The student’s in Mrs. Elsea’s 5th grade class at Davis have been studying the different genres of literature.

Today they used Storyboard That to create scenes from three different types of genres. Storyboard That provides the students with so many options for scenes, characters, and text. In addition, all of the features are fully customizable, so the students could create exactly what they had pictured in their plans.

After they had their scenes complete, students used the Snipping Tool to take a screen shot of each image. They saved all three images to their desktop.

To share out their finished images, students used the Quiz feature on Google Forms to create a quiz in which the audience has to view their scene and try to infer what genre of literature this snapshot came from. They really enjoyed the features within Google Quizzes, such as assigning points for right answers, providing feedback for correct & incorrect answers, and allowing the quiz taker to view their results at the end of the quiz. Test your knowledge of genres by taking these quizzes!
Quiz 1
Quiz 2

Today the students in Mrs. Milwit’s Kindergarten class at Greenwood used Seesaw to demonstrate their understanding of patterns. They started the lesson by using unifix cubes to create a pattern of their choice. Next, students used the Seesaw app on the iPad to take a picture of their pattern, record their voice, and write the pattern type on the screen.

After completing their video, students selected their name from their class list in Seesaw and uploaded their work. Here are a couple of their great work samples

The students in Mrs. Wilson’s 3rd grade class have been studying homophones. To bring these words to life, students used Pixie to create 2 slides, one for each word. On their slide they had to have the word typed and an illustration. The finished Pixie slides were exported as .jpg files to the desktop.

From there students used gifmaker.me to upload their 2 pictures to create an animated gif. Finally, they posted their completed gifs to a Padlet wall so that their classmates could see their work. Take a look at their finished work:

The students in Ms. Kouri’s 3rd grade class at Greenwood have been studying rules and laws in social studies. As part of their assessment, students have the option to create a poster, audio or video recording, or an animation. Today, I assisted students with using Audacity to record themselves reading their “Radio Broadcast.” The students exported their finished recordings and uploaded them to their teacher via Google Classroom.

I also worked with a group that wanted to use the Stop Motion Animation app on the iPads. They had already constructed characters out of cubes and wrote a script, but they wanted to use Stop Motion to put it all together. Students took lots of pictures, carefully moving the characters a tiny bit for each frame. Then they recorded their voice over the video to explain the rules and laws that they were addressing.

To share their work, the students saved their videos to the camera roll and then logged into Google Classroom on the iPads to upload their video to their teacher. Take a look at this finished student work sample:

The students in Mrs. Martin’s 2nd grade class at Greenwood have been studying weather and learning about the different types of extreme weather. For this lesson, the students logged into Google and joined their teachers Google Classroom. From there they were able to click on their assignment and it automatically made a copy of the Google Slides presentation for them. The students worked on the slides to add text and an image. They got a lot of practice with typing and resizing images during this lesson, as well as a review of the different types of storms and extreme weather.

Take a look at this finished student work sample:

The student’s in Mrs. King’s kindergarten class at Longan have been working on 1-1 correspondence and counting up to 10. For this activity, students used crayons that were already at their table to count out a certain number of crayons. We started at 1 and worked our way up to 10 throughout the 4 rotations. Students used Book Creator on the iPads to take a picture of a set of crayons. Next they used the pen tool to write the number that represented the number of crayons in the photo. Finally, students used the recording feature to say how many crayons they had. They continued these steps for the next couple pages so that by the time the rotations were over, we had a complete counting book from 1-10. It was a little repetitive on each page, but that helped the students learn the steps. They picked up on these skills quickly and will be able to use Book Creator for a similar project in the near future.

In our last lesson, the Kindergarten students used Seesaw for a shape hunt. For this lesson, I showed the teacher how she could send these projects straight from Book Creator to the Seesaw app. Since multiple students worked on one book, we were able to select all of the group members in Seesaw and add the same book to each of their folders. Seesaw also has a share option in which you are able to get an embed code to post the finished video to your blog. Check out one of the great work samples from today:

The 5th Grade students at Montrose had a blast using Tellagami on the iPad minis to explain the non-fiction text features they have been studying in class. Their teachers were prepared with a variety of non-fiction texts for them to choose from. Within the book that they selected, students found a page with the feature they wanted to discuss and took a picture of it for the background. They customized their Tellagami avatar and then recorded their voice on the avatar to explain the text feature that they were showcasing in their background image.

Toward the end of the lesson, students were directed to log into Google Classroom on the iPads. Once logged in, they were able to upload their Tellagami videos that had been saved to the camera roll. Take a look at some of the finished Tellagami’s!

Non-Fiction Text Features from Karen Hues on Vimeo.

The students in Ms. Long’s 1st grade class have been learning about the patriotic symbols. To enhance their study of this topic, students participated in a Nearpod lesson in which they were able to go on a 360 tour of the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument, view a video of bald eagles, match the symbols to their name, and play a memory matching game. The student’s favorite part was going on the tours. By standing up and spinning in place with the iPad, the students were able to see what it actually looks like at the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument. Since these are both so tall, they had to tilt the iPad up to view the top of these structures. To view the lesson click HERE. To download this lesson to your Nearpod library click HERE.

Today at Shady Grove the Tech Takeout Crew went to Shady Grove to work with around 160 4th grade students for our first Tech Takeout of the 2016-2017 school year! Tech Takeout is when a group of ITRTs travel to different elementary schools once a month to teach a technology infused lesson. This group was born from the guiding principle that we become better educators working together rather than being alone.

We take a concept of the teacher’s choosing. We then design 4 stations that use 21st century skills and technology to teach the material in a meaningful way. #TechTakeout takes the fear out of new technology and empowers teachers.

We had a blast talking about text features, summarizing, vocabulary and context clues. Tech takeout sessions were started with a Nearpod on Main idea

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Mrs. Browne and Mrs. Robinson’s groups worked on summarizing and finding the main idea. Students started by reading a short passage about astronauts in space. After summarizing and identifying the main idea students accessed StoryBoard That from their school’s server shortcuts. Students worked to create a 3 panel comic strip about the main idea. They then used the snipping tool to take a screenshot of their comic. Finally, they uploaded their finished product to a Padlet wall so they could see each other’s work.

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Mr. Covais and Ms. Aquilina worked with students to make trailers for popular picture books. Students read a book then made a short video explaining the main idea of the book, using Dell Webcam Central. The students then took the video and uploaded it to a shared Google Folder. Now students from all over the school can watch the book trailers and see if they want to read the book! This is such an easy way to not only work on main idea, but to also connect with other grade levels.

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Mrs. Taylor and Mr. Caratachea worked with National Geographic and Google Slides today at Shady Grove! The students accessed the Google Slides Template through the student server. The first slide on the Google Slides had a link to National Geographic which the students clicked to access a magazine. The students worked in pairs after signing into Google to work collaboratively on their Google Slide. Each group worked together to track down the different text features such as Headings, Title, Bold Words, and so much more!

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Mrs. Green and Mr. Favale had a great time teaching students how to understand unfamiliar vocabulary words. We started off by giving students an appropriate grade level article obtained from Newsela about using drones to understand tornadoes. The students chose a word in the article that they felt was important to the story and they didn’t hear very often. The students used context clues to first write the word to be defined. Next they listed some characteristics and provided some examples and non-examples that corresponded with the main word. If we had more time we would use Popplet, but unfortunately we were stretched for time and skipped this step. The students then showcased their work by creating an awesome short movie using a movie web tool called Wevideo. Students clicked the Google button on Wevideo then signed into Google and away they went to create. Students are able to save their work in Wevideo and continue editing at a later date. Here is an awesome example completed in a very short amount of time.

If your school has purchased RAZ Kids, those accounts were sent out last week. Check your junk/clutter if you were supposed to receive one and have not yet. RAZ Kids is a great program for having students read books at their level and check for understanding. Using the listen, read, and assess model, students work through their library of books and earn stars for their work. They love earning stars because that means they can accessorize their robot avatar and rocket within the program. RAZ Kids keeps track of student progress and provides that information to the teacher. RAZ Kids can also be used at home or on the go. There is a free RAZ Kids app that you can download on your tablet or phone, so students can practice anywhere!