Lego Stories

These Lego personal narratives were created by my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade ENL students. This was our first attempt at making digital presentations on our iPads. Students brainstormed ideas, wrote their story, edited and revised, created a storyboard showing each scene, drew backgrounds, constructed buildings, vehicles and other props, took pictures of their scenes, and finally narrated their whole project. We created our final projects on the VoiceThread app.

I created a Pinterest board with all of our stories. Check it out at: http://www.pinterest.com/saragalbreath/lego-stories/

Inspiring Passion & Curiosity with Technology

Technology allows me the affordance of easily exploring my interests, as well as investigating new ideas. I like dabbling in video/photo/audio editing, various kinds of digital design, as well as creating original materials for my class. I use a variety of bookmarking tools to help me keep track of ideas. The tech tools I regularly use are too numerous to mention in this post. Recent favorites include PicLits, WorkFlowy, TubeChop, PicMonkey, Weebly, and most recently DomoAnimate.

I am reminded of the recent phone interview I completed last fall for my first teaching job. We talked for a good 30 minutes and toward the end the principal asked me this question.
Interviewer: "What would you do if a student said your class was boring?"
Me: (Thinking) "Well, that's pretty much impossible!"
Interviewer: (Laughing) "That's the best answer we've heard all day!"
I love this true story because I think it really shows how I feel about what I do. It is not just some job, it is my life and passion. I am constantly striving to improve and grow. My students notice that and want to join me on our journey for knowledge! As educators, we are powerful forces demonstrating curiosity and an eagerness to learn, simply by personally modeling it. As the adult in the classroom, you are the role model for students about how to approach learning. Is it a chore, simply another task to be accomplished? Or is learning something that engages your mind and requires use of your unique talents? Every moment is an opportunity to learn something new about this amazing world we live in. My brain gets a happy feeling when I am learning, perhaps the sensation of synapses connecting in new and interesting ways. I love to learn and feel privileged that I get to share that learning with my students every day!

Technology is a vast playground of digital learning and educators have the responsibility to model and teach appropriate use of technology tools, allowing for student input and decision making along the way. Using technology is an incredible way to peak student interest about new ideas. Technology should not only be used by teachers for teaching students, but students should also be able to use technology tools to research interests and new ideas. Students should then be allowed to express their knowledge using technology. Teachers can give students the freedom to choose a technology tool to demonstrate content mastery. This gives students input and the ability to make decisions about their own learning. Teachers then take the role of an advisor or facilitator, guiding students on their personal journey of learning. There is no better job in the world in my opinion!

Please find below my something I created using something. It demonstrates the main ideas from this post. This was the first time I used DomoAnimate and am happy with the options available, as well as ease of use.

DomoNation.com:
Inspiring Passion & Curiosity with Technology by MrsGalbreath

Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It's free and fun!

Tech Week & Leaves!

This week I introduced a few cool tech learning tools to my students. Third, fourth, and fifth graders worked on Pirate Pad. If you have ever used EtherPad or Titan Pad, Pirate Pad is pretty much the same. Here is the link to one of the 4th grade pads. It is an online collaborative writing platform. We were fortunate enough to have 3 laptops available for student use this week. The students thought it was so cool that we could write to each other and see what others were writing instantly. They thought we were "chatting" which made it even more fun. I am not sure how reliable Pirate Pad will be. We did have a few connection issues. I know Google Docs has a collaborative element, so I may try using that next time. With this one tech tool students were spelling, forming sentences, asking questions, rereading their own writing, reading others' writing, using capitalization/punctuation, practicing their typing skills, AND working together as a group. All that in one thirty minute session! That makes this teacher happy! :D

First and second graders experienced Sound Cloud this week. On this site, you can record any sound and have it available immediately for playback. The possibilities are endless with this kind of application. Since it was their first time using this program, students simply introduced themselves. They got such a kick out of hearing their own voices! There was a lot of  giggling! I will be using this tool to record student oral reading, discussions, even sound effects for books and stories. 

My intensive groups that I meet with several times a week created books this week. Each group had a different poem about Autumn. We worked on visualizing the words in the poem, and then illustrated the different lines of the poem. We will turn these into our first homemade books of the year! I love making books with my students! It is so personal and meaningful to them AND it gives me an opportunity to use my creative juices! We then used Sound Cloud to record our voices saying each line from the poem. I put their pictures together with their narration to make a movie. I have the Kindergarten movie done and am still working on First and Third Grades. I am so happy with how it turned out! I can't wait to show the kids on Monday! :D  ( YouTube link: Leaves by Kindergarten )

Note: I used iMovie to create the videos. Apparently when putting a title slide at the end or beginning of a movie, you cannot change the background color. I wanted a white title slide at the beginning of the movie, but it would not let me change it from black. Hmmm....I like my customization iMovie! I could also create slideshows with SlideRocket or find another program that lets me do what I want! Anyway, it is all good! :D

Creative Weekend Projects

This past weekend I got my creative on and put together three easy projects. Thank you Pinterest for some inspiration.

Homemade Dry-Erase Calendar
(Inspired by this and that.)

I think the calendar turned out quite nicely, nice bright colors. I feel happy when I look at it. Got the poster frame for $6.00 at Target (16x20). The paintchips are from Menards (about 2.5x2.5).  The black plastic frame comes in 4 pieces and slips onto the sides of the cardboard back.  The frame has a plastic front cover which is kind of flimsy. Build to last next time. Next time I will splurge and buy an actual picture frame with glass front cover. Cost: $6.00. Time: 1 hour.

Daily/Weekly Objectives Frames - dry-erase 
(Inspired by this and that.)

These frames add some much needed color to the chalkboard. It is very important for students to know the learning objectives in my class. These are my four main subjects since I teach ENL. I will write the weekly objectives on the frame with dry-erase marker or visa vi pen. Can be wiped clean and changed for each week. Frames are from Dollar Tree ($1.00/each). I downloaded some free fonts and printed the words on textured card stock that I already had. I used magnetic tape on the back so I could hang them on the magnetic chalkboard. You could also hang them with ribbon like one of the examples above. Cost: $5.00. Time: 2 hours (downloading fonts, designing, and printing).

Class Norms 
(Inspired by this and that.)

I like to use class norms over class rules. These are simple principles to live by and they cover pretty much any issue that may come up in a classroom. Frames are from Dollar Tree ($1.00/each). I downloaded some free fonts, picked out some clip art and printed on white card stock.
Cost: $4.00. Time: 2 hours (downloading fonts, designing, and printing).

I had a lot of fun putting these great projects together this weekend. Thank you to my wonderful husband for helping! I wonder what fun project I will work on next! :D