We are so excited to start our first STEAM lab with 3rd-5th grade students. You may be asking, "STEAM? What's that?" Check out this website. We were inspired by Caine, a nine year old boy, who made his very own arcade using cardboard and supplies from his dad's auto parts shop. (Watch his video to see what he can do with cardboard!) We are using the engineering design process to make our own cardboard creations during our technology specials classes. Stop by the computer lab between January 30-February 5 to check them out! | |
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Second Grade and Third Grade students have been working with the Augmented Reality App, Aurasma. Students created a target image and then recorded themselves to make their picture "come to life!" 2nd Grade: Students printed a two-digit number using Microsoft Office Word changing the color, size, and font. They then wrote addition and subtraction equations to arrive at their target number. Students practice presenting with a partner and then recorded their presentation in the Aurasma App. 3rd Grade: Students have studied joints and bones in science class. They then drew a joint and/or bone using Tux Paint or art materials. They wrote information they've learned and recorded their presentations in Aurasma. Students were able to practice speaking, listening, presentation skills, and connect to content areas in their grade level. Teachers are able to use the end product for formative assessments. The Aurasma App is FREE and you can download it to watch their pictures hanging outside their classrooms come to life! These are the first few issues of Tech Talk. I wanted to be sure that you had the information from them easily accessible.
After the conference, techies and media folks all around the county are working together. Tech and media teachers at Lake Myra ES have started this off by posting a short video on YouTube about Kahoot. Here is the email they shared with us today: "Hey techies and media folks: We've gotten jazzed up after Wonder Wake. In response to our teachers pleas for professional development, the tech facilitator and I are doing weekly flipped PD videos focusing on fast strategies while incorporating technology. It's Professional Development... pretty darn quick. Here is our first try on formative assessments with Kahoot. ... Our format is Leaders SOAR (Show, Options, Actions, Reach-out) as we want our staff to know what to expect each time and we will try to keep them under 5 minutes." Kahoot is similar to the clickers that some of you use in your classrooms, but you create the questions and students answer on devices. ANY device. This can be done whole group, small groups, or as individuals. Check out the video and let me know what you think. If you need some help getting started or using Kahoot, let me know! What do you think about this format, PD-PDQ? Is it something that you find valuable, would you like something similar for other tools at our school? **Tip: Be sure that your students are looking at the screen where you are projecting the questions. Their device doesn't show the question, only colors/shapes for the answers. Check out the video and let me know what you think. If you need some help getting started or using Kahoot, let me know! What do you think about this format, PD-PDQ? Is it something that you find valuable, would you like something similar for other tools at our school? As most of you know I recently attended the Convergence Learning Symposium hosted by the WCPSS Instructional Technology and Library Media Services team along with Mrs. Allen, our media specialist. It was two days PACKED with information, new ideas, collaboration, and more! If you want to see the courses that were offered click here. You can check out the tweets from participants and presenters by looking up #wonderwake on Twitter. I walked away with so much information that I want to share with you, so I am going to be posting quite a few things in the near future... so get ready! The first thing I want to share is an app called colAR. In the session "The New 3 R's: AR, QR, VR," we talked about Augmented Reality, Quick Response Codes, and Virtual Reality. There are a ton of apps and programs that allow you to integrate technology in new ways that you AND your students will love! The session was taught by Hall Davidson, who was also one of the keynote speakers. You can learn more about him here. Getting back to colAR... the app is free, (woo hoo!) and you print coloring pages provided within the app or online here and color them. Now you may be saying, "that's it?" Hold on to your hats, because the next step is where the magic happens... literally. You open the app and tap the play button, hover over your colored image, and watch. Your image will come to life! You can zoom in and out, take a picture with your masterpiece, and rotate your page to see all the way around your image 360 degrees! A few tips:
Check out Ms. Wooten petting the horse and holding the dot I colored.
You can now checkout the laptop carts online! We have 3 carts that are available for student use between 8:00 am and 3:00 pm. Each of the carts has 15 laptops and 15 headphone splitters so up to 30 students can use a laptop cart at one time. This will be great for partner work, research projects, workstations, and so much more! There are signs on the cart to remind students how to care for and use the laptops. There is also a checklist for teachers to review expectations before students use the laptops and for clean up. You can use the images below to review with your whole class by right-clicking and choosing "view image" to enlarge the pictures. You can find the link to reserve time for your class here: Online Booking You can also find the link on the Teacher Resource Page.
We have two NEW laptop carts that I am in the process of installing printers... I will spare you all of the technical details and just say that they are almost ready. We are going to try an online checkout and will revamp as needed.
I also wanted to share some cute posters that are going to be on all of the carts, but you can print to have in your room, too! I printed 4 to a page so that they aren't too big, but are still readable. Here is the link for the 8 posters from http://www.weareteachers.com/ We have had lots of questions about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and when we might be heading that way. As of now, we are not a BYOD school so our students should not have their own devices at school. This is going to be a long process with a big learning curve, but I'll keep you updated when I hear any news! However, you can always share new apps, sites, etc. with parents so that your students can use them at home. |
AuthorTiffany Barber Archives
January 2015
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