Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Our district has a subscription to Kami and we love it! They have a free version, which would work for most basic assignments, but I love their premium features (which they are offering for free with school shut downs ). One of my favorite features is the ability to "embed" a YouTube video into an assignment via the comment box. This means that students don't have to move in and out of an assignment to complete it. A couple of things to note, this only works with YouTube videos. You can create a link in the comment box to a video elsewhere (Google Drive as an example) but the link will take the student outside of the assignment to view. If YouTube is blocked in your district it will still be blocked within Kami. I made a 2 minute video for teachers walking through creating an assignment with "embedded" videos. If you like the assignment I have provided all the links below: Teacher Video - http://bit.ly/2WoGwdo Graphic Organizer - http://bit.ly/39Vi1I...

Last week I wrote about an "If I Ran the Zoo" project . It was a project that I collaborated with an elementary art teacher to complete.  Our big takeaway during our debriefing was the fact that the iPad app was too complicated for our second grade group and we wished we had something web based that would work for our upper elementary students. Imagine my surprise the very same week to come across Canvas , a web based drawing app that allows user to either draw freehand or upload a picture to trace around. The website seemed to indicate it was for Chromebook users but I tested it on a student HP device and it worked just fine. I created a video overview , which I have embedded above if you are interested in checking it out.  The art teacher and I were thrilled with the possibility of extending similar projects to our upper elementary students. I can't wait to see what ideas she comes up with!

This activity draws upon an earlier post I made about creating sensory figures for Black History Month using Google Drawings. This activity is a little less "techy" but still a fun way to teach, or reinforce, summary skills from the perspective of the main character (in this case a leprechaun). I used the book "How to Catch a Leprechaun" by Adam Wallace. Epic has the book, which you can read whole group...or assign to students. Epic offers a free educators accoun t so definitely check them out! The book can also be found as a read aloud on YouTube . There are some directed drawing videos on YouTube that I used to complete the drawing. - How to Draw a Cartoon Leprechaun - How to Draw a Pot of Gold This activity can be done whole group, or assigned through Google Classroom for students to do independently. If done whole group I would read the book twice, once for fun, and once to find the "sensory" sentences. You can have students pair up t...

Posted "I Can" Statements for the Activity Today I worked with a group of two fifth grade classes recording and editing a breaking news radio broadcast about the attack on Pearl Harbor. We used Audacity to record and edit. The students had some experience back in December when I worked with them introducing them to the tool. I wrote about my experience in a previous blog post. The December activity was designed to be fun and show them the basic tools they would need in the program to record and add sound effects.  The activity today was designed to show them the structure of a "breaking news story" on the radio in the context of their Social Studies curriculum. Each group will be working on their own scripts within the next two weeks with their final project due March 24.  I worked with the teacher Mrs. Gannon with our sample recording, as a way of walking through what we thought might work with students. We decided to use the Who, What, Why, Where,...

Today's is Dr. Seuss' birthday and the kick off of Read Across America Week. In the past I have done some cute book covers  with teachers and students but this year I wanted to try something new (to me).  I follow art teacher Tricia Fuglestad on Twitter and I love how she integrates art and technology. I got the idea for book covers from her last year so I went back to her blog looking for more Seuss related ideas . She had done an "If I Ran the Zoo" project with students and I thought it would be fun to try this year.  I worked with an art teacher (Ms. Peterlin) at Beaufort Elementary School and, because the app was new to us, we decided to do the project with one of  the second grade classes. The app, Brushes Redux , is only available for the iPad (it is FREE) and only our K-2 students have iPads so that limited us somewhat grade wise. Tricia used a different app in her blog write up but I could seem to find it so I found a substitute. This to...