I love Grandparents’ Day! Yes, it is loads of work preparing for it. But grandparents come to be with their grandchildren, not to evaluate all that we do. It’s such a busy day but I truly enjoy the opportunity to visit with these wonderful visitors.
The second graders have done a Heritage Project for several years. In the past few years, this has evolved into a technology project. Students bring in pictures from the past and I am in charge of uploading these to the students’ home directories so that they can add them to VoiceThread, where they narrate each photo. It’s always fascinating to look at these pictures – some are quite old!
This year the students shared their projects using the iPads. We suggested that ear buds be brought so that the narration could be heard more clearly. Everything went quite smoothly. (Only one iPad decided not to connect to the Internet!)
Below are some snapshots of students sharing their projects with their 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!
We have ALL of the 2nd graders recorded in VoiceThread. After a rough start a couple of weeks ago, the iPad app worked just as planned when the students created their own VoiceThread. It’s so much fun to watch the students as they quickly grasp the technology (and help their teachers learn how to do it!). We had student photographers taking pictures of the process (they loved that job!) and hopefully this weekend, I’ll create an animoto to share.
Our second graders have been involved in some wonderful learning activities in which the students rotated through each classroom to learn about whales, the water cycle, and poetry. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take what had been learned and use VoiceThread to share their thoughts.
Each student illustrated a picture in MS Paint and I compiled the drawings into class VoiceThreads. That seems to be where my problems began! For whatever reason, the first class was unable to record their comments using the iPads. Since the VoiceThread app had worked perfectly a few days earlier, I wonder if trying to have 5 or 6 students logged onto the same VoiceThread prevents this. Who knows? But, with another class coming into the lab, I had to make some quick adjustments! I went back to what has been working for the 4th graders – individual VoiceThreads. The students created theirs and then we started recording – no problems at all! We didn’t get everyone recorded but we’re off to a good start.
Lessons learned: Try to think of and test every possible situation and ALWAYS have a back up plan!!
Our 4th graders have been reading the Texas Bluebonnet books over the past few months and they voted on their favorite this week in the library. I’ve been wanting to get the students into VoiceThread and thought creating book reviews might be an easy introduction to the application. So, in the computer lab, we illustrated our favorite choices using MS Paint. The students then wrote their book review using either MS Word or pencil and paper so that they would have a script to read while recording (Much easier than trying to “wing” it!).
Next step was to create a VoiceThread. This is the first time we’ve used this application this year and the students were quick to catch on with uploading and adding titles. Unfortunately, the recording didn’t cooperate. The students learned how to plug in the mics but when they spoke, their voices weren’t picked up. Not sure what the problem was but when you’re in the middle of class, you have to quickly come up with a backup plan!
Fortunately, I happened to have some iPads in the lab. I gathered my tech support helpers for the day, showed them what to do, and had them record their VoiceThread. They were really excited to be “in charge” of helping their classmates sign into the VoiceThread app and guide them through the recording process. Below is one of the book reviews:
On the first day we were only able to get about a third of the class recorded but by today, we had several experts to help speed along the process. I was so proud of how well the students worked together! We had a couple of photographers (see the animoto below), several tech support personnel (every once in awhile, I’d hear someone call, “Tech support! I need some tech support!”), and a scribe (who checked off who had finished recording and sharing their VoiceThread).
The idea of a VoiceThread is to create conversations. I’d wanted the students to make comments on their classmates’ book reviews but we just ran out of time. Next week I work with another 4th grade class and hopefully we’ll get more accomplished. I hope to meet with my tech support group during recess which should help things move a bit more smoothly during class. I was very pleased with how the students took on their leadership roles – they were truly taking their jobs seriously. My goal is to continue incorporating ways in which students can contribute to their learning.
