On Friday, March 3rd all Help Desk students pitched their ILE or Individual Learning Endeavor ideas to a panel of "sharks" run by Northgate High School staff and administration. Each student, one by one, walked down the custom hallway into the tank with the sharks in a attempt to pitch their idea for the second semester ILE; the sharks then ask questions and vote on whether the idea passes! Building the Tank! A few days before the event began, fellow help desk student Mathew Hagedorn and I were assigned to convert the ordinary help desk computer classroom into a tank. The goal was to replicate the environment similar to the T.V. show hit "Shark Tank" where inventors pitch their businesses to investors. Mathew and I wanted to recreate this experience for each help desk student by incorporating aspects from the real shark tank such as a dark hallway with the lights turned to low as students walk into the tank where the sharks await. We used cloth as well as a projector to project the shark tank logo onto the wall. The Experience!After both days of pitching, the shark tank was a success! Not only was it a blast to pitch our ideas but the school as well as sharks loved the ideas.
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November began with a Bang! Northgate Help Desk began to introduce technology into the classroom using an electronic hall pass system with the help of QR codes and readers to track students entering and exiting the classroom. If a student is tardy or needs to use the restroom, they will scan their phone on the reader located in the classroom; the system will then track how long the student has been out of the classroom for We hope to introduce these systems in every classroom in the school! Furthermore, four Northgate Help Desk students have been starting work on a project using Smore; Smore is a online program that allows users to customize emails to enhance the appearance of emails sent out. It is used by businesses to give a professional look on emails using customization designs as well as images. We will be using it to teach teachers as well as parents on common technological questions such as the difference between wired and wireless internet. On another note, Help Desk has acquired a drone which we are hoping to learn to fly effectively and use to record events in and around the school such as football games or fire drills. With a drone, the possibilities are endless! To find out updates about projects involving Northgate Help Desk, follow them on twitter @NHSHelpDesk. A few days ago, the Northgate Help Desk team was given a challenge unlike anything else I have encountered in my high school career. We were given a wooden box with six locks on it, as a team we were supposed to "breakout" withing 45 minutes. Breakout is a critical thinking and team building game available on the Breakout.edu website. Their are a variety of games found on the website and can be used by teachers and adults as well as students. The games are versatile and cover every topic you can think of; you can even make your own games from scratch using the kit sent. Our group worked together better then expected; as everyone wants to contribute and help solve the problem, it could become a challenge to work as one but with good communication and teamwork skills, we were able to work with each other to solve the issue at hand. We could have been more effective if we broke into teams solving the different clues given to us. Furthermore, each puzzle presented its own unique challenges which took each students strong areas to figure out. For example, some students were better at the word jumble while others were better at using technology to investigate the letters. I feel as if my ideas were heard by everyone and we each got to put in out two cents to breakout. Breakout EDU games can be used in several areas in curriculum such as a math based game to prepare for a test or even just to spice up the classroom in a fun and engaging way that students will remember for the rest of the year. For larger groups, I would recommend splitting them up into smaller teams and giving each team a clue or two to solve for a lock. Each team solves a lock to open the box. Overall it was a fun experience that taught as how to work together as a team and how to listen to what others have to say. As I begin my senior year of high school and my second year at Help Desk, I along with every other student feel the excitement of a new school year. As for Help Desk, we are picking up right where we left off as teachers and students get used to the new technology in the classrooms which include new apple TV's as well as laptop and IPad carts that are now floating around the school.
Next, I started to put thought into my Individual Learning Endeavor(ILE). The ILE is Inspired in part by Google’s 20% time project, as well as the pilot program at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the ILE allows Help Desk students to devote (20% (TUESDAY'S) of their time to a project that is “unrelated” to the Help Desk day to day goals and objectives. More information on the Individual Learning Endeavor: http://northgatehelpdesk.weebly.com/what-is-20time.html. Lastly, Help Desk has a new curriculum for the new year. The new curriculum is more structured than last year which includes a more structured ILE as well as a system for tracking what each student has accomplished per day with teachers through the use of QR codes. As for QR codes, each student has been assigned to think of and create a QR code that can be used in the classroom. My Idea was to have a QR code on each assignment or worksheet that links to a Khan Academy video with an example problem. My QR code idea can be viewed here. To find out updates about projects involving Northgate Help Desk, follow them on twitter @NHSHelpDesk. On April 6th, 2016, I had the incredible opportunity to visit Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA named Googleplex. My personal experience while there was incredible in the fashion that I was impressed by their values as well as the campus. The goal of the trip was to learn more about the education department at Google named "Google for Education" as well as to learn more about the campus and style of work at Google and indeed was that goal achieved. Once we arrived at the campus, we were introduced to Angela Larkin who works at Google in the education department. We as a team were brought inside a meeting room and given passes that were used all day because the security at Google is top notch. After the introductions, Angela told us about Google's values and what Google for Education was and what they wanted to accomplish. As the month of March finishes and the month of April begins, the Help Desk team is faced with new projects, questions, and duties. To finish the month of March, I was given several tasks to complete as I move into the month of April. First, I was given the task to build a website for the math department at Foothill Middle School which is a school near to Northgate teaching grades 6 - 8. The website will include all the information necessary for students, parents, and teachers to use on a daily basis as the students progress through their mathematical endeavors at Foothill. On the built website, students can find the common core standards for mathematics at all grade levels, information about teachers as well as contact information, and tips and tricks for extra practice on the problems and concepts learned in class. Next, I have progressed on my ILE. My ILE is to continue building the website for Northgate's Special Education department. I have created a video showing my ILE as well as describing what the ILE is which can be found here. Lastly I have created a video with the help of the Northgate Librarian which describes what Google Scholar is used for. The video will be used by seniors as they work on their senior projects which requires the use of Google Scholar. Google Scholar is an advanced search bar made by google which includes advanced search options of scholarly publications used for research. March began slow with small tasks here and there but as the month progressed, we became flooded with tasks and opportunities. To start off, Northgate Help Desk has been given the opportunity to visit Google on April 3, 2016. On this trip, the Help Desk team will be given a tour of the facility as well as the opportunity to interview Google employees and a trip to the store! Next, I have continued my work on the digital leadership presentation which as a team are hoping to present to Foothill Middle School in the near future. Our goal is to educate the eighth graders on ho to become an online sleuth. This means one should investigate all aspects of a website before using it as a credible source. When investigating a website for credibility, the researcher or student should look at the domain as well as who produced the website or article. All of those factors can influence how credible a website is to use for information. On top of that, I have been working diligently on my app review of Blipper. Blipper is an augmented reality app used for advertising and marketing. I will create a comparison of both Blipper and Aurasma. I have made a review of Aurasma which could be found here. I have also completed the teacher profile for Mrs. Honey which will be available soon as well as working on my ILE which is to further advance the progress of Northgate's Special Education Department. As the Help Desk closed for the year and re-opened, an influx of jobs and opportunities opened to the Help Desk staff. Along with a new semester comes new rules which include a policy for making up work when a student is absent. As well as new policies, we now keep track of duties for students on a white board in class. Moving on to what I have been doing in the new year, I held an interview with Northgate teacher Mrs. Honey for the teacher profiles that will be available soon to view. Next, the class was assigned to research and make a presentation on online security that will be shown to younger students at Foothill Middle School. My group was assigned "Online Sleuth" meaning to be careful of what websites one should trust when doing research or using the page as a source of information. More information can be found on Youtube about becoming an online sleuth. Lastly, I was assigned to build a Socrative quiz for Mr. Ceresa which will cover a previous chapter. This quiz will be open to students to use when reviewing for the final exam or chapter test. On top of the various jobs and duties I have been assigned, I have also chosen my next app to review. The app I have chosen is Blipper; Blipper is an augmented reality app used for advertising and marketing. I will create a comparison of both Blipper and Aurasma. I have made a review of Aurasma which could be found here.
The past few weeks have been a collection of insightful and educational moments in the help desk classroom. From making google forms for tracking students problems to reviewing apps have all been completed throughout the few weeks of herd work before winter break. First, I began by reviewing the app "Classkick" which may be found here. Classkick is an educational app that allows a teacher to create a virtual classroom which allows them to grade and give feedback on student work online. This app also allows students to interact with one another creating a group learning environment for all students. Next, I created a Google form for tracking students progress in a class. Once one opens the form and answers a few simple questions such as name, subject, and comments, all responses get funneled to one sheet were they may be sorted and analyzed. There is also a space were the sheet will compile the data into one form using pie charts and text boxes. November began with a Bang! Northgate Help Desk began to introduce technology into the classroom using an electronic hall pass system with the help of QR codes and readers to track students entering and exiting the classroom. If a student is tardy or needs to use the restroom, they will scan their phone on the reader located in the classroom; the system will then track how long the student has been out of the classroom for. Next, we also created an electronic referral system to get rid of confusion involved in using paper. We hope to introduce these systems in every classroom in the school! Next, we signed up for remindme.com using text messaging to communicate effectively with the teacher and your peers. lastly, I continued to work on my ILE which is to design a website for Northgate's Special Education Department. I have created the skeleton for the website, now I must fill in the website with information including videos and slideshows. On another note, Apple released ios 9.1 which includes improvements on live photos; these photos now sense when you raise or lower your iPhone, so that Live Photos will automatically not record these movements. Next, Apple introduced over 150 new emoji characters with full support for Unicode 1.0 and 8.0 emoji's. To find out more about ios 9.1, click here. |
AuthorI am a Junior attending Northgate High School. Archives
March 2017
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