Recycling for a Cause Concluded Today

Well, it was a heartwarming day watching four of my students deliver 12 gallons of milk, 5 cakes, 24 pairs of socks, 8 pairs of underware, and a check for $100.00 to a food pantry. Our class has been recycling for our school this year, and our second Recycling for a Cause project involved donating these items. Yesterday, my class's "Purchasing Committee" bought the undergarments and socks and cakes.  Today our "Delivery Committee" picked up the milk from the grocery store along the way to the food pantry.

This real-world CBL (Challenge Based Learning) project helped students to learn about helping the environment (the recycling part) and charity and kindness toward others (the donation to the homeless part).

As one boy said today, "I feel fuzzy inside," the moment we got in the car after delivering the items.

It was a good day!

 

Why BYOD Worked!

Why BYOD Worked!

So, my school year is about to wrap up, and I can say clearly, my pilot worked! The numerous hours every weekend of making lesson plans and instructional movies for my combo 4th & 5th grade, 1:1 iPad, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device *iPad) classroom worked! By worked, I mean, it was a huge success; better than I could have imagined! And I did imagine. I've been imagining for quite some time now.

For me it started when the iPad was first sold in stores. I wanted one! I wanted one so badly that I used all my classroom funds to purchase one. I started to replicate my lessons for math, by propping the iPad up on a chair, and filming myself teaching lessons. Then I'd replay the lessons, and interact with the live students and tape, and I became my own aide. I was able to be in two places at the same time: in front of the room giving instruction, and checking student work walking through the room.  To coin a phrase, I cloned myself. Awesome!

I took many graduate level courses beyond my Masters, attended several CUE conferences (Computer Using Educators), even speaking at one, and it was through this training I became aware of the endless possibilities for utilizing iPads in the classroom. One professor commented on my final paper, that he learned so much from me, that he would be changing his syllabus the following semester to include the information I had provided.

The progression in the classroom went from me having one teacher iPad the first year, to having 6 iPads to share with two other teachers the following year.  We did some awesome center activities, including making math topics iMovies! At the time I taught 4th grade math only, all day, and students rotated from class to class, with teachers specializing in their subject. I was the math/tech teacher. My principal, at the time, gave me a lot of leeway and freedom to experiment with apps, and assignments. 

As the principal was retiring, she asked me to be the combo 4th and 5th grade teacher the following year. The carrot of having all iPads was tossed around, but instantly I was in dread of the coming school year, going from my beloved math-all-day job, to teaching 2 grade levels, all subjects, simultaneously. A huge mountain of challenges was ahead of me.

That summer I received an email from my new principal, asking me to pilot a BYOD 1:1 iPad classroom. Now this was great news! It would be the first at the elementary level in the district, or anywhere in the area! I answered a giant "Yes!"

It was like I had been waiting to be asked. I was so ready to run BYOD! I spent every waking hour of the summer preparing.  In August, I watched Edmodocon online, which was a mind-blowing, earth-shattering experience. Endless possibilities! I made a film about Edmodocon, that the Edmodo company people loved.  They sent me Edmodo swag in the mail as a result!

My district asked me to be on a committee for CCSS (Common Core State Standards) training over the summer, and I made films of the training sessions. Everyplace I went, everything I saw and thought about, I made into a film.

My introduction to parents of students in my combo class, was made into a film that I sent them using a link to an iMovie saved on YouTube. My new principal was so pro tech and sold the program to our parents as well. With web blocks in place, and permission slips signed, we got underway in September 2013 with the first BYOD 1:1 iPad elementary classroom around.

We had a list of apps for parents to install on iPads. We had a cart for storage and locking up devices at recesses. We had a wonderful tech aide who knew the ins and outs of maintenance of the devices. I had the support I needed.  I had the desire to make the plan work. I had a passion for this new innovative and transformative tool, and with the change in education toward CCSS and 21st century learning practices, I knew this fit!

It took little convincing, and little time, for students to see the importance of the iPads in the classroom, and the impact their roles would have. Students watched instructional math movies made by me, by going to their Edmodo class page, clicking on the PlanBook.com lesson plans, and then on the link to educreations movies. Students wrote any written assignment in the Notability app, annotating and doing voice-overs on their work. Written work in Notability was then forwarded via email to the teacher, or turned in on the Showbie app.  I could evaluate work turned in on Showbie by writing and sending a voice message about the assignments. 

Students created iMovies and educreations movies of concepts learned in any subject area.  Nearpod was an app that our whole class used to study Science and Social Studies, and consequently visit places like the tundra ecosystem in Nepal, and the rain forests in Brazil. 

Students blogged about Science experiments by using the KidBlog app. Students read books in the Subtext app, even checking out ebook library books through that app.

Students introduced me to the Minecraft app, which was utilized for student creations of academic worlds. Students made virtual CA Missions, Spanish forts, planetariums, solar systems, power plants, mines, electric circuits, food chains, periodic tables with the Minecraft app. Absolutely creative and innovative interpretations of concepts learned, using the Minecraft app!

The benefits of BYOD, were increased student engagement in tasks, the opportunity to be creative and even to initiate ideas, the training to become good digital citizens, and the advantage of becoming better organized.  Preparing students for a future in the digital world and workforce, was (and is) responsible and correct. With the change in education toward 21st Century learning and CCSS, using iPads in the classroom enhanced and transformed learning in our classroom.

So, what made BYOD work? It was a combination of things. It was a group of parents who took a chance on me. Without their support I could not have succeeded. They spent big money to send iPads to school, that they bought for their children. (The students who didn't bring iPads from home, used school iPads .)

It was administrators who supported and contributed to my design, and gave me the freedom to try! It was a school district that set up proper blocks on wifi to make internet searches safe.

It was a group of students so motivated, creative, quick, like sponges soaking up information at lightning pace. 

It was my finding a path I hadn't known I'd find, and having the nerve to forge forward without fear, into territory not yet traveled. 

Mother's Day QR code gift!

A pretty cool Mother's Day gift we created in my 4-5 Combo class, was to make a class movie saying "I love you" and "Happy Mother's Day". Students looked into the camera and told their moms sweet sentiments, as Carole King sang Child of Mine in the background. Next I had students take a picture holding an iPad that read "I love you, Mom!" with tulips on it. After that, I made a QR code out of the movie link, made a pic collage of each child's pic and the class movie QR code. Finally, the pic collages were printed, and put in frames. Students wrote moms messages on the frame mattings, as well.

Overall, I'm pleased with how the tech Mother's Day gift turned out!

Teaching How to Post and Learning Academic Content

Teaching how to post and learning academic content along the way, is the real intent I have when I utilize Edmodo class pages with my students. Kind of a cool little event has occurred, in that I just opened a "Science in 5th grade" Edmodo page for all the fifth graders at our school. Even though I teach a 4th and 5th grade combo class, I've been helping review the fourth grade science information with all the fifth graders in the school, who will soon take CST tests in Science.  The test content covers two years of information. 

When faced with reviewing all the information in physical and earth science, I proceeded to make movies of reading the chapters and lessons in the book. I made movies of experiments we did in class, covering the information I was reviewing. There were too many movies to share with each fifth grade rotation, so I posted all movies on Edmodo and gave out the secret code to join. 

What is interesting to see, and think about, is that the homework assignment of watching one movie a night, and posting one fact from the movie under "reply" has become a social and academic activity. With the motivation of impressing their peers, students post spot on facts about the movies. They have to devise a different fact from the others. Just by reading each other's posts, and having to make one comment a night, the concepts are being reviewed, beyond the classroom setting. Students are interested to share and read each other's comments. The Edmodo experiment I've embarked on, has surpassed the hypothesis of students simply watching the movies. They are learning from each other!

Test Prep Movies

My students are taking the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) Math test soon, and to prep them I took screenshots on my iPad of the released practice questions. Then I put these pictures in the educreations app, and made movies for my students explaining each question and answer.  I made five movies this way. Because I have an app called Education Galaxy with common core questions in it, I used these questions to make more math practice movies. Feeling like, my work is done here, and hopefully all the effort will pay off for my students! 

Sharing BYOD

Today we had an observer in our classroom; a 4th grade teacher from a neighboring school. My students were so excited to share what we know about utilizing 1:1 iPads in our BYOD classroom. First, four students stood in front of the room, talking about apps, independent learning, working at their own pace (differentiated instruction), being more organized, and coding on Khanacademy. Then a few students plugged in to the projector with their iPads, giving presentations about Edmodo(our class page online), PlanBook.com(teacher-made lesson plans and homework plans posted weekly on Edmodo), Educreations(a movie making app that looks like a whiteboard), Notability(for doing any writing assignment which includes typing, annotating, and voice-over), Minecraft(for making CA Mission Projects...or any academic worlds).

Lastly, the whole class participated in a wonderful Nearpod lesson on Ecosystems: Tropical Forests. All students signed in, read information, answered quizzes for all to see, watched videos, viewed slideshows, took polls, and stood in a rainforest on 360cities. So much enthusiasm!

After school I met with our observer and discussed iPads and BYOD until 5:00 p.m.

Looks like we will have a second BYOD at the elementary level in our district very soon!

I was thrilled to spread the info! 😃

I Had Written a Science Play

My week ahead will include being observed teaching science to my fourth and fifth grade combo class, incorporating my Science Play about electricity. I have a script I wrote a few years ago, that covers the electricity content in our fourth grade text book. I copied the style of Bill Nye, the Science Guy, with expert lines, experiments, jokes, dancing and singing. Since this fourth grade play was already performed for the school this school year, students will get to review the iMovie clips, the written script, and the science textbook. Fifth graders will get to see footage from their play that was presented the year before, while reviewing electricity concepts they will be tested on for the CST Science test in May. The experiments will be revisited, and students in the BYOD classroom will be asked to research related articles and perform new experiments. Writing up the scientific method in little green experiment booklets will be part of the review.

I was asked to include the iMovie clips from the Science Play for the observation, and tying these into test prep seemed the best way!