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!!!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
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.....
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.....
Monday, January 27, 2014
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....
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....
Friday, January 24, 2014
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
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
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