Three Months, a Bunch of 7 Year Olds, and 99 Book Commercials

Without a doubt, the highlight of the fall semester of this year for me can be summed up with this video.

Yealey Elementary Book Commercials from Steve Oldfield on Vimeo.

Mrs. Zureick and I worked together to help our second graders create book videos to promote reading with younger children.  This is a project we did on a smaller scale last year, but we ramped it up during a Project Based Learning seminar this summer with the Buck Institute for Education.

I'm really excited about this project, the time I spent with the second graders, working with the second grade team, and the final product.  This blog post will serve as a means to hit the highlights, and I'm fairly certain it will be a long one.

A solid PBL unit will have a strong driving question to guide the process. The question we posed to the students at the beginning was...

How can we as readers and book reviewers help beginning readers pick interesting books? 

I think this was a hard concept for the students to think about when we first talked to them.  We got a lot of answers like, "Well, I just tell them what I thought of the book."  I remember how we would explain to them that we couldn't just have them sit in the library and explain each book.  "Oh, well they can just call us on the phone and we'll tell them." Finally, we guided them to the idea of creating book commercials that would be available through the Internet and QR codes inside book covers.  They loved the idea!

We spent a lot of time talking about success criteria for good commercials, watching and critiquing other videos, and modeling the process ourselves.  Finally, we got to survey kindergartners and first graders in our school about books they liked before our local public library brought us a massive stack of books to work with.

As part of our project, we were able to have a video chat with an author who told us about her books, the writing process and how to create a good book promotion.  Tricia Stewart Shiu and Nepris were a huge help in our process of growing from readers to book reviewers.

If you've ever written anything you know the writing process can be lengthy.  If you've ever watched second graders handwrite anything, you know it takes forever.  I watched as students would write up a paragraph, get feedback from a peer, cross it all out and rewrite the whole thing.  It was at that point I got a crazy idea.  Let's teach second graders how to use Google Docs.  I don't know when your school starts working with cloud computing, but these kids just got their fingers on Chromebooks a few weeks earlier.  This was huge! I think it took two days to get them on Docs and type up their commercials, but it was a massive step forward in our process.  We got to teach the editing process without waiting half a class period between drafts.

Finally, the students were ready to record their videos.  We use WeVideo in our school for video creation and editing.  I love how it's quick and easy to create videos in the cloud and sharing is super easy. One goal we had for the video aspect of this project was not to just hold their hands as they created videos but to train them to be the teachers.

Once videos were completed, I did a bit of tech work in the background.  I downloaded the videos to my hard drive then immediately uploaded them back to our Vimeo page.  Then we created QR Codes for each commercial.  Finally, I sent everything to our public library for them to process on their end.

As the first round of 24 videos were being completed, we started up plans to continue the project through the rest of the second grade in our school.  Since we trained these students to be the teachers, we were able to sit back and watch them help their friends. It was at that point that Children Inc. found out about our service learning project and wanted to create the video you saw at the top of the page.

The end result was astounding! Ninety-nine book commercials were put on display at the library!  We hosted an open house a week ago for students and families to come and see the videos.  It was such a great culminating event to celebrate all this hard work! I wish I could tell you all the stories of self-confidence found, leadership skills honed, and love of reading kindled.  I am so glad I got to take part in this amazing project!

Now, for a reward for reading this far, I'm going to share with you some of my favorite commercials.


HI FLY GUY from Donna Logan on Vimeo.


Farmyard Beat from Donna Logan on Vimeo.


BAD KITTY DOES NOT LIKE THE SNOW from Donna Logan on Vimeo.


Spider Man V.S. Doc Ock from Donna Logan on Vimeo.

Green Screen Practice

As part of our Narnia blogging experience, we wanted to give the students an option to create a vlog entry as well.  So, the other day, I asked for volunteers.  "I need two students who are done their assignment for the day and are ready to do something crazy."  (Amazing how that motivates kids. "Something crazy" has to be a good thing. Right?!?!)

I took my two students in the hall and explained what they were doing, and almost immediately one of them commenting about the background.  After all, cement blocks painted white is not a Narnia-inspired look.  So, I started exploring the options of using a green screen.  

As it turns out WeVideo has a green screen feature, AND our school owns a small green screen! It was a match made in heaven! 

Last year in my previous school, I co-taught a couple media production classes for middle and high school.  But, by saying "co-taught" it just meant I helped by managing and organizing the courses.  I actually had no idea how to do half the stuff the students were doing.  So, I missed the green screen lesson completely.  Fortunately, WeVideo makes it super easy.  

Below are two promos that I created for the entire vlog experience.  The first was shot with my iPhone 6 (front camera) and the second was shot with my Chromebook webcam.  

We showed the first video to the students today, and they were pumped! They were certainly excited to see me with the mountain background AND they can't wait to start using the green screen.  This will be fun!

Now, I'm experimenting with using (finding) lights to make a more consistent green color on the screen.  While the phone camera did a better job, I'd much rather not use it for all 50 videos.  So, I want to make things work on the webcam for a usable video experience.

Stay tuned.  Good things to come.  Of course.

And, if you want to watch 27 seconds of utter cuteness, you need to watch this...

Chrome Camps

There is such excitement in the air this year as our students are walking into a really sweet deal.   Every third, fourth, and fifth grade student gets their own Chromebook to use in school.  And they are (literally) squealing with delight.

My job this week has been to run "Chrome Camp," where I go into each of the twelve classes using the Chrome books and to teach them the ropes.  It's been both fun and exhausting!  It's great to joke with them, walk through all the icky rule stuff, and help them get started.  I've also enjoyed photobombing their profile pictures.  The great thing is that these kids see me as "the keeper of the Chromebooks," so I walk into their room as a superhero before I even open my mouth.

However, it's exhausting work too. I'm not used to not having my own classes.  I'm really just a visitor in these classrooms.  I don't know the kids, their teachers, or the class culture yet. And I'm well aware that there is more on display than the wonderful Chromebooks I'm talking about.  There have been numerous with login info, and it's been hairy getting the students off and running

Overall, it's been awesome to get into classrooms and start the process of moving my school toward blending learning.  Setting up the Chromebooks is understandably one small step in the process but it's been an important one.  And I'm feeding off the students' enthusiasm.

Here are some main themes of my Chrome Camp talk.

• What 1:1 means and who really owns the Chromebook.
• How to take care of your Chromebook.
• Things to do and not to do with your Chromebook (both the physical machine and digital content).
• Parts of the Chromebook.
• Log in and make a profile picture.
• Sign the Chromebook Contract. 

The contract is a Google Form where students read and agree to statements about treating the Chromebook correctly while being good digital citizens.  This can be used if a student displays improper use of the technology and we need to have "an uncomfortable conversation" with them.

Since I am not the originator of the presentation or the contract, I need to create an original version of these before I can post them on the blog.  Hold on tight.

How are you kicking off your year with Chromebooks?

Starting Out

I was told that we would get a slow start to the year.  While I fully believed that statement, I had no idea how slow the start would be.

Like most teachers, I'm used to the first few days of school being exhausting.  You're on your feet more than you're used to.  You're talking more than you're used to.  You're thinking more than you're used to.  Then you go home and collapse.  This year... not so much.

The first three days consisted of impromptu meetings with my RTI and blended learning teams and projects that came out of those meetings.  I never thought I would become adept at stringing power cords in charging carts, but after three Chromebook carts and one iPad cart, I feel like I could do that in my sleep -- over and over again.  I helped out with first grade math screenings, and I got to know my team members.

I have to laugh, because people will ask me how I like my new job.  "So far, I haven't done anything.  I like it a lot!" I laugh then add that things will start to pick up soon.

Wait... Let me back up a bit for those of you who don't know who I am or what I'm doing.

I am a 22 year teaching veteran.  For those first 22 years, I taught in three different private schools in three different states.  I have taught 4th, 5th, and 6th grades and spent a good chunk of time as a computer teacher and tech lead in a PreK-12 setting.  My main foci were on iPads, OneDrive, and Renaissance Learning.

For Year #23, I am in my first year at Yealey Elementary School in Boone County School District (Kentucky).  I am the blended learning teacher. My main thrust will be helping third through fifth grade teachers and students learn to use Chromebooks in their classrooms.  I will certainly help in other capacities, like iPads in 1st grade or collaborating with our art teacher, but the Chromebooks are what got me here. I certainly hope to post often and show you what we are learning here at Yealey and how we can incorporate these machines into a PBL setting.

It's going to be a long process, changing the trajectory of a school, but I'm excited to see what's going to happen around here.  But for now, I should take a stroll down the hall to try to figure out more teacher names.