McGraw-Hill is again offering 5 of their math apps for free from April 25-28, 2012! The apps are:
We’ve been using these and they are well-worth getting!
I’ve looked at Glogster Edu for the past couple of years but had only used it during SSTVS. But this year, after hearing that other schools in our area are using it, I decided to buy a subscription for our 3rd and 4th graders. A glog is an interactive poster that allows the creator to add images, text, links, video, and more.
Starting with 4th graders, it quickly became apparent that this was a HUGE hit! The students were more excited about this than I’ve seen them about anything recently! To learn how to make a glog, the assignment was to create something that told about them – their likes, favorite activities, fun links, etc. After showing the basics, I let the students explore and experiment. They picked it up very quickly and enjoyed designing their first glog. At the end of class, I told them to find some website links that they would like to add to their glog. I would show them how the following day.
As the students arrived the following day, I was immediately greeted with:
“I worked on my glog last night and added several things.”
“Some of my favorite links are now on my glog.”
“My dad and I worked on the glog and added a video.”
After seeing how much the 4th graders enjoyed Glogster, I introduced it to 3rd grade. They were just as excited! We spend two class periods doing an “intro” glog; adding links, uploading MS Paint illustrations, and more. Plus, these students are also working on them outside of class.
The next goal is to help the teachers see the uses of Glogster in their curriculum. Since it’s so close to the end of this school year, we’ll probably wait till next year. Already, the students are excited about creating glogs next year so we’ll be off to a great start then.
For our Parents:
In celebration of Seuss week, we have done a variety of activities in the computer lab. First graders read Wacky Wednesday, by Dr. Seuss and created a “wacky” self-portrait in MS Paint. For silly sock day, the 2nd graders illustrated their colorful socks or their sock monkey. After reading My Many Colored Days, the 3rd graders wrote their own color poems and added clip art.
The 1st and 2nd grade pictures have been combined and converted to ePub books which can be opened in iBooks (free app from iTunes store) or Adobe Digital Editions software (free download for PC and MacOS). If you have a Nook reader and Adobe Digital Editions, you can transfer the books to the Nook (the formatting isn’t perfect but it still works). The ePub books will not work on a Kindle.
The 3rd grade poems have been saved in PDF files which should be able to be opened on any computer.
You will need to have either iBooks or Adobe Digital Editions on your iPad (or other iOS device)/computer in order to open and read the ePub books. If you have an iPad or iTouch with the iBook app, you should get a message asking if you want to open in iBooks. If you are on a PC with Adobe Digital Editions, the ePub book will open in that software and you can then plug your Nook into the computer’s USB port and drag the book to the Nook. You can also read the book straight from Adobe Digital Editions software.
Click on the following links to open in iBooks or with Adobe Digital Editions.
The third grade poems are in PDFs and can be opened on any computer. You should also be able to open the files in iBooks or Adobe Digital Editions.
Thanks to a how-to tip on creating ePub books by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, I figured out how to make an ebook of student work. 2ePub is a free ePub converter that is easy to use. Our first graders had drawn their “Wacky” self-portraits in MS Paint so I inserted those pictures into MS Word, saved it as a PDF, then uploaded it to 2ePub. Extremely easy!! Following Silvia’s instructions, I pulled the book into my iTunes account and added artwork for the cover. To put it on our school iPads I had to email the file to myself then opened it in iBooks.
I didn’t have as much success with the 3rd grade poems! The 1st grade books are just pictures; no text. The 3rd grade students included clip art with their poetry. I tried all kinds of formatting; uploading several different documents. Unfortunately I wasn’t pleased with any of the ePub formats. Page breaks weren’t where I wanted them to be. Occasionally, words were split. I ended up saving the poetry as a PDF and opening them in iBooks that way. You don’t get the “book” feel that you have with an ePub book but it works.
When I showed the students that their work was on the iPad, they were ecstatic!
I’ll email parents with the ePub and PDF files so that they’ll have access to them. It seems that many of the students have either an iPad or an iTouch so they could easily add these to iBooks.
From what I’ve read, it seems that the ePub conversion would be much easier if I had a Mac but, alas, that isn’t in the budget now so I’ll just work with what I’ve got.
Cantrell seuss (open in iBooks or open with Adobe Digital Editions)
ReadWriteThink, which offers excellent interactives for students, now allows students to save their work in some of the activities. This is a fabulous addition to their website since students often aren’t able to complete their work in one session. Below is a tutorial from ReadWriteThink on how it works. So glad they have added this capability!
In celebration of Pi Day, McGraw Hill Education is offering 5 math apps free of charge through March 14. The apps are:
As a culmination to their fieldwork, the professor of our TCU visitors had her students create some wonderful Prezis about what they had learned in their three weeks of observations at various schools. The “Field Work” Prezi was a collaborative effort by the college students to thank the teachers of the classrooms that they visited. What a wonderful idea! I absolutely loved viewing what they thought of our lessons. It was also interesting to discover what other schools are doing.
Having the TCU students visit is such a treat for us. The children love receiving the extra attention (it certainly helps having extra hands in the lab!). And I like to talk to them to find out about their observations in other schools and learn more about what they practice and discuss in their college classes. It’s a win-win situation all around.
Fun on Wacky Wednesday!
The 1st graders finished their self-portraits this week and I added their faces to the drawings. Here are a few samples:
Second graders drew their silly sock (or sock monkeys) pictures using MS Paint. Photoscape was used to combine the illustrations into a paper quilt.
One 4th grade class met with me during Seuss week. It was Crazy Hat day and the students certainly enjoyed drawing the very interesting hats that adorned their heads!
It was a fun week!
We love to celebrate Dr. Seuss and thanks to our creative librarian, Mrs. Murphy, we have an event-filled week. Today was Wacky Wednesday with teachers and students joining in with some very interesting outfits!
Our first graders visited the lab today and, after reading Wacky Wednesday, used MS Paint to create a “wacky” self-portrait. The children draw their picture, print it out, and glue a picture of their face to the illustration.
For most, this was their first time to use the paint program so it took some getting used to the tools (that didn’t always do what the students wanted!). This is where our fabulous TCU students were so helpful. They came to observe technology lessons and jumped right in to help the little ones with ideas, suggestions, and guidance. Not everyone finished this week but that’s okay. We’ll complete the project next week then I’ll bind the papers together so each class will have a book of wacky self-portraits.
Pictures of Mrs. Kee’s class with their TCU visitors:
One of our techno savvy 2nd grade teachers, Mrs. Cooper, offered to host a group of TCU students wanting to observe technology integration in the classroom. She thought about presenting a new lesson but eventually decided to have the students share and teach the college visitors using iPads. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on creating VoiceThreads based on the water cycle (a topic studied by the younger students). Since VoiceThread is a collaborative tool, the students wanted to share their work with the visitors and then invite them to leave comments. It was a fabulous way for the children to “teach” others about how this application worked! The college students were wonderful – leaving comments on as many VoiceThreads as possible. Some left written comments while others recorded theirs.
The next activity was to share Mrs. Cooper’s blog with our visitors. Mrs. Cooper had written a post inviting student comments on an opera we saw this morning. The 2nd graders went right to work – opened the blog, logged in, and entered their comment. Several also shared a biopoem that had been written earlier in the year. Of course, they encouraged the college students to leave comments on their posts!
The only problem we encountered was that a handful of iPads weren’t able to connect to the wifi so we had a few disappointed students. However, with others quickly offering to share an iPad, all turned out well.
It was very exciting to watch the learning that was occurring. There was a busy buzz within the room, lots of talking but not one person was off-task. One of our faculty members happened to walk by and asked, “Are they playing games?” Hence the title of the post! Why do some folks think that iPads + happy interaction = playing games? These students were so focused on sharing, teaching, and learning. They didn’t need games to be actively involved!
Here are a few pictures from today’s events.
