I teach twenty seven grade 5 and 6 students at Rock City. We received our fifteen laptops last week and began using them on Monday. This week has been as much a learning experience for the teacher as it has been for the students. Each of my students sits with a partner so I assigned each pair a specific computer. Since they are older elementary students they are able to retrieve and return their computers to the charging station on their own. I spent some time talking about taking care of the laptops and how to return them to the charging station. After the introduction I let them explore the laptops on their own. All of my students are excited about being part of this project.

I decided to start by having the students do their final novel study of the year on the laptops. They are completing an independent novel study so each student has chosen a book that is at an appropriate reading level. I have set up a class account at www.dropbox.com/ and had each student create a folder where they can keep a reading response journal. Students will also complete a Cereal Box book report to demonstrate their understanding of their novels. I put the novel study criteria sheet on Dropbox as well so that students and parents can see the assignment anytime they wish. Students can access Dropbox from any computer that is connected to the internet.

I ran into two problems when I set up this activity. I had to create a classroom hotmail account because my SD68 email account would not allow me to open Dropbox. The second problem is that all students have access to every other student’s work folders. I hope to find a way to make their folders secure.

Another activity we started this week is creating a menu in French. Students imagine that they live in Quebec or France and are opening a restaurant. This activity is connected to prior activities the students have done in French. Students are using materials from previous lessons and can use Google Translator to help them as needed. The menu is created using Microsoft Publisher in a brochure format. Like the novel study assignment the criteria for the French menus is in Dropbox.

Both of these assignments are paperless. Everything is online. To evaluate the students’ reading response journals I simply go to Dropbox and open each of their folders. I type the feedback directly into their journals. It is much more efficient than checking 27 duo tangs. Finally, all of the students are really enjoying having the use of the laptops in class.

 

Joe Smith

Grade 5/6 Teacher

Rock City Elementary

Our plan, when we set up our Project Success Technology strand, was to grow a mentoring community as seven schools learned about technology in the classroom for six weeks and then shared that learning with the next seven schools.  And it is working!  As each team explores and blazes trails, the next team has benefited by skipping some pitfalls, detouring around slow paths and going straight to deeper learning.  

One of our questions, as we watched the engagement of students and teachers was this:  What happens if technology stays in a school over time? Would the enthusiasm wear off?  Would the technology go in the cupboard to collect dust?  We left iPods at Coal Tyee Elementary for several months to see what might happen.  Here’s what they observed.  

Stage One: Fear and Suspicion
We have observed “Stage One” in most of our schools: many staff members are reluctant to bring the devices into their classrooms.  They don’t feel they have adequate skill to use technology, or fear that adding to their already overflowing “to-do list” (now learn how to integrate technology!) will be too great a burden, or they are unconvinced that technology will improve learning for their students.  In fact, they suspect it will distract students from what’s most important.  

Stage Two:  Enthusiasm
As people see the engagement of students and creative possibilities generated by colleagues, everyone gets very enthusiastic.  They are willing to try a project that includes the technology.

Stage Three:  The Slump
Because the devices are in schools for such a short time, we are not routinely seeing the slump, but we hypothesized that it would occur – and our hypothesis was confirmed at Coal Tyee. Teaching is very hard work.  It’s difficult to sustain new learning over time.  Because we tend to think in “projects” at first, technology is in addition to all of the other things we do in schools and that’s exhausting.  It’s not surprising our enthusiasm wanes and we fall back on doing what we always do.  

Stage Four: Team Intervention
Coal Tyee regrouped by finding creative strategies for working together and using Project Success funding for release time to co-teach, team-plan and build skills.  They continued to take the small steps necessary to support each other to gain the skills they needed for confidence (a “learn by doing” approach), to share ideas for integrating the technology meaningfully into their daily routines, and to continually showcase how the technology made a difference for learners (this is a key motivator).  What we confirmed is this: adding technology to schools is never enough.  The most important ingredient is always the people power.  More important than bandwidth, wireless and devices is creating opportunities for learning teams to support, develop, build and sustain learning.  Too many of our great plans wither after “Stage Three.”  Given the steep cost of technology, unless we have strong and committed plans for learning together, we ought not to make the investment.   

Stage Five:  The Way We Work and Learn
What the Coal Tyee team discovered is that over time, the iPods simply became an integral part of their teaching day, rather than a planned "add-on” – what teacher-librarian Tammy Reynolds calls the "grab and utilize” approach.  For example, in a science lesson, after creating both series and parallel circuits, the students decided to use the iPods to document their success using video, voice and pictures. iPods had become one of the multiple tools in their beautiful range of possibilities.     

Stage Six:  We are all always learning
When I went to pick up the iPods – the experiment has come to an end and the iPods are off to another school – one of the teachers said, “I still need to learn so much!”  Yes.  Once we spend any time working and learning with technology, one thing becomes abundantly clear:  learning never stops.  There is always a “next thing,” a new app, a new program, a different tool.  Of course, our professional colleagues have understood this for a long time.  A doctor, a chemist, an engineer must constantly learn; their work, like ours, is defined by learning.  There are, of course, fundamental things that remain constant, but the tools of our trades are always changing, the challenges we need to solve are different over time.  And just as new techniques in medicine have improved our health and saved lives, we are seeing that these latest technologies for schools have the potential to change the lives of many of our students for whom learning was elusive before.   I’m grateful to the hundreds of teachers who have committed to stepping past Stage One to learn with us this year.  

Shelley Beleznay
District Coordinator of Literacy and Learning 

 

Based on the wonderful idea from Shelley to create visual poems using iMovie, Tammy and I excitedly experimented with different groups. We brainstormed together and decided to have the students create list poems on their favourite topic. Tammy sampled the lesson with a grade 4 class first and was amazed at the poems the students were able to compose.

This lead me to question, what would the product look like for some of our most vulnerable and reluctant upper intermediate learners that I was going to be working with that afternoon. Once I got passed the "This is stupid! I am NOT going to do this" comments, and the "We're doing what?? But, it is reading time!" comments, and the "WHAT?? I have to write about CATS?!? This is really stupid!" comments (as they missed the part of the instruction that they were going to write about what was their favourite topic), they became quite engaged. An EA and I worked one-on-one with these students to describe why they liked their favourite topic. They loved trying to find the best image to match their poem. At the end of the lesson, the most vocal students against this project, asked if they could do another poem on another topic once they finished the movie for this one. Success?? It was amazing to see how proud they felt about their movies. They kept watching it over and over, and wanting to show everyone. Although the quality of the language varies from other students, the final product looks as polished as anyone else's, which resulted in immense pride and sense of success and accomplishment.

Using a Project Success release day, I tried this lesson in a grade 5 class. I found they had difficulty being able to use words to draw pictures, therefore trying to find the appropriate pictures was difficult. Because of this, I am now working with the students in small groups to be able to complete their poems. The students who have finished their movies will become the "teachers" to show the next group of students how to use iMovie.

Some of the stumbling blocks were wireless issues when downloading, the recorder not working on one iMovie, and one iPod saying that it was out of memory.

I am going to try to add the YouTube links for the iMovie poems (fingers crossed). This whole process of trying to link the videos has been a journey in itself.

These iMovie poems are by two of our struggling learners.

These iMovie poems are by students from grade 5.

Tammy and I also used Ebook Creator with a K/1 class to create counting books. We used some grade 6 big buddies to help the younger students add pictures of the number they were representing, and add voice stating the number and object. We are trying to experiment with different formats to be able to share these.

The best part of our Technology Project is the opportunity to work and learn together.  Today at Randerson Ridge Elementary, led by a team from Randerson, Coal Tyee, and Mountain View, teachers from across the district were invited to observe iPads in a primary and intermediate lesson.  Once again, I was inspired first by teachers and their willingness to learn – and then by students and their extraordinary capacity when they are engaged in a deep learning task with a powerful tool.  

Tricia, Val, Tammy and I co-developed two lessons.  One uses the Explain Everything app.  (You can view my video about how to use it.  I'm hoping that students will take up the challenge to improve this video.  When you try to “capture” teaching, you realize how very hard teaching is!)  With Explain Everything, students had to teach grade four students to solve a word problem.  We shared with them that Salman Khan has created a very, very good business with this idea through the Khan Academy. And sixth grade students from California have become pretty famous using a screencast tool to teach each other at Math Train TV.

Tammy and Val modelled the process, wrote the steps on the whiteboard and then students paired off to co-create their unique and amazing lessons in about forty minutes.  We'll post them soon.

The primary lesson uses our dear friend Doodle Buddy to create a poem that celebrates both Earth Day and Poetry month.  Grade two students thought about effective adjectives, created and manipulated text boxes, change font and colour, and inserted images.  Grade two!  Both lessons are posted for you.  

We’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not iPads are worth the investment.  Netbooks, after all, are cheaper, fit our current infrastructure, and are more hardy.  After another day of watching iPads in action, I’ve posted my thinking on my blog in a post called What is it about iPads?  Please add your thoughts, questions and ideas.

 

Although poetry is worth teaching for its own sake, it is also a powerful medium for literacy and technology development.  List poems are an easy and versatile structure that can be related to whatever the students are learning (plants, habitats, the fur trade) or on a theme (things they love, things they hate, things that annoy them, things that surprise them).

Examples

Some examples can be found here:

http://www.rcowen.com/PDFs/Franco%20Ch%2020%20for%20web.pdf

http://www.poetryteachers.com/poetclass/lessons/bugsme.html

http://www.poetrycenter.org/?q=node/838

Assessment

Teachers can review the Quick Scale for Writing Poems to determine a focus for writing.  Generate some ideas with students about what makes a good poem and share/co-develop criteria.

Getting Started

Brainstorm some ideas together on the topic/theme you decide on.  Fill charts or whiteboard with ideas, words, and images to create a rich starting point for all students.  Provide a frame for writing to support students who have difficulty starting.

Self and Peer editing:

Choose a focus:  possibly vocabulary.  Student can use the dictionary app (thesaurus) to find powerful words – or go to http://thesaurus.com/ online.  If writing about a non-fiction topic, students might be required to include key vocabulary (of habitat, for example).  With a single focus and criteria, students can effectively support each other with “a star and a wish.”

Images:

Students can take images (for example, if their poem is about local habitats, during a nature walk), create images and take a picture of them, or find creative common licensed images online that enhance their poem.  Take some time together to think about what kind of image enhances their poems.  Develop criteria.

Reading the Poem Aloud

You might take some time with students to consider how a poem should be read.  “Litany” by Billy Collins is a list poem of sorts – a list of all the things “you” and “I” are.  Your students will enjoy this reading of the”Litany”.  Another good choice might be Shane Koyczan’s We are More – also a list poem of all the things we are in Canada: We are More.  Together, create criteria for effective dramatic reading of their poem.  (Note: some students might prefer to create a video of themselves reading rather than using images.  Another possibility:  connect with the drama teacher at your high school .  Perhaps a drama class might be available for coaching.)

For iPad/iPod - iMovie:

Create a movie of their poem.  Add images, title, transitions and read their poem aloud.  See video for a quick tutorial:  . 

For iPad/iPod – Story Robe:

Another possibility is Story Robe.  It’s a very simple app.  Students choose photos or images saved in the camera roll.  Then they record their poem (or story or instructions or information segment), clicking on “next image” as they narrate when they want the next image to appear.  Final videos can be emailed or sent to youtube.  They save as mp4 so are very versatile.  See http://www.storyrobe.com/storyrobe/Home.html for instructions (or on your iPad or iPod). 

With PC:

MovieMaker

Animoto (note that you can create an audio recording easily with a laptop or a desktop and usb microphone using “sound recorder” – a program in accessories.)

Share!

And best of all - share their poems with the world by posting them on our blog.  We're looking forward to examples.

 

Shelley Beleznay
Coordinator of Literacy and Learning 

 

Today Mr. McKinlay's class took on puppet pals. Our goal to create a story with 2-4 characters, 2 or 3 settings and a strong beginning, middle and end. The story had to have a conflict and conflict resolution with no violence. Students worked in partners. Thanks to my teacher-librarian colleague Tammy Reynolds for suggesting this lesson.

Reflection:

- We liked how easy it was to manoeuvre the characters (larger, smaller, rotating)

- We liked how easy it was to record except on three ipads, we tried numerous times and could not record.

- Some students took pictures of characters (themselves or others) and of settings, some students were able to import these into their stories while others were not. Through trial and error we realized the iPads have 3 puppet pals apps on them. It was the directors version with the cloud and character on the icon that was needed to use the personalized pictures

- We didn't like the fact you have to record the entire story in one take as this required many takes and lots of retakes due to background noise

- We learned from each other and liked the program, especially when you could import personal pictures

Val Martineau

Teacher-Librarian

Randerson Ridge Elementary

Mrs. Rhodes Grade one class is embracing iPads with gusto. In math they are working on tangrams. Ancient Chinese puzzles that are completed using 7 geometrical shapes. Students learn shapes, patterns and combination of shapes to create a puzzle. This is reinforcing the concepts they are currently working on in math.

In language arts the students are learning about spring. Today they explored spring by beginning their stories with the book creator app.

Gr. one's took a picture of spring or something meaningful in their classroom. They then imported the picture into book creator app, added text and added their voice. In no time these six year olds were determining their best read and deleting recordings that weren't up to their standards. They were creating wonderfully imaginative spring scenes including having their stuffies create a Don Cherry, Ron Maclean type hockey chatter on how the Canucks will win.

Mrs. Rhodes and her students are loving the iPads. She said "It's a perfect example of how we all learn from each other, with students showing students, teachers showing and being shown techniques and everyone learning through collaboration." Mrs. Rhodes says the skills the students are becoming so adept at include framing pictures, choosing background, importing pictures, writing text on the keyboard, recording and playing back their voice. They are using critical thinking skills while having a lot of fun.

To see student work on these apps please go to the Randerson Ridge Library Blog.

Val Martineau
Teacher-Librarian
Randerson Ridge Elementary

Today Mrs. Radcliffe's Gr. 6/7's class had their second session with iPads. Our focus was how can we learn iPad tools while working on our science project about Inventors.

Here was their task:
1) Find 3 interesting facts about your inventor (either by internet through the iPad or by books) and write them down in note form (skill development- note taking ~ no cut and pasting allowed)
2) Find an image of either the inventor and/or the product they invented and take a screenshot and save that image (skill development - screenshot and saving)

3) go to screen chomp app on iPad

4) using left icon go to library and use the picture of your inventor and/or product (skill development, importing pictures)

5) adjust using zoom, rotate etc. this you will have to play with a bit. It took me a few times to zoom in to a depth I was comfortable with. (skill development - picture quality)

6) once the picture is in place, label or title the picture and/or inventor

7) use record button to record yourself or your partner explaining who this inventor is and the three interesting facts (skill development - working on voice to enhance presentation, learning fluxuations etc. avoiding cut and paste by voicing work in their own words, taken from brief notes)

You will be working in partners so be sure to help one another and make strong suggestions and offer encouragement.

Here is some of the work the students created in a 40 minutes class.

Nick's screen chomp on Bill Gates http://www.screenchomp.com/t/5ZDKm45tHDNY

Spenser's screen chomp on Morse Code http://www.screenchomp.com/t/xFgULMti

Our reflection on ScreenChomp:
In reflecting on today's lesson the students and I felt it was relatively easy to screensave and locate information. Many students were happy to find images of their inventors product or an image of the inventor.The zoom function on ScreenChomp has some limitations in that the picture that is framed is often distorted once you press 'done'. We all had to practice several times to get the picture to fill the frame. Recording is fun but sometimes its hard to hear your own voice. It also highlights the importance of preparing for what you are going to say and moving to a quiet space so minimize the background noise. Overall the Gr. 6/7's gave today's lesson a thumbs up on interest and connectiveness to what they are studying. It also got a thumbs up on fun but not nearly as much fun as Photo booth :) The challenges we faced were saving it, many students lost their first few drafts. By playing with screenchomp we learned the best way to save it is to e-mail it to yourself and download it. This can only be done if Wi-Fi is on.

If you recall, in our last post, the stars had lined up and all had gone better than expected … well a wee bit of a spring blizzard must have swept through and un-aligned those stars today. And yet … although we experienced a few hiccups today, we are once again reminded of just how resilient and intuitive our amazing students are.  By “playing” and “trouble shooting” together, many of the groups (Grade 6/7 with Kindergartens) had success and completed their projects.

eBook Creator “lessons” we learned today …

·         Importing previously taken pictures on the camera roll into the eBook Creator app, is not as nearly efficient as using the camera option embedded right in the app.

·         If using previously taken pictures, it appears being near the wireless helps (something to do with the location settings?)

·         And thirdly, be patient while pictures load – it takes a couple of  minutes.

So now with this experience under our belts we are ready to give it a go again, with a few tweaks here and there, and are optimistic of the continued success we’ll have with the next class of kinders.  We are convinced that keeping it simple and going deep with fewer apps, brings us the most success. 

With any luck we will be able to post an example of the color booklets our Kindergartens just finished to this site J 

Debbie and Tammy

Coal Tyee

Today I had the opportunity use the iPods with one of our kindergarten classes and what I delightful experience it was!!! You know those lessons, where the stars seem to line up and things come together even better than you   imagined?  This was one of those experiences. (Note to self … call Shelley and invite her in next time! J).  Inspired by our colleagues’ ideas at the last technology show and tell, we set out to create color booklets using the camera, doodle buddy and iMovie.  The kinders were partnered up and sent out on a mission to find a minimum of tens things in the school of their assigned colour.  

• In one lesson alone they learned and practiced:
• The importance of handling the equipment responsibly
• Taking turns
• How to take a photo (using their body to zoom in and zoom out)
•  How to turn the iPod both vertically and horizontally to take pictures
• How to make sure their finger isn’t in the way of the lens (I need practice with this one!)
• How to flip the camera so they weren’t taking a picture of themselves
• Practice colours and naming objects

It was the first time that most (if not all) of them had ever used a iPod camera before.  They jumped in and instinctively navigated their way through the expectations. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how helpful Jace and Anthony, our extraordinary grade 7 assistants,  and Yvonne, our 80 year old  Bears & Beams volunteer were.  (It is never too late to learn a new technology … she was amazing!).  They each oversaw a small group on the scavenger hunt.

So our intent was to then import the pictures into Doodle Buddy and create storybook  pages with the assistance of their  grade 6/7 big buddies (i.e. “blue crayon”) … BUT while writing this post, my partner in crime, Debbie Taylor,  is experimenting with the app eBook.  It looks and sounds fantastic (there is even instrumental music playing in the background of the finished product).  So we are changing our course and we are going to have the kinders use the voice recording option in eBook to orally label each picture.   We will still require the grade 6/7’s support as there are a few steps along the way (importing the pictures, recording, saving), but essentially the books will be created completely by five year olds.

Stay tuned … we are jumping in with the K/1 next week to make number books.

Tammy Reynolds

Coal Tyee