Skype Cooking Lessons with Chef Paola

I was part of a really special learning experience at Major Pratt School over the last few weeks.  MPS foods classes had the opportunity to work with a professional chef from Italy thanks to the technology available in our schools.  Chef Paola Martinenghi presented a 3 part series for students via Skype.   Her classes focused on Italian food and culture.   Chef Paola is incredibly passionate and she was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenter.   We are very grateful to The Chef and The Dish for making this connection possible.  It was such an exciting opportunity to have Park West School Division students connect with an expert in this way!  Thank you to Mrs. Nemez and Mrs. Falkevitch for inviting me to be part of this learning experience in your classroom!

Class 1: The Importance of Food, Country and Culture
Chef Paola's first session focused on iconic Italian foods.  We were transported right into her kitchen in Italy with high-quality video and audio.  As we were getting to know each other, she reached back to grab a bag of Manitoba flour off her shelf!  It was pretty incredible to see one of our province's products in her hands.   For our first class, Chef Paola taught us about where certain foods are produced and talked about the history and culture related to some of our favourite Italian foods.   Chef Paola's enthusiasm engaged us as she told stories of how parmesan cheese is made, where pizza originated and how foods become traditional.  Each group of students had slightly different experiences depending on their questions and interests.  When talking about their first impressions, everyone agreed that Chef Paola was an intelligent and passionate presenter!

Class 2:  Cooking with an Expert
The second class with Chef Paola was a cooking demonstration, which students really enjoyed.  She prepared traditional Italian foods with each class.  Each group of students watched her prepare bruschetta, studying her ingredients, techniques and tools.   She also prepared pesto with some classes.   Seeing Chef Paola in action in her kitchen at home was an awesome experience!   She told us about the local ingredients she used and explained the importance of using ingredients from her region.   To conclude the class, Chef Paola issued a challenge.   Students were asked to prepare their own, creative versions of bruschetta using any locally-available ingredients.

The Cooking Challenge
In the days between classes with Chef Paola, students worked together to create their own versions of bruschetta.   They used the concept of bread with chopped toppings, but tried substituting a variety of ingredients for the traditional tomato, cheese and basil.   

Class 3:  Sharing the Results
In the third and final session, students presented their bruschetta creations to Chef Paola.   Using screen sharing, students were able to share photos of their bruschetta interpretations.  Students talked about the ingredients they used, reasons for choosing those ingredients and answered questions posed by Chef Paola.   Chef Paola offered feedback on each group's work and provided tips and suggestions.  After presenting their creations, students were able to ask questions and hear a few more stories from Chef Paola. 

Enhancing Education with ICT
I was really pleased to be part of such an exciting learning opportunity.   I really liked that students used technology to connect with an expert to enhance their learning.  I thought that the cooking challenge was a great way to connect the digital, online learning experience with the in-class learning.  The high-quality video calls were an awesome way to see a professional chef in action.  For me, this experience underscores the potential for technology to enhance learning. 

Want to try it?
The Chef and The Dish offers Skype cooking sessions with a selection of master chefs from around the world.   The business typically offers in-home sessions, but they were willing to adapt their sessions for a classroom.   Check out their website for more information!

A Polar Bear Project: Guest Speakers help us learn

We continue our polar bear project with much enthusiasm!  In addition to building our knowledge of polar bears through research and shared note-taking, we also had the chance to learn from a couple of awesome guest speakers this month!  A guide from the Buffalo Bill Center in Cody, Wyoming took us on a Skype virtual field trip around the center to teach us all about animal adaptations.  A teacher from Winnipeg, Mr. Andy McKiel, also joined us via video call this month to tell us all about his adventures with polar bears when he traveled to Churchill, Manitoba.  We learned a lot from these special guests and we are very grateful that they shared their knowledge with us.  Using video calling in our classroom has allowed us to connect with guest speakers and experts that would not otherwise be available to us.  Check out the Skype in the Classroom page to learn more about how you can use Skype to enhance teaching and learning!

Skype-a-thon 2016

On November 30th, our grade 1 class took part in the 2016 Skype-a-thon global learning event!  We were honoured to be selected for a call with special guest speaker, Ms. Toni Townes-Whitley.  Ms. Townes-Whitley is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Worldwide’s Public Sector.  We read one of our favourite poems "Pets for Sale" for her to start the video call.  Then, she answered our questions about her job, her community (Redmond, Washington) and her life. She also had lots of questions for us.   We discussed our successful Books for Guatemala garage sale and our upcoming plans to host the third annual Kids Who Code Code-a-thon.  It was a very special experience to have such an important leader take time to talk to our class!

Skype in the Classroom is an awesome tool that I've been using in education for about eight years.  Besides connecting with guest speakers, I use Skype to support teaching and learning in a variety of other ways, including:

• Skype story time - Shared read alouds between classrooms can be a great way to encourage students to talk to each other about books.  We have also shared student-created books via Skype so students could reach a real audience outside of the classroom and get feedback on their writing!
• Global Read Aloud - Classrooms around the world read the same book(s) and connect to discuss the books, share ideas and work together! 
• Mystery Number Skype - Guess a Skype partner classroom's mystery number using yes or no questions, while fostering some great math thinking! 
• Collaborative projects- We often use Skype as a "meeting tool" to work with other classes when planning and executing collaborative projects such as the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon, our Maker Faire and Yoga Festival and the Marvelous Muffins fundraiser.

Hack the Classroom: September 2016

I was very fortunate to be invited to present at Microsoft's first Hack the Classroom event in January 2016.  It was an inspiring event that involved thousands of educators from around the globe, so I was really excited to register as an online attendee for this fall's event!  With a line-up of passionate presenters sharing today, Hack the Classroom again inspired me.  I'm excited to see what another year will bring in our connected classroom!

John Kao of Edgemakers shared about his passion for innovation in education.  According to their website, "EdgeMakers offers an interdisciplinary practice-based and purpose driven, challenge- and project-based learning system currently delivered to students in grades 5-8, high school, and institutions of higher learning in The United States, Brazil, Colombia and India. It consists of five core courses..."

What is innovation?

Kao asserts that innovation is "developing capabilities to achieve a desired future" which means we need to narrow the gap between what students are learning in school and what they will need to be successful in their futures. 


What if the world's young people learned how to be innovators and entrepreneurs?
At Edgemakers, they ""assert that the idealism and passion of the young are one of the most underutilized resources on the planet."


I strongly agree with Kao's belief that young people can make a contribution to the world and solving our problems.  As an educator, I think an important role of education is to foster the development of citizenship skills.  I make an effort in my own classroom to let students tackle real world problems that they have identified as important and encourage them to take on projects that help others.  Some such projects have included teaching others to code, purchasing school supplies for a partner school in Africa, volunteering at an animal rescue, promoting sustainability with reusable bag use and reducing our classroom trash.  

Lauren Pittman is using the OneNote learning tools to help her students with special needs become more successful readers.  I am definitely going to be investigating these tools further after watching this powerful video featuring her classroom!



Dyane Smokoroski is a Microsoft Expert Educator and Skype Master Teacher.  She believes that teachers are in the business of inspiring students.  She uses Skype to play Mystery Skype, connect with experts and take her students on virtual field trips.  She even took us on a brief Skype virtual field trip to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences! 

Dyane also allows students from all over the world to showcase their creativity through her Awesome Squiggles collaborative art project.  Registration is closed for this year, but I'm looking forward to "unofficially" trying the project with students and sharing it through social media!

Patricia Romero is using Minecraft to engage her learners at the American Institute of Monterrey .   She shared her tips for using Minecraft in the classroom:

• don't be afraid
• start small
• get organized
• plan ahead
• empower students
• set rules
• build a team
• share work
• grow your program

The 2016 Skype-a-thon is coming up on November 29th and 30th.  Sign up to connect your classroom!

Check out the Hack the Classroom Sway and sign up to watch the recorded webinar on the Hack the Classroom event website. 

Kids Who Code: Meeting Other Coders

As we build momentum for our Hour of Code event, we continue to learn more about coding and computer science!  Thanks to Skype in the Classroom, today we had an exciting four-classroom Skype conference call about coding.  Our Kindergarten friends in Mrs. Caldwell's class were on the call and we met students from Ms. Page's class at Forest Hills Elementary in Wilmington, NC and from Mrs. Lowe's Class in Winnipeg, MB.  Each class shared some of their experiences with coding and students had the opportunity to share some of the coding tools they've been using. 

During the call, Ms. Page's class showed us The Foos  - a coding tool that we'd never seen before.  They explained how much they enjoyed  the app and even gave us a quick demonstration of how it works. As soon as we concluded our call, my students were asking to try out The Foos, as recommended by Ms. Page's class.     Since we were so excited to try it out, we downloaded it this morning and spent our coding time this afternoon exploring this new tool.  I was impressed at my students' ability to work with a brand new tool so confidently - they really are becoming coding experts (not to mention great problem solvers and critical thinkers -wow!)  I watched and listened as students tackled new programming tasks and worked with peers to overcome challenges.  It is very evident that students are building their skills as young coders!

As we have done with other coding tools we've tried, we took time after our initial exploration to rate the app.  It was quite popular with many students.  I noticed it was very easy for them to get started, yet challenging enough content-wise. I think The Foos are here to stay...

New Project Partners!

At the beginning of our school year, we formed a partnership with a senior class in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  The partnership stemmed from my trip to the 2014 Microsoft in Education Global Forum in Barcelona, Spain.  During the forum, I worked with Jennifer Bevill and 2 other teachers to create a learning activity.  Our Grade 2 class first met Mrs. Bevill's seniors during a Mystery Skype game this fall.  By asking each other yes or no questions, we narrowed down the other group's location and eventually figured out which state our new friends were located in.  I was very impressed with my students' ability to generate useful yes/no questions based on:

• continents (Do you live in Africa? North America?)
• countries (Do you live in Canada?  Do you live in the United States?)
• time zones (Is it _______ time there?)
• directions (Is your state in the north part of the country?  In the east?)
• mapping (Does your state touch water on the map?)  
• state names (Does your state name begin with ____?)

We generated a lot of potential questions and students did a great job of selecting questions to ask to narrow down the map once we were actually on a live video call!

Once we figured out where Mrs. Bevill's class was located, we learned more about each other by asking questions.  It was interesting to learn about life, school and community features in another place.  (And a great opportunity to meet our social studies learning goals related to communities).  It was also a great experience for my students to understand differences - when we talked about things like"harvesting" and "snowmobiling", Mrs. Bevill's class had lots of questions for us since they aren't as familiar with these activities.  We also compared weather and discussed which months we could potentially have snow in Manitoba (we listed off a LOT of months....)  Our question, in turn, was "Does it even snow there?!?"

As a part of our partnership, we agreed to research the environmental issues in our area (since sustainability is a common concern in both areas).  With my help, students researched some environmental problems in Manitoba.  When we were discussing how to present/share our research, a student suggested the ChatterPix Kids tool we'd used for our 2D shapes & 3D objects video last year.  Our whole class worked together to write a script for the video, take/source relevant photographs, record our voices and finally, create the video. 

Our video link was sent to Louisiana this week.  Students were also eager for their video to be shared on our blog so they can watch it at home and share with their families. We hope you enjoy watching it:

Mystery Number Skype

We have used Skype in our classroom throughout the year, but recently we've been doing something new and exciting called Mystery Number Skype. After attending Kathy Cassidy's presentation at Awakening Possibilities last month, Mrs. Caldwell and I were excited to try out this new learning activity with our students.  We also tried this activity with Miss Turner's K/1 class in Treherne today!

How We Do Mystery Number Skype:

•  Each class chooses a mystery number.  Teachers and students can decide on a range such as 1-100.  
• Classes connect via video call. One class goes first, and asks the other class yes/no questions to narrow down what the mystery number could be. 
• Some great questions are being asked in our classes right now:
• Is it higher than __?
• Is it lower than __?
• Is it between __ and __?
• Is it in the thirties? forties? etc. 
• Is it even/odd? 
• Does it end with ....?
• Does it start with...?

• Once the first class guesses the number correctly, the other class takes their turn.

Helpful Tools

We have been using the interactive hundred chart in SMART Notebook to keep track of the numbers we eliminate. As it is narrowed down, students "erase" the numbers on the board.  If you don't have access to the interactive hundred chart, a copy of the 100 chart to cross off guesses could be shared by the class or used individually by each student. We also use our Front Row audio system microphone to pass around, which helps to amplify student voices so they are more easily heard during the conference call. 

A friendly competition...
To make Mystery Number Skype into a bit of a competition/game, our classes have competed to see who could solve the mystery number in the fewest number of questions . Students kept a tally of guesses and so far the OLCS Kindergartens have asked fewer questions than us, so we are working hard to ask really smart questions in hopes of winning next time!  It's a fun and motivating element that encourages us to eliminate the most numbers we can with each of our questions.

Important Learning
This Mystery Number Game has led to much learning.  We've discussed decade numbers and learned about even and odd.  Students have the opportunity to think about numbers and formulate good questions.  I'm very excited to see the math learning that is going on during these calls!

Keep in mind that any video calling tool will work for this activity or you can even play with a special guest or partner classroom in your own school!

Mrs. Caldwell has shared a great post about her perspective on Mystery Number Skype too - check it out!

Tips from Kathy Cassidy

As a part of the Awakening Possibilities Conference, we attended a great session by Kathy Cassidy @kathycassidy  Her presentation links are here. 


Kathy's ideas for using Skype and Twitter in your classroom:

• Mystery number Skype
• Reading buddies via video conference
• Readers theatre performances
• Measurement - predict which is heavier/lighter and find out with Skype buddies
• Bringing in an expert or an author
• Learn from other classrooms via Tweets
• Write a collaborative story using a Twitter Hashtag
• Live Tweet an event or presentation
• Challenge others:  Kathy's class did a snow clothes challenge to see how fast people could get dressed in their winter clothes!

How we have used Skype and Twitter in our classroom:

• Presentation from an expert: During our Olympics project, we had an Olympic torch bearer from the 2012 games as a guest speaker via Skype.
• Collaboration:  The Grade 1s work with the OLCS Kindergartens throughout the school year.  We complete projects together, do learning activities together and share things we are proud of! 
• Making Connections:  During our Olympics project, we could interact with real Olympians!  We really enjoyed asking them questions, seeing their pictures and messages and learning more about them.  We also interact with other classrooms.
• Sharing:  We Tweet all kinds of learning: students write math story problems and wait for our Twitter friends to answer, we summarize key points from our reading, we ask questions to find out more. 
• Making Changes:  We encourage others to take action when we are working on a project to make a difference (for example, our Twitter friends are helping with  Track Your Trash and One Hour, No Power ).

Kathy shared useful resources such as:
Projects By Jen
Skype an Author
Skype in the Classroom
ePals
KidBlog
edublogs

Skyping with an Olympic Torch Bearer

We just Skyped a torch bearer from the 2012 summer Olympics.  His name is Mr. Tait.  We found out lots of interesting things and we got to see the torch! 

This is what we learned:

• Mr. Tait has his own torch that he carried for the London Olympics.  
• He ran with the torch and he held the torch up high. 
• The Olympic rings and the word "London" are on the torch.
• There were 8000 little holes in the torch.  There was one hole for each person that carried the torch. 
• There was 1 big hole in the torch for the gas to go in to light it.
• The torch is made of  gold-colored aluminum. 
• He felt very proud, happy, nervous and excited about carrying the torch.  
• Mr. Tait was nervous because he didn't want to drop the torch or fall with it. 
• After he ran with the torch, he didn't want to put it down because it was so special. 

We really enjoyed Skyping him.  Other classrooms should really watch the video of Mr. Tait carrying the torch or try to Skype him!

Mrs. Obach found Mr. Tait's information on the Skype in the Classroom website.