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!
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
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.
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!
Monday, March 3, 2014
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.
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.
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