January 22, 2014 by plemmonsa

Exploring Chinese New Year with Kindergarten: Google Voice Search, Pebble Go, colAR Mix, and More

Mrs. Li’s Kindergarten class has been exploring the Chinese New Year with me in the library. During our exploration, we’ve tried out several resources for information. First, we used Capstone’s PebbleGo database to do some pre-reading for background information. We did this with little discussion about the holiday, but instead just focused on listening to the information to build some shared knowledge.

Next, we thought of questions that we had about the Chinese New Year that were possibly not answered by PebbleGo. We asked things like:

When is Chinese New Year this year?
When is the lantern festival?
Where is it celebrated?
How is it celebrated?

Before students came, I installed the Google Voice Hotword Search extension in Chrome. This allowed us to control a Google search with our voice. For Kindergarten students who aren’t fluent in typing, this lifted a big search barrier for them. We took our list of questions and took turns saying:

“OK Google”
When is the Chinese New Year?

Google searched and spoke to us telling us that this year Chinese New Year begins on January 31st. We continued this process to answer many of our questions.

Next, we used Grace Lin’s book Bringing in the New Year to continue our exploration. Many facts that we had already discovered were confirmed in the text, but the book allowed us to learn some of the family structure in China and what different family member roles are. Mrs. Li was able to help us with this part of the lesson. Since I wasn’t sure how to pronounce some of the words, she pronounced them for us and also explained the meaning of each family member’s name. We certainly could have used Google for this, but we had a conversation about choosing resources to answer our questions. Since Mrs. Li was with us in the room and is an expert in Chinese culture, she was a faster option for us than taking the time to go to Google. It’s never too early to begin surfacing the thinking process that we go through as learners when we are trying to find the answers to our questions.

During the 2nd lesson, we once again used the Google Voice Hotword Search to explore the Chinese Zodiac. We learned that 2014 is the “Year of the Horse”. Students were curious about their own birth years, so we used Google to look for the signs for each of their years too. From here, we spent some time coloring a colAR mix coloring page for Chinese New Year. Students used the iPad app to view their carousel creations. The app uses augmented reality to bring coloring pages to life. The carousel pops off the page and rotates to music with they year 2014 in front of the carousel. Students were mesmerized by their coloring page brought to life.

We explored so many skills and tools in just 2 lessons. I want to continue this transliterate thinking of how our students can experience content across multiple platforms. In these 2 lessons, we examined print, databases, websites, search engines, crayons/markers/paper, and augmented reality. I’m curious to ask students later what they remember about Chinese New Year and see what stands out in their minds from these 2 days.

October 17, 2012 by plemmonsa

4th Grade Native American Research

I am so thankful for time to get together with other librarians to learn. We recently had a professional learning day in our district where many of our school librarians/media specialists shared how they are using Google apps with students. The amazing Tanya Hudson, librarian at Chase Street Elementary, shared how gadgets could be embedded in Google forms. She had used this tool with a 1st grade Common Core lesson using the book How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. Her sharing made my brain wheels start turning about how this gadget might be used with other projects.

Our 4th grade is currently studying Native Americans. Their standards have them look at how location and environment affect the food, shelter, and clothing of groups of Native Americans in each region of the United States. Once again, I used a transliteracy model to think about all of the ways that students could experience these 6 groups of Native Americans. I pulled informational books, folk tales, and stories from each group and put them at tables. In the computer lab, students used a pathfinder which included Youtube videos, databases, and informational sites on clusters of Native Americans but also group-specific information as well. Students used a graphic organizer to gather their information.

Filling out the Google form

For the portion inspired by Tanya Hudson’s work, I created a Google form and asked 2 questions: What is the Native American group you discovered? and What is their location? I used 2 iPads as a station in the library where students could go and input thisinformation as they discovered locations in their research. I also embedded a map gadget in the form so that each time a student filled out the form, it pinned a location on a Google map. This map was displayed on the smart board. As the map started to populate, students began exploring what other students had posted onto the map, and an interesting thing happened. Students quickly discovered that students were entering incorrect information. The coolness of the iPad was causing some students to skip their research or type what they “thought they knew” into the form. The great thing was that other students started to call them out on this error. Other students discovered that you had to be specific on the location. Simply typing “southwest” did not necessarily put a pin in the right place of the map. Students began looking for specific states or, even better, specific cities. Our time simply wasn’t long enough, but a logical next step would be to have students begin to weed through the information in the form and decide what is valid and what is not. The data can be easily erased and disappears from the Google map. I already have one student who is interested in doing this by himself, but I think a whole class exploration would also be great because it lends itself to authentic conversation about why we do research in the first place.

Google map with pins

Once again in this experience I allowed students to freely move from place to place. Most migrated and remained at computers, while others stayed at the books for the majority of their time. Students who went to the books commented on how much information was in one place rather than having to look at multiple places on the computer. It was interesting to hear this come from them rather than me telling them myself. So many interesting conversations and teachable moments occurred and I wished that our time could be extended. This will be helpful in future planning to schedule multiple sessions or longer sessions with classes. In all, I think students gathered enough information collectively that they can share their information back in the regular classroom.

January 23, 2012 by plemmonsa

Kindergarten Research…so many firsts!

While the rest of the school is working on persuasive writing, our Kindergarten is working on informational writing. The teachers and I met back in December to plan some goals that we had for student research of informational topics. It was important to each of them that students have experience locating information in a variety of places, but to specifically look at content that matched their developmental and reading levels. Our print collection in the media center already has a variety of texts on a variety of levels, so I felt like they would find enough resources in the nonfiction section that would meet the needs of several topics.

The challenge came with finding a digital resource that would meet their needs. We have access to great databases such as Encyclopedia Britannica in our state Galileo database, but even Britannica didn’t seem to get at what we wanted. Fortunately, we were able to get a one-month trial of PebbleGo from Capstone. PebbleGo has three main databases: animals, earth and space, and biographies. The content targets a K-2 audience, but I’ve found that the topics are appropriate for all of our grades and really match the reading needs of many of our readers. The content is broken down into headings and students have the option of reading the content themselves or having a professional narration read to them. There are also videos, charts, maps, timelines, and more within each heading.

Kindergarten chose to do a beginning stage of research by assigning all students similar topics within their science standards. Some students learned about rocks while others learned about soil. In our collaboration, we decided that they needed a very basic graphic organizer. We chose a four square organizer with the topic in the middle surrounded by 4 questions that students would answer. They could answer the questions with text or even draw pictures in the spaces. Each teacher booked a one hour lesson. I introduced PebbleGo and how research is all about asking questions. Students generated some sample questions about rocks before I showed them the 4 questions they would explore. I briefly clicked through the pieces of the site and showed the feature that would read the content to students. We also looked at the 4 questions and thought about which tab would answer which question.

When students seemed too saturated with information, we moved to the computer lab where PebbleGo was already loaded on their screens. I was immediately amazed at the level of engagement but also the number of firsts. For so many students, it was the first time using a mouse, a keyboard, the internet, a graphic organizer with set questions, and more. It was easy to get overwhelmed by the number of questions that students were asking, but when I stepped back and took a deep breath, I was amazed at how excited the students were. I was amazed by what they were remembering from what they heard regardless of whether or not it made it onto the graphic organizer. There were 4 adults helping students: the teacher, student teacher, my paraprofessional, and me. We knelt down beside students and had conversations about listening to information more than once, writing down keywords rather than complete sentences, using a graphic organizer, and more. In the end, students left with several facts written down about rocks and soil, but they also left with excitement about coming back again to use the computer for research. When we checked in with them at the end, every student said they wanted to come back for more.

The teacher commented to me that this lesson just made her want to use the computer lab even more and how this was all a process. In order for students to get better at researching and using the computer, they have to do it more. It can’t just be a single lesson in the lab. Wow! Even though the lesson exhausted me at the very beginning of the day, it energized me with possibilities.