Summer School Math FUN....yes, FUN!

Greetings from summer school land at Leonard Lawrence Elementary! Sarah A and I have been given the amazing task again this summer to help students out with their math skills. I wanted to write a post to share the wonderful ways we are using our iPads with this and also to remind ourselves what we did and what worked....so that next summer, shall we venture down this same path, we have something to look back on.

First, we looked through MAP data. Number sense and computation are our school's two big improvement goals. We decided to look at the enrolled students' scores for those two categories. Any student that was listed in the 49th percentile and below for their age/grade were put onto our list. 

Half my day is spent pulling students out in small groups. I decided this year to pull out kids into groups by their MAP scores versus by classes. This makes it more student centered and the lessons are then level appropriate instead of having mixed groups of varying ranges. The other half of my day is spent going into the classrooms doing whole-group math lessons/activities.

Once small groups were formed, I had my principal print off the RIT bands/DesCartes for each of the groups I had. From those, I pull specific activities to work on with that group. I focus on the middle column [50% accuracy skills], and then move over to the right column. This way I can target exactly what each group needs to work on! 

Sarah and I, as luck has it, are two of the lucky 1:1 iPad holders. We wanted to incorporate the iPads into our small group and whole group lessons as much as possible. It would be silly and almost stupid NOT to use them, right? So, each of my small groups spend the first 10 minutes of their 30 minutes with me on either Front Row or Khan Academy [depending on their age and whether they had an email address to access Khan or not]. These two programs have been AMAZING and it's awesome to see the weekly email reports come in with the details of all of their improvements! 

After our 10 minute warm up, we move on to the skill[s] of the day that I pulled in advanced from the DesCartes. We go through the steps, discuss order of things, etc....we have used Screen Chomp a lot to practice problems with. We have also used Notability to use GRAPH paper to help kids line up numbers, etc. We then end our small group time for the day on either Zondle or play a game involving the skill we reviewed that day.

Zondle...what an amazing thing! You can access it either on the computer at www.zondle.com OR you can download the FREE app. See my previous post about all the things zondle can do. I find specific "quizzes" I want the kids to review [based on the skill for that day] and put it into MY FAVORITES. Because I have all of the students using the same username and password, when I put something into my favorites on one iPad, it is added into that category on ALL of the iPads. The kids CAN'T stop talking about playing Zondle. I have even done it whole group, having students work on a different grade level skill.

Other apps or programs I have used with the intermediate kids:

Quick Math, Math Splat, Super 7, Math Splash Bingo, Mathmateer, IXL Math, Pizza 1 [fractions app], Equalities, and Rounding.

Whole group lessons have ranged from working on the iPads with given apps/programs, playing place value bingo, decimals/percents bingo, rounding flash cards where students race to find their "match" without running or talking and I time them, and working on skills with the help of Brain Pop videos. 

The students are EXCITED to come to small group and light up when I walk into their room for whole group lessons....ESPECIALLY if I have the iPads with me. It has completely changed the entire attitude of summer school. Kids WANT to go play zondle or jump on Front Row/Khan Academy from home. I am sending username and passwords home with the students to access over the summer and I am also letting parents know about different apps we use, costs for each, and what each app does. I could NOT imagine going back to summer school math remediation BEFORE the use of iPads. Thank you, Bellevue Public Schools, for helping me bring EXCITEMENT back to summer school math help! :)

Holy NETA!

Holy #Neta14!

What an amazing experience! I definitely feel blessed that I was able to attend the two day event. I thought I should "share some of the goods" that I received at the conference. Here goes:

PeekYou.com-this website is AWESOME to show students to teach them about digital citizenship. You simply type in a name and you can see all of the public things found online. It will show all the information accessible by others. Kids can try typing in themselves and see all that is available to the public eye. You can also search usernames....so those kids that play games "live and online" with people via PS3 or XBox etc. can type the username of the person they are playing against and find out things about them as well. I thought this lesson will IMPACT students a lot-great for beginning of the year/digital citizenship.

Monster Skype Activity...have the students draw a monster...write a very detailed descriptive writing about their monster...send the description to a "penpal" in another classroom....ask that student to recreate their  partner's monster based solely on the description...Skype/GHO to show them and see how they did (helps focus on descriptive writing...)  create a competition to see whose is closest to original!!!

App-Random Name Selector Pro--similar to having sticks in the classroom, but will allow you to tell it how many times a name is "allowed" to be drawn...pulls name out of a hat

Blendspace.com.....independently study....intro to new material...similar to educational Pinterest....search within website....pre-created ones available....insert videos text quizzes documents....helps with times where students take longer on things than other kids do...collage/menu board of assignments or things to read or watch etc. Students don't have to create an account. If they don't, some features will be unavailable, however. 

 Touchcast App.....video app where you can pick themes....free for a limited time!!! Download it soon! Record a video and live action things....add apps within the video so it is on the screen over the live video....can fade out the apps so they are faint....can put a map in background for instance....as you give report things can be popping up...you can have a TelePrompTer...green screen.....white board....becomes interactive if you click on it and have it take you to the map or website. Can export file out to parents or to a blog via YouTube. 

Virtual Field Trips-
This website allows you to search for specific topics to find interactive, virtual field trips. Some are free, some cost...but you CAN search for JUST the free ones!
This other website will take you to NASA's distance learning website!

Some Apps to Check Out:

  This app is similar to the fav "Write About This" but offers diff options! Can use avatars and voice recording/typing to talk about different topics.....can be randomized...

This is similar to WORDLE [it does cost 1.99 but seems pretty awesome!] but when you type in the words, the words form the picture-a picture you choose from camera roll to use....the entire picture becomes a compilation of the words you typed in

  This website allows students [and teachers] to type in a book that they have read and enjoyed...and it will give recommendations of similarly themed books/authors.

www.rewordify.com allows students/teachers to copy and paste text into it...and the website will take some of the "tougher" words out and replace them with an easier synonym. Great way to differentiate for those struggling readers, especially with those difficult texts.

  www.theproblemsite.com is a website that provides challenge problems for those kids that need some extra "push".

www.jeopardylabs.com Great website that allows you to create your own Jeopardy games. A great way to spice up those review days!

safeshare.tv is a website that allows you to put links from YouTube into and then you and your students can watch your video with NO advertisements or those side movies...it just puts a black screen around the actual video you are watching. No more worrying about what "pops up" while showing that video/clip!

  Remind101.com is a site that allows you to send out text messages to mass amounts of people without them knowing your number OR you knowing their number. I think this will be a great tool for my basketball parents [I coach high school girls] and even possibly for parents of my 6th graders in the future to let them know about projects/tests/reminders/etc.

thedigitialscoop.com is her website of all of these amazing apps/websites/ideas plus WAY more....just in case you are curious!

ANOTHER amazing website I am SUPER excited about is www.zondle.com. HERE is a video tutorial on how to set it up and use it step by step. To try to summarize in little words, it's very much like Stick Around in that you can create reviews....OR the students can create review questions. This is web based, though, and has a few different features. Students can search topics to find other students'/teachers' reviews they have made. The BIG difference is this...after a student gets a question right, they get to play a very small clip of a game....then answer again correctly...play a short snippet of the game again....if they get the answer WRONG, it sends the question on to the end [tacked on]. Teachers can get reports showing the scores students are getting on the questions, how many times they attempted it, the hardest question for that student, AND what day and time they kid played the game. I went to a presentation on this that featured TWO 5th grade boys that couldn't stop talking about how fun this site is! They said they play it at home A LOT, and parents are happy with it because the kids are LEARNING throughout the entire process. I love that kids are able to create their own review questions AND they are able to create their own GAMES!!! So, if you have students that like to work with graphics and creating on computers...THIS is the site for you. If you have students that need some motivation to go through studying...THIS is the site for you. Kids earn Zollars and there is a leader board, etc. Teachers can assign students specific games [even embed them on iTunesU course or in an email, etc...] OR allow students to search and select random topics OR search their friends' games.....I'm SO pumped to see how this will run with my students!

I also won 25 licenses for MAD LEARN!!!! It's a one year subscription that I will start in the Fall with my students. MAD LEARN is an app that allows students to BUILD and CREATE apps of their own! I can't wait to research and PLAY with this app. I'm even MORE excited to see what they end up creating!

Whew. I think I'll stop there. I just wanted to jot down some of my favorites from the conference. I can't wait to collaborate with the other #ipadacademy peeps and see what they learned. I'm still trying to soak everything in. Let me know if you have any amazing ideas to use with any of the above apps or ones you have found to work in your room. My brain is still on overload!

Raz Kids, Alternative GHO option, SS projects.....

Hello! I am very eager to head back to work this week [YES! I am definitely saying I will be happy to see Monday!] After reading Michelle Klamm's post about conducting Running Records via Raz Kids, I did some investigating on my own. I will be starting my own this week via Raz Kids. I'm excited to see the breakdown of skills and how much the kids and I enjoy doing it this way versus the way we have been doing it. It's always fun to experiment, right? I can't wait to see what the kids think as well! It seems all I have to do is "assign" them their level book assessment and then they can do it on their iPad or any computer. It records their reading which will give me time to analyze it in a quiet environment that enables me to pause and replay if I don't hear the reading the first time. It will then ask the student to summarize what they read-and this again is a recording that I can listen to at a different time. Raz Kids assessment sheet gives me a 0-3 scoring rubric for their answers. It also gives them a 5 question comprehension quiz and reports the scores to me. Questions: Has anyone else used these as running records? Likes or dislikes about it? How did the kids like doing it this way? For kids on the lower levels, did any of you [teachers] find the need to READ the comprehension questions aloud? I can see this as a need for a couple of my kiddos. Any input, opinion, comments, etc would be greatly appreciated!!

I recently had a class contact us about doing a GHO...due to major time zone differences, we could not do a "live GHO". So, we decided to start doing videos and posting them to each other on Twitter via YouTube. In each video, we answer their question and pose a new question....then they do the same....we have done several now.....click on the links below to see a small "taste" of what we have been sending/doing. We have two students in charge of recording the questions and answers we have received thus far. The students still enjoy the competition of guessing their location before they guess ours. Critical reasoning, logical thinking, geography knowledge are just a few of the skills we are practicing. What was your best GHO thus far??

They made the first video! 

Our response/first question to them...... 

 They're 2nd video with response/new question

Our response/2nd question to them.... 

And so on...we will update you on our Mystery Class GHO as we get more clues!!!

 
The students will be presenting their social studies projects starting next Tuesday. I am excited to see what they have created! We had them choose a topic, and basically take on the role of teacher in that they needed to lesson plan! They have to have some kind of notes about their topic that sum up the information, a visual aid of some sort, and a follow up activity for their classmates to practice the new information they received. I have seen many students creating Stick Arounds, using Thinglinks, Keynotes, and I even taught them about Google Forms [but I believe these can only be CREATED on a computer, correct?] I know the students are eager and excited to show off what they have created and to see what their fellow peers have done as well. 

Our favorite apps from the past couple weeks have been AURASMA [still having problems with scanning images from ANY ipad versus the ipad that it was taken/created on]. The kids are also eager to try some coloring pages from colAR Mix app and Chromville app. Thank you Ann for hooking us up to a GHO with Sue G. that showed us these awesome AR apps!

Guided Reading, Apps, and GHOs

Hello all!

THe days just seem to go by SO fast that I forget to update things on my lovely blog. My co-workers and I decided at the start of 4th quarter to NOT departmentalize [t just teach all subjects to our own kids "without switching"]. This has been surprisingly...AMAZING! It has opened up options with the iPads that I didn't even think about. We are able to incorporate and CREATE on the iPad for ALL subjects ALL the time. The days just FLY by, as I said above....it's just crazy...I feel like as soon as I get here in the morning I am in a dead sprint until 4pm when I look up and realize it's time to call it a day.

STICK AROUND-we have done a LOT of puzzles in Stick Around [I have dumped all of the puzzles I have created for Science, Grammar, Reading, SS, etc into the 6th grade BPS folder Brent made for us]. Last week, however, was our first FORMAL assignment of CREATING a puzzle. I had them do this for 9-7 which was finding a pattern and continuing it. It definitely challenged a lot of the kids...many asked "can we just do the worksheet?", which tells me the worksheets are not making them think as hard as we hope or NEED them to. I told them no...this was their assignment and that they could do it-it would just take some patience and knowledge. The kids did a great job for the most part-we will need to talk in the future about CHALLENGING ourselves and others by creating puzzles that are 6th grade appropriate. Some kids, for example, did problems like 0, 5, 10, 15, __, ___, ____. A little easy, but at least they were creating and exploring this amazing app.

Ask3-via Twitter I read that they are going to discontinue/get rid of this app. Does anyone know why? Did anyone else hear or read this? My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE this app for math....we use it several times a week as one of our "choice activities" for Math. If they are discontinuing it, is there another app out there like it? I know Explain Everything...but I love that in Ask3 all the students in the class can view each others' videos, post comments/videos of their own within a classmate's video....WITHOUT uploading it to YouTube. Comments? Advice?

Guided Reading-we have taken off with our "menu of options" [see a previous post for pic]. The kids have enjoyed the variation of activities. We have asked students to put 1-2 pieces into their Google Drive "Guided Reading" folder they created and shared with us. This allows us to see the games they have played via screenshot or uploaded their videos on Chatterpix and Sock Puppets and Tellagamis. If you do a Chatterpix....these do NOT directly upload into Google Drive. Once students create a fluency practice in Chatterpix, we have to plop it into Explain Everything....save the project....and then upload VIDEO file via GOOGLE DRIVE and export it to their guided reading folder. Here, we [Sarah Armstrong and I] can check our kids' folders on a weekly basis to make sure they have done at least ONE activity a week, and within 5 weeks, they will have done ONE from each of the daily 5 activities.

GHO-our recent GHO was with a school in Irvine, California. When I email the teacher about setting up a date and time, we decide if we want to do state ONLY or if we want to do city and state. [once someone gets our state, city is easy as very few cities in Nebraska have 50,000+ residents...which we tell them in our intro of the class/town]. It was very challenging for my students to guess their city as California of course has thousands and thousands of cities....many with a lot of people. After we guessed city and state, we did a short Q and A session. It was fun to see what the kids wanted to ask each other. See URL below for the student-created iMovie trailer and iMovie slideshow.....after every hangout we write about it on our kidblog.org/MissSaliesClass and include the link to one of the two media sources above. We also have connected with classrooms on the blog that we have had a GHO with! I recently re-emailed parents the link to our blog page so they know we WELCOME their comments ALWAYS!!! 

Upcoming: GHO with Tony Vincent and teachers at 3:20pm today, iPad Academy tomorrow....

New apps: Math splat, Everyday Mathematics Equivalent Fractions [thanks Chelsea Hoglund], Thinglink, Athens City Walk [great for Ancient Greece]

iMovie SLIDESHOW for GHO w Cali

iMovie TRAILER GHO w Cali

iTunesU, NETA Conference, and Ask3

Hello all!

What a wonderful past couple of weeks it has been! Last week we completed Parent/Teacher Conferences, and everything went VERY well. When I had parents sign up, I allotted two parents per 15 minute time block. Students were encouraged to come "show off" projects they have created on their iPads. I had students make a P/T Conference folder in their Google Drive to dump all of the projects they wanted to talk about with their parents. I am SO glad I did this because for those students that couldn't attend with their parents [or for the parents that don't "allow" their kids to come with], this allowed me to open up their folder and still have opportunity to show the parents their creations. The only thing I would change is the number of parents per time slot. We just had SO much to talk about with all the things we have been doing PLUS middle school transitioning next year and upcoming things, etc....that I would have preferred just one student per 15 minute time slot. The few times where there were two schedule, it just felt a little rushed. Easy fix for next semester! :) With the help of my Two Springs friends [Sharae and Jenn], I was able to implement using SignUpGenius to help our school go paperless in the conference sign up process. If your school is not doing this, THEY SHOULD BE! The nice part is that is what Lewis and Clark uses [which 98% of our students are slotted to go there next year].

Jenny K and I have been working on creating iTunes U Courses for Chapter 11 in Social Studies [Ancient Greece], as well as creating one for ENERGY in Science, with four sections for each of the categories [sound, light, heat, and motion]. If anyone has anything already made for these, please let me know and we can work together! I needed a refresher course on creating iBooks because it has been several months since we talked about that in training. Thanks to Jenny for patiently helping me with that. I look forward to having several books made for next year's class!

Just yesterday, I found out Sarah A and I have been approved to attend the NETA Conference on April 24th and 25th! We first heard about this conference from the amazing Brent Catlett....thanks for the push, Brent! Sarah and I are eager to collaborate with others and get new ideas on how to implement the iPads and technology into our classroom. I can't wait!

Last week, Jenny came to our classrooms to help us introduce and explain the app Ask 3. I truly enjoy this app, especially for explaining math problems. After our introduction, we had a math lesson on dividing fractions. I had the students choose 3 problems to explain within the Ask 3 app. [After taking a profile picture and getting set up in the "class", of course!]. I truly like this app with math because it's nice to see how well students understand the steps in a problem. And if they are getting something wrong, it's easy to see exactly WHERE their thought process goes off track. You are able to place comments IN their videos at that exact point of error. You are also able to put in your own video showing them the proper steps, etc. if that is something you wish to do at that exact point in their video as well. Another thing I love about the app is that you do not need to export it or send it out to YouTube for the class to view. The videos are simply stored within the app. So when the students are done, they are able to view their own, view others, comment on others, etc. It empowers students to ask and answer each other's questions too. If you have not tried this app, I would HIGHLY recommend it. I look forward to testing it out in other subject areas besides math.

Has anyone else used Ask 3? What subjects/ideas do you have for utilization of this app? Thanks!

Hangouts and IPAD Academy

Hello all! So much has happened since my last post on March 3rd....but you probably just want to hear about the things INSIDE the classroom :)

Mystery Hangouts!!! We LOVE LOVE LOVE mystery hangouts. We have been scheduling with classes all around the United States and were even BLESSED enough to have one on March 4th with a classroom in New Zealand! In just one lesson, we learned about their summers [Dec-Feb], a typical Christmas day there [hanging at the beach], time zone change [19 hours ahead of us], plane ride time [16 hours to fly there approx.], and so much more! We did our guessing game and then after had a Q and A time with each other. Their class even busted out a song for us in another language as their teacher played his guitar. It was awesome! The kids had a great time and truly enjoyed every minute. We blogged about the experience on our Kidblog page HERE. 

This morning, March 13th, we were able to be in a GHO with Tony Vincent, creator of the amazing Stick Around App. There were SEVERAL classes involved in this hangout that Brent Catlett put together and moderated for us. Kids from all classes were given questions to ask Mr. Vincent, as well as having the option to come up with their own questions for him. He asked us questions as well! The students couldn't stop talking about the experience and we did blog about this as well. [see link above] 

IPAD academy was a VERY productive day! Sarah Armstrong and I created several Stick Around apps and threw them in the BPS folder for 6th grade on Google Drive. I made a Math one for 9-3 [Dividing fractions], and a few for the Grammar bin [prefixes/meanings, etc]. We also collaborated with Monica Evon and came up with a Guided Reading Checklist for intermediate students. This "menu" style doc was shared in the academy's Google Community page and if you want you want access just send me the request. We just wanted to have a Daily 5 Menu that worked for older kids. Sarah and I also put the finishing touches on what we want out of Parent Teacher Conferences that are coming up....created a checklist of things we want the students to discuss/show to their parents. We can't wait for the student-led model! Kids are BEAMING with pride at the work they have created this quarter....only more to come!

Apps that we are excited about: Chatterpix, Stick Around, Ask3, Puffin, ComicBook, Comic Maker, Wordsalad, and Wonderopolis to name a few.....

Thanks to all that have created and SHARED their amazing ideas. I am so happy to have this true COMMUNITY of educators working hard to do what we love to do--HELP INSPIRE KIDS TO LEARN!

Stick Around, Tellagami, and Google Hangouts

WOW. Where do I begin.....ignore the random order of things :)

Google Hangouts-We had our first "NON PRACTICE" Google Hangout with a class in Atlanta, Georgia. They had some technical difficulties on their end with Google Hangout, so we problem-solved and tried Skype. It was blurry and not as clear as GHO, but it got the job done. The students did a great job introducing our class giving stats of our class, our school, and our town. We traded questions back and forth and their class was able to guess us about 3-4 questions before we were able to pinpoint them. It was a great experience for both classes! After we ended our GHO we found the distance between the two cities, found out how long it would take to drive there, and also used Google Earth to pinpoint their school. The kids were engaged and excited the entire time. My class, especially this year, is VERY competitive....so this is RIGHT up their alley. [shout out to Khan Academy as well-my competitive kids LOVE seeing me update the "Top 3" for energy points]

Tellagami-LOVE LOVE LOVE this app. In Grammar the students have been discussing and practicing the skill of SUMMARIZING. So, I had the kids write out a summary of a book they have read recently. Once they had their summary written, they quickly created an avatar, background, etc in Tellagami. They typed in their summary, chose their voice, and saved it to their camera roll. Today we had a gallery walk where students went around the room listening [with the headphones] to all of their peers' summaries. I asked them to be ready to nominate the best summary [based on the things we had talked about that make a strong summary] and at the end of the switch [I teach this three times to differentiated groups] I had the kids nominate the top ones and they reflected their summary to show to all. This app has so many uses, I am just starting to scratch the surface!

Stick Around-AMAZING app! I am so glad the district was able to purchase the licenses for this app [thank you again!]. I started playing with the app and got the creative juices flowing on Friday With the 3rd quarter reading tests right around the corner and as the teacher responsible for getting all of the 6th graders extra practice for that, I created several puzzles: synonyms, antonyms, nonfiction story web, Maniac Magee Venn Diagram, Root Words, and sequencing skill over the story Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day [one of my FAVORITE children's books!]. With the help of Brent Catlett, we all will now be able to dump our puzzles into a shared folder. What a GREAT way to collaborate and literally place tools into EVERYONE's toolbox! I look forward to having students create their own and get them started on exploring and doing the puzzles I have created for them as well. The possibilities for this app are ENDLESS.

Conferences-as conferences approach, I am excited to have the students create items and projects to show their parents at conferences. I had the students create a "Conferences" folder in their Google Drive so they can copy and move things to that folder. Today we put our iMovies/Book Talks that we created for our novel Maniac Magee. Thank you to Sharae Geldes for the Book Talk idea! The kids have had a BLAST creating and exploring. I can't wait to see what else the future will bring! Our principal just asked us to present at the upcoming PTA Meeting to explain and demonstrate the joys and perks of having a 1:1 iPad room. We are brainstorming ideas on what would be best to present to the PTA members on March 10th. We were thinking of having students create an iMovie discussing the advantages, things they are learning, etc. IDEAS? THOUGHTS?

Days at school just seem to FLY by...even more so now that we have the iPads. Has anyone else noticed this? Or is it just me? Thanks again to everyone who is continually supporting and helping make this such an amazing experience. 
 

BPS Professional Day, Flipped Lessons[update], and Mystery Hangouts!

Greetings all from the wonderful world of IPADS!

Last week, BPS teachers attended optional training sessions at Bellevue West. I signed up for three tech classes: Google Forms/Creating a Paperless Classroom, Project Based Learning, and Google Hangouts. Ann and Brent were WONDERFUL as always...and their classes were too. Google Forms reminded me of all the wonderful tools our GMAILs have to offer. Ann went through the work flow for students with devices, and she also went through gClass folders [amazing things by the way] and of course the IMPORTANT step that students need to add these folders to their own drive once the teacher has shared them. [ooops...blonde moment...I forgot to do this the first time around so I wasn't sure why they weren't working] Project Based Learning was an awesome reminder about how we should be altering the curriculum as we move forward with technology and just into the future in general. If we want students to learn MORE and remember MORE, then we have to do DO more from the teaching side of it...and the assignment side. If all we expect them to do is regurgitate the information back on a worksheet, why on earth would they remember the information beyond the testing date? I hope our future curricula allows for project-based learning! Last, but not least, Google Hangouts with Cat. This was great for me to see all the different tools Google Hangouts have to offer, especially when comparing it to Skype. Hearing the different ways we can be using these in our classrooms was also very beneficial. I have been VERY curious and interested in these "Mystery Hangouts" where you connect with a classroom around the world and guess their city and state/location by way of questioning. I posted something about this in the "Connected Classrooms" Community on G+, and have had TONS of responses. I hope to connect with a classroom in Sweden, Washington DC, Seattle, Iowa, NYC, and Egypt--so far! I will keep you updated on how those go!

FLIPPED LESSONS IN MATH UPDATE-we have now done our 3rd flipped math lesson. Today when I told them that was what we were going to do, I heard several students whisper "YES!" with excitement. I am pulling the 5-6 students I know need that extra attention and/or ones that do not enjoy the flipped videos. It seems to be going GREAT thus far!

I can't wait for my students to get involved with these Mystery Hangouts. Coach Cat is coming tomorrow to prep my kids on how Google Hangouts work, what we we will be using them for, what jobs/responsibilities they will have, etc. Thanks again Cat for all of your help! 

IPAD academy was amazing as well. Great ideas from Jennifer Manning and Sharae Geldes....I collabed with them for a while about student-led conferences this Spring with the IPADS. They helped me create a list of "stations" for students to walk their parents through/show apps/etc....and yes, I'm actually VERY EXCITED to see how conferences go in March! I am still touching up the list and working out some details...and the kids will have to put in some prep work as well-which I think is the best part because after all, it is all about them! 

Thanks again to all the wonderful people sharing wonderful ideas.....I just need to try to keep up with all of you! :)

Welcome, February! [a week of updates!]

This past week has given us some new challenges and many successes....

The Jenny K challenge has led Sarah Armstrong and I into a dark abyss where we have had to let go of some of the control in Math and truly allow the students to be responsible for what they have learned. Sarah and I both decided that for the first "Flipped/Video" lesson, we would sit back and observe how the kids do. I watched some students in my class flourish and truly enjoy being able to watch and go through things at their own pace. However, I did have a couple of students truly HATE it and one of my students had a slight breakdown [one who doesn't handle change well]. After talking with Jenny, we thought it best to pull a small group of kids [particularly the ones that hated the style of the flipped lesson] and just do a regular lesson with those 5-6 kids while the others led themselves along with the video. When I pulled my group back, I still felt like they weren't feeling the video style. So for the future, I will pull that small group back and just do a regular lesson, with no video involved. They, of course, will have the option to refer to the video when needed/as extra instruction...but that will not be the basis of that lesson for them. We shall see how it goes....Has anyone else done flipped math lessons? Elementary teachers? What are the MUST HAVES or the AVOID DOING THIS parts of it? Advice is welcome!

iMovie gallery.....my students created [in partners] a short iMovie trailer covering/summarizing a health lesson they read on neglect/abuse. Once everyone was finished, we set up the iPads and groups rotated around in a "gallery style" of sharing. The kids benefited from the movement AND everyone was able to see and watch each group's trailer. Once we finished, we talked about what people did REALLY well and what we can all improve on in the future in regards to serving educational purposes. We talked about the expectations that come along with having these iPads in the classroom.

eduClipper.....Coach Cat stopped by to get the 6th grade students in Mrs. Armstrong's class and my class all set up with their own account. Due to some network problems, we weren't able to get through adding/following other students, etc. Jennifer Manning's post on eduClipper really inspired me and I see a LOT of potential from this app. I look forward to students creating their own portfolios for subjects or just for the culmination of 3rd quarter. With conferences coming up, what a great thing to show parents!

Brochures....today I had my students read through a topic in Health over friendship. I asked them to create a brochure in PAGES. Pages has a brochure template. I thought students would easily be able to manipulate the sample....quickly delete what was pre-set with their own information. We found it to be some work and a little frustrating. Text boxes would disappear, students weren't able to type where they wanted, etc. So after doing some quick researching via Google....I found and downloaded an app called QUARK DESIGN PAD. It allows the students to personalize and manipulate the brochure in SO many ways. I played with it for 10 minutes and found it to be SUPER user-friendly as well! I told the kids to play with both and see which one they would prefer to use for their assignment. I walked them through the app and the tools and all the kids truly felt like this was an app they could use in the future. It has more than just brochures too...kids can make business cards, posters, and SO many more things. GREAT app!

I will try to include screenshots and pictures later....my iPad did not travel to basketball games and my house tonight. 

Thanks for any and all advice about the flipped classrooms or any ipadacademy related info!

 

Jenny K's Challenge

Sarah Armstrong and I met with Jenny K today to start planning....and she posed us a challenge. The challenge is to FLIP one Math lesson per week. Sarah will flip one day and share it with me, and I will flip another day and share it with her. So our students will all experience TWO flipped Math lessons a week! :)  Challenge on! She wants us to use the "quiet time" when kids are listening to lessons to pull some of our low/struggling math learners. We talked about how to run that group....possibly let each listen to their own then discuss together...OR listen to it all together on one iPad and we will pause the video and show them some things on marker boards, etc. It will be interesting to give up that "control" of dictating the classroom, but that is what CHANGE is all about--pushing yourself out of a comfort zone. I will keep you updated on our ongoing challenge. Thanks Jenny!

ALSO....we sat and used the gClassFolders tool in Google Spreadsheets. I created a writing folder for all of the 6th grade students so that when they finish their descriptive writing, grammar projects, DOL, etc...they will have a place to dump it to where I can see it....no matter who their teacher is.

BUSY days...but WELL worth the effort!!!

IPADS Day 4 [Grammar TIME!!!!]

IPADS have gone VERY well today....we used them first thing this morning! The kids created a HEALTH folder where they can dump their assignments and projects for upcoming Health assignments. I made sure all of the students added me as someone who can view/edit, and they were off and running. 

Students had time during the Band hour to jump on Khan Academy and check out their comments on KidBlog. Not many got to these two options this morning, but in the future I hope they become a daily app the kids use.

For switches....we have ability grouped the entire 6th grade and they have short switches for Science, Social Studies, and Grammar. Coach Jenny K came in and shared amazing ideas for me to get the kids ready for a descriptive writing assignment that they will do tomorrow and Thursday. The kids opened up a picture in Google Images, saved it to the camera roll, and opened them in SKITCH. From there, students were able to learn all of the tools in Skitch and added descriptive writing, phrases, intro's etc. on their picture. [The picture was supposed to be of a dream vacation spot that they would travel to today if they were given the opportunity. Many opted for the warm climates!] Tomorrow we will hopefully get a little time to share those pictures.....

After our share time tomorrow, Jenny K and I will walk the students through opening PAGES and how to create a password on their document [as three kids will be using each ipad....the ipads stay in the room and the three different classes switch out according to their ability group]. We will show them how to put that picture they made in Skitch into Pages where they will start their descriptive writing first draft. I am excited to see what the students will create! I will be able to add comments once the students send it to Google Drive......once folders are created for that. Many things to do....but the kids were TOTALLY engaged today. Hopefully this pushes them to become even stronger writers!

Thanks to Jenny K for the wonderful ideas with descriptive writing....they were AWESOME!

For discussion after our reading novel [Maniac Magee], students opened up our Today's Meet page [Thanks Brent Catlett for reminding me of creating our own for the year]. Once they opened that up, I typed questions and the students responded on that page. A few times the answers wouldn't go through. So kids had to refresh the page and type in their name again. [QUICK fix]. Students liked discussing it that way vs making them write down answers in a packet! I can't wait to show them more things like that! [Socrative is coming soon I hope]

Math in the afternoon went VERY smoothly. Kids pick up things so EASILY and QUICKLY. Wow. And to see the kids helping each other through....and hearing the technology terminology is just mind-blowing. They are getting 21st century skills throughout the entire day! 

Happy on where we are....excited to think of where we are headed.....

Introducing IPADS into Math Curriculum

Day 3...

Today we got the kids all signed up for Khan Academy....we also spent time on padlet.com [which is like an online sticky note board where kids could type things and they instantly pop up on the website]. I showed students how to bookmark a page so we can access it easily again in the future. Tomorrow I plan on showing them SOCRATIVE [clicker type app] and doing more 'exit tickets" via one of these two options. I was really hoping we could have a class Twitter page so we could have a "live chat" about our novel we are reading or as an exit ticket, place to put questions, etc. But for now, the padlet.com or Socrative app will suffice:)

We also pulled up today's Daily Spiral Review in Math. The kids were SOOOO engaged and quietly focused on the problems. Everyone wanted to share [reflect to rover] and explain to everyone how to do each problem. BEST. SPIRAL REVIEW. EVER! I also showed them the workflow process when they do an assignment that is from the book [open from drive to notability/send it back to the folder they created for their math assignments]. I heard things like "this is so cool"...and "this is so much easier..." and I even heard one student say "I can't believe [he] is actually paying attention and doing the spiral review...he never does this when you tell us to". Side note, he usually is one of my gems that I struggle with to keep his attention and I have to constantly push him to give effort. He was TOTALLY engaged today. I hope it is like this every day! I'm sure the luster will wear off a bit when it comes to the newness of using the iPADS, but this way holds each student more accountable because I randomly asked people to reflect their work/answers to the rover. After spiral review, we took notes inside notability as well and learned how to save it under the lesson name. Some kids asked about Evernote, but I believe Evernote only allows you to type-is that correct? Notability gives them the flexibility of typing, writing, etc.

I can't wait to see what the future holds....

The day after.....ipad delivery!

Yesterday Mrs. K brought our ipads and got us all hookednup. We went through some basics and got students familiar with using these awesome devices.

Today we went through some of the apps more specifically. A big focus was explain everything. I gave them a couple tidbits of info and sent them on their way. They had to create something in this app with these four things: a picture, voice, typing, and writing. I gave them no other instructions. It was awesome! The students were totqlly focused and were so helpful when a fellow peer needed help. Towards the end of the day we watched a clip about MLK Jr and posted comments about our big dream for the world on Kidblog.org/misssaliesclass

Next week...implementing ipads in math class...getting kids using kidblog on a regular basis...more app exploration time...and getting kids set up on khan academy.

Thanks to Jenny K for the help....Sarah Armstrong for the continued support...and to those that comment or post ideas for others. We appreciate it all

D5