WHAT’S THE BUZZ

 IN TECHNOLOGY? 

DRONES!

There is no shortage of fancy technology gadgets on the market for students these days. Educational buzz words swirl around learning opportunities for STEAM projects that often require expensive boxes of supplies. Tech skills are absolutely a critical needs area for students, but it is also important to find ways to offer meaningful learning targets in the experience. Finding a happy medium of accessible and interesting projects that explore technology literacy is an important task for a school media specialist. Students love projects that provide hands on learning opportunities with good reason. Hands on projects with technology offer learners the space to employ the AASL framework standards competencies within the inquiry, explore, and create domains (2018).

 This summer my son attended a summer camp at Roper Mountain Science Center to learn to fly drones. He is gadget loving kid so it was a perfect fit for him but I honestly figured they would spend a lot of time just flying things into trees. I know drones are a popular school science activity, but I never gave them much attention. I noticed the plans for his camp involved a great deal more than just flying. The class spent the first two days discussing aerodynamics and principles of flight. Before they even got to touch a drone, they spent an entire day taking them apart in order to rebuild them themselves. Most teachers would be horrified to spend money on drones only to rip them apart but the hands-on learning thru self-discovery that lesson offered students was a truly memorable experience. I can see the value of using the drones to connect curiosity and exploration to topics beyond just science. The drones also offered an opportunity for the students to research the possible uses for drones in the future and question ethical dilemmas such as privacy or control of airspace. There are multiple avenues of literacy that drones can be used to teach critical analysis with stimulating and interactive projects in social studies and even language arts (Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2017).

 Drone usage in the classroom has grown thru science grants, business supported events and library initiatives. There is no shortage of creative ways to bring them to a school. There are multiple companies that can come do demonstration events to help support specific curriculum units or maker clubs. It is possible to find lots of companies that are willing to come show off their equipment from construction companies that used drones on job sites to real estate photographers who use them for aerial visuals. There are opportunities to make them accessible with state funded library circulating kits. On the South Carolina State Library website you can see circulating kits used to provide programming opportunities that offer equipment rentals. The programs are usually reserved with public librarians but that makes it another great opportunity for collaborative efforts between the public and school sector groups.

Here is the link to explore the more information about South Carolina Circulating Kits.

Circulating Kits | South Carolina State Library (sc.gov)

Drones Can Be Fun—and Educational | Edutopia

Edutopia explores how drones can be fun AND educational.

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2017).   Drones Can Be Fun and Educational. Edutopia.org.

retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/7-ways-use-drones-classroom-heather-wolpert-gawron

 

Here is a video from SC ETV about the many uses for Drones in Education.

 South Carolina ETV Commission. (2021). Drones: A Growing Tool for a Myriad of Uses. https://www.knowitall.org/audio/drones-growing-tool-myriad-uses-south-carolina-focus 

Audio Asset | Drones: A Growing Tool for a Myriad of Uses | South Carolina Focus | Knowitall.org

Additional Drone Article Resource: 

American Library Association. (2014). "Drones", Drones | Tools, Publications & Resources (ala.org)https://www.ala.org/tools/future/trends/drones

http://www.ala.org/tools/future/trends/drones (Accessed September 20, 2021)

Document ID: b963f065-4942-10b4-8d14-ac832ad1e206

Resource Share for Video Editing

 

Resource Share

https://animoto.com/blog/video-ideas/most-popular-video-templates-work-life

Video Editor Technology for Students and Staff

Purpose: Online Platform for Creating Video for Presentations, Projects or Sharing Content

Animoto is video creator website that allows users to quickly create video presentations for school, work or personal life. I know this blog share reads more like a paid blog share advertisement from the Animoto website, but I wanted to include the share because it did offer some valuable tools. Implementing digital storytelling lessons is a dynamic way to put students in the drivers’ seat for creating fun and interactive presentations. My son came home from his seventh-grade science class the other day and they were making stop motion videos that were awkward and blurry.  These kids can make viral Tik Toks but too often we are still teaching them video editing techniques from 2005.  I don’t think school projects have to be perfect or polished. I know the goal is engagement, but let’s not miss an opportunity to integrate some relevant technology into the project based lessons.

There are a lot of new video editing platforms on the market but this one is pretty user friendly and offers variety of free templates. We all get tired of seeing the same old Microsoft or Google graphics, so it’s a nice change of pace. The videos can be easily shared or uploaded to YouTube. I sometimes use Adobe Spark to create additional animated images to pop into videos but this one does include an option for some animations already built into the slides.

It is excellent tool for teachers looking to add variety to online class content. You can easily create some short introduction videos to grab students’ attention before a new unit. I wholly admit to being an over thinker and have been known to lose hours tinkering on web design projects. There is nothing more annoying than those supposedly effortless to use websites, that suddenly six hours into it and you find yourself still loading pictures. I may have Shutterfly drama syndrome but that’s another story. The Animto template options really are drop and type, so you don’t have to torture yourself making endless design choices. Before I sound too much like a suspiciously paid reviewer, it’s not perfect. The drawbacks are watermarks for some specialized features and paid subscription options for things like music or specialized layouts. I loathe any sites that lure you in with free and then switch every decent option to premium.  There is enough free options to make it viable for teacher or student use even without a buy in. As with anything online based, there are lots of options and some are better suited to class room objectives but still a good link to have as resource page and on your radar for sharing and creating information in a creative learning style.  

Fraitag M. (2021). 10 Most Popular Video Templates for Work and life. Animato.Com. https://animoto.com/blog/video-ideas/most-popular-video-templates-work-life

https://animoto.com/blog/video-ideas/most-popular-video-templates-work-life

The Learner Diet

 

 

Before the cutesy invasion of trite quote wall signs, we relied on coffee cups to express our inner snark. I remember I used to have a favorite mug with big white letters that read, “if you are what you eat, then I am fast, cheap and easy.” Pondering our relationship to information, media, and news these days makes me think of that coffee mug. Everything these days centers on easy and fast. The speed at which information comes at us isn’t geared to generate thoughtful analysis but instead offers bite sized nuggets of news to be scarfed down on the way to the next thing. Society likes to cast blame on technology, but our cultural values created the consumption habits not the mechanisms we use. I could spend all day pondering how we got here, but as professional educators the objective is to empower the next generation of solutions for information literacy.

The workload of a school librarian involves so many layers of responsibilities to create and support curriculum for students and staff. The urgency to help students become more involved in their own educational process as critical consumers of information seems to grow with every new report of false or biased news media. The “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education” from the ACLR aims to create more definitive guidelines for how to implement more inquiry and research-based learning approaches (2015). One of the key concepts in the ACLP framework is the described as, “scholarship as conversation” (2015).  Seeking out perspectives other than our own is such a critical component of understanding complex problems. We all bring to the table own ideas and expectations when we engage in dialog or receive information. When we start to filter out divisions of opinions from the sources we receive information, the imbalances can limit our ability to discover new insights. Identifying our own lens filters as teachers and human beings is great starting point when we consider how to teach students the value of evaluating information and biases.

The list of 21^st Century Student Outcomes from the framework definitions spans your standard school subjects and then spans across broader concepts such as global awareness, financial literacy, public health concerns and civic implications (2015). These once higher-level learning topics are impacting children earlier and with greater ramifications, therefore need to addressed even at even younger ages than we do now.

 We can’t skip over the foundational ideas of information seeking behaviors in our own environments. It takes significantly more time to really assess the quality of information we are sharing with students rather than just what is expedient in the face of busy school days. Practices that require both teachers and students to use various research methods, assess for strengths and weaknesses while examining conflicting information, are vital elements to the information literacy process (ALA, 2015). The shift for me is away from the “us versus them mentality” that is pervasive in making ideas wrong or right. I don’t want to be right anymore. I want to understand. I want to hear and listen. I want to be a part of exploring ideas and concepts with students so that we can slow down the rush on the next thing. I hope we can stop treating education and learning like a trip to Wendy’s and more like a five-star meal made with quality and attention.

 

American Library Association, (2015). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education",  http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework (Accessed September 1, 2021) Document ID: b910a6c4-6c8a-0d44-7dbc-a5dcbd509e3f

P21 Framework Definitions (2015) Framework for 21^st Century Learning. https://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21/frameworks-resources