Mrs. Sims’ Field Trip to the Zoo

Zack recently posted about the field trip project that Mrs. Millus’ class was able to complete earlier this week. I was able to follow up with Mrs. Sims today to go a little further into the project. This time we had students create a title page with their name, add five photos, and add a fact that they know about each animal.

I took roughly ten minutes to orient them through the app. I taught them how to start a new Story, edit the title page, insert photos, and insert more text boxes. Along with that, I also had to teach them how to move pictures or text boxes that may seem out of place. The students quickly caught on surprisingly well since this is the first time that they have ever used the application. If you are uncertain of how to do all those steps, I do have a video that will help orient you with the application. 

One downfall of this application is that we had to type in the teacher’s entire email address. Typically when students email work to their teacher, they can just start the beginning part of the email address and it pops up for them so they do not have to finish it. For some reason, it is not accessing the contacts list from our school district. (This might be an issue that is only exclusive to East Noble School Corporation.) I think what will need to happen is to actually add the teacher’s email address to their contact list manually if this is going to be an app the kids will use on a regular basis.

Here are the results:

If you would like to see a few more examples, please follow these links:

Connor

Tyson

Coding Kids

The video makes some very interesting points that coding is really like teaching a foreign language. A language that people all over the world learn to speak. You think about the vast changes that have occurred in the realm of technology. Those changes are all thanks to people that have jobs where they use this language that causes a computer to perform tasks. (I’m actually friends with quite a few of them.) Sadly, I have never learned to code, but I think it is about time that I start to dabble in it if I am going to prepare students for a future that is going to be saturated with technological devices. So just like how the video ended, I will be visiting code.org to start the process.

There are two big opportunities for our students as part of East Noble School Corporation to become familiar with coding language. The first one is Hopscotch for the iPad. Not only does it gives students the concept of basic coding, but it also focuses on relevant elementary mathematics skills. Addition, subtractions, negatives, degrees/angles, and coordinate planes are just to name a few. Students can create an animated story or reenact a scene in a book through Hopscotch, and use these cross-curricular skills in order to to make it happen. Here is a short tutorial on how to get started with Hopscotch. Keep in mind, there is much more to it than just making a character move left and right. However, this tutorial will at least give you a basic idea of how it works.

Another opportunity is Scratch, and it works on a traditional PC or Mac computer. You may actually want to create an account through Scratched because it is the education version. They are also considering making accounts that a teacher can create under his/her username so that he/she can view and control the environment. For now, you can create a classroom account and all students could use the same username and password for the coding projects. Scratch will provide the same skills as hopscotch. In fact, it is very similar in some ways, but provides more options. This is no surprise since it has been available for quite some time. Here is a short video that will give you a better idea about Scratch:

Compound Words with First Grade

Today I had the pleasure of helping the media specialist at North Side utilize the iPods with first grade students. (Thanks for asking for help, Mrs. Valenti.) I gathered together a bunch of pictures from Morgue File that would make great options for compound words. For example: I found a picture of a dragon, a fly, and a dragonfly. Altogether, I had 26 pictures in the email.

This process only took me about five to ten minutes to gather all the pictures into a folder and send them away. How long would it have taken me to make copies of all the examples, get paper ready, glue, scissors, and coloring utensils?

As the students came in, I showed them how they can download all the pictures at once by clicking on the “save 26 images” icon when the user taps on just one picture. This saved all the pictures to their library so that they would be able to access them for their Pic Collage project. I would love to get to the point where we could use a classroom Dropbox, Box, or Skydrive account so that I could just dump the photos into a folder for all the students to access. Hopefully that option will be available on our school network in the future because it would save teachers a lot of time.

Next step was to show the kids how to get pictures into Pic Collage. I demonstrated this by using the pictures of butter + cup = buttercup so that the kids understood that they needed to match the pictures so that it would make a compound word. I also showed them how to add in text, change the color of text, and change the background on their collage. In the end, I was pretty satisfied with the results. Here is my example that I did with the students:

Now I will share with you some student examples. Keep in mind, I only had a few students share and they were completely random. We ran out of time so I quickly pulled a few students aside so that they could email me the results. I by no means kept the best of the best. These students were very engaged and excited in the activity. Next week, Mrs. Valenti plans on having them continue the project since we only had time to complete one collage.

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iteachwithipads.net

This honestly has to be one of the most inspiring elementary edtech blogs that I have ever come across. Kristi Meeuwse is a kindergarten teacher from South Carolina that frequently blogs, tweets, and pins all kinds of useful ideas on the internet. Her intellectual property is extremely valuable. I am always appreciative of someone that is so willing to share for the greater good of education.

In this blogpost, Kristi has students use Pic Collage to report about “pirate vocabulary.” They also use Doodle Buddy to illustrate their own pirates to place into the collage. Along with the text, illustrations and pictures, I would say that these kindergarteners were able to produce some mighty fine products.

Please take some time to look at her blog. I think you will find inspiration there as well.

Turn Field Trips into Saved Memories with Story

Rome City first graders took a field trip to the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo and took their iPod’s along for the trip.  Below are a couple presentations created yesterday with Mrs. Millus and her class using Disney’s Story app.  Story can be used to share anything students create and want to share in a presentation similar to Story Kit, Scribble Press, and 30Hands.

We just scraped the surface with this app in 30 minutes and didn’t get to adding captions, inserting additional photos and videos, or changing the theme – I’m sure they will figure these out later.  What is great about Story is when you email from the app you can embed or share the link with parents and they can keep the story created by their student.  In the future we’re going to copy the links to their KidBlog and the students will be fully responsible for creating, saving and sharing their stories.

• Zoo Trip Alyssa

• Zoo Trip Theona

Story by Disney

New digital storytelling app from Disney! 

These are the apps we’re excited to find – apps that can be used for multiple subjects and allow a student to explain their work.  Story by Disney for iPhone and iPod Touch lets students insert text, photos, and 1 minute videos into a ‘story’ that can be emailed with a private link (Like an unlisted YouTube video that’s hidden from everyone on the site).

This app requires a classroom account – we will use one log in for the room and sign in each student under the same username. We will then send a form home to parents explaining that we’ve created an account for the class to use that will keep their information and content safe and secure.  There will be many more explanations about Terms of Service (TOS) within apps and websites East Noble School Corp uses with students and how we keep them safe.

To try, you can download the app on your device and see the possibilities.  Also, at Knight-Time Technology 3 this summer – I’m going to add a couple sessions to explain these new law changes and Terms of Service (TOS) and what this means for your classroom and the digital safety of our students beginning next school year.

 This could be a great alternative to iMovie – and its FREE!

Click the link to view more information about Story.

http://ipadpresentationtools.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/story-instructions-and-final-product/

Mrs. Becker’s Area and Perimeter Activity: Skitch

Thanks goes to Mrs. Becker for this idea. Not only was it a good idea, but it looks tasty too! Here she took a creative activity and integrated it naturally with her class set of iPads. The portion completed with the devices is where she can assess how well the students grasped the skill. Could she use a quiz to accomplish the same task? Yes, but that wouldn’t be as much fun now would it? Also, it provides them with some technology skills that are applicable to showing work in any subject area, and even outside of the classroom.

There are numerous times that I use Skitch to ask or answer questions through email. Just the other day, I wanted to trade my car to an auto dealer. He asked me if I could show any defects so that he can properly assess the value of my vehicle. I used skitch to not only take the pictures, but to draw the arrows and annotate the issues I saw. These are real life skills.

In this lesson, Mrs. Becker had students arrange Cheez-It crackers to form a polygon. Then the students had to label the area and perimeter of the shape. I used to have kids sketch it on a piece of paper to prove their work. With an iPod or iPad, students can take a picture of the real evidence and label it in the same amount of time. Not only that, but the kids can email it so I don’t have to stuff my bag full of papers that will eventually get scrunched on the bottom. (Yes, I’m a messy teacher.)

Thanks again, Mrs. Becker! This is great!

Mobile Technologies in the Medical Field

Matt Rickey, high school teacher, recently brought this doctor to my attention. His name is Eric Topol, and he’s looking to revolutionize the technologies that are used in the medical field. Here he shares a number of them that he relies upon on a daily basis in this video.

I really don’t know very much about this doctor other than what I have seen from a few interviews on Youtube. So as far as his stance on medicine or how hospitals are operated, I cannot comment.

My reasoning for sharing this is the direction of which the medical realm is moving. All these devices are somehow related to the idea of them being mobile. It provides a convenient way for him to monitor patients, and what he believes to be more efficient as a doctor. Notice that he does not say anything about knowing how to play Angry Birds or Clay Jam. He sees the devices as an essential tool for his work.

Mobile technologies are today. Mobile technologies are also in the future. This is why it is essential that students are familiar with using mobile technologies on a level that shows the potential as a tool for learning.

First Grade Plural Nouns Using Pic Collage

Mrs. Abbs and Mrs. Yoder sent me a cool idea today. Their students showed plural nouns using Pic Collage. They had them take pictures of the singular form and the plural form of the noun. The students added the actual words to the collage. This activity looks like a whole lot more fun than what I did to learn plural nouns when I was in school. I can’t remember that far back, but my guess was that involved a pencil and workbook.

Next Abbs and Yoder plan on having them do the same thing, but they will be doing it for words that end in “es” and “ies”. If they send them, I will plan on adding them to this post.

Thanks for the great idea, Mrs. Abbs and Mrs. Yoder!

(Click on an example to get the full view.)

Here is the later product created by a first grader to demonstrate when to add “es” to a plural noun:

Second Grade Pic Collage: Characters, Inferring, and Vocabulary

Here we go again, more examples of how resourceful just one application can really be for your classroom. It reminds me of when I was first hired by Mr. Jim Tilghman back at the old Wayne Center before we had much technology to work with at all. He was famous for asking the “peanut butter question” during an interview. That question was the following: If you had a classroom, and you only had a jar of peanut butter, what would you teach? The whole point was to see how resourceful you could be on the spot. I don’t know how good my answer was, but I am thankful he hired me anyway.

I am looking at a lot of these apps that you can create with the same way. If you only had Doodle Buddy. If you only had Pic Collage. If you only had 30 Hands. If you only had Perfect Captions, If you only had Skitch. If you only had Multi-Photo Voice Recorder. The list could go on and on, but what would you teach? 

Mrs. Gaines of South Side recently sent a collection of examples with Pic Collage. I encouraged her to do so despite her noticing that I have posted a lot of examples of Pic Collage. (Thanks for noticing by the way.) Those examples are essential for sparking ideas in the minds of fellow teachers. I love receiving them, because ultimately this blog starts to become a resource where collaboration takes place across our five elementary buildings. (Comments are welcome too!)

I think what I like most about these examples is that it is proof that to integrate the technology, it does not mean you have to invest tons of time. These students were able to create a product very quickly and send it to their teacher.

Here is what is going on in Mrs. Gaines’ second grade classroom:

We are learning about the life cycle of butterflies.  We have some key vocabulary we are learning with this unit.  Students used pic collage to display their learning of the new words.

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We also used pic collage to display our learning during read to self.  We were inferring about characters and working on character description.

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Thanks again for the great work! I appreciate your willingness to share!