Show Me How

I stepped into Ms McGuire's room to help with their blogging project, and it didn't take long for the students to start asking me questions about how to do things on their blog posts.  After a few minutes, I realized there were going to be a lot of questions about text wrapping -- something I don't really do on my blogs.  I just plop a picture down in my post and don't worry too much about the aesthetics of the page.  (Who knows? Maybe that's why I don't get a lot of hits.)

I explained to the class that I would start googling that question and we'd deal with it by the end of class.  Then Lindsey popped up.  "You mean, you want to do this?"  I looked at her computer and -- by golly -- she was doing text wrapping with her picture.  "Lindsey! How did you do that?!? Show me how!"

It may seem like a little thing, but when the dust settled I realized how that attitude feeds into a blended learning concept.  Back in 1994, when I started teaching, I was the final source of knowledge.  Well, the textbook and me -- we were an ugly tag-team match up.  If I didn't know the answer to a question, I would get all red in the face and flustered. It was like the deodorant commercial -- never let them see you sweat. I never wanted to show any mental weaknesses.  Not knowing was akin to not being qualified to be the teacher.

So much has changed now, and I feel completely comfortable not knowing something. In fact, I'm cool with asking a 10 year old how she accomplished something I can't.  Cause it's all about learning and growing, and I'm glad I could model that for 25 fifth graders.

And, just to show you I can now text wrap.... here's proof.

Blending Narnia...

What is it about your job that geeks you out? For me, it's those moments when a teacher invites me into her room and gives me carte blanche to do something cool.  I'm still quite new at this school and in this role, so I get excited when doors fly open for me.

This happened for me about a week ago, when I popped my head into Ms. McGuire's 5th grade room.  She pointed at her stack of new copies of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and said, "Get thinking about how you can help us with these." WHAT?!?!

Let's back up a few decades to my formative years.  I was never into reading as a kid.  I read what I had to read for school and occasionally found books that I liked to read.  But I was never what I would consider a reader all through my childhood.  That changed during college in my Children's Lit course.  One of our required readings was The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and my eyes were opened to the awesomeness of books.  I have never been the same since.  Because of that trip to Narnia, I have battled for Middle Earth, lived through numerous national dilemmas, and solved countless murders, not to mention exploring the human mind, educational philosophy, and human nature through non-fiction.  Would I like to help with this class's trip to Narnia?  I couldn't sign up fast enough!!!!

The problem really boils down to how to use technology when teaching such an epic novel.  Since Google searches weren't much help, I had to come up with my own epic idea.  After pondering for a while, it finally hit me!  The students could blog the journey through the wardrobe as one of the Pevensie children!  

From there the idea moved pretty quickly.  I read the first couple chapters and created my own blog as Tumnus the Faun to give the students an example to work toward.  It was fun to design the blog as if a faun was writing it, keeping the focus of the book in mind.  I'm still toying with the idea of continuing the blog throughout the course of the book or just keeping up one post as an example for future years.

Yesterday, the students started their blogs, and I'm just geeking out over bringing my passions of reading, blogging, and edtech together as we read one of my favorite books.  Stay tuned, and I'll have student examples soon.  

Kentucky and WeVideos

Riding the wave of success that was the 2nd grade rainforest videos, I realized that this would apply well to a project that our fifth grade was doing.  In their social studies class, they were researching Kentucky to determine which region of the country it belongs in.

(Quick aside: I was born and raised in Philadelphia and always considered Kentucky part of the Deep South.  It wasn't till I moved here 20 years ago that I realized I live on roughly the same latitude as my parents. Do I really live in the South?) 

Students wrote a script and found images with their teacher, then I stepped in armed with WeVideo.  The students were tasked to create a video in which they read their scripts and showed some pictures to back up their thoughts.  I showed them some extras but really left those up to the students.  With that said, I was super impressed how students explored the many visual and audio options within the software.

WeVideo is not hard to learn, and it's almost as easy to teach.  One thing that amazed me is how students took leadership and ownership of this project.  I literally taught a handful of kids how to work the software, but 50 kids created a video worth being proud of.  How does that happen?  Those who finished turned around and helped others.  In fact, it was common to see one student help three or four classmates at a time.

My principal noted that she saw kids working in the hallway.  She asked them "Are you working on this in groups?"  The response always came back as something like, "No.  We're each doing our own, but I'm struggling with editing the sound and he's really good at that.  So he's helping me."  Boom! How awesome is that!?!!?

Here are a couple of the best videos from the project.

ThingLink and the 13 Colonies

I recently had the opportunity to work with some of our fifth-grade team to help students create ThingLink images about the 13 colonies. I had never seen ThingLink in action before but I was amazed at how easy it was to create with and learn how to use.  I created the image below to practice how it is was done.






When it was time to talk to students about ThingLink, I showed them another practice image and we let them run with a practice ThingLink. They were allowed to select any topic they wanted but had to include a few different media to practice the process.

On Day Two, we gave them the learning requirements, their randomly selected colony them set them off on a new adventure. The next few days involved a lot of learning about colonies and how to utilize the technology of ThingLink.  Then it was time to present their learning to their classes.

Almost as an afterthought, it hit us that presenting these would cause some problems. It takes time to log out of a website so someone else can log in, and no one wants that kind of lag time in their classrooms.  I quickly created a spreadsheet with the names of all 100 5th graders and shared them with the teachers. The teachers dumped that spreadsheet into Google Classroom... and viola! We had a means of turning the project in and a quick link to all images.

I thought you might like to see some of the ThingLink images our students created.  Here are a few of the best.  Let me know how you are using ThinkLink in your school. 

WeVideo in the Rain Forest

Our second graders are creating their own rainforest in their hallway.  It's a sight to behold to watch the trees and foliage spring up from linoleum floors.  And mixed into the canopy and forest floor are animals peeking out with -- what's that?!? -- paragraphs written about those animals too!

I worked alongside Mrs. Zuerick, one of our second grade teachers, to help students create videos about their chosen rainforest animals.  

We selected WeVideo as our video creation tool, which was is an amazingly simple editing tool.  I worked with small groups of students at a time in my lab. Students had to select three pictures of their animal, record an intro with the webcam, insert transitions between visual elements, and their voice reading the paragraph, and wrap it up with background music.  Believe it or not, we were able to get 3-5 videos done in about 40 minutes.  When all the videos were completed, I created QR Codes for each, and those will be added to the paragraphs.  

Enjoy some of my favorite videos...

Thanks for watching! How have you used WeVideo in the past? 

Orange Frog: A Book Review

Title: The Orange Frog
Author: Shawn Achor
Review:

What makes someone happy? Is it a result of what you accomplish? What you think? Is your happiness a result of your circumstances or your reaction to your circumstances?

The Orange Frog is a parable that takes a look at these questions and nails down the concept that "happiness is a choice." Now, that might seem like a no-brainer to you. It was to me.  But how does that play out in your normal day to day life?  Are you happy in your work? Are you a positive-thinking person? Do you take joy in helping others? Do you look for the positive in your circumstances? Do other people see you as a happy person or do they hear you complain all the time? How does this affect your productivity as well as those around you?

In this parable, one frog is an outlier. While the social norms tell him to conform to the other frogs, the more of an outlier he is, the happier he becomes. As time goes on, we start to see him as a positive agent of change for the other frogs.  As a team, they become more productive, more happy, more... well, don't let me spoil it all for you.

The bottom line of this parable is that you can be happy.  You can be a positive outlier. You can choose to improve your attitude and in turn help others improve as well.  The big question is HOW you continue to find the good in life and make happier choices.