Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

This month in school PLC's I am focusing on online research skills and websites for grades K-5 within the context of Black History Month. I posted earlier about a sensory figure poster using Google Drawings for grades 3-5, that I created in week one of Tony Vincent's ClassCreations workshop , which will be the "project" end of my training for those grade levels. Unfortunately our K-2 students have iPads and Google Drawings is not an option for them. Students can definitely recreate the same idea using the  Seesaw .or Keynote apps. However many teachers like a nice paper project. Since my goal is to use online research sites and strategies I thought I would highlight both digital and paper versions of the project for this grade level. Below you will find the digital example from Seesaw and Keynote. If you go this route Seesaw is easier for students to complete and turn in. Keynote would be slightly harder unless you use the Google Classroom app. In Seesaw you ca...

I liked the idea of having students create fake Instagram posts but really hadn't got past the "idea" phase. Last week in my Classy Graphics course with Tony Vincent he had us working with pictures and gave us free reign on the assignment. I used several of the techniques he taught us to FINALLY create a sample Instagram post that could be easily duplicated by students. I used Google Drawings, which is an under utilized tool in our district, to create the final product. This is a great activity to showcase several "how to's" in Google Drawings. I also used Pixlr to edit a photo of myself to remove the background I was standing in front of. I made a "how to" video as well as the simple screen shot "how to" . The video is a little more in-depth for any teacher wanting to try it out first. If you wanted students to make an Instagram post you might want to make a more specific video for your students to reference back to, particular...

I recently got tagged in a funny Facebook post about a cat texting his owner. While the post made me laugh (I am a cat owner) I really liked the idea of showing texts back and forth in a non-traditional manner (i.e. cat and human owner). After a quick Google search I found the app TextingStories. It is free (there are some in app purchases if one wanted to upgrade but I did just fine with the free version). I thought it could be used in a middle or high school class to show dialogue or understanding of the plot and characterization in a story. Here is my attempt at create a texting story between Romeo and Juliet: It was pretty easy to use and the video of your text gets saved to your camera roll. My camera roll is linked to my Google Drive so I was able to easily transfer it to my laptop (students or teachers could also use a free wifi transfer app). My only complaint is that there isn't a Windows version of the app. It has to be used on an iOS device.  The iOS limitat...

I love the idea of Blackout Poetry. The basic premise is using existing text and finding words within the text to create a poem...then blacking out what you don't need. There are many internet posts, pictures, and videos on creating Blackout Poetry for those interested in looking into this cool genre. Many years ago I tried it with a Girl Scout troop of fourth and fifth graders and they found the concept difficult..and I have to admit that I probably didn't do a good job of explaining it. I tried a variation of it using magazines where students cut out words and created a poem using their "found" words. That went a little better (maybe because they can tangibly rearrange the words?). Anyway...I haven't had much of an opportunity to work with students and poetry in several years and then this video came across my Pinterest feed and I got excited about using technology with blackout poetry. The video was super easy to follow and I created a blacko...

I just created my first Choose Your Own Adventure style story using Google Forms. As a tech coach that deals primarily with elementary school students I would definitely put this in a Gifted and Talented category...at the end of the year...as enrichment (it was kind of hard!). I found the video above the best as far as instructions go on YouTube. I didn't have to watch the whole thing...I got the general gist by the 8 minute mark. I liked her flow chart and used the Smart Art Hierarchy Tool to make mine (the teacher in this video used Google Drawings). I thought the Smart Art tool would be easier (since it provides a template) but I'm not sure it is (I would need to try it). Student might find that step too much and might be better off sketching their story out on paper or using numbered index cards. The teacher in the video had 16 levels to her story...I had 17 (if you count the ending...it is 18). That was a lot! My flow chart was sketch of story a...

I was working with a second grade class the other day using the Google Pages app (we used/modified the visual report template within Pages to create an animal report) . I was telling the teacher about the "magic move" feature in the Keynote app (free) and how it could be used to create a cute adaptations video. I created the above sample project to show her and also to test if I thought her second graders could handle it (there is no sound). Her second graders could definitely do it. I think the problems would come up with research and writing. Students would have to find 5-10 adaptations to highlight (I think I only came up with seven or eight for the penguin in this video). Second graders researching and reading skills are a bit all over the board, which is why I thought this step might need to be differentiated (high readers can pick their own animals, middle readers can choose from a list of animals and you can give them links to find the adaptations,emerging reade...

February is Black History Month and I am working with some teachers to help students produce research videos. The video above is one I completed as a student/teacher sample. The students have to produce a video that has 12 slides (or pictures). When I broke it down as follows to them they really only had to find eight facts: 1. The first slide has to contain a title and the students name  2. Where and when the person was born 3.    Fact #1 (full sentence) 4. Fact #2 5. Fact #3 (by now tell me what he/she is famous for) 6. Fact #4 7. Fact #5 8. Fact #6 9. Fact #7 10. Fact #8 11. T he year they died (or anything of note after they died) 12. Credit slide – where did they get their facts (This was made in their educreations app. They took a screen shot of it and edited it in the photo editor) I was giving students three class periods to do the project. Day 1 – Pick your person and do your research (if they couldn’t pick some...