Podcast469: Reflections on Immersion Day January 2020

Welcome to Episode 469 of the Moving at the Speed of Creativity podcast from January 18, 2020, a show by Dr. Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) focusing on digital creativity, media literacy, digital literacy, digital citizenship, instructional technology integration and engaged learning both inside and outside the classroom. This episode features a conversation with 3rd grade teacher Shelly Fryer (@sfryer) about the second “Immersion Day” at Casady School in Oklahoma City. Immersion Days are half-days for students which focus on a special theme or topic. On January 17, 2020, the theme for the Casady Lower School students (in grades 1 – 4) focused on Inventions, coinciding with Kid Invention Day (KID). A wealth of fantastic resources about the design process and STEM / engineering for young students are available on nationalinventioncurriculum.org as well as other websites. Check out the podcast shownotes for links. Casady 3rd and 4th graders were able to videoconference LIVE to start the day with Payton Robertson in Florida. Peyton is now a senior in high school, and has been an inventor since elementary school with over six patents to his name. He met President Obama in the Oval Office to share one of his inventions after winning a national contest, was a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and will be continuing his career and learning journey as an inventor next year as he starts college at Stanford University. In the afternoon, 3rd graders talked with Dr. James W. Long, a local guest speaker physician and engineer who co-created a magnetic heart pump, featured in the new Amplify Science curriculum the students are using this year. One of the parents of Shelly’s students is a heart surgeon, and invited him to join in the third grade Kids Invention Day learning! In the podcast, Wes also shares some reflections on the “Animate Your Curiosity” lessons which he co-led for middle school students yesterday, using Scratch to create basic animations. Students watched and discussed several animation focused videos (including “Animator vs. Animation” from 2009 which has over 42 million views on YouTube) to find inspiration for their own animation and coding projects. If you haven’t checked out “The Science Behind Pixar” (sciencebehindpixar.org) in person or online yet definitely do! Also check out other resources on the “Animation Inspiration” website Wes created for this week’s Middle Division Immersion Day. Follow Shelly Fryer on Twitter @sfryer and Wesley Fryer on @wfryer. Wes’ Digital Literacy and Media Literacy Curriculum for Middle School Computer Classes is available free on mdtech.casady.org.

Shownotes:

1. Subscribe to Moving at the Speed of Creativity Podcasts
2. Shelly Fryer (@sfryer) – Blog
3. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – Blog – Middle School Computer Curriculum (Media Literacy and Digital Literacy)
4. Invention Convention Curriculum for Grades 3-5
5. Peyton Robertson – Inventor (Forbes.com)
6. The Incredible Peyton Robertson on The Ellen Show (2014)
7. TED Ideas: 3 brilliant inventions from a 12-year-old scientist
8. Be Inspired to Animate Your Curiosity!
9. Malone Schools Online Network (via Stanford University)
10. LifeSize Icon 500 Videoconferencing Unit
11. BlueJeans Videoconferencing in the Cloud
12. Scratch Animation Lesson (for middle schoolers by Wes)
13. Scratch (free Web-based, block-based coding platform by MIT)
14. Constructionism Learning Theory (Seymour Papert)
15. The Science Behind Pixar
16. PBS Scratch Jr Coding Passion Project (by Shelly Fryer, June 2016)
17. Build a Snowman in Scratch Jr (by Shelly Fryer, January 2019)
18. More Scratch related blog posts by Shelly Fryer
19. Code as Poetry in 4th Grade Scratch Club (by Wes Fryer, March 2018)
20. Developing Computational Thinking with Scratch Coding – webinar video (by Wes Fryer, December 2017)
21. Podcast446: Reflections on a PBS Scratch Jr Coding Camp for Kids (by Wes Fryer, September 2016)
22. Create a Maze Game in PBS Scratch Jr (by Wes Fryer, September 2016)
23. Scratch Day in Oklahoma City on Saturday, May 14, 2016 (by Wes Fryer, May 2016)
24. Fun Scratch Projects Today in STEM Class (by Wes Fryer, April 2014)
25. More Scratch related blog posts by Wes Fryer
26. James W. Long, M.D. – Cardiothoracic Surgery, Transplant Surgery (INTEGRIS)
27. Pioneering Artificial Heart Program at Intermountain Medical Center Celebrates 25 Years of Saving Lives on Tuesday With Patient Reunion (Intermountain Health Care, 26 April 2018)
28. INTEGRIS Implants 100th HeartMate 3 LVAD (INTEGRIS, May 2019)
29. Amplify Science Curriculum for K-8

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