Genius Hour Presentations

My students have been giving their "Genius Hour" presentations in class, and I'm thrilled with the diversity of their topics and the creativity shown! 

The idea was given to me, and not my original thought. Apparently the concept is taken from companies like Google, who give their employees time at work, to think and explore ideas of their choosing. Having this time to be creative, has proven to have some amazingly productive outcomes for the companies.

So, in the classroom, my fourth and fifth graders are given an hour a week to do nothing. Well, not to do nothing, but to sit and think and research and focus on any topic they'd like. The topic should be of high interest to the child, and of their choosing.

Then the directions were that students should prepare a presentation of their genius hour topic, to share with the class.

I didn't create a rubric for scoring or grading their work. It was a free and open assignment.

The results have been nothing short of genius!

Some of the topics presented so far are: Greek Mythology, baseball, roller coasters, softball, waterpolo, piano, music, Washington DC, various religions, restaurants, helping homeless people, a futuristic Nasa Space Station, and archery. 

The method of presentation has varied from PowerPoint to Prezi, to Minecraft, to TouchCast to Educreations, to iMovie! These presentation apps have been utilized for presenting the Genius Hour topics, in ways I haven't seen them used before. For example, using Minecraft for taking polls, was something new to me! 

Genius is the right word for this project! The students are asking to do this assignment again!

I'm sure that we will, and now my internal debate is whether to create a rubric for the activity. 

Once again, my students have amazed me with their creativity!

Importing LPs on PlanBook.com

New discovery made today: the ability to import lesson plans (LPs) from one year to another, in sections selected, to replace other whole sections of LPs...using the PlanBook.com site! 

I just saved myself hours of copying and pasting lessons, one at a time. So, previous hours of work done by me, for me, for teaching math, can be transferred and moved as needed. I guess I knew it was possible, but to see it actually done, is pretty cool indeed!

With all the changes in education to common core, the ability to make such changes to my LPs, as needed, in such a quick efficient way, truly makes my ability to adapt and be flexible, easier! 

Thank you PlanBook.com! 

Holiday Card QR Code

Put a QR code on a collage of family photos for our Christmas card this year! The QR code, when scanned with a QR Reader app on a smartphone, goes to a link of an iMovie trailer of family highlights from the year (about a minute long). The movie trailer, saved on YouTube ( under an unlisted setting, so not public), has a link that can be copied and pasted into a QR creator app. Then the QR code created is saved on the camera roll of the iPad, or device being utilized. The photo of the QR code can be included as a photo, in a photo collage, since it is a photo.

I wrote a blog post in April 2013, about QR codes being utilized in the classroom. It's something I've done for a while now- creating QR codes...so my surprise now is that many people don't have a QR reader app on their iPhones! Unable to read my QR code on my Christmas card, since they don't have an app for that. However, I'm seeing the number of views go up, so there ARE those friends and family who ARE able to read the QR code. Cool.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring regarding technology that I can add to my holiday cards!

Letting the Technology Help with Parent Conferences

It is Parent Conference week at my school, and I'm running my meetings differently this year with the parents of my students. First I project the Edmodo grades from my laptop to the overhead projector, pointing out the ways that some grades were recorded and interpreted in each subject, determining report card grades. Next I show the Showbie app on my iPad, with the turned in assignments, and my written and voice message attached comments for each assignment. Then I show student made educreations videos called, "What I've Learned So Far This Year" that showcase the different subject areas covered in class. Student summaries of academics and preferences are noted in the movies they've made. 

Parents ask questions, and analysis ensues, and in several cases there are words of thanks and hugs. I say, let the tech help you along with your conferences!

Creative Apps for Teaching

As the years go by in teaching, I'm finding myself being more of an entertainer than I ever was before. The students entering elementary school these days, are digital natives, and used to instant access. A song and dance helps to keep their attention.

I'm looking at the Sock Puppets app, suggested by one of my students, and at the TouchCast app, which was a discovery I made at the Fall CUE conference, as ways of presenting info in new and exciting ways.

Sock Puppets is a one-take, 90 second movie. The time constraint might be good in that I'd like to get my point across quickly. To save a sock puppet movie, I save to camera roll, and then to YouTube. 

TouchCast I'm still working with, but the idea of the student interacting with the video is super fascinating to me. 

I'm pretty happy about the prospects for the applications for both apps, in my classroom!

http://youtu.be/4WF1P2Z-Qio

An Aha Moment Today

The tremendous task of preparing lesson plans for two grade levels (for my fourth and fifth grade combo class) presented itself again this weekend. Both groups have assessments in math, that have not been seen or created before. Today I created them, both for units 2, and study guide movies to match the unit summative assessments. Wow! What a task!

But in there somewhere today was a pretty cool moment when I saw a light shine,dare it be a ray of sunshine and light...a lightbulb going on over (or in) my head? 

I found premade test questions, the new way of writing them (I'm talking common core here). Then I copy and pasted...well, not exactly that, I transferred from an online site with questions, directly to the Notability app, and placed into one file, individual math questions matching the common core state standards, CCSS, addressed in the units I taught.

A test was miraculously compiled, and besides being saved on/in Notability, I sent the creation to Edmodo. The test will appear on Thursday morning for the students, since there is a scheduling feature on Edmodo.  I'm having my fifth graders save the test in their Notability apps, annotate (that means to write) on top of the test, and send the completed tests back to me, turned in on Showbie. Ahhhhh, well that just makes sense! No paper this time, people! 

Fun at the CUE

Last weekend I spoke at the Computer Using Educators (CUE) Conference in Napa about starting a "BYOD 1:1 IPad Elementary Classroom". I made an iMovie trailer for the apps I like to use in our BYOD class, to introduce and talk about each app. It also gave a good glimpse of the versatility of the iMovie app. 

I spoke about PlanBook.com which has been the greatest discovery for me! http://youtu.be/jEBlbFMLRns

Here is the Edmodo trailer I made to introduce talking about it:http://youtu.be/VrL1NgIp5G4

The educreations app is great for creativity:http://youtu.be/67U42n1czE0

Notability is so versatile for writing and annotating all assignments:http://youtu.be/NC3RFOo9Nmk

Showbie is great for turning in all assignments online. I can give direct feedback:http://youtu.be/GMgL90neEjA

It was a fun weekend for me, not just because of the sharing at CUE, but also because of the learning! I learned about TouchCast which is a free app on the iPad, for making movies, inserting webpages and polls. It is an interactive movie application. Wow! I was reminded of Minecraft, and all the fantastic endless possibilities there. Coding discussions included Tynker and Khanacademy, and so much more. I was very impressed with all the sessions I attended at CUE!