Charity Project

Resources for Facilitating a Cloud-Based Sustainable Learning Environment

A map to sustainable learning.

Sustainable Learning Home Resources Standards Inspiration About the Author
Lessons Guides Rubrics Links Reading List

Learning Needs

Create a learning community in the cloud that meets the learner needs, including learning styles (audiovisual), learning processes and habits (academic rituals), and personal motivation (choice). Cloud technologies increase a teacher's ability to facilitate varied outcomes and can foster independence and adaptability to changing needs.

Academic Rituals

Make a video of your own at Animoto.

How to provide rituals of learning in the cloud:

Call to Learning

Sounds and visuals to signify entrance into the learning environment (Animoto, etc.)
Daily video message includes healthy habit or learning tip (Go Animate, YouTube Editor, etc.)
Active focus begins with a contemplative digital prompt or poll (Google Forms, Poll Everywhere).

Core (Re)Direction (Readily available as needed)

Mini-lesson Menu (videos, PDFs, etc.)
Study Team Cues (participation scaffolding)
Inspiration galleries & audiences (image galleries, discussion threads, etc.)

Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Contemplative Closure

Sounds and visuals to signal procedures for closing class (audio recordings, slideshows, videos).
Contemplative reflection or self-assessment rubric via digital prompt or poll (Google Forms, Poll Everywhere).

Audio Visual Access

How to provide access in the cloud:

Create a mini-lesson menu on your website or in your YouTube playlists for high-frequency learning needs -- everything from citing sources to assignment submission protocols.
Provide downloadable pdf documents, gallery slide-shows and web links to material for review or sample project ideas.

Active Choice

How to provide choice in the cloud:

Driving questions might be personal inquiries or narrowed from an assigned topic to a segment of interest -- use Edmodo discussion threads and feedback through Google Forms to assist DQ development.
Final product choices should fall into the three CCSS writing types or purposes, but can fall into an array of styles and packaging -- video or multimedia essays, websites, social media campaigns, etc.

Research Lessons with Audiovisual/Multimedia Access, Academic Rituals, & Choice

Learning Outcomes

Student & Real World Exemplars

Students often struggle to see the long-term benefits of their education and need to be exposed to real-world application of practiced skills. Learning goals include two high frequency targets: 1) Establish collegial relationships between students, prepping them for the workforce (I work well with others), and 2) Establish adaptable and transferrable learning and work skills to independent and shared goals (I build on previous knowledge and apply understandings to current pursuits) -- so, show them what this means in their future and connect the classroom work practice procedures to honing their success skills:

Real world example of independent and collaborative work practice:
"This Is the Woman at the Heart of Everything Google Builds" (Wired, 2013) -- This article discusses the successful abilities of Melody Meckfessel, an engineer at Google. A colleague notes her ability as a team leader, and she notes the necessity of understanding people, team building and the collaborative process as key to everything from software development to winemaking.

Real world example of multimedia products:
Students are surrounded by media, and yet quality examples of multi-media essays and other media messages must be examined and compared to the rubric with which they will be graded. Huffington Post's Talk Nerdy to Me series offers a selection of examples on current science related topics.

Cloud-Based Student Outcomes

RESEARCH UNITS: For stage one of the research project, in one class students developed their own driving questions while another class was assigned an interdisciplinary research question. The students used textbooks if applicable and the internet to review the related literature, and then created Glogster pages exhibiting their research findings.

During stages 2-4 of the research project students were asked to transform their initial research into a final project -- they either choose a written research essay, a multi-media essay, or a digitally produced creative short story or narrative (students used Storyjumper.com to create the illustrated stories, then took screenshots to upload to the Weebly powered class display website).