Making the world a better place and 20% projects

As mentioned in a previous post, students have begun a project for our social studies uni; Canada and the world. We began our project with a discussion around another of the 6 Cs; Citoyenneté (citizenship).

Next, students were invited to discuss and research a global issue in which they believe they can make a difference using concrete action. Students are currently writing proposals for their projects.

Today, in order to inspire students we discussed the 20% project at Google and it's spreading use in education. Google has a long-standing history of letting employees use 20% of work time for their own individual projects and innovation. Gmail is one of the many examples of cool tools we use that came from a 20% project.

Educators around the world are using this same idea with students. Kevin Brookhouser's students in California, for instance, came up with tons of interesting projects to better their world. They have certainly inspired us too!

Un auto-portrait, les premiers selfies!

Check out our beautiful self-portraits. Surely you will recognise some familiar faces.

Social Studies: Canada and the world

Students have started projects to better the world! Students are looking at global issues and Canada's role within them. They are also coming up with concrete actions they or the class can take to affect change.

Here are some of the problems we are studying so far:
- Girls access to education
- Child poverty
- Syrian refugees and the war in Syria
- Climate change

Here is a padlet to launch our inquiry. It has the overall expectations for the Social Studies strand.

Cercle de littérature

We are starting literacy circles today! Students have chosen a book or novel which they will read in small groups. Every week students will be responsible for reading a chapter or passage. They will also have one of 4 roles to fill in their literacy circle. The roles and their general description can be found below. Students can find sheets with more detailed instructions in their google drive folder Cercle de littérature within their French folder.

Literacy circles will take place on Tuesdays.  

Directeur/Directrice  de la discussion

• pose des questions pour stimuler la discussion
• surveille et guide la discussion

Enrichisseur de vocabulaire

• clarifie les mots difficiles (prononciation et définition)

Luminaire litéraire

• choisi des passages significatifs pour partager avec le groupe

Mini Mme

• Vérfie que chacun accomplit sa tâche et que tout le monde participe également

Student portal

The board has added a few new resources to support french language acquisition in the classroom but also at home. TV5 Monde, Ici Radio-Canada and TFO édcuation are full of games, websites, articles and videos for learning at home. Students access these resources using the Student portal on the St-Gemma website. For TFO, students need a group identifier and password which they wrote in their agendas yesterday. Happy learning! 

L'électricité

Started our electricity science unit a few weeks ago. We started with what we think we know and what we want to know. We have begun to talk about reducing our consumption as well as safety and security measures around electricity. In tandem to learning about electricity, we have been learning about coding and programming. Many if not most jobs of the future will require some form of coding knowledge. On Friday, we had a Google hangout with a class at St-Gabriel's school in Kanata with a lot of coding experience so they could give us their tips and tricks.

Below are the big ideas from the curriculum as well as some resources for students looking to deepen their learning at home

Big ideas: (1) Electrical energy can be transformed into other forms of energy. (2) Other forms of energy can be transformed into electrical energy. (3) Electrical energy plays a significant role in society and its production as an impact on the environment. (4) Society must find ways to minimize the impact of energy production on the environment.

Ressources

https://hydroottawa.com/fr

http://www.hydroone.com/OurCommitment/Safety/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/anton-malafeev/le-monde-sans-electricite_b_5992770.html

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2009/10/07/comment-reduire-sa-consommation_1250570_3244.html

Les dangers de l'électricité

Peut-on faire de l'électricité avec des oranges?

Student survey

Already two months come and gone! When we come back on Monday it will already be November! Students are going to get new seating, we will have new learning goals and, of course, we will be diving into a new science unit. With two months already under our belt I thought it was time for the teacher to get some feedback...that's right the teacher. Teachers are often busy giving feedback to students, but we don't always take the time to let our students give US feedback. Today, students answered anonymous surveys so that I could get some feedback on the physical set up off the class, how and what we are learning, homework or anything else they wanted to let me know. 

Here's what I learned :

- Mme parle à la bonne vitesse (this surprised me as I have been told I speak very fast)

- Nous lisons et écrivons juste assez 

- Nous parlons trop (which is interesting because you would think grade 6 students would love to talk)

- la classe est bien organisé et comfortable 

- ils veulent apprendre les verbes, les études sociales, les arts et la physique

- ils aiment la technologie 

- plus de jeux! 

In a few weeks, I will be sending a parent survey through the student's gmail accounts for some parent feedback as well. Stay tuned! 

Leveraging digital

In every C (créativité, collaboration, communication, caractère, citoyenneté et pensée critique (see previous post)) there is a leveraging digital component. Students need to be able to explain what tools they are using as how it is facilitating their learning. During our biodiversity inquiry,  here are the tools we used and what students said the tools allowed them to do.

Google Slides
- speaker notes
- animation, transitions, effects
- visuals
- templates - themes
- liens

Google Sites and Wordpress
- to share information
- to reach a bigger audience

Powtoon
- very visual!
- video
- voice and music

Prezi
- well organised
- easy to use
- very visual!
- sharable
- multimedia uses (video, links)

Read and Write for Google 

- word prediction

- dictation

- read the text aloud and highlights

Google Doc/Drive

- more than one person can be looking/writing the same doc at the same time

- Easier to read

- more visual appeal  - images
- copy/paste
- collaboration
- easier to share with other people - different publishing options
- Mme has access to everyone's work - she can give feedback, correct and comment much faster
- Revision history
- saves automatically (no more my dog ate my homework or I lost it)
- liens  

Twitter
- to tweet
- connect with others
- share
- many ideas and opinions
- limited amount of writing possible

Padlet
- shareable - different publishing options
- many boxes
- visuel
- multimedia
- collaboration - people can work on it at the same time

- Google Translate

- Google Search 

- Dictionnary.com

- Youtube

- Chromebook 

- Voicethread

Looking for small appliances

Before having a maker fair, I'd like to try an unmaker fair. I am looking for small appliances or electrical toys that no longer work or you don't use. If you have an old toaster, phone, fan, vcr, computer etc. Let us take it apart and see how it works!

New pedagogies and critical thinking

New Pedagogies  are a new way of thinking about teaching and learning for the 21st century in a highly complex and ever-changing world. 

In this model, the role of the teacher is "that of activator of learning who designs learning experiences that build on learner strengths and needs, creates new knowledge using real-life problem solving and help all students identify their talents, purpose and passion." . 

Six competencies guide the learning (les 6 Cs) ; creativity - créativité, critical thinking - pensée critique, communication, citizenship - citoyenneté, character - caractère and collaboration. With every C comes a learning progression or a way of evaluating where the students and educator are in their learning journey. My goal this year is to unpack some of the learning progressions with the students. I am translating the progression into French then as a class we are discussing what they mean in order simplify the progression to student friendly language. Students should be able to evaluate where they are on the progression, set goals and find ways to improve. 

As most parents will have noticed we have been working ridiculously hard on our biodiversité inquiry. In looking at what students were doing I thought this was the perfect time to look at the critical thinking progression. We simplified the language as much as we could, we evaluated where we thought most the class was and we used part of the progression in our rubrique for our final task. You can find our version here.The progressions are quite lofty in their goals so don't be shocked if we are on the "low" end. The students are after all only in grade 6 AND doing all this in a second language. 

L'orchestre du CNA

On the 29th, we are very lucky to be going as a class to the NAC to hear the orchestra. To prepare for our visit, we will be learning about various instruments and some of the basics of classical music. Here are two great sites to explore to learn more about classical music.

Arts Vivants - CNA

San Francisco Symphony

Art inspiré de l'automne

Les feuilles qui changent de couleur m'inspirent toujours! 

We have created two beautiful nature inspired art projects and have one on the go. First, we went into the school yard to see if we could capture biodiversity. The students came up with really varied and beautiful subjects for their photography. Next, we used leaves to create all kinds of works of art. Finally, last week we analysed some of Norval Morisseau's paintings and got started on our own (pics to follow).

        

 

         

projet: la biodiversité

Students have embarked on an inquiry pertaining to a subject of their choosing (still touching on biodiversity of course). So far subject vary from the destruction and protection of our oceans, the importance of bees and their decline, the arctic, global warming, species at risk of extinction, the pollution of the Ottawa river, big game hunting in Africa and polar bears. Students will have ample time to complete the project at school however whatever they read, listen to or explore at home will certainly deepen their understanding and push their work in class.

Here is a list of resources I have shared with students to guide them: resource bank

Mes buts

This month, we are working on listening strategies and active listening. Yesterday, students wrote what skill pertaining to active listening they thought was their strength and which they thought they could work on. They recorded these goals on a google doc called Mes buts. Throughout the year, students will use this graphic organiser to track goals, receive feedback from the teacher and self-reflect on their progress. Parents should definitely check it out. (hint search mes buts in Google drive once students have logged into their accounts).

Here's our anchor chart for l'écoute active http://padlet.com/mme_oliver/pa4ytvu32ict

La biodiversité

For the next few week we will be learning about biodiversity. This week we will define what biodiversity is then we will see what we know and what we what to know. Below is a padlet with the overall expectations from the science curriculum as well as some videos, articles and websites that we will use in class but that would also make fabulous review for homework.

La biodiversité

Meet the teacher

Can't wait to meet parents and families tonight.

Here are my slides if you missed it.

Meet the teacher presentation

lip sync battles

In two weeks we will start having some lip sync battles! Students will have two weeks to pick and train for this optional challenge. Students must pick one or two french songs that they can convincingly lip synch and the class will vote and who performed their lip synch the best. I can gladly suggest artists or songs to students who need some musical guidance. Let the battles begin!

Musical suggestions

I like Taylor Swift...Marie-Mai, Brigitte Boisjoli, Andrée Watters, Véronique Dicaire

I like Adele...Céline Dion, Nadja, Isabelle Boulet

I  like Micheal Bublé...Bruno Pelletier, Sylvain Cosette, Claude Dubois,

I like rock...Les respectables, Les trois accords, Beau Dommage, Jean Lelooup, Kaïn

I like rap and hip hop...Loco Locass, Stromae, Corneille

I am a lip sync ninja and need a challenge...Les cowboys fringants, Compagnie créole, Edith Piaf

Un polyglotte sommeille en vous...

Like many people, I am fascinated by Ted talks at the moment. I stumbled on a really great one about learning multiple languages and...it's in French!!!Next week we are going to watch the video and discuss why one should learn one or more languages (obviously focusing on French). We will also discuss some of the strategies we use to support our language learning. We will even look at the FSL curriculum! Below is the link to a padlet with the video, some guiding questions and additional resources (great homework!). Un polyglotte sommeille en vous

Première semaine

This week our learning goals are typical back to school goals. We are working on getting to know each other as well as the routines and procedures of the class. We have also begun analyzing and representing our board theme through art. Students were introduced to the new theme last year; restoring each other in a spirit of gentleness - se restaurer l’un et l’autre avec un esprit de douceur. 

Yup...already...but it should be fun this week. 

1. Students are encouraged to bring one or two pictures to help them tell me, and the class, a little bit about who they are. I would like at least one of the pictures to stay at school to decorate our lovely classroom. 

2. Student should also bring a small (read: fits in the palm of your hand) object which they will use to represent them. This object will also stay at school all year so it shouldn't be something fragile or expensive. Examples - keychain, button, hockey card, lego man, rainbow loom bracelet

Bring in as soon as possible but any time within the next week is fine.