Analogies and Vocabulary With the Stick Around App

We have been preparing all week for our final meet in the 2014-15 WordMasters Challenge competition scheduled for next week. The WordMasters Challenge is a vocabulary competition based on completing analogies. Analogies involve higher order thinking skills which is based on logic and reason. We have been working on analogies and higher level thinking all year.

We decided to try something new to prepare for the meet! Students worked collaboratively and chose sixteen words expected to be part the WordMasters Challenge. They looked up the definitions of the words and created a puzzle using an iPad app called Stick Around to learn the meanings of their words. 

The first step of this project was watching a few tutorials to learn how to create the puzzle using the Stick Around App, then students started exploring and creating. 

As a class we tweeted the app creator, Tony Vincent and the app itself and a few students were really excited when we got retweeted right away! 

The goal of the student created puzzles was to drag the correct definition to the vocabulary word. Then, students were able to self-check their answers to see if they were correct and fix any errors if necessary. 

 Students enjoyed creating the puzzle but LOVED playing puzzles created by other teams. 

The Stick Around app was a really fun way for us to prepare for our final WordMasters meet. 

The WordMasters Challenge is a cumulative competition so scores from this last meet will be added to previous scores to determine our final winners! It has been a tight competition so this last meet will be critical. Keep studying and practicing! 

Homophones, QR Codes and Valentine's Day

Each year my class creates an interactive, 21st century Valentine card and this year was no exception!

Everyone worked with a partner using the free iPad app, Split Lens 2 to create a twin image of themselves. 

Students had a lot of fun getting creative with poses and props!

Students added a filter and text and emailed the image to themselves.

Then, they took their cloned image and uploaded it to Canva. They created a digital Valentine card using their cool double image. They saved and exported their Canva image and imported it into Google slides. Students made the slide public and created a QR Code leading to it. 

 Using Google docs, students inserted the QR Code and some text to print and physically glue to the front of their handmade Valentine card. 

We have been learning about homophones this week so I encouraged a pun using the word "two" since we had created a double image. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

App Smashing on the 100th Day of School

We celebrated the 100th day of school with App Smashing!

We started with the AgingBooth iPad app and took pictures of ourselves. 

We used the AgingBooth app to transform our current image into what we image we might look like at 100 years old. 

The results were pretty funny!

After saving our elderly images to the camera roll, students then moved on to the PicCollage app. They imported their AgingBooth image (this is where the SMASH comes in) to create a cool poster of themselves at age 100.

When the collage was completed, students then imported that image into their Google drive. They made the link to the image public, took that public link and went to goo.gl to shorten it and create a QR Code. They took the QR Code image and inserted it on a Google slide, with instructions to scan.

 Finally, we took turns scanning all the QR Codes to see what our friends 

will look like in 90+ years. 

App Smashing projects are a lot of fun because they really allow students to be creative and reduces the limitations of just a single app. The use of multiple apps is a higher order thinking skill because students must follow quite a few directions and complete many steps before they are able to finalize their project. 

Importing a piece of the project from the iPad to a computer, adds another challenging layer and it is amazing to watch how easily students are able to switch back and forth between devices and apply so many skills to one project. 

My class had a great time with this project and I heard more than one student say they were going to save the image and check back when they were 100 to see how accurate AgingBooth is. 

Mother's Day Cards With The Tellagami App

 An early Happy Mother's Day to all the fantastic moms! We created Mother's Day cards, but of course, added a 21st century twist.

First, students wrote a script in Google docs containing the message they wanted to send to their mom. After editing and practicing reading aloud, students were ready for the next step.

Using the Tellagami app, students created an avatar that looked like them. Then they set the avatar somewhere. 

What I love about this app is you can take a photo and set the avatar somewhere, real, like the classroom! This adds an element of Augmented Reality, one of my favorite new learning tools.

Next students read their script into the app, attaching their voice to their avatar.

Once they finished, a link to their video was generated. Students took the link and inserted it into a QR Code Generator. Then, they copied the URL of their QR Code and inserted the image of the QR Code into a Google doc, which I printed for them. In order to scan your special message, use any free QR Code reader. I like the i-nigma app, but there are literally hundreds to choose from.

The final step was pasting the QR Code onto their card, adding stickers, decorations and a personalized handwritten message to mom! Everyone enjoyed this project and the Tellegami app (free!) was a big hit! Happy Mother's Day!

Here is a link to an adorable sample gami and here is another! 

Using Augmented Reality With Book Reports

Earlier this year students created book jackets for a book report assignment. Then we took this activity a step further! Students recorded their book jacket presentation using an iPad. Then, we took a photo of the actual book cover, not the one they created. We uploaded the photo and the video into the Aurasma App. Now, when we use that app and scan the book, the video of the student presenting their book report pops up. 

Screenshot From the Aurasma App
 
This is a type of technology called Augmented Reality and it has been a lot of fun to integrate into the classroom this year! At home if you download the Aurasma App (it's free) you can search for my channel. If you scan the book your child read, you may be in for a treat! We created a brief video on this project. Click below to view. 

Publishing Our Own Writing Prompts

We have been doing a LOT of writing this year in 1st and 2nd grade! We often use the app Things To Think About for inspiration for a writing prompt or idea. Things To Think About is a free iPad app that offers 100 writing prompts created by students for students. The prompts were created by 2nd through 5th grade students in Jackson County, Michigan. The app itself was built by two high school students in the same county.

My students were very intrigued by this student created project and suggested we might do something similar. Using a Google form each student came up with several writing prompts. We then discussed the prompts and revised them.

When students had finalized their work, they printed their writing prompt and glued it to a piece of paper. Then, they illustrated the paper to match the prompt. 

Once each student had created their own writing prompt, students worked in small groups to photograph the images, crop them, upload them and insert them into a Google Presentation. We made the presentation public so anyone can use our writing prompts! I love doing projects like this with the class because it incorporates traditional skills with 21st Century Learning. Instead of just creating a book of writing prompts for our class, we are now able to share it with an authentic audience - the entire world! Click here to access the class writing prompts! 

QR Codes

 We recently started using one of my FAVORITE classroom tools: QR Codes!

I was honored to be invited to speak about using QR Codes in the classroom at the 2013 TED Conference and was also recently featured on Amplify.com talking about how QR Codes increase classroom engagement. 

Students in my class recently scanned a series of QR Codes, to learn about QR Codes! We used iPads and the i-nigma app to learn all about QR Codes including what they are, their history, different ways to use them, and how to create our own!

We will continue to use QR Codes in the classroom all year and now that students have learned to create them, you will start to see it as an option for homework. 

One Second Everyday

At a technology camp I attended this summer, I was introduced to an app called "1 Second Everyday" and I was very intrigued. I decided to record (at least) one second every day for the first month of school. Click below to get a glimpse into each day of our day at school during the first month.