Kindergarten Day in the Lab

One of my favorite days of the week is Thursday's this year! Why? Because that is when my Kindergartners come! I had a little trouble in the past creating lessons for my kinders that weren't too simple. I don't want them to spend their computer time learning to click and drag or find their letters on the keyboard. Yes, I do believe those things are important, but I feel like that "stuff" can be incorporated in with more thought provoking lessons. When my students enter the lab I want them to be engaged in inquiring, analyzing, collaborating activities...yes, even my kindergartners!

A couple weeks ago, my kinders started a partner research project on the animal of their choice. All I gave them to begin was a pencil, paper, and a few links they might find useful. Ready, set...GO! I only see my kinders for an hour a week, so going into it I planned for multiple weeks.

The first week the students chose their animal and wrote a few things they already knew about it. They then came up with 2 questions they had about their animal.

Writing what we already know and 2 questions we have about our animal.

Week two, they began researching their animals. Along with finding the answers to their questions, they also had a place on their paper for WOW facts. These were things that really stood out and they would like to share with others.

Researching our animals, using Big Universe, Pebble Go, Discovery Education, & Enchanted Learning.

The third week the real fun began! Students got to use their Discovery Education accounts to create an interactive board in Board Builder. They are in the process, now, of putting all of their information onto their boards, along with some awesome videos, images, and sound effects from Discovery.

Building our boards using Discovery Education Board Builder.

Next week, we will be finishing our boards, and the students will become the teachers! They will use their boards to teach me and the class about their animals.
This is the first time that I have done a complete research project with my kindergarten students and they have blown me away! I truly believe that your students can accomplish anything you believe they can. It does take patience but it is so worth it! I am so excited to see their "lessons" on animals next week!

What's Going on in Your Classroom?

Have you ever been in the middle of a lesson and thought, "Wow, my kids are doing some amazing things! I wish people could see the awesome learning happening now!" but don't have a way to get it out there? I don't know about you but I find myself thinking that daily! My kiddos amaze me everyday with their learning! Since I have turned the control over to them (read more about that here), some great things are happening in the lab! But other than just talking about it over lunch and discussing it on my blog, I didn't really have a way for others to SEE the awesomeness that my kids are getting into....until now!
I have used Padlet (formerly known as Wallwisher) for a few years now. We used to it collaborate and share ideas as a class. However, it wasn't until I went to a workshop with Kevin Honeycutt, who is an AMAZING and INSPIRING educator, that I thought about using it as a doorway into my classroom! Padlet lets you change the layout of the posts to a stream, a lot like Twitter. This works great as a timeline! I have started taking pictures of the inquiring, learning, and collaborating that happens throughout the day in the lab. I then, upload the images to Padlet and type a little blurb describing what's happening with each grade level that day. I may post as many as 3 or 4 pictures that day, just depending on the lessons. I have embedded the Padlet wall into my class website and onto our blog so that the students, parents, and other teachers can get a first hand look at what's going on in our room! Check out our Padlet wall below! How could you get the word out about how awesome your students are?

Created with Padlet

"OOOOOHHH AAAAH!"

This is the reaction I got when I told my fourth graders that we were going to be starting a collaborative project on North Carolina using Google Presentations. They love working in groups, of course, so this was right up there alley. Being a self proclaimed Google Girl, I use Google Drive all the time! It's just so easy to use and share! But I haven't used it much with my students for creating, mostly because they don't have their own Google Drive accounts. But, after talking to a few of my teacher "idols", I decided to give it a whirl. I created a Google Presentation for each group and shared it with them for editing. We discussed proper use of the documents and how to use the chat feature (which they love). The students were amazed that they could sit at their own individual computers and work with 3 others scattered around the room. They were actually communicating and discussing their project more by using the chat feature than they usually do simply talking about it. It was so great to see them collaborating and working together that I shared the links with a teacher in Pennsylvania. He let his 8th graders look in while my kids were working. They sent a nice message in the chat box thanking my kids for sharing and how great they were doing! My kiddos were ecstatic!!! All their little chests poked out and their chins raised with pride that 8th graders in another state were commenting on their work! They should be finishing their presentations next week and then we will be presenting them to the class (and possibly on UStream) the next. I'm sure this is only the first of many Google Docs projects we will be doing!

Edmodo

This past year I had my first encounter with an awesome FREE collaboration tool called Edmodo. Edmodo is a great, secure website, where teachers and students can create connections with their peers across the United States, or even within their very own building. There are two ways that I use Edmodo-as an educator, and as a teacher.

As an educator: For me, especially working in the technology field, a PLN (Personal Learning Network) is very important. It gives me the chance to connect with others who do what I do. It gives me a chance to see how others teach and incorporate technology in their classrooms, which I can, then, bring into my own lessons. Edmodo is a HUGE part of my PLN. You can join virtual communities focused on your forte and collaborate and discuss with other educators about it! The communities are a great way to get new ideas or go to for help when you are having an issue with something. Our district also recently joined Edmodo. Slowly but surely, all of our teachers across the county are joining and sharing with one another. I believe that this brings us closer together as a community. While we may not be able to drive across the county to get a copy or share something, we can always upload it to Edmodo!

As a teacher: My fifth graders were the first to try out Edmodo this year and they LOVED it! We worked with a group in Baltimore, Maryland. As a teacher on the site, you can place your students in groups. We created groups of about 8, 4 NC kids and 4 MD kids. By logging into the secure site and the kids were automatically connected with kids their age from another state! They started out by uploading All About Me PowerPoint slides to learn about one anther. From there...it was ON! They were constantly getting on Edmodo to start discussions of their own with their new buddies! As a teacher, whenever I or the teacher in Maryland, logged into the site, we could see each and every aspect of the discussions, so it was easily monitored. This is a great way to connect my kids to others around them. It can also be used as a communication tool in the classroom as well. Teachers can upload and assign assignments and then grade them right inside Edmodo! The can also create cool badges for the kids to collect when they complete a certain project or action! These badges are placed on their profile to show off to others! PS....Parents can create an account as well so they can keep up with what their students are talking about!

This year I feel much more comfortable with Edmodo and plan to use it with many more grade levels! Do you use this great web tool in your classroom?

Co-llab-or-a-tion...

So today my first graders learned a new word....COLLABORATION! It was awesome, if I do say so myself! We sounded out the word and after lots of fun guessing about what it meant, we finally learned that it meant sharing ideas with others. We discussed how you can collaborate with people that are very close to you, like those in your classroom, and those who are far away...even in a different country! We talked about how they collaborated daily...One even said, "I never knew I could cobalorate so much!" Too cute! So we decided to collaborate today using Linoit, an awesome, very user friendly, and very FREE virtual board site where you can post virtual stickies, images, videos, and documents! (It's a lot like wallwisher, but in my opinion a little better!) So anyhoo, I posted a Blabber (we will discuss these in a later post) of a little leprechaun with instructions for the students, just to add a little more fun. They were to post a sticky with their idea of what they would do if they caught a leprechaun. Then the fun began. They all started posting their stickies and they were amazed at all of the little stickies that filled their wall. They could not only submit their idea, but they could read the ideas of other...thus COLLABORATION! It was so cool and they loved it! That same child from earlier even asked, "Can we cobalorate again tomorrow?" (HaHa! We're still working on the pronunciation!) If you get a chance check out Linoit and use it to cobalorate, I mean collaborate with your sweeties! Here's a link to our board below! How would you use it in your classroom?

Let's Skype About It!

Checkout our newest Skype project started by our awesome art and music teachers!!! Comment if you would like to participate! The more the merrier!!!

What's that You Say???

Ok, my new love is Voicethread! Voicethread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that can be used to display images, drawings, document, videos...ANYTHING really! I have known about it for quite awhile, but haven't really had the chance to use it with one of my classes until now I do believe I am addicted...(the first step, they say, is admitting your problem!) The application is suuuuuuuper easy! All you have to do is create an account, which of course, is FREE! You then upload whatever you want to display. I did this with my Cross Categorical class on Thanksgiving senses, so they had already typed up a little poem about what they sense on Thanksgiving in the previous week, so I uploaded those. After that you create an identity for each student. You can use their picture or a clip art image, just as long as it represents them. Once that is done the students open the Voicethread and they can then record what they want to say about their item. For example, we were working on fluency with the Cross Cat class, so they read their Thanksgiving Senses poem. Then they can comment, using voice recording, webcam, or text on other students slides. You can then decide whether you want the Voicethread to remain private or allow others to view and comment on the slides. You, as the creator, can also moderate the comments to make it safe! Very collaborative...Very interactive....VERY FUN! Below is our Thanksgiving Senses Voicethread! I was so proud of the students! I'd love to hear how you would use Voicethread in your classroom! Comment below!

What's the Hype with Skype?

So today I did my first Skype session with a group of 2nd graders in Mrs. Cozart's class. We connected with another 2nd grade class in Baltimore, MD! The kids had so much fun introducing themselves and learning about one another's school, classroom, and community! I could not believe how easy it really was! All I had to do was sign up for a Skype account, install it on the computer, plug in my webcam...and off we go!!! To find the class, I simply signed up for Skype in the Classroom and created a project looking for 2nd grade classrooms around the globe who would like to do a year long connection with another group sharing what they were learning throughout the year. I got messages back almost immediately!

We plan to reconnect with the class again within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we will be able to connect with some other classes around the globe throughout the year as well. We would also like to add some authors, illustrators, and people of different professions to our contacts as well!

If you have never Skyped, you don't know what you are missing! It is such an awesome global project for kids of all ages! It helps them to learn about the world around them while talking to others their own age! To learn more about Skype and how to get it in your classroom, click here! What are you waiting for? Join the hype with Skype!!!

Going Ga Ga for Google Docs

So my new favorite toy...I know I say that about everything...but it is!...is Google Docs! What a great tool to use with the kids! Google Docs is a free online version of a word processor, spreadsheet, multimedia presentation, and database all in one website! They look similar to the Microsoft Office software, only you don't have to pay out the wazoo to own it. All you have to do is sign up for a free gmail account. What I really like is that they are all web based. Therefore, they are easy to get to from any computer, as long as you have Internet access. Students without Microsoft Office can still create on the computer!

One of the best perks of Google Docs is the form tool. The form can be used to create surveys, which can be emailed out. The results are automatically sent to a spreadsheet so that the answers can be reviewed. I have used the form for many different things. I had my 4th graders come up with 4 new flavors of ice cream for an imaginary ice cream company. They then created the survey and emailed it out to the teachers. When they came back to me the next week, all of their results were in the spreadsheet for them to then analyze! It took a boring paper and pencil lesson and jazzed it up! I have also used them as a technology issues form for my teachers. Whenever they have a problem, they fill out the form and it emails me. Very simple!

As you can tell, Google Docs has so much to offer! Why $200 for software anymore when something better is right at your fingertips!?


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