Our target skill for this week was conclusions. We began by watching the YouTube video below. After watching the video, we talked about drawing a conclusion. We were able to conclude that the cake was made for his mother. After our brief discussion, we wanted to practice our skill. I put together some QR Codes to assist with practicing conclusions. I had my students use their LearnPads to scan codes using the ScanLife app. In addition, I had created a quiz using Socrative. Students opened up both apps and were able to toggle back and forth. They scanned a code with the ScanLife app and then provided their answer within the Socrative app. The QR Codes provided three of four statements. These statements were clues that students could use to conclude what was taking place. For example, 1) Your mom takes your temperature, 2) You have to stay in bed all day, 3) You eat soup. Based on these clues, a student could conclude that you are sick. If you would like to use the QR Codes, you can access them here. There are a total of six "mystery conclusions" for students to solve. You can add the Socrative quiz by using the following: SOC #: 13411210 This activity got them out of their seats as well as provided some practice with drawing conclusions. During our reading group rotations I had students apply their understanding of conclusions by creating their own mystery conclusions. To accomplish this, students used iClipart for Schools. They located three to six pictures that they could use as clues for an activity of their choice. Once they had their pictures, they opened up the Pic Collage app and created a collage of their three to six pictures. Their collage was saved to their Google Drive accounts. The final step was to create a new post using Kidblog. They titled their post Conclusions and inserted their collage from their Google Drive account. Tomorrow we will be spending time during reading rotations leaving comments on each post about conclusions. We will leave our "conclusion" guess in the comment box on each of our classmates. This process of creating their own conclusion collage required them to think critically about which pictures should be used to represent their activity. In addition, they had to apply their understanding of conclusions in order to leave a comment on each others' blog post. Below are some example collages that my students created during this process. Share This:
0 Comments
My school uses HMH Journey's for our reading curriculum. It is divided into 30 weeks. with each week, there is an assessment that allows teachers to gain insight into what students have mastered and/or what needs more practice. One challenge is that these assessments tend to be multiple pages long. That is a lot of paper to use and a lot of time to score all of these assessments. I have only been using pieces of the assessment that I want extra data to inform my instruction. While this cuts down on the paper being used, it is still more than I would like and takes a while to score. This is where the Assist and Quick Key apps come into play. Both apps have websites that allow you to print out bubble sheets. Using these custom sheets, you are able to create an answer key. Students will use the same custom sheet to take their quiz/test. After students have finished, you simply scan your answer key and then start scanning your students' bubble sheets. The tests are instantly scored for you. This greatly reduces the amount of paper I have to use. One score sheet for each student is all I need. I display the assessment via the projector for my students to bubble in their answers. While the assessment for my reading curriculum doesn't match with bubbles that say "A," "B," "C," I am able to write those letters on the board next to the bubbles. Below is a sample of what students would see on the board. Using the displayed question above, students would color in the correct letter on the bubble sheet. Below is an example of the Assist App bubble sheet. Using the displayed question above, students would color in the correct letter on the bubble sheet. Below is an example of the Quick Key app bubble sheet. Bubble SheetsShare This: I have been using Kidblog the last three years. Their iPad app makes posting and commenting seamless for my first graders. Each one of my first graders has his/her very own blog to share and document learning throughout the school year. It has been my goal to use the iPad as a creative tool. We have been talking about using "is" or "are" in sentences. Students have made the connection that "is" goes with a singular subject while "are" belongs with plural subjects. To create a short assessment and add some fun, we used our iPads and Kidblog to practice our understanding of using "is" and "are" in sentences. Below I explain how we went about this process. It was actually pretty simple and I was very pleased with the results. During our next week of school, students will be commenting on the "is or are" posts with their guesses. is or are assessment I was very pleased with the quality of sentences that my students submitted. This provided a quick assessment for who understands and who does not. The next phase will be students commenting their guesses. This will provide another layer of assessment. The best part is that the students had fun with this. They got to create their own sentences and will get to comment on their friends' posts. One Note I have my blog set up so that any new post and/or comment needs moderated before appearing. When my students begin commenting their guesses, none will show up until I approve them. This is nice because students will not be able to see what others guessed. They will have to decode the sentences on their own and apply what they have been taught. Share This: I was looking through some old Evernote clippings and came across this recommendation for an app. I read a little of the description and then decided it was worth giving a try to see if it lived up to the description. Sure enough, after a little playing, I saw how simple the user interface was as well as how it could be integrated into the PK-1 classrooms. My A-Z app is a FREE iPhone app that works and looks great on the iPad. It comes with one flashcard for each letter of the alphabet. However, students can add their own pictures for each letter of the alphabet. In my mind, this gets beyond the iPad as a consumption tool and moves into a creation tool. Students could go on "alphabet hunts" around the classroom and/or school. When they found a picture for a certain letter, they would simply snap a picture, give it a title and even add their voice recording the picture. The students can continue to build their library of flashcards for each letter of the alphabet. This could be an ongoing project as well as a great way to assess kids with their differentiation between each letter in the alphabet. Check out the pictures below for some screen shots explaining a little about this app. My A-Z app How to Getting back into the groove after winter break can sometimes be a challenge. My first graders are always eager to share all about their presents and trips from break. I learned about a new app called Chatter Pix Kids from Richard Byrne. This app looks like a simple way for students to share their adventures from winter break. I plan to have my students record a short talking picture about their winter break. After they have created their talking pictures, I will have students save them to the camera roll which will allow them to be uploaded to Dropbox. I will then take all the talking pictures and combine them into one video. This final video will be added to the class blog so that all the students/parents can access to learn about winter break adventures. Screen shot directions From the main screen, students are able to select "take photo." When adding a photo, students can snap a picture or access the camera roll to import previously taken pictures. After the image is imported/taken, students will draw a line where the mouth should move to talk. Then hit record to begin the recording. A timer will be displayed when recording to show how much time is left. After the recording has been made, students can then add filters, stickers, a frame and text before exporting their final project. The last step would be saving it to your local "gallery" which is stored within the app on your iPad. You can also choose to save it to your camera roll for easily exporting it to other sites, social networks or even emailing it. Below is a walk through of the app in action. Part 1--QR Code Riddle Hunt We recently started our new unit in science called Balls and Ramps. To begin this science unit, we worked in small groups to solve riddles about a mystery ball. I had created a "scavenger hunt" for students to sort clues based on the ball being described. Below is the example that I put together. Feel free to download and use by clicking here. The above file shows the layout of this project. Let me describe it so it makes more sense. The first page has a soccer ball, football and golf ball. There are also a total of 10 clue numbers listed underneath (The numbers could be crossed out so kids knew which clues had been listened to already). The next couple pages are the actual QR Codes that I cut out and glued around the classroom. The last page is the answer key for which clues described which ball(s). Kids would use the Qrafter app to scan the codes. The codes played an audio clue. The student would then put the "clue number" under the ball they though it described. I created the audio clues using the website Record MP3. This website lets you record audio and once saved, generates a URL for your audio recording. This URL was then pasted into the Chrome app QR Code Generator. These QR codes were then saved into my document. Part 2-STudent Created riddles with Educreations After students had finished their QR code riddle hunt, we then gathered to talk about creating our own riddles. Students were put into small groups of five. Each group was given a picture of a ball (The file can be downloaded here). Each group was given a template to record their clues (Download here). Each student had to come up with a clue that described his/her group's ball. Once these clues were written down, we used the Educreations app to insert a "Mystery Ball" picture and have students record while reading their clues. After students had recorded their clues for their group's "Mystery Ball," we embedded them onto our class Kidblog. This allowed students to go on and guess each group's ball based on the clues. Below is an example of an Educreations final product. My 1st graders used the iPads to check their understanding of timelines. We had been exploring timelines in a recent math lesson and I wanted my students to practice arranging events on a timeline. In order for my students to relate to the events, we practiced placing events from a typical day at school in the correct sequence. There were a total of six events that needed to be placed into the correct box on our makeshift timeline. There was a sun placed a the beginning to represent morning and a moon at the end to represent night. It was up to the students to place the number in the correct box. Below are the steps I used to create this activity. TimelineI used Microsoft Word to create my timeline worksheet. I added a sun at the beginning and a moon to the end. The numbers at the bottom were for students to cross out as they began writing numbers in the boxes. This was to help alleviate scanning the same QR code over and over. QR CodesI used the website QR Voice to create my QR Codes. This is a site that you type the text into the box. QR Voice automatically generates a QR code. When this QR Code is scanned, the text that you typed is read aloud to the person who scanned it. While I could have used a QR code that would simply display text only, I chose QR Voice to help with my students that are transitioning to independent readers. Above are the QR codes that I created using QR Voice. I put them into a table in the same file that I created my timeline worksheet. I was able to print these, cut them out and tape them up around the classroom. *Make sure to leave the number with the QR code so the students know which "event" is associated with each number. EventsAbove are the events from our typical school day. You can see that the numbers next to each event are not in the correct order. I told students when putting numbers in the boxes on the timeline that they would not just put 1,2,3,4,5,6. ActivityStudents would use the Qrafter app on the iPad to scan a QR code. Once scanned, the "event" would be read aloud to the student. For example, if QR code with the number one above it was scanned, the student would hear, "I eat lunch." It was the students' job to place the numbers in the correct box on the timeline. ReflectionThe students really did a good job with this activity. It required them to keep track of the events that they heard and place them in the correct order. Some students even wrote the "event" sentence next to each number on their worksheet before starting to place numbers into the timeline boxes. Problem solving in action. Love it.
TWEAK Students could use the Educreations app to snap a picture of the timeline worksheet. They could then annotate over the picture writing the numbers in the boxes with digital ink. When they completed the timeline worksheet via Educreations, they could embed the video onto their blog or send the link to the teacher to check their work. I was scrolling through the daily list of Apps Gone Free and found the Move and Match app that was free for the day (regularly $1.99). This app is very simple to use. Just like the name implies, you can create activities for your students to move and match images and/or text. My students used this app to practice building words. Below is a sample of what I did to complete this activity. The Set up.....I found this process to be very simple to create some activities. Students enjoyed sorting letters and their sounds. They had to isolate each phoneme and blend the individual sounds back together creating the word that matched the picture. Both phonological and phonemic awareness were being practiced by students.
When students were completed with their pictures, they would take a screenshot by pressing the home and power on/off button simultaneously. After they had captured their image, they would use the Kidblog app to sign into their blog account. This image was then embedded into each students' individual blog account. The next step is to have students create their own activities for others to complete. I will be posting more about that soon. Make sure to check out the Move and Match website for more ideas and information. I came across the Conojo app ($1.99) via Lifehacker. The video above does a great job of sharing the apps functionality in a nutshell. The video instantly made me think of the other screen casting apps such as Educreations, Explain Everything, ShowMe and ScreenChomp.
One of the biggest differences that caught my eye was the collaboration component. You are able to connect via Bluetooth and collaborate together. I have loved the screen casting apps for my first graders because they allow my students to model their understanding of concepts. I think the Conojo app has some great potential to allow more than one student to collaboratively work on representing their understanding of concepts. Recently I had the privilege of attending the ITEC Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. There were so many great teachers and connections to be made. I also was able to present while at the conference. My presentation was about using iPads in the primary classroom. It was geared towards grades K-2. Below is the presentation that I gave. The apps that I shared are linked to examples that I have used in my classroom. These examples include blog posts, videos or student examples. My goal was that this presentation would |
Andrew FenstermakerInstructional Technology Coordinator | Innovation Coach | Google Certified Innovator | Presenter | Blogger | Adjunct @UiowaEducation | Owner @kids_f_i_r_s_t |