Learning with Sphero

As Around the Schoolyard readers can recall we have recently opened a Maker Space at the J. Turner Hood Elementary School. This space provides our students with a place to engage in hands on learning activities. At the J. Turner Hood School, we work collaboratively to reach our goal of educating and challenging students to their full potential, it is important to focus on meeting the needs of all learning styles including those students that are hands on learners. This learning space enables us to meet the needs of all learners with a focus on hands on learning. For many working in the manufacturing industry, the concept of hands-on learning is a natural way to investigate problems and come up with creative solutions. But for many, hands-on learning has become the exception rather than the rule. Fortunately, the increasing number of Makerspaces provides exciting new opportunities for hands-on learning, problem-solving, and creative experimentation. According to Aristotle “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” 

In this article I would like to focus on a device that I have observed being utilized in our Makerspace to teach programming as well as problem solving. Last year we work hand in hand with our parent’s association to purchase 12 Sphero programmable robotic balls. If you have not seen Sphero, it’s a small hand-sized ball you can program easily to change colors, run a circuit, keep beat with a song, and many other fun ideas.

What is Sphero?

·         Sphero is a robot that interacts with any smart device. 

·         There are two levels to working with Sphero; driving and coding. 

·         Students have to think about how they want Sphero to accomplish a task and then code that into an iPad or another device. 

·         The students then can test and adapt their code based on the results. 

The Sphero devices can be used to teach a plethora of skills including programming and problem solving. Based on my observations, these high-tech devices inspire a lot of creative as well as open-ended play. There are more than two dozen free apps to play with Sphero, these include Tickle and  SPRK which are the programming apps used to control the device. Sphero can also be programmed in BASIC as well as Scratch and several other popular languages. Once the programming is complete, the fun begins as students are challenged to create scenarios or obstacle courses with boxes and tubes from our Makerspace to navigate. Yes, you can have fun with Sphero as an ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) and there’s value in that alone, but you can also take it from tech toy, to STEM teaching tool by helping your kids code Sphero. Or in my case, our students helping me develop my computer programming skills.

Benefits of working with Spheros.

·         Learn coding

·         Interact with other students

·         Problem solving skills

·         Planning and designing

·         Math and Science reinforcement

·         Increased enthusiasm about learning

To see an example of our students using this device please visit:

https://youtu.be/JsxyebSAjKE

Maker Updates

Last year I wrote about the J. Turner Hood Schools vision of creating a Makerspace. I am proud to report that this year we will be opening our soon to be named Makerspace.  The design of our Makerspace stems from our schools research on The Maker Movement. The Maker Movement is a technological and creative learning revolution that is underway around the globe. This movement has exciting and vast implications for the world of education. New tools and technology, such as 3D printing, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computing, e-textiles, “smart” materials, and programming languages are being invented at an unprecedented pace. The Maker Movement creates affordable or even free versions of these inventions, while sharing tools and ideas online to create a vibrant, collaborative community of global problem-solvers. Makers are people who like to figure out and fix problems with their hands.  Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager write, in Invent to Learn, that “Maker classrooms are active classrooms. In active classrooms one will find engaged students, often working on multiple projects simultaneously, and teachers unafraid of relinquishing their authoritarian role. The best way to activate your classroom is for your classroom to make something.”

What exactly is a Maker and what happens in the “space?” If you search a thesaurus for the word “make” you will find a plethora of great synonyms: create, cause, assemble, manufacture, achieve, invent, generate, produce, craft, build, construct, or generate. And, that is exactly what happens in a Makerspace. It is an environment where one is only limited by one’s imagination. It is a space that allows for exploration of all of the aspects of STEM–Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math–and sprinkles it with imagination for an exploration of “what if.” In the J. Turner Hood Elementary School, our Makerspace in the Computer Room/Maker Center is set to inspire students to become participatory learners to uncover their talents, needs, and interests by making, producing, solving, creating, collaborating and thinking. In this space, the focus will be "real-world problem solving," The Makerspace will allow students to use a variety of materials to build projects that will relate back to  the content in a specific lesson or unit of instruction.

This space is set to officially open soon thanks to the support of our Parent’s Association who have been crucial in the design, setup and funding of this worthwhile endeavor.  One might ask "what are you going to call this space?" I would have to say that I am not sure yet as our amazing students in true maker fashion will be naming the space and creating the logo. Please stay tuned to the Hood School Twitter account for updates regarding this amazing opportunity for our students and staff!

October Updates

October 6, 2016

The month of October brings so many wonders.  The rich colors of the leaves create a vibrant environment to lift our spirits and moods.  We have had a great first month of school at the J. Turner Hood Elementary! Students have come to school ready to learn and displaying proper respect towards themselves and others. Our staff is working hard creating new learning activities for our students. I have had the opportunity to observe many classrooms and review a great deal of student work. As a result of these experiences I have been able to see that there is quality education going on at the J. Turner Hood Elementary.

 
As many of you know, I am not a monthly newsletter type of principal as I prefer to post “Hood Happenings” and pictures on my twitter account. However, I want to drop a note to all stakeholders as a friendly reminder of some of our procedures here at the school. Morning Drop-Off
Student Absences
Parent’s Association
School Website

• Our school doors are locked and access to the building will only be obtained by pressing the front door buzzer and then waiting for the office staffs’ identification of the visitor/student via camera. Please do not encourage students to give you access.

• Sign in Log- We appreciate you signing in at the office when you visit. If you have an appointment with the teacher or classroom, please let the office staff know and we will be glad to notify them of your arrival. Please always wear a visitors badge in the building.

• Please do not visit your child’s classroom unless you have a scheduled appointment with the classroom teacher. Unscheduled visits are very disruptive to the classroom teacher and to student learning.

• If you are dropping off a lunch, a forgotten item or materials/supplies for the class/teacher, please leave it with the office secretary.  We will make sure it gets to the right place.

• If you are bringing in a late student, please say your goodbyes in the lobby. We will alert the teacher that your child is heading down.

• If you are dismissing a student from class or from the nurse, please let the office secretary know. Then please sign our Student Dismissal Log. Your child will be called to the office or you may pick up your child at the nurse’s office.

• Lastly, I have instructed our students that they should not open any doors for anyone at anytime. If you need to be admitted into the school please do so through the procedures noted above.

There will continue to be many staff members to greet you outside the school in the morning. Just a reminder, our school hours at the J. T. Hood School are from 8:55 – 3:10. Please note that students may not be dropped off before 8:45 AM.

If they arrive after 8:55 they are considered tardy.

The school doors open at 8:45.

Dismissal

The dismissal time from J. Turner Hood Elementary school is a very busy time of day.  Busses are arriving to bring children home. Parents or child care providers are driving up to the neighborhoods near the school or walking up to pick up their children and older children are walking home alone. 

If you participate in the live line placard pick-up system to pick up your children by car, please be reminded to  “queue up” in a single line down the driveway, through our parking lot and up to the Handicapped parking spot at the end of our “loop.” All cars should wait in a single line up to the school and not pass the car in front of them, even if you are not participating in the placard pick-up system. At all times, there must be space for two-way traffic on Haverhill Street and in the school driveway to allow for vehicles leaving and to provide emergency vehicle access. A suggested practice is to have the placard (a card with the family name on it) affixed to your passenger side visor and flip it down while you are “queued up.”  Children who are being picked up via the placard pick-up system will remain in the Cafeteria while family names are called.  As you pull up with the placard in view, your child(ren) will be called out using a walkie talkie system from staff out on the sidewalk to staff in the cafeteria, and placed in your vehicle. Please be sure to pull up as far as possible in the que.

Aspen Road- Please be reminded that the school is a busy place and that the buses are arriving in this area. It is important that all families maintain order and safely monitor their children once they have been dismissed by the school staff.

The office appreciates phone calls regarding your child’s absence or tardiness prior to school starting.  This decreases the number of calls the office staff must make searching for students who are unaccounted for.

Your teachers and I are excited to work with the PA and community to make this the best place for children – a place where we focus on children, we focus on learning, and we work together in a supportive relationship. We are looking forward to continuing our strong partnership and want to thank them for their on-going support and for hosting a well-attended pizza and ice cream social.

As members of The J. Turner Hood School Community, I will keep you up to date via the school web site. The School Web site is located at:

http://www.north-reading.k12.ma.us/hood-elementary

We are also on Twitter! Follow us for updates, news and celebrations!

On Twitter we are  @jthoodelemen

School Security- the J. Turner Hood Elementary School has always been and continues to be a positive, proactive, and friendly place of learning for our neighborhood students and families. A large component of this special setting is the safety and security that we maintain for our students during school hours. In keeping with this focus on a safe and orderly environment, we are currently reviewing and updating our internal security protocols. Please be reminded all guests are required to “Buzz In” and “Check In” to the main office immediately upon entering the Hood School. Our Check In system has been updated and runs electronically as a means to collect guest data allowing us to maintain an active list of visitors on campus. All guests will wear a school visitor lanyard that will be issued upon check in. Please remember to check in and check out when you visit the J. Turner Hood School Please be reminded that the following procedures will remain in effect or be introduced at the J. Turner Hood Elementary School: 

I ask that you work with us and your children as we implement these procedures.  Our success in working together will guarantee the safety and security of students, staff, and parents and will maintain our strong tradition of a positive and productive learning environment at the J. Turner Hood Elementary School. Please know that I have already discussed this with our students and staff. 

Returning to school for items- Please know that we are always looking for an opportunity to teach our students about responsibility. With that being said, we also recognize that students may forget an item or something that they need in their classroom after being dismissed from school. If your child forgets an item and returns to school, we respectfully request that you check in at the main office and let us notify the teacher.  And parents are not allowed to be in classrooms unsupervised.

Lastly, I would like to include an excerpt from a book in this newsletter.  In Stopping At Every Lemonade Stand, How to Create a Culture That Cares for Kids, James Vollbracht offers a few neat ideas for ensuring that our children feel secure and know just how thankful we are for them.

·         Have high expectations for your kids, but back them with unconditional love.

·         Seize every opportunity to talk about small stuff: in the car, while watching TV, over the dinner table, before bed.

·         Know where your children are and with whom.

·         Get to know the parents of your kids’ friends.

·         Remember what it was like being a kid.

·         Show up at your kids’ games, performances, and recitals (they’ll be looking for you).

·         Tell your kids about their birth, and how glad you are they are in your family.

·         Write your kids notes reassuring them that you believe in them and love them (put them in lunch bags, under pillows, or mail them).

·         Remember, just because kids may dress and talk in a mature manner, they still need hugs, little talks, and lots of attention.

As always, thank you for your continued support!

Summer News

Please Click Here

The Maker Movement

The Maker Movement

We have recently concluded yet another book study at the Hood School. As a learning community we are always learning together as a means to enhance our practice. During the late fall and early winter we read The Maker Movement Manifesto by Mark Hatch. We selected this topic as the Maker Movement is slowly infiltrating schools across the country.

The Maker Movement, a technological and creative learning revolution that is underway around the globe, is a unique combination of artistry, circuitry, and old-fashioned craftsmanship. This movement has exciting and vast implications for the world of education. New tools and technology, such as 3D printing, robotics, microprocessors, wearable computing, e-textiles, “smart” materials, and programming languages are being invented at an unprecedented pace. The Maker Movement creates affordable or even free versions of these inventions, while sharing tools and ideas online to create a vibrant, collaborative community of global problem-solvers. Makers are people who like to figure out and fix problems with their hands. Indeed, many of us went on our first techno-rush as kids playing with Legos and electronic kits. In a day when everyone thinks, "There's an app for that," many educators believe that we're missing the point of technology if we think its best use is programming kids to memorize math facts. Students don't want to use apps -- they want to make them. Groff (2013) points out, “We are reaching a period where it is just as easy for young people to produce . . . multimodal, multimedia content as to consume it” (p. 23). Furthermore, Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager write, in Invent to Learn, that “Maker classrooms are active classrooms. In active classrooms one will find engaged students, often working on multiple projects simultaneously, and teachers unafraid of relinquishing their authoritarian role. The best way to activate your classroom is for your classroom to make something.”

Creating spaces for students to engage in these practices is a hot trend in education. These spaces are commonly referred to as “Makerspaces.” Makerspaces, sometimes also referred to as hackerspaces, hackspaces, and fablabs are creative do-it- yourself (DIY) spaces where people can gather to create, invent and learn. In libraries Makerspaces often have 3D printers, software, electronics, hardware supplies and tools. Participants, or Makers, can create digital and physical items in common working spaces using shared equipment and resources.

As a school we are excited to begin to plan and build a Makerspace of our own and engage our students through these practices. 

My Experience in a New Learning Environment

My Experience in a New Learning Environment

By: Glen S. McKay, Principal

           

            As a school leader, I have learned that principals set the tone and vision for their schools. Furthermore, a principal’s ability to lead responsive professional development is becoming more paramount toward creating a 21st century learning environment. Principals’ technology leadership cannot be measured solely by the resources and budget allocated to educational technology; technology vision and a commitment to professional development play an important role. In an era of rapid educational technology advances, principals must support a culture of collaboration, innovation, and meaningful technology integration for pedagogical changes to take place on a broad and sustainable scale. As a leader I came across a new professional development model titled EdCamp that intrigued me as a scholar and showed promise as a means to improve my professional practice.

            I recently attended my first EdCamp “unconference.”  As a learner, I was not sure what to expect from an event with no agenda or planned breakout sessions, but I was excited to hear from various educators about what is important to them right now. EdCamp is an "unconference", also commonly called "Open Spaces." It is professional development for teachers, by teachers. The expertise in the room fuels the conversation. The EdCamp model is based on the international unconference model, BarCamp. Despite its name, BarCamps have little or nothing to do with alcohol. Rather, computer hackers conceived them as a way to come together to share ideas. According to the BarCamp wiki, a BarCamp: “BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. BarCamp is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.”

         In order to begin to develop a greater understanding of the innovation, one must realize that the purpose of EdCamp is to “empower educators to honor their own expertise. It is designed in a way that encourages peer learning, sharing, and collaboration.” EdCamps are organic, participant-driven professional development experiences created by teachers, for teachers. They invite and encourage personalized conversations and spirited debates. They emphasize internal motivation, choice, and interactivity. Based on the tenets of open space technology, EdCamps are derived from the belief that a group of people, given a purpose and freedom, have the ability to self-organize, self-govern, and produce results. Conversations, not presentations, dominate the learning at an EdCamp. Every participant has an equal voice and personal expertise is honored.

My Experience:

            Based on my observations, some of EdCamp’s major strengths are that the participants, in this case mostly principals and teachers, set the agenda and provide the content. They come up with the ideas for sessions based on what they want to hear about right now. Then it is up to participants to take charge and facilitate each session. Anyone can be a presenter. Teachers who have never met before may end up leading a session together. Principals from schools in opposite ends of the state may be facing the same challenges and can develop their own session. Each participant is able to choose sessions that meet their individual needs. EdCamps derive their value from what every participant brings to the table on that day, and these thoughts and experiences can be much more useful than any handout or planned presentation. This was a highly engaging experience for me and I hope that everyone has the opportunity to participate a learning experience similar to this one. 

Welcome Back

September 2, 2015

Dear Parents/Guardians, Students and Friends of the J. Turner Hood School,

I hope this note finds you well rested and excited about the upcoming school year.  We have been very busy over the past few months in preparation for the opening of school grades 1-5 on Wednesday, September 9, 2015.  The first day of school for Kindergarten students is Friday, September 11, 2015.  

New Staff: We are excited to welcome three new staff members to our school community. Please welcome Ms. Heather Blackmun, Special Education Teacher, Ms. Janna Comeau, Music Teacher, and Mrs. Kelly Daigle, Para-Professional, to our team! I know that you and your children will make these individuals feel welcome to North Reading and the Hood School. I appreciate your continued support of the entire Hood School staff.

Kindergarten Popsicle Social: Our annual Kindergarten Popsicle Social will be on Thursday, September 3rd. from 2:30-3:30 pm. All incoming Kindergarten students are invited to attend. Please join us if you can. We are sure it will be an hour of fun.

School Website & Email: In North Reading,  each school’s and the district’s website will be upgraded to make it more informative, engaging, user-friendly, and a better resource to showcase student work and photos of the good things happening in each of our schools and across the district. Secondly, the email domain for the faculty and staff of the North Reading Public Schools has recently undergone a transition to a new domain, @nrpsk12.org. This domain is active presently and families are urged to now begin updating their contacts and communicating with district faculty and staff using the @nrpsk12.org domain. It should be noted that emails sent using the old domain will still be received during a brief period of transition

Twitter: Social media and Twitter in particular, is fast becoming an important tool in the world of education. Teachers are using it to connect with other professionals around the world to enhance their learning and break down the walls of their classrooms. Administrators are using it to enhance their leadership skills and connect with parents and other members of the school community. Stay up-to-date on the latest happenings at the Hood School! Follow the Hood School on Twitter @jthoodelemen.

Arrival/Morning Drop-Off: School begins at 8:30, and staff will be available to welcome students beginning at 8:20.  Children should not be brought to school before 8:20 AM as there is no adult supervision.  School staff will greet you and your children at the drop-off loop at 8:25 to let you know that students may now enter the building. We do have a morning program that is tuition-based. If your child arrives in the building earlier than 8:20, he/she will be sent to the morning care program and a note will be sent home with a friendly reminder to you to pay the fee.

Drop Off Procedures:

Drop off children at the side rotary.

Pull all the way up to the end of the sidewalk before letting your child out.

Let your child out opposite the driver’s side, only.

Do not get out of the car yourself.

There is NO PARKING within the rotary. 

Please remain in your car and move forward once your child exits the car, in order to keep the line moving. For safety reasons, it is important that you follow this procedure. 

Parking:

If you must come into the building, please park within the parking lot.

Going Green: We have an obligation to conserve our natural resources. Schools should set a good example by demonstrating to others the methods and benefits of energy conservation. Going Green is the smart choice for our environment, but it also may prove to be savings for our school’s budget during these times.  It will be our goal to utilize email as a primary source of communication for school notices and newsletters.  That being said, we want to be sure that all parents and families receive information to remain involved and informed.  If email communication isn’t available for your household hard copy notices will continue to be provided.

Student Absences: The office appreciates phone calls regarding absence or tardiness prior to school starting. This decreases the number of phone calls the office staff must make searching for students who are unaccounted for.  

Food Pantry: For those new to our school community, September is the month the Hood School adopts the North Reading Food Pantry by sponsoring a food drive. Please feel free to drop any of the items listed on our school website in our food pantry drop box located in our lobby.  

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Mr. Glen S. McKay, Principal