April 2, 2014 by plemmonsa

Scratch Google Hangout with Barrow and Van Meter

Mrs. Hicks’s 3rd grade students have been working on building Scratch programs for several weeks now. Originally, their journey was going to lead them to creating some scratch programs around a math standard or possibly environmental standards, but the project grew into so much more.

These students started out by creating their own Scratch accounts and exploring. I showed them how to use the tutorial built into Scratch as well as the video tutorials from Hour of Code. From there, students got to work. It seemed that every day these students came into class, they had learned something new. Many of them loved using Scratch so much, that they went home and continued their projects on their own. When a student learned something new, they came in and shared it with others. At the close of each lesson, Mrs. Hicks had students write reflections on a Padlet. This wall became a collective list of tips, new learning, and frustrating moments as students shared their thoughts each day. Students often went back to review their standards, used checklists, and reviewed their work with rubrics throughout the creation process.

Today, several students came together to share their work in progress in a Google Hangout with Shannon Miller’s students in Van Meter, Iowa. The students were very nervous about sharing their work, but they had a lot to be proud of. Students’ projects had branched out to projects in every subject area: a multiplication program that solves multiplication problems, a social studies program about the regions of Georgia, a science program about dinosaurs, a math program about data, and more. It was truly amazing to see what these students have created in Scratch knowing that they all started on the same page. None of them were users of Scratch prior to this project.

To prepare for our Google Hangout, we talked about how to present work online. This included reminders about talking through each step that you are doing rather than just clicking on things in silence. Students went into my office to present their work, while the rest of the students sat in front of the projector to watch. During the practice, students gave one another feedback on how they presented.

Today’s live Google Hangout On Air had some glitches at the beginning when we couldn’t get everyone connected in the hangout, but once we got rolling, the process was smooth. A student screenshared their Scratch project, while students at Barrow and Van Meter listened. Barrow students wrote feedback on paper to give to the presenters during tomorrow’s class. Todd Hollett, our tech integration specialist, helped facilitate the hangout at the projector while I facilitated the student presenting in my office. Van Meter’s students gave verbal feedback during and after each presentation.

I think today gave our 3rd graders confidence in presenting their work online. The positive feedback from Van Meter boosted their confidence as well. Here’s a look at how our Hangout went. It’s a long video, but the projects are amazing for our 1st attempt.

I was excited to hear after the hangout that the students in Van Meter have an idea for a project between Barrow students and Van Meter. I can’t wait to hear more!

December 13, 2011 by plemmonsa

5th grade Student Math Tutorials

Three students filming their tutorials

Ms. Cross’ 5th grade ELT class has been doing some amazing work demonstrating various aspects of their math standards. Each student took a different standard and found ways of demonstrating that standard through drawings, manipulatives, and explanation. She was so impressed by their work that she thought it would be helpful for the students to create tutorials on their math components that could be used as mini-lessons or review sessions throughout the year in class. The tutorials could even be used by other classes.

In planning for this, we thought that students should have options for how they might document their process in solving various math problems. One option was using Glogster to create a review poster. Students would have written components, video or audio components, and possibly images of their work. Another option was to use the iPad to film a tutorial using all the pieces that had been created during the project.

Clare sets up her recording booth on a media center table

So far, one student has chosen Glogster & iPad and 5 students have chosen the iPad. These 6 students explored their options on these tools and did some initial experimenting to see how each tool worked best. Then, students spread out around the media center and used their tool to begin creating. I conferenced with each one to talk about what was working, what they had questions about, and what they might consider trying. On their own, students met with one another to show their work in progress and give one another feedback.

After getting all the pieces in place for creating their final product, the six students worked one final time in the media center to create their videos on the iPads. Their videos were uploaded to dropbox on the iPad, downloaded into My Videos under their accounts, and then put into their teacher’s network dropbox. I took the videos and also uploaded them to our media center YouTube page. Much of my time during these final steps was spent troubleshooting and also showing a few of the students how to do the many steps to get the videos to where they needed to be. After that, these students helped the other students. I love how quickly students figure things out and how willing they are to teach and support one another!

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September 9, 2011 by plemmonsa

September 11th: A Transliterate Experience

As I’m preparing to present at the School Library Journal Leadership Summit 2011, I’m thinking a lot about transliteracy and how I can create experiences and opportunities for students to “read, write, and interact across a range of platforms.”

Students watching videos and eyewitness accounts of September 11

Fifth grade approached me a few weeks ago about collaborating on a day of September 11^th activities. Because they are departmentalized this year, they wanted to bring connections to September 11^th in each of their classes: reading, social studies, and math. The more we planned the more the day came together as a day to experience the events and stories of September 11^th in multiple ways in order to create a complete story about the day’s events.

The day started with each student getting a September 11^th ribbon to wear throughout the day. In homerooms, students wrote and illustrated what a hero was to them.

When students rotated to their reading class, they read the book Fireboat by Maira Kalman. They watched videos of the actual fireboat and had a class discussion about how heroes were found in unexpected places during the events of September 11^th.

Students exploring interactive websites on September 11

In the media center, we started our time by watching a 2-minute video that overviewed the day’s events. We read a 3^rd grade student reflection from the book Messages to Ground Zero: Children Respond to September 11, 2001 collected by Shelley Harwayne. Then, students went to the computer lab and used a pathfinder of websites to experience September 11^th through videos, interactive timelines, personal accounts, news reports, and more. Along the way, student wrote down information that they learned about the day. To close our media center time, students used Wallwisher to create their own memory wall for September 11^th. Students wrote thank –you’s, prayers, emotions, and other thoughts on our collaborative wall.

At the end of the day, students returned to their writing and illustrations of heroes to see if their thinking had changed in any way after experiencing the day’s lessons. They also revisited the 5th grade wall to see how it had developed throughout the day. Reading each 5th grader’s thoughts is a powerful experience and to see all of their thoughts published in one location was a dynamic closing of today’s lessons.

These students were less than one-year-old when September 11^th happened. Their lives are very disconnected with the events of that day. We wanted today’s experiences to immerse the students in the stories and tragedies of this historic event through multiple kinds of media. By the end of the day, students had:

Viewed recaps of the events of the day
Listened to accounts of the day through multiple viewpoints
Interacted with timelines and maps
Read and viewed news reports
Viewed personal videos & eyewitness accounts
Read and listened to stories & children’s books inspired by the tragedy
Wrote personal thoughts, views, and facts
Collaboratively documented their thoughts as a grade level with web 2.0 tools

A student types her memory on Wallwisher

As usual, I was amazed at the level of engagement and collaboration as students worked with technology. At the beginning of the day, we had a big issue with Wallwisher not allowing students to post their messages. I was frantically trying to figure out the problem, but at the same time students were trying out different things to fix the problem. It was a student who figured out that the page had to be refreshed before typing a new note because we were all logged in under our school’s generic account. Because of their willingness to try things out, the rest of the day went very smoothly to capture all students’ reflections on the wall.

Collaborative memory wall written by Barrow 5th Graders using Wallwisher

The sheer amout of resources for September 11^th can be overwhelming, but I can only imagine how the number of resources might grow if this tragedy happened today. Today, we would have tweets, facebook posts, huge amounts of personal videos, blogs, and more. We would be able to live this story in a much more diverse way through multiple platforms. I was impressed at the close of the day by how many platforms students had used to experience this tragic story, and I feel like our students leave us today and head into the weekend with a better understanding of September 11^th as they see the memorials and television specials on Sunday. I invite you to take a moment to visit our 5th grade wall and read students thoughts from today.