Mindfulness- Not Detention

Mindfulness

I have not done a lot of studying about mindfulness, but I have family and friends that swear by it.  I found some information accidently today and it is way too good NOT to pass it on.  I wish all schools did this and as a former gang intervention and at-risk teacher I PERSONALLY LOVE THIS and wish more schools would try it!

Hour of Code December 5th - December 11th 2016

What is all this about coding?  In 2013 Google sponsored a coding class at one of the local universities using Scratch.  It was a day and a half intense course but I enjoyed it.  Fast forward a couple years and Hour of Code for every student is being advertised everywhere.  I was lucky to teach a coding class last summer and was amazed at how quickly my 2nd grade students caught on and my 4th and 5th grade students really excelled and loved it.  Online sites teach it through games like Angry Birds and Minecraft. They love Minecraft because they get to make Minecraft Skins. Pretty much how it sounds, you get to design the skin of a Minecraft character.  Even students who did not want to do coding really wanted to design a skin.  They worked very hard to complete more difficult coding lessons and then the student was rewarded by getting to do a skin design.  I can't reference where I got this information because I teach a Life Skills class and read it somewhere this past summer, but currently there are over 350,000 coding jobs available, although I think that number probably has risen since I last researched it.  Many of these jobs you can do from home (guess who is trying to learn some coding languages).  Coding is good for all students as it teaches thinking skills, but students that really like it I encourage to keep learning it.  I stopped learning computer languages in college because by the time that I was half-way through a semester course, that language was already considered on it's way to becoming obsolete.  I can't even remember most of them.  Basic, Pascal, Fortran, C+, Java, and lots of others I seem to hear different ones every year.  I think one of my life lesson that I learned and hopefully taught my son who majored in CIS and now works in the field is don't give up, computers are constantly changing.  He would get frustrated with me when he was in college that I was not keeping up.  Now being in the field for several years he realizes that working in the computer industry means constantly keeping up on your skills and trouble shooting.  I hope I passed on that even the smartest people in the industry struggle to problem solve and keep up.  And hey, keep on growing those dendrites!

Steve Jobs has a quote that I have seen several places, "Everyone should know how to program a computer, it teaches you how to think."  One of my favorite people to discuss and quote is Michael Jordan, famous for not being allowed to play basketball his first year of high school because he was not good enough (okay maybe he is a bit more famous for being a fantastic basketball player and playing professional baseball even though he was discouraged from that too!).  From what I remember reading years ago, he went home and shot baskets all day long everyday until his next year of high school.  I have a poster of his quote in my classroom, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." I also read somewhere Fred Astaire (of course kids don't know who he is today) was told he could not dance.

Screen Shot from Hour of Code

First I will talk about what I like about CODE.ORG. This is a nonprofit site that has lots of fun ways for students young, old, experienced, novice or anything in between to learn about coding.  The thinking process, so creative and critical, along with being a challenging website yet student are able to conquer the challenge by using their problem solving skills.  So many other skills go into play.  Here was my favorite.  One activity you have to make Elsa, from the movie Froze, ice skate.  Since I normally teach math and was teaching a summer school class I realized that students needed to know angles.  I usually taught that in the higher grades.  90 degrees is pretty easy, the corner of a piece of paper.  Straight lines (half a circle) or full circle the students looked at me a bit funny.  Well after I explained how a full circle has 360 degrees and each move had to be 1 degree, so she would have to be programed to do it 360 times.  One kids exclaimed, oh I do 360's on my skateboard.  Oh my goodness, why hadn't I thought of that!!!  My two older boys skateboarded for several years.  I was like yes, a 360 is a full circle, and a 180 is a half circle on your skateboard, same concept!  There are so many practical and life skills that can be brought together and the students love seeing what other students create.  They also like the fact that they are familiar with the games on this website and can control angry bird, how fast he flaps his wings, what type of sounds he makes when he flies into something and what determines when the game is over.  If you have not gone to CODE.ORG, check it out.  Also if you go to this page, hourofcode , it has over hour of coding available in 45 different languages.  Hour of code is this week, Dec. 5th though Dec. 11th this year.  You can click here if you want more information.

Screen Shot from Scratch MIT

Okay, I love Scratch.  Here is their official website, Scratch Offical Website. Scratch was created by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and it is free. They call their little characters Sprites, and the default Sprite is an orange cat.  They have something called MAP Projects, where more than one person works on the project.  The person who creates the MAP assigns projects.  Sometimes they will break a song into pieces, and each person creates their part of the song. MAP stands for Multi Animator Project. The thing I love about students working on MAP projects is they have to commit to a deadline and work with other people, people that may live in other states or countries and they do not know. I see this as a 21st Century Learning Skill.  Training students for jobs that have not even been created yet.  Scratch has improved over the years and it makes it easier for students to give credit where credit is due.  Sometimes it will give credit to the originally creator if a student remix.  A remix is where you can copy someone else's code but then make changes in it. Scratch has lots of student made codes to give you ideas.

The Technos

This morning I was having a conversation with two of my younger kids.  They had seen an ad on T.V. aimed at the Baby Boomer generation and wanted to know if I was a Baby Boomer (I take the 5th here). I went on to say that my little brother was generation X (which I never hear much news on). The past election year we sure heard a lot about the Millennial generation so they were familiar with that generation.  After a bit of discussion,  one of my kids said that they should be the Technos generation.  My older two children are in the Millennial generation, but I have had a lot of discussions with my three younger kids along with teaching computers in the schools since the early 90's.  Going back to just the Millennial generation, they knew all the proxy servers, how to build a computer, the need to constantly upgrade their memory and modem speeds, etc.  They basically explored, problem solved, got in trouble and created all types of technology.

By contract, The Technos generation, 1996-2006, have always been raised not only around technology, but pretty much one-on-one devices.  IPad, Smartphones, and Chromebooks. I know teachers that won't assign homework because not every student has a computer.  My students who didn't have computers actually got more homework on "the computer" done than students that had Internet and desktops at home, they where creative enough to use their parents or their own Smartphone.  Even places where people assume a student won't have access to online information, they usually do. School districts are evening removing desktops and Smartboards, considering them old school.  Those Chromebooks are so small teachers can't even monitor what students are doing on them.  Students rarely even having to share a device, never needing to learn how to use a dictionary (who needs ABC order), learn the Dewey decimal system, hitch a ride to the library, or look things up in an encyclopedia. About 10 years ago I was quoted in a book when I said that Google is the new dictionary.  Face it, who hasn't just typed a word in Google to make sure that it is spelled correctly or what the word means.  Google even will give you a sentence with the word in it.

In the previous generations, students loved computer time and getting on a computer.  Now students almost groan when they have to use computers.  To be honest, students feel their life is saturated by computers.  Many schools use personal devices so that students have access to their textbooks.  Yes, this is a nice convenience and easy to carry just a Chromebook home rather than a 50lbs backpack, but sometimes it is easier on the eyes to read a regular book.  It is also easier to flip back and fourth through the pages to compare and reread.  Computers represent school work to students and most students have a Smartphone in their pocket with plenty of apps at their finger tips.  They don't need to learn or know how computer's work, their phone does almost everything for them.  They don't need to learn how to read a map, spell a word, calculate math, or many other things.  Their phone not only can do most of their school work, but can play videos, movies, email, chat, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, play not only the radio and songs, but complete albums.  There are probably tons of other things that their phone can do that I don't even know. In fact, someday a Smartphone will probably be a school requirement and schools won't supply technology at all.  Similar to having to bring your own paper and pencil in the old days.  From a phone you can Bluetooth your document to a printer, or email it to your instructor. 

The Technos are having to recreate old school ways with new terminology.  Coding and Maker-Space is just two new words for thinking while using a electronical device and doing hands on with creative materials. I have several future blogs covering these topics.

The fact that The Technos have grown up with the knowledge that privacy is a luxury to their generation. In years past writing a paper in English class you wondered if your teacher ever even got to the huge pile of papers and read yours (and you could write so sloppy that the teacher could not even read what you wrote, definitely not illegible happen when you're required to type things).  Now with it submitted online, there is not a guarantee what you wrote is even private and will only be read or shared by your teacher.  Upload or email incorrectly and who knows where it will end up. You only have to go to YouTube to see what people video tape and post online.  Anywhere and anytime Technos have a camera on them, this is normal for them.  I can't even imagine growing up where anyone anywhere can video without your knowledge.  Even if a Technos does not have a Facebook account their friends can tag them in Facebook. Google anyone's name and you not only know where they live, but can pull up a map how to get there and also know who else lives in the house with them.  A local newspaper article now can be accessed anywhere in the world. This generation has been submerged in too much technology and too little privacy. They will hopefully be creating more ways to live their lives' without having to be connected 24/7 to technology.  I also hope they find more ways to have face-to-face communication.

I guess for the parent The Technos definitely know how to keep in contact with their parents.  When they get where they are going, when they leave, what their test score was today, which item should they buy at the store, text photos of their art project or woodshop project. Technos  have 24/7 access to their parents.  Maybe a helicopter parent invented the Smartphone. :)