Malchow's Tech Bytes👩🏻‍💻~ Sept 30th

Looking to collaborate with others beyond the four wall of your classroom? Check out the Global Read Aloud and the #mtgr1 Twitter slow chat!

Malchow's Tech Bytes ~ Sept 30th - Click the image above to access the clickable resources

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ November 26th 👩🏻‍💻

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ November 26th

Twitter in the Classroom

Twitter has opened the door of possibilities for my 1st grade classroom over the past year and a half. My students have had the chance to learn from students all over the United States and Canada. We have shared our passion for learning by tweeting and sharing pictures about what we are doing in our classroom. Others have commented on our tweets and asked deeper questions which has given my students the opportunity to share even more. Having an authentic audience has inspired my students to work harder and to continually ask if they can share out what they are learning and creating. The possibilities for using Twitter in the classroom are only limited by your imagination. This year, my class took part in International Dot Day, a collaborative book chat (#1bc15), weekly math challenges (#1mtgr), a Lucky Charms graphing project (read about it here), and even a pumpkin seed counting activity via Twitter with a class in Oshawa, Canada. You can read about that experience in this post. 

Although Twitter was the starting point for all of these collaborations so much more came out of these experiences. In many cases, my class also met the other classes face to face through Skype or a Google Hangout. We even participated in a collaborative Kahoot quiz at the end of the year with 3 other classes all from different states. 

As technology brings the world closer together, we as teachers also need to get on board and bring our classes together. We have so much to learn from each other! I work in a small, somewhat rural area with very little diversity. Many of my students are not fortunate enough to travel and realize the diversity that lies outside of our area. By giving my students these opportunities they are are beginning to realize that the world is a much bigger place and that kids around the world are really not any different than they are. They are learning similar things in school, they love to play on the playground, they have brothers, sisters, and pets, and they all seem to love eating pizza.  I feel that by providing my students these opportunities, I am also in some small way helping to break down stereotypes and fears and helping them to become accepting of all people no matter their background, location, etc.

We live in a time that if you're not connected, you're missing out on so much the world has to offer you. If you haven't used Twitter with your class, I highly encourage you to take the leap of faith and give it a try this year with your students. 

If you're ready to take the leap, please add your class Twitter information to this shared document, http://bit.ly/1VHaocQ  The document is broken down by grade level so you can better find classes to collaborate with.

If you're still on the fence and want some more information, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter, @smalchow, or send me an email (my contact info is in the sidebar)-  I'd be happy to chat with you.  I'm also doing a presentation on Twitter in the Classroom next week and will be posting my presentation here if you're interested.

Pumpkin Seed Project and Twitter integration

On Thursday of this week we took part in a Projects By Jen online project in which we had to find the number of seeds in a pumpkin. We took part in this project along with our buddy class in Oshawa, Canada via Twitter. 

We started our adventure by tweeting pictures of our pumpkins and our predictions to each other. As we began to open our pumpkins up, we again tweeted a picture of the insides of our pumpkins to each other in the event that we would need to or want to update our predictions based on what we saw.

After we scooped all of the seeds out of the pumpkins, to the delight of most, but groans and ewwww's from others, we began to talk about how we would go about counting all of the seeds. We had some great discussion, and in the end, decided that it would be best and easiest if we put our seeds into piles of 10s to start with. This was a great strategy as it is exactly what we have been focusing on in math. As the teams went to work counting out piles of 10s, we again tweeted a picture to Mrs. Drapers' class to see if they could figure out what counting strategy we were using. The groups then began to work collaboratively to count their seed piles. 

After passing the 100 mark some found it difficult to go on, so we discussed what happens when you get 10 piles of 10 and how many that is. We were then able to combine more of our piles into groups of 100 which made the counting even easier. In the end, one of our pumpkins had 3 piles of a hundred, 4 piles of 10 and 7 extra ones. Using this information, we were able to quickly figure out that the pumpkin had 347 seeds.

When we were done, we tweeted a final picture to Mrs. Draper's class to show them the final count so they could compare their predictions to the actual number of seeds. It was a great collaborative activity in our classroom as well as via Twitter with Mrs. Draper's class. It was also fantastic way for us to work on problem solving skills, predicting, counting by 10s and 1s, and our writing skills all while using technology to enhance our learning.

You can check out our Twitter feed here.

Twitter

Do you use Twitter in your classroom? Are you looking for a way to easily display the names of the classes that you most frequently connect with? 

If so, head over to my TPT store and download this free, simple "poster" and then write the Twitter handles and names of the classes you connect with most often. I plan to display mine near our Smartboard so kiddos can easily double check who they are sending their Tweets too.

St Patrick's Day Tech-ified

Today we participated in the St Patrick's Day Lucky Charms graphing project from Projects By Jen. This is my 2nd year participating in this project. It's a wonderful project that is easy to implement, doesn't take much time but has a lot of bang for the buck (predicting, counting, graphing, and comparing/ contrasting, in addition to a technology integration piece if you feel so inclined) Our goal this year was to prove that there were more green clovers than any other shape.

Our class started by making our own predictions on which marshmallow shape we felt would be represented the most in our box. Each student then tweeted their prediction to our partner class for this project, Mrs DeGroot's class in IA. My kids were so excited to see Mrs. DeGroot's class' predictions come through on our class Twitter feed. What an engaging and simple way for us to connect.

In the afternoon we opened our box, sorted, graphed and ate the results. We had a great discussion about which had the most, the least etc.
Later in the afternoon we made a Skype call to Mrs. DeGroot's class in IA and shared and compared our results with theirs. We recorded their results for more discussion later but as we compared each class had to decide if they had more or less than the other class and then put their hands on their head if they had more or hands on their shoulders if they had less. It was a quick and easy way to have the whole class involved in the comparing and an easy way for kids to see each other.

When we were done Skyping, we spent a bit of time locating our buddy class on the map and discussing their location in relation to ours. Just another great integration piece.

Overall, the project was a great success and I would highly recommend to others to participate in the Projects by Jen activities . Adding the technology component truly was the highlight and really made the project come to life. I will definitely take the time to add that piece again next year as the learning and collaborating that came out of that piece was far more powerful than the graphing alone.


Here are the results from all the classes as of 3/19. We didn't prove our hypothesis at this point, but what a great discussion to have with kiddos on the scientific process and their rational for why things turned out the way they did.

Results as of March 19, 2014
Classrooms	235
Students	4,481
Marshmallows Counted	106,279
Hypothesis Correct	NO
As a GROUP -- we will be trying to prove that there are more GREEN CLOVERS than any other shape

Twitter excitement!

Our class recently began using Twitter to share our learning and connect with other first grade classes around the world. I can't even begin to tell you how much excitement has come from this. We are currently connecting with classes in Michigan, Vermont, Canada, Italy, and Australia! We are excited to also Skype with some of our "new friends" in the coming month. 

As we connect with classes, we find and label them on our classroom map. This has been a great connection to our curriculum as we study maps. My co-teaching partner brought in a globe the other day during our snack time and the kids went ape! They were so excited they immediately asked if we would pull down the map and they began finding our Twitter buddies on the map and then located them on the globe! The absolute best part was that this was all started by them and the excitement and learning went on for a good 10 minutes before we said we had to move on.

If you haven't tried Twitter with your class, I highly recommend it. It is an easy way to connect with classes globally. The 140 character limit makes it a fast and easy way for students to take ownership in the writing as well.  If you are looking for classes at your grade level, check out this blog post, Great Twitter Classroom Connections, on Drew Frank's blog.