Comic Life

As I have worked with teachers in the Elementary and Secondary schools these past couple of months, students are creating awesome projects using the program called Comic Life. Comic Life is relatively easy to use and students who are even in the 3rd grade, can use this fun program. The following are examples of what students have completed in Jordan School District. The projects range from All About Me to a students assignment in Jr. High about predators and hosts. Kudos to these teachers who are doing such great work in their classrooms.

Examples of Completed Projects
These two projects were based on a reading unit called Esperanza Rising. I had gone into this 6th grade class and already had pictures for them in a file that they could use for this particular unit. The students created a cause and effect chart of the different situations that arose in the book. Thanks to Mrs. Reich's class for their great work!



These are some examples of students All About Me projects that were done in 3-6 grades. Students were directed to safe sites where pictures and clipart were collected.
I also came into the labs with two files of pictures, one for favorite books and one for favorite movie, for the students to work from while they were in comic life.



These were comic life projects completed for science.


Comic life can be used for an array of projects. Here is one that I typed as a reminder for a meeting that is coming up in February.


Quote: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
-- Albert Einstein

GarageBand in the Classroom

I worked with a 6th grade class at Columbia in Garage Band. It has been so much fun! After giving the students background information about how recording music has changed in the music industry, why tracks are used in this software program, and allowing the students to explore in GarageBand, the students did a fun project using a Thanksgiving Poem. I gave each of the students a Five Little Turkeys. They read the poem and added a different vocal for the narrator and each of the turkeys that spoke, as they recorded their voices in GarageBand. Some of the students had time to add music to their poem. Here is a recording of one of the poems today.

Five Little Turkeys: (There is no way to upload an MP3 larger than 100 MB on my blog, so if you would like to hear an example, please email me and I will share it with you.)

Mrs. Buttars, the teacher, is having them draw a picture in KidPix, and then the individual pictures will be attached to their recordings. I also gave her a reader's theatre play called the Ugly Turkey. This is another great way for students to work in groups and record a play using sound effects, different vocals, and adding music. Any questions, please feel free to email me.

Quote: "Those who believe they can and those who believe they can't are both right."
-Henry Ford

Skype in Elementary

I had the opportunity to work with a G/T Specialist, Deanna Taylor, in our district. She is over the program Monster Math and agreed to teach about it to a 6th grade class via Skype. We did worry about technical difficulties, so she taught her lesson in the school, but from the computer lab. She skyped into the class through the teacher computer and taught about problem solving processes, showed a powerpoint in Skype, and then had the students work in groups on a Monster Math problem. The following are comments students made about using Skype as a Web 2.0 tool in the classroom.
(These students wrote comments with the understanding that they were the first class we taught using Skype.)
*I loved it. I am so glad you picked us to do it.
*I had fun doing math.
*I think using Skype is very cool!
*I thought it was kinda weird, but cool because it was just like she was in the room with us.
* I liked using Skype because it gives us an opportunity to connect with teachers in different places.
Thanks to Mrs. Buttars and her 6th grade in Columbia that let us work with them and thanks to Deanna for her wonderful job of teaching Monster Math and being willing to implement a Web 2.0 tool into her 21st Century Learning Classroom.

Completed Project by a 6th Grade Team!

Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

I had the opportunity to train the Computer Lab Assistants on Friday, September 26th, and the topic of wordles came into discussion. This is the link: wordle.net Here is a wordle I made for our EC teachers.



There were a couple of tricks that came up during our discussion and I thought it would be a good idea to share on my blog. I did learn a couple of new things myself. First of all, if you need to go back to add words for the word cloud and you do not want to retype all of your words again in the word box, hit the refresh button and you will be taken to your word box to add words to it.
Second, you can print your wordle from the internet site or save it as a PDF. You can also do a screen shot and save your wordle as a jpeg. There was a word of caution to be careful when you have the kids on the homepage of the wordle. Different types of word clouds are posted on the main page, so it may be a good idea to already have the create a word cloud up so that students can begin typing as soon as they sit at their computer.

Quote:
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. Alvin Toffler

Spanning Sync

I love utilizing iCal because it is so easy to schedule appointments using my iPhone. However, my team likes to use google calendar. This was a problem for me because I really didn't have a way to sync my iCal with Google calendar and I did not want to have to keep up with two separate calendars. One of my team members told me about Spanning Sync. It is a program that automatically syncs my iCal to my Google calendar. It is sweet to use. I tried out the trial version first, loved it, and decided to pay my $25.00 fee for a year subscription. Check out the link.
spanningsync.com
For Windows base users who use Outlook, Google has a program that will do the same thing that Spanning Sync does for the Mac. This helps my husband and I keep up with each other's schedules as we look at our Google calendars. This makes life very easy when planning the week around daycare and who will be where when. Google applications rock!

Quote: "There can be infinite uses of the computer and of new age technology, but if the teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails."
Nancy Kassebaum, U.S. Senator

What Does It Mean to be Engaged?

iMovie Video Responses by 6th Graders

I had the opportunity to work with a 6th grade class on Friday, Sept. 12th. Prior to Friday, the teacher had showed the students the video on our wiki page theengagedclassroom.wikispaces.com called A Vision of K-12 Students Today. The teacher thought it would be fun for the students to make a video response to this video by answering the question What does it mean to be engaged? The six one minute videos will be compiled into a one six minute video response.

Before I came to work with the class, the students had been divided into 6 groups. They had then written down what they were going to do for their responses. (Like what they needed for props, signs, pictures, and technology equipment needed for their groups.)
On Friday, I met with each of the groups. I was really impressed with the students and their creativity using Web 2.0 tools. These are some of the tools that were used and integrated into their video responses.

• Pics4learning.com
  
• USB drive to transfer their pictures to another laptop.
  
• Soundzabound from Pioneer library
  
• iTunes
  
• Ipod
• Microphone attached to the iPod.
  

The students thought it was really cool that they could actually use an iPod as a recorder. I also had the chance to talk to the class about what it means to work as a team and how everyone can have a role in the project.
My favorite comments came from two of the “harder” kids in the bunch on how much fun they had working on their iMovie projects. They didn't have a clue that while they were having fun, they were also learning. Because everyone was engaged on their projects, there weren’t really any discipline problems to contend with as I worked with them in the classroom. The students were also excited to share their projects with the class and what they had learned that day.



Quote: Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

-- Plato

Engaged Classroom Trainers- Blogging

I have been contemplating about what kind of blog I wanted to do that would be considered "educational". I think blogging is a cool idea, but where do you go with it and will people really be interested enough to read it? I have decided that this blog will be dedicated to the engaged classroom teacher trainers that I work with in Jordan School District. I have been very surprised and tickled with the work and the Web 2.0 tools that these teachers are using in the classroom. I love the blogs that these teachers have created and the communication that they are promoting with the students and the parents.
Way to go teachers!!!!!

Check out these blogs that our teachers have created for classroom use! They update their blogs weekly and they are currently being used for the current school year.
6th Grade Blog At Columbia Elementary
6th Grade Blog at Terra Linda Elementary
5th Grade Blog at Oquirrh Elementary
5th Grade Blog at Riverside Elementary

Quote: 'It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.' Charles Darwin