Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Our state just moved to the ACT Aspire test, which students will be taking this year (2015). To say teachers are a little nervous is a huge understatement. The nervousness has to do with the time element of the test (in all the subject areas). Example: a third grade student has 30 minutes to write a reflective narrative piece (that includes reading the prompt and putting together any type of graphic organizer before they write AND no dictionary or thesaurus is allowed). This is a HUGE shift for our students who we have always been told to "take their time". The online reason the ACT folks note for the short time limit has to do with "test fatigue"...as in... if students are given an unlimited amount of time their writing doesn't appreciatively improve - CLICK HERE  for that explanation. I disagree and feel 30 minutes to write to an unknown prompt in grades 3-5 is highly unreasonable and not relevant in today's world (I've never been given an unknown ...

When introducing iMovie and all the various bells, whistles, and sound effects that go with it my "go to" activity is the above "How to Blow a Bubble" movie. The "learning" activity focuses on the use of different transition words with the "tech" activity being the ability to produce a movie using the iPad. Students LOVE it (Who wouldn't?....You get to chew gum in class!). The entire activity takes about an hour from start to finish and students are required to have seven pictures (includes the title picture), six transition words, their voice recorded, music, and at least one sound effect (in that order!). They must pair up so that one person can take pictures while the other one goes through the steps. They switch roles so they both make a movie (they make the movie as a solo activity). This takes 10 minutes. I found it incredibly helpful to time them otherwise they take FOREVER to get the pictures done. Once the pictures are co...

My new favorite "tech tool" is ClassFlow by Promethean. I saw it modeled at the national ISTE conference in Atlanta by the Ron Clark Academy and was impressed at both the product and the students of the Ron Clark Academy (my next goal is to go to one of their teacher institutes!). I haven't been able to look at it too closely other then my cursory intro over the summer. In my defense we have been pretty busy up until now with rolling out tablets and iPads to students including teacher and student training (our district has 1:1 devices in grades 3-12...we have a pretty great district with lots of people who support technology and training). I finally had time to sequester myself and watch a majority of training videos that are on their YouTube How To playlist . I am now hooked!!!! ClassFlow allows you to "push out" your ActivInspire flipcharts to students devices (iPad or Tablets in my case). You can turn their devices into student response syst...

At the beginning of the school year I was chatting with one of the media assistants and she was telling me about a Young Adult Book Festival in Charleston . I went online to find out more information (I am a huge YA fan) and there was an opportunity to volunteer (um...yes please!). I spent two days working the festival (signings, panels, set up and more). I got to met a ton of super nice YA authors (who did not mind my obsessive picture taking). My favorites included James Dashner (Maze Runner series), Veronica Roth (Divergent author), and my personal absolute favorite... Rainbow Rowell (if you haven't read Eleanor and Park you are missing out on one of the best YA books to come out in awhile).  I spent well over $100 on books while I was at the festival (which was bound to happen considering the number of nieces and nephews I have). The festival is in its fourth year and has gained a lot of notoriety on the YA circuit. We had families traveling in for the ev...

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock...

Want to blur out a face in a photo? Try  http://www.photohide.com/ . It is a free website that allows you to upload photos and select certain faces to be "blurred" out. It is very easy to use and allows you blur out students who can't have their face published.

Our school district has rolled out iPads to all students in grades 3-5 (and Dell Venue 11 Tablets with detachable keyboards to students in grades 6-12). This has kept us (all the tech coaches) BUSY this year!  One thing I am trying to do is incorporate the use of iPads with the notebooks. One web tool I use a lot is bingobaker.com  . It is free bingo game card generator that you can either print out or play using your tablet.  For students I created a QR code (using QRstuff.com ) and put it at the bottom of their science vocabulary sheet that goes in their notebook (see second picture). When we are ready to play students take out their iPad, scan the code and it goes straight to a randomized bingo board (no two bingo boards are the same). Students touch the screen to make the square light up and touch it again to make it go back if they made a mistake. Once a winner has been declared students touch the "refresh" circle and they get a new randomized board...