Hour of Code 2016

This was such a fun week for the students, and for teachers!  Kids in grades K-5 experienced the basics of coding through iPad games, websites, and videos in their classrooms, the library, and even in art class!  To see pictures shared on Twitter, search our Slaughter hashtag #prideinside1617.  Be sure you check out the tweets from around the world via #HourofCode.



Check out some pictures of our young coders in action!

Here's a collection of the top apps, sites, & tools we use for coding at Slaughter Elementary:

For more information about what we use when coding, visit the coding page on our Learning Commons wiki:  http://slaughterlc.wikispaces.com/Coding.

Maker Monday

Maker Monday with kindergarten and first grade was a hit!  Students were invited into the library to use our makerspace. The purpose of makerspace is to give our students an opportunity to be creative, to build and create, to imagine and plan, and to problem solve. It might look like students are just playing, but they're really stretching their brains and learning in a hands-on, student-driven way.  Students were challenged to invent a new toy, but they had the freedom to pursue any project of their choice.  The explanations of their inventions were priceless.

Digital Fluency Reboot

Key Ideas:  creativity, innovation, personalization of learning, and fun!

We have to think about teaching the skills that students will actually need to know in life, not just how to be compliant in a school environment.

In our session today, we started with a get to know you, by showing slides that each person had contributed to via Google Slides.  We were directed to a Google Site where all of the links, videos, quotes, slides, etc. needed for the training were available.  Our presenter guided us through some slides to kick off our day and orient our focus for learning.  After some quotes, a couple of short "hook type" videos, and educational images, we did a Breakout!  Then, we were shown some resources and inspiration for learning objective.  Then, we were given a task, where we had to take a term in our objective, internalize what it means to us, and create an image using any web tool or app we wanted, and she provided ideas. Then, more learning, and then the launch of our genius hour project!

Here's a great explanation for why we need makerspaces, why we need to change the learning environment in our classrooms...

Check out the new, updated, and extended KWL chart!  Read the article about it.

Quizizz and Google Classroom

This video shows a great walkthrough of the digital quiz making site, Quizizz, and how to assign a quiz through Google Classroom!  Well worth your 5 minutes and 46 seconds!  

Creation Minded Apps

We're making an effort to use technology in a way that fosters development of the main 4 C's of 21st century learning.  While researching and playing around with some of my favorite apps, I found a new one that looks very fun!  Check out Ditty!

Watch this educator explain how to use it with students:

Check out K-2 creation focused apps that I love!

Click on the image below to see the complete list, including tutorial videos, and notes from my experiences.

To see more ideas for digital resources and tools that facilitate the 4 C's, check the 4 C's of 21st Learning page on the Slaughter Learning Commons Wiki.

You can also visit the Slaughter LC page, Digital Products.

Recap App: Student Video Response and Reflect App

Just heard about a cool site designed to collect student created digital responses or assignments.  With our school wide focus on integrating 21st century learning, the 4C's are easily applied with this tool.  This looks like a great way to have students CREATE videos, COMMUNICATE clearly, and possibly COLLABORATE.  It's being advertised for grades K-12, with the focus on elementary students K-3.   According to our Bright Byte's survey data, we need our students to not only apply the 4C's, but specifically create videos with our mobile devices.

The video below shows an interview of a recap app expert.  She describes in detail.  Visit the site to create a free account and create a class!
(You can skip ahead to 1:40 on the video.)

#MISDConverge16 ~ Digital Learning Conference

Wow!  What a great conference!  We had some outstanding keynote speakers and presenters.  So many great philosophies, tech tools, and ideas were shared.  I used a very cool tool called Storify, to curate and collect the great Tweets, notes, quotes, images, and videos that I found most important.  Check these collections out!  As I said, lots of greatness to soak up, so just keep scrolling!  ;)
Also, visit the Sched site, to view presenters' slides or presentations by clicking on their session title.

Take Notes on a PDF?

You bet!  Chrome extensions can do amazing things!   I recently downloaded Kami, because I wanted to be able to highlight and take notes on a PDF article, without having to print the 27 page document!  So far, so good!  I'm able to highlight text with a variety of colors, and add text boxes to take notes.

 I can then, export the file with the notations to Google Drive, or download it to my computer.

Check out Kami via the Google Chrome Web Store.

To take this idea of editable PDF's a step further, check out Duck Soup!  Duck Soup allows you to make a worksheet digital.  You can upload a worksheet or a document and then create text boxes for students to fill in.  Then, you establish an answer key, and Duck Soup will grade the students' work!  Best of all, it's all linked through Google Classroom!

Expiration Feature in Google Drive

New feature in Google Drive!  Or, new to me at least!  Now, when you share a doc, sheet, etc. you can set an expiration date for shared settings!

Just go to Advanced Settings when you click on the share icon.  Then look for the little clock or stopwatch icon to show up when you hover over someone's name.

Gamify Math with Prodigy

Mrs. Noriega and Mrs. Walker are making math fun and preparing their students for summer learning with the free website, Prodigy. The teacher creates a free account and loads student named. Students then log in using www.prodigygame.com/play.  Teachers can assign math lessons and track student progress. Students will answer math questions and then get to battle in a similar fashion to Pokemon.  

NEW from Symbaloo: Lesson Plans

It's not what you think.  This is not another source for wordy lesson plans for the teacher's use.  Symbaloo has been working for the past two years to facilitate an online learning format, where students can learn at their own pace.  Teachers can create unique lessons, adding various online resources for particular students and track students' progress in real time.  Teachers can also share and borrow lessons from other teachers.  This format reminds me a lot of Blendspace, because you can sequence the various sources including videos, websites, uploads, etc., and allow students to move through the lesson.  Teachers can also add quizzes.

Check out the introductory video below, or experience a Symbaloo lesson plan about Symbaloo lessson plans by clicking here.

Free eBooks?! Yes, please!

I recently learned about a government funded initiative to give Title I  and special education teachers access to hundreds of ebooks!

Read this article from EdSurge to learn more about the money coming from the White House.   The Open eBooks requires the app, and there are elementary, middle school, and high school collections and a variety of genres and topics are included!  I was also able to get a free teacher subscription to Speakaboos, which is similar to Tumblebooks, through the same website.

Here's a video showing you how to sign up!

YouTube Cards: Polls for Assessment

I’m super excited to try this new trick with YouTube!  Add a variety of question types to YouTube videos!  Check out this blog post from EdTechnocation.com.

 

Watch this video to learn how to add cards, and specifically the new poll cards to YouTube videos.  I picture using this with Google Classroom.  You could add cards to a video, then post it in Google Classroom, and each student could watch the video and answer the questions.

Free Quiz Games to Make Learning More Engaging and Fun

Like Kahoot?  Tried Plickers? How about Quizizz?!  Or Quizalize?  OR Triventy??

Kahoot has been good to our school for a few years now.  We had some fun staff meetings, and made some great test review games.  Plickers makes it easy to gather answers from ALL students, regardless of the access to devices.  Now, try Quizizz!

You might appreciate this quick walkthrough of the differences between Kahoot & Quizizz.

Check out the very thorough blog post about Quizizz by Tony Vincent.

Now, let's look at Quizalize!  You can create your own quizzes, or use quizzes made by other teachers.  Some of the quizzes already created are free and some cost money.  You can search by topic on the site.

Here's a short blog post about Quizalize from Tech & Learning.

Check out Triventy, too! 

Formative is a web assessment tool.  You can watch students' work and provide feedback in realtime.  

Learn more from Nancy Minicozzi's presentation about Testing without Testing.  

Happy gaming, teachers!

Digital Citizenship

Digital Citizenship:  can be defined as the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use. 

Information Literacy:   is a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information."

Playing the AUP video at the beginning of the year, and having a one-time surface level discussion of the Acceptable Use Policy is not enough!

We need to teach digital citizenship across the curriculum, as an intro to the year with expectations, but also at the point of need throughout the year.

Try "Googling" your name.  Look at what all is out there about you!  Are you comfortable with that?  Do you need to change your privacy settings on a few sites?

What about our students who are now growing up with devices in their hands, and their posted online for the world to see before they're even born!

Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship

I challenge all teachers, to begin each lesson, activity, research project, etc. with a brief, but focused message about expectations for behavior with our digital devices and their use of the access they're given.

Common Sense Media has some awesome resources for teaching digital citizenship.

Net Cetera Booklet 

Net Cetera is a guide for parents, teachers, and other adults who spend time with kids. This guide offers practical tips and ideas for getting the conversation started about social networking, privacy, mobile devices, computer security, sexting, and cyberbullying.

• Order free copies
• View/download the PDF
• Read more about protecting kids online

Check out the Digital Citizenship Survival Kit from Comfortably 2.0.

  

Newsela: Free Current Event Leveled Nonfiction Texts

I stumbled upon this cool free, online resource for news articles for kids. You can sign up with your google account for free.  (Students can do the same.)  You can search by board topic, and then search by grade level or you can even search by standard, ie. Point of view.  You can even change an article’s reading level by lexile and therefore differentiate the same article!   AND there are Spanish articles!!!  Oh and you can take notes on the website AND there are premade quizzes!  

Go here https://newsela.com/ and sign up to check it out! :)

But wait, there's more!  You can also easily assign articles to your Google Classroom right from the Newsela site!