Mystery Skype and Book Creator

My class is currently beginning a unit on the comparison of Venezuela to France as a part of the school's International Day focus.  In order to make use of what they are learning, the students will be creating their own books via Book Creator, which is an app whose name speaks for itself.  This will be my first time utilising the app, but I'm excited about it!  (You KNOW the students will love an activity when you as the teacher are personally hooked on the App for a few hours straight!)  Book Creator allows you to add text, photos, video clips, music, and sound recordings as you assimilate your own eBook.

Click HERE to see some examples of student-created, Book Creator masterpieces.

As part of their research during the Comparison unit, my class will be engaging in Mystery Skypes, in which two schools from around the world connect via Skype without knowing the location of the other class.  Students work in assigned roles to determine where the other school is located, while learning valuable information about another country.  Last year, my class did 23 mystery Skypes, and developed strong public speaking skills along with geographical knowledge.  They learned something new with each connection, and are STILL enthusiastic about the activity!

Click HERE to view more info on Mystery Skype.  Happy sleuthing!

Pecha Kuchas

Pecha Kucha presentations are slideshows containing exactly 20 images that show for 20 seconds, in which the presenter speaks for just 6:15 minutes total.  (See pechakucha.org for more info.)

Implementing these 20x20 prezis into your classroom allows for multiple higher level thinking skills.  Specifically, students must become experts on a topic through meaningful research, analyze their findings and identify key details in order to address and support them throughout their timed PK, use illustrations to support their topic, and practice solid speaking skills throughout the entire presentation.  Turn this into a group project, and you’ve added a whole other set of communication standards to the mix!  This project can easily be modified for intermediate to post-secondary grade levels.

To begin, introduce your students to PKs with solid examples.  Then, organize them to conduct research however best suits your lesson objectives.  (This section of the unit can easily incorporate a number of skills, from adequate online research and citations to the use of expository texts as research or note taking skills – it’s all up to you!)

Provide the students ample time to gather information, analyze it, and gather related illustrations.  These sections can easily be stored on Google Drive so that group members all have access to the same doc.

Once info is gathered, the students should begin creating their PowerPoints to display the visuals (again, if they’re in groups, I recommend Google Presentations and then downloading it as a PPT upon completion).

They should then set the timer under animations to 20 seconds and practice presenting information.  Here’s a great “How To” video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9zxNTpNMLo

After the PPTs are complete, be sure to give your students ample time to practice their PK presentations.  Focus on memorization, eye contact, voice projection, timing, clarity, etc.

Then, let them present their PKs!  This is an incredible opportunity to raise their 21^st century learning skills!

*Be sure to have all students complete peer and self reflections of their work, and to set your standards high.  This project is difficult because it’s both timed and relatively in-depth, so they need to use it as a growing opportunity and learn from failures.  If it’s not up to your standards, remember that their “finished” product does not have to be their “final!”  I say this because the first time my class produced PKs, they did not do their best.  Despite being given several work days with clear verbal feedback and written instructions, the students’ slides still displayed paragraphs of text and the students did not exhibit exemplary speaking skills while demonstrating their PKs (Getting a main point across in 20 seconds is tough!).  However, after I showed them their recordings and was straightforward about how I knew they could have done better, they rose to the challenge and did a much better job the second time.  Keep practicing!  Pecha Kuchas are a WONDERFUL learning opportunity for students!

Book Trailer Example

As promised, here's an example of the book trailers my fourth graders produced:

4th Grade Example 2014

They completed reflections to determine what they liked, what they wish, and what they wondered while watching others' trailers, and will now have the chance to redo them to push their productions further.

TWITTERpated!

I was hesitant to sign up for a Twitter account at first because it seemed like just another meaningless social media outlet to waste time on.  Luckily, though, Kelly Gallagher opened my eyes when he used it in a presentation at a State Reading Conference I attended last November (follow him @

KellyGToGo).

Twitter is an excellent resource for teachers, and our tech coach swears by it.  So long as you use it professionally and consciously follow/Tweet only ed-related people and ideas, you’ll soon find that it is THE quickest, most accessible PD available to you as an educator.

Here’s an example of just how fast Twitter can work for you as an educator:  A few weeks ago, a teacher at our regional conference told a story about how she and her class found the skeleton of an unknown animal during an outing.  When the class returned to the building, the teacher challenged the librarian:  “Who could find what species the animal was first?”  Then the teacher immediately Tweeted out a picture of the skeleton to her contacts with the trademark # to start a conversation about it on a page, and began asking questions to and receiving answers from university students and specialists all over the world to keep the chats flowing.  Within TWO HOURS she had the answer: The class had found a raccoon skeleton!  (Meanwhile, after pouring through books for hours, the librarian asked to ship the skeleton off to a lab, waited two weeks for a reply, and never did get the bones returned…)

This is just one example of how efficient Twitter really is for us as teachers, but it’s not the most FREQUENT way that I use it.  Instead, I’ve found that it’s an incredibly meaningful way to access new PD ideas quickly.  When I browse my feed on Twitter, I’ll easily scope out three or four teaching ideas, apps, or articles that I haven’t heard of before.  Go ahead, search the #geniushour, #socrative, or #kahoot pages, or click on them when they pop up on your feed.  Need a #MysterySkype contact? Looking for a conference that professionals are actively recommending to one another, such as #Edutech?  Search no further.  All you have to do is build your network and follow quality educators and program representatives.

Yet another meaningful way to use Twitter is to keep parents and your schoolwide community informed of what’s going on in class.  My school’s teachers, superintendent, principal, and students are all on Twitter and use it as a constant update option for parents.  If, for example, your class is engaged in an exciting new project, then all you have to do is snap a photo, tweet it out with the #Nameofyourschool, and then the parents can click on the school’s page and be able to visually SEE what it is their child came home excited about that day!

If you’re REALLY into Twitter and get involved in multiple chats, you may be interested in signing up for a Tweet Deck account so that you can keep pages of chats separated from one another.  (This is excellent when you want to have a more inquisitive, in-depth conversation with someone about a new project or product that they mentioned on Twitter.)  But, if you’re just getting started on Twitter, then it may be easiest just to start with the basic account.  In that case, here are a few things to know once you’ve signed up for your account:

1:  Type @ to talk directly to a person and for only that person to see your tweet (aside from on your newsfeed).

2:  Make a hashtag # to view a page. There cannot be any spaces for whichever words you want to be added to the page.  (For example, if you hashtag #booktrailers, then it will show up on the “book trailers” page.  However, if you hashtag #book trailers, then your post will show up on the “book” page.)

3:  Some educators and resource reps I recommend you follow:  @yaujauku, @cybraryman1, @SkypeClassroom, @eduechME, @STEMCONNECT, @educationweek, @GetKahoot, @IRAToday, @NCTM, @KellyGToGo, @khanacademy, @gailandjoan

Grow your network of educators on Twitter and delve into PD networking while you gain resources and ideas.  Tweet away!

Student Portfolios on Google Drive

Google Drive is a phenomenal teacher’s tool.  We can use it for instant feedback, exit tickets, parent surveys, student forms….the list goes on, and I’ll have more on that later.  For today, what I want to focus on is creating Student Portfolios via the Drive.  With the end of Quarter 1 just around the corner, it’s time for students to start compiling their work and evaluating their growth.  What better way to do that than digitally?

1:  To begin, login to your Gmail account and enter the Drive. 

2:  Create a folder on your Drive and label it “Student Portfolios.” 

3:  Next, create new folders within the “Student Portfolios” folder for each student in your class. 

4:  Share each student’s individual folder with them.  Be sure to enable them to edit the folders so that they can create Docs and upload projects to it in the future.

5:  Whenever your students create projects for classes, direct them to save them to their portfolio folder.

That’s it!

Each teacher should then modify the portfolio requirements for what works best for individual classes.

Here's an example of what I’ve created as a quarterly reflective system for the portfolios.  See the outline below:

STUDENT PORTFOLIOS:

Students will save all major tests, quizzes, and projects in a folder during each quarter.  They will then submit their best work for each subject per quarter by writing an evaluation/justification for why they selected each piece.  Each student will address the following questions in the evaluation/justification:

1:  This piece is about….

2:  Things I did well are….

3:  Two things I can improve on are….

4:  This piece displays that I have learned….

5:  I am proud of this work because….

Students may be given time in class to complete the portfolio evaluation/ justification piece, or they may receive it as homework.  The following rubric will be used to assess the portfolio submissions:

PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION RUBRIC

	3	2	1
Skill Growth	The piece portrays exemplary student growth compared to the last quarter’s work.  At least 4 areas of growth can be identified.	The piece portrays adequate student growth compared to last quarter’s work.  At least 2 areas of growth can be identified.	The piece portrays minimal student growth compared to last quarter’s work.  One or no areas of growth can be identified in the piece.
Justification/Evaluation	The student addresses each of the five evaluation prompts in full, providing at least two solid examples of either growth demonstration or needs of improvement in all responses.	The student addresses each of the five evaluation prompts, providing at least one solid example of either growth or needs of improvement for each response.	The student does not address all five points of the evaluation, or fails to provide examples for his/her reasoning in a prompt.

 Student Reflection Prompts:

Name:                                                                                     Date: 

1:  This piece is about….

2:  Things I did well are….

3:  Two things I can improve on are….

4:  This piece displays that I have learned….

5:  I am proud of this work because….

Book Trailers on iMovie

Book Trailers:

My class recently wrote historical fiction pieces and then created Book Trailers on iMovie to help study characters, setting, plot, and foreshadowing.  This was an excellent activity because the kids were thoroughly engaged!  They brought in costumes and props, found online pictures to project onto the SMARTboard as backgrounds, and wrote out their storyboard so that all main characters and the main conflict of their stories would be identified.  They had a BLAST.

iMovie is incredibly easy to use.  To create a book trailer, all you have to do is click the + in the right corner of the iPad, select “Trailer,” and then choose a theme/storyboard to complete with videos on your iPad and text that you input directly onto the storyboard itself.  With the students being as tech-savvy as they are, they picked it up without a glitch and even more quickly than I did!

Here’s a photo I tweeted out during their presentations (this one was about Argentine pirates!)

 I’ll have a video example coming SOON!