Focus

I finished reading the book, Focus:  Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, by Mike Schmoker. It was given to each of the teachers in my building, by our principal for summer reading.

Schmoker advocates Simplicity, Clarity and Priority.  By this he means we need to simplify our curriculum by cutting the number of standards down, selecting only the most important, and then teaching them thoroughly, using recognized good consistent teaching.  I don’t agree with everything he has to say, but there are definitely some things I will take from this book.  I talked about it in my last post, and shared my plans for writing about the books we are reading here.

Please visit my other blog, Day In the Classroom, and read my review.

A New Look and New Goals

As you can see, I’ve changed the look of my blog.  I thought it was time to give it a little facelift.  Over the past year, I haven’t added much to this blog.  I’ve been thinking about ways to better use it.  For a long time, I’ve also been thinking about sharing some of the books and more of the writing projects I use with kids.  I plan to do that here.

There are about four weeks before my new school year begins.  So far it’s been a great summer, although the past week has been way too hot!  That always serves to get me in the mood longing for fall and going back to school.

This summer I’ve been working on a few school projects, and doing some summer reading.  Before we left for vacation, my principal gave everyone a copy of the book, Focus, Elevating the Essentials To Radically Improve Student Learning by Mike Schmoker.  I’m going to write a little more about this book after I complete my reading.  Already I can tell you that it is going to have an impact on my reading instruction in the coming year.  Schmoker says that students need to spend their time reading and responding to that reading in writing, not reading a basal and completing worksheets.

After a year of following my school districts list of “Non-Negotiables” I had already decided to return to more time spent reading and discussing good books.  You can read about the “Non-Negotiables” here.  I want my kids to grow in their reading skills, but I also want them to love reading.  That only happens when you introduce them to the magic of a good book.  Fortunately, after the year of the “Non-Negotiables” our district is going to give us a little more flexibility in the coming school year.

Over the years I have written many study guides to aid me in discussing a book with my students.  I have to decided to give this blog a little face lift and share some of our reading work here.  As we work on a book or project, I plan to share what we did here.   I will add books and discussion questions and writing ideas, as I develop them.

My other blog is called Day In the Classroom, think of this one as Day At the Reading Table.

End of Year Technology Survey for May 2011

School is officially out for the summer and my classroom is closed. Before the kids left for vacation, however, I had them participate in a survey about the technology we used in our classroom this year. I wanted to know how they felt about the projects and websites we used. To administer the survey I created a Google Form, which I embedded in our class wiki. Read about our survey and the projects they liked and did not like by visiting my blog, Day In the Classroom.  You can find it at http://dayintheclassroom.edublogs.org/.

Our New Class Photo

This is our new class photo.  I know we look a little different than we did in our previous pictures.  These are our Avatars, and we created them on the cartooning website, Bit Strips for Schools.  We are using it in connection with our Being a Writer curriculum.

The unit we are working on now is called, “Functional Writing” and it focuses on the everyday ways we use writing in the real world.  This includes, among other things, writing directions, recipes, and cartooning.  I wish I would have gotten started earlier with it, because we are having a lot of fun.

I had used the website Toondoo to create cartoons for my blogs, but I remembered seeing some cartoons that Aviva Dunsinger’s  students had created, (@Grade1 on Twitter), so I asked her about it.  She recommended Bit Strips for Schools.

I like the fact that I was able to set up a class account for my students.  This enables me to more closely monitor the content they are creating and are exposed to.  The added bonus is that this website has ready-made assignments for students that you can use.  The first assignment is to create an Avatar, and then create a comic strip with your avatar as the main character.

We are having a lot of fun!  We will be embedding these on our Kidblogs when we’re done.  We will also be drawing our own cartoons this week.
This is a great way to end the school year!

This is a duplicate of a post from my blog Day In the Classroom.  Don’t forget to visit this blog to see some of the things we did during the 2010-2011 school year.

Making Our First Glogs

One of my goals for this school year was to learn how to make a Glog. I had heard about them, and seen a few, from others on Twitter, which is where I get most of my technology ideas. It took me a while to get around to doing it, though. I have been gradually working my way through the new Being a Writer materials. This is our first year with these materials. In March we began a new unit on writing non-fiction. The first project was to research and write about countries around the world. This seemed like the perfect place to try out the Glogs.

If you aren’t familiar with a Glog, it is an on-line poster. You create a Glog on the GlogsterEdu website. They can be embedded into wikis and blogs. As I read about GlogsterEdu from others in my PLN, I was very intrigued. With advice from others, I watched a couple YouTube videos to learn how to do this, and I created a sample poster to show to my students. I had the kids partner up to get things started, but ultimately each student made their own glog.

We started out with pencil and paper. We did our research by reading library books to learn about other countries. Students were able to choose whatever country they wanted, and several chose the same country. I created a organizational web so students could collect and organize their information before we moved to the computers.

When I began to look at the developing Glogs, I realized that some kids were into adding lots of unrelated animated graphics, but were not including much content. At this point I created a Making a Glog poster with my expectations and a checklist for students to use as they edited their work. Later, I used this checklist as a rubric to evaluate our finished Glogs.  Check out my file cabinet for PDFs of these documents.

This turned out to be a really wonderful project, and I was very impressed to see what the kids did with it. Their Glogs were way better than mine. They figured out how to find and embed photos and links in their Glogs. To make it easier for people to see our work, I created a wiki for this project and embedded all the Glogs. I also embedded the Glogs on each student’s Kidblog.

We had Core Knowledge Night, which is an open house type event, on May 5th. One of the problems with on-line projects is being able to display them for visitors to see. I set up three laptops with display boards. I also talked to the class about showing their work to their parents and other visitors. We had lots of people that took the time to see our work.

I will definitely be using Glogs in the future. The kids really enjoyed making them. It was a great way to demonstrate their learning. I also found that several students who often struggle academically really excelled with this project.

Our Castle Project for 2011

This school year I have been writing and posting on my new blog, Day In the Classroom.  I recently realized that some people are still visiting this blog, so I am going to double post to both blogs.  This post includes  some  material from a post last year about the castle project that I do with students.

Phillips is a Core Knowledge School.  We are also a public school, so we teach the regular school district curriculum, and in addition we teach most of the Core Knowledge Content.  Core Knowledge is based on the writings of E. D. Hirsch, author of Cultural Literacy.  You can learn more about it by visiting the Core Knowledge Foundation Website.

 

Our first graders learn about ancient Egypt, the third grades can tell you about the Roman empire, and in fourth grade we learn about the Middle Ages.  As part of our study, my students build castles.  We  completed our castle project last week.  It is completed as a homework project, and it is one of the highlights of fourth grade, or so some people tell me. 

I have done this project for fourteen years.  I did quit for a few years because the castles had become so elaborate and huge, and they had become “Dad Castles” instead of “Kid Castles”.  I make it a point to tell families that they may assist, but it should be mostly the child’s work.  When students bring their castles, we always interview them about how they planned and built their castle.  When asked what they liked best about the project, many respond with something they did with their parents, so I do allow family help.   

I have restrictions about the size of the final castle.  It had gotten to the point that some castles were the size of two or three student desks.  I now request that they are no larger than the top of a student desk.

Because I didn’t want to cause a hardship for any family, for a few years I offered the option of making a poster instead of a model.  Only one or two students per year ever chose to do that.  When other students asked them why they made a poster rather than model, the answer was that they thought it would be easier.  Since I don’t want to offer a “lazy option”, I dropped that this year.

We begin in class by learning why castles were built, and how they were built.  Castles weren’t just houses, they were war machines.  We learn about the planning that went into the defense of these castles, and children are encouraged to include these details in their models.

I am a big consumer of manilla folders, and I use them for this project.  I staple step by step directions for the project on the left side of the folder.  You’ll can find a copy of these directions in the file cabinet.  On the right side I include diagrams labeling  the parts of the castle.  We do several in-class lessons about the parts of the castle, and whether it was for offense of defense.   I also include ideas about possible ways to construct a model. Most of my ideas come from the books, Knights And Castles, By Teacher Created Materials and The Middle Ages Independent Learning Unit, By Lorraine Conway.  You can read more about the resources I use in my previous post on this blog, titled Medieval History for Kids.

The kids and families never cease to amaze me with their creativity.  I have seen castles made of wood, cardboard, styrofoam, sugar cubes, marshmallows, sand (that was not such a good idea), clay, craft sticks, and rocks.  Every year, there is some new idea that I would never have thought of and have never seen before.  This year one of my girls brought the mold that they used to make all the blocks that they built the castle from.    She explained to us how she mixed the “cement”, formed the blocks, removed them from the mold, and let them dry.  It was fantastic.

We do a lot of writing.  We write about why castles were built.  We write about the kids’  thinking and planning for their castle.  Kids write a description of their work to be displayed at Core Knowledge Night.  At the end we write fairy tales about what happens when an evil wizard shrinks us and our castles become real.

On the day the castles are due, we invite students from other grades to come see them, which is why kids come into 4th grade asking when we’re going to build castles.  All the castles pictured in this post were created by my students from this year.  I made this Animoto to celebrate our castles and Core Knowledge Night.

Our castles were due Wednesday, May 4th, which was the day before we had our big school celebration, “Core Knowledge Night”.  Now we have them displayed in the office, library, and above our lockers.

Barbara’s Got a Brand New Blog

Teachers in my school district return to school on Monday, and the kids begin on Thursday.  To go with my new school year, I have a new blog.  It’s called Day In the Classroom, and you can find it at http://dayintheclassroom.edublogs.org/.  Like Prospecting for Treasure, I will be writing and reflecting on the things we are doing in the classroom.  My goal is to post more frequently, while projects are in progress and at their conclusion.  A lot of changes are taking place in our school district, so I will appreciate your input, as I work to adapt these new requirements to my classroom. 

I’ve written my first post about my strategies for getting ready for the new school year.  Check out my new blog to see the Animoto I created, to welcome my students to 4th grade. Please join me at  Day In the Classroom, and see what’s going on this school year.

My First Technology Conference

This was everything I needed to attend my very first technology conference.

This summer, many of the people who I follow on Twitter have attended great technology conferences.  I’ve been jealous, as I’ve listened to them tweet about their experiences in Denver, Philadelphia, and lots of other places.  I am a classroom teacher in Iowa.  I don’t have a technology position, and although my principal is very supportive, there is no budget for me to travel to a conference. 

This past weekend, I finally got the opportunity to attend my very first technology conference, and it was completely unplanned.  In fact, I inadvertently wandered into my first session when I clicked on a link posted on Twitter.  I found myself listening to and seeing via webcam, Terry Freedman, an educator from the United Kingdom. 

That was the very first session that I attended at the 2010 Reform Symposium.  This was an international conference with people from 59 countries participating.  I was actually still in bed at the time, and it was possible for me to attend, because it was a free on-line conference, through the “magic” of Elluminate.

I have been exploring and using technology in my classroom for about a year now.  I have tried a lot of different things in that time, but I had never seen Elluminate before.  While others may take this for granted, I was so impressed by the fact that you didn’t just sit in your home and passively view these presentations, you participated in them; adding comments to the chat, voting, expressing opinions, and adding your thoughts to the whiteboard. 

I  attended Jerry Swiatek’s presentation, and listened to Tom Whitby and was inspired to involve my kids in sharing and teaching teachers and other students to blog and do other things we are learning to do..  On Sunday, that was reinforced by Monica Hardy and her students.

Sunday morning I got up in time to hear Kelly Hines, a teacher from North Carolina, who I have followed on Twitter for some time.  Her topic was “Tech in 10″, and was full of practical quick ideas, many of which were new to me.  I want to try the Fakebook, a template based on Facebook, to analyze a character or famous person from history. 

She talked about using Skype to connect with classes around the world, and she opened the discussion up to questions.  I raised my hand, by clicking a button, and found myself part of the conversation, when a microphone opened up to me, so I could ask my question.   This all took place while I was sitting on my couch, in my nightgown, sipping a cup of tea. I was a little unnerved at the time, but that was amazing.   This was one of my favorite presentations because there were so many quick easily do-able ideas to try.

Later that day, I was able to learn from Nick Provenzano, Paula White, and Tim Gwynn.

The downside to attending an on-line conference from your home, is that some sessions were interrupted by phone calls and other demands of daily life.  But today I was able to begin catching up on missed sessions through the archived presentations.  I’ve been able to view George Couros, Joan Young, Russ Goerend, and Nate Kogan in this manner. 

The quality of the presentations was excellent.  Most of the sessions that I attended had seventy to one hundred twenty  people taking part.  There were so many new ideas from people who are actually doing this stuff.  Many of the people presenting and participating in the sessions were people I “know” from Twitter.  It was fun to hear their voices, and learn more about their ideas.  For me, these people are the rock stars in the use of technology in education. 

Others have blogged about the high quality of the information shared, all of which is true.  I am also thrilled by the sheer awesomeness of this whole experience.  I am amazed that we have the technology to make this event possible.  I am so impressed by the vision, imagination and tireless work and dedication of Shell Terrell, Kelly Tenkely, Jason Bedell and Christopher Rogers who organized this whole thing.  It was one of the coolest things I have experienced in a long time, and right from my own living room.

Getting to Know the iPad

I have been a fan of my netbooks since I got one a year ago. This summer I am learning to use the iPad. Which one is better?

Yesterday, on my photo blog, I posted a photo of my Acer Netbook and the iPad, with excerpts of this post. I immediately received responses on Twitter, so I decided it’s time to finish pulling this piece together and get on with it. 

My school purchased a ten pack of iPads to be used in the classroom, and we received them just days before school was dismissed for summer vacation.  I checked one out for the summer, and I have been trying to work with it as much as possible.  A friend told me that I would fall in love with it the moment I touched it, and I want to love it, but I just don’t yet. Frustration has prevented that from happening. 

I love the ease of carrying it with me. It is thinner and even more lightweight than my little Acer netbooks, so it can easily slip into my bag.  At this point in time, however, I still find my netbooks much easier to negotiate. The familiar is always easier, so I have forced myself to use the iPad, and through use, things are definitely getting easier.  I still have some serious concerns, however, about its adaptability to the academic tasks I need it to do

For classroom projects, I often place shortcuts on the desktop to make things easier for the kids and myself. You can put shortcuts on the desktop with the iPad, and it appears that we could use it to write on our blogs at Kidblog.org.  Some of the websites we like to use, however, like Storybird, require flash and do not work on the iPad. The Animotos on our class wiki do not show up or work, and neither do some videos, however I have discovered that if you use the app for Animoto, you can view an Animoto.

I am struggling with logistics of making the iPads work with our other available equipment. How do you print from iPad if you don’t have a wireless printer?  We have Pages installed on them, which is a word processing app, and I wrote most of this blogpost using the iPad.  While this app does not have the number of options that more sophisticated word processing programs offer, my students would be unlikely to utilize those anyway.  I was able to e-mail the document to myself in a word format, and then open and save it to one of my other computers, where I can print it.  This isn’t, however,  an easy or practical way to handle documents written by 29 students.  I’m also concerned that It does seem kind of sensitive, and I found myself ending up places that I hadn’t intended.  I am worried about students losing the work that they have spent time writing.

I thought that maybe using Google Docs would be a better idea, but I discovered that while you can open and view a Google doc, you cannot edit it or create a new one.  

If I put a Word document in dropbox, will I be able to work on it on the iPad?  I am excited that I can download an app for dropbox.com on it. That would enable me to make photos and other documents available for kids to use.   But first I have to convince my school district to unblock dropbox.

I do think additional apps will add to the usability. Since it does not belong to me, I have to have permission to add apps and download books onto it.  I am trying to select apps that support our academic goals.  I am planning to add the following:

1. Multiplication by Sierra Skyware, Inc
2. Math Master by Tapware
3. Math Quizzer
4. School Notes Pro
5. Textropolis
6. Spell & Listen
7. Popmath Basic Math by popsoft
8. Monster Mix and Match, by Critical Matter
9. Things for Ipad

 

You can read more about these apps by reading: 

FREE iPad Apps for Educators and Parents

40 Amazing Ipad Apps for Kids

20 Amazing Ipad Apps for Educators

And thank you very much to Joe Fahs,( @Mpondo on Twitter) and other members of my PLN who shared these with me.

I do enjoy reading my Google Reader on the iPad, and if I had any good books downloaded to it, I’m sure I would enjoy that.  One thing I can tell you.  Even though I may have mixed feelings about the iPad, the kids will love it.  Twice now I have had people approach me at Caribou Coffee, my favorite hangout, and ask about my iPad.  I put it in the hands of a fifth grade girl who came over with her mom, and she absolutely lit up.

I’m writing at Caribou Coffee right now.  When I was deciding which computer to bring with me, I settled on my Acer Netbook.  I knew it would be easier to write, edit, and add photos and links.  So I’m still not in love with the iPad.  I’m having fun with it, and it’s okay as a supplemental computer, but it certainly isn’t the most versatile one that I own.

In the photo above, the design you see on the iPad was made using the Glow Doodle app.  This is one that I know the kids will like.

The Kids Present Their StoryJumper Stories

Each student presented and read their StoryJumper story to the class.

Tuesday was our last full day of school, so that was the day for the kids to present and read their StoryJumper stories to the class.  I wrote about writing with StoryJumper in an earlier post.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out.  Everyone had been very excited and interested in creating these books, but there was also a lot of talking, which isn’t surprising during the last three weeks of school.  In fact, there was so much talking, that when I had checked on their progress about a week before, I was disappointed to see that most weren’t very far along.

Each person presented and read their StoryJumper book out loud to the class using the digital presenter. By the time the first three kids had presented their book, I was on the phone calling my principal to see if she had time to come up to see what they had done.  She is in our rooms frequently throughout the day, so she had been checking on their progress throughout the writing process.

Many of the kids were not finished, which is okay, because they can continue working on their books during the summer.  Even so, they had pages of writing, with illustrations to enhance their story.  My little authors really knocked my socks off.  Their stories were interesting, with good plot lines.  In fact they were interesting enough to hold the attention of the class while all 24 people presented.  Our Special Ed teacher, with whom I collaborate, pointed out that if we had asked the kids to write a five  hundred word story, they would have had a fit, but that’s really what they did, and they had a ball doing it.

We decided that next year we will devote some time to letting the class explore the mechanics of creating illustrations using the backgrounds and props, before they actually begin their books.  Creating their illustrations took much longer than I anticipated.  At the risk of thwarting their creativity, we may also talk about how to select backgrounds and font size so that the pages can be more easily read.

I always do a lot of writing with my students, but this year we have definitely surpassed anything I have done before, and that is largely because of the technology that we have explored and utilized.  We’ve written comments on our class wiki.  We’ve used Wallwisher, Storybird, KidBlogs, and now StoryJumper.  It has particularly made a difference for my struggling writers.  Using the computer removes any roadblocks caused by the physical act of writing.  It also makes reading their work so much easier.  This was apparent when every single student, including those with writing IEPs were able to read their StoryJumper book aloud to the class.  Is their writing perfect?  Is every sentence capitalized and punctuated correctly? Are all words spelled right?   No.  But they are writing, and I couldn’t be more please with their progress.  We are definitely going to do this and more next year.  I will be introducing blogging and digital story writing much earlier in the school year.  Imagine what we can accomplish if we have all year to explore and grow!