May 15, 2014 by plemmonsa

Barrow Students are Banishing Boredom with Wandoo Planet

Back in early February, a group of 5th graders became beta testers for a new tool from Evanced Kids called Wandoo Planet. It is a kid-powered interest genome project similar to Spotify, Pandora, or Netflix. Through a visually-stunning, game-like interface, students train the system to understand what their interests are and Wandoo Planet offers book and movie recommendations.

Since our beta testing began, Evanced has released the beta version to anyone who wants to register for an account. The polished version will be released in summer or early fall. I thought this would be the perfect launch to summer reading. In the past, I’ve tried to get students to think about their interests and begin making lists of possible reading topics, but I felt like it was difficult to carry those initial plans into the summer. With Wandoo Planet, kids can start thinking about their interests and continue to grow and develop their interests throughout the summer and beyond. They can take the books and movies that are recommended to the public library or bookstores and gather their summer reading materials.

Lindsey Hill at Evanced began brainstorming with me on Twitter and email to plan a virtual visit right before we leave for the summer. She mailed me bookmarks, username/password cards, and buttons to give to all of the students.

We thought through which classes would come, a schedule that made sense, how to structure the virtual components, and how to best use student time in the library. We decided on having 2 classes for 45 minute intervals with a 10 minute cushion of time in between sessions. This allowed us to see all 2nd-5th grade classes.

Lindsey agreed to Skype with each group and explain Wandoo. She used this time to explain how Wandoo works as well as how to setup an account.

She also agreed to stay online all day so that students could give her feedback about Wandoo and ask questions. I loved watching students walk up and have genuine conversations with her.

The goal for students during the work session portion of the 45-minute segments was to view the “squirrel parade” on Wandoo planet and begin teaching Wandoo what they like, dislike, and love. After about 5-10 minutes, they setup an account and begin building their Wandoo tree. The tree gives students recommendations for books. If they mark a book to keep, it puts a bud on their virtual tree. After they read and rate the book, the bud turns into leaves on the tree. Students can also add interest branches to their tree by revisiting the squirrel parade or typing a topic directly onto a branch. Students had a small amount of time to do this today. I put a sheet on every table to remind students about all of the steps.

Students brought their classroom computers with them, but for 2nd grade we had to use the library laptop cart and other library computers. It was interesting to look around and see all of the ways that students were accessing Wandoo.

While students were working, we had quite an extensive team of helpers during the day. For the most part, students were independent. We scheduled helpers to assist students with typing, following directions, and thinking of feedback to go to the camera and give to Lindsey at Evanced.

During our 1st two session, we had Gretchen Thomas’s maymester EDIT2000 class. These students were extremely helpful in getting extra computers setup for 2nd grade and having individual conversations with students. Even if they didn’t feel like they “helped”, their conversations pushed students’ thinking about reading interests. I loved that these students used Flipgrid to reflect on their visit to Barrow.

We also had fantastic parent volunteers during the day that helped us as well. Having these parents seeing how kids are using technology and how we encourage continued connection over the summer was so valuable to our school and library program.

Finally, we had a great team of student ambassadors to help throughout the day. These students included my original beta testers as well as members of my student book budget group. Each student had already created an account in Wandoo and tried it out for themselves. I loved seeing their leadership as they setup computers, gently nudged peers to stay focused, and problem-solved technical difficulties.

Hosting this many students in one day in the library was exhausting, but the help of all of these UGA students, parents, and student ambassadors made all the difference in the world.

We closed each session by connecting once again with Lindsey. She encouraged students to use Wandoo all summer long and each group had a special visit from Winston, the Wandoo Planet mascot. We all had fun watching Winston’s dance moves and joining in.

After saying goodbye to Lindsey, I showed students how they can continue to connect with our library all summer long by using our digital resources. I also created a Padlet for them to post to throughout the summer. Lindsey and Winston are going to add to the Padlet too!

I also gave students a strongly worded statement that there’s not really an excuse to not access books and digital resources during the summer. We have an incredible public library system that is within walking distance of most of our students. I hope they will take advantage of our public library’s many resources this summer.

Thank you Evanced Kids for creating a great tool for kids to think about their reading interests and for listening to kids in order to improve your system. I can’t wait to see what our kids experience this summer!

May 13, 2014 by plemmonsa

3rd Grade Environmental Projects with Flipgrid, Story Me, and Blackout Poetry

Third grade has been revisiting their environmental science standards at the end of this year.

S3L2. Students will recognize the effects of pollution and humans on the environment.
a. Explain the effects of pollution (such as littering) to the habitats of plants and
animals.
b. Identify ways to protect the environment.
• Conservation of resources
• Recycling of material

In the library, I pulled tons of environmental print books and made a pathfinder of ebooks, database resources, and websites around the environment.

We’ve also had guest speakers from The Seed and Plate What is The Seed and Plate?

We are an independent magazine in Athens, Ga. with a focus on food, farming and community in the Southeast. We hope to educate and inspire using our surroundings and the amazing people we’ve met along the way. We begin now as an online media publication, with an eye towards a print version in the future. Enjoy.

The Seed and Plate has been fantastic because they have presented to the students several times on composting, community farming, and being friendly to our earth. They have also supported students as they work on environmental projects and plan to give our students an outlet for publishing their work.

We’ve also hosted the Athens Clarke County Recycling Department to talk to the students about composting. Students have been using compost bins and paying attention to the amount of food that is being thrown away in our cafeteria. Since students are watching this closely, they are really starting to think about what we can do as a school to be friendly to our Earth.

After our exploration of print and digital resources as well as our guest speakers, I sent all of the resources into classrooms for students to continue using. Students chose a focus area to learn more about. Then, they came back to the library to learn about 3 options for final projects during the last week of school.

Option 1: Students could write a script with or without props and record it on our environmental Flipgrid.

Option 2: Students could use the Story Me app on the iPad to create a comic strip about their chosen topic.

Option 3: Students could create a blackout poem using text from a web resource or a copied page from an environmental book.

As I shared each option with students, I let them know what they would need to prepare in order to create their final product in one work session. For Flipgrid, students would need their scripts and prop. For Story Me, students would need drawings that they wanted to include in their comic and possible text that would go into speech bubbles written on post it notes. For blackout poetry, students needed to print the page from the web or have teachers copy a page from a book to use. Students spent 2 days in class preparing their materials.

Today, students came to the library with their materials ready. I gave one more quick overview of the projects and we designated areas for record, areas for coloring for blackout poetry, and areas for spreading out to take photographs for Story Me. The classroom teacher, Natalie Hicks (spectrum teacher), folks from The Seed and Plate, and I all walked around and helped students think through the process of creating their product.

Eventually, I stopped roaming around so that I could focus on collecting work from students. Each Story Me comic was saved to the camera roll on the iPad and then downloaded to a folder on my computer. Each blackout poem was photographed and downloaded to a separate folder. Flipgrids were automatically added to the online grid as students submitted.

The students were truly prepared when they came to the library today. This allowed them to really focus on putting together their final product rather than focus on trying to create all of the content. Students supported one another and adults were able to focus on students who needed extra support.

Now our work is ready to show to the world. We’re sharing it all with our new friends at The Seed and Plate to highlight on their website but we also have a gallery to share with you here.

Flipgrid:

Blackout Poetry:

Story Me Comics:

May 12, 2014 by plemmonsa

Celebrating Our Genius with a 4-State Geniuscon Google Hangout

Since January, Mrs. Ramseyer’s 2nd graders have been working in the library and in their classroom on Geniuscon projects. They have explored the question: “If I could change one thing about my school, what would it be?”

We started our project with brainstorming and some inspiration from Peter Reynolds.

Then, we worked on selecting topics and developing questions.

We partnered with Gretchen Thomas’s EDIT2000 students at UGA to work on researching our topics.

We continued working with our UGA partners to finish research and begin Google presentations on our topics.

Now we’ve arrived at the end of the year with only 4 days of school left. Students are still finishing up their presentations and thinking about their questions. Mrs. Ramseyer and I are working to schedule meetings with students and adults in the school who can create change based on their topics. For example, one student wants more enrichment clusters at our school so he will meet with Ms. Maher, the enrichment cluster coordinator. One student wants devices to go home and another wants more use of the 3D printer, so they will meet with me in the library.

We also wanted students to have a chance to share their genius ideas and projects with a larger audience. Sherry Gick and Matthew Winner have established an Edmodo group for Geniuscon. This is from Sherry & Matthew’s blog post:

Join the Edmodo group by logging into www.edmodo.com, clicking on “+” symbol next to GROUPS, selecting JOIN, and typing in the code ru9b7d. This will make you a member of our Edmodo GeniusCon group, which is a private community. The advantage of keeping this community private is that we can also keep the work and identities of our participating students private. However, we have the option of also sharing posts publically, allowing the whole world to see what your students have created. These public posts are viewable through our GeniusCon homepage under the PROJECTS tab.

I posted some possibilities for when our 2nd graders would be able to connect. Then, I looked at the members of the Edmodo group and sent some messages on Twitter. Shawna Ford in Weatherford Texas had a group of students ready to listen to our 2nd graders. We started planning a connection and Sherry and Matthew jumped on board with their students too.

We decided to hold a Google Hangout On Air so that others could watch our students share their genius live, but we could also archive the event for people who couldn’t attend. My 2nd graders and Sherry’s 8th graders had topics and projects to share.

Our format looked something like this:

Introductions from Georgia, Texas, Indiana, and Maryland
Matthew Winner set the stage for what Geniuscon is all about since 2 of the classes in the hangout had not participated in the project yet.
I gave an introduction to what my students, and then one of my second graders kicked off the event. Each of my students shared their topic, what their solutions were, and how they felt about what they found out.
My students alternated with Sherry’s students sharing.
Then, we closed by letting each school give some closing thoughts.

First, I was amazed by how professional all of the students were in their presentations whether they were in 2nd grade or 8th grade. I was inspired by the variety of topics and how some of the 2nd graders had some of the same topics as the 8th graders. It made me wonder about next time and the potential for collaborating between schools on the same topic. I also loved the different approaches that students took to completing their projects. Sherry’s students worked in groups while Matthew’s students were tackling one big topic together: bullying.

It was also fun to know that our students’ voices were being heard by a global audience. Our librarian friend, Randie Groden, in MA watching live.

We also had some encouragement from our friends at Capstone Press.

Uniting our voices in 4 different states was powerful. Thinking about the power of students stepping up and sharing their genius in multiple states made me proud to be an educator.

My students closed our time with some reflection on our project. We talked about what we loved about the project. I loved that one student brought up the idea that even if our projects didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to, we had the chance to learn about so many kinds of technology like Google forms and Google presentation and working together. There were many meaningful pieces of this project, and I’m grateful to Sherry Gick and Matthew Winner for encouraging us all to help our students share their genius.

May 9, 2014 by plemmonsa

Fifth Grade Battle of the Books Had a Visit with Deborah Wiles

Last month at the Texas Library Association conference, I had the opportunity to attend a session with multiple authors talking about writing historical fiction. Deborah Wiles was on the panel. I’ve know “Debbie” for several years now. I first heard her at the Decatur Book Festival, and when she spoke, she created a magical presence with her words. When she speaks, she truly breathes story into the air. Hearing her speak and reading the words that she writes on the pages of her books gives me such a connection to her southern spirit and reminds me of growing up in the rural town of Blue Ridge. About five years ago, Deborah Wiles came to Barrow Elementary as my very first author visit. She sang One Wide Sky with PreK-1st grade and had upper grades writing in their imaginary journals. She even led a professional learning session for teachers after school. When, I saw Debbie in Texas she told me that she wanted to stop by and see the new media center, so we setup a time.

Since she was already stopping by, I asked her if she would like to meet our 5th grade battle of the books students since they had read Countdown for their competition. I’m so glad that we decided to do that because today’s visit was simply magical.

While she was stuck in traffic, the 5th graders worked on making her some birthday cards for when she arrived. We also displayed the blackout poetry that we had made using Freedom Summer and Revolution.

When she arrived today, she took a seat in the rocking chair that my dad made and started sharing stories. She let the students talk to her about reading Countdown. The depth of their conversation made me realize how different an author visit can be when the students have not only read the books but also spent extensive time discussing them.

The students talked about the complexity of her plots, the character traits of their favorite characters, and shared specific details of scenes that seemed suspenseful. In fact, some of the scenes that students chose to describe were some of the very scenes that were the most difficult for Deborah Wiles to write.

Next, she showed us lots of pictures of where Countdown came from. The students loved seeing the real places that inspired the story. They also loved seeing how the title and cover art for the book changed and how the editor gave Deborah Wiles feedback on her work.

Before students went back to class, we told her “Happy Birthday” and gave her some cards and artwork. She spent time signing books that students pre-ordered from Avid Bookshop and chatting more with students about books and writing.

While she was signing, we enjoyed birthday cake that she brought for us to enjoy!

Before she left, we spent some time roaming around the school and looking at how much it had changed since the last time she was here. Now, she will go to Avid Bookshop for a signing this afternoon at 4:30.

The students are all very eager to read Revolution, which publishes on May 27th. I gave away 2 ARCs of Revolution today as well as some copies of Countdown. We are so thankful to Deborah Wiles for driving to Athens and spending time with us today. The students could have listened to her for the rest of the day. We can’t wait to see her back in our library soon.

May 8, 2014 by plemmonsa

4th Grade Created an Augmented Reality Wax Museum using Layar and Multiple Digital Tools

Each year, our 4th grade creates a wax museum for their colonial period social studies standards. Students research a person from that time, write and memorize a script, dress as that character, stand throughout the school, and give their speech multiple times to visitors. This year the 4th grade team and I decided to try something different. We wanted to create a digital wax museum and expand the standards beyond the colonial period to the entire 4th grade social studies standards. This new project would use the augmented reality app, Layar, to unlock all of the digital projects that students created about their person from history. It would also be a collaborative project between 4th grade, art, and the media center.

Updating this project was a big undertaking, but we created a process that I think can grow and expand next year.

First, students came to the library and learned about the project. I showed them various digital resources that they might use for their research including Pebble Go and our state Galileo database which includes Encyclopedia Britannica. I showed them how they could search for websites within Destiny when they are logged in.

Next, I showed them how they could create a double column table in a Google doc. One side would be a space to copy and paste information from digital resources and the other side would be for putting the information into their own words. I showed them how to use the Easybib add-on within Google docs to document where their information was coming from. They loved this feature and so did the teachers.

Finally, students used a Signup Genius to sign up for their topics. This made topic selection fast and teachers were able to give a final approval to the person that students signed up for.

After that, students started their research. Most used their gathered facts to write scripts for various projects.

Then, they all returned to the library to learn about their project options. Students did not have to use technology to create their project, but they did have to use technology to document their project. For example, if they made a physical poster, they had to use some type of technology tool to record some information about their poster using their script. Many digital tools were suggested to students, but students were welcome to find and try their own tools. We suggested Chatterpix, Tellagami, and iMovie as main options. Students chose projects and continued working in class.

In art, students researched images of the historical events their person was involved in and created an image to serve as the trigger image for the Layar augmented reality app. The images were created with water colors, pencils, crayons, markers, and various other tools.

As images were finished, they came to me in the library so that they could be photographed and uploaded to Layar. I also printed each photograph so that we had a uniform size picture to scan in the hallway. This wasn’t necessary, but it was nice to have a smaller image to scan since some were large.

Students made multiple kinds of projects to attach to their image in Layar. Some chose to make gamis in Tellagami. Because this app lets you make 30-second clips, some students chose to make multiple videos to upload to Youtube while others used iMovie to compile their videos.

Some students used Chatterpix to make a picture of their character talk. Once again, they either created multiple files or compiled them.

Some students chose to do the traditional wax museum project of dressing up as your person, but this time, they filmed themselves and uploaded to Youtube.

A few students created unique projects that no one else attempted. One student used Powtoon to make a Common Craft-like video about indentured servants.

Another student wanted to do an interview, so she filmed clips of herself as a news reporter asking questions and made response videos using Chatterpix. Then, she used WeVideo to put them together. Because the free version of WeVideo doesn’t upload to Youtbe, we had to do a screencast of her project in order to view on the iPad.

Another student used Songify to record a rap song about Martin Luther King. We converted his file in Any Video Converter and put it into iMovie so that it could be uploaded to Youtube.

Once students had a video or link to their project, they emailed it to me to upload to Layar. They could have done the uploading to Layar themselves but we wanted to test most of the Layar pages before we put them in the hall. Many people helped students with the creation and uploading of their projects. Many thanks to the 4th grade teachers, our grad assistant Carol Buller-McGee, our instructional tech specialist Todd Hollett, gifted teacher Heather Carlson, special ed teacher Haley Beaver, an EIP teacher Lee Rogers for assisting me with getting students videos uploaded and emailed.

Students worked with me to connect their links in Layar, put them in right spots on the image, and test them out. I went ahead and published our “campaign” in the Layer creator. You have to “publish” before the images will work when they are scanned. You can still add pages and links even after you have published.

We also uploaded all of the content to a Smore page so that families (and the world) could view the projects from home without Layar.

The 4th grade team and art teacher displayed all of the art in the hallway. Today, families were invited to stop by and view the gallery. I rolled the iPads to classrooms and took headphones too. Students came out with their families and showed off their projects and the projects of their friends. They showed parents how to open the Layar app, point the iPad at the image, tap the screen to let Layar scan the image, and watch the content magically pop up on the iPad screen. Several parents had already downloaded Layar on their phones too. There was excitement in the air as families experienced augmented reality for the first time. I overheard some of them saying how they wanted to go home and try it themselves. Others were amazed by the variety of projects that students made. I overheard conversations about social studies content but also conversations on how to use all of the tool that were needed to make this project happen. I loved seeing the students taking a leadership role in sharing with their families how to use the technology that they use at school.

Next week, classrooms will be invited to tour the gallery. I think we learned a lot from this project. One of the things that I loved most was how differentiated it was. Some students created multiple projects for their person while others focused really hard on one project. Students were able to showcase their strengths and interests, and I felt that every single student was fully engaged in this project. I hope that others found value in this project as well so that we can continue and expand upon this type of experience for projects next year.

You can see all of the projects without Layar by visiting our Smore.

Also, take a look at what our augmented reality wax museum looked like in action today.

May 2, 2014 by plemmonsa

First Grade’s Fun Skype with Crabtree Co-creator, Jon Nichols

Our community amazes me. Every year, new people within our school community step forward with ideas for our library program. People share their talents, their connections, and their love of education.

This year, Rachel Gabara, a parent of a 1st grader, introduced me to a new book called Crabtree by brothers Jon and Tucker Nichols. I’ll admit that it was my first time hearing of the book, but when I looked at the praise for Crabtree on the McSweeney’s website, I was floored. Authors like Jon Klassen, Maira Kalman, Lemony Snickett, and Jon Agee all raved about the book. I immediately ordered it from Avid Bookshop. When I got it, I was raving about the book as much as the reviews. It is jam packed with illustrations of all kinds of things.

Here’s the official trailer:

Crabtree loves to collect things. The problem is that he has so much stuff he can’t find anything. He begins to organize his collections of stuff in order to find his false teeth. Each object on the page is labeled with its name, so kids are introduced to all kinds of tools and gadgets that they’ve probably never heard of. It’s a great books just for the sorting, vocabulary, and potential research opportunities. However, the humor and gadgets of the book are what really make it so much fun to read over and over again. Even the dust jacket of the book has a collection of gadgets and unfolds into a poster. At the end of the book, there’s a game where you can go back through the book finding various objects. You need to order a copy of this book today. It’s so much fun.

When Rachel introduced me to the book, she told me that she was friends with the co-creator, Jon Nichols. She offered to reach out to him to see if he would Skype with us. He agreed, so we got to work preparing for our visit. All of the 1st grade classes read the book in advance and pulled in some categorizing and math standards along the way. Students also spent some time writing out questions for Jon.

Today, the whole 1st grade came to the library and we connected with Jon in California. He was a fantastic Skype author full of energy. He told the kids a bit about how he and his brother made the book together. Both of them were involved in the writing and illustrating process, and it was their first book.

Then, Jon showed the kids how he draws Crabtree.

The students loved it when Jon let them ask him some questions. When authors do this, the teachers help me a lot. They start choosing students from the audience to start forming a line to the side of the screen and camera.

As they get in line, we try to check to make sure the questions are all different and are actually questions. I move the camera down to student-level. Then, students take turns speaking to the author directly into the camera.

Today, students asked Jon questions like:

What kind of paint did you use? He showed us the pens used to draw the illustrations and we learned that the colors were created by computer at the publisher because they didn’t like how real paint looked on the paper.

Why did you call him Crabtree? We learned that it was a mixture of a favorite place to visit but also the idea of 2 things that don’t really go together: crabs and trees.
Can 1st graders write books? Jon was so enthusiastic in his answer and told them that they could absolutely write books. He ran through the whole writing process and got them excited about their ideas for stories.

There were many more wonderful questions. I was really surprised by how well 1st graders asked questions. The teachers did a wonderful job giving students time to think and write their questions down before they came.

We are so thankful to Jon for taking time out of his busy day to connect with us. If you haven’t read Crabtree yet, we highly recommend it.