Technology Tuesday: Plickers

A few weeks before Christmas our wonderful Classroom Technology Designer (who I would love to be  when I "grow up!") came and demonstrated Plickers to my class.  It is now one of our favorite activities!

Plickers is a tool that lets you collect data from students without each student needing a device.  All you need is one device such as an Ipad, tablet or Smartphone and a set of student response cards, and you can quickly gather formative assessment data from your students.

Here's how it works:

1. Download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play for Android on the device you will be using.
2. Go to www.plickers.com and sign in with the same User ID that you used for the app.
3. Print a set of response cards.
4. Add a class and create your multiple choice or true/false questions.
5. Display your question.  I project mine using my Smartboard using Live View, but you could also use a document camera or write the question and answer choices on the board.
6. Students show their answer by holding their response card so the letter of their choice is at the top.
7. Using your device, scan the cards.  Plickers will let you know if you have captured each student's response. Once all of the students have responded you can quickly view the data and move on to the next question. 

Sample plickers card

Scanning the responses

For more information about how Plickers works, check out the Plickers website or this post by Tabitha Carro that includes a great video.  I love using Plickers as a quick check for understanding at the end of a lesson or as a review or warm-up activity before a lesson.

I hope you'll try Plickers and let me know how you liked it!

Tried It Tuesday: Kodable

Fourth Grade Flipper

A few weeks ago coding was mentioned at a technology staff development.  I wasn't 100% sure what it was, but I was pretty sure it wasn't for my first graders. But it kept popping up on blogs, twitter feeds- everywhere!- so I decided to look a little closer.  I discovered that it really is something my first graders can do!

Many of the apps and programs I've explored remind me of Logo.  Logo is an educational programming language designed by Seymour Papert and others.  It used a small cursor, called a turtle, that was given commands for drawing and movement to create line drawings.

(When I first moved to Texas in the early 80's, I worked part-time for Texas Instruments.  They had just released their first home computer. With every purchase, the buyer got 4 free lessons on how to use these crazy new machines.  I was hired to teach these lessons.  I knew next to nothing about computers, but they hired me anyway!  The major objective of the kids' lessons was to teach them Logo.)

OK, leaving the 80's behind and back to today!  Once I made the connection with Logo, I knew my firsties could do this.  I downloaded a free app onto our class iPad called Kodable.  The children  help adorable little creatures called Fuzzes explore their new world .  While doing this, they are learning to use logic as they give the computer commands.

I first demonstrated the app yesterday using the Smartboard, and then I put it out as a math station today. The 2 girls who were the first to try it independently were absolutely precious!  They were giggling and giving each other suggestions the whole time. Even when they didn't get the program right the first time, they kept trying and were still having fun. When our math time ended today, the whole class was buzzing about who would be going to that station tomorrow!

Now if I could just get my hands on more iPads!

Edited to add:

I've also linked up with Technology Tailgate for Techie Tuesday.

Tried It Tuesday: Animoto

I'm linking up with Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried-It Tuesday!  My "tried it" for this week isn't really new, but it is a tool I haven't used yet this year.  At the end of the first year I was back in the regular classroom, I was in a major panic trying to create a slide show for our EOY celebration. I had never used Photostory or any other program like it.  Of course,  I was so stressed that nothing worked for me so I ended up using Power Point.  Not bad, but very time consuming.  (The worst part was burning 22 copies so the parents could have a DVD of the show.)  I swore I would never go through that again!
Last year I discovered Animoto when doing another project with my class and decided to use that instead for my EOY presentation.  Animoto allows you to use photos, images, text, sound and video clips to create a video that can be shared via email, embedded into a blog or website or downloaded to your computer.  Instead of burning all those DVDs I just gave my parents a link to the video.
Basic Animoto only allows you to make 30 second videos, but with a free Educator account you can make videos up to 10 minutes long.  The only snag I encountered is that I had 3 songs I wanted to use, but Animoto only allows one.  (There is an paid upgrade that allows you to do more.)  I solved this dilemma by splicing my 3 songs together on one track using Audacity.  I loved the fact that once my photos and music were uploaded, Animoto did the rest!
I used Animoto again this weekend to create my show for Friday's Celebration of Learning.  I kept the same music as last year, so all I had to do was choose which photos to use.  An hour or so of work on Saturday and the presentation is complete except for adding some end of the year close-ups of each student.  (I like to display these along with the first day photos. My little firsties have grown so much this year!)
Here is the presentation my class  created last year to highlight a project we did.  Wish I would have done this project again this year, but our money unit was during the student teacher disaster and so coin research never happened. :(




Check out Animoto for an easy way to make a slideshow!

Another "Tried It" for me this week-I started my first linky!  I would love for you to share how you teach writing in your classroom.  Do you have tips, strategies, or resources that work for you?  What professional reading do you recommend?  Head to this POST and link up and share!




 

Too Soon for End-of-Year Panic Mode?

I was just looking at the calendar trying to make some summer plans when I suddenly realized that there are only 27 more days of school!  How can that be?  Although I can't deny that I am looking forward to summer vacation, I'm also a bit sad and panicked about this school year ending.  Sad because I have really enjoyed this group of first graders, and panicked because there are so many things I would still like to do! (And many things I HAVE to do!)
There are still a lot of technology tools and ideas I would like to explore.  Almost every day I read about something new to try.  (I love Twitter!) I just purchased Kathy Cassidy's book Connected From the Start and am even more fired up about trying new things with my class.  I discovered Kathy when I was researching blogging with primary students. It was so inspiring to hear about someone who was using blogging, digital portfolios and other tools with young students. I purchased the book as an e-book, which is fabulous because it is full of links and examples of her students' digital work. This book is a fantastic resource for those of us who want to use more technology with our little digital natives.  After  reading the first couple of chapters I find myself wanting to try Skyping with my class.  Too much technology, too little time!

Using Kidblog in the computer lab

Then there are resources and activities that I have done in the past, but haven't used yet this year.  This week I stumbled across my Marcy Cook Number Tile Cards.  How could I have forgotten about these wonderful activities?  I included them in my math tubs on Friday and my kids had a blast.  I loved when one little guy told me "It was challenging but I got them all!"  If you are not familiar with Marcy's tile activities, check them out here:

http://www.marcycookmath.com

Here's some of my friends enjoying math tubs on Friday.

Pattern block animals

Number Tile Task Cards

Close up of a partially completed task card.

This is a big week for the first graders at my school.  Our annual Reading Restaurant is Friday, and I can't wait!  We still have a lot to do to prepare our "Mother Earth Cafe" but it's going to be loads of fun.  I'll try to post some of our projects as we complete them.

Have a fantastic week!

Tried It Tuesday: Kidblogs

I'm linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper this week for Tried It Tuesday.  This week I tried Kidblog with my first graders. I first heard about using Kidblog with young students this summer at Confratute. The idea intrigued me so I spent some time researching it and decided this was definitely something I wanted to try.  I set up our blogs, wrote a sample post, and even uploaded several of my students KidPix creations.  But trying to keep up with the required elements of our curriculum didn't allow a lot of time to experiment with new technology so I put it on the back burner.
Until today!  I decided this weekend that our fairy tale unit was the perfect vehicle for reintroducing blogging so I created a blog assignment requiring the students to write a summary.  We have been using the "Somebody Wanted But So Then" format so the assignment asked them to summarize a fairy tale using this format.

I checked out a set of netbooks and we went to work.

What Worked:
1.  The kids were so excited- especially about the prospect of sharing their work with their families.
2.  Logging on to their blog on Kidblog couldn't have been easier!  A dropdown menu makes it easy for each student to find his/her name, select it and enter the password.

What to Work On:
1.  I need to create a link or shortcut to actually get to our class blog.  Typing the web address was NOT successful!
2.  I'm thinking about having the next group of students prewrite their summaries before typing.  Typing was S-L-O-W so maybe if they weren't trying to think and type at the same time?

The activity was a big hit with at least one student. One of my girls is a "teacher's  kid" and she was still talking about "blogging" when I saw her after school! I am really excited to see where this new adventure takes us!

Mentor Mob!

I wasn't planning to post tonight-too tired from a long day of STAAR testing and preparing ANOTHER day of sub plans- but I had to share my experience with MentorMob.

In my last post (here) I shared the playlist I created to use with our fairy tale unit.  The day after I created it I got an email from Erin at MentorMob welcoming me and saying  "As your personal MM Support Team, I'm here to answer questions, help fix issues, and listen to your feedback. What do you think of our playlist platform so far?" 

I emailed Erin to tell her how easy MentorMob was to use but I also mentioned that when I got to school I tried my playlist only to remember that YouTube is blocked on student computers so the first step of my playlist wouldn't work.  I sent Erin a reply and mentioned this problem.  She emailed me back today, and said that this is a common problem, and although she didn't have a solution, she suggested several other sources for videos.  (I wasn't able to find what I needed for this playlist, but I saw a lot of videos that will be useful for future projects.)

I am just so impressed that she took the time to personally welcome me and then respond to my question so quickly!  Thanks for the support, Erin!

Note:  I finally found a way to use the video from YouTube but I'm not sure I could ever do it again!  I downloaded it using a website called KeepVid, added it to a VoiceThread and then put a link to the VoiceThread into the playlist.  I probably could have recorded my own video easier than going through all that!)

Tried It Tuesday

I'm linking up with Holly at the Fourth Grade Flipper and her new linky, Tried It Tuesday.

I'm going to piggyback onto my post from yesterday about Evernote to share how I used it to make an audio  recording note.

One of my students is who has been identified as dyslexic is really struggling with writing.  He fills up his paper with a lot of writing but then is unable to read it if he comes back to it later (and I usually can't either.)  I hate always marking up his paper, but if I don't, I can't make any sense of it.  I have put sticky notes on his work with the "translation" but they fall off.

So today I recorded him reading his writing to me and then took a picture of his work.  Now both are filed in his notebook in Evernote so when it is time to assess his writing portfolio, I can look beyond the spelling and remember his message.  The kids thought this was pretty cool, so I recorded a couple of others just for fun!
I used my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3) to record.  I selected new note and then choose "record audio."  Then I snapped a picture, added a comment and there it was!

This is what it looks like on my phone.

I can't tell you how excited I am about using Evernote this way (and how convinced everyone I know is that I am truly a geek!)  Seriously, it has inspired me to "beef up" my entire writer's workshop.  It hasn't been my favorite thing to teach this year and that has translated into less than stellar work from some of  my students. Maybe this is just the spark I needed to help them become strong writers!

Carol

Evernote: My New Love Affair?

Evernote and I have been hanging around each other for awhile now.  Occasionally I would find a teaching idea online and save it, but Pinterest took over and I rarely looked at Evernote anymore. Every now and then I would read an article about how wonderful Evernote is and take another look, but it just never clicked between us. I really thought I didn't need another place to store pictures of cute bulletin boards.  But after reading Alyce's blog post, which led me to Alison at Eberopolis, I was suddenly looking at Evernote in a whole new way and found myself very attracted!  (This sort of sounds like how I started dating my husband.  We worked together for about a year, talked occasionally, and one day I suddenly I started thinking "Wow, he's kind of cute. We were married a year and half later!")
Anyway, I spent a couple hours yesterday reading about Evernote and decided to try using it to collect data on my students during Writer's Workshop.  I installed the app on both my smartphone and Kindle Fire. I followed Alison's great tutorial and set up notebooks for each of my students.
Then I read Alison's post about emailing notes to Evernote.  If you put the right information in the subject line, the note will even be sent to the right notebook.  By this time, my family had decided I was nuts because I was just so darned excited when I tried emailing a practice note and it went right to the correct notebook!
So today I tried it out.  I conferenced with several students while they were writing.  Instead of taking notes in the 3-ring binder I set up for this purpose or on the sticky notes that I end up using because they are easier to carry, I just pulled out my phone and took my notes there.  (I think using an Ipad or tablet with a stylus  would be even better!)  I even took a picture of one boy's writing and emailed it to his notebook so I could look at it more later.
My mind is racing with other ideas for using Evernote- recording a student reading his writing, reading conferences, anecdotal records during math and so much more.  I think I am falling in love with this tool!
Have you used Evernote in your classroom?  Please share your ideas and link up with Alison for her Paperless Challenge.

Maybe soon my desk and teaching table won't look like this:

Carol