Thing 11b: DIY -- app building

This topic has fascinated me for a long time.  We use apps and coding is in my wheelhouse, but app building... so intriguing.  After 2 years of straight block coding with my students, I feel like they are ready for something more!  Something I have been looking into for the end of school with my fifth graders.  recently saw a new subscription box for kids that was all coding.  After investigating more I see that they have special things for teachers as well as their own Hour of Code site where kids can actually make apps.  They also have great lesson plans connecting to standards at multiple grade levels.  Simple though it may be for some, the students will be getting exposure to java script which will come in handy.  This is probably one of my best bets for school use.

Through app investigation I came across appinventer through MIT which shows students at varying levels how to make an app. Includes tutorial, learning spot as well as lessons for teachers.  There is software to download and I do not have the authority to download and run at school.

There is also a great website:
https://www.codeschool.com/blog/2015/05/13/how-to-get-started-writing-code/ which explains some of the differences and similarities between the languages.  Then they have a lace to try things out too: https://www.codeschool.com/learn.  Some of which are free courses.  I started with the Python course.  Lots of good math happening there too.  I would need to start a little simpler for my students, but this would be a great site for them to try different things on their own.

I also was able to search the app store to see if there was an "app building app"... well there was, but it was more for business than education.  Pretty easy to use and choose formats and edit their one template.  But not really what I was looking for.

https://developers.google.com/edu/ Also has on their page lots of good online classes to teach coding and app building.  Plus the Google Computer Science page has free resources and lesson plans for teaching code as well.

later... found today that Tynker also has some good places to start.

Thing 16: Media skills

So I have a biography project coming up with my third graders.  We are picking a person to research from America that has made some impact and is no longer living.  Students will have to gain background knowledge so that they can write a persuasive letter to the Postal Service explaining why this person should have their own stamp.  The students will design a stamp... so I definitely could either have them draw a picture, then snap a photo of it with the iPads and have them either create a collage effect and play with the colorings so that they could see what a whole sheet of the stamps looks like, then print them.  I was going to have them draw then scan it and make a sheet, but I am looking toward this now.  They can use https://www.fotojet.com/ on the computer to create instead of drawing an image on paper.

Or they could find an image of their person from our online databases, then edit the photo with something like https://pixlr.com/editor/, then add it to a template Fotojet to have a set of stamps...
So that this:

Can become this: 

I think the kids would be so excited to try this!

Another photo collage maker is https://www.befunky.com/create/collage/ which is also super easy and gives a few more squares to represent stamps pages... So I might go with this one instead!

or even more!!!

The kids will be having as much fun as I have been.  So we can print out a page of stamps and their persuasive letters and mail them off to the committee who makes decisions!!

Or we can play more in photo editor and make an Warhol type picture for the stamp collages

Also tried out https://pablo.buffer.com/ which would be another easy one for my kids to use for a simple project... Here is one that I designed to help inspire the teachers

Thing 25: App-palooza!

We play and learn with many apps, both at home and at school.
Love the app challenge pages: http://www.thedigitaldogpound.com/app-task-challenges.html.  Hosting a workshop for my building teachers as well as the district would be a fun time.  Teachers after introduction be able to take what they learned from the app or task and use it within their classroom.

After exploring librarian-approved-30-ed-tech-apps-to-inspire-creativity-and-creation/  there are many interesting apps to test out including: adobe spark which allows the user to create an animated video.  User combines video clips, photographs and overlay text to create a video.  Would be interesting to see what my students could do with it with a short research project and how to display their info.... working in teams would be a good thing too.

Another one would be https://storybird.com/lark/ good for poetry.  Add a photo and it can be an illustrated poem.  With April coming up soon, I would love to play more with with this free app and possible let my students make a poem... either as a project or in a center.

Combining both online PD I watch a webinar at http://www.edweb.net/emergingtech
and seeing theres-app-50-apps-will-rock-world-60-minutes/
What I am hoping to do is learn how to create a working app. (will explore in a different "thing post")

Also Looked at http://www.edweb.net in their communities and saw that Tech & Learning has community.  There I found in their forums a list of top technologies.  From here I looked at the apple apps page where things are broken down by level.  there are also a few different guides to evaluating apps and organization for teachers.

Stumbled across story wheel where kids can spin the wheel and add features of a story and watch the story come to life on the screen.  They can record their voice to go along with the story as well. Cost is $2.99, but a lite free version is also available.

I also like the idea of combining apps to make a project... say taking pictures and editing them into black and white or distorting the image, then using a comic strip creator to add text to the pictures... I think my third graders could handle something like this...  Maybe an extension of a biography project or frog research...

Thing 22: Annual Reports – Make Them Matter

Annual reports just came up at our last meeting... Everyone does things differently and some not at all.  As important as I believe this to be, I have not made time in the past to create an annual report.  I saw Library Girl's presentation last year (or so) and was inspired to try to make this a priority, but with other things that came up at the end of the year, I just didn't do it.  I figure, If I start thinking about it now and pick this topic, it will push me into gathering the data I need to present an annual report.

As much as I would love to consider a monthly or even quarterly report, annually might be where I start.  As far as what I would like to include:

• circulation statistics - post popular books, increase in check outs?
• average age of the collection
• average number of check outs per student
• checks by grade levels
• ILL numbers -- what we send and recieve 
• number of new books - break out of the number added through our "adopt-a-book" program in the spring
• database usage
• new projects done
• highlights like - December is Coding Month, addition of PLTW, etc.
• improvements- sorting the E sections and creating and Easy Reader section, plus display shelves
• number of weeded materials
• stats for digital books -- overdrive vs tumblebooks vs bookflix
• possible goals - more collaboration, more tech opportunities
• number of students and staff seen each week/month
• author visits

I thought the information on Debra Kachel's Annual Report Guide was very interesting as well. I need to print it out and highlight a few things I would like to concentrate more on.

As a working document, I signed up for https://www.easel.ly/ and will see if I can create something "quick and easy" I can manage in very little time.  Now have a working template that I can add things to and change when needed.

Thing 23: Infographics & Data Visualization

So I spent some time looking at the Video posted: Beauty of Data Visualization.  How very interesting especially when considering we actual intake more more through our sense of sight than anything else. I thought it was so cool how you need to add levels to the data to make them understandable instead of just one level.  His examples were brilliant!

Kathy Schrock's video would be super helpful to use with my older students to give them some background on infographics and how to manage their project.  Keep it simple.  This works for everyone involved.

I have seen infographics with the data from your own library and thought that I might go this direction where I use it for myself and my information.  But no I think it would be interesting for students to use this.  No only for research and understanding there information, but also a just for fun project as well.  Students could pick a quotation that means something to them from a book that they really felt hit home with them.  We could compile them and display them on an infographic at their moving up ceremony in the spring.  Something interesting to them, book related and displayed for their parents.  My fifth graders are also working on a Civil Rights Hero and Leader project with me and we could use the format to display some information about these heroes or different quotes from a leader.  They could work in small groups and create themed simple infographics with https://www.brainyquote.com/

I used https://piktochart.com/.  It was a free signup with limitations. For something simple like this, I think the kids would have a blast creating it.  There are a few templates, but nothing worked quite right for this project.  The kids might also enjoy using it to show off their research on a specific topic as well -- science, animals, biography, etc.