The end of our first week of Virtual Learning!

Phew!  We made it through our first week of Virtual Learning!  I have seen such amazing work being done on your coding projects already. For those of you who have had a chance to join me during my office hours, thank you!  It helps to see everyone, and hear about the things that you have been working on. Remember, if you finished one project, you can always explore a second one. 

I have a couple of important things to share with you today;

1. As a follow-up to Mr. Becker's announcement, we WILL NOT be switching classes when the quarter ends.  You will be staying part of Digital Literacy until we return to in-person school.  You may have questions about this, and I am happy to answer all of them!

2. You will have Monday and Tuesday after spring break to work on your Coding Projects.  If you happen to finish before, you will only need to work on your daily warm-ups for Digital Literacy.

3. After our Coding project is finished, we will start a What do you Meme project which I will explain when we return from break. 

Thank you to everyone!  You have taken a new situation, and made it work.  Have a great break.  I hope that you can enjoy some time outside.  Let's all hope for nicer weather!!!

Happy first day of Virtual Learning!

Happy Monday!  I hope that everyone is feeling good about the work that we will be completing in class.  A couple of thoughts based on common questions that I have already received:

1. Remember, when working on your coding projects in Code.org, the "forever" block makes whatever you put inside of it go on, well, forever.  It is a loop and it is helpful when you have an action or event that you want to repeat. 

2. It is helpful to name your projects as you are working on them.  In the upper left hand corner, click on the box that says "Untitled" and rename your project something that makes sense.  That way, when you go back into your list of projects, you can tell which project is which without opening all of those projects up.

I will leave you with the first of many memes you will see that I have created using my dog George.  George is a chihuahua, and much like the Grumpy Cat, he can sometimes have a perpetual frown. Happy Monday and do not hesitate to reach out with questions!

Virtual Learning and Joke of the Week

I know as a teacher and a mom, much of my time lately has been spent worrying about the many changes that we are facing as a community, school and country.  As your student's Digital Literacy teacher, my job is to make the virtual learning that we will be doing as stress free as possible. I will be posting answers to common questions here on my blog, but also know that I am available for questions during my posted office hours of 9-10 am daily in Google Meet and by email throughout the day.  My office hours are pre-scheduled, and your student will be able to follow the link that I will share in Google Classroom to access me during my office hours each day. Additionally, all of the classroom work that I will be sharing will be through Google Classroom.  Your student has been using Google Classroom for my class since the beginning of the quarter, and will be using the same classroom for virtual learning.  

On Thursday, I will be introducing some coding work that we will be doing for Digital Literacy.  The last day of the quarter is two days after our scheduled Spring Break.  The students were able to finish up their robots last week, and we were even able to have our battle!  Below is a picture of the students working on their "Robotic Design Challenge Trials". 

The coding project that we will be working on will be in Code.org.  Your student can access Code.org from Clever, but I have also included a link here.   There will be a link in your student's Google Classroom stream as well.  When your student logs in, choose the "Sign in with Google" option, and then they will find the Express Course 2019 lessons they have been assigned.  Along with this coding practice, students will have the opportunity to work on vocabulary related to coding, and read an article about how coding is being used throughout the world.

Again, please let me know if you have any questions about anything-I am here to support you and your student throughout this entire process. 

I always post a joke of the week in my classroom, so instead of having our joke on our whiteboard, I will be posting our jokes here!  This week's joke:

Why is March the most popular month to use a trampoline?
Answer: It’s spring-time!

I said I posted jokes, I didn't say they were funny...stay safe and be well!