How Apple Has Changed My Primary Classroom

Apple technologies have transformed my learning environment from a 4-wall classroom to a no wall classroom.  Never before, were we able to connect, communicate, collaborate and create on a local, national and global scale with such ease and transparency.

My primary classroom has gone from using large quantities of paper to going virtually paperless.   Dropbox accounts on the iPads are used to save work.  Students use blogs as digital portfolios.  The ease of the Kidblog App has ensured that my students can independently upload videos, text, and pictures to their blogs effortlessly.  Apple intuition makes these apps a breeze for my early learners.

My students are no longer “absorbing” the curriculum through the teacher.  They are creating and playing with the information we discover together.  They are using the iPads to create videos to teach other students how to make patterns, how to read and how to tell time.  They are creating interactive books about insects and spiders and “how to books” using video they have taken themselves.  They are making their learning visible for the world to see using content creation apps.

When you combine the power of an Apple TV, projector, and the iPad the adaptability of technology is endless.  We use the Apple TV, iPad and projector in various combinations to enable different types of activities.  My students can now share what they are doing to the entire class with the touch of a button.  My students are all physically involved in the learning instead of 20 children watching one child up at an Interactive Whiteboard.  As for transforming my teaching, Apple TV has provided a mobile platform from which classroom activities can be initiated.  I can now use different apps to display video, and teach lessons from anywhere in my classroom and allow my students to participate from wherever they are seated in a variety of interactive activities.

Apple technologies have allowed my students to be able to connect with students from all over the world.  The world is larger than my students had imagined and Apple brings it to the carpet.  As well as learning from each other, we are learning from other students and teachers in different cities, provinces and countries.  We learned about perspective this past month on Google Hangout by a teacher in British Columbia.  When the hurricane hit New York last year, my students wanted to send out a tweet to their Twitter friends in New York to make sure they were okay.  My learners have a wealth of information at their fingertips.  Students are able to connect with others individually or in small groups using Facetime, Google Hangout and Skype.

We have connected with other classrooms through our classroom blog and the students’ personal blogs.  We share our learning and our questions using our classroom Twitter account.  We have also participated in a collaborative writing unit.   The students wrote their entire rough draft on their blogs and a class from British Columbia provided feedback.  We wrote our final drafts using the LittleBirdTales App on the iPads and uploaded the final projects to our blogs.

Just this past month, we created a video using the green screen and iMovie to illustrate our traditions and cultures.  Other classes responded to our video and made their own media projects to share with us about their personal traditions and cultures.  The best way to experience what learning in 1/2W looks like is to take a look at the following video:

If you are interested in the iPad Expectation posters you saw in the video (my talented husband @mrwideen made them).  You can download them here.

Read More

Penguin Fun on the iPads

This week during literacy I have been teaching my students about different thinking strategies while reading.  I began the week doing a lesson on background knowledge.  I decided to model the strategy using a non fiction book about penguins.  I continued the lesson today, using the same book, focusing on "how to spot new learning" when you are reading.  I modeled this strategy by reading one page at a time and the kids and I would turn a flashlight on each time we learned something new.  There was a lot of lights flashing and the kids loved the activity!  After we got the hang of it I handed out the iPads and we used a "new to us" app called iBrainstorm.  This app looks like a cork board and students are able to place sticky notes onto the board.  When you are finished you can save it to the camera roll and upload it to you blog.  My student's favourite question these days is, "Can I embed it onto my blog?" so I have to be very careful not to disappoint them!  Here are a few examples of their blog posts using iBrainstorm:

If you would like to see other examples or would like to comment on any of my students' blogs (which they would be thrilled about) please click here.
Later in the day we did some penguin art.  I am telling you this because I was amazed at what some of my students did when they had completed their work.  I had a few students ask me if they could go on their blogs while the rest of the class finished their art, and of course I said, "Yes!"  I didn't notice what they were doing on their blogs until I got home this evening and looked over their blogs.  Some of my students had taken pictures of their art project, opened it in Skitch, labelled the picture and uploaded it to their blogs!  I am so thrilled with how my class is taking charge of their learning and thinking outside of the box.  Here is one of the blog posts I am talking about:

I had to add the bottom comment to the picture because less than 2 hours later, she already had a comment from another primary student from British Columbia that wants to know how she did that.  I can't wait for her to respond and hopefully Jaiden from B.C. will learn something new and want to try out the app Skitch if he/she hasn't already!

Read More

My Top Picks For Content Creation iPad Apps

I recently saw a picture that was posted on twitter by George Couros.  I sent it to my principal because it sums up what we have been talking about for weeks about Apps that we are using with the iPads.  Here is the picture:

This slide is the inspiration for this blog post.  I personally, have been on a crusade to let my students create rather than spoon feed them content.  I want them to play with the information I give them, I went them to feel a sense of ownership of the knowledge and I want them to create something using the knowledge I have given them.
 
William Glasser is famous for the following information about how we learn:

How We Learn
10% of what we READ
20% of what we HEAR
30% of what we SEE
50% of what we SEE and HEAR
70% of what is DISCUSSED with OTHERS
80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE
~William Glasser

An ongoing theme in my classroom is to make your learning visible.  My students are in grade 1 and 2, and they already know that they have a huge audience on their personal blogs.  We talk about who and why they are creating videos about the content we are learning in class.  My students want to teach other students and peers about what they are learning about.  It is also a great assessment piece for me, however, they don't see me as their audience anymore.  My students now feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose for what they are doing.  I'm sure they always did, however not to this magnitude.  

Here is a screen shot of the most popular content creation apps we are currently using in my classroom.

I was going to write a brief summary of each app, but then I realized that you can easily read a summary on the internet.  Instead, I will try to link a student created piece from my grade 1/2 classroom to the top 10 most used content creation apps we use.  

1.  Puppet Pals - Here is a link to one of my student's blogs using puppet pals to show adding and subtracting. Chloe's Blog (My students love comments, by the way...)

2. iMovie - Here is our "Traditions and Cultures Project" Video

3. Educreations - Here is a video of a math assessment my students did on time.  They were given a cue card with different times written on it and had to create a video on Educreations showing their learning of time. 
  
4.  Draw and Tell -  Here is a link to one of my student's blogs using Draw and Tell to show the words she has created from the "at" family. Destinee's Blog

5. Explain Everything - This is a video using the Explain Everything app from our Procedural Writing Unit.

6.  ShowMe - In this video a student is teaching others about patterning.

7.  Popplet - This is a screen shot of one of my grade 1's popplets.  He was showing his learning about spiders.

9.  Book Creator - We love using this app, however there is no embed option, so we can see the pictures on a blog but you can't hear the audio.  We are hoping for an update to make this app even more wonderful!  Here is a picture from one of our Non Fiction Insect Books .

8.  LittleBirdTales - We just completed our Personal Narratives on the LittleBirdTales App.  We will definitely be using this app again in the near future.  Here is a link to one of my students personal narratives on their blogs.

9.  Kidblog - My students are avid bloggers.  This app has opened up their world to blogging.  They are able to add pictures and videos easily and independently even at the age of six! Please visit our blogs and leave us a comment here

10. ScribblePress - Here is a book written by a couple of my students about school Scribble Press.

These are only a sample of things that we have done with these apps.  I hope that this post has ignited your creative juices and you are thinking of how you could use some of these content creation apps in your classroom.  I would love to hear what kind of things you are creating in your classroom!

Read More

Procedural Writing Unit with iPad Integration

Last week we began our Procedural Writing Unit.  We began the unit immersing the students with different procedural books.  Students went on a hunt in our room for procedural texts and they found them in many of the books they had in their book boxes.  We also brainstormed procedural writing topics.  The students came up with so many things to write about!

We have done many activities in the past two weeks about procedural writing.  Here are a few ideas:

1. Using The Explain Everything App To Produce a Procedural Video

One of the activities Mrs. Pelletier and I did with the students to show the purpose and how to model how to write a procedural text was a science experiment.  We performed the experiment in front of the class and then the students and I wrote out the materials and steps we performed.  Students took pictures of the steps and then imported the pictures into Explain Everything.  Students then recorded their voices explaining the experiment.  Here is the finished product.

2.  Bubble Gum Fun!

The second Procedural writing activity was to have the students blow a bubble and then write the steps to blowing a bubble.  If you are interested in doing this activity, you can download it for free here.  Students were given a piece of Hubba Bubba to chew and then were asked to blow a bubble, thinking of the steps they performed while blowing the bubble.  Students then wrote their procedure down, created a face that looked like them and blew a pink balloon up to insert where the mouth should be.  The kids loved the lesson and the overall project turned out really cute!

3. Gingerbread Fun Using Explain Everything

In our third project, we read the Gingerbread Baby.  Students were then given gingerbread cookies and a picture of a gingerbread man.  Students were instructed to eat the gingerbread cookie and to take notes on the picture of the gingerbread man  according to the order they ate the gingerbread man.  Students then wrote their procedure for "How To Eat A Gingerbread Cookie"  Tomorrow, the students who have completed the writing assignment will be given another gingerbread cookie to take pictures of it for their video.  Then, the students will import the pictures into explain everything, explain their procedure using their writing assignment and post their final product on their blogs. (Using the Science Experiment video as a guide)  I have taken a screenshot of the success criteria checklist I created for this particular project.  

*As I am writing this post student's are still working on this project.  I will update when they have completed their videos and have uploaded them to their blogs.

Stay Tuned...
Next week, students will be choosing a procedural writing topic of their choice to write about and then will explain their topic on any content creation app of their choice using words, pictures, and video for their final project.  Students will then post their projects to their blogs.

Read More

All About Mo Willems!

This past week we have been learning all about "Mo".  Mo Willems' books have quickly become a favourite choice for my students.  Therefore, I thought the students would love doing an Author Study on Mo.  We began our author study by getting our hands on as many Mo Willems' books as we could.  Luckily, our school library and I had a lot of Mo Willems' books.  

Day 1

I began the unit with a review lesson on making text to self connections.  I read Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late.  I modeled a few connections and then students were given a front and back sheet.  The front of the sheet the students had to finish the sentence starter, "When I heard the part about...."  On the back of the sheet, students had to finish the sentence starter, "It reminded me of...."  Here is one of my first grader's completed sheets:

Students were pleasantly surprised when they went to their literacy stations that morning to find many of their stations changed to Mo Stations!  At the writing station their was a procedural text on how to draw the pigeon.  Students were asked to draw the pigeon according to the directions and to brainstorm a list of possible book titles that they could create about the pigeon.

At the library station, students were able to read from the many Mo Willems' books we had collected and then fill out a response sheet on one of the books they had chosen to read.

At one of the iPad stations, we downloaded The Pigeon App.  Students are loving this app!  Here is the description of the app from the Apple Store, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App!” lets you create your own Pigeon stories with your pal, Mo Willems. Just follow as the Bus Driver asks you for your ideas—then shake the Pigeon. Your story is ready! Sit back and enjoy the show. Once you’re finished, try it again…and again. You can make as many silly stories as you want."  

The app also has the option to draw the pigeon.  One of my grade 1 students drew the pigeon, saved a picture of it to the camera roll and put it on his blog 

Day 2

The second day of the unit, students learned about speech bubbles and how they add to a story.  Students made their own Pigeon and Duckling and made speech bubbles to go along with their picture.

Day 3

The third day, students learned about plot.  We read, "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus." We made an anchor chart about Plot and we talked about the beginning, middle and end of the story. Students then completed their own sheet.

Day 4 and 5

On the last 2 days of the week, we read all 3 "Knuffle Bunny" books.  We decided as a class that we wanted to create a video about Knuffle Bunny getting lost. (If you have not read these books, this is the underlining plot in all 3 of the stories).  We decided where we wanted Knuffle Bunny to be spotted and researched an interesting fact for each place.  Our classroom volunteer, Mr. McMullan took photos of the students using a green background and iPhoto to make the pictures.  Here is the finished product:



It was such a fun week learning about Mo Willems!

Read More

Does Technology = A Great Teacher?

What makes a teacher great? 

 Is using technology ever been in the definition of a great teacher? Obviously no.  My definition of a great teacher, is a person who inspires their students.  That knows their students' interests and their learning needs.  A great teacher establishes accountably and continually makes sure their students are gaining the knowledge needed.  A great teacher fosters a rich learning climate in their classroom that celebrates successes and mistakes.  I strive to be a great teacher everyday.

Has technology helped me to be a better teacher?  

I think so. No. I know so.  Social media like Twitter has connected me with great teachers from all over the world.  They have pushed my teaching boundaries.  The way I teach is constantly evolving and I am learning new ways to embrace technology and use it to my advantage for my students.  The Internet, computers and the iPads in my room have flattened my classroom walls.  Student's are not only learning from me.  They are learning from other teachers and peers on different continents.  They are also teaching others what they know by tweeting and making their learning visible on their Kidblogs.

Does technology = A great teacher?

Can you give a teacher technology and they will instantly improve reading and math scores in their classroom?  Obviously not.  Teachers need to understand how students learn and to use technology as a tool.  I recently had a visit from Chris Knight (a consultant with GECDB)  into my classroom for a visit and he wrote the following in a blog post that you can find here.

 I noted some of the conditions that needed to exist for technology to be used effectively in this classroom:

1. The technology allowed the students to create things that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

2. The technology gave the students a voice beyond the classroom.

3. The technology was used with very precise and intentional aims.

4. The technology allowed for student collaboration and conversation.

5. Many tasks were open and involved student exploration, investigation and decision-making.

Technology has changed the way I teach.  I still aim to inspire my students and to know my students' interests and needs, the same things I did when I didn't have all of this technology at my fingertips.  However, I am a better teacher now that I am utilizing technology in my classroom.  I also think it has become evident and will become more and more evident that using technology in an effective way in your classroom will be something a great teacher will have to do. 

Read More

Stop The Excuses, Your Students Could Be Blogging!

I had to share what happened in my class the other day.  I have been really encouraging my students to use the Kidblog App on the iPads for making their learning visible and for increasing the type of content that is on their blogs.  (My students are using their blogs as digital portfolios this year.)  This past week, I had kids wanting to take pictures of the books they wanted at the school book fair and wrote about why they wanted that book.  I had other students ask if they could take pictures of their completed Math Station because they were proud of their work.

I have one student that takes a picture of what she is eating at dinner and puts it on her blog. Others wanted to use the ShowMe App to explain what they were doing in literacy or math.  The Kidblog App has made it so easy to add pictures and video to their blogs that I have student's embedding their work without any help from me. (YEAH!)
I had a student add a video from the ShowMe App the other day.  That night I was going through my student's blogs and watched the video he had put on his blog about patterning.  I had to watch it twice because it was so cute!  He was teaching his audience about patterning and asking his audience what came next in his pattern.  The best part however, was the feedback he gave after he asked the question.  Take a look:



I talked to my student the next day about the video and told him how great I thought it was.  We talked about his audience and it ignited an excitement in writing that I had not seen before.  He came to me later that day and told me how excited he was for writing that day to continue what he was working on because he thought it would be a good blog post.  I asked him if he wanted to use the iPad during writing and he acted like it was Christmas!  He was so excited to write on his blog and "teach all the other students that look at his blog about his writing."  I put his ShowMe on Twitter that evening and a team member from ShowMe commented on his blog.  I can't wait to show him tomorrow at school.  If that isn't a reason to write and to encourage a reluctant writer to write, I don't know what is.  I STRONGLY encourage you to start blogging with your students!  There is no excuse, my students are in grade 1 and 2 so they are young.  All you need is one laptop, or iPad, or smartphone to start.   The excuse that you don't have any tech is not going to work anymore.  I brought an old personal laptop from home last year and it was "The Blogging Computer."  Students could go and log onto their Kidblog account at any point of the day if they had something they wanted to share or write about on their blog.  Start out small, no one says that you must have all of your students blogging at the same time.  Start out with a couple of students that have showed interest in it and who you know are ready for it.  I taught my students during my guided reading time.  It doesn't need to be hard and overwhelming.  First start with baby steps and soon your class will be running!

Read More