Grant Reflections

45 students were served by this grant. This grant supported the problem based learning inquiry by allowing students to use the devices to research topics efficiently and quickly. We were able to use web 2.0 tools to produce products for their Environmental Expo project as well as in class assignments throughout the year. The iTouches were seamlessly infused in our math stations and allowed students to work on their problem solving skills in a engaging & motivating way.

The Netbooks were used with Edmodo.com to activate prior knowledge before reading a National Geographic Explorer article on caves. Students were able to share any background information which helped their reading comprehension of the article.

Students made various products using web 2.0 tools which took the place of projects that were normally created using paper. Glogsters were used to create research on an explorer, Texas colonists, or information on a nonfiction topic. Animotos were created as book trailers and biographies. Bookrs were created as responses to what they read in a nonfiction article.

The iPod Touches were used in reading groups to take notes on in place of Post-It notes. Students were able to share their thinking while reading. The iTouches were also used in math stations. Students were able to use numerous math apps as a station. For some apps, students wrote down the problem and answered it in their math journal. Students were still able to reflect after using this touches as a station like they would normal reflect after their regular math station.

We plan to continue using the devices in all content areas and building on what we have learned this year. Due to the overwhelmingingly positive response from our Terrace Environmental Expo we plan on having a Terrace International Conference which will focus on humantarian efforts students can do in third world countries. This will tie into the 4th grade international night which encompasses health fitness, art, and music areas.

Living the Dream

The very first Terrace Environmental Expo was a success! We had about 500 students come through the expo yesterday. Our students shined and impressed everyone who visited their booth. Teachers were amazed how well the students knew the information. At times we had too many visitors and we wished we had a better working AC it was a success.

In the evening we had parents come and students performed a song they composed with our music teacher. Parents were amazed and impressed that 10 year olds were so knowledgeable. One parent said her daughter knew more about pandas than she could ever learn from just reading a book.

It took many hours of work, but it was definitely worth it. The big question everyone was asking yesterday, "Are you going to do this next year?" It is something we are definitely going to consider.

Pictures and a movie will be posted later.

T.E.E. preparation

Our students are in the final stages of their T.E.E. presentation preparations. The entire school has been invited to come to the expo next Tuesday, May 18th. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everyone does not come all at once.

Since we have had so many problems with loading pictures to Animoto students have used Photostory to create their movies. This is so frustrating because Animoto creates a much more polished video than photostory, however, I can't have kids waiting 30-45 minutes for 8 pictures to upload. I think this has more to do with our district server than Animoto since we have been experiencing slow internet service the past couple of weeks.

My project idea to use bookr has been replaced with a Glogster or photostory because bookr has slow loading times as well. Web 2.0 tools are great when you can use them.

An Animoto will be created from home using pictures of students during the planning stages of the T.E.E. which will be played throughout the T.E.E. Our students have written a song and will perform it for their parents with their instruments Tuesday night for parents. Hopefully, our wonderful music teacher will be able to make a recording of them so it can be played during the day.

Consuming Podcasts

Students dove into iTunes! Today, we discovered podcasting. My goal is for them to actually make podcasts based on Time for Kids and/or National Geographic for Kids articles they have read in the past.
For now, they are listening to different types of podcasts and taking notes how successful podcasts are run. We have decided to make a class running list of the top podcasts we like.

Bookr, ABCya!, and Flickr

This week I will be introducing my students to Bookr and the website ABCya! I discovered ABCya! from Tammy Worcester's weekly tip. It's an awesome website with tons of possibilties. I love the Word Cloud...it's just like Wordle only you can save the image as a jpg and they seem to have more possibilities with text direction. While you don't get as many font choices there are still plenty to choose from and since of the font names on Wordle were not appropriate for elementary. Word Cloud is perfect!!

I hope to post links to my student's bookr's in the coming weeks. I will also be introducing my students to some of the Big Lab Tools ...which they can use for the T.E.E. project.

Earth Day at Terrace

Our students have been very busy working on their T.E.E. projects. We are taking a 2-week break from meeting together since we are going to be testing this week and we are working on other projects.

A pair of students brought awareness to energy conservation to our school on Earth Day. Our entire school went black for 5 minutes. Since we are an open concept school teachers could turn on a lamp or just half-lights depending on where they were in the building. Since Annie and I are in temporary buildings we didn't get the really effect, but I did peek down the hall and saw nothing but blackness. Wow!

Our paper retrievers continue their daily paper runs. I know our garbage can is a lot less full these days.

We are also collecting Capri Sun pouches. At first I was worried that we wouldn't collect the miniumum number required by Terracycle (100), but as of Friday, April 23rd we have collected 155 pouches!! We have made more signs to post around the school and hopefully our announcement made it in time to for our school newsletter.

Plan B

Animoto is such a fabulous resource!! A FREE resource that apparently many, many other people are taking advantage of just like us. As our students begin preparing for their T.E.E. presentations some are wanting to create an Animoto. Well...in theory that's a great idea and it USED to be really fast...not so much now. Pictures are taking a really long time to load. One of my students found all the pictures she needed so she was ready to go. She spent over 30 minutes waiting for her 6 pictures to load. She tried another computer...she tried doing it in the afternoon instead of in the morning. Other students experienced the same thing.I thought it might be a SBISD server issue, however, another said that she tried using Animoto at home with the same result...the slow uploading.

It's time for plan B....iMovie or Photostory. Our music teacher is an Apple expert at our campus, so she is going to teach Annie and I how to create an iMovie using pictures. I have only used iMovie with video. Unfortunately we aren't going to meet until Monday, so today Annie and I should our classes how to create a photostory. I still remember when photostory was the fun and new tool! Many students created projects during our library time...not so much anymore. No one knew how to use it. There were no problems loading and there are plenty of free music choices for our students to choose from.