Learning to use Seesaw to draw and record

Seesaw drawing Day 1

EdCamp OOB

July 28th was the first Edcamp launched by a team of Old Orchard Beach educators. Over 100 area instructional technology, media/library and classroom teachers gathered to share ideas and learn from each other. The structure of this Edcamp was the usual plan of an open board that becomes a set of sessions when teachers put stickies up and organizers move them around to combine ideas and place sessions.

I attended sessions on "Genius Hour", Makerspaces and apps for early learning. I have a new set of resources to share from each of the sessions. Alice and I both attended the Makerspaces session, the notes on this shared doc.  Mike and I went to the session on implementing the Genius Hour concept. I would like to work with teachers on the possibility of implementing a spring fourth grade unit, Billy Corcoran share his doc that describes what his 4th grade classroom did last year along these lines. He used his literacy block on Friday mornings. 

I spent the 3rd session with Libby Corcoran who is a special educator who is also an app developer. I will be reviewing her app The Reading Train with our Kindergarten team. The app allows for individual logins and is organized into leveled books. Students can hear the books, read on their own or record themselves reading. Libby also has .pdfs of the Level 1 books that can be printed and sent home with students. I was very impressed by her story of becoming an app developer and I think this app may well be just what we have been looking for as a way to support literacy learning with the K iPads. Libby also shared a list of apps that she thinks are of value; this will be helpful as well in getting started with our second year of iPads in K and our third year in first grade.

Teaching and Learning with iPads - USM 2015

USM EPC 576 Teaching and Learning with the iPad

This summer there were fifteen K-12 educators who spent the middle week of July working toward new ways to use iPads in their classrooms. The collaborative and individual projects shared on the last day of the course were the highlights of the week. My goal in teaching the course is to give teachers enough of a start to bring about something significant as the school year unfolds.

RI Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit 2015

This past weekend was the first Rhode Island Google Summit. Google educators joined members of EdTech Team to offer sessions to 380+ educators from Rhode Island and neighboring states. During each Google Summit the sessions range for the technical information needed for administering Google Apps in a district to how teachers can use any and all of the Google products in classroom settings. 

I offered sessions on using GAFE with iPads, Blogger: The School to Home Connection, and Jazzing up your Sites and Blogs. I attended several sessions when I wasn't teaching and came away inspired by ideas for empowering our students to collaborate with each other and share their products beyond the confines of the school.

Background of 1:1 iPad Proposal for Grade 1

Hungry Fish Math App

What makes a good app? This is a question that is often asked, by educators and parents. There are numerous rubrics for reviewing and lists by subject and age. We have found that we focus our use at Rowe School on a few apps that have a range of skills that fit our standards, utilize the touch screen and movement features of the iPad, adjust with the student as s/he learns and supports individual progress through the learning for the many students who share iPads.

This fall we are teaching first grade students to use Hungry Fish independently for building number sense and an understanding of the process of addition. As concrete learners they are building on many experiences of seeing quantities combined and put together to make smaller amounts into larger amounts. The process of memorizing addition facts and moving beyond counting single items is a cognitive development that is a fascinating process and one that takes each child on their own path of accomplishment.

How does Hungry Fish fit into this learning process? A student sees a fish with a total on it and bubbles come onto the screen with numbers on each one. In the screen shown above, the student would use a finger to move the 1 bubble to the 2 bubble (or vice versa) and they blend into one bubble showing the value of 3. The fish pursues bubbles that match the amount shown on the fish or students move the bubble toward the mouth of the fish. The fish responds to being "fed" bubbles by getting larger, if no bubbles are available with the correct amount then the fish gets smaller and smaller until a message comes up asking the student to try again.

There are many aspects of this "app" that make good use of the features of the iPad. The colors are vibrant and appealing, the students are drawn to the friendly looking fish and they like taking care of it by feeding it. There is pleasant music in the background, or in a busy classroom the sound can be off and it doesn't affect the use of the app. The student is making something happen on the screen by combining numbers and visualizing amounts that could be put together. There isn't any timer operating, bubbles appear and fade in a random fashion that keeps students interested. At times I have found that I want to prompt the students to always combine two bubbles to make the "correct" answer. The more I have watched them play I have realized that there is value in combining and seeing the results of the combinations, whether they match the fish or not. The motivation of feeding the fish and moving on to a new fish seems to have an effect all by itself of moving students to match the amount on the fish whenever they can.

One of the goals of our use of iPads is developing independent learners who can use an app and adjust it to an appropriate level for their own learning. Each time a student completes a fish the app moves up in difficulty level. Students learn what the best level is for them to work effectively on the math learning and how to reset it when it moves ahead too quickly. This video clip shows a few seconds of student interaction with the app.

On a random basis the students are given the option to change the colors on the fish when they finish some of the screens. While this may seem like a waste of time during math lesson it is very motivating for students and it encourages them to think about color, design and creative choices. 

The app includes a version of addition that has a fish that is an adversary to the hungry fish. This fish eats any combination that is not a match for the hungry fish and if it gets large enough it eats the hungry fish. This game doesn't appeal to all, but for some it is a choice that adds a challenge of accuracy that they are ready for an keeps them engaged. As they are ready students can move to the other operations: Subtraction, Multiplication and Division.

Google Apps for Education and iPads - ACTEM 2014 Session

Teaching and Learning with iPads Course at USM PDC

This week I had the opportunity to share my ideas and learn from 18 educators in a new course at USM: Teaching and Learning with iPads. The site for the course is at: https://sites.google.com/a/yarmouthschools.org/usmepc_576_ipad/. This dynamic group brought various experiences and models to the course. Thanks to Laura Girr for coming in to work with a group on the workflow and particular issues related to 1:1 iPads, as well as Kate Parkin for working with a group on the possibilities of having one iPad for the classroom. Alice Barr helped meet with teachers on the workday on Thursday as each person worked on a project to share on Friday. Friday was an amazing experience of teachers sharing ideas that they plan to pursue in their unique school settings this fall. The networking will continue for the individuals and teacher teams who participated in this course.

While the focus was not specifically on apps, some favorites were (these are all free):

Year End thoughts about K-1 iPads

Having 20 iPad for the first grades means that they are usually in sets of four in classrooms. The students have become independent on several math apps, spelling apps and others including Kodable and Doodle Buddy. Some of the time that I am in classrooms I have been able to help students work in pairs to access their Kidblogs and add entries (see http://roomonehundrednine.blogspot.com/). We met as a first grade team and winnowed the apps that we are keeping on all the iPads to the ones we agree are most valuable. Every few weeks we collect all of the iPads and use all 20 in table groupings in a classroom. The apps we are using most often are LetterSchool, Teachley: The Addimal Adventure, Word Wizard, Montessori Crosswords, Hungry Fish, Know Your Math Facts, Kodable and TeachMe: 1st grade. Sometimes we are able to access Skoolbo, other times it lags and is too frustrating. While some apps are free we have found that many of them are too limited or have too many ads and we have purchased the full versions.

We were pleased to find Addimal Adventure as it teachers the addition strategies appropriate for first grade and allows us to set up all classes on each iPad. It tracks the individual student’s progress and we had access to a pilot that gives us bi-weekly feedback on the class. The app will remain free next year, but the teacher dashboard will be an online feature by subscription.

We have allocated some time when we return to school in August to map out a plan for apps usage in first grade and look for ways to build more independence by students using the iPads for reading fluency practice and creation apps like PicCollage, KidBlog, Voicethread and Storykit.

The Kindergarten teachers received two iPads for a center in each classroom midyear. They started off with these apps:

• Teach Me Kindergarten-Math and Literacy

• Montessori Numbers- Math

• Skoolbo - Math and Literacy

• abc Pocket Phonics- Literacy

• Storia - Literacy

• Book Creator

• Educreations

• Explain Everything

• Bits Board

• Sight Words

• 100s board

• Word Wizard

• Everyday Math Monster Squeeze

• LetterSchool

The goal for the Kindergarten classrooms this year was to familiarize the students with a small number of apps and have students use them independently at a station with minimal supervision. They have found that "guided access" is helpful as then students didn't accidentally leave an app while they were at the station. We will be meeting in August to plan what else they want to do next year including story writing and recording for reading fluency.

One of the most informative experiences we have had in developing our plans and uses of the iPads was attending the Auburn Leveraging Learning Institute in November, 2013. We were able to send teams of Kindergarten and First Grade teachers to a day of workshops and learning from other teachers. This is link to the spreadsheet of apps that Auburn Schools have selected to fit with their learning targets and the presentation below explains the goals and rationale for the Auburn project.

Yarmouth Elementary iPad Roundtable

Today was the first of what we hope will be a series of iPad Roundtable conversations. About thirty educators from area schools gathered at Rowe School from 3:30-5:00. Tara Maker, the regional Apple Sales rep., and Jim Moulton, K-12 Education Development Executive at Apple, provided snacks and managed the registration. We had determined three topics for possible discussion:
 • Using the Book Creator app for students and teachers to make books that are read via iBooks - getting started!
• Using 1:1 iPads - what apps work well, what ideas can we share?
• Using iPads at stations in grades K-5

Groups formed around the three topics with some people moving between groups. There were a mix of technology integrators and classroom teachers from grades K-5. I learned some new tips about using any iPad as well as some good app recommendations.

Coding in the Primary Grades

All students in grades 1-12 had an opportunity to participate in an "hour of code" activity that was appropriate to their grade level. First graders used the iPad app Kodable to explore the concepts of planning a sequence, using if/then options and learning to repeat commands. Following the Hour of Code week students have been asking to access the app as one of their options in the classrooms.

Second and Third grades used the coding activities posted at the Computer Science week learn to code page of tutorials. Several students were able to complete the activity, whether they finished or not they all had success with the logical thinking procedures that are the underpinnings of programmming.

This is a slide show of some students at Rowe using iPads and YES learning top program on their laptops with assistants from HMS:

Leveraging Learning Conference 2013

Leveraging Learning Conference 2013 - Auburn, ME

The Kindergarten teachers at Rowe School are writing a YEF (Yarmouth Education Foundation) grant to have two iPad in each classroom and the first grade teachers are in their second year of using four iPads in each classroom. Given that, we arranged for six registrations for the two and a half day conference with one hundred-fifty primary educators in Auburn, ME. We rotated teachers so that every teacher who was interested was able to attend for at least one day. These are the notes from the conference. We had several big "takeaways" from the conference. One was that we wanted to limit the number of apps we used and focus on using them for creative expression, not just rote learning.

Explain Everything, KidBlog & YouTube Channels

In working with the first grade classrooms on students recording their stories on iPads I am focusing on Explain Everything these days. There is a significant update in the app that will load if you run updates. There is a video explaining the update at: http://www.explaineverything.com/ee-showcase.html. One option is for students to draw a number sentence and then record their strategy. Another is to record photos during an activity and then have students upload the photo followed by adding voiceover. After the recording you export them to your email, then the videos can be downloaded and posted on the student blogs or classroom blog.

Kidblog: I can export student names from PowerSchool to readily set up each clasroom. Then the individual student blogs can be added to the classroom blog as a link gadget.

Also, one alternative to posting video to Posterous is to post from the iPad to a teacher YouTube channel that is part of Yarmouth Google apps. Once the video is posted, you view it on your computer, click Share, then Embed, turn off suggested videos, copy the embed code to the clipboard, go to your Blogger blog>New Post>html for the post>paste in the embed code.

First Grade Stories & Recordings

We have been talking about authentic ways to record student voices and learning on the first grade classroom blogs using the iPad. We were a bit sidetracked this month as Posterous blogs are closing down and it has been the only blog that is setup for us to email media directly to the class blog or individual student blogs. It is possible to request a backup of a Posterous blog and then move it to WordPress without cost. Unfortunately we cannot upload a video directly to a WordPress blog; you can embed a video from a YouTube channel as you would in a Blogger post.


Last week I started setting up classes in Kidblog to be added to classroom blogs as links on the side. In one class we are adding an “Addition Strategy” post in which each child draws a number sentence using Explain Everything on the iPad and then adds her/his voice describing the strategy used for a solution. The process for using Explain Everything was to have the children record and name each one as a project. When the students were done I selected each project to compile and send it via. email to a teacger. Once the projects are in email they are attachments which can be downloaded to a folder on a desktop. In Kidblog it is very easy to login as each student as the names are in a dropdown list and we used the same password for each student. The last step is to create a post and insert the video format of the Explain Everything project.

 Our goal is to put the creation of the product into student hands as much as possible. Pursuing the use of Storykit and Explain Everything as apps that students can use on their own seems like the way to go at this point.

Exploring the StoryKit app with First Graders

I worked with some students last Tuesday and recorded their descriptions of photos showing them balancing crayfish. They certainly knew how to use the word “counterweights”! I have written out the directions so that a parent who helps out during writing will be able to do the process with students. The parent who watched me this week liked the activity and wants to do it on her own.
 
(cross posted in a somewhat different form on the private "iPads in Grade One" blog.)

After exploring a number of story writing apps, we determined that our initial goal was to select an app that allowed students to be the ones creating on the iPad. Our favorite app for that at this point is Storykit. It is a free app that is actually an iPhone app that can be enlarged to work on an iPad.

I worked with students to test out this app and we were able to have two groups of 4 students take each other’s pictures, draw a background and record the “About the Author” pieces that they had asked to write to accompany their “How To” books in about an hour. We hadn’t carefully edited their writing so they will need to redo ones that included last names or addresses. We are planning to take pictures of their self-portraits to use as “avatars” instead of photos as needed. Having students assigned to an iPad can help with this as then the images are on the right iPad.

I visited all six classrooms on Friday and all 20 iPads have Storykit and are set up to send email. If you want to email directly to a student blog then you can use the email generated by Posterous when you set up the student spaces. If anyone else is interested in setting up individual spaces for kids I’d be glad to help you. If you give me your passwords I can do some of the setup for you.

Fall Apps for First Grade Learning

Apps that we have purchased for the first grade classrooms this fall:

• ABC Spelling Magic (Short Vowel Sounds) - free
• ABC Spelling Magic 2 (Consonant Blends) - free
• ABC Spelling Magic 3 (Blends & Syllables) - free
• All My High Frequency Words
• Cimo Spelling (Lite)
• DoodleBuddy
• DraftPad
• Futaba- Word games for kids
• iKids Puzzle
• Google Earth
• Know your Math Facts
• iBooks
• LetterSchool
• Little Patterns
• Mathwise - free
• Math Bingo
• Montessori Approach to Addition Charts
• Montessori Approach 100 to 200
• Montessori Approach to 100 Board
• Montessori Crosswords
• Motion Math - Hungry Fish
• Pocket Charts! Beginning Letter Sounds 
• Pocket Charts! Long and Short Sounds
• PopMath Maths Plus
• PuppetPals
• Scribble Press - free
• Sight Words by Photo Touch - free
• Storykit - free 
• Sushi Monster - free
• Tell Time Little Matchups - free
• Telling Time Photo Touch  

We added some apps specifically for teachers. The apps that were free are on all 20 iPads, the few paid apps are only on one iPad per classroom:

• Dragon Dictation - free
• Educreations - free
• Explain Everything
• Pages
• Puffin Browser - free
• Quickvoice Recorder - free
• Show Me Interactive Whiteboard - free
• Skype - free
• The Weather Channel - free 

Most of the apps were available for volume purchase so we bought 20 copies of those for the price of 10. So far we have introduced LetterSchool, Little Patterns, iKids Puzzle and MathWise in classrooms. It is working well to assign five students to each iPad and store any saved games for them when they return. The next challenge is to figure out flexible grouping based on student needs and then appropriately managing the settings for each group.

More great resources for iPads & Learning

• Explain Everything – Great Tool to Create Videos of your Lesson Topics
  tags: ipads apps explaineverything videos
• Tony Vincent's Learning in Hand - Blog - Be an iPad Superstar: 8 Collections of iOS 5 Tips, tags: ipads tips
• StoryKeepers - iPad StoryTelling APPS
  tags: iPad apps DigitalStorytelling stories
• Create, Capture, Upload: New Site Features Kids’ Digital Projects | MindShift
  tags: kids creativity showcase parents diy
• 50 resources for iPad use in the classroom | ZDNet, tags: education ipads apps Yarmouthcourses

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Apple Review of iPads in Schools

• Exploring the impact of Apple's iPad on schools & schooling.
  tags: iPadApps iPads elementary

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Learning at edcampme 2012

Saturday was the first Maine "edcamp" sponsored by vendors and held at Waynflete School in Portland. This was a great day of connecting and sharing with other educators whose focus is using technology to support learning. I attended a session on iPads in the Elementary classroom and learned a few new apps and some management tips. The session on Digital Portfolios didn't apply directly to what we want to do in Yarmouth, but some of their methods could be useful. Alice, Mike and I presented a session on Google Apps in the Classroom with Kern Kelly from Nokomis High School. Kern has developed comprehensive digital portfolios of their older students and each graduating senior receives a gift of their name as a web domain so that they can carry their portfolio on beyond their K12 years. He also shared a great strategy for collecting student assignments when a teacher has many students in various classes. The sessions, photos and reflections of the day are archived at http://edcampme.posterous.com/ and the twitter hashtag for the day was #edcampme.

Recent posts about iPads, Research & Apps

Chicago Public Schools implement iPads up through 5th grade
This post focuses on the new options for assessment that are possible with the camera and recording aspects of the iPad. The author describes the use of apps like:  Explain Everything, ScreenChomp, ReplayNote, and Educreations.

The 200 Best Apps for Special Education This is a downloadable booklet of apps that are selected from the many that have been designed for students receiving instructional support.

iPads in the Classroom – Lessons Learned...Lessons Shared
This is a blog devoted to the experiences of a 4th grade teacher moving from a few iPads in the classroom to 1:1.

The iPad as...
This a post with iPad apps organized by purpose e.g. iPad as reader, creator, etc.

What apps are they using in Auburn Kindergarten?
Mike Muir is writing frequently about the Auburn iPad project, including the first research based on delayed implementation of iPads in half of the Kindergarten classes.