Hardin Simmons University’s Dream-Catchers Summer Camp Engages Students – Enhances Literacy for Young Scholars
Hardin-Simmons University’s Irvin School of Education hosted the sixth year of Dream-Catchers Summer Camp, a program designed to enhance literacy among elementary and middle school scholars from the Abilene Independent School District (AISD) and other nearby districts, held June 18 – 21 and June 25-28, 2018.
Dream-Catchers Summer Camp, funded by numerous donors through the Community Foundation of Abilene, HSU alumni, friends of the program, and local businesses, promotes problem-solving, critical thinking, and hands-on activities while building motivation and achievement in science and social studies. Dr. Renee Collins, Associate Dean of the Irvin School of Education, developed the camp as a result of research in the Engagement Model of Learning for diverse learners. The camp provides real-world connections with opportunities of collaboration, autonomy, and abundance of texts pertaining to Texas Parks and Wildlife Growing Up Wild and Project Wild activities for the young scholars as well as the American Revolution for the adolescent scholars.
According to Dr. Collins, the many motivating and engaging activities provides opportunities for success while applying reading and writing strategies. The scholars make connections through art, music, theater, and technology activities within the day. HSU is designated as a summer feeding site for children under the age of 18, so all scholars attending the camp eat a nutritious meal furnished from Abilene ISD. The 70+ camp staff members include current HSU education majors, AISD teachers, HSU alumni, Abilene community members, and other education major from nearby universities. The 165+ scholars, who range from kindergarten to 8th grade, make friends, develop literacy skills, expand knowledge about science and social studies, as well as
enjoy university aged mentors during the two weeks. It is a win-win experience for everyone.
For the first time, live-tweeting will occur during the camp. The live tweet hashtag is #HSUDreamCatchers
~Post content adapted from original press release by Dr. Renee Collins.
In your Canvas LMS courses, look for the notification options to customize your course experience. They can be found by clicking “Account” along the left hand side of any Canvas page.
Source: Teague Canvas Course Files
These notifications are explained in many places available by searching, in the Canvas community, and in this Canvas Notifications PDF *
Summer is here! And PBS Learning Media is ready with lots of lessons and activities when you need a break from the pool, the beach, the lake, the basketball court, or the mall!
Don’t see what you like here? Search the vast resources at PBS Learning Media
Go Outside and Kick a Curveball
Grades: 6-12
Ever seen a ball curve or bend in the air during a soccer game and wondered what exactly makes it curve? Have your students watch this video and test it out themselves! Explore More
Go Outside and Garden!
Grades: 3-6
Creating a sustainable garden is great way for students to get outside! In this video, they will explore plant choice, companion planting, composting, water conservation, and more. Explore More
Go Outside on a Summer Adventure!
Grades: PreK-2
These five-day, thematic, multimedia activity plans can be implemented in just about 20 minutes each day. Practice and build math skills with PBS KIDS daily or weekly. Explore More
Let your imagination go on May 30th for National Creativity Day!
Whether you are an artist, writer, musician, filmmaker, blogger, photographer, graphic artist, or any of 100 other creative personalities, the world is going to celebrate you and your creative pursuit. Give your students, your friends, and your family an invitation to fly their Creativity Flag! Wear your creativity on your sleeve with a colorful outfit!
Click over to the website http://NationalCreativityDay.com for interviews, articles, and strategies for becoming more creative and building creativity into your daily life.
Use #NationalCreativityDay to share on Social media.
HISTORY of National Creativity Day
Hal Croasmun and ScreenwritingU founded National Creativity Day in 2018 to celebrate the imaginative spirits everywhere and to encourage them to keep creating.
Prioritizing meaning making in Digital Storytelling: A Latte with Angeline Koh
The Hotel Jen in Singapore is known for steaming salted caramel lattes served in a tiny cafe surrounded by artwork, photographs of Singapore landmarks, tall chairs, and gentle nudges toward languid conversation.
Today was the perfect day for sips and smiles with my friend, Angeline Koh. Angeline is the Director / Principal Storytelling Coach at Tyros Global. Angeline’s digital storytelling work has been featured in a National Day Rally for Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
On my first trip to Singapore, my fellow doctoral colleague, Oscar Guzman, arranged for Angeline Koh to speak to our digital storytelling SIG (special interest group). Then, the first insight I learned from Angeline Koh is that “Conversations become as much about story-telling as ‘story-listening'” (Koh, personal communication, March 17, 2015). Angeline and I went on to co-present a digital storytelling session for Pepperdine GSEP Student/Alumni Symposium in 2016.
Today, I had my notebook ready to learn more.
As our latte’s cooled, Angeline agreed to speak a little about the universal appeal of digital storytelling.
The sharing of ideas, experiences, and cultural perspectives found in digital storytelling videos has the potential to shape a common and dynamic cultural and historical heritage, background (Barab & Duffy, 2000) while intersecting and strengthening different perspectives (Beare, 2008) and building trust (Copeland, S., & De Moor, 2018).
Angeline Koh promotes storytelling as a tool for empowerment for us to “live our great story.”
Angeline enthusiastically encourages the art of storytelling expression reflecting “a community with a significant history, a common cultural heritage” (Barab & Duffy, 2000, p. 14).
Digital storytelling provides opportunities for many people in healthcare, business, and education to utilize multimodal affordances in meaningmaking (Teague & Pruett, 2016; Kress, 2010).
Digital storytelling production forms a foundational commonality that mirrors Lave’s anthropological conclusion that “meaning is connected to practices and contexts” (in Barab & Duffy, 2000). The meaning-making experience is pivotal to obliterate bias in communication, increase awareness of stereotypes among generations, and encourage open channels of dialogue
These digital storytelling conversations often extend beyond the contest submission incident to additional conversations. Students describe a strengthening of their identity and seeing themselves included in the aging continuum. Identity is
a vital and essential component of Communities of Practice (Wenger, 1998). Stories from older adults to the younger, listening student, reflect the older adults’ identity and purpose. They offer a shared knowledge between the senior subject of the photo and the younger student apprentice. Continual dialogue prevents a community of practice from becoming a “hostage” to understanding (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p. 10). As a result of the contest experience, a nurtured practice
develops. The practice is a shared history of intergenerational learning in an ongoing, social and interactive arena (Lave and Wenger, p. 101).
Or, as Angeline says, “You can tell a story. Digitally.”
Thank you, Angeline, for a very enlightening Latte break!
(l to r) Angeline Koh and Helen Teague, Hotel Jen, Singapore
Barab, S. A., & Duffy, T. (2000). From practice fields to communities of practice. Theoretical foundations of learning environments, 1(1), 25-55.
Copeland, S., & De Moor, A. (2018). Community Digital Storytelling for Collective Intelligence: towards a Storytelling Cycle of Trust. AI & SOCIETY, 33(1), 101-111.
Hardy, P., & Sumner, T. (Eds.). (2018). Cultivating compassion: How digital storytelling is transforming healthcare. Springer.
Koh, Angeline. Personal Communication, Singapore. March 15, 2015.
Kress, G. (2010) Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.
Lave, J., Wenger, E., (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation (Vol. 521423740). Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Teague, H., & Pruett, C. (2016, April). Intergenerational Digital Storytelling Goes Global and Mobile: The Images of Aging Photocontest. In Global Learn (pp. 414-419). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. Systems Thinker, 9(5), 2-3.
It is a unique situation to begin a weekend across the International Dateline. I am posting on Friday here in Singapore, yet it is still Thursday in the U.S. My thoughts continue to center on stories, storytelling, and digital storytelling. I’m looking forward to my visit with Singapore’s Digital Storytelling coach, Angeline Koh. Read my post about our conversation tomorrow at this link.
Here is your weekend Ed. Quote on stories, storytelling, with a peek to the opportunities for digital storytelling.
