Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

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 am helping several teachers put together videos to show at end-of-year award ceremonies. I thought I would share some of my favorite music to use. - Meghan Trainor "Better When I'm Dancing" - Ice Age 4 "We are Family" - Brother Bear "On my Way" - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole "Somethere Over the Rainbow" - Jack Johnson "Upside Down" - Kids Bob "Make Some Noise" - Hans Zimmer "You're So Cool" (instrumental and my "go to" for LOTS of video projects) What we do is upload the final video to YouTube (as an unlisted video...so you have to have the link in order to find it) and then we create a customized URL using TinyURL . The link is then shared with parents via newsletter, email, or text. This is a lot easier then burning CD's for the entire class and then parents can download the video on their own, if they wish, to keep it or share the link with extended family. I...

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...

My newest obsession is having students use Google forms to create "choose your own adventure" stories. The idea was brought up by another tech coach in the department and we had a fifth grade teacher try it with her class. Here is a link to the start of one story a student started. The teacher started with the kids trying to write their own stories but they weren't making much sense so she switched gears and had them choose common stories or fairy tales to turn into "choose your own adventure" stories and that seemed to go much better. My goal is to try one on my own this summer to showcase to teachers who want to try it. There are several "how to" videos on YouTube that I will be using to get started. I embedded one above which I thought provided a nice quick overview.  

April is National Poetry Month. I use to love teaching about poetry but like most teachers I typically covered the same types of poems all the time. A few years ago I ran into a "new" (to me) type of poetry called Blackout Poetry created by Austin Kleon (there are several videos of him creating poems on YouTube) and I wanted to give it a try. The idea is to "find" words within other peoples writing and create a poem using the words that are already on the paper (and blacking out the words you don't need). If you do a Google search most people use newspapers (and we did too).  As a class we had created "found" poems using cut outs from magazines so I thought this would be a nice, and different, extension of that activity. I was wrong. :) It didn't go as planned.  In hindsight what I thought was going to be easy was a little to abstract for children (fourth graders). On the plus side they took the project to mean summarize the...

Quizlet is beta testing a new game feature called Quizlet Live. For those unfamiliar with quizlet it is  a free website that allows you to create word decks that you can turn into flashcards and then play with them in various game modes.  You can search for existing word decks or create your own. Quizlet Live (their newest game) is an in-class, team-based learning game based on any Quizlet study set. Students are randomly paired into teams of 3-4 students to race against other tea ms. Each team must work together to clear their boards, but wrong answers reset progress to zero. the first team to match all 12 terms correctly in a row wins. I have used this in several classrooms and different training environments and everyone (students and teachers) have enjoyed the group gaming element and folks get really competitive.  Since it is in beta testing mode you have to request access by emailing -  beta@quizlet.com . You need to indicate what y...

Google Chrome extensions have become a hot topic in our district...mainly because we have had some students using certain extensions to try and get around our servers :). We shut off access to the google web store for students but we are promoting the use for teachers.  Quite possibly my favorite extension is the the URL Shortener. The extension becomes added to your Google Chrome task bar and when you click it you can immediately get a shortened URL and a QR code. It is quick and easy and makes making a QR code for a specific site so much easier.  The two pictures above show what it looks like on your task bar (picture #1) and how to install it (picture #2).