Technology for January

Image: Emily Haddon

CHVE Technology

What are students doing in technology?  Each month, come here to take a peek...The tools students use: CHVE Links.

Want to buy your child a computer and need a recommendation?

Read about experiences with 5th Graders using a Chat Room.

For the month of: January, 2012

Kindies - began looking at how Education City can be used to keep track of your scores.

1st Grade

• Dance Mat Mondays!  
• Education City: click here to gain access at home.
• Wixie: Finishing our book project with Tumblebooks ...stay tuned to see where you can view them! (Students looked at the section on Non-Fiction and Videos to investigate something they are curious about.  After taking notes, the students followed a template on how to build an online book in Wixie.  

2nd Grade

• Dance Mat Mondays! 
• Began 2 days with Math Lines
• Education City: click here to gain access at home.  Goal: self-monitor: Their job was to look at the assessment chart of their Education City activities and find a score they would like to improve.  Their work syncs with the scoreboard giving them immediate feedback on their performance.  If a parent or teacher ever wants access to the scoreboard, please let Mr. Krulish know and he will give you directions.
• Wixie: This week, most students finished working on their Non-Fiction books from the information they gathered researching a Tumblebooks topic.  We will link all "books" to a page where others can see what they have created.
• Spent one day using a new program: Timez Attack by BigBrainz.  This is available at home for no cost (regularly $40!).  Directions have been added to GoogleDrive via the Learning Links.  It is an AMAZING program to increase recall speed with Addition/Subtraction, and Multiplication/Division.  Requirement: 3-4, 20min sessions/week.

3rd Grade

• Dance Mat Mondays! 
• We finished the book poster's created in ComicLife.  We do not have access to a color printer for all so we learned how to "hollow" out the color.  We printed our documents and colored them in.  Get ComicLife at home for $4.99 on your iPad!  Or click here to download it for $30 to your computer (30 day free trial).
• Spent one day using a new program: Timez Attack by BigBrainz.  This is available at home for no cost (regularly $40!).  Directions have been added to GoogleDrive via the Learning Links.  It is an AMAZING program to increase recall speed with Multiplication and Division.  Requirement: 3-4, 20min sessions/week.

4th Grade - Mrs. Yoffe 

• Dance Mat Mondays! 
• Began a ComicLife project: Researched the history of Valentine's Day and added that information as part of a creation of Valentine's Day cards.  Goal: for students to learn how to think of their Google Drive account as a flash-drive so as to store non-web based projects.  This allows for greater mobility and security.  Get ComicLife at home for $4.99 on your iPad!  Or click here to download it for $30 to your computer (30 day free trial).
• Spent one day using a new program: Timez Attack by BigBrainz.  This is available at home for no cost (regularly $40!).  Directions have been added to GoogleDrive via the Learning Links.  It is an AMAZING program to increase recall speed with Multiplication and Division.  Requirement: 3-4, 20min sessions/week.

5th Grade - Mrs. Chavez - A GREAT WEEK...

• Dance Mat Mondays!
• Continued our VERY successful research project on colonies that involves the use of chat rooms.  Click here to read more about it!  Many students began recording on iPad's this week and used the iMovie app to edit ($4.99 at home, cost at school: $2.49).
• Spent one day using a new program: Timez Attack by BigBrainz.  This is available at home for no cost (regularly $40!).  Directions have been added to GoogleDrive via the Learning Links.  It is an AMAZING program to increase recall speed with Multiplication and Division.  Requirement: 3-4, 20min sessions/week. 

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Chat Rooms and 5th Graders

A chat room, a 5th Grade Classroom, and total silence...

Below is an expansion of my weekly posting covering Tech in an Elementary school (Technology is a Specials Rotation at Cherry Hills Village Elementary - students go to 5 specials).  The blog is an effort to be transparent to parents in our community about what kids are doing with Technology.  The 5th Grade chat room activity was so successful, I though I'd share it independently:

Big Picture: The overall project for 5th grade is to build a news-broadcast on the iPads covering the life and times of a Colonial.  First, using laptops and their GoogleDrive accounts, they needed to build a GooglePresentation.  Here is what we did:

 
First they answered 2 big-picture questions by creating their own thinking map in GoogleDrawing.  Here was the best part: Since everyone was connected to the same big-picture page, we opened up the chat box for all to access.  Scarry?  Sure, but not without a lesson on how chat boxes can be used as a RESOURCE.  If you walked into the room, kids were working on their diagrams.  If any of the 5th graders needed to know how to do something in GoogleDrawing (how to change the color of a box, etc.,) they posted their questions in the chat room.  So this means they had at least 2 windows going at the same time: The big-picture questions, and their own GoogleDrawing document.  They were directed to post questions in the chat room when they didn't know how to use the drawing tools (fyi - I had the students use Google Drawing at the beginning of the year...so this was not there first time creating a Google Drawing).  It was AMAZING how well they responded to that.  Kids are natural multitaskers.  

While they were working on their own diagram, they kept an eye on the chat room.  Whenever someone posted a question, several kids were right there to post answers.  The entire class was completely interdependent.  I, the teacher, was simply a facilitator.  I jumped in the chat room and clarified directions but did not respond to any "how do I" questions.  For 30 min. straight, you could hear a pin drop in the room.

THIS TOOK GROUNDWORK!  

In the beginning, we set some ground rules:
I told them they needed to monitor each other.  If someone posted something silly or goofy, a peer kindly was instructed to walk over to them and respectfully ask them to stop.  Initially, they couldn't see why they had to walk over to them..."can't I just post it in the chat room?"  We discussed how the chat box is reserved for positive posts only.  Telling someone not to do something is negative.  When kids start critiquing one another, the beginnings of cyber-bullying takes shape.  Anyway, If the silly/goofy comments persisted, even after peer-intervention, I took away their laptop for 2 min.  The time doubles for each additional infraction.  We discussed: 

Is there a time to be Goofy?  SURE!  But not in a place of learning.  Everyone has a right to learn without distraction.  If you are causing distraction by posting silly things, there are consequences for that.  If you want to be goofy, great!  Get with a buddy at home and knock yourselves out (this also led to a conversation on cyber-bullying and gossiping).  Not one kid lost their laptop for 2 min.  When they finished their responses (which they gathered from a BrainPop resource about Colonies), they "Shared" their diagram with me, I inserted Comments on their diagram letting them know if they received an A for their work, or guided them (through inserting comments) on their misperceptions.  When they finished, they moved onto the next task...
(view my tech-blog to learn about the rest of the project)

I shared the experience with the teacher in hopes that it might provide insight into a new way to instruct.  I also let the kids know they should encourage their teacher to use this tool in lessons where it might be appropriate.  It was a fantastic week and look forward to pursuing this with all 5 classes.

If you are interested in seeing what I've done with any or all grades, I post weekly here (I don't like the organization...but will live with it till I have time to attend to it)