Using Padlet in Science

Today we began a new science unit all about the study of organisms. We started by brainstorming a list of living and nonliving things. In an effort to make this more interactive and engaging for all students I set up a Padlet wall for the class to write their ideas on. For those not familiar with Padlet, it is the old WallWisher. It is a virtual bulletin board that allows people to post their thoughts on a common topic. You can add images, video, or text anywhere on the page from any device. 

By providing a virtual bulletin board, everyone had the opportunity to share their ideas without having to wait while one person shares and the teacher writes it on chart paper. In addition, students will now be able to share our Padlet wall with their parents as well as our Twitter followers. We are hoping that some of our Twitter followers will tweet us some additional items for our list.

Using Padlet was extremely easy (both the setup and the using) To access the wall I simply copied the provided QR code (yup, the site provides one automatically for you to copy) and pasted it onto our smartboard document. My kiddos simply scanned it with their QR readers (we use Inigma) and it took them right there. Once on the site, kids simply need to double tap the screen and then tap in the dialogue box to write their idea. When they're done they  tap anywhere on the screen and viola! their post appears. I pulled up the Padlet wall on the smartboard which the kids thought was beyond cool as they could see all of the new posts appear as they worked.

As I mentioned, this was a great way for all students to be actively involved in our learning today in addition to making the walls of our learning transparent for our parents and others.

Thoughts on Professional Development

https://twitter.com/sjunkins/status/435786318862249984/photo/1

I came across this image as I was surfing for new integration ideas. This has been an ongoing topic of discussion between myself and several of my techie friends. I often hear teachers say that they want (insert device here) in their classroom but in the next breath they ask when the district will offer them the professional development to use it or complain that they haven't gotten enough PD on the device, or worse, they get the devices but don't embed them into students' learning, at least not to the best capabilities of the device. Not long after this you begin to hear how they want the  next latest and greatest gadget. And so the story goes....

I remember getting my first iPod Touch in 2009 and opening the box to read the directions, only, there weren't any directions. I had to turn it on, play with it, experiment, go online to read and then I began to surf YouTube to watch videos- in essence I did my own PD. It took me a couple of days to learn what I needed to be comfortable but the hands-on aspect of that learning was far more beneficial to me than attending a 2-hour workshop. 

This is still how it is. I like to try and stay ahead of the curve so I am constantly venturing out on my own and searching for new integration ideas, technologies, and like-minded individuals. Twitter has been a great resource of ideas and like-minded techies. There are blogs galore dedicated to technology, technology integration and educators at every grade level just looking to embed technology into their teaching and then sharing it. I have learned so much from all of these avenues. PD is not something that should happen twice a year during an inservice but rather should be an ongoing practice. I know not everyone agrees with that statement, but as the other saying goes, 

So... you choose- do you want to wait for someone to offer you your professional development? or do you want to get out there, find it, try it, and share it?  

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

Fact families

I wish there were more hours in the day. I have about 6 different blog posts in draft format right now that I just can't seem to find enough time to do. Hoping that after conferences are done this week, I can eek out a little extra time to catch up on those posts. In the meantime, here's a quick post on using Popplet to show fact families. This went over very well today in my class and most students did 2 or 3 Popples in about 10 minutes time.

We've been working on related facts (fact families) in math for the past few days. Today students used dominoes to help them write their related addition and subtraction facts. We used Popplet to record our results. We have used this app a few times for various things but we haven't used it as much as I had hoped to this year. That being said, the kiddos did great using the app fairly independently and kiddos decided on their own if they wanted to use the text feature or the pen feature. As they finished their popples, they took a screen shot which we then shared via Air Server at the end of our lesson.

Tech is great but...

When the little things in your room start to happen that have nothing to do with tech, your heart begins to jump for joy. Sorry this post has absolutely NOTHING to do with tech but rather with the gains that my students are making despite the technology. 

My students this year have a wide range of needs ranging from visual impairments to autism, to needing a communication device, to cognitive disabilities. It is by far one of my more challenging years as an educator when it comes to meeting their needs, moving them forward and helping to coordinate the number of support staff that travel in and out of my room in the course of a day (at last count I had more than 14 individuals that work with my students in some capacity!) I have had many a day that I have come home and sobbed, felt like I am not an effective educator or contemplated how much longer I could do what I do... but then..... the wonderful happens....

you step back and begin to notice the little things such as:

1) My visually impaired student for the 1st time turned and pair-shared ON HIS OWN without a reminder and got himself right in the thick of the conversation! Awesome!!

2) My little guy who needs a communication device has gotten harder to understand recently but when stepping back... it's not because he's regressed, it's because he is talking soooooo much more that I just can't keep up with him. What a wonderful feeling to know he is that comfortable in my classroom to communicate without his device!

3) One of my CD students has made some really nice gains with her letter/sounds and is making progress in how to use a socially acceptable voice level when needing to talk to others. Just reminding her to use a soft voice, has started to pay off.

4) Another of my students learned to zip her jacket on her own last week. We jumped for joy and hooted and hollered to the point that the secretary came out to see what the commotion was all about. What a huge jump of independence for this little one!

5) Their independent skills have grown to the point that I feel we can finally do many of the things that we would normally tackle in November.... better late than never!

6) The room is beginning to have a hum of camaraderie, togetherness and helpfulness... everyone is accepting of everyone's strengths, weaknesses and differences! We are truly a school family- and that includes all of the adults that work in the room!

I know these seem so small but if you spent a few days in my room, you too would realize how BIG these small things truly are. 

That's why I am writing this post.... so I can come back and reread this post every time I have "one of those days"... you know, the ones when you go home and think there is nothing positive happening....the ones that make you wonder if you are in the right profession even though you can't possibly imagine doing anything else. The ones that have you staying up late pondering what else you can do to get a student to learn his letters and sounds short of standing on your head while wearing a red nose and singing the alphabet song. (Hmmm... I may have to try that one actually)

Teaching truly is a work or heart and I love what I do... the kids are truly the heart of what we do day to day (no pun intended being that this post is being written on Valentine's Day!) sometimes you  I just need to step back and relish the small things.  Thank you my young friends for helping me to again realize why I love what I do!

*Updated to add: One of my little guys today FINALLY learned how to tie his shoes independently!! SO Exciting... watching him today persevere on this task when normally he would come up and put his foot in your face and say, "Help me" was unbelievable! It truly was the icing on the cake today!

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. :-)