Collaboration Without Boundaries

I have been pretty excited about using the Collaborize Classroom platform for my online Literature Circles in partnership with another school. My students have a completed a few Collaborize Classroom “Icebreaker” activities that focus on appropriate online discussion behaviours and how to respond to a classmate’s post. The “netiquette” activities were created by Catlin Tucker, a teacher in California but were available to me through Collaborize Classroom’s Topic Library; downloading to my classroom page was simple and I could edit the document to suit my needs.

Initially, some student responses were short, off topic and contained “text talk.” One of the activities involved students agreeing to follow specific online discussions rules and express their opinion about the rules. A few students were disappointed that there was an “avoid sarcasm” rule but it created a lively online discussion thread. Students were able to voice their affection for sarcasm with others but they also were able see that sarcasm was not going to move online discussions “forward.”

Here is a student response to “the rules” of online communication: “When you keep a postive attitude and follow the rules that are applied then you are  going to keep a good online conversation going. I like the rule that tells you to use people’s names because then you know who’s talking to you or who the message is directed to! The hardest rule is probably keeping an open mind because not everyone agrees and it usually becomes a huge online fight..”Posted By XXX on 04/05/2012 08:42 PM Reply

I recently started using Collaborize Classroom to create my own assignments and have found it to be quite easy. I have been very careful about creating assignments that require students to:

1.  read or view something
2. think about what they have read/viewed
3. respond in writing

My students are getting better at writing and expressing their ideas in such a short amount of time.   I noticed a big improvement (quality and quantity) in student’s written responses when I required them to type their response into a googledoc or word document, proofread it and then copy & paste it into the reply box. Students  found it helpful to use sentence starter prompts when replying to another person’s post.  I found the sentence starters to be an effective way to reduce the number of “Good job Eric/Erica!” comments. For the time being I decide who each student must reply to so that no one is left out. Maybe I will use some sort of stickpin app this week to make choosing easier for me and totally random. Is anyone familiar with such an app?

I have found Andrew Churches’ wiki invaluable for Digital Taxonomy rubrics.  I love the recent edition of Starter Sheets for various Web 2.0 tools.  Starter sheets introduce a tool or technology, provide  step by step processes for getting started, offer ideas for using the tool in a variety of settings and also provide an alternative web-based option.  This is a resource you will want to check out!

Lately we have been using a new  iPad app called Skitch.  We have been using it to document the last couple of science experiments that we have done in class.  I introduced the app to the students using my new Apple tv wireless connection (which is fantastic and I now use as a document camera and for Google Hangout and for Skype calls) on my SMARTboard.  I showed the students how to take a picture and how to import a picture, then how to label them the photo.  We use this app daily to document and record development of  our experiments and our hatching eggs.  I noticed that some students were more keen and so I have used these students as teachers to other students.  Two other classes in our school are also participating in our current  seed experiment and my students have gone over and taught other students in those classrooms how to use Skitch to document their experiments.

Initially my students were just labeling with single words, but now I ask that they use specific theme words to create sentences.  After the student has annotated their picture I have them save the picture to Evernote with the date and their names in the title.  I can then asily add this picture to their student portfolio and post the picture to our classroom blog, students can also choose to tweet out their pictures or email it home.

Our first attempts

Writing Sentences

Teaching other Kindergarten students

As always before I introduced this app I thought very carefully what skills it would develop.  The other day someone said to me that they could tell technology was my passion.  This statement worried me a little because while I am excited by the use of new tools in my class,  my real passion is to help my students become more capable communicators.  Reading and writing are my passions, I always keep in my  mind how is the technology going to help develop my curricular goals.  New and shiny is exciting but I must remember to try to bring it back to what skills am I trying to emphasis.  While  learning to use the tool is fun and makes the activity different it is still about teaching skills to students.

My next challenge is to have students use the technology in their Student Led Conferences.  Students will be using this app, making words on the SMARTboard and creating Number Stories that they will record on the iPods.  I can’t wait to see my students teaching their parents.

That apps are your newest discoveries?  What apps do you feel help develop communication skills?  How are you/do you imagine using Skitch?

One of the aspects that I love about digital portfolios is the idea of live recordings of students completing assessment activities. I have used the livescribe pen to record writing and thinking that students are doing with me (running records), independently (journal entries) and with other support staff in the school. We have also used our iPods/iPads to record oral reading, take pictures and record thinking or events that happen in our class.

Recently we have been working on equations in our class. As part of my assessment of the student’s understanding of addition and subtraction I gave them number sentences and students were to come up with “stories” that described what the equation described. We came back together as a group and shared our stories with each other and recorded them using the iPods.

Students were very respectful during this session listening and learning from the other students so the recording were quite good. I also would recommend using a tripod to record. I then took the footage and edited in iMovie to create these little clips which are posted on our class blog (HERE) and if students wanted to they could post them on their personal blogs (HERE). I will then take these clips and file them in their Evernote assessment portfolios as well they may choose to post them on their personal blog portfolios. I will then ask students to reflect on their story by writing or discussing them with me.  This activity created an opportunity for students to reflect on their learning, me to evaluate their progress of this concept and parents to get an direct view of their child’s undersand.
Here is an example of what we did;

How else do you use recording devices to collect data about student’s progress?  How do you have students do self-reflection about their learning?  Do you have any ideas of ways to capture student learning?

We used Songify, a free app, to create wonderful songs about Hallowe’en creatures. We brainstormed different Hallowe’en creatures and words in our classroom, then we went to PHSS (Mrs Walkus’s English/First People’s 10 Buddies) and we wrote and recorded our chants. The older students then emailed me the Songify files and I uploaded from itunes. This was a great Hallowe’en activity using descriptive words.

Emma

Biancas_song

Mason

Julienne & Cheyanne

Greg and mackenzie(1)

Frankenstein

My piece of our project is mainly about digital assessments.

My original idea was for students to create a digital portfolio of their learning that parents could access that was an authentic display of their child’s  progress. After much discussion with colleagues, fellow teachers on twitter and much research I realized that I needed to create 2 portfolios.

The 1st portfolio will be created by students and will be embedded in their Kidblogs.

I love kidblog.

It is simple, easy to use, free and most importantly easy to use for Grade 1′s. I am hoping the Kindergarten students who have joined us will also find it simple. Kidblog is not as flashy as some blogging platforms but I like it. I plan to use this blog as a collecting place. Students will learn to embed various online applications, add photos and add audio recordings. This blog will also be a record of each student’s writing progress. Parents and families will have access to this blog at home anytime. In all of this process my students’ safety is my primary concern. Parents have been informed all along the process. Each child has signed school AND specific classroom permission forms in order to create these blogs. We will also be reviewing and following our Blogging Guidelines

The 2nd portfolio is designed to be what I am calling an assessment portfolio.

This portfolio will also be digital, but it is my goal to work smarter, not harder. I plan to use

as my platform.

I have created an anonymous notebook in Evernote for each student. These portfolios will not be available to parents online, but will be accessed when we meet to discuss their child’s progress.   There is an option that I can share these portfolios with parents using email but I haven’t investigated this option much yet.  These notebooks will be tagged with each child’s initials so they are easily pulled up when evaluating or discussing progress.  This portfolio will include each student’s blog as well as audio recordings, photos, pdfs, livescribe pencasts and notes on progress.  As well as these assessment portfolios being evidence that is collected by me, I am hoping to have students choose evidence of their learning themselves and add a self-evaluation piece.

Wow!

Even just writing it all down makes it seem a little overwhelming. 

Is it going to be perfect the first time? No!

  Am I looking forward to learning, changing and working through this process?  Yes!

Do I need a little help from my friends? Yes!!

Please comment and let me know how you are using these tools in your classroom.  Please share links to your examples of student portfolios or how you are using technology to work smarter, but not harder.

This week I had the opportunity to do a lot of learning at Cowichan Valley’s Touch ‘N Go technology camp.  Sarah and I traveled down island to take part in two days of the five day conference. One of the reasons I was so excited about attending Touch ‘N Go was that they were offering sessions directly related to the news show the students and I will be working on this year as part of this project. Kelly Janzen, an Apple Distinguished Educator from Toronto, was ready to fill my mind with all things iMovie and Garageband.

The iMovie session was a full day of hands-on movie making magic. We started by learning about all the different parts of a project: pre-production, production, and post-production.  I can see that last year I did not spend as much time in pre-production as I should have.  She had some great ideas for story boarding and made me see how important it is for the students to have all aspects of the movie thought out and in their minds before shooting ever begins.  When we begin working on the news show students will have to present their:

• Treatment-the basic story idea
• Storyboard- What the viewers will actually see
• Script-What will be said by the actors or as a voice over
• Set/Costumes/Location
• Plan for work distribution- how they will share the work

Using iMovie is really going to change how we handle production and post-production.  Last year we only had the Flip and the software it came with to do our shooting and editing.  This year we will shoot our video and stills using the iTouches and do the editing on the iPads.  In our session we learned about using stills and video in our projects and about using voice overs (something I had never thought of) as a great alternative to just having the actors memorize lines.  We also learned about creating soundtracks to go with our projects (a post about what I learned in the GarageBand session will be coming soon).

After learning the basics of iMovie Kelly shared some examples of different projects we might want to do with our students and we saw some amazing student work samples. I think that both the documentaries and the infomercial parodies could be worked into our Tech Club news show. The documentary style would be a great way to add some community pieces to the show later on in the year once we are comfortable with the basics.

In the afternoon we learned about green screens, looked at iMovie on the iPad, and made our own short movies. I am really excited about how easy the green screening was using iMovie and can’t wait to try it with the equipment purchased by our school PAC.   I did find out though, that iMovie on the iPad does not include the green screen feature and so I am looking at purchasing a Macbook that I can use at school for this.

I can’t wait to get started with the Tech Club kids!

Does anyone have any movie making tips to share?

Do you have any advice for using iMovie with students?

The new school year is just around the corner,  I am starting to get butterflies in my stomach.  It has been a nice slow start up, beginning with learning modules -Touch ‘N Go newsletter4-1 that have been offered by Heather Stannard as part of our registration at  Touch ‘N Go.  One of the videos she shared with us was Philip Zimbardo’s, The Demise of Guys TED talk.  As a mother of 2 boys I was intrigued and by the end of it I was concerned.

What kinds of experiences can I craft that will give  students, particularly boys, the opportunity to learn in a social way?

I worry when I see any child isolating themselves whether it be on electronic devices or on the playground.  Some children do need quiet time to process and connect to learning, but I believe learning is social.  Encouraging children to share experiences, explain their learning and teach others helps children to connect knowledge to their lives.

My thoughts mixed with your thoughts create new thoughts.

We need to encourage the social piece of all learning.  That social aspect has been one of the best parts of this learning journey for me, how technology has been a connector of  ideas, colleagues and practices.  I want  to create opportunities for technology to do that for my students.

So I am ok with having two or three children or even  five children working together to create and learn on one device.  I am hoping that once we have learned procedures for classroom management the sharing of the devices will be a positive in that each child is not isolated, but sharing a device and learning together.

What a weekend!

On Friday, part of our order arrived and was ready to be picked up.  I spent the weekend setting up the iPads, an iTouch, and the LiveScribe Pens.  I am a PC person and so this was my first encounter with setting up and using anything Apple.  The LiveScribe pens were also new to me.

My part of this project is a student created news show called What’s Up at AJ?    We will use the iTouch to film our segments and iMovie on the iPads to do the editing.

I decided to take my first look at iMovie last night. I shot a short video clip, opened the app, and couldn’t figure out a darn thing! I tweeted that I was going to have to find a how to video to help me get started and in no time at all Jonah Salsich, a fantastic teacher in my PLN, sent me a great link to a You Tube video.

I am also looking forward to attending Touch’N Go 2011 – Cowichan Technology Camp later this month with Sarah. I am signed up for a full day of iMovie and a half day of Garage Band. Hopefully this will help get me ready for September and even if I am still stumbling a bit, I know that I will be able to learn from and with my students as we figure things out together.

Here are a few of the things I learned this weekend:
1. LiveScribe pens come with the greatest manual I have ever seen. All instruction manuals should be interactive
2. Shopping for apps in the iTunes store is highly addictive!
3. App Tracker is a great app that lists apps that have been reduced in price (found some great 2 and 3 dollar apps that were now free).
4. You cannot clone/mirror one iPad (with apps organized into folders) onto other ipads (I finally had to contact Apple customer service after many failed attempts to make this work). This was the only part of the set-up that didn’t go smoothly.
5. This is going to be one exciting year!

Christmas in August!

The summer is the most wonderful time to plan and imagine the possibilities.  This summer has been particularly invigorating as we start to think about what this project could look like in our classrooms.  Our hardware is starting to arrive and I can feel excitement building.

I only know what I know and this project is all about the things I don’t know.  So many questions are running through my head. How to manage devices in our classrooms?  What do I need to learn?   Is my head going to explode from all of this?  I also can’t wait to work with some amazing educators in my district as we stumble through this path together, committed to supporting each other.

We have been lucky enough to order Ipod touches, Ipad2s and Livescribe pens all to help families be more connected to what is happening in our schools.  We have committed to maintaining this blog as a way to document and share our learning with each other and the world!  Please check back as things get up and running, it will be updated regularly.

Just one little management idea:

How to keep all the cords, devices and other  organized.  First I found Tony Vincent’s post about Ipod Do’s and Don’ts and used his idea of numbered wallpaper, but this didn’t quite work for me.  I kept Tony’s numbers in the photo section of the Ipod so they could be easily identify but then  I made these little bags out of scrap material I had.   I took a picture of the bag and turned it into wallpaper on ipods and ipad2s.  Everyone then knows which bag to put things away in.

I’m off !