Voice Thread

I created a blog last spring and have continued to use it to share my thoughts on technology and teaching. Check out this post about Voice Thread to find out how to use it and why it could be useful in your classroom!

Setting Up Email

Here at Roland Story Elementary, the 3rd and 4th graders have the opportunity to have an email address. They use this privilege to turn in assignments, participate in google forms to document their work, and learn to communicate digitally. I have had some great conversations with 3rd graders about digital citizenship and how to appropriately use this privilege. 

For our teachers, we have broken down the steps to setting up students' emails on the iPads. 

Step 1: In settings, find 'mail, contacts, calendars on the left side'. Click on this and the options will appear on the right side. Click 'add account'.

Step 2: Select 'exchange'.

Step 3: For students, email section = firstname_lastname / password = their student ID #. For teachers, email section = your full email / password = your email password. The description can be left blank. Click next when this section is finished.

Step 4: Type "m.google.com" into the server. Leave domain blank. In the username section, the students need to type their full email = firstname_lastname@roland-story.k12.ia.us. For teachers, type your full email as well. Click 'next' when all the information is entered. 

Step 5: Click 'save' and you now have an email account set up on your iPad!

Step 6: To be sure the set up worked, open up your mail app and see if you can send/receive emails. 

Learning is a Lifetime Process

Our teachers are open to learning! 

Today three of our teachers earned LEARNING BADGES for inviting a technology intern into their classroom. 

Mrs. Thein and Mrs. J. Nelson asked myself, Jenny, to come into their classroom and help their students login to Tales2Go. It can be a process with a classroom of students but with extra hands we got it done in no time! Check out this blog post for more information on Tales2Go.

Mrs. Hull invited myself, Jenny, into her classroom to teach a lesson using Toontastic. The students were engaged, great listeners, and very excited about the process. I appreciate the opportunity to teach and Mrs. Hull was able to learn about the app. We wrote about Toontastic last spring so be sure to check out the post! It's a great app to use with a variety of grade levels. It is helpful for students to create a draft of their story before they use the app. I have posted the draft template that we have used with students on Teachers Pay Teachers. It is a free download so check it out!

Kidspiration Maps Lite

Kidspiration is an app that allows students to create different types of visual maps and diagrams.

On the home screen, you'll see options to "Create Diagram", "Create SuperGrouper", or do an activity in Reading & Writing, Social Studies, Science, and Math.

In the "Create Diagram" option, students can create concept maps using different shapes and animals for their ideas.  Images, Text, Drawings, and Recorded Audio can also be added.  

Students can start off by making an outline by clicking the horizontal lines image in the top left hand corner.  The little guy to the left of that option will take you back to the home screen.

Students can add any information they want in their diagram in this section.  After they have entered in their text (students can come back to this at any time), they will click on the concept map image where the horizontal lines used to be.  This will take them back to the diagram.

Here they will see the information they just types.  The words are in yellow ovals right now, but students can change the shape to a different shape or an animal at this time.  Just click on the bubble, and then double click on the animal or shape that you want!  The shapes can be moved around also.

If you go back to the home screen (the little yellow circle guy in the top left-hand corner), you will be able to click on the different subject areas.  These subject areas have pre-made diagrams and maps that you can use! 

For more examples to use with Kidspiration, check out: http://www.inspiration.com/Kidspiration/examples

Share with Parents

As the end of the school year approaches, many parents want to see their student's work and progress. Showbie is a great way to document this growth over time. A simple way to share with parents the information, assignments, and projects that have been submitted on Showbie, is by sharing the login information with them.

Since Showbie is accessible on a computer, as well as an iPad, it is very easy for parents to find their student's work. As a teacher, our job would be to provide the parents with their student's username and password. Personally, I have a ton of usernames, passwords, numbers, addresses, and email addresses stored in my brain so there is no way I am going to remember all 20-something of my students. Luckily, Showbie has a solution to his problem.

As a teacher, if you login to Showbie on the computer, a list of your classes will appear. As an example, I will shown my Showbie. Since I am not yet a teacher, I only have fake students, so you'll have to use your imagination a bit!

"Jenny test" is the name of my one and only class. Underneath the title, in gray, it tells you how many students and teachers are enrolled in the class. If you put your mouse over those words, a small icon will appear to the right of the word 'teacher'. Click this icon.

Once you click the icon, a white box will appear, as shown below. This will list all your students and their username. I only have one fake student, Johny Jones, and his username is rsjohny. 

When creating Showbie accounts for your students, I would highly recommend using the same password for all the students. This will reduce the amount of confusion and forgotten passwords. If for some reason your student changed or forgot their password, you can reset it. On the right side of each student's line, there is a drop down arrow. If Johny Jones forgot his password, I would click the drop down arrow and two options would appear, as shown below.

Once you select, 'reset password', a temporary password code will be given to you, the teacher. You will have to provide this code to your student and help them change it back to the desired password. This is why a common password is useful, to avoid this step :)

Once you have all your students login information, create a personal letter or email for each student to take home to their parents. They can login on showbie.com together to see the student's work. In the letter, I would include directions to download the work so the parents can save it, if they wish.

What a great and simple way to share information!

News-O-Matic

News-O-Matic is a daily newspaper for kids. It provides appropriate stories at their level. Each day there are featured articles. By scrolling down, students can view previous news stories, so there is always a ton of articles available!

As an example, I selected the "Team Time for with Kittens" article. Once in the article, there are many cool features. Simply use your finger to scroll through the article to see the entire thing. 

If you select the 'fact' button on the left side of the screen, a fact about something related to the article will appear. Click the red 'x' when you are finished reading it to return to the article.

There's also an 'act' button on the left side of the screen. If you select that, a similar box will appear, but instead of a fact, it will tell you to do something related to the article. 

Throughout the article, there are blue highlighted and underlined words. These are words that students may not understand. If they select these words, a definition box will appear, as seen below.

In the top right corner, there is a globe. If you select it, a map will appear. This will show where the article is talking about in relation to the students. It also provides facts about the distance and other things. Click the red 'x' in the top right corner to return to the article.

On the right hand side of the screen there is a 'play' button. If you select it, a video related to the article will appear. Click 'done' in the top left corner to return to the article.

Underneath the 'play' button, there is a 'plus sign' button. If you select that, additional pictures related t the article will appear and you can use your finger to swipe to the left to see them all.

And my favorite feature…. the read to me option! On the right hand side there is a button labeled 'read to me'. By selecting this, students can have the program read to them. This is awesome for younger elementary students who may not be able to read the entire article themselves.

Finally, if you select the blue button in the bottom right corner with a triangle in it, a few options will appear. The top one, with a person in it, allows students to learn about the author of the article. The other two options are only available if you create an account, which is not necessary.

Overall, this is a great tool to use in your classroom. It provides students with daily news that is appropriate and easy to access. There are many awesome features that this app offers - I highly recommend you try to incorporate this into your students' daily work.

Kid's Journal

Kid's Journal is a free iPad application that allows students to keep a digital journal ongoing. It is very student-friendly and easy to begin using. No account is required. 

Upon opening the app, you will see this screen. Tap the box to add a new journal.

Now you can begin personalizing your journal. Tap on the 'Name' and type yours! Click the camera at the bottom of the screen or the camera in the middle of the journal to add a photo.

You can add a photo from your camera roll on the iPad or take a photo.

Next, select the paint bucket at the bottom of the screen to change the color of your journal.

Once you're finished personalizing, click the purple mouse holding the checkmark to begin writing! The journal will open up to today's date. There are 4 boxes on each page. The first is a spot to choose an emotion to express how you feel. Use your finger to scroll through the options, there are more than just the first ones you will see!

Next, there is a picture box to select where you are on this day: home, school, or away. 

Another text box that is available is a weather choice. Select what the weather is like on the day! If you select the 'Photo of the Day' box, you will be asked if you want to take a photo (camera icon) or import a photo from your iPad's camera roll (pile of pictures icon). Select a photo to represent yourself, your classroom, or even the weather outside to document the day.

The calendar feature at the bottom of the screen allows you to quickly jump from day to day to see your journal entries.

There is an option to export journal entries by selecting the paper airplane icon at the bottom of the screen. The choices are the entry you have open, all entries, or entries between a certain date. Select one of these and click the blue 'export' button. 

Once you select one of those options, you will now have to decide how you want to export it. I chose Showbie, because this would allow students to virtually turn in their journal entries so the teacher can view and comment on them.

Once you select Showbie, it will open up the application. I was logged into Showbie as a fictional student.  This student is logged into 3 classes, so I had to select a class. 

After I selected a class, I had to choose an assignment. The only assignment 'Johny Jones' has right now is a journal assignment. I selected that.

Then it will ask you to add the file. Click the 'add file' blue button.

Now you can see the PDF file named 'Jenny' is uploaded to showbie and available for viewing.

You can click on the file in Showbie and see it, annotate on it, etc.

This is a great way for students to document their writing over the entire year. It gives teachers the ability to have record of their progress. By combining this app with Showbie, teachers have easy access to students' journals. It is a very developmentally appropriate app for elementary students - especially K-2! 

Try it out in your classroom!

Penultimate

Penultimate is an Evernote app that allows students to create and maintain a digital notebook. In order to use this application, students will have to create an account with an email.

Once their account is created and they are logged in, their notebook will appear. To open it, click the front cover.

The first example page will appear. Click on this page. When you are in the page, select the trash button on the top right bar to clear the page so you can begin annotating! 

Now that we are in the application, I will go through what each of the tools within the app do. The first one, on the left side of the middle bar is the pen tool. There are different widths and colors of pens available. Select one to begin writing!

This is an example of what writing can look like. Now, to add a photo, select the button seen on the picture below and choose either camera or photos. 

Once you add a photo and have it selected, you can change the size of it using the blue border. 

Continue writing to fill up the page! Once your page is full, at the top of the page, you can swipe to the right to bring a new empty page up.

The button I selected below allows you to choose what kind of paper you want.

Look at the photo above. On the top left hand side, underneath the home button, there are 6 squares. If you select the square buttons it will bring you to the page that is shown below.

This is a list of all your pages. If you need to get to a page quickly, get to it this way rather than swiping through your notebook. 

When you are finished, you can save the page as an image, email it, print it, and do many other things.

It's a great way for students to document their writing and save it digitally!