Author: carlyheemskerk Page 4 of 6

Hey Cloggers and Carly’s Crew,

We’re back with another EdTech Inquiry blog post and if you look at the past two posts, I’m sure you can guess what we’re discussing this week. That’s right, high school applications.

This is a bit more difficult of a topic because they aren’t a lot of online applications that teach high schoolers what they need to learn. At this point in their life, CoolMathGames.com isn’t all that cool anymore… (or maybe it is, who knows honestly?) But we’ve taken to the internet to research some good ones that will help high school students in one way or another.

So let’s get into it!

#1: Google

No, we’re not just talking about a Google search menu… Google has a variety of applications included in an account that can be extremely useful for students. Some of these include Google Drive, Docs, Slides, Sites, and Classroom. Each of these apps gives students the ability to use a different platform but all on one account (easy organization!) Google also gives students the ability to share their work with other Google users; this means that if students are working on a group assignment, they will be able to work collaboratively whether they are together or not. Finally, within the Classroom app, teachers can set it up so that students can even submit their work online. Online homework means that there’s no ability for their “dog to eat their homework” #Score for teachers!

#2: Remind

This application does exactly what its name says: reminds. It allows teachers to give reminders for certain assignments and homework all through technology – this means no paper notices being sent home that get lost… It also offers group chats which can be really helpful for group projects/student questions. This aspect also takes mandatory social media out of the picture (for those who wish to stay offline).

#3: Seesaw

This application is an online portfolio. It allows parents to see student work and check in to see what students are working on. Students can also choose what they wish to post which ensures that student privacy remains intact. This is a great app for giving parents a chance to see what their child is working on which still remains respectful of students’ wishes.

Although these applications aren’t necessarily going to teach much of the curriculum, they will make a student’s learning experience easier and more accessible.

Check in next week to see our concluding thoughts on this entire inquiry. It’s gonna be a longer one, but you won’t want to miss it.

Clogging off for now,

Carly and COordt 🙂

Sweet Potato Treats

by carlyheemskerk

On March 10, 2020

In Free Inquiry

Hi again Carly’s Crew!

Everyone knows that sweet potatoes are sweet 😉 But did you ever think about sweet potatoes in brownies? Me neither! Nonetheless, I tried it out…

Step 1: Gather ingredients and preheat over to 350.

Step 2: Measure all ingredients into a food processor (blender).

Step 3: Mix until it is well combined.

Step 4: Transfer into a greased baking dish and spread evenly.

Step 5: Bake for 12 minutes and enjoy!

Difficulty level: 5/10

The batter was thick and messy which made for extra clean-up but other than that they were easy peasy lemon squeaky. Before I did this inquiry I never had used a food processor for mixing but it is much more efficient and easier to clean than the Mix Master that I am used to mixing with. Pro tip: After you empty the contents from the blender, fill it up with a few inches of warm water and add a drop of soap. Turn it on to medium power and it will wash the majority of the blender for you! Now all you have to do is rinse!

Deliciousness level: 7/10

These were awesome! You couldn’t even tell that they were made with sweet potato, they just tasted like really rich dark chocolate brownies. I think it would be a delicious treat to have with vanilla ice cream! I ended up cutting them into pretty big squares but next time I would cut them into smaller bite sized pieces.

So there you have it! These definitely are not the healthiest thing in the world but everyone deserves a treat once in a while, and these brownies are a much better choice than most other baked goods.

See you next week!

The Start of Something New!

by carlyheemskerk

On March 5, 2020

In Music

Hi Carly’s Crew!

Welcome back to my piano journey. I’m currently working on learning how to play A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. I noticed that there are a lot of similarities between this song and my previous song but there are some new things that have been causing me some trouble.

For now, I am just focussing on using my right hand. I have learned about a minute of my song with the right hand so far but I am feeling super confident because the chorus is long and it repeats! The chorus is much faster than I have ever played before. It was tricky the first couple of times but I have been practicing it slowed down which has really been helping. I learned that you can use settings on the Youtube video to slow it down which also helps me practice.

Before I began learning my right hand I listened to the whole song and watched the video with the notes to see what I was getting in to. The left hand is much more active in this song so I know that is something that will be a huge challenge for me. To help me succeed I want to finish the rest of the song with my right hand pretty quickly so I have extra time to practice using both hands together.

The song has a variety of dynamics that I will need to practice as well. I have been trying to learn the dynamics as I work towards learning the notes because I think it will be easier rather than learning the whole song and then coming back to learn the dynamics after the fact.

I think I am definitely on the right track to being successful by the end of semester. Talk to you in a couple weeks so you can hear more about my musical adventure:)

Back in the classroom!

by carlyheemskerk

On March 3, 2020

In EdTech

Hey hey Carly’s Crew!

This my cat Jafar taking a nap. He inspired my provocation!

It has been a hot minute but we were finally back in the regular classroom today to learn more about educational technology. We debriefed about our experience at in Rebecca’s inquiry based classroom. Next, we learned how to screen record using Screencastify! I chose to wonder about if cats can have dreams and what they dream about. My cat, Jafar, always flinches in his sleep so I am very curious as to if he is dreaming or if it is just natural. It was super easy to create the screen recording of my wonder but I had some struggles downloading it to my computer. I was even able to voice record…just like a vlog! I think this program will be very useful in the future.

Check it out!! Does it make you wonder about what is going on in the cats head? This is something I would use a provocation in a primary classroom if we were doing an inquiry to cats and dreams.

We were asked to create an inquiry that could be used in a K-5 classroom and I think this inquiry about cats and dreaming would be great in a Kindergarten classroom! I would start by showing them this Giphy and asking them the three questions that Rebecca told us to ask:

What do you see?
What do you know?
What do you wonder?

From there, I would be able to create a unit plan. One idea that I had would be to get students to create drawings of what they think the cat is dreaming about. The students would then get to share their various ideas with the class. From there, we would watch videos and read books about cats (or other animals) and dive into their dreams. I don’t think we will find a black and white answer about what animals dream about but this would be a great opportunity to allow students some creative freedom! Students could go home and take videos or pictures of their pets sleeping and create dream bubbles for them. I would encourage my students to share WHY they thought their pet was dreaming of that. I would also ask students what clues did your pet give you that they were dreaming?

Continuing on with the topic of vlogging, we downloaded Audacity and learned about the art of podcasting. Personally, I don’t enjoy listening to recordings of my voice so I don’t think I’ll ever be a famous podcaster! I still tried out recording my voice and making some edits. The program was a little bit hard to navigate at first but once I got the hang of it I was able to create a pretty good recording. It was hard to record high quality audio when I’m in a room with 30 other students that are talking. On top of that, I was only using my laptop microphone so it can’t compare to a high quality snowball microphone. Let’s just say I think I will stick to blogging 😉

See you next week!

Carly 🙂

My version of overnight oats

by carlyheemskerk

On March 3, 2020

In Free Inquiry

Hey Carly’s Crew!

This week I decided to see what all the buzz is around overnight oats. When you search overnight oats on Pinterest or Google it can be overwhelming at first! There are tons of recipes with all types of ingredients. I attempted a very basic recipe just to get the hang of it. Here are my ingredients:

I chose this recipe from Minimalist Baker. Here is the picture from the website:

Jar of Peanut Butter Overnight Oats for a delicious vegan breakfast

And here is the picture of my final product:

Definitely not as aesthetically pleasing to look at… but they were yummy, filling and quick to make!

Difficulty level : 4/10

This recipe took me about 10 minutes to chef up. The only downside is that you do need to be prepared and make them the night before, you can’t just wake up and make them. The ingredients were simple and there was no mess because it was all in my mason jar. I ate it at home, but it would be a great on-the-run breakfast!

Deliciousness level: 8/10

Yum! I think that this is my new favourite breakfast 🙂 As you already know, I’m a peanut butter lover so this recipe was right up my alley! I know many people complain that oats like this have a weird texture because they are cold. Personally, I love the texture! There will definitely be more adventurous overnight oats in my future; I’m excited to try out some different recipes!

Here are the next overnight oats I plan to try:

Brown Sugar Pear Steel-Cut Oats

See you next week for some healthy brownies!

Carly 🙂

Best Applications for Middle School Students!

by carlyheemskerk

On March 3, 2020

In EdTech Inquiry

Hello Cloggers and Carly’s Crew,

This week we are back and we are diving into the best technology tools that can be used in middle school. Middle school students are constantly surrounded by iPhones, laptops and televisions at home so we need to ensure that we are providing them with new knowledge that leads them to success. Students at this age are extremely creative and competitive so we chose programs that are tailored to these qualities.

#1 iMovie

iMovie allows students to make a movie from a blank canvas, or create a trailer from a structured story board. Students can use iMovie to create projects like book trailers or a short newscast. iMovie also provides students with the challenge of editing video clips together…sometimes this can be very frustrating for students. Students will have way more fun creating projects on iMovie rather than just handing in an essay and it also encourages students to think outside the box.

#2 Kahoot

This is our personal favourite educational app of ALL TIME. Kahoot is such a fun way for students to review material before a test. Although it doesn’t really tap in to students’ conceptual knowledge, it is still a super fun activity that changes the pace of the class! We still get excited about playing Kahoot so if you haven’t ever played, we highly suggest you go try it out.

Check it out!

#3 Science Journal

We had never heard about this app until we began our research but it sounds super interesting! This app is only available on smart phones but it allows students to record data for lab experiments through pictures, videos, writing and audio. Not only is that app a one stop shop for recording all the data and staying organized, it also allows students to watch videos of other science experiments and get inspired. We thought that this app would be a great resource for students that want an extension on any science projects that are completed in class. Finally, this app turns phones into light and motion sensors (these are lab tools that are extremely expensive). All around it seems like a super neat app!

Go take a look!

That’s all we’ve got for you this week!

Clogging off,

Carly and COordt 🙂

Field Trip Time!

by carlyheemskerk

On February 27, 2020

In EdTech

Hi Carly’s Crew,

Today we went on a field trip to George Jay Elementary school to speak to a kindergarten teacher that has built her entire classroom around inquiry based learning! The teacher’s name was Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt…she is AMAZING!

I left feeling inspired and excited! Especially with our practicum coming up so soon, it was nice to hear from her as she shared her journey with inquiry learning in primary classrooms. It was interesting to hear her talk about her educator heart and it really made me think about what my values as an educator are.

Her classroom is absolutely beautiful! There are a variety of quiet spaces that offer students flexible seating, and provocations for inquiry in every corner. I followed her on Instagram and she will definitely be a major source of inspiration as I begin to create my own classroom one day.

Right now, her students are working on a dinosaur inquiry. Even though dinosaurs aren’t in the curriculum, Rebecca was able to use dinosaurs to make cross-curricular connections and turn into a big project that students are fully immersed in.

My favourite part of Rebecca’s classroom was the wonder wall. It had pictures of all the students with thought bubbles coming out of their heads. Whenever the student has a question or a wonder, they teacher writes in their thought bubble as they work towards answering it. I will definitely want to incorporate this into my own class one day. Sadly, I couldn’t take a picture of it because it had all of the kids’ faces on it!

My biggest take-away from this field trip was that instead of beginning unit plans with a statement, we should begin them with a question that we can ask students. This will encourage student engagement because it is much more fun to have a class discussion rather than just have the teacher ramble on about all of the information. Rebecca shared that we need to provide students with skills and knowledge that is “un-google-able”… we live in an age where we can search the answer to anything in a matter of minutes. As educators we need to teach students the academics but also how to problem-solve and wonder!

We hear so much about inquiry learning and giving students voice, choice and agency in the class but seeing it put into practice gave me a much better understanding of how it all works. I loved everything about our visit to George Jay Elementary School!

See you next week dedicated followers 🙂

Carly

Peanut Butter Balls

by carlyheemskerk

On February 25, 2020

In Free Inquiry

Hi Carly’s Crew!

I hope you didn’t forget about me while I was taking some time off for reading break 😉 Don’t worry I definitely didn’t forget about you! As promised I have a new recipe to share with you this week folks…Peanut Butter Protein Balls. There are so many varieties of protein balls but I wanted one with lots of seeds and no chocolate chips. I found this one on Detox Insta! Here is a list of other recipes that I looked at and want to try eventually!

Here is the step-by-step picture breakdown:

Step 1: Pull out ingredients.

Step 2: Mix all together in a large bowl. (I had to use a spoon because a spatula wasn’t working very well)

Step 3: Roll into small bite sized balls and place onto parchment paper.

Step 4: Let cool in fridge for at least an hour and then store in an air-tight container… That is ALL!

Difficulty level : 2/10

These took me about 10 minutes to whip up and the clean up was super quick as well. I had to go out and buy some flax seeds but I am planning on using flax seeds in my upcoming recipes so I decided to purchase the big bag.

Deliciousness level: 8/10

Yum yum yum! I am a peanut butter fan so I am biased but lets be real… peanut butter anything is always delicious. The seeds in these make them super filling which is always a plus. Even just one ball is enough to fill me up for a little snack. They are a little bit too crumbly but I think it could have been solved by adding some extra peanut butter or honey to make them less dry.

If you have never made protein balls I would highly recommend them! They are quick and easy for meal prep but they also last a while in the freezer so you can always make a large batch in one setting. This recipe is definitely a staple that I will be making again sometime in the near future.

Next week I will be making overnight oats and researching the benefits of them. Overnight oats are all the rage on health blogs right now but I have never tried them; I usually just have the packaged oatmeal that has tons of added sugar and never really fill me up.

Can’t wait to share my findings with you next week!

Catch you soon Carly’s Crew!

Best Applications for a Primary Classroom!

by carlyheemskerk

On February 25, 2020

In EdTech Inquiry

Hey Cloggers & Carly’s Crew,

For this week’s blog, we’re gonna name drop some of the best computer applications and online learning resources for a primary classroom.

Let’s get right to it!

#1: Raz-Kids

This website allows students to find a WIDE variety of books at any time. They have the option of reading books themselves, or they can listen to an audio version of the book (in various languages too). It also involves interactive tools that allows students to practice their critical thinking skills. Finally, it allows teachers and parents to track student progress through an online portal. However, teachers should keep in mind that using this website requires a membership fee for each student.

#2: Mystery Science

This application focuses on science and offers various resources and interactive activities. This format allows for independent learning where students can work at their own pace and choose their topic of interest. Some examples are Plant & Animal Superpowers, Weather Watching, Invisible Forces, and Spaceship Earth. This is great for teachers who want to introduce an inquiry based approach into their classrooms without losing control of classroom management.

#3: Explain Everything

This application allows students to use visuals and pictures to explain their learning. For example, if you are teaching a unit on money in math, students can open the money tab and play around with the various coins and bills. They can then record their voice to add to their video of them working with the money. This app also offers other subjects and a variety of activities within each subject. It’s also available on desktop computers, tablets, and phones!

If you’re a teacher, maybe test some of these out with your class and write a blog about it so we can learn more from you!

Clogging off for now,

Carly and COordt 🙂

Protected: Midterm Goal Complete!

by carlyheemskerk

On February 24, 2020

In Music