K/1 Sessions for Windham

Below are the links for my Prezi presentations for K/1 teachers at Windham...

Planning with iPads
http://prezi.com/g-l5ic9_0r6a/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Become an iPad Power User

http://prezi.com/lznvmcv3vbbp/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

iPad Wrap-Up School Year 2015-2016

Prior to sharing a checklist for taking care of your iPads before the students leave, I would like to say that if you have downloaded WriteDraw on your iPads... do not delete the app if you like using it with your students. It has been removed from the app store and will not be available to be downloaded once removed from an iPad. I will keep searching to find a similar tool, but so far nothing compares to the features of this particular app.

iPad Checklist: (Ryan most likely will not be touching your iPads this summer.)

1. Have students upload all valuable work to their Google Drive account. A video tutorial can be found here.

2. Have students sign out of all of their accounts like Google account apps, Newsela, Front Row, IXL, email, Literably, TenMarks, etc.

3. Have students remain logged into accounts that are teacher accounts to save time next year. (Examples: Adobe, Epic!, Educreations, AudioBoom, VoiceThread, ThingLink, AutoRap, ect.)

4. Have students delete all photos and videos from their iPad.

5. Have students close all tabs in Safari.

6. Have students delete all apps that you think will not be pertinent to the beginning of the school year.

7. Charge iPads to 80% and then unplug them from the charger.

8. Shut down the iPads. You may need to recharge the iPads when you come back in August, but doing these last two steps will help to preserve battery life.

What a Voyage! Two Stops and Lots of New Friends!

The SS Scots, a mini boat with a GPS locator, was built in Maine-USA, visited classrooms in the Bonny Eagle School District (Standish, Limington, Steep Falls, Buxton, and Hollis - Maine), driven to Cape Cod Massachusetts, loaded onto a fisherman's boat, and plunked into the Atlantic Ocean. The students from the Bonny Eagle school district made predictions on where the iBoat would travel and checked the GPS map regularly to see where the SS Scots had journeyed. The students were hoping to make new friends from another country.

Students lucked out when the SS Scots landed in La Coruna, Spain.

All of the iBoats launched in 2013!

Third grade students from the Bonny Eagle school district, who were 2nd graders when the SS Scots was launched in 2013, Skyped with students in La Coruna, Spain. Videos of the Skype visits are embedded below.

Then our friends from Spain fixed up the SS Scots and set it out for another voyage. Check out the photos below showing how the SS Scots was fixed up and the students from Spain sending the boat out for it's next journey.

Video of the SS Scots leaving La Coruna, Spain = Video

On September 8, 2015 the SS Scots was found in Tenerife (Canary Islands) by an environmental consulting firm that specializes in marine environment. The firm took the SS Scots to a local school.

Bonny Eagle students that Skyped with the students from Spain had the opportunity to Skype with students from Tenerife, Spain.

The SS Scots will soon be on another journey that is predicted to bring the iBoat back to the United States. Follow the journey here.

Why the myBlee Math iOS App is a Perfect Learning Tool for Elementary Students!

First of all I want to say that the myBlee staff have been wonderful to work with. They are open to suggestions and get back with answers to questions in a timely fashion. Beyond the support provided for this app/program, the teaching method of the myBlee Math app is phenomenal! Students absolutely love the interactive and engaging lessons. Learning is individualized! Every student can work at their own pace and monitor their own progress. If a student does not master a skill the first time, they can revisit any lesson to get a better score and earn a better trophy. I have used myBlee with all grade levels from K-5 and I was surprised that even the 5th graders love it.

myBlee is fairly new to the classroom so some things are still a work in progress, like a teacher dashboard. The teacher dashboard will be ready for the next school year and is going to Beta testing in a couple weeks. For districts that use common core standards, there is a pdf that shows which standards match up with which lessons. An updated version is coming out shortly.

The set up for myBlee is well thought out for teaching students math skills. When students go into a grouping of lessons they will start off at a comfort level that will make them feel successful. For example, a third grade student may choose Weighing an Object. Once they go into that lesson card they will start with a quick learning intro. I call them the book lessons because there is a book icon, as seen in the photo to the left. Then the student will practice the newly acquired skill. For every correct answer, the green bar at the top will fill up. If a student does not get the answer correct they will receive a brief lesson to help them answer the following questions correctly. Once the students answer enough questions correctly the students will be taken to a page that will show the awards they earned and their score for that section of the lesson. In Weighing an Object there are three book lessons and six skill practice pages. Every lesson card is different. Also if a student goes back into a lesson that they did not master the first time, the questions will be different. Very cool!

Students earn trophies, badges, and puzzle pieces to keep them motivated to get the correct answers. I love how students may earn a lower level trophy but have the opportunity to revisit skills until they achieve 100%. When students obtain 100% for every lesson within a card they earn a diamond trophy. This ensures that students revisit skills to get a better trophy.

Some students helped me create a video to highlight the features of myBlee...

Some Good Videos to Watch from myBlee Math

For Students...





For Teachers...

Newsela for Current Events (Grades 2-12)

It seems that students are not exposed to current events as much as students were when I was a student. Yeah, so cliche. When I was a student we also did not have computers and the internet. We would clip articles out of newspapers to share with the rest of our class at school.

Well, I have found a safe way for students to read current event articles that are customized to individual students' reading levels. Plus students can take quizzes after reading an article to keep track of their own progress.

Here is what you do to get started...

1. Download the app Newsela. The app is also located in the SAD6 App Store for students to download.
2. Sign up for Newsela at newsela.com or on the iPad app. You will need to verify your email address. In our district the verification email will go to your spam folder. Go to Spam under the more tab and look for an email from Newsela.
3. Once you verify your email address the site will have you create a class. Once you create a class, go to settings in the upper right hand corner and click classes.

4. Your students will use the class code when they sign in.

Here is what your students will do to get started...

1. Download the app from the SAD6 app store.
2. Open up the app by tapping it after it downloads.
3. Click "Sign Up".
4. Choose "I'm a Learner".
5. Click "Yes".
6. Enter the class code and click "Next". (The code is not case sensitive.)
5. Fill in the information. (Students will choose their own unique username and password using only numbers and letters with zero spaces.) You will be able to reset student passwords from your account if students forget their password.)

Teachers can assign articles from their account. Students will find assigned article in their binder. When you are looking at an article there will be a place on the upper left side to choose "assign". Students can explore and read articles without the articles being assigned. Over on the right hand side, while reading an article, students can change the reading level to meet their needs.

Screen shot of an article:

Write Draw; An iPad Version of the Telephone Game

 I recently ran across an app that students can use to practice writing sentences. Plus the app can be used a variety of other ways if you think outside the box. For instance Write Draw can be used in math. The first student would create a math problem. The second student would solve the problem and the next student could solve the problem a different way. Students could use the app for a "How To" collaborative writing assignment. The first student would write the first step. The second student would draw it out. Then the next student would write out the next step, etc. Or a student could hold on to the iPad for two turns so that they are writing and drawing each turn. I used this app with 2nd and 3rd graders so far. It is probably appropriate for 1st-5th.

For the introductory activity I gave students a quick walk through of how to use the app and showed them an example. Then I had all students get their iPads and sit in a large circle around the entire classroom so that they will not see each other's iPads. Next students went into the app and wrote a silly sentence. After each turn students would 1. Click send 2. Type their name 3. Click pass 4. Put their iPad onto the floor as a cue to me that they were ready to pass their iPads to the left. We passed iPads for around 7 turns and then used the rest of the class time to share via the classroom Apple TV and projector.





A quick video of students working and two student examples:

Mystery Science Lessons: Getting Students to Think and Talk Like Scientists

As of today, teachers can get a free Mystery Science account. There are many many reasons to love this tool for teaching science in your elementary classroom. First off, all lessons are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards, at the moment that is what our school district is aligning our science curriculum with. Then, of course, there is the fact that the lesson is all prepared for the classroom teacher. The only thing that the teacher needs to do is collect the supplies and guide students through the presentation created by the folks at Mystery Science. Lastly, THE STUDENTS LOVE THE LESSONS! The lessons are interactive and extremely engaging.

Video of four third grade classes participating in a Mystery.




Videos of a fifth grade classes participating in a Mystery.





Here is what Mystery Science explains as their mission...

Overview of Mystery Science

At Mystery Science, we think the overall purpose of science education is the same as all the other subjects: to prepare children to thrive as adults--to prepare them to achieve their values and be happy in the world. But science class has a unique contribution to this goal. It’s in science class that children acquire the proper habits of thinking and problem-solving. And they do this while learning lots of useful knowledge about the physical world around them.

Mystery Science is unique from other science curricula both in what is taught and in how it is taught. We promise that even you, the teachers, will be astounded by what you learn during the course of teaching a Mystery to their students.

Every scientific conclusion began as a mystery in the world—someone was surprised by something they experienced and they set out to discover the cause behind it. So every Mystery Science lesson begins by presenting students with a mystery. Students are guided to make observations and connections between what they’re observing to help them resolve the mystery. The scientific conclusion is the climax of this investigation—the solution to the mystery.

Mystery Science meets and exceeds the new Next Generation Science Standards. In addition, it incorporates the latest research about how to address and uproot students’ natural misconceptions about the world. And most important of all, every lesson meets our own MS Motivational Standards (MSMS).

App Smashing with Adobe Voice and Phoetic

It is always fun and engaging to use iPads to have students create videos of their work, but it is even more fun when a project can be inspired by a holiday like Christmas. Then share projects with students' parents via email or posted on a teacher's blog/website. Parents love to see and hear their children. This project is a great way to capture a moment in time.

For this project, see examples below, students typed out the Christmas poem they created in Google Docs. Then they copied the text of their poem and pasted the text in Phoetic, a word cloud creating app, to generate a word cloud. Lastly students created an Adobe Voice of their poetry using images through Adobe Voice and their Phoetic word cloud.

Adobe Slate as a Tool in the Elementary Classroom

In my last blog post I wrote about using Adobe Voice in the classroom and today I am writing about using the sister App, Adobe Slate. This app could be used for a variety of projects like explaining a topic, "how to" tutorial, sharing knowledge of a standard including photos of evidence, word work, and anything else that can be shared with photos and text.

Here is the App Store description...

Description

Named App Store Editors’ Choice, Slate lets you turn your next newsletter, report, invitation or travel adventure into a gorgeous visual story that delights readers on any device. Simply tap to select a unique look — beautiful fonts, color and magazine-style design are automatically incorporated. Fluid movement and elegant motion are applied instantly. Share your Slate story link anywhere. Grab attention, increase awareness and inspire action. Stand out.

I suggest creating one teacher account for all students to use in the elementary level because creating an account requires an email address. It is a good idea to use a student friendly password so that the students can log in.

Below is one that I created to share with my students. You can embed your own projects... and here is a link to a 2nd grade student Adobe Slate. https://slate.adobe.com/cp/VcoEa/