Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

  I ran across a YouTube video from an art teacher, Darren Maltais , explaining how to use color gradients to make a night sky scene in Google slides. I liked how easy it was and started looking for a way to use it in the classroom. He has another video for sunrises but the idea is interchangeable.  Since April is poetry month, I thought I could tie it into a writing activity and picked Haiku’s for the simplicity.  I targeted third graders and approached a teacher friend to let me come in and try it with her group. It didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped but I did learn a lot! I made  a video of the entire process  if you want to check it out. I naively thought we could do the entire project in one 90-minute ELA block. That includes all the tech components AND writing an original haiku. We should have broken it up into two parts: 1. Writing the haiku and 2. Adding in all the tech elements.  To be fair students had only worked on haiku’s the day before...

  A co-worker and I are working with students the week before our holiday break to create these fun tacky book character holiday shirts.  I've seen and created  origami shirts in the past and hadn't really thought of them recently until I saw this cool video on how to make a GIANT origami shirt.  I liked the idea of creating a tacky holiday shirt but needed to make the project a bit more academic. My co-worker, a former ELA teacher, suggested adding book character elements in addition to the holiday elements and having students explain their choices in writing. It was such a genius idea that we made a couple of samples. We plan to work with a class so we brainstormed the requirements as we created the shirts. Students would need to work in pairs to complete the folding of the shirt. The instructor in the video did it by herself, and I tried, but it was really nice to have a second pair of hands. While we were working we thought students should be paired together by...

  😍 I ran across this awesome Twitter post by Amanda Sandoval  last week and LOVED that she had her students summarizing The Bill of Rights using emojis. I was so engaged trying to guess what the emojis represented that I actually looked up The Bill of Rights.  🤔 That got me thinking of other ways student's could use emojis to summarize or show learning.  📕 I went with a book report summary, as I made my examples pictured above, but I could have easily summarized a video, an article, a lesson, and so much more.  🛠️ I built a template to share with teachers in my district and thought I would share. You will need to click on "file" and "make a copy" if you wish to edit and assign to students.  📹 In the template I put a six minute video overview of the project designed for students. In the video I cover: three ways to get emojis, how to resize them, and tips and tricks for searching and being creative.    💡 The idea to include a video was to...

Video Link -  https://bit.ly/2YygqEK I was recently asked what the best program is to record a read aloud. This got me thinking about one of my favorite read aloud follows on YouTube, Glenn Malcolm. He does  read alouds for his grandson  and posts them to YouTube. I like how his face is on the screen during the read aloud in a moveable "dot". The only program I know that can do a circle webcam like that is Loom. Luckily Loom is offering their full account  FREE (forever) to educators . I recorded the  read aloud b elow to test the program. I used a children's book that I found online in one of four places I have access to online children's books: - Hoopla Digital (offered through our local library) - cloudLibrary eBooks (offered through our local library) - Sora (our district's online library for students) -  Epic  (library website that is free for teachers to use in the classroom) dagd I could have snapped pictures of each pa...

Last year I co-taught with a media specialist working to integrate technology into her related arts rotation. We choose a different tool for each of the upper grade levels (3-5). For third we decided to use Google Drawings. The inspiration for this project came from a picture in a tweet , It made me immediate think of a persuasive writing project that one of the teacher's was doing with her class that we could easily piggy back on. I really liked the comic book style picture and reached out, via Twitter, to Todd Nesloney and Tony Vincent (who made the original tweet) and found that Tony used an expensive app called Prisma to get the effect.  We decided to use the free app PicsArt and one of their filters. It wasn't as clean as the picture we used as inspiration but the kids liked the graphic style of  them. If you use the app you can find the filter under "effects" and then "artistic" and then "comic" (or you could try "car...

Google just put out an app/program called Read Along and it looks really promising. It is advertised as being for children ages 5 and up. Video Overview : Fast forward to minute one in the video 👍 I love that it is FREE, helps students to read, gives them starts/points, has a timer, and can be used without internet access (after you have downloaded stories). 👎 What I dislike is that is ONLY available to use on an Android phone or Chrome book (so no iPad, iPhone, or PC availability...yet). Even though the app/program isn't widespread among devices it may be something teachers may want to pass on to parents as something to check out this summer if they do have one of the supporting devices. Video Overview :  Use on a Chrome Book:

A blackout poem is when a poet takes a marker (usually black) to already established text, like in a newspaper, and starts redacting words until a poem is formed. The term "Blackout Poetry" was made popular by author Austin Kelon who wrote a book of his blackout poems. The ideas is if you are at a loss for words then find words that have already been written and create something new from them. I've done this with children in a classroom and it is quite messy when you start dealing with newspaper print and black sharpies. You can make a digital version using either Google Slides or Google Drawings - much cleaner and neater! The way to create this type of unique "found" poem is to start with a wall or slide of text, start highlighting words of interest, from there develop a poem, and then change the color of the background so only the highlighted words show through (I am over simplifying but that is the basic premise). This is a VERY tricky ...

We are in our last week of April and I am wrapping up a four part series of online poetry activities for National Poetry Month. This last idea, paint trip poetry, came from Mrs. Hall's Fabulous in Fourth blog . From Mrs. Hall's Blog I really liked the idea and made it digital using Google Slides. I created a template that teachers could use and modify if they wish. Once you click on the link you will be asked to make a copy. Once you have copy in your drive you can adjust as needed for your students. This activity is appropriate for grades 3 through 5. We use Google Classroom in our district so it would be easy to assign it. Below is how the assignment might look in Google Classroom: The finished poem "Grey Is" (above) was one I created and used as a sample for students in the template. Definitely check out Mrs. Hall's blog to see other samples of student work. She had a linked worksheet for student brainstorming and I copied those instruc...

April is National Poetry Month. I have been trying to share some poetry ideas for tech integrated lessons (ones that can be used in a remote learning environment). This week's lesson is on Reverse Poems. The idea of a Reverse Poem is that it has meaning when read from one direction (top to bottom) and an opposite meaning when read in reverse (bottom to top). To try it out, and make a student sample, I made a reverse Cat and Dog poem ( YouTube video embedded above). I was proud of the poem and video. It definitely is tricky. I would recommend this activity for upper level elementary GT and Middle/High students. The entire concept of a "Reverse Poem" came from this "Lost Generation" poem . This got me thinking about how I would teach the concept to students (particularly in a remote learning environment). This resulted in creating a Google Slides instructional template that could be assigned to students. To be clear, I have not tried it with anyon...

Last week I noted that April is National Poetry Month and this year most of us will be celebrating/observing it at home as we isolate ourselves amid the Covid-19 crisis. I decided to post four online/tech activities, one each week, that teachers (upper elementary/middle school) could have students do. My first post featured creating a simple Quarantine Haiku using Google Drawings. My second idea is to...host a remote poetry slam. Here is a great article featuring "5 Tips for Slam Poetry" Teachers can use Flipgrid  (free for educators) as the "performing space". Students would record their original poetry (Flipgrid has blur and pixelating options for children who didn't want their face shown). You can indicate a time recording maximum to keep children focused. There are several student Poetry Slam videos on YouTube you could share to get students thinking about their poems. I really liked this one from a 12 year old Australian . If you host a onlin...

April is National Poetry Month and many of us will be observing/celebrating it from home in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. As a tech coach, I have been posting remote learning ideas for teachers and thought I would try my hand at providing four online poetry activities/projects students could do involving poetry (one for each week in April). Since we have a short week (we have Good Friday off) I thought I would start with something relatively easy...Quarantine Haiku's. The idea came from this YouTube video -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC35ibZd1LE I made a four minute instructional video for students (which you are more than welcome to share with children) -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S2K8_Wl1hM . The video briefly explains what a haiku is and walks them through how to create their finished poem using Google Drawings. Here is a copy of the  Haiku Google Drawing Template if you wish to use it. You will be forced to make a copy before you can as...

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...

https://flipgrid.com/s/c81ecb2228a7 This past week I worked with a Media Specialist, Mrs. Waters, to teach a class of fourth grade students how to use Flipgrid (free for teachers/students). Since it is Black History Month we used the picture book "Mae Among the Stars" as our retell project. Mrs. Waters read the book, but I also liked this YouTube video , mainly because the words are on the screen. I also enjoyed this Ryan and Craig read aloud . If you have not heard of Ryan and Craig's read alouds you definitely need to check them out ...they are hilarious and kids LOVE them.  Photo - https://amzn.to/2GYgR21 Students were tasked with using the tools within Flipgrid to retell the story using between five and ten sentences.  Once Mrs. Waters read the book to students we explored all the tools within Flipgrid to see what could be used to help us with our story retell. The emojis were very popular and we discovered a cool space helmet and career emojis that...

Most digital reading options. Newsela , Readworks , Epic , and DOGOnews all have ways to filter content for the holiday season (these are all either free or have free components that would work in the classroom). Ask students to filter by "Christmas" or "Holiday" to find funny, inspirational, thoughtful, and informational reading pieces specifically geared for this time of year. Students can give you summaries and note any common themes between reading passages, as well as make personal connections. Pair a holiday article with a summarizing lesson that I modified from the Read, Write, Think website years ago called: Get the Gist: A Summarizing Activity for Any Content Area . I created a Google Document that you can assign students in Google Classroom (or you can export it as a Word document). You will need to make a copy of it before you assign. Simply click on "file" and "make a copy" or click on "file" "download"...

I use to love reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson to my students.I forgot about it until a Media Specialist friend told me she is teaching students to sketchnote using the novel and sent me her notes for the first chapter (see below). It is a timeless classic and one that has a lot of online resources for teachers. There is free 24 page novel guide on TpT ( http://bit.ly/34HPMuf ) with discussion questions for every chapter (TIP: Download and save it while it is free. I have found that often TpT free items get moved to paid ones). YouTube has the full length 1983 movie based on the book that students would enjoy as well ( http://bit.ly/2LafyQf ). If you have never read the book give it a try this holiday season!

Have students try and create a holiday Rebus letter this season. A rebus uses pictures and symbols to replace words in a story, or in this case a letter, and the reader has to figure out the meaning (see sample picture above). We have provided a template of this assignment which includes a slide where you can list the students name and link to their accompanying slide (see the notes section within that slide for directions). This is a great way to keep students on their slide when working on a collaborative document like this. Since it is collaborate that means everyone gets access to the exact same document. When you are assigning it in Google Classroom make sure you do not select “make a copy” for each student--instead, you need to pick “students can edit” when you make your classroom assignment. If you try this with students I would love to see their finished letters! Please feel free to share a link in the comments or on my Twitter page @atechcoachlife. UPDATE : I jus...

Our school has Windows based devices. In the past we have used Microsoft's free software Photostory and Movie Maker Live with students to create videos. Unfortunately Microsoft has discontinued both and replaced them with their new Windows 10 Photos App. It took me some time to make the switch but I am happy to report that I don't hate it. There are some things I would change but overall it is fairly easy for students to grasp. I like the effects and 3D options and for short videos it is an adequate (and free) app. The video summary above of "Harry the Dirty Dog" will highlight what students can do. I always liked the time before a holiday break to introduce students to a new tool. It helps to set them up to use the tool independently with future projects. If you want to try this with students I would recommend making a project yourself so you are familiar with how the tools work. My suggestion is to introduce a short holiday read aloud and have students w...

Back in February I wrote a post about an interactive read aloud app. It has quickly become my favorite things to pull up and use with students (I use it with a Bluetooth speaker I have for the classroom). This holiday season I am suggesting that you try the FREE app Novel Effect to add some fun into your holiday read alouds. The app plays sound effects as you read certain books, which they have listed in their app. The app operates on voice recognition so as you hit keyword markers certain sound effects and music plays to enhance the story. Holiday books on their list includes: Twas' the Night Before Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and many more. You can use the app with either a paper or digital copy of the book. Check out their list of holiday read alouds and stock up from the library and see how your students respond.

We are within a three week window of our state testing here in South Carolina and the test most teachers are worried about is the writing portion of the ELA test. The ELA test is divided into two days with the writing test on the first day and the reading test on the second day. The writing test has a text dependent analysis question (TDA) which requires a lot of higher order thinking/writing for our students (many of whom are taking it for the first time...on a computer). I am super sympathetic, having taught writing. That is why I got SUPER EXCITED when I ran across the Writable site  at conference in February. The site has a lot of TDA type questions and passages already put together in a format that mimics what students will see in May. It is not an exact match (the site corrects spelling and has a read-to-me option...which they won't see on the state test) but for the most part it is a way to give students the opportunity to see a writing passage on one side and a TDA on ...