Inferring lesson

Before Christmas we read a story called, Shark in the Park in which a little boy named Timothy Pope is looking through his telescope in the park and is sure he keeps seeing a shark. The lens of the telescope is an actual hole in the pages of the book, and as each page is turned the fin of the shark turns out to be something quite ordinary like a cat's ear, a crow's wing, and even his dad's Elvis-style haircut. 

This book was used to help us learn the reading comprehension strategy of  inferring. As an extension of this book and a tie-in to our ITLS Standards (Instructional Technology & Learning Standards). Students worked with a partner to take pictures of an ordinary object up close and then at normal range. We used both digital cameras as well as the cameras on our iPad2s.  Each child then had to tell what they thought they saw when looking at the up close object and then tell what they actually saw. We took our ideas and typed them in MS Word and then learned how to insert our pictures from a network file into our documents. Along with the other first grade classes, we will put all of our ideas into a large class book which will be shared with the entire school.
See below for the raw footage of just a few of the kids' ideas...

Can you guess what this is?

Hunter saw a jail at Glenbrook School...

but it was really just Mr. Sufka's tie! (our principal)

How about this one?

Ayden thought he saw a Captain's hook at Glenbrook School...

but it was just a door handle!!

Student Reflection

In preparation for an upcoming presentation at the Wisconsin School Board Association Convention later this month, I interviewed my students using the following 2 questions. The first question was a bit tricky for some seeing as they only have kindergarten to refer back to but some of my kiddos really had some good insight. I then used ReelDirector on the iPad to compile some of their interviews. I'll post it here once I put the finishing touches on it.

1. How has technology changed the way you learn?
2. What do you most enjoy about the technology in our classroom?

I also emailed my students' parent and asked them:

1. Has your child being in the model technology classroom changed your child's motivation for learning? And if so, how?

I have received several responses, all positive, including the following:

• XXXXX is more excited about school this year, and he largely talks about the technology that he is learning with. He is more confident using technology including our home computer, email, ipods, ipads, etc.  Because of this increased comfort level he is able to do more on his own which makes him want to learn more and try harder.  I also love how the technology has been incorporated in order to have fluid communication with the parents.
• Yes!  I feel that xxxx’s  motivation to learn has improved.  There is another level of excitement he feels when he goes to school.  He gets to wonder what he might get to do in his day.  There is also a connection made with older peers and family because of his technology knowledge.  He is helping his grandpa learn how to use his new Kindle!
  
  
  I feel that xxxx  is better equipped to deal with trial and error because of this opportunity.  He is more open to listen to, and try out new ideas.  He has learned that there is more than one right way to reach a goal.
  
  
  Xxxx  loves to use the computer, I pod, etc.  The fact that he can use something he loves in school to facilitate learning makes an even greater impact on what he learns and how it is retained.
  .  

and then there was this response...

•  I would have to say that while my daughter xxxxx was already a motivated learner, being in the model technology classroom has definitely enhanced her motivation and encouraged her to learn in other ways besides as a result of traditional methods of teaching.
  
  The truth is that we live in a highly technological age – technology is progressing at a very rapid pace. In order to properly function in society as adults, our children have to become proficient with technology and maintain the ability to adapt to the rapid changes technology makes.  Starting out this type of learning at a young age can only help students as they get older in my opinion.
  
  Since starting to use the technology in your classroom, xxxxx has branched out in her learning. Rather than just asking me the typical curiosity-seeking 6 year old questions, she asks me if we can go on the Internet and look the answers up to those questions. As you know, my husband and I have Ipod Touches. xxxx can use my Ipod and while I watch, can search the Internet for her answers. We’ve loaded several of the apps that you use in class, such as Teach Me and rather than watch TV, she sits and uses those apps. She’s constantly learning – and more importantly, WANTING to constantly learn. And, she’s even taught me a few things about my Ipod that I didn’t know!
  
  By allowing them to practice emailing you and us (parents), they’re learning letter-writing skills and the proper format for composing letters. That’s an important life skill and rather than being bored and learning in a tedious way, they’re having fun “writing” emails on an Ipod or IPad in addition to their paper writing.
  
  Another positive that I see is the keyboarding skills that she’s gaining. She already knows where all the letters are on the keyboard and doesn’t have to “hunt and peck” when she’s typing.
  
  I could go on, but I think I’ve given enough examples to show that being in the model technology classroom has definitely increased xxxx's motivation and passion for learning. Thank you for the opportunity!

"WOW" was about all I could say after reading that well thought out response. I feel very privileged to be able to facilitate this adventure in first grade and although we've definitely had our trials and tribulations, I continue to be impressed with the learning and motivation that has come out of using the various technology in our class.

Administrative visit

 Today was a pretty exciting day for my class. We had a large group of administrators including: the director of technology, director of special education, director of curriculum and development, our ed-tech coordinator, and several principals come to our room today to see for themselves all of the wonderful things I have been telling everyone about my class.

From the feedback I received, the kiddos did an excellent job of showcasing the technology we use and how it is useful to us in our learning. One of the administrators even commented, "You could tell the kids knew why they were doing what they were doing and it was not about the tech." That same administrator went on to say, "although the tech was fun and kept them very engaged longer than I have ever seen a 1st grader work independently" Wow! That was an awesome comment and made me feel good about what we are accomplishing since of my goals for our model tech room is to use our tools to assist our learning, but not to have "the tools" be what drives what we are doing. 

During the visit, kiddos used a variety of tools during our Daily 5 time including: Prezi to review and learn their vocab words, writing emails using Gmail, writing in a diary on the iPad, using the SMARTboard to practice sorts and word chunks, using a variety of apps to assist with word work skills, and using iTouches for their Listen to Reading time. We had individual activities as well as partner/collaborative activities and we had technology as well as traditional paper and pencil activities taking place.

Once again, I am happy to say, how proud I am of each and every one of my students They did a fantastic job today of not only showcasing a variety of our learning tools but also  what they knew and why it was important to their learning!

If you are wanting to show administrators what your class is doing to embed technology, I highly recommend having them come in and experience it first-hand!

First graders, YOU ROCK!!!!!!!

baby steps

Today we began taking the baby steps needed to do our first app to app creation project and the kids, albeit a bit chatty knowing it was the last day before a long break, did a fantastic job.

Looking at it play by play...
We started by locating our new iDress for the Weather app, which I mentioned in yesterday's post, (you never know where the new apps may land when the iTouches are sync'd) and moved them to our home pages so they are next to our other weather app for easy access. We then checked out the app and learned how to take a screen shot. This was a little tricky for some, but after a few tries, they got the hang of it.
Next, we went into the photo app to be sure it had worked and to see where screen shots go when you take them. After this, we opened up our Doodle Buddy apps and learned how to import our screen shot into the drawing program and how to write/draw on them. This is where we ended the day. The iTouches are now happily plugged in for our long break and are awaiting the next step which will require me to spend an afternoon loading in each kiddos email, my email, and their parent's email. A task I'm not looking forward to but it will be well worth it for the payoff that is around the corner.

My kiddos have already begun to exceed my expectations on what they can do. When I applied for this grant, I wanted to show that
1st graders can do these things but instead I am able to show that
1st graders ARE doing these things!!!

I'm excited to share this with others and will have one of my first opportunities the 2nd week of December when all 5 model technology classrooms will be presenting to our Board of Education. From here, 4 of us are heading to the Wisconsin School Board Association Convention to present again. Exciting times!

app to app creation and sharing

We've officially got usernames and passwords!!!

In our district only grade 2-12 kiddos get usernames and passwords and K and 1 all use the same generic username and password combination... great in a lot of ways when using the lab but not when it comes to wanting to teach kids the way things really are or when wanting to have my kiddos email their creations from the iPads/iTouches. So... I set off to find out if my kiddos can get their own for the sake of the model classroom and viola~ we got 'em!

You might be asking what in the world do I plan to do with them... well I've got several ideas brewing in my head right now (YIKES- run while you can!) 

I wish it were 72- see below for
the real temp here!

First, I DO NOT want my classroom to be only a game-based app classroom, granted, apps have their time and place, but I truly want my kiddos using apps to create and share. SO for starters we have been checking the weather on the SMARTboard as a class for our city as well as that of our Skype buddies. This week, we started doing it on our iTouches. I had the kiddos go into the settings of the weather app and add both of our cities to each of their devices. This was awesome and the kids LOVE the fact that they can check whenever they like.

My next goal is for us to check our weather on the app called idress for the weather. This app provides a

♥bold display of the current temp
♥daily high/low temps
♥clear and beautiful visual presentation of current conditions
♥current and accurate weather conditions provided by WeatherBug

Kiddos will check the weather and the clothes recommended for the temp. We will then take a screen shot of the main page and open it up in the  Doodle Buddy app and kiddos will draw themselves in the appropriate attire for the day's weather. When they are done, they will save their creation in their camera roll and then email me and their parents their picture (hence the usernames and passwords as their iTouches will be set up with their personal accounts)  I think this will be a wonderful start to making our classroom learning more transparent to our parents in addition to giving my kiddos an authentic audience.

This is just the beginning of app to app creation and sharing as I have also found a couple of fantastic apps for writing and for sending e-postcards. More about those later. I'm still working out the kinks on those before introducing them to my class. I know these are just baby steps in the direction of creating and sharing, but with 1st graders and this being my 1st year with 1:1 devices, I think we're heading in the right direction.

Cross-curricular integration = Cool!

How many of you saw this You Tube video that went viral last year?

Well, it spurred an idea on a much smaller scale. After seeing this, I went to the music teacher and mentioned to him that I would love to collaborate on some sort of  production with our iTouches and that I would be more than willing  to help however possible. Well, it's happening ! We are collaborating to create an iEnsemble for the Christmas concert and we will be performing Feliz Navidad!! Now keep in mind, we are on a MUCH smaller scale, but talk about a bunch of excited first graders. 

Students are learning and practicing how to use several instrument apps on the iTouches and iPads. Today kiddos got the chance to work with these apps and to try-out for an electronic part. More info and pics to come as the project progresses.

Concentrating on playing the congas

Apps, apps, and more apps

I think I am going app crazy, yes, I DID mean to say APP crazy!  Since getting my new iTunes acct 3 weeks ago, I have been using every spare minute I can find, which is usually around midnight when I finally crawl into bed, to look for apps that will coordinate with my 1st grade curriculum or will help me to modify where needed for some of my outlying students.
I have found some great apps, and at this point, everthing I've downloaded has been FREE!!!! I' hesitant to spend my little nest egg all out one time. Trying to be very frugal to make my money stretch as far as I can. 

Some of my favorites so far are:

DoodleBuddy- I am constantly thinking of new ways to embed this app which is simply a drawing app. My original thought was to have my kiddos use it during their Word Work Daily 5 rotation to practice their spelling words.
Today it dawned on me that I could use then in place of my mini whiteboards for my daily review/mental math. The only drawback would be that we are use iPod Touches which gives us a small writing/drawing area compared to the size of the iPad.

My next fave, is not an app, but rather an app developer called GrasshopperApps. They have a phenomenal library of mostly free apps including books and learning games. I am especially in love with their books. The reader has the option to either read the book alone or to have the book read to them as the words are read and highlighted. I am planning to embed these into my Daily 5 rotation as well but am still pondering my main objective for this app to determine if they would better fit into my Read To Self rotation or my Listen to Reading rotation. Maybe I'm thinking too much about that decision..... I'll have to think about that.... LOL
I'm sure I'll be discussing these apps quite a bit over the year as they offer such a great variety of topics that are so appropriate for the youngest learners. I also love, but have not experimented with this yet, that you can customize their apps including using your own voice, removing and adding pictures, etc. What a great way to tailor an app to your specific curriculum pieces (sight words, spelling words, etc) More on that in a future post.

My biggest dilemna that is still out there in front of me at this point is: how do I want to organize all of these apps on my mobile devices now so that kiddos will be able to quickly and easily find the apps I want them to focus on. Right now I don't see this being a huge problem, but as the number of apps increases along with the number of pages, I foresee needing a system.

I am also toying with the idea of how to organize these apps in an effective manner for me to best utilize them for a specific kiddos specific needs. I want to create some sort of a spreadsheet that will allow me to quickly find which app will best fit a certain learning target. I am especially seeing this with apps that cover multiple learning targets. I started to create file that correlated with our math report card goals, but have quickly realized that this format has a lot of limitations in that it will only categorize apps for secure, end-of-the-year goals.
APPS for 1st Grade Report Card Math Goals

Any thoughts from anyone that has used multiple apps with multiple devices?

iPods abound

Anyone that teaches 1st grade well knows why I haven't blogged lately... just toooooo busy! WoW!! We may be working on building stamina for Read to Self, but I need to build stamina for spending a day with 6 year olds! Whew! Love it, but wow have I been wiped this week!!

Last week we got the iPod touches out for the 1st time. We talked a lot about my expectations for how they should unhook them from the cart, carry them, and use them. We learned about the home button and that each little picture is called an app. Today just to get everyone use to how they work we used the note app and wrote our names, words we knew, etc. Some of the kiddos even started to write notes to each other. It was great to see the excitement and you could have heard a pin drop with the exception of the sharing of sentences. Some of the kiddos even figured out how to get their screens to flip horizontally. I'm excited to see what the future will bring with these wonderful tools in our classroom. The best part is, as of right now, we have 15 students and 15 iPods, so everyone has their own!

From a management standpoint, at this time I have a sticker on the back of each one which correlates to each of my students' math tool kit numbers. My plan is to have a jpeg image with each number as the screen saver but just haven't had the time as of yet. I also found out in a hurry that when having the kiddos put the iPods back into the cart to have them lay them in their corresponding numbered slot facing forward with the home button touching the number on the cart. This puts the iPods in perfect position to plug them in for charging and syncing. At this time, I am plugging them in but plan to eventually have a "Tech specialist" classroom job to help with that task.

I've found several great FREE apps already, including one called, Alphabet Tracing which is a great app for tracing letters.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alphabet-tracing/id374493089?mt=8  

My kiddos have had no problem maneuvering around the app including changing the color/texture that they wrote in.

This has been a great extension to our handwriting practice and although it may not promote good handwriting witih a pencil, as writing with your finger is a bit different, it certainly helps reinforce the proper formation of the letters, particularly top to bottom.

I'm looking forward to sharing more with you over the coming months! I am so blessed to have this opportunity and my class is all over this with excitement!

Computer login cards

This year all students in our district will have computer usernames and passwords. (Last year K/1 used a universal, generic login and password) To help my 1sties make the transition and help them remember their "secret" password, I created login cards for each of them on Vistaprint using the postcard template. On the backside I plan to

Vistaprint, for those of you who don't know,  is an online marketing site where you can create everything from address labels, to postcards, to banners and more and you can customize them to your liking. They often run deals where you can get items for free~ yes, I did say FREE, and you only have to pay shipping which is usually pretty reasonable depending on what you purchase. Once you place an order, you will recieve emails several times a week with bigger and better deals.

If you'd like to see more of what I've made for my classroom click here.

If you're interested in starting a VistaPrint addiction of your own, click on the link below for more information

Save up to 80% on custom printed products at Vistaprint. Order today!

When do the kids come??

I hate to wish summer away, but seriously, I'm ready to get this tech show on the road!
I've tried to make time this week relax but keep finding myself coming back to thoughts of what I want to accomplish this year with my students, how I want my model technology classroom to function, and how I envision embedding different tech tools and learning styles into my classroom.  I wish I could say I answered all these questions, but I think I've only begun to scratch the surface. C'est la vie!  When faced with the many other tasks that seem to come out of the woodwork this time of year, I've come to conclude that some of these answers will come after the kids show up and I know what their learning styles are and what experience(s) they will bring with them. 



Our Information Technology Vision Statement



I spent time reviewing my district's technology vision statement and am confident that I am on the right track with what I am envsioning for my kiddos. Despite having the youngest learners of all the model technology classrooms, I envision technology integration and 21st century learning skills to be a crucial part of my curriculum. I am bound and determined to show that even 1st graders can effectively and productively utilize these tools, albeit with a bit more guidance and structure. My learners are digital natives to the core and it is my job to adapt my teaching to their learning. I by no means want the extent of our tech integration to be only app based. 

Here's looking forward to a year of technology, adventure, trial and error, excitement, fun, growth, reflection, and lots of learning! Let the journey begin!



And the journey begins...

This week I am attending a professional learning academy with other teachers interested in integrating technology in the classroom as part of my model technology classroom journey. It has been a very exciting and yet mind boggling couple of days all wrapped into one. I have been blown away more than once with the knowledge of the people I am attending with. It has definately been a time of growth and reflection.

One of my model tech classroom colleagues summed it up very well yesterday...

Techno-overload!

Yep, that's about right... Summer brain has had to go out the window in a hurry to keep up with all of the information that we have had thrown at us!

One of the presenters shared this wonderful Technology Integration Matrix

The matrix illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The matrix shows the five levels of technology integration (entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) along with the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments (active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal directed). Each of the 25 cells also includes a math, science, social studies, and language arts video example to illustrate the integration. The videos cover a variety of grade levels including K-2.

Watching some of these videos has my head spinning as to how I can move my teaching along this continuum with our youngest learners. I am bound and determined for my model technology classroom to not be all about "the apps" but rather for it to be a learning environment in which technology is embedded seamlessly into our curriculum as often as possible. Yes, the apps will be there and have their place in our day, but there is so much more out there that even firsties are capable of doing.

I'm looking forward to starting this journey and sharing with you along the way. Stay tuned for details....

QR codes

Have you ever heard of QR codes? If your like many of the people I've talked to lately, probably not, but I’ll bet you’ve probably seen them. 



 QR codes or  Quick Response Codes are two-dimensional barcodes, readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera, and smartphones. When you scan the image with your mobile device, it instantly gives you the information contained in that code. They work similar to a barcode, but you can encode a variety of information including web url's, text, phone numbers, etc.

To create a QR code try http://qrcode.kaywa.com/  This is the site that I've been using and it is super easy to use! Click on the link above, or scan the QR code on the left to go to the site.

So I've been doing a lot of thinking on how I can use QR codes as part of my model technology classroom next year as I will have 2 iPads with cameras as well as my personal 4th gen iPod touch. I want to give my class a little taste of tech on the first day that won't require a lot of thought or effort on their part sooooo... I've decided to do our beginning of the year school tour using QR codes.

Since I have a dog theme I'm going to have a dog give us our clues. I'll generate a QR code for each clue and place it in a speech bubble. I'm hoping to laminate these so I can use them from year to year. I have to try that out to make sure the QR reader will still work with the laminating film. I suspect it will, but would hate to do all of them only to find out that it doesn't.

I am also going to put a number on each dog and then make a master clue list with each number and what the clue is so that I will be able to easily remember where each dog takes us without having to scan each dog as I put it up around the building. I think this will be a fun and unique way for us to do our tour and will give my class a taste of tech. My intent is to have enough clues for each child in my class to be able to scan at least one dog.

 

I also found this site with several other ideas. I really like idea #2.

Interactive Back to School Night: Post QR codes throughout the classroom, with titles about various student work. QR codes could access student videos, projects, blogs, and many other ideas only teachers can envision. Hand out devices (iPod Touches, for instance) to parents who don’t have a mobile device and show them how to read the QR code and access the materials

My only concern is, how do I manage the iPads so that they don't walk off. Open House and/or parent-teacher conferences are always so crazy. Hmmm.. something to ponder. Any ideas?

Have you seen this video on 21st Century Education?

This is an awesome video from the New Brunswick Department of Education which our technology director showed to us at one of our committee meetings recently. It really hit home for me and makes me all the more excited to be one of the model technology classrooms for our district.

I'd love to know your thoughts after you view the video.