Story Sequencing with Animated Film

(Originally posted February 18, 2015 on Greenwood 50's Technology Leaders and Coaches in Action! at: http://kidblog.org/stls/823673c8-64ee-4e47-81b0-aca3e1d5b807/story-sequencing-with-animated-film/ )
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Story sequencing and retelling stories typically requires little more than a great book and a willing audience.  But when you have a goal of incorporating instructional technologies in your library lesson plans in order to model technology integration, it requires a little bit more.



For the past few weeks I've worked with kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades on a story sequencing unit.  We started the unit with a basic, technology free lesson, that included reading a story together and having students retell the story, putting the events in order.  After that initial lesson, I wanted to use technology to reinforce what they had learned by introducing different ways of sequencing events and different types of stories to sequence.  I did so by using animated short film.  Not only animated short film, but animated short film without dialogue.  My question to them was: can we sequence a story without any words that isn't even a book?  They were intrigued.

I used PreziEdu to create a presentation outlining story sequencing and embedding the short animated film Gopher Broke by Jeff Fowler.  The short film is perfectly engaging to students because of it's humor.  Without dialogue, it presents repetitive action that is easily understood and sequenced for retelling by students.  Through the Prezi, we discussed story sequencing and whether or not stories could be sequenced if they did not have words or dialogue.

After watching the film, students worked cooperatively as a class to sequence the events of the story by choosing screenshots to put the action and events of the story in order. Afterwards, we looked at the screenshots in their correct order and determined the beginning, middle, and end of the story and that even though it had no words or dialogue and was a film and not a book, the events could still be sequenced and retold based on that sequence.

Once the Prezi part of the lesson was complete, students were dismissed into the library where they used iPads and the Dog and Bone app to practice story sequencing.

 

Dog and Bone is a free app that uses an interactive fable the user can either read or have read to them by touching the text.  Once they have read or listened to the story, there is a sequencing game and a sequencing quiz that gives them interactive activities to practice sequencing.

 

Overall, this unit of study on story sequencing used presentation and interactive practice technologies to reinforce learning.  Students were engaged by the presentation and the animated film and also by the interactive Dog and Bone app, which allowed them to read a story themselves and use what they had learned to order/sequence the events on their own.

 

This was an entertaining, interactive, technology infused lesson I will definitely use again!

 

Our Week on Teachability

(Originally posted February 17, 2015 on Greenwood 50's Technology Leaders and Coaches in Action! blog at: http://kidblog.org/stls/823673c8-64ee-4e47-81b0-aca3e1d5b807/our-week-on-teachability/ )
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Last week I was offered a wonderful platform from which to tell a bit of our daily education story in the library and I couldn't think of a better way to work towards my goal of promoting technology integration than by showing others - both locally and across the world wide web - the things we're doing here in the library at Hodges Elementary/Greenwood School of Inquiry.

Teachability (Pearson Education) hosts an Instagram account and gives teachers from all disciplines across the country the opportunity to "takeover" their account for a week and use the technology to tell their specific story.  The goal is to highlight and share the wonderful things happening in all facets of education.  I hope I helped further that goal and gave viewers a glimpse into the things happening in our little corner of the education world.  I took great pride in presenting a glimpse into the daily life of our school library.  Based on comments I received and contacts I made, I definitely feel the week was successful.  It was certainly an honor.

I'm attaching each post I made to the Teachability account here.  You can click each photo to see the full post.  If you like the photo and have an Instagram account, click the photo to link to Teachability's account where you can "like" it.  Thank you all for following along on this journey with us!

Teachability Instagram Homescreen

Introduction

Getting ready for an intro to augmented reality with HeartCam

Kindergarten's first experience with augmented reality

Promoting our blog

Upcoming Augmented Reality Project with 5th Grade

Setting up for Story Sequencing with Animated Film 

Story Sequencing with Animated Film

Dog and Bone App to Practice and Reinforce Story Sequencing

For the Love of First Graders

Independent Checkout

iPad Cart Updates

New Otter Boxes for an Older iPad Cart

School Website Updates

WHOD Morning News Program

Processing New Books

Prepping for 3rd Grade Animoto Book Trailers

5th Grade Exploring Augmented Reality Technology with the Heart Cam App

Behind the Scenes Work

MinecraftEDU Server through Teacher Gaming

3rd Grader Gathers Photos and Information for her Animoto Book Trailer Project

Students Teaching MinecraftEDU to the Teacher

Thank You from Hodges/GSI Library!

Thank you again for following us on this journey!  I had a blast telling our story through photos on the Teachability Instagram platform.  Social media is a wonderful tool for sharing the great things going on in our library and for learning from others through the wonderful things going on in theirs!

 

Christmas With the Storybots

(Originally posted December 18, 2014 on Greenwood 50's Technology Leaders and Coaches In Action! blog at: http://kidblog.org/stls/823673c8-64ee-4e47-81b0-aca3e1d5b807/christmas-with-the-storybots/ )
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The week before winter break is always more than just a little hectic.  My strategy for containing some of that chaos in the library  was to provide a technology based activity that was creative, engaging, and most importantly, fun.  It is the holidays, after all!  When I found the StoryBots Christmas app, I knew I'd found the tool I needed to accomplish my goal and get in some extra technology practice while having a lot of holiday fun.  And fun, it was... (Think amusing kid selfies atop oddly animated cartoon bodies.)



StoryBots is a Web 2.0 tool and iPad app that allows the user to become part of a ready-made video or story.  I used the technology in a collaborative and cooperative lesson that had students working together in groups of 4-5 to create and cast their group videos.  Working as a group, they had to cooperatively take their own or each other's photo and then individually manipulate them into the space for the face on the app.  Then they had to collaboratively cast the video by choosing who would be which character.



I completed this lesson this week with every grade level, kindergarten through fifth grade, with the exception of first grade, which I did not have because of special activities.  The kindergartners required a bit more hands-on assistance at first, but quickly picked up the art of taking their own photo and placing it appropriately.  With the help of the kindergarten assistants, I walked them through the first round of videos, instructing them on using the app/iPad camera to take their photos and then using two fingers to pinch and manipulate their photo into the correct place.  I was thrilled to see that with the time they had left after finishing and viewing their first video, they were taking their own photos and casting a second video all by themselves.  Their ability to pick up technology is always so amazing to me.



The only drawback wasn't really a drawback at all, but actually a positive.  StoryBots is a KidSafe app/tool from JibJab Bros. and as so, requires an email login.  I simply set up my own account and then logged the iPads the students would be using on with my account.  We used no more than 8 iPads in each class, 4-5 students per iPad, so the process wasn't as daunting as it sounds.  The positive part was that because each group was using the same account (mine), every photo head synced to each iPad, which allowed students to see their classmates photos as well as their own.  It also allowed me to go in and pull faces from each class to create a video to share with each of their classroom teachers, introducing the app while showing them what their students had been doing in the media center this week.  Needless to say, the videos were a huge success with students and quite a hit with their teachers as well.  Overall, it was a very fun holiday activity that required students to work cooperatively in groups and practice and/or add to their technology skills.

Primary Story Elements with ScribbleMyStory

(Originally posted December 17, 2014 on Greenwood 50's Technology Leaders and Coaches In Action! blog at: http://kidblog.org/stls/823673c8-64ee-4e47-81b0-aca3e1d5b807/primary-story-elements-with-scribblemystory/ )
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Integrating technology with curriculum in a creative manner is one of my goals as a School Technology Leader.  I am always striving to find ways of doing so in a manner that reinforces learning rather than serves as a game-like activity at the end of a lesson.  In doing this, I hope to also model to classroom teachers how they can use technology as a teaching and creating tool and not an afterthought because they are being asked to incorporate more technology in their classrooms.

To this extent, Kindergarten is both an open landscape of possibilities and a unique challenge as most students are either completely new to technology or have limited experience with it.  iPads are a wonderful tool to start with, however, and I have been searching and thinking and biding my time to develop a suitable lesson for incorporating iPad technologies in a creation project that would produce an end product within a limited time frame and with such young students.  With ScribbleMyStory, I was able to do just that.

Kindergarten, as well as first and second grades, have been exploring story elements in the library for the past few weeks.  This particular lesson was the opening lesson about characters.

 

 

ScribbleMyStory, a free book creation app, was the application.  After a short discussion about books and reading and characters and the other things that make up stories, I asked students to wear two hats - that of illustrator and main character.  The ScribbleMyStory app was perfect for this lesson as well as for the young age level.  It allowed freedom of creation and design within the confines of a short, 3-page, pre-written story.  All students had to focus on was their main character, which was the exact purpose of the lesson.  The ScribbleMyStory app allowed them to focus on one story element, but still create a self-manipulated, individually creative product within that focus.

 

 

Students were asked to use the “All About Me” book template in ScribbleMyStory to tell a story about their main character - themselves.  We talked about our artistic license and how we as both the illustrator and the main character could be anything we want to be, in the realm of a character.  We could be human or animal or object. We could have brown hair or pink hair or purple, polka-dotted, paisley hair.  We could be a boy, a girl, a unicorn. The possibilities were limitless.  They understood that they were in control and they harnessed that control with a creative verve that easily allowed me to assess how well they completely understood the concept of character and of creating a character of their own.

 

ScribbleMyStory is a awesome app that my students have revisited on a number of occasions since this initial lesson.  The free version features 4-5 short book templates similar to the “Just About Me” template plus there is a longer blank book template that allows the user to both illustrate and write the story.  The app is perfect for the primary age level as it is easy to navigate, simple, and straightforward.  As always, students are quick to learn the nuances of manipulating colors, pulling in clip art, etc., which only allowed their creativity to soar.

In addition to my professional goals in this position, I have a personal goal as a media specialist and a teacher and that is to be open to learning as much from my students as I teach them.  Teaching and learning are reciprocal relationships, after all, and as educators, we simply have to have our eyes and our minds open to the daily lessons our students teach us. We have to be able to recognize the lesson and be able to relate it to what we need to learn.

What I learned from my students with this project was a reinforcement of what they had already taught me...if you put technology in student hands, they will create and learn in ways you could never have planned.  They will use critical thinking to figure out how to use the technology application and how to create tangibly the thoughts and images they have in their own imaginations.

 

And then... well, then they will absolutely amaze you with those wonderful imaginations, their sincere creations, and the sheer depth of their understanding.

Newsela: Read carefully. Think critically. Be worldly. ... Reading Comprehension + Current Events.

(Originally posted November 21, 2014 on Greenwood 50's Technology Leaders and Coaches In Action! blog at: http://kidblog.org/stls/823673c8-64ee-4e47-81b0-aca3e1d5b807/newsela-for-nonfiction-reading-comp-current-events/ )
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Each of my goals as School Technology Leader revolve around technology integration and helping teachers embed technology in their classrooms.  One strategy I've identified in accomplishing this goal is to lead by modeling technology in my library classroom.

In writing lesson plans this past week, I focused my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade lessons around Newsela - the Web 2.0 tool I recently featured in a tech tips for classroom integration newsletter.  What I've learned is that, when you put technology in a student's hands, they will take it, run with it, and more often than not, find that they enjoy doing things and accomplishing skills they might not enjoy nearly as much (or at all) in a more traditional format.

The simple act of putting the technology in their hands is the best springboard to active learning. And Newsela is the perfect example to illustrate that theory.



Newsela and Newsela Elementary are free Web 2.0 tools that presents a current events/news platform with leveled nonfiction reading and assessment quizzes to meet all Common Core ELA reading standards.  As a teacher, you simply sign up for a free account (or a free Pro trial) and create your virtual classroom.  Since Newsela is geared towards students in grades 3-12, I decided to use it in my elementary library with grades 3-5 as a tool to gauge nonfiction reading skills as well as provide practice honing those skills.



One of the true beauties of Newsela is in it's search capabilities.  When you begin searching for articles to assign to your class, you not only have the traditional search parameters (category, keyword, grade level) but you also have the ability to filter those results to only include articles with quizzes attached.  Even further, you can choose the Common Core ELA Standard you want the quiz to test!  Quizzes are available that focus on what the text says; the central idea; people, events, and ideas; word meaning and choice; text structure; point of view and purpose; multimedia; and arguments and claims.

Basically, you can personalize Newsela to fit the needs of your students so that they gain purposeful practice on skills they need to improve while exploring current events and having meaningful conversation about global issues in the news.



What I found with my classes was that students not only completed the articles I had assigned, but many also used remaining class time to search for more articles that they were interested in reading for pleasure as well as for information.  Students also liked being able to instantly see their scores and track their progress in the "Binder" tab.  Newsela worked beautifully with each of the three grade levels and proved to be engaging and challenging.

One of the many advantages to classroom teachers is that Newsela is a Web 2.0 tool that can be used from desktops, laptops, iOS and Android devices, or any device with web browsing capabilities.

Once the virtual classroom is set up and articles are assigned, teachers can allow students to access the site on their classroom computers/laptops as time allows.  Just assigning one to two articles per week gives students meaningful, engaging, purposeful, and relevant educational activity for extra class time or center time, that is richly embedded in technology and offers reading comprehension practice and assessment as well as a platform for current events conversation and discussion.  It's a win/win for students and teachers.

To set-up/use Newsela go to Newsela at https://newsela.com or scan the QR code below:

Click "Sign Me Up" in the top left corner, choose "I'm a Teacher", complete the simple registration, and create your classes in the "Settings" tab on the top menu bar.  Newsela generates a "Sign Up Code" which students need in order to create an account and join the class.  The sign up code is all they need.  Registration DOES NOT require an email account.  To make things even easier for my students, I printed a brief sheet of instructions which included the QR code to get to Newsela and the class sign up code and placed a sheet on each table.


After your class is set up, simply use the search options to locate and assign articles.  After your students have registered with their specific class code, you are able to see each student and follow their progress, including the articles they have completed and their corresponding scores on those articles.  You can also access and review overall class progress.




I found Newsela to be a wonderful tool for incorporating current events, promoting nonfiction reading, and strengthening reading comprehension skills.  I hope you'll give it a try!

Reading Comprehension with Inference Ace

(Originally posted Nov. 7, 2014 on the Greenwood 50's Technology Leaders and Coaches In Action! blog at: http://kidblog.org/stls/823673c8-64ee-4e47-81b0-aca3e1d5b807/inference-ace/ )
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One of my goals as School Technology Leader and media specialist is to explore new technology options for curriculum integration.  To do so most effectively, I know I need to explore and experiment with technologies within the library information literacy curriculum as related to curriculum standards.  This past week I did just that with an iOS app created to help students with reading comprehension and deep reading by allowing specific and targeted practice with making inferences

Inference Ace is available for the iPad in both free and paid versions.  The free version I used allows students to complete 4 levels at 10 questions per level. The first level questions deal with when; the second level, where; the third, what; and the fourth, who.


I was impressed with the app because it builds reading comprehension skills in a fun, game-like format, which typically appeals to students at all applicable grade levels.  I used Inference Ace with my 3rd and 4th grade classes this week after a brief review of "Making Predictions" and a focused lesson on "Inference."  The questions were challenging for some of the third graders, but not so challenging that they could not complete them successfully when they concentrated or were given guided assistance.  The fourth grade classes enjoyed the app even more and were still challenged by the questions, though I did have a few students who successfully made it through all 4 levels with very few missed questions.

Overall, the lesson and the use of the technology versus any kind of written worksheet or practice was a great success.  As a matter of fact, since teaching these classes earlier this week, I have had students on other grade levels ask if they were going to be able to use the same app in their class!

Next week I intend on reviewing inference with third grade, in order to emphasize the importance of the skill and allow them to practice with the app again, as well as possibly move on to Inference Ace 2, which is more challenging.  Fourth graders will review and advance to Inference Ace 2.  In addition to those classes, I will be reviewing inference with my fifth grade students this week and having them begin with Inference Ace and then move on to Inference Ace 2 if they successfully complete the first 4 levels.

Being able to successfully make inferences and use deductive thinking while reading is such an important reading skill to propel comprehension and understanding.  While quiz-like apps such as Inference Ace and Inference Ace 2 might not always be preferable to creation apps, in this case I think Inference Ace was both appropriate and successful in illustrating to students what it means to make inferences by isolating the skill in short, succinct questions.

So in this instance of purposefully exploring and experimenting with technologies to enhance curricular content and practice, I feel I succeeded, which means, of course, that my students succeeded.  And that is always my goal.

MLK, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Information Literacy

What do Martin Luther King, Jr., Old Crow Medicine Show, and information literacy have in common?  A lot, if you use a multidisciplinary approach to teach fact verification and information seeking skills through music and technology.

I have always been a huge music fan and I've always loved all kinds of music.  Most often I'm drawn to a song because of the lyrics.  The first time I heard Old Crow Medicine Show's song "Motel in Memphis" - a song about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - I knew that I wanted to use it in a lesson someday, somehow. The song lyrics touched me in a way that made me see the assassination of this man in a way I had not before.  The mere words to the song brought a piece of history to life. I hoped it would do the same for my students - make them view the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a way that would provoke a new appreciation for his legacy and for the many reasons he is celebrated and recognized with a national holiday.

But I don't teach music and I don't teach history.  I am a media specialist.  I teach information literacy skills - how to locate information, how to evaluate information and authenticate sources, how to be responsible users of information, and how to learn from the information we find.  What could that possibly have in common with this song, the man, and the fact that we celebrate his life with a national holiday?  

Everything...if you go about it the right way.

I started with the song lyrics that had so moved me and thought about how, like myself, my students were not present when Martin Luther King was alive nor when he was so brutally murdered.  Like myself, those lyrics could bring new meaning to a part of history they had often heard about, but never experienced.  And so I did what I love to do and found a way to incorporate technology and music to teach a lesson about a great man using a thoughtful song with historically specific lyrics to engage my students in a information seeking/fact authentication and verification mission. 

I started by using "Motel in Memphis" as the background music for an Animoto photo montage video depicting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life, assassination, and funeral. The lyrics to the song were printed on a worksheet for students.  Third and fourth grade students were asked five questions specific to facts in the lyrics and instructed to use research and fact verification skills to answer and/or verify the answer to those questions.  

I allowed a little more autonomy with my fifth-graders, asking them to use information from the lyrics to learn more about specific details illustrated by the song.  For example, one line from the song reads, "Were you there with Mahalia wailing at the funeral?"  Students were to use the information in that lyric to learn by using their research skills that the "Mahalia" referred to was Mahalia Jackson, a gospel singer and friend of Dr. King, who sang at his funeral service.

Through both of these activities, students learned multiple cross-disciplinary lessons.

• They learned that music and music lyrics tell a story and that sometimes that story is a historically factual one.  
• They learned about a great man by starting from the day he was assassinated and working back through his life to discover detailed information about the equality and civil rights he fought for.

I used technology and music as tools to paint the picture for them and they used technology through online research to locate, verify, evaluate, and develop what I know was a greater understanding of the history and the man.

But most importantly, they used their own natural curiosity and inquisitive behavior as a catalyst for responsible information seeking and fact verification. 

What I learned was that I wasn't alone in being touched by the song, I wasn't the only one to see history from a different perspective because of it's lyrics, and that given the opportunity to interpret factual and artistic expression through music lyrics, students were led to not only find and verify the factual information, but also to dig even deeper to satisfy their personal curiosity about the facets of this particular history that most fascinated them.