What We Learned the First Week of School

This was our first week back to school and we jumped right into it in computer lab!  Here's a breakdown of what we learned:

Kindergarten-Every year at this time I have such a renewed admiration for our Kindergarten teachers.      Teaching them how to function at school is not easy!  And teaching them how to use a computer isn't any different.  In this world of smart phones and tablets, many of them have never touched a mouse.  Do you remember the first time you ever used a mouse?  It does take a little time to figure out that coordination.  Needless to say, we spend the first few weeks of school learning how to use a mouse.

This year we watched this YouTube video.  While it was a little silly,  the sticker on the mouse was an "aha" moment for me.  I immediately put stickers on every mouse in the lab.  It seemed to really cut down on the accidental right clicking, screen zooming, crazy things popping up, and everyone screaming for help at the same time madness.

We played  Literacy Center, Bees and Honey, and Make a Face to learn how to move the mouse, click, and click and drag.  We also learned how to navigate to Chrome (at this point we call it a "beach ball") and our school's Symbaloo page to find these websites.

First Grade-Our first graders have been working on reviewing their keyboard skills this week by playing Keyboard Challenge and Keyboard Practice from ABCya.

Second Grade-Our second graders had an "intro to word processing" course this week.  Up until this point, most of what they've done has been web based.  They learned how to navigate through programs and locate MS Word.  We reviewed how to make capital letters, use the space bar, the enter key, etc by typing our names and a sentence.  The learned how to change and resize font.  They loved that part!  They also learned how to insert clip art.  They used a keyboard shortcut to print their papers.  Second grade really practiced a lot of new computer skills this week!

Third-Fifth Grade-  The first couple days of school the kids used Word Clouds for Kids to make word clouds with the names of all their new classmates.  We have spent several days getting all our 3-5 grade students acquainted with Kidblog.  The students loved writing about their summers and some of things they have learned the first week of school.  All the classes are connected on Kidblog, so they can read posts from all their friends and comment on them.  It's been a lot of fun to get to know the kids better through their writing and see how they respond to one another.

Tweet the States

School is IN, and we have gotten off to a great start.  Many of our classes have started tweeting throughout the day, and our 5th graders have started a really awesome Twitter project.  Mrs. Shelton's class wrote about the project on their blogs today, and this student did such an excellent job explaining it, I thought I would share!

From Sydnie:

Tweet the States is about us trying to get a tweet from every state in the United States of America. Somebody from a state answers three questions, what state do they live in, something unique about their state, and someone famous from their state. When they’re done with a tweet they hashtag tweetthestates. My class mark states on a sheet of paper every time someone from a state tweets. So far 9 states have tweeted.  If you search #tweetthestates on twitter you learn many things!!

#usakidschat

After years of dabbling and many failed attempts,  I have finally gotten my brain wrapped around this Twitter thing.  It has always seemed like a foreign language, but now that I have immersed myself in it I can totally see the enormous impact it is having on education.  Educators are chatting ALL the time, around the clock, with more hashtags connecting them than you could begin to count.  There are no walls, no boundaries, and no limits to what we are able to share and learn!  These chats create diverse communities of people who choose to learn, apply their knowledge, and teach others what they know.  Is this not exactly what we want to see happening in our classrooms?

That's why this article struck me.  If teachers can benefit from these chats, why shouldn't students?  I was so excited to hear about these classes in New Zealand that were connecting regularly via Twitter.  It is definitely something I want to be a part of.  But I don't live in New Zealand.  So naturally, there is only one thing to do:  start my own!

This article so explicitly lays the foundation that all I really have to do is make the connections.  My plan is to follow the same format as #kidsedchatnz for a series of four chats in September with a targeted age group of 3rd-5th grades (but everyone is welcome).  September is our school system's Digital Citizenship Month, and this will be a great way for us to practice what we preach!  The chats will last for an hour each week, probably around 1:00 Eastern, a time when students across the USA should all be in school and available to participate.  I will moderate the first session with questions relating to digital citizenship, as well as general introductory type questions.  I will then post a poll and let all of the classes vote on the topic for the next week.  I will invite other teachers to moderate the following weeks based on the topics that are of interest to the students!  I will also be creating a blog or website where we can post the questions ahead of time.

This series of chats will be a learning experience for us all.  Hopefully it will be a positive one and those who wish to can continue on with it throughout the school year.  I am hoping to have at least 20-30 classes join us for this project.

Please sign up here if you want to participate.  Also, please help grow our group by sharing this post!

A Teacher's Summer

What do teachers do in the summer?  Is it the glorious 3 months (ahem) we imagine basking in the sun with the waves crashing at our feet?  Maybe for some, but for most of the teachers I know it goes more like this:

• Catch-up.  The race is on.  There are all those projects that we put off during the year that we will "have more time to deal with this summer."  This includes doctor's visits we don't want to use our sick days for, home improvement projects, "spring" cleaning, etc.  For me this year,  I really wanted to paint my front door and shutters and finish the furniture painting project I started 2 summers ago.  Currently, with 21 days left on the countdown, I have yet to start either.
• Getting healthy-This is something we put off all year.  Teachers are really only allowed 8 weeks a year to be healthy.  What with the 15 minutes we actually get to eat lunch, and the fact that we are too tired at the end of the day to exercise.  And then there are those donuts that show up in the teacher's lounge at least once a week.  We have a little more control over the summer to commit to that healthy lifestyle.  We all aspire to go back to inservice and hear "You look so good, what have you been doing?"
• Denial- School couldn't possibly be starting back two weeks earlier this year. Who made that decision?  It's not going to happen.  If I don't talk about it, maybe it won't really happen.  Don't ask me how many weeks I have left.  I don't know.  I don't want to know.
• PD- To be good teachers, we have to keep learning!  Many of us fill our summers with learning opportunities....on our own time....because that's just what we do.  We love our kids and want to give them the best.  Some of us visit every EdCamp we can find, others attend mandated week-long sessions away from our families, and then some of us spend countless hours on Pinterest and Twitter cramming our heads with valuable knowledge other amazing educators so kindly share.
• Working in our classrooms-So every teacher doesn't do this.  But there are those of us who choose to make over our classrooms every summer.  We all know that it will take more than a day or two of inservice to get every pocket chart hung, bulletin board refreshed, curtain hung, name-tag written, and desk arranged.  Most of us have spent at least a day or two at the school prior to inservice, many of us have spent much more than that!
• Clinging to every minute-We have a gift.  It may be sprinkled with a lot of voluntary work, but it is OUR time.  No one dictates what we do with it or how we schedule it.  We get up early and stay up late (and take naps if we want to) so that it lasts as long as possible.  We squeeze in vacations, take our kids to the pool, and pack in as many lunch dates as we can.  We take our kids with us to our classrooms while we work.  We write our blog posts from bed while our babies are cuddled up next to us asleep, reminding us of why we do it all.....

Some would say we are spoiled.  They think we have 3 months of paid vacation, but that's okay.   I won't say that we don't complain, but we do it with acceptance and no expectation that it will ever be different.  All because we are called to be here, loving on children and giving them the best we have to offer.  

Mystery Skype: West Virginia

Written by:  Amara

     We skyped with other kids from West Virginia  and they figured our are state by our accent. It was a very fast skype we took a little bit longer then they did but then we found out the were West Virginia. They were very nice . There school was in Charelston  which is in West Virginia. It was a pretty cool skype.

Tech Highlight of the Week: Go Noodle

I have something awesome for you, and I think the timing is just right for testing season!  Go Noodle is a website that is full of "brain break" videos for your kids.  The kids just watch and follow along.  There are videos that are appropriate for all ages, and you can choose energizing or calming videos.  Each video is 3-5 minutes long.  I think this would be great for getting everyone to wake up first thing in the morning, or when they seem to be drifting.

Here is a screen shot of some of the videos you might choose.

And here is a video of some our 5th graders experimenting with a brain break this morning.   They seemed to enjoy it.

Tech Review of the Week: Collaborative Walls

This week instead of a specific app, I'm introducing an idea with several resources you need to implement it. Collaboration is something we want to teach our kids, and this is an awesome way to collaborate online from any location, at any time. I have been using some collaborative walls over the last few weeks and have discovered how engaging they are, and how many different possibilities they hold for the classroom. A collaborative wall is just a space you set up online that your students can add their thoughts to. Think of it as an online board where they can stick up their sticky notes. I'm going to share three websites that I have discovered that are simple and effective. Please note, these are websites, not apps.  They will work from the computer or the iPad.

 Answer Garden is probably the simplest form of collaboration. You simply ask a question, and the students respond with one word. Visit www.answergarden.ch and click "create an answer garden." You will get a URL (web address) for your answer garden. As you receive answers, a word cloud will form. As you know, in a word cloud, the size of the word is determined by how many times it is entered. This would be a really awesome pre-writing activity or background building activity. Here is an example if what this looks like. Add a word and watch how it appears instantly.
AnswerGarden is... at AnswerGarden.ch.

The next step up, which I think is really great for K-2 is Primary Wall. It works the same way. Visit www.primarywall.com and set up a free account. Then you can create a wall. Share your URL with your students and they can add a "sticky." I think this would be great activity for writing sentences with a vocabulary word, or answering questions to use like an exit slip. Try it out! Just click on the wall below to tell me what you think.

Another great option for upper grades adds the ability to add pictures, files, and websites. This is one I have been using a good bit in the lab. There are so many different ways you can use this. Visit www.padlet.com and "build a wall." You will have some options on how to set it up and how to set your privacy. If you set up an account, you will be able to edit the things that other people add to your wall. In this example, 3rd graders used another program to create graphs, save images, and post them to the wall. This padlet wall is in the "freeform" format, so the posts can be moved around the wall.

Created with Padlet

In this example, 5th graders had specific questions to research. They saved pictures to go with their information and added it to the wall. This is in the "stream" format, so the posts flow from top to bottom.

Created with Padlet

This example was used as an exit slip type activity after watching a Brainpop video about St. Patrick's Day.

Created with Padlet

I encourage you this week to just choose one of these and try it out. They are all so simple to set up, but I would be THRILLED to help you with your first one. Just let me know and I will come see you . :)

App of the Week: Storybird

Well, this week's app isn't an app exactly. It is a really amazing website that will work perfectly on your iPads or your computers. If you need a refresher on how to add a website link to your iPad, just let me know!

 This is a really awesome resource to encourage creative writing in your classrooms. I am so excited about this, and I think you will be as well.

Your first step is to visit www.storybird.com and create a free teacher account. Once you have done this, you can add your students.  I will even do this step for you if you want to use this with your students.  Whatever I can do to help, just let me know!

When your students log in, they will choose to create a story.  The get to choose from some awesome  artwork.

 

I clicked on the boy by the tree, which opened up a  set of images to work with.

From here, the students can choose to use these images to create either a poem or a book.  The story set I was using in the picture below was called "Running in the Park."

They can even invite other students to collaborate with them.  Once they finish, they can publish their stories to the Storybird gallery.

You will be able to see your students' work from your teacher page.

This is a really awesome resource for creative and descriptive writing!  You might even have your students lay out their artwork first, use their MSS graphic organizers to pre-write, and then go back and add their text.  I hope some of you will try it and let me know how you like it!

Eagle Watching

Our students here at Mitchell have been watching the Eagle's nest at Berry College in Rome, GA. Click here for the live feed. Mrs. Roberts' 3rd graders created these drawings to show what they've seen.

App of the Week: Gabit

Mrs. Bishop asked me for help finding an app her students could use to present Black History Biographies.  She wanted the students to create an avatar of their historical figures and record their voices speaking as the figure.  I did a little research and found an app that is great!
  
Gabit is an iPhone app.  It will work on the iPad, just make sure when you search in the app store, you change from "iPad" to "iPhone" or it won't display.  This is a great fresh way to use your iPods! 

 It is extremely customizable, so your kids can change all the details of the avatar to make them look like a real person, and they can also change the background to an appropriate setting. 

 They then record their voices, and can even adjust the pitch of their voice. 

Then their videos can be shared or saved. 

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/gabit-talking-cartoon-creator/id439739186?mt=8

Please let me know if you use this app with your students so I can share!

App of the Week: Write About This

Mrs. Goodwin recently shared this app and I thought it was really cool.  What an awesome way to incorporate writing into your reading stations!  The free version is a little restricted, but it is still a great resource.

When the app is opened, the students choose how to find their writing prompt.  They can search through categories, choose at random, search, or even take a picture with the iPad camera to create their own.

When the prompt is selected, the students may write and then record their voices reading what they have written.  They can save it to the gallery on the iPad, or send to the camera roll.  If saved to the camera roll, it will save as a movie so you can hear them reading.

How could you use this?

Of course, there is the obvious.  Just let the app guide the way.  Have the students randomly choose a prompt and write!

But what if we think outside the box?    Let's look at this feature that allows you to create your own prompt and save it to the "custom" category.  You can add your own picture, type the prompt, record the prompt, and save for your students.  Maybe you can add a picture that has to do with your Social Studies or Science content.  You could add a picture of a story you have read or your retelling cards and let your students write and record a summary.  You could even add a math picture problem and have students explain their logic in writing.

This is a great app that I hope you will all download and start using right away!  Just let me know if you need help brainstorming ideas of how to make it work with what you are teaching.