Malchow's Tech Bytes 👩🏻‍💻~ November 9th

Click the image above to access the links and view the deck in a larger format

Malchow's Tech Bytes~ Happy New Year 🎉

Click Here ---> Malchow's Tech Bytes~ January 7th <---

Talkin' Tech and Turkey!

Lots of resources this week for Thanksgiving as well as a wonderful resource from Ann Brucker, a tech integration specialist from Billings, Montana, that will help you when your students change various settings on the Chromebooks. A definite "Print off and keep handy!"

Click the image to access Malchow's Tech Bytes~ November 13-17

 Here's hoping everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving break with family and friends. I'll be taking the week off as well to enjoy time with my family so there will not be a Tech Bytes newsletter posted next week.

Ceating Rainbow Word templates in Pic Collage

Have you tried Seesaw's unbelievably awesome Activities feature? Since creating a boat-load of Rainbow word cards, literally 3 days before the Activities release, I've been pondering the best, and easiest way to share these words with students since Seesaw only allows one image to be drawn on at a time. I'm sure many of you introduce multiple words in a week and don't want to upload individual words so here's my work around... 

Pic Collage!

Creating templates is simple! Watch the video below to see how to do it so you can customize the templates you need for your students. If you are going to insert these templates into Seesaw, be sure to follow Step 6 by going into your Camera Roll and rotating your image to landscape view so your students will have more room to work on the template.

Need the Rainbow words files? Click here

Want to know how to download the files to your iPad from Google Drive? Click here

I am thankful for... PicCollage

Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner! I truly can say, I don't know where this year has gone. As i reflect back on the past few months I have much to be thankful for including my health, my family, and my new job-which I am really enjoying.

As a (former) first grade teacher, we often spent some time discussing the things we were thankful for and incorporated our ideas into some small writing project. Today when I checked my email I found that Melonheadz Illustrating had added their Thanksgiving coloring page freebie to TPT! Melonheadz is one of my favorite clip art creators, and yes, I AM an Official Melonheadz Addict)!!

Click the image above to access the free download on
the Melonheadz TPT store

I soon as I saw it, I knew I needed to send the link on to my colleagues as it was just too cute to not pass along, however,  the more I thought about it, the more I started to think about ways that I could enhance it just a bit by integrating a little technology. 

I thought of two things- both pretty simple, as I didn't want to take too much time out of learning time and wanted it to be something that could be done with a limited number of iPads as well.

My first thought, which is very simple and provides an easy integration idea for our youngest learners, is to simply have your students color the picture and write or draw the things they are thankful for using the template as is. When done, have students take a picture of their paper, upload it to Seesaw, and then use the recording tool to tell their parents the things they are thankful for.

My son and I colored this example together and he then
uploaded and did the PicCollage part

For those comfortable with taking it one step further, I thought of a way to app smash it with PicCollage. Start by having your students color their paper but leave the "I am Thankful for" area empty. When they are done coloring, have them snap a picture and upload it into the free PicCollage app. Once the picture is uploaded, rotate it so it's in landscape format, tap on the picture and touch "Use as Background". Now have students use the text tool, stickers, and web search to add items that they are thankful for to the empty space. When done, save it to the camera roll and upload it into Seesaw where again, students can share it with their parents and use the recording tool to tell more about their items.  You can also upload to Seesaw directly from PicCollage but we have found the workflow easier for students to add it to the camera roll and upload from there. 

Want to print your pics or put them all into a slide show?
After saving to the CameraRoll have students AirDrop their completed projects to you so that all of the pictures are now on your device and you can send to the location you need to print. Need help with AirDrop? Check out this post.

If you use this idea, I'd love to see some of your finished creations. Tweet them out using the hashtag, #DigitalThankfulFor OR tag me in the photo (@smalchow)

Tech-Tastic! Pulaski PD Presentation

Click image to access presentation

I am co-presenting at our district technology inservice on ways to integrate technology into both math and literacy. If you're interested in finding out about ways you can integrate Padlet, DoodlecastPro (Explain Everything, Educreations,etc) and PicCollage, feel free to check out our presentation link above, just click on the image. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

My co-presenter is a 5th grade teacher and as such we have many examples from both of our classrooms. You'll also find links to Padlet boards with more examples as well as video links with tutorials to get you going.

We've been learning about the reading strategy- Determining Importance. This strategy is used when good readers need to decide between what is simply interesting in a text and what's important in order to understand what they are reading.We did an experiment today in which we had a bowl of water with noodles in it which represented our books and stories and a colander which represented our brains. We used the colander (our brain) to strain out the noodles (the important information, the main ideas, and key topics) and left the water (the interesting stuff with little detail) behind. To help solidify the concept, I had my first graders take  a picture of our experiment and import that picture into the PicCollage app. They then labeled the pieces of our experiment (interesting, important and brain) and sent it to their parents. Their homework this evening is to explain the experiment and their PicCollage to their parents. 

Double Digit Numbers and Pic Collage

Our new math program has little lessons called Investigations built into the curriculum. Today we did an investigation having to do with double digit numbers. We spent a few minutes discussing what a double digit number is and giving some examples. We then brainstormed some places that we thought we might find these kinds of numbers. After our discussion, students were paired up and spent 10-15 minutes walking around our classroom and school looking for double digit numbers and taking pictures of them with their iPads.

It was amazing to see some of the places that students found double digit numbers, everything from clocks and calendars to classroom door numbers and  even entrance numbers to our building. I absolutely LOVE this picture of one of my students getting this picture.


After we got back to the room students were asked to import the pictures they took into the app, PicCollage to show their learning. The only stipulations were: 1) you have to work collaboratively and creatively with your partner 2) You must have your names on your collage
3) You need a title for your PicCollage

We've used PicCollage several other times and my students are getting quite adept at maneuvering their way around the app. I did introduce them to a new feature today- cropping their photos, which came in very useful for some of the pics they had taken. They really enjoyed trying this out and it definitely made their learning come more to the forefront of their creations. 

Last time we used PicCollage kiddos figured out how to import photos from the web as their backgrounds. We had Minecraft and Halo backgrounds which really distracted from the learning we were trying to showcase which lead to a fantastic discussion of what would be a better choice. Today,  I again reminded them of that conversation and asked that they find backgrounds that complimented their collage versus taking away from their learning. At that point I let them create as I didn't want to micromanage what may come out of their brains. I was quite impressed to say the least with the choices they made for their backgrounds and their ability to work together so collaboratively from start to finish!!! 

Simplistic app smash

Looking for an easy and engaging way for your students to practice their spelling words or high frequency words? 
In our class, kiddos use the Magnetic Alphabet app to place virtual magnetic letters onto a variety of backgrounds to create their weekly words. Students love using the different backgrounds to give each of their pics a little extra pizzazz. Once students have finished creating one of their words, they save their image to the camera roll. After they have all 5 of their weekly words created and saved, they import their 5 images into PicCollage where they can creatively put all of their words together onto one page, change the background and then send to their parents. 

Pic Collage for assessment

Yikes, pics uploaded last night, too tired to write the post... better get it up as it's been favorited already. LOL

Over the past few days we have been learning about capacity in math. We've done several hands-on explorations and learned a whole body representation of full, almost full, half full, almost empty, and empty~think head shoulders, knees, and toes with a stop at the hips for half full. The kids loved it and the representations definitely seemed to help them, although half full is still throwing a handful of my kiddos for some reason when having to identify it in real life examples or in their journal. How do I know this you ask, well, for starters, we did an collaborative, real world assessment of these concepts using the app Pic Collage. 

Here's how it all shook down (sorry for the not so pretty Smart board resource on the first image)...
When the kiddos came in on Wednesday I had the Smartboard on with the word capacity and an image of the PicCollage app icon displayed. We had a quick discussion of what capacity was and then I told them they were going to work with a partner to take 5-8 pictures of items around the room that had capacity. After taking their pics, they were to work collaboratively to create a Pic Collage to represent their findings and label the items they found. Seeing as we are first graders, we quickly wrote our capacity words so that teams had a resource to refer to. With the exception of that bit of information, teams were sent on their way to begin the task. It was great to see them talk about the items they were finding and discussing if the object truly had capacity. 

Once their pics were done, they headed to a cozy spot and began working together to create their collages. Again, the conversations were rich with vocabulary and "tech talk". Students began grouping and arranging their pictures, discussing and labeling their examples and of course, putting their creativity to work in designing their piece. 

On a modification side note:
I have one student who is visually impaired and utilized braille as his primary form of writing and reading. Even with his visual limitations, he and his partner were able to complete this activity to the benefit of both. They worked together to find the objects, felt them to check for capacity and when it came time to create on the iPad, my little gal every so gently guided him to move images around using descriptive language such as "Slide it more to the right". Our VI (Visually impaired) specialist also brailled the capacity words which my student used to discuss the items they photographed and when it came time to label on their collage, they took pics of the braille words to use as their labels. It was a great team effort for this group and was a true testament to the fact that kiddos can be supportive of each other no matter their abilities. Both learned from each other in this instance, and learned so much more than just math concepts!

Once we finished our assessment, we got back together as a group and students used Air Server to project their collages onto the SMARTboard. Yes, my students Air Serve independently! (For those not familiar with AirServer, this allows you to mirror whatever is on your iPad through a projector. This has been a fantastic tool for us to share our works with the whole group in a format large enough for all to see. It's also wonderful when introducing apps to students, but more on that another time)
Once their collage was up, groups came up and shared their pics and what they knew about capacity. One of my students even made the connection that iPads have capacity as well. This was an interesting discussion as most first graders need more concrete examples to see how something would be filled and obviously "seeing the iPad fill" is very abstract. To put it lightly, I was simply amazed!! I truly believe that many times we underestimate what our younger learners understand.

Some add'l learning came out of this project as well in regards to presentation as a couple of groups figured out how to add backgrounds from the web and chose Minecraft images to enhance their projects. The kids LOVED them and all wanted to know how to do it, but we found out quickly that the learning was overshadowed by the cool backgrounds. We talked about when a Minecraft background might be more appropriate and what the focus of our collages was. It was a fantastic authentic way to show this without me having to be the bad guy to say, "you can't use ___ or ___ for your backgrounds". The power of this conversation was in the fact that they all experienced it firsthand. Once students know the basic functionality of an app, I try very hard not to micromanage their creativity but rather let the little things like this guide our discussions and learning. Don't get me wrong, students still need to be shown how to use the apps appropriately as "they don't know, what they don't know" but I prefer to be the guide on the side once we have the basics down. It is amazing what I have learned from my students over the years that I wouldn't have learned had I limited them solely to my standards.

Pic Collage for buddy intro

Looking for a tech-inspired way for your class to introduce themselves to a Skype or Twitter buddy class? Look no further, PicCollage is your go-to, easy schmeasy app of choice!

This morning we spent some time putting together a PicCollage project to send to our buddy class in Oshawa, Canada. Each table team was responsible for working together to take each others' pictures, import them into the PicCollage app, add their names, change the background and add stickers if they so chose. 

Each team did a fantastic job problem solving how each person would take somebody else's picture so everyone got a turn (this may seem simple, but for a 1st grader, this can be a big problem solving process) The creativity and differences between each groups projects were neat to see and compare. 

When we were done, we emailed our collages to our buddy class so that they could get to know us better. Our buddy class also used PicCollage and sent us their creation which we now have proudly displayed in our classroom. This has really helped us to put a name to a face (pun intended) and is helping us to feel more connected with our buddies when we read their posts on Twitter.

The finished product and a happy team!

iPad licenses and PicCollage

Well it's day 5 of the school year and we are digging further into iPad use than we ever have by this time of year. I truly think a big part of it is the amount of technology that kiddos have available to them at home as well as the digital native aspect of our young learners and their willingness to take risks.  

We are already well into taking pictures with our iPads and using the app PicCollage. We've also been working hard to earn our iPad licenses by knowing how to carry our iPad, how to adjust the volume, where to put them when they need charging, how to enter and exit apps, and more. Half of our class has earned their licenses and the privilege of creating on their iPads in some of the fun areas in our classroom such as the stools, crate chairs, etc. 

This week we discussed how to take pictures. We learned how to zoom in and out, how to change our vantage point by turning the iPad horizontal versus vertical and what makes a good picture. The kiddos did a fantastic job and it was neat to see the pictures they took as their eye for a great picture is often different than what we might expect. I made sure to go around and conference with each of the kiddos regarding their pictures to find out what they thought (were they blurry, too far away, or maybe didn't show what they wanted?) If they had some that didn't meet the criteria or their expectations, we discussed how to delete those pics and redo them.
After finishing our pictures of the items in our Me Bags, we learned how to import our pictures into the app, PicCollage. This is a free app that allows you to collage your pictures, add text and stickers, and change fonts and backgrounds. It's a powerful, but very easy app to use.  

Each of the kiddos then moved and re-sized their pictures to create their own unique version of their Me Bags. They also learned how to add text, change the font, color and background of the fonts!  We will be sharing these with parents as soon as we have our email accounts set up.

Pushes and Pulls

We are currently studying forces and motion in science. As part of our unit, we study the difference between pushes and pulls. Today kiddos partnered up and took 3 pictures of each with their partners and then created a PicCollage with their examples.

Although it was a bit chaotic, the best part of this lesson was that each of my kiddos had to team up with a student from another class that had never used PicCollage before which meant that they not only had to show what they knew about pushes and pulls, but they had to use what they knew about PicCollage to teach a friend how to use the app as well. I have to say, I was very proud of how well my kiddos took on this task. :-)

Lights, camera, ACTION VERBS

Another Pic Collage project. As I've said a gazillion times before- PicCollage is one of my go-to apps. It is so easy for first graders to use and share. 

This time, kiddos worked in groups of 3 or 4 to take pics of themselves showing various verbs. Once they had their pics, groups worked collaboratively to create their collage. 

When we were done, we used AirPlay and Air Server to mirror our iPads onto the Smartboard to share our creations with the class.

Capacity

I've talked about my love for the PicCollage app on several occasions but it truly is a wonderful creation app for first graders to use independently. Last week in math we worked on the topic of capacity. Throughout the lessons we discussed what capacity was and worked with several examples. On one of our math journal pages students were asked to write down other examples of items 
that had capacity. We made it a bit more engaging and authentic by taking pictures of items with our iPads which we then imported into PicCollage. After students finished with their creations, we used Air Server to project our creations onto the Smartboard for all to see and discuss. In my opinion, this ended up being a much more engaging and collaborative way of addressing the 

same learning target. It may have taken us 5-10 minutes longer but I truly believe the learning will last longer having done it this way as well. Overall, taking the pics and creating the collage took us all of 10 minutes! Using Air Server was another story, but it was our first time trying it out as a class- new learning always takes longer.

People, Places and Things...NOUNS!

Anybody else feeling overwhelmed? Whew! I feel like a brand new teacher again. We have so many new initiatives in our district this year- a new math program, a new writing curriculum, new state-wide 1st grade testing, Teacher effectiveness, RtI... and the list goes on. My brain is on overload and then don't forget I have to teach 16 little cherubs daily with a range of needs from CD, to S/L to EBD. It's going to be a year of learning in many ways and one which I am excited to tackle, but at the same time, one which is leaving me exhausted. :-)  Needless to say, I've had a hard time getting on to update the blog with things that we have been doing. 

Today though we tackled our first  second creation-based project. Today's project revolved around learning about nouns. I started by creating a smartboard document which I've taken screen shots of below.
We started by talking about what nouns are and then sorted pictures into the 3 categories. 

Next, we watched the School House Rock video, Nouns. Ahhhh... the memories. I use to love School House Rock videos on Saturday mornings when I was kid (I may have aged myself with that comment) 



After these 2 activities, I set the kids up for the tech-integrated portion of the learning. Partners took their iPads and the Noun Scavenger Hunt sheet seen to the left (you can find the scavenger hunt sheet on Mrs.Lemons site- follow the above link) and walked around our room and hallway to take pictures of the 3 different types of nouns. 

When we got back to the room I introduced the kiddos to the app, PicCollage. We started by inserting our title and the 3 subheadings. I had these on a Smartboard doc page as well for them to use as a resource. If they finished early, they were able to change the font and color of their words. We then walked through how to add the pictures that they took. This was where the mini-assessment came in as they again had to sort, but this time with their own pictures. 
In the end, the PicCollages turned out wonderfully- I on the other hand and my co-teacher, were exhausted. I will definitely do this project again, possibly a little later in the year (November-ish) next year -although truth be told, it may just be the challenges that this close possesses that made it a bit more exhausting than what it should have been.

I will upload some pics soon as the kiddos devices do not yet have an easy way to share their creations as our email accounts are not yet active.

**UPDATE** Here a few examples of our finished products...

...and more PicCollage

The more I use PicCollage, the more I like it and the more ways I can think of integrating it. After our first attempt at PicCollage this year (see below for the  disaster... well maybe not disaster, but not quite how I expected the project to fall apart come together) we tried it again during Spanish and lo and behold, they did FANTASTICALLY! 


Students worked with a partner to explore a website that Senora gave us. To make it easily accessible, we added the link to our class blog. We use our blog as a portal for many sites as it gives kiddos independence as well as providing access to our various sites from home so they can again be independent and/or share with their parents. 

After clicking on the site,students were shown how to navigate the site and how to take a screenshot. They then found 3-5 pictures of animals from CostaRica (1 mammal, 1 bird, and 1-3 others) Student then worked with their partner to PicCollage their 3-5 pictures. This ended up being a 2 day lesson (3o minutes each)- Day 1 we learned how to get to the site from our blog, navigate the sit and find the animals, pinch and zoom in as well as screenshot. Day 2 we finished finding our animals and then did our Pic Collage. Having the background knowledge of using the app once before, my kiddos were literally able to put their collages together in 5-10 minutes including adding their names and title to the collage.

Today I found another use for this app. I put together a picture board for a student to use at home showing the steps for getting ready for school (get up, get dressed, teeth brushed, jacket on). This student and I talked about the picture board and came up with a little ditty to help remember it as well. Then I had the idea of having him pic collage the pics to help him take ownership of what he needed to do. This is what he came up with. 

The uses are endless, and in my opinion, a very valuable option for students to reinforce concepts and showcase their learning.

Halloween and Pic Collage

I think my standard beginning post this year is going to be.... "Sorry I haven't posted in awhile" Gosh, I'm just not sure where time is going? I know it couldn't possibly be working full time, being a mom to 2 active little boys, being on several committees, reviewing apps, and doing staff presentations. I promise to try my best to be better at getting our projects, successful and not, up here for the world to see. Sometimes the worst projects can lead to the best brainstorms!

So here it goes...
This year as part of our Halloween celebration, we did The Candy Corn Bandit project from Abby's The Inspired Apple blog. If you've never checked out her blog, it's a definite "must do" on your ever growing To-do list! The kids had a blast inferring and predicting while following the clues that had been left around our building in hopes of retrieving our stolen jar of candy corn.

To put a tech twist on it, we learned how to use the cameras on our iPads. We discussed many of the basics such as holding still while taking the picture (something that is difficult for many of my munchkins), as well as how to zoom in to get a closer picture. Then as we went in search of our missing candy corn, we took pictures along the way to document the various clues we found. 

Later that day, we learned how to use the app PicCollage. This is a free app that allows the user to import pictures and then crop and rotate them however they'd like to create a collage. I've used this app before with 1st graders with great success so was excited to try it again. So here's where it all falls apart... some of my kiddos did a fantastic job but other's really struggled. In hind sight, I think it was because we had taken so many pictures as many had become shutter happy that the sheer number of pics and the fact that many of them looked so similar became a hindrance. In hindsight, I think next time I'd have them look at their pics first and delete the doubles and ones that didn't turn out and then begin our project. 

I'm a firm believer in trial and error so I'm not saying this project didn't have merit, just needs some fine tuning.

Looking forward to the next time we use PicCollage as I'm sure it will go much better seeing as they now have background information to guide them as well.

3D Shape Hunt

This past week we spent several days learning about 3D shapes as part of our Geometry unit math. In past years I have found that students love this unit and there are many opportunities for hands-on learning when learning about polygons, symmetry and 3D shapes. This year I wanted to add a bit of a tech twist for my class by incorporating the use of our iPads. 

In our current math series, there isn't much time spent on 3D shapes short of learning their names and characteristics- most of which is spent looking at wooden representations of these shapes or pictures in our math journal (boring!). So to spice things up a bit and make our learning more real-world, we went on a 3D shape hunt using the cameras on our iPads to find and photograph real-life examples of 3D shapes. Students worked in groups of three (we only have 5 iPads available to us) and had a check list of the shapes we had studied. 

The next day, I introduced them to the FREE app, Pic Collage. I spent about 10 minutes going through the important aspects of using this app as well as my expectations for their finished product. We discussed how to bring their pics into the app, how to move them around and resize them and how to insert text. Students then worked with their teams to import all of their pictures, label each one with the correct shape name, and then experiment with changing the background. Once they were happy with their creations, they emailed my their finished product to add to our classroom blog. With any extra time they had left, they were able to further explore the app and how to crop pictures, change the font and color, etc.

Here are some examples of our finished projects. THe kids had a blast while also showcasing what they had learned in a very hands-on and engaging way!