Newsela

As a continuation of a few of my favorites that I learned about while at the iPad Summit, Newsela is at the top of the list. A huge component of Common Core Standards is reading nonfiction text. Sometimes it is hard to find relevant nonfiction text that your students can read, let alone want to read.

Newsela steps up to the plate by providing daily news articles in a variety of Lexile levels. Teachers can create an account and then set up a class. Students join the teacher's class by going to the site and joining by entering the class code. Both teachers and student have binders that will hold articles and quizzes assigned to the class. Teachers can see the student results right within the binder. Not all articles have quizzes, but many do. They even provide a daily email highlighting some of the daily news articles. You can simply click within the email to assign the article to the class. Sweet!

Even though I first learned of this at the iPad Summit, Newsela is web based, so it will work on any device.

You really need to check it out! Let me know what you think.

Favorite Session from iPad Summit, Boston, MA 2013

Greg Kulowiec

I developed an interest almost an year ago on helping teachers develop "app-tivities" for students. You may know it as "appsmashing." Basically, you begin with what you want your students to learn and then combine (or mash) content and apps for them to use to create a product showing their learning which is then published on the web. So naturally, one of my favorite sessions was with Greg Kulowiec called "App Smashing--Unleashing Creativity."


Of course his session was focused on iPad apps (it was an iPad conference), but the concept is not limited to a device (think of all the great Chrome apps available for those Chrome Books!) A couple of big take aways for me were:

1. Limit the apps to a one screen of core apps that are content enabling. We get so caught up in the fact that there are so many apps out there, that we clutter our devices and narrow our minds to what the iPad (or Chrome Book) can be used to do. So think along the lines of iPad apps like Explain Everything, Tellagami, iMovie, Skitch, Book Creator, DoInk, Google Drive, and GarageBand. Google Chrome apps such as PowToon, Google Drive, WeVideo, PixlrEditor, and Loupe Collage would also be content enabling apps.

2. For the iPad, the camera roll will serve to be the hub as content gets saved to the camera roll where it can be pulled into images for the next app. For the Chrome Book, the hub would be using Google Drive to store images that can be pulled into the next app. And don't limit yourself here. Real world applications such as crayons, clay, etc can be documented with a camera and used as well.

I like to put into practice things like this especially when I see the sound pedagogy behind it. So this summer, we introduced the idea of apptivities to our year 2 Pinnacle Leaders. We used an elementary example for our curriculum since our students study about our community. Click here for the example apptivity we created. Feel free to use it or modify it to suit your needs, but let me know how it goes.

Overloaded Mind

After a huge Student Information Management System rollout in our state and district, I am finally turning my focus back to where I feel like it belongs...seamless instructional technology integration. I find my mind so filled with thoughts and ideas that I am almost at a loss at where to start and what to do next. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities that are before us in education today?

I am sure that you guys are not ones to sit back and do the same things that you have always done in your classroom with the students today. Neither am I. Even as an Instructional Technology Facilitator, I am always reflecting, thinking, analyzing about what to do to infuse technology within my schools, make things easier for teachers, but most importantly, help our students succeed.

I just returned from EdTechTeacher's awesome iPad Summit in Boston focusing on Transforming Classrooms with iPads. I was privileged to spend three wonderful days surrounded by the energy of educators that are excited and understand how to take the focus off of a device for consumption of information and into one for creating content. Oh the possibilities! Even for our young learners in Kindergarten, we need to move away from having the iPad as a center for them to practice kill and drill apps. They can and will create some amazing content if given the chance.

I have also spent some time the past couple of days catching up on my blog feed and twitter posts within my PLN. Hence the tingling excitement and the swirling thoughts in my head that just. won't. stop.

So I thought I would talk to you guys and start to get these thoughts out, into the open, where we can share and talk and make them viable options for our classrooms.

So I will choose nuggets of awesomeness and share them over the next few blog posts. Starting today, with an awesome opportunity to connect your classroom to a teacher that presented at the iPad Summit, Kristen Wideen. Her class is studying about communities and her students, yes her students, came up with the amazing idea to collaborate with students around the world to create a book. Students are asking that audio, maps, drawings, pictures be included to answer questions such as what continent do you live on, what country are you from, what do you like to do after school, and what is the population of where you live. Ms. Wideen will collect the material from all classrooms and then share the completed project back out to all involved. How cool is that?!? And yes, I am already talking with at least two of my teachers to take the project on, hopefully one will focus on Gastonia, and the other on the little town of Bessemer City. You can find out all the information here to connect with Ms. Wideen and possibly take part in the project.

In the meantime, I will deal with the swirling in my mind. Please share your thoughts and ideas as well.

Web 2.0 Resources

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I was asked to put together a quick presentation for the elementary School Library Media Coordinators to show them some of the latest resources for student use. When you are doing anything web based with the under 13 set, you have to be careful that you use sites that permit that age group to use their resources.

Since our district has Google Apps accounts for all of our students, the presentation starts off with apps that integrate with Google. From there, you will find resources for digital storytelling, graphic organizers, and audio recording which all fit nicely into common core standards. You will find my presentation below. For those of you that teach on the secondary level, head on over to Jason Mammano's blog to check out more awesome materials that will work for you.

Summer

As I visit my schools during these last days with students, I see students and teachers that are ready for a break. This has been a hard year for teachers...new curriculum, new teaching strategies, different district expectations, and more. Over the course of the year, students have been busy exploring and learning core subject areas in large blocks of time, while teachers were working hard to make sure the new curriculum was covered.

I just want to say to all, enjoy your break this summer, but don't take a break from learning. Summer would be a great opportunity to build your Professional (Personal) Learning Network. Explore Twitter, read blogs, maybe even explore a MOOC or two, but learn something new.

Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you’ll ever have is your mind and what you put into it. 
Brian Tracy

Staying Current

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that technology is moving at the speed of light? I am asked constantly by teachers that I serve, how in the world do you know all this stuff? First of all, I will be the first to say that I do not know it all, but I surround myself with people who do and I harvest the wealth of info available because of our connected world.

Just like many of our students, when I am faced with questions or am curious about something, the first thing I do is Google it. What ever did we do before Google? (I know we searched the card catalog at the library and/or referred to tomes of encyclopedias.) If I want a visual tutorial, I turn to YouTube. Hey, from YouTube, I learned that I had been peeling a banana incorrectly all these years. Who knew?

But seriously, I curate content from the web all the time. So today, I want to share a couple of my favorite ways to learn new things and then keep them in a place to refer to later.

First, if you have a tablet you need to take a serious look at the Flipboard app. I love Flipboard and it literally changed by feelings about Twitter. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself here. First, Twitter is an amazing tool for keeping up with the latest in education including educational technology. I use Twitter professionally and follow the "movers and shakers" in education. I also follow hashtags. Hashtags (noted by the # symbol) are used to categorize tweets by keywords or topics. You can also search Twitter feeds by the hashtags. Cybrary Man has created a large list of educational hashtags to get you started. So how does this all tie into Flipboard?

Flipboard allows you to link your Twitter account as well as pull in news and information in a variety of ways, including by the use of hashtags. Below in the screen shot of my Flipboard, you can see some of the hashtags I follow as well as my Twitter section as well. I simply use my tablet to navigate Flipboard which looks and acts like a virtual magazine. When I see a tweet or article that I want to know more about, I click on it and read. Pretty cool. Now, Flipboard allows me to create my own "magazine" of saved items by clicking the + symbol allowing me to save and read later.

I cannot write an blog post on curating content and not include my other favorite...Pinterest. I am sure that you have at least heard of Pinterest, but in case you haven't, it is a virtual pin board allowing you to pin images as links to material you have found on the web. It is a social network in the aspect that you can follow others and they can follow you allowing you to view each other pins. You can even work collaboratively and pin to each other boards. Since I am very visual, I love Pinterest. Educators world wide have flocked to Pinterest and are providing lots of educational content and ideas. I categorized my boards by topic such as iPads, BYOD, Web 2.0 tools, digital storytelling, and more. I blend professional pins and personal pins that are related to my hobbies all in one place.

Of course there are social bookmarking sites such as Diigo and Pearltrees that I used as well, but I will save those for another post on another day.

In today's changing fast paced world, it is important for educators to stay current. So how do you stay current and keep up with the content? Post your thoughts.

Paper Slide Videos - Oh My!

This year I have had the privilege of meeting with teachers during planning and offering ideas for technology integration. It has been fun and it has been a challenge. Each school is different (just like each classroom is different). When suggesting ideas you have to start with curriculum content (which is the same across all my schools). Then look at the instructional strategy that the teacher wants to use (differences begin here). Then you have to look at what technology the classroom or school has available (wide differences here!). You also have to take into consideration time constraints, teacher's comfort level and ability with using technology, as well as the students' age.

There have been some successes and some failures, but I want to share an option that several teachers have tried recently and for the most part had success. It is low tech but high engagement and can be used in all subject areas. The technique was developed by a North Carolinian by the name of Lodge McCammon. Yes I am  talking about paper slide videos.

The concept is so easy. Students create a story (commercial, math explanation, etc) and then plan it out using a storyboard. Taking the plan, students draw the images needed to convey the information. Students rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more. Students then video their story by narrating and then sliding the paper to continue the story. It is a one shot deal, the camera starts rolling and it doesn't stop until they are finished. There is no editing (I hear a collective sigh about not worrying about animations and transitions.) Simply publish the finished product. To learn more about Paper Slide Videos, please check out the wiki here. 

The third graders at this particular school created travel infomericals for various planets. Then worked together as a group to video the finished projects.

The kindergarten classes at the same school used Paper Slide Videos to publish one of their writers' workshop pieces. So every student has their own video.

Give Paper Slide Videos a try and tell me what you think.

Google Drive ...What's the Big Deal?

If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time you know that our district has Google Apps for Education for our employees and our students. When we first began to use Google Apps for Education, the office suite was known as Google Docs. During our transition, Google changed it to Google Drive. It has been my opinion that the impact of the possibilities haven't hit our teachers yet. So today I want to examine that impact.

First some history, Google Docs allowed us to create a new word document, spreadsheet, presentation, or drawing. Of course all online and easily shared for collaborative purposes. Then along comes Drive adding the possibility to add Drive to our computer so we could easily drag the file to the Drive app on our machine and it sync to our cloud account.

Recently, Drive changed yet again. When you click the red create button in drive, you will notice that you have an option to connect apps when using Google Chrome. Yes, you read that correctly...apps. To. Drive.

So the impact of this should be the realization that we can add software to our account in the cloud giving us the ability to edit many different file types anywhere, anytime we have Internet access. Google Chrome really begins to act as an operating system.

If you have a Google account, I hope you will explore the possibilities.To get you started, here are a few of my favorites.

1. Powtoon EDU

Powtoon allows you to create presentations, greeting cards, and more using an easy "drag and drop" interface. Each slide is treated as a scene and you just drag and drop characters and props onto the slide, add text, and assign animation. Powtoon is exported to YouTube which you can then embed.

2. Pixlr

Pixlr is a free full featured photo editor similar to programs such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Tools include red eye reduction, spot heal tool, drawing tools, and others. Software also contains filters and various adjustments. Connect it to your Drive account and give it a whirl.




3. Lucid Chart

Lucid Chart is a collaborative mind mapping software that allows you to create visual representations flowcharts, diagrams, and charts. It is super easy to use by dragging and dropping the shapes onto the screen and then typing. You connect the shapes by clicking on one and dragging the mouse to the other. Lucid Chart is free for educators in K-12. Click here to find out how to sign up for the free account.

4. WeVideo

WeVideo is the free full featured video creator. You can use still images and or video. Upload your media, drag and drop on the timeline to arrange the story, select your style, add audio, and publish. It is really is that easy. Did I mention that you can collaborate on that video as well. WeVideo adds a folder to your Drive called "WeVideo_Folder_your_email_address. To share a project, click on the name of the video in the folder and select share. So share it with collaborators and edit away. You can publish your finished product to YouTube or to Google Drive.

5. HelloSign

HelloSign is paving the way to a paperless classroom (or office) by providing an easy way to sign documents or get documents signed. No more printing, signing, and scanning documents. Open the file, add your signature (or text, date, checkmark, or signature request). HelloSign emails the document and it is legally binding. HelloSign also allows you to create reusable documents by creating a template for those documents you use most often.

6.  Simplebooklet

Use the free account to create brochures, flipbooks, presentations, etc. It is very user friendly allowing you to create your work from scratch or by uploading a PDF file. You can add text, images, videos, and more. You share your work by embedding on your site or by sharing the unique URL for your book.

NCTIES 2013 Thoughts & Ponderings

I don't know about you, but I love to learn. I am thankful for my PLN because the people that I follow are amazing. But I also love to go to conferences to learn even more. This month I had the opportunity to attend NCTIES Conference in Raleigh. The conference is a huge event held annually in our state and this year there were over 1400 people attending. Although the sessions were packed, information was flowing and I found out about some pretty cool things and connected to some amazing people to add to my PLN. I thought I would try to process some of that learning by blogging about it.


The main themes for this year's conference included gaming, iPads, apps, and common core. Since we are in the midst of an iPad pilot in our district and of course implementing common core curriculum, I chose sessions related to those specifically. One huge take away for me was that we need to be giving the students the tools that will direct their minds. To do this effectively, we need to dissect the curriculum...what is it we want the students to learn. Then focus on integration while incorporating real world situations and problems. As educators, we have to learn to surrender the control. So what are some tools that we can give our students? Here are two of  my new favorites.

1. Chirbit
I am sure that  any of you with mobile devices in your classrooms have been using QR codes instructionally. Well imagine how cool it would be to
scan the QR code and receive audio. Chirbit is an online program that allows just that. Did I mention it is free? It is very user friendly allowing you to record, upload, and share audio files. From the website, you can use a computer mic or webcam to record. You also have the option to type in text that will then be converted. You can also use the iPad, iPod, iPhone to post chirbits. Simply use the Voice Memo app on the device and email it to chirbit. But first, be sure that you set up your chirbit account to recognize the email address associated with the device. Chirbit audio is limited to 5 minutes.

Classroom uses: Class announcements, student instructions, student digital storytelling (remember time limit), a daily exit ticket, student project publishing, podcasts, and more. Chirbit allows you to share via email, RSS feed, Twitter, or by embedding on your blog. And don't forget, it automatically generates a QR code as well. The voice clips are housed on the website under your account. Check it and tell me what you think.

2. Thinglink
Thinglink is another free site that believes that every image tells a story. The site allows you to make your images come alive with music, video, text, images, and more. Basically, you upload you image and then tag it with the various media. Once complete, it allows users to touch your image and learn more. Click here for an example.

Classroom examples: Make history come to life by tagging photos with information and video content to help students understand what is going on in the photo. Great uses for some of the images available with Discovery Education. Help students put works of art into context by tagging famous pieces with artist background, social context, etc. Science diagrams would be another great image to tag to help students truly understand the scientific principles. 

SMART Boards - Getting it into the Hands of our Students

An observation was made in our district recently that our IWBs were being utilized as a projection device. The challenge is how can we get this technology into the hands of our students to allow them to interact with the content.

So this got me thinking: What ideas can I offer to make this happen? The left brain part of me thought immediately to organize some ideas into categories. Here are the results:

Classroom Management:

Attendance: Start the day off by having students check in using the SB. As they enter the classroom, part of the routine could be to walk by the board and move their avatar (or name) to indicate they have arrived at school. This page can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it. 

Lunch Count: Many elementary schools require teachers to send in lunch count for each student. Students could move their avatar or name to indicate their lunch choice. Since students are indicating their lunch choice, you can also see at a glance any students that are absent for the day. 

Morning Information and Activity: Elementary students are always curious about what the day may hold. Satisfy that curiosity with an information bite embedded on a page with a bell ringer activity. Incorporate the wonderful website http://wonderopolis.org/wonders/ by putting the Wonder of the day on the page as well. Be sure to include an opportunity for the students to manipulate the material on the page. In the example pictured here, students would correct the sentence.

Teaching Resource:

By all means, put that board to use as a center in your classroom! While you are working with a small group of students, you can easily see the activity going on at the board. There are lots of ways to incorporate it as a center.

1. Take advantage of the flash templates available in the Lesson Activity Toolkit of Notebook software and create instant center activities to reinforce what you are teaching.
2. Use the page recorder to allow students to record their words their way word sorts or different ways to solve the math problem. You will have an instant item that you could add to an electronic portfolio.
3. I know every teacher is aware of the variety of online "games" that can be used to practice content as well and most all will work beautifully on the SMART Board.
4. Use it as a part of Daily 5 as a Listen to someone read center. Our county has provided many online books that can be utilized in this manner. Allow the students to use the pens, highlighter, or even transparency mode to make the listening activity more interactive. In addition, to Book Flix, Tru-Flix, and Big Universe, you can take advantage of National Geographic for read alouds as well as ncwiseowl.org.
5. Let students use the SMART Board's connected computer to actually create a SMART Board activity to share with a lower grade on concepts they are learning or even share with each other in class.
6. Allow the students to listen to a story from your MP3 player, and draw what they are visualizing on the SMART Board. You never know you may have the next Monet in your class.
7. An idea that I love, is to use the video recorder in SMART. Let the students create a digital story using the features in Notebook and then use the video recorder to record a movie of it. All you will need beside the SMART Board, is a computer microphone to pick up the student's voice. Their creativity will take care of the rest.


So how do you manage the board as a center? Well...
I love this teacher's idea of how to manage the kids in the SMART Board center. She uses a baseball theme, with Who's On, Who's on Deck (for the next person), and Who's in the Hole for those waiting their turn.

Other management ideas can be found in the Lesson Activity Toolkit. Use the random number generator or the random word chooser and that student (or the number representing that student) get's a turn when their name (or number) is up.

Please share your ideas for getting this technology into the hands of the students.

Notebook lesson ideas found on SMART Exchange.

Technology Moving So Quickly

Just a few days ago the teachers and students in our elementary schools celebrated the 100th day of school. The fifth grade at one of my schools ask the students to look into the future and write about what they thought the world would be like in 2113, a hundred years from now.

Throughout each of the essays, I noticed that students recognize what we know as well, technology is changing quickly and is changing our lives in the process. So this got me thinking about what the students of today will never experience, things that I did during my lifetime. My birthday is coming up soon and maybe that is playing a part in the thoughts of this post as well. Just so you know, I didn't "grow up" with technology. Remember it was the early 90's that the Internet became available to the public. At that time computers took up entire rooms! Check out this YouTube Video from The Today Show about the confusion of what the Internet even was.

So what are things that today's students will never experience?

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1. Reel-to-reel film projectors: Who remembers walking into class and being excited that a teacher had set up a film for the day? Then the excited that projectors came along that automatically advanced to the next slide? By the time I had my own classroom, technology had advanced to VHS tapes in my VCR! Never would we have dreamed of YouTube, Discovery Streaming, or Netflix.

news.Discovery.com

2. Cassette tapes: What about listening centers set up using cassette tapes and then right in the middle of the book, the cassette player eats the tape. I remember spending time reading books so my students would have something to listen to in the listening center! MP3 players have certainly improved the experience of creating custom playlists.

http://gizmofusion.com

3. Laser Discs: I can vividly recall the day our school librarian walked into my classroom with this huge shiny disc in the hands. Now I grew up listening to vinyl, so the size didn't strike me as much as the shiny look of it. She was so excited and begged me to come the library to see how cool this disc was. She plops into a machine connected to the TV and was able to use the remote control to find the exact track and proceeded to show me a seed growing into a plant (time lapsed photography of course). I was hooked and the kids loved it. Of course, since I was in a "learning cottage", we had to trek to the library anytime we wanted to view something from the disc.

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4. 35mm Film: Digital cameras may very well be a thing of the past with the better quality cameras built into our smart phones, so students today will not know the thrill of taking photos, dropping them into the mail, and waiting a week for the images to arrive. Finally, opening the package to see how well the shots turned out. Oh wait, whose head was cut off in that shot? Oh, no he closed his eyes! How exciting it was when our little town finally got 1 Hour Film Processing!

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5.Floppy disk: I must confess, I love "the cloud." I no longer carry a flash drive around with me. So I will venture to say that students won't know about these soon either, not to mention floppy disk. Of course, I remember their migration from the large to small version of those.



Of course, these five items are just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more things that I could mention. Thanks for the opportunity to walk down memory lane! What about you, what do you think students of today will never know about or experience?

Opportunities

I know that I am a little late in posting reflections because the calendar shows a new year has arrived and we are now several days in. But better late than never, right?

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As a group, my colleagues and I have spent some time looking at where we are and where we are going. Part of that process was to reflect upon our past endeavors and I must say we have done some great things for our school district. In the six and half years that I have been an Instructional Technology Facilitator, we have created materials for a state Computer Skills Test, Responsible Use Policy and Internet Safety lessons K-12. We have delivered thousands of hours of Professional Development and co-taught lessons with our teachers. We have used our Professional Learning Network to keep up with the latest innovations in the world of educational technology. We have found much needed resources, gave teachers tons of ideas of how to make technology a seamless part of their day, and made many IWB lessons. We have been instrumental in the successful rollout of NCWise, Office 2007, SMART Board Initiative, and Google Apps for Education for teachers and administrators. Not bad!

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However, as you can imagine from people who tend to be in these types of positions, we want to do more to really impact student learning, to keep the students engaged, and prepare them for their future. To be honest, sometimes I feel like I am swimming upstream. So, we met yesterday to do an analysis of where we are and what opportunities we have in the future to continue to put the ITF mark on education in GCS.

It was a great meeting and the list of opportunities that we have are exciting! Looking at them helps to rejuvenate the energy needed to do a great job in this position.

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Google Apps for Students
We began using Google Apps for Education with a small group of students last school year as a pilot to work out the issues and see the benefits before we go district wide. Seeing the success of the pilot and having a vision of where we want to go, we are embarking upon providing the suite to all of our students. So we are looking forward to providing teachers with lessons plans and ideas to successfully use this powerful tool to improve teaching and learning. It is exciting to think of the possibilities: student collaboration, class & project sites, electronic portfolios, published writing, and self-grading quizzes. We  will show teachers how to make the paperwork part of teaching easier by using calendars, appointment scheduling for conferences, increasing communication to parents and students, and using Google forms for resource signup and data tracking.


Project Based learning (BYOD, iPad) 

Photo credit: specialkrb via flickr

We have long been proponents of project based learning to provide students with authentic integrated learning activities. This school year, we are in the midst of a pilot for how the use of iPads in the classroom would impact student learning and achievement. So far, the results are very positive with evidence of increased student engagement, more in-depth study of content, and improved student outcomes. We are also investigating the possibilities of Bring Your Own Device. As these programs take hold and students gain greater access to technology, we will seize the opportunity to provide PBL units to take full advantage of the capability of those types of devices.

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STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)
As you know, STEM incorporates multiple disciplines in order to engage students in using problem-solving and discovery learning to find a solution to a situation. Because teachers have been learning new curriculum and a new way of delivering that curriculum, STEM has taken a back seat. This affords us the opportunity to put together some ways to effectively utilize the technologies we have in place in STEM activities that can be used next school year since teachers will have already been through one year with the changes.

Exciting opportunities, don't you agree? If you have ideas or suggestions, please post the comments. I would love to hear them!

How Techy Am I?

I read a post from Lori's Latest Links in which she posted confessions of someone considered to be techy. I smiled at some of her confessions because they sounded like me. So it got me thinking about sharing my confessions with you.

Remember I am an Instructional Technology Facilitator so it is expected that I love technology and tend to be a little geeky. Expectations met. But my whole life doesn't revolve around technology, so here are my confessions:

1. I am not constantly on my phone. I actually turn my cell phone off after work everyday and on the weekends. Friends will text me and when I turn the phone on again Monday morning, I will finally see the text. When I go out to eat with friends, coworkers, or family, my phone stays in my purse.
2. I do not constantly check Facebook and update my Facebook status.
3. I don't use Instagram.
4. I still love to read real books. Yes, I do read ebooks and have done more ebooks within the last year. But there is just something about the feel and experience of opening and reading a book that you just don't experience on a ebook reader or app.
5. I believe that I need to unplug a little more than I do. I want to try to take Sunday afternoons off...no iPad, no Pinterest, no TV, no laptop. I want to find a hobby that doesn't involve electronics.

What about you? What technology confessions do you have?