Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

  One of my favorite activities to do with students is this visual vocabulary project using Google Slides. I've done it in grades 3-5 and the children love it! I came up with the idea after taking Tony Vincent's Classy Creations course. Think of it as a high tech Frayer Model. The idea is to reinforce vocabulary with the use of images.  In this case: found GIF's, created GIF's, found pictures, and created pictures. It introduces children to new tech skills and sites ( Brush Ninja and Chrome Canvas ) As a teacher I go over the activity with students and we do the first four slides together. This works well in a face-to-face environment. In a virtual environment you may have to adjust. I would recommend making a video for each of the first four slides so students can reference and complete them on their own. Google Slides allows you to "house" videos off the side of the slide so it doesn't interfere with work on the actual slide which makes it a handy place...

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...

Our social studies teacher in fourth grade (Mrs. Amy Edwards - http://www.mrsedwardsclass.com/ ) is trying notebooking in Social Studies this year and is enjoying it. We share ideas back and forth and this is one that she came up with for the organization of the BINGO markers that I really thought was good and will be doing next week. She got the the snack sized ziplock bags and taped a corner of the bag to reinforce it. She snipped off a small part of the same corner to allow air to escape out (the tape reinforced the corners so the bag would not tear up the seam). She taped the bag to the back inside cover of the notebook and put the bingo markers inside it. Each child now has their own set of BINGO markers, which saves time when setting up the game, reduces student blowing air into the bags and trying to pop them, and makes students more responsible for keeping their BINGO markers off the floor, etc.

This was another fabulous idea I got from another teacher (thank you Ms. Larson!) and tweaked. In the middle school last year I was SHOCKED at the amount of new vocabulary students had to learn in the sixth grade (I am equally shocked at the limited amount of new vocabulary fourth graders have to learn in comparison...oh well). To help students remember the vocabulary word and its definition we played BINGO, usually within the last 10 minutes of class if we had extra time or more often the closer we were to a big test or state exam. Here is how it works. Put together a list of 24 vocabulary words for a unit. I was struggling to find 24 words in one unit and pulled words from another unit we had done to round it out. For the notebook, I put the words in Microsoft Publisher "catalog format" and gave it a cover so I could fold and glue into the book (see next to last and last picture). I then made a BINGO board in word (using their "table" format) making sure to have ...

There were a couple of ways I have handled vocabulary. The first was a suggestion by a fellow teacher that I use the last 25 pages of the notebook and have students define the word(s) of the day in the back (first picture). I liked the "settling" aspect of the activity. Students were required to come into the classroom, find the word(s) of the day and write the definition in their book (I gave them a time limit strictly enforced with a timer). This reduced a lot of the monkeying around that comes with switching classes. I was not a huge fan of this method. I tried it until Christmas and did not go back to it afterward. I found it too cumbersome to grade (having to flip back and forth). I had to grade it, as I had a large population of students who would not unless they knew I was looking at it. The second method was suggested by my team leader. It is called Visual Vocabulary. Basically students have four boxes (you can either provide or you teach them how to do it in their b...