taking pictures of themselves, and of course, they love sharing. We embed these 21st century skills into the lessons in this chapter.
Chapter 3, “Communicating and Collaborating,” emphasizes communication and collaboration as critical skills for our students. Students will learn 21st century skills that include how to use video to flip learning, how to share appropriately on social media, and how to use live communication tools to connect to local and global audiences.
Chapter 4, “Conducting Research and Curating Information,” presents research and information fluency as critical skills for digital learners. Students will learn how to locate information online and check the information for accuracy. Even our youngest learners need these foundational skills.
Chapter 5, “Thinking Critically to Solve Problems,” focuses on critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making with regard to selecting and using digital tools. It includes developing students’ voice and choice in selecting digital tools to solve problems.
Chapter 6, “Being Responsible Digital Citizens,” covers digital citizenship. Teachers always try to protect students physically and emotionally; now this extends to helping students stay safe online. The lessons in this chapter focus on how teachers can help young students have success learning online and stay safe in a digital world. Students will understand why online safety is important and engage in age-appropriate lessons about online stranger danger, cyberbullying, protection of personal information, and intellectual property.
Chapter 7, “Expanding Technology and Coding Concepts,” helps you foster 21st century college and career readiness in your students by supporting your youngest learners as they begin understanding the computational thinking concepts that drive how the digital world functions. These lessons introduce students to the basics of computer coding and the language behind their favorite games.
In the appendix, we include an alphabetical list of technology terms and resources. This includes a comprehensive list of apps, websites, and technology tools referenced in this book along with a description of each resource.
Building Background: Know Before You Go
Readers should be aware of a few additional concepts regarding this content before they begin engaging with the lessons and chapters that follow. We want to briefly mention suggestions for the sequence in which readers use the lessons in the book, discuss the concept of learning management systems and common education suites like G Suite for Education that are a critical part of this book’s lessons, emphasize the importance of following policies regarding student privacy and Internet use, and discuss how assessment connects with this content.
Sequence of Use
Because every school in every district finds itself in a different place with technology integration, we start this practical book with suggestions for setting up for success. We know some schools ensure they set up devices and install apps before distributing them to classrooms, but we know not every school makes this the case. Chapter 1 is especially for you if your school leaves technology management up to you.
Although we organized this book in an optimal way, we invite you to move among the lessons in whatever sequence you like. Lessons range in difficulty so that you may meet your students at their level. Some second graders will need the very basic lessons, and some kindergarteners will be ready for the advanced lessons. You know your students best, so use our NOW lesson format to fit their needs.
Each of these lessons requires some form of an app or a technology platform to accomplish a learning goal. We offer a variety of suggestions you can deploy with each lesson, but do not limit yourself or your students to our examples. Apps change. They disappear entirely. The best app for a job when we wrote this book may not remain the best one for the job when you read this book. Because of this, we designed each lesson to have adaptability so you can use it with whatever tool best suits your classroom. We don’t teach the app; we teach the classroom process.
Learning Management Systems and Education Suites
Just because learning sometimes looks messy, it doesn’t mean it lacks structure. Imagine a whole new world without a stack of papers to grade in which the assignments students submit are all organized and recorded in digital folders. Access to technology allows teachers to eliminate the stack of papers and create digital learning experiences that are meaningful and even more powerful to both students and teachers than paper. Schools in the 21st century use many different software programs and web-based applications, or learning management systems to stay organized. Most LMSs have some free features and premium school or district solutions, but regardless of the platform, they operate best when everyone uses the same system so students and parents don’t need to learn a different LMS for every class. These systems allow teachers to message students, assign and collect documents, report student progress, and deliver elearning content. Throughout the book, you will notice we provide steps for how you can give digital files to students and then how students return the digital files to you through the classroom LMS.
Common LMSs include the following, but you can find hundreds of others on the market.
• Schoology (www.schoology.com)
• Showbie (www.showbie.com)
• Seesaw (https://web.seesaw.me)
• Canvas (www.canvaslms.com/k-12)
• Edmodo (www.edmodo.com)
• Otus (http://otus.com)
• PowerSchool Learning (www.powerschool.com/solutions/lms)
• Blackboard (www.blackboard.com)
• Moodle (https://moodle.org)
• D2L (www.d2l.com)
One option that needs a little more explanation is Google Classroom (https://classroom.google.com). Google Classroom, which is free to use, is a cross between a document management system and a learning management system. It does not contain all the features of an LMS, but it is a great way to get started with managing