French Immersion Social Studies Minecraft Project: Government (Grade 6)

Cross-posted from our previous blog site.

Check out this Prezi created by grade six students at one of our elementary schools. They created an island in Minecraft to learn about government, laws, charter of rights, and services provided by government.

Voir cette Prezi créé par élèves de sixième année à l'une de nos écoles élémentaires. Ils ont créé une île dans Minecraft à apprendre sur le gouvernement, les lois, la Charte des droits, et les services fournis par le gouvernement.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Dollars

Recently one of our schools received an invoice for $1000 for their use of a small copyrighted image on one of their newsletters. After determining that it was in fact a legal invoice, they were forced to pay the royalty for their use of that image.

To avoid this, there are a few ways you can find images (or other media such as songs) that are safe to use for newsletters, websites, etc.

The easiest way to find usable images is the "Usage rights" menu on Google Image Search results. After searching for something, click the Search tools button.

Then click Usage rights and select Labeled for reuse with modification.

This will filter your results to display only images that are likely able to be used. Remember that you still need to provide attribution, unless the image is explicitly tagged as Public Domain. Attribution can be as simple as providing a link to the original source.

For more information, check out the different types of Creative Commons licenses. For songs that you can use in projects check out Jamendo or the YouTube Audio Library.

Python and Google Apps Provisioning with the Admin SDK Directory API

After wading through documentation, blog posts, and StackOverflow answers I've finally figured out a way to authenticate using OAuth 2.0. Since we didn't want to have to interactively grant "user consent" for each of our domains, this is acting as a "web server" for computer-computer interactions.

I assume that you have Python 2.7 installed (three shalt thou not use), but I'd recommend installing Anaconda to make your life easier for all of this. You'll also need to install the Google APIs Client Library for Python.

EDIT: I was finally able to get it to work with the default SignedJwtAssertionCredentials.
 as well as PyCryptoSignedJWT. To install PyCryptoSignedJWT, download and unzip, then from the command line (in the directory you unziped to) type python setup.py install in order to install.

The next step is to set up your project. Here's the documentation from here to "Set up your API":

• Enable the API access from the Admin console in order to make requests to the Directory API. To enable the API, log in to your admin account and select Security. If you do not see Security listed, select More controls and then Security from the options shown in the gray box. Select API reference, and then select the checkbox to Enable API access. Save your changes.
• Set up a new project in the Google APIs Console and activate Admin SDK service for this project. See the Google APIs Console Help in the upper right corner of the Console page for more information about creating your API project.

Still in the Developers Console, you'll need to create credentials for your project. Click on Credentials (under APIs) and click the button Create new Client ID and then select Service account.

Download the key file, and make a note of the private key password (which is always "notasecret"). Then click the Okay, got it button.

You'll need to make a note of the Service Account EMAIL ADDRESS that is displayed (a long string of characters ending in @developer.gserviceaccount.com) and the CLIENT ID (the same string ending with .apps.googleusercontent.com).

The next step requires you to authorize your API client to access your admin console. Assuming your're still logged in to your Super Admin account, go to Manage API client access (or go to Security, Advanced Settings, Authentication, Manage third party OAuth Client access). For the Client Name, paste in the CLIENT ID that you noted previously. In the One or More API Scopes, put in a comma-separated list of the scopes that you'll be using. For our example I'd suggest https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.orgunit (you can always change this later). Then click the Authorize button.

The file you downloaded previously will be something like APIProject.p12 but we'll need to convert it to a PEM file. On a Mac or Linux machine this can be done from the command line ( openssl pkcs12 -passin pass:notasecret -in APIProject.p12 -nocerts -out APIProject.pem ), but on Windows other software is required (try Win32OpenSSL that can be downloaded from here). As a last resort for those who don't worry about security, you can convert it using this site.

So you now have a p12 key file, a Service Account Email Address, and of course your Super Admin account. You're set to start writing some code. I like the Spyder development environment that is installed with Anaconda, but feel free to just use Notepad (or Notepad++) if you're so inclined.

Here's the minimum Python code that works for me, fill in the appropriate values for yourself.


superAdmin = 'you@example.com'
serviceAccount = 'somethingorother@developer.gserviceaccount.com'
pemFile = 'APIProject.p12'
scope = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user'

import httplib2
from apiclient.discovery import build
from oauth2client.client import SignedJwtAssertionCredentials

keyFile = file(p12File, 'rb')
key = keyFile.read()
keyFile.close()
credentials = SignedJwtAssertionCredentials(serviceAccount,
  key,
  scope,
  prn=superAdmin)

http = httplib2.Http()
httplib2.debuglevel = False #change this to True if you want to see the output
http = credentials.authorize(http=http)
directoryService = build(serviceName='admin', version='directory_v1', http=http)

# You are now authenticated, so you can say something like this:
user = directoryService.users().get(userKey = 'me@example.com')
print user.execute()



Hopefully that's enough to get you started. The documentation about what you can do with the Admin Directory API is here. just remember that some of them will require you to declare other scopes.

What Your Teacher Wants You To Know

On this first day of school I wanted to post a letter that one of my high school colleagues gave to all of her students.

What Mrs. _____ wants you to know:

I do care about you. Not just the person next to you, but YOU. I know that you may not believe me when I say that, but it’s true. There will be days that you and/or I don’t do things perfectly and there may be conflict, but I beg you to not forget that I do want what’s best for you. I’m going to be honest with you: I struggle with remembering names. I study photo class lists in an attempt to memorize names as quickly as possible, but I’m much better at remembering your name if we actually interact… so when I say I’m available for individual help inside or outside of class time, I’m secretly hoping that you will take me up on that so that I can get to know you individually and we can get past this awkward stage of not really knowing each other. As much as I am generally busy at school because I thrive on efficiency and because I have a child at home that I enjoy spending time with, I am willing to stop what I am doing to help you. PLEASE ASK!

I am generally a rule-follower and I don’t truly understand why others aren’t. I think it’s a very valuable skill in life to be able to follow rules that you don’t necessarily agree with. Police officers or your future boss likely won’t care if you disagree with a rule that they caught you breaking. Truth and justice are not completely relative and societies need rules in order to function for the common good. If I crack down on you for doing something that you shouldn’t, don’t try to make excuses or say someone else was doing it too. Most people speed when driving, but only some get caught… if you get caught, you’re responsible for your own actions. Even if someone is trying to ‘force’ you to do it.

You will not use every fact/concept that you learn in school in your life. You likely don’t even know every job that you will do in your life. But, public education walks a tight-rope line between focussing on individuals while moving towards a common goal. Even if you may not ‘need to know’ something, the person beside you may. Regardless of what’s being taught, the act of training your brain to learn is the necessary skill for you to develop. Another key skill in life is the ability to focus past your own nose and do something that doesn’t immediately give you great joy. Sometimes that’s simply delaying gratification, but it’s true even if you never reach the point of finding joy in doing it. Some things just plain need done, whether you want to or not, like cleaning the bathroom or mowing the lawn.

I will be doing my best to help you learn what Alberta Education asks you to. Please know that I welcome constructive comments on how I can do so better. Remember that I cannot read your mind, and may not hear EVERY conversation you have with your friends in class, so please communicate requests directly with me if you want me to be able to address them. If you have any questions/objections/comments, please feel free to share them with me, either in person or via email. I am willing to openly discuss anything, at an appropriate time. :)

I look forward to spending a semester with you,

Mrs. _____

Online Student Forums: Some Options

I've had a few teachers ask me lately about options for students to interact online. They're usually looking for some sort of discussion forum, where students (and teachers) can post ideas and responses. Here are a few options, with some brief descriptions of each. Ideally these will be tools that you also use for other purposes with your students, but discussion forums might just be one way to start getting students involved in blended learning.

Google Groups
Students use their school Google accounts, teachers (and students) can create groups for specific discussion topics or for general class discussions.

Moodle
If you are using this already, your class has a default general discussion forum. You can also create additional discussion forums for specific topics or groups of students.

Edmodo
This is designed primarily as a discussion forum, but it also includes some of the features of Moodle such as the ability to upload files and collect assignments. Unlike Google Groups and Moodle we don't create user accounts for students, they need to create their own accounts and then join your class using the appropriate code.

TodaysMeet
A quick and easy way to set up an online discussion for a day (or longer), it doesn't require student accounts or any other preparation.


There are other options, of course, but these are a few that we use often. Let us know if you'd like help implementing any of these or other tools.

Minecraft in Math at Bev Facey

Students in Yolanda Chang's Math 20-2 classes at Bev Facey participated in a week-long MinecraftEdu project that had them building models and doing related calculations to demonstrate their learning of rates and scale factors. At the end of the week, she had her students write reflections, here are some of the highlights.

This project improved my understanding of scale factor and rates and ratios because I realize how much you have to convert and apply your knowledge to make your scale factor work. In real life the measurements that things are in can be different than what you’re using. Like the material.

Being able to see the blocks helped me understand how scale factor works and how different scale factors can change the size of a sculpture.

The calculations of the actual design improved my understandings of scale factor as well as my understanding of rates and ratios. The only way to keep track of all the calculations was to be very organized and methodical.

It was a good learning experience considering everyone has different answers and the question really makes you think. So it’s not just a breeze by project.

It makes so much more sense when you’re in control of what you’re doing and making it bigger and such.

It allowed me to think of a real life situation and everything was 3-D which make it easier to think about and calculate.

It’s a good game to help you with math, it’s better than doing worksheets.

It was related to real life things. Everyone’s answers differed so you had to learn to do it on your own.

It shows you that you use these things in real life and it helps you get a better understanding of what’s going on. It also gives you a visual image and gives you the opportunity to show your own work and understanding on the project.

For me, my learning style is auditory and visual so doing this project allowed me to visually see and explore real life scenarios of how to use scale factors. This helped significantly for my learning and enjoyment of this class.

It made it more fun to do scale factors, rates and ratios. Combining elements of abstract learning and mainstream video gaming.

It was more real life. I can see what I’m figuring out in front of me. It’s easier than trying to read a question and having to envision.

Yes, it helped me understand how to use scale factor and the rates and ratios. I understand how to apply this to my everyday life. As well for my future working in the trades.

It helped to show that when you extend the outside, the interior amount got much bigger. It was easier to see pictorially instead of in numbers.

It helped me to understand construction and how much work actually has to go into it.

Because there were so many different steps of math to go through, I really included everything on some level.

It helped me learn the concept in a way that was more fun and challenging to myself.

Because it was very challenging it made us think hard.

Task Force for Teaching Excellence

Along with about 1300 other people I attended the Task Force for Teaching Excellence Symposium yesterday where the report was released. It contains 25 recommendations to the Minister, which are summarized here.

Throughout the day there was great discussion at my table and during the break times. At the end of the day panel members answered questions that had been sent in, the answers to those and other questions will be posted here and on the Alberta Education Twitter account (using the hashtag #InspiringEd).

Unfortunately most of what gets reported on are negative reactions to these recommendations. However you can read the report for yourself, and provide feedback (via a survey, email, or discussion board) by June 5th, 2014.