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.

Problems with Signal

Working on Terrace Environmental Expo

T.E.E. - Planning

Our classes have official started planning for the T.E.E. (Terrace Environmental Expo) The T.E.E. will be May 18. We will have students presenting information in the library part of the day and again in the evening from 6-7pm for their parents and other community members. Each student has a T.E.E. project folder where they are taking their notes & writing reflections and setting goals for the next meeting. Students were also given a calendar with 3 important dates - their planning deadline, project deadline, and the T.E.E. Annie and I realized we needed to teach our students the steps in which you complete such a big project and we wanted to them to use their time efficiently so we gave them calendars.

We have been conferencing with students to help focus their ideas/passions. Time for Kids and National Geographic Explorer are wonderful resources of information and have really opened our eyes to problems of the world. Students have become so passionate about parrots and other endangered animals. During one class discussion about the California Condor my students couldn't believe everyone didn't care about saving them. I told them a lot of people just aren't aware this is a problem. Awareness is key to making change!

We laid out the expectations for T.E.E. and the process leading up to it, then posed the question to students "What are your passionate about? How are you going to share with others your passion?" We brainstormed a list of conservation topics, gave each student a netbook or iTouch, and they were off. Students discussed the list of topics with their partner did some research and came up with a topic. Students have made plans to bring awareness to their topic during the specific day(s) in April to the rest of the school. We spent last week gathering supplies, making posters, and getting boxes ready. Some students will start their projects this week others in the coming weeks.

Check back for pictures!

Edmodo

Before we left for our much needed Spring Break I introduced my students to Edmodo. They loved it!! Annie has already been using this with her class and they love it as well. It looks like Facebook, so I think that is part of the appeal. After reading a Time for Kids article about California's Condors I posted an open ended discussion question on edmodo and students began to respond. I have to say that I have never seen students to eager to respond after reading a Time for Kids article before.

I decided to try using Edmodo with one of my reading groups. My Chasing Redbird reading group came down to the floor with their netbooks and we discussed the book. I through out questions and thoughts that I had while I read and they responded. I had to remind them to keep the discussion focused on the book. They did a great job and they really enjoyed discussing the book this way. All my other reading groups we clamoring to try Edmodo as well... I will definitely be using this as a way for students to respond to their reading. I think meeting and discussing the book is important this is a great tool for students who can't wait to meet to start discussing the book immediately or as they are reading the assigned chapters.

Some of our third grade teachers have used Edmodo with their study of plants and their students have really enjoyed using it outside of the school day. I shared my ideas for Edmodo and the first roadblock would be lack of laptops for students to use all at once. They would need to be in the computer lab which takes away from the immediate feedback/discussion. I realized how lucky my class is to have access to a class set netbooks at any given time...they could have easily written their reading response to the Time for Kids article in their reading journals, but I know I would not have gotten such a rich discussion of the article.

Texas Hero Project

Students researched a Texas Hero using the Netbooks every day for a week. The students created business cards with a Web 2.0 tool called Badge Maker. On the final day, students dressed as their Texas Hero and exchanged cards. I took a Netbook outside to the playground with us. I was able to play "Deep in the Heart of Texas" from www.youtube.com so the students could "Mingle to Music" and find partner to exchange with. Students orally told each other what they learned about their hero and placed the exchange card in a clear business card sheet. I was able to also take pictures with the Netbook with webcam. I loved that. All in one device!

James Bowie

Davy Crockett

Wait Till Helen Comes--Book Trailer

Animotos

Texas Hero Animotos

Every year students research one of the Texas Revolution heroes. This year students are in the process of creating either an Animoto or Glogster. It takes a less time for students to complete the project and they love the end product! More project examples will be posted as they finish.

Wallwisher

Students watched an adaptations video from watchknow.org, a Brain Pop video on camouflage then posted their thoughts on adapations using wallwisher.com

This was the first time we used wallwisher.com. This replaces the chart paper and stickies or even a KWL chart that we are used doing. Next time I used this I would not have all the students try posting all at once. Students received error messages, so I had some students go play a camouflage game online while others posted then we switched. This seemed to work out better.

On the teacher end of wallwisher it is very easy to set-up!! There are so many uses for this in the classroom.

ITouches and Science

Finding Out A Question She had about a Flower in The Text

Using the Newbooks for Research beyond the Text

Technology and TAKS

We are officially in "testing season" right now and both Annie and I have been using the netbooks and iPod Touches as stations in math. Students are going to Odyssey using the netbooks and we have been having the students use any of our math apps on the iTouches. We have download 2 brain apps (Brain Trainer and Luminosity). Luminosity requires students to sign up and because it keeps track of your progress. It is fun though-- I have played it on my own at home and I hope it's helping my memory!

Our school recently purchased First in Math for our after school program. As soon as we receive usernames & passwords for our students they will be using this web based program on the netbooks. I am hoping in the near future they come out with an app on this.

Free rice is a great website my students love going to and they are donating rice. This would be another great app! Students have been accessing this through Safari on the iTouches.

Return to Glogster

We have been studying colonization to Texas. As a way of trying to help students remember the famous people and vocabulary students made a Glogster. The technical difficulties we had at the beginning of the year have been resolved. Every now and then something weird happens when using Glogster. One student dragged an image onto his wall and for some reason he had an abundant supply of arrows. It was almost like the drag a copy action in Inspire. Students did ask if they could make an Animoto instead.... I told them for our next project they can make an Animoto.

Students will be researching a famous Texan who fought in the Texas Revolution or was one of the famous Old Three Hundred. Students will then create an Animoto--they are excited to get an opportunity to use Animoto again. One thing I really like about Animoto is that it can be done so quickly Glogster are more time intensive and take several days to complete depending upon how fancy the Glog is. I find it interesting that students prefer Animoto over Glogster-- it must be the music video feel to it.

All about Garbage

Students took a tour around our school to take pictures and film(using the Flip cameras) types of trash we found. Students wrote down observations as we took our tour.

The next day students researched online how long it takes different types of trash to decompose. We were shocked to find out a gallon milk jug a million years to decompose! Students will begin working on their environmental awareness poster. We will be entering these into the contest as well as putting them up around our school.

Rockstar Usage Feedback on Reading

http://baskinginblonnets.blogspot.com/2010/01/rockstar.html

Audio Books

Welcome to the Wiki World and other updates

Today my class began using the netbooks during problem solving. Students posted their answers in the comment section of my class blog. Students did not have any problems posting, just following my directions. During science students made predictions on how long different types of trash (banana peel, plastic jug, brown bag,etc) took to decompose. Students then went to two different websites to see how long it actually took these items to decompose. Students were shocked to see how that glass bottles never decompose and a plastic milk jug takes 1 million years! As one student said, "Wow we go through like 3 gallons a week!" Throughout our study of conservation the past 2 weeks (thanks to our science curriculum) students have really had a lot of "ah ha" moments!

Beginning this Friday students will begin making their posters to encourage other students to recycle and take care of the environment. Last week I found our about the environmental awareness contest the district participates in. I told my students everyone would be participating this year because we will be working on this in class. Students will have the opportunity to create an ad or write a news article. My plan is to have students make 2 copies of their ad - 1 to submit and 1 to post around school. Too bad they can't submit a glog.

My class wiki is FINALLY up and running. Today I spent a few minutes explaining how we are going to be using the wiki. Tomorrow will be their first day using the wiki. One of the things I really like about the wiki is that students can type their comments right onto the page...as opposed to the blog where they need to go to the comments section and no one may ever see it. I stressed the importance of NOT deleting other people's comments. We'll see how this goes tomorrow. Eventually, I would like my students to have discussions about reading group books on our wiki.

Quick update--the wiki didn't go as well as I expected. We ended up posting comments on our class blog. Comments were being deleted, so we'll try the wiki again with another project.

Tour of Trash

We have spent the past 2 weeks studying conservation in depth in science, which coincides nicely with out grant. Today we took at tour of Terrace to write down observations. We were not able to see all of the lunch trash, however, we did get some footage of what is typically thrown away. Students weren't surprised to see food, styrofoam trays, and milk cartons. We were able to talk to our custodian, Maria, and she said each grade level uses about 3 bags of trash during lunch. Students calculated that to be 18 bags of trash during lunch each day! They couldn't believe it. Check back for a video shot by one of my students.

Writing a Show, Not Tell

Students posted a writing piece that focused on emotions using Show, Not Tells to classroom blog via netbooks.

Students Using Recycling Problem Solving

Recycling Problem Solving