Thing 5: Our Choice!

Well, this has been a busy summer, but I do really feel inspired to use several of the new tools that I tried out in my own classes this year.  My big hope is to really see what I can do with 2 iPads with my classes across all the grade levels.  Not sure if I will be successful, but I am going to give it my best shot with several of the pins I saw on Pinterest and several articles I read online about small projects to do.... I believe I can manage several this year with my extended time with my weekly classes.

First I wanted to tell you about the site I found with self paced free online classes.  It is called modernlessons.com.  There are many courses but a few that interested me were ones about ipad uses, 10 free websites to use in education and iPads in education.  There was even one on a site called learnist.com.  There is a free app that can also be downloaded in order to make online slide shows where each page is like a Pinterest pin and links to the blog or site you want.  I was looking at one called "Teaching with iPads" by Steve Lai.

If I can get our technology department to agree, I would like to have the iMovie app on our iPads.  Then the kids can film, photo, and edit a booktrailer or short movie on the iPad.  I watched several short videos about the app and how to edit and it would be a neat project to try with the older kids.  With younger students, they could be filmed telling about their research on a topic and all the clips easily brought in and shown to the groups.  Possibilities are endless.

I spent the last week or so looking for some good apps that might work individually or together to use in the library.  I have had Scribble Press for a while, but thought of a few ways for the students to write and illustrate their own book online.  I wrote a short on to try it out and see what it looked like.  You can find it HERE.  Students can use the drawing feature within the app or use other apps or camera to create illustrations for their stories.  There are  a few free apps that let you make a drawing and save it to your camera roll.  From there it can easily be input into the Scribble Press book.  PBS kids app lets you take a picture of yourself and add one of their characters and stickers onto of your picture.  Might make a fun Author's Picture for the back cover.

I also tried our the app croak.it which lets you record for 30 seconds and create a link or share it in other ways.  I made a quick one for a booktalk on Pie by Sarah Weeks.  You can hear it HERE.  What I was thinking was having the older students pick a book that they liked as a younger student and re-reading it, then write a few sentences about the book to make someone else what to read it, and use the croak.it app to record their talk.  Kids then send me the link and I can make a QR code with them, print them and attach the QR code to the book in the library so that students could hear the recommendations.  Thought this might be a nice beginning of the year project to work on with the iPads and technology.

Lastly I used the app stickyboard2 and thought of many uses including posing a question and having the students come and leave a sticky note on the app to answer the question or pose their own.  I took a screen shot of the one I tried and will try to post it here if I can.  You can then save, send or share the stickynotes as a pdf or as text which is a cool feature.

Well, Thanks and that's all from here for now.  Can't wait to try out several new apps and applications this school year. 

Thing 4: Mapping and Geolocation

Well I have been looking and trying lots of new things.  I love the idea of the QR Scavenger Hunt in the library.  Here is how I would work it.  Now that I have 40 minutes for each grade weekly in the library, I would create several codes that link to places predetermined by me to work in very small groups to investigate different sections in the library.  Other groups would be working on "centers" at the library tables while I walked around with the students who had my two Ipads and the QR reader app.  This could be done many ways as an introduction to different resources in the library or to concentrate on one area depending on the grade levels.  I was scanning Pinterest earlier and saw a few more ideas such as making a QR code to use on all materials sent home that leads to the library home page.  I would like to start doing this with all the materials and kids projects I do and send home as well as make bookmarks for the kids with the code.  Another idea I would like to try is having the fourth or fifth graders pick a book they really loved in kindergarten or first grade and write or record a little synopsis or skit about the book and why they liked it.  Make a QR code, print it and apply to the book so that younger kids could either scan the code at school once I show them what they mean or scan at home with their parents.

There were many Pinterest ideas including a whole board devoted to this at the elementary level.  I am excited to look back through and gain a few more ideas.  There were dictionary games and tic tac toe trivia...  now to find the time to do this.  I would like to spend a few times a month getting myself prepared and have a new "thing" ready to use with a different grade level this year.  I want to use the technology I have in different ways and encourage my students to try different things.


I took a look at the virtual field trips apps which I thought would be great, but I was a little disappointed with their selections.  I downloaded the National Parks one and it seemed sad really with just a few pictures and not a lot of information.  I was hoping to use this with younger students, but not sure it would hold their interest very long.  Older students might be able to use it as a starting point by finding a place through the pictures that they want to investigate further and use the maps too.

Liked the look of Sepiatown and whatwasthere too.  Older students could really use these to create a history/social studies project that connects to what they are learning in the classrooms whether it be Revolutionary War or Civil War or another piece of history.  I guess I was really hoping to be inspired to create or find some ideas for the younger students.. K-2... especially at the beginning of the school year I want to have a few things to pull out now that I will have 40 minutes.  I would love to hear or see things geared toward these younger students....

Thing 3 -- continued

I have enjoyed seeing what other have come up with for these assignments.  It is nice to see all the different ideas and get my own thoughts scrambling. 

I have signed up for twitter before, but I just don't have the time with a small child to keep up with things.  At work there is just no time as the schedule is full.  Would love to think about connecting with a small group of others with each person "following" something different and emailing or getting notes on a wiki so that you get the "good stuff" in one place instead of being spread too thin.

I do have a Facebook account, and am hooked into the School Tools page.  I don't use FB very often as I tend to knit more than I sit at the computer at home. Helps keep my sanity after busy days all around.

I just found a great relatively new website geared toward the elementary librarian... http://elementarylibrarian.com/ there are lesson plans, ideas and she recently started podcasting. 

I would like to listen to more podcasts related to teaching Media, Library skills and even g&t.

Off to read more blogs....

Thing 2 -- continued

Well I finally got screen-o-matic to work after one try without sound and this one you can hear my son talking in the background as well!

http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cIjhDqVBia

I don't like that they only let you save one there without upgrading to pro... I liked screenr better, but I still couldn't get it to log incompletely today!  So this small sample helps be complete this "thing", but I would make a new one to use with the kids!