Biome Movie Trailers

Here are the students iMovie trailers. They used the planning documents to build the content before starting to film. Some finished, so did most of the video. More to come. There are a few more groups I need to upload. We are planning to host a "Film Fest" with the trailers, green screen movies and movie posters! Should be fun....

The Rainforest from Autumn Laidler on Vimeo.

The Rainforest from Autumn Laidler on Vimeo.

Critical thinking and Film Making

After an uninspired start to my school year the last month has been full of new ideas and exploration with my students and technology. I decided to create a green screen filming studio for my students to make movies about the biomes they had just finished studying. I will share those soon! The work they did was creating scripts, creating the background for their speaking parts and then filming in front of the green screen.

I did not want to just stop at the movie making, but I wanted the students to be reflective both about the work and have practice at giving feedback that is both complimentary and critical. I wanted them to push their own work and see how they could help their classmates be better too.

I really appreciate the focus they displayed in watching each other's videos, but also the focus they put into the feedback. I have stated in this blog before that feedback is something I consider a weakness in my teaching practice. I want it to be done, be done in a timely way and be meaningful to my students. This experience allows me to remember that feedback can be meaningful and have an impact from a peer.

Here is a sample of the students viewing the work and giving feedback on Edmodo.

Reviewing Biome Movies from Autumn Laidler on Vimeo.

Videos and movie trailers to follow!

Using Flipsnack for Virtual Books

After working with my students using applications like Mental Note to create multimedia science journals I wanted to venture into using the student work to create an e-portfolio for individual student's work using the website Flipsnack. Flipsnack.com allows for any document that is a PDF to be transfer onto the site and combined into a virtual book with selected backgrounds. Each book can be downloaded, emailed, embedded, tweeted or posted to Facebook. I really appreciate all the ways to share the work!

Because almost any iPad app that has email capabilities then has the possibility to be turned into a PDF using the print function, it makes almost anything Flipsnack-able. The flipsnack books are also special because they do not require flash, so even as they are created with a bit of a work around from iPad to computer, they are easily viewed on iPads.

For easy viewing, embed these books to your homepage for your students to view. I also decided to take one project and put all the student work into a project book. This allows for students to see how others attempted and worked on the same project, which could lend well to student getting and giving feedback.

Here are a few key features to making a Flipsnack book:

On the Flipsnack.com site you can easily upload PDF files from both URLs or from files you have saved, even from places like dropbox!



This next section allows you to personalize the book background. I also checked the "merge all documents into one" to have a bit more flow to the book.



Check out my two Flipsnack books I made using some student samples. I really think a cool project would be a class comic book using Kabaam.

Animal Adaptations and iPads

My fourth grade students have been studying animals and adaptations. As a way to apply what they have learned about the why and the ways animals adapt they created new animals with adaptations to survive. The students had to select an environment and then decide on an adaptation that would help them survive in the conditions of the environment, help the animal eat, or prevent the animal from being eaten. Students worked on paper first and then chose either Audioboo and recorded a podcast and added the picture, or worked on Educreations. A few surprises: two partners recording the podcast together! Collaboration with the audio after they collaborated on their animal. Other students used the web search on Educreations to show how the animal they created was a mashup of animals already in existence. I tend to be resistant of students just searching for pictures, but the student example below proved she was capable,she was intentional and curated her photos properly to add to her message about her animal's adaptations!

I am very proud of their work! See the examples below.

listen to ‘Two headed turtah’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Wolf Kai by jaylan’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Greatness of princess the eagle’ on Audioboo

Educreations and photo sort

Implementing ipads in the intermediate science classroom has been a great adventure.  I am working on using the ipads daily, but also trying to use them in creative and transformative ways.  Although not something transformative, I think this is a good use of the technology.  My students are working on determining vertebrate groups and classifying.   I decided to create different dropbox folders with different pictures for students to use in a sort and then make a rule about their sort.  I put pictures in the group that were of two different vertebrate groups. We started with "rule" and "not the rule" for example, "gills" and "no gills" as the sorts went on, students were trying to find characteristics of vertebrate groups.

Students went to the Educreations application and started a new project.  Under the photo icon students can select Dropbox.  I have my ipads all connected to the class Dropbox account.  Students followed the folders until they reached the sort folder I directed them to open.  I labeled the sorts with generic numbers to not give any information about the characteristics of the animals in the sort. I put from ten to fifteen pictures in each folder.

Students then selected each image and resized it to fit on the page.  Once they have all the images downloaded students were free to examine the photos and find a common characteristic to create two groups.  We would do multiple sorts and students would use the apple tv to share their sort and characteristic.  Often they would create a rule around color, where the animals live, what they may eat, if they are large or not, but eventually a student would find the desired group, or I would create either the rule and ask them to sort or share a sort and ask the students to find my rule. 

Once students figured out the group and the label, we then tried to find characteristics that were true for each group.  Some of these were obvious like all fish live underwater, but others were pointed out and then observed by students, like all reptiles have scales.  Having the students be able to view some of the observable traits using pictures made the learning easier for students and gave multiple examples of a feature.

For some of my more advanced students I would have them use the web search feature to find another animal that falls into the group.  Another idea that my thought partner, Jennie Magiera, added to bring up the level of thinking, was to have students narrate their metacognition about how they are sorting and what they are thinking about as they grouped pictures.

Mystery Skype

Students were able to mystery skype with another science classroom in Huron, Ohio.  The students did well at their task, speaking, locating the class and using social media to connect with students in another classroom.  This was the first mystery skype we have done this year and it was successful for the following reasons:

• Using Langwitches Blog for great assessment and planning information
• Assigning jobs to students: questioners, answerers, greeter, partners: edmodo and map teams
• Practicing with questions that would be given in the "real" skype
• Practicing finding mystery locations with our questions

Silvia Tolisano's website host great ideas for digital learning, but her Skype resources were really helpful for me to execute a plan for my students and make sure the call was meaningful to our digital learning.  After we assigned jobs, read over the class questions, it was time to practice!  This step was really helpful for the students to practice both answering questions, using the questions, and working with a partner to narrow down the location of the classroom.  Two teachers skyped in from down the hall and created a "mystery" location for the students to work on.  The students teamed up as partners, one person had the skitch app open to the U.S. map and used the annotation tool to cross of states that were not the mystery location based on the questions and answers.  We also practiced answering the questions the class would ask us the following day.  (Sending the questions between teachers before hand is extremely helpful!) The partners on edmodo were able to share what the team was doing on the class backchannel.  This teamwork allowed students to work together and also share ideas if another team was not on the right track via edmodo.

When we skyped with the class on the actual mystery skype, the plan and practice the day before paid off.  The students were able to work comfortably with the map and edmodo and also had practice at being "on screen" for the Skype call.  They were able to locate the state after all the questioned were asked and they felt successful in the task.  After the skype we used edmodo again to backchannel our learning and ideas.  These became the tweets we composed to share our mystery Skype with a larger audience.

We are looking forward to connecting with other classrooms around the country through Skype! 

Social Media in the Classroom

After three weeks with students we are getting into ipad apps and programs like Edmodo and kidblog.org.  Next week we will be going live with a Skype call with a class in another state to add another tool to our digital learning.  I have been discussing digital citizenship a lot with students and discussing the difference between social and academic language and what is expected when we are using tools that are generally viewed as purely "social" and talking about how they need to be "academic" when used at school with peers.

I have turned to teachers that have more experience and are sharing their tools to help make the experience successful for both teachers and learners.  Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano blog, known on twitter as @langwitches,  is a great tool for all things technology and social.  I am using her as a guide for my new dive into social media with students.  I believe one reason her students are so successful is because she creates expectations that are explicit for students and she can assess them appropriately.  Her tools to guide students also make me feel more confident about implementing social media.

My next attempt with social media will be to have students write tweets on an Edmodo backchannel, review them, then post on twitter. I also wanted to create a hashtag that would be tied to our classes blogs but also one I could tie to the school so teachers, staff, and maybe parents could follow and tweet back.  My hope is the hashtag will become something teachers at National Teachers Academy use when tweeting to share ideas among staff as well.  I believe we are all learning and need to model this for students as well.  I plan to use #ntalearns to tag our class tweets and professional tweets I want to share with my school learning community.

Follow our learning on twitter @ntastudents1 and look for our upcoming blog posts!