Writing On Google Slides

Have you ever had one of those moments...where you accidentally do something, and it turns out to be one of the best things ever? Today, my friends, was one of those days! Kate and I were literally jumping up and down and cheering (all while our students laughed hysterically at us!) Now, perhaps some of you already have figured out what we did today, but if you haven't...for us...this is LIFE CHANGING!

We have always been frustrated with the fact that you "can't" write on a Google Slide Presentation when it is in "Present Mode" on our SMART board (I'm honestly not sure if it is the same problem with Promethean boards?) We absolutely LOVE the ease of making our mini-lesson slides with Google. We love that we can share them digitally with our kids...Kids can work through things at their own pace, view from home while sick, traveling the world, out of state for an athletic meet, or just for review. BUT...when we are teaching...you can't write on the board while in present mode. You can't model things. Write problems. Have kids draw something or share. It has always frustrated us.

Today...on complete accident...we figured out THIS:

What? You don't see it yet in that tiny tool bar? Let me blow it up larger for you...

When you click that part of the tiny tool bar, It takes it out of "full screen", but still keeps it in "present mode." The main difference is that you see the "tabs" in your web browser. It looks like THIS: Still WAY larger than in your regular view (before you hit "present") and only slightly smaller than full "present mode."

Voila! And just like MAGIC...you can WRITE ON YOUR SMART BOARD! Because it isn't in "full screen", I think it somehow tricks the SMART board into allowing an "ink layer." It won't "save" your writing on the slide like it would in SMART Notebook software, but it is still LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than what we were dealing with before.

Maybe we are the last teachers on Earth to figure this out. Maybe we aren't. But seriously, friends, this was a highlight of 2016 for us! Total game changer in how we work with kids in the classroom!

So, in case you didn't know either, we hope you are as excited as we are! If you did know about it...SHAME ON YOU for not showing us all sooner ;) 

Hope everyone's first week back was amazing! We have LOVED looping with our kiddos!

Happy Teaching,

Angela

New Tech Tools!

So, my summer to-do list today is ridiculously long, but while prepping for some upcoming PD work, I got a little excited about some new tools and figured now was as good a time as any to share!

Angela and I love stumbling upon new tech tools that make our lives easier. This summer, after presenting at and attending our first GAFE Summit, we were introduced to a few new ideas that we are excited to use this fall.

ADOBE SPARK

Adobe Spark merges graphics, text, stories, and even videos into an amazing visual presentation. It is a quick and easy way to create a video, presentation, parent newsletter or even an invitation to your class Wax Museum. Like many of you, we are also always looking for new publishing options for our students. The templates and font options are endless, and your students will have a blast creating their own Sparks! Check out the newsletter I quickly created to send out to our students and families below.

Our colleague, Michael Mohammad from MoPhysics MoProblems, created a great tutorial video to help his students get started. It's a great resource for students AND teachers! Thanks, Mike!

HYPERDOCS

Collaboration, creativity, critical thinking...these are skills crucial to truly engage and empower our learners to be innovators in the classroom. I'll be honest, initially when I heard about Hyperdocs I wasn't overly excited. It seemed like a Google Doc with a few links embedded throughout. That was something we had been doing in our classroom for years. Then I started following the Hyperdoc Girls on Twitter (my favorite personalized PD option), and I quickly realized the power of these interactive tools. When thoughtfully created, these Hyperdocs will help you shift the way you use tech tools to teach! Give Hyperdocs a shot! 

More from these amazing educators!

GOOGLE CAST FOR EDUCATION is a new Chrome app from Google that gives teachers and students the ability to share their screens wirelessly. Screens can be shared out to the entire class, or just the teacher's computer. It's an incredible way to increase collaboration and interaction between students and/or teachers!

Learn more about it here!

NEW GOOGLE SITES

And, finally, learn about the new Google Sites update! Not gonna lie, friends, this is a GAME CHANGER, in my opinion! Sites has always been my least favorite GAFE tool...it is cumbersome and not user friendly. We went away from it with our digital portfolios in the past due to this. This update is a total overhaul of the old program, and it is now SO easy to use! Check out our buddy, Mike Mohammad's blogpost and his great video to see its ease of use! Thanks, Mike!

Alright, now back to the to-do list! What new technology tools are you excited to use this fall? We'd love to hear about them!

~ Kate

Go-Cart Collaboration Across Levels: Take Two!

Yes, I know it is the middle of March and I just realized this collaboration day took place almost a month ago :( I am embarrassed it has taken me this long to post this...Angela and I will both agree that the month of February was a crazy, whirlwind of activity in T.E.A.M. Togetherness. Between the end of the quarter, parent teacher conferences, visitors, guest teachers, amazingly fun activities, even an extra day, the month flew by and this post sat in our "drafts" for far too long. 

About a month ago we had another awesome morning with Mike Mohammad's AP Physics students from Brookfield Central High School. After our first collaboration day back in December, Mike and I knew we wanted to get the "bigs" and "littles" together for another day of Physics Fun! Knee deep into our Models and Designs unit, Mike came over to Swanson to observe what we were learning and help me figure out how we could make the connection. When he saw our students would be designing and building self-propelled go-carts, he quickly found a perfect fit!

4th Grade Go-Cart Challenge

Use the supplies provided to design and build a self-propelled go-cart that can move 2 meters on its own! 

Our students were divided into groups and given their baggy of supplies. They were super excited about the challenge and were quick to design conceptual models and jump into the self-propelled challenge. Within minutes, Angela and I began to see the students' frustration grow. They could easily design a go-cart that could roll down a ramp, but they were stumped when facing the self-propelled challenge. We let them struggle for a while and listened in for glimmers of hope. As the conversation and collaboration continued, students started to figure out that the rubber bands in their bags would be the most realistic item to get the go-carts moving on their own. Other groups decided they needed larger wheels. 

After a day or two of working with their small groups, we met as an entire class to discuss the problems we were facing. We then shared out solutions! That is when the magic started to happen...groups started listening and coaching each other. They started sharing ideas, creative juices were flowing, and the go-cart creations started coming together. The grown ups in the space took a back seat and we let the students take over! We had one group of young ladies quickly meet the 2 meter challenge. We celebrated their success, and then encouraged them to share their design with the other groups. They then went out and became our resident experts on self- propelled carts. Within 4 days, all of the groups when from bags of supplies to functioning, self-propelled carts. They were ready to video their cars in motion.

All groups were able to get their go-cart moving on it's own, so they each had the opportunity to have their go-cart video taped for analysis. Some of the go-carts traveled beyond the 2 meter challenge, many did not. Regardless of the distance, the videos were then sent to Mike's students. They used an app called Video Physics to measure the velocity and acceleration of each go-cart vehicle. The high schoolers then created detailed reports that were tailored to each group's go-cart and, more importantly, comprehendable to our 4th graders. They included graphs and explanations that related directly to our Models and Designs learning. The conversations between the engineers from BCHS and Swanson were amazing, to say the least!

Along with investigating the motion of our student's go-carts, the high school students orchestrated five interactive motion stations. Mike, once again, AMAZED all of us with his creativity and work with his high schoolers. Our kiddos were exploring, learning, and in heaven the entire time! If only my high school science courses were this engaging and fun!!

Station 1: Speed Tubes

In this station the BCHS students showed our 4th graders the basics of speed using color tubes filled with air bubbles. The bubbles rose at different rates and our 4th graders used collaboration, and mathematics of course, to measure the speed of the bubbles.

Station 2: Acceleration Cars

What kid doesn't love a wind up car? Using fun pull-back cars, our 4th graders learned the difference between acceleration and speed. They looked at ways to measure acceleration and they even explored how mass affects acceleration.

Station 3: 1st Law Pucks

Newton's First Law of Motion is often stated as An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Using Air Pucks and a TON of interaction, our 4th graders learned more about Newton's First Law of Motion. The Air Pucks, hovering on a cushion of air, helped bring this difficult concept to reality.

Station 4: Energy Coasters

What 4th grader doesn't love roller coasters? This station showed our students the affect gravity has on roller coaster movement. They also discussed free-fall acceleration on other planets. Our students used an awesome simulation tool to build their own skate tracks on different planets. So cool!

Station 5: Motion Sensor Graphs

Our 4th graders have been working with graphs all year and learning the difference between the X and Y axis. At this station, our kids developed a deeper understanding of the X and Y time graph. They learned what different shapes on the graph mean and they used a motion sensor to graph their own movement. They also used this station to practice their Whip Nae Nae!

As I type up these station descriptions, I am thoroughly impressed at what our 4th graders are tackling (and UNDERSTANDING!) with the help of Mike Mohammad and his amazing high school students. I am incredibly thankful for this collaboration time and I LOVE our time together. Also glad that Laura, from Epiphany Learning, was able to pop in and see our two groups in action! One more science unit Mr. Mohammad...the Human Body! I can't wait to see what we come up with next!! 

~ Kate

Collaboration Across Levels: Bigs and Littles Learning Together!

I recently posted about finalizing our Defined STEM sound project. As if that wasn't enough of a final culminating activity, Angela and I collaborated with the infamous Michael Mohammad and his incredible AP Physics students for a fun filled morning of learning! We had been talking about bringing our students together for quite some time, and after some impromptu conversations after the Convening conference, we were finally able to make it happen! Mike's students had been learning about sound...our students had been learning about sound...what an amazing opportunity for both sets of students to share their knowledge with a real audience! 

The Thursday before the holiday break, Mike brought over about 50 AP Physics students from Brookfield Central High School. His students were divided into five groups and shared their knowledge with our ENTIRE grade level. All of our 4th graders spent the morning rotating through different stations. The groups focused on the following concepts: 

1. Sound waves and tuning forks
2. Doppler Effect and Sonic Booms
3. Sound Uncovered using the app for iPads
4. Using Makey Makeys and Little Bits to create circuits that make music
5. Resonance

When I look at that list, it's hard for me to believe that our 4th graders would even be able to comprehend some of these difficult concepts. Mike's students blew us out of the water! They brought the information to life and, through the use of PearDeck, made presentations interactive and highly engaging! From the Sound Uncovered app to the Doppler Rocket, dancing tuning forks to Star Wars sounds...these high schoolers used a wide range of technology tools that made for a morning of fun. Learning about resonance with Little Bits and creating animals sounds with Makey Makeys, our kids (and teachers) had a blast! To learn more about the high school content, check out Mike's blog post about our morning together! 

All in all, the morning of collaboration was incredible! Not only did the high school students share their knowledge of sound with our kiddos, our 4th graders had the opportunity to present their sound instruments AND their iMovies to a real audience! The learning was engaging and authentic! 

A HUGE thank you to Mike and his students! You WOWED us and can't wait for our next opportunity to collaborate with you! Go-Carts are next...let's do this! 

~ Kate

Using Powerpoint to Create & Save Images

This summer, Kate and I have been diving into the Canvas Learning Management System. We will definitely do a post about that one soon, as it is a fantastic tool, and we are eager to see how it works with our kiddos/families.

That being said, there is one "downside", if you want to call it that--It is definitely "built" for older kids. Meaning, it is not "cutesy" like us elementary folks love. No fun fonts. No fun images. Dry to the viewer.

Kate and I have figured out some work arounds to "spice it up" some and "cute-y-fy" it for our elementary friends. The easiest way has been to make buttons, banners, and other images ourselves to use within the program. Our tool of choice for this is Powerpoint! So, let's dive in and learn how!

Before we begin, just note that this process can be used for any image you'd like to create and save! I will be making "buttons and banners" in this tutorial, but I also use it to group pictures for this blog! The possibilities are virtually endless, and you'll be so thankful to have this tool in your back pocket!

Let's make a button. Make sure when you open Powerpoint, you delete the preset text boxes they give you in their slide templates. You want to be working with a completely blank slide. The first thing you need to do is pick the shape of your button. I will start with two different shapes in my screen shot, so you can see both ways.

Next, you need to decide on the color or pattern of your shape. You can use solid colors, patterns, gradients, or even images that you upload (We like to use digital paper files that we have saved!)

First, select the shape you'd like to change, then go to "Drawing Tools", and select "Shape Fill".

At this point, you can either add a text box (BEGINNER LEVEL), or really jazz it up (INTERMEDIATE LEVEL). I'll show you both :)

Adding a Text Box: You can use whatever font, size, center, etc. just like you would with any other text box you would create!

Ready for the "Fancier" version?!? :) We LOVE to use fun clip art! One of our favorite clip art sources is MyCuteGraphics. Seriously, friends, they have the BEST school clip art! And most of it is FREE (yes, you heard me...FREE!). They also offer paid clip art with their small business, Whimsy Clips. Just type what you want (we typed "Math") and you will be rewarded with pages of things to choose from! Just pick your image, right click, and copy! Then you are ready to paste it into Powerpoint and resize! We used the same text box as the circle button!

You can also play with the borders of your shape! You can make them dotted, a different color, 3-D, or more! Select your shape and go back to "Drawing Tools" (where you found the fill colors). Select "Shape Outline" and start playing around! There are SO many options to choose from! You could even select "Shape Effects" to make them 3-D, glow, and more!

The final step, is to save it as an image. This is an image you can use later and insert anywhere (projects, Google Docs, blogs, or even to spice up CANVAS, like us! :) To save it as an image, you need to make sure that all parts of the image you want are selected. You can use a "Marquee Drag" by selecting a point above and outside your completed image, then dragging to the opposite corner. If you don't know how to make that work, you can click a part, then keep holding down "Ctrl", while you select other parts, until all of your layers are selected. Then you double RIGHT-CLICK, and select "Save as Image." We like to save our images as PNG files. The benefit of this option is that they are higher quality and they do not have a white background! Save them to a folder or elsewhere in an organized way, so you will be able to find them when you need them!

That's it! Now you are left with an awesome image that you can use anywhere!!

The same process can be used to make "banners" with directions like this example below (to be used at the top of web pages, documents, etc.):

We hope you found this helpful! Like I said, we use this tool ALL the time for so many different reasons! A couple of ways we use this:

• Buttons for CANVAS (Our newest venture)
• Creating class schedule labels for your whiteboard or bulletin board
• Creating a custom image for a tool you are creating (packet, math exit slip, reading response sheet, etc.)
• Grouping images for a blog post
• Picture collages you'd like to print
• ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES! Have fun exploring the many ways you could use this to meet your individual needs!

Happy Creating!

~Angela

Poetry Is In The Air

April is National Poetry Month! It has also been the month of testing...testing...and more state testing. We needed something creative to re-energize our kiddos.

We launched a Reader's and Writer's Workshop poetry "mini-unit"! Welcome to 10 days of creativity and bliss (can you tell I'm biased...I LOVE POETRY!)

We began by "sketching out" what those 10 days would look like. We wanted to blend the learning between both reading and writing, so one lesson often led into the other with regards to content. We also thought about where we left these kiddos last year with their poetry learning/understanding. We created a combined unit plan in a Google Doc, so all members of our teaching team would have access and be able to contribute. We analyzed the standards that were applicable first, so we could ensure that our lessons were connecting to them.

We poured over other blogs, Pinterest, and more looking for fun inspiration for our kids. What would be new to them? What did they need? What interested them? We settled on creating a personal anthology. Last year, in 4th grade, we introduced them to different styles and terms of poetry. The kids were really drawn to the "funny" poems and just wrote what they felt inspired to do. This year, as 5th graders, our hope was for them to take their poetry to a more sophisticated level. We did some immersion of books and analysis for themes. We let them read as many poems as they could, take notes, and seek out common themes. We then had a grand conversation and created an anchor chart of their ideas.

Now that they had analyzed theme, we asked them to think about a theme that was personal to them. One that could represent something important in their lives, or a pertinent emotion to them. We, then, introduced the concept of a poetry anthology to them as a collection of poems surrounding an idea. Their task: To create a personal anthology of poems of any style of their choosing all tied to their "theme/big idea"

To support their writing, we provided them with an "ABC's of Poetry Mini-Book." This mini-dictionary has 60 definitions and terms tied to poetry. Each one also has an example with it. It was printed back to back and folded. They used this to draw ideas that they could incorporate into their own poetry.

Click image to be taken to our TpT store

In Reader's Workshop, we taught them how to closely read and analyze poetry (a tough skill for kiddos!) Each kid received a reading poetry packet to support their thinking. Within this packet, they had mini-anchor charts with questions to consider when analyzing poetry, figurative language helpers, and template they could use to help them analyze. As always, we provide this packet as a resource for our kids, but we also encourage them to create their own that supports their personal learning style best. We have many of our kids that prefer our templates. They really benefit from that guidance and support. On the other hand, we have a large percentage of our class that really enjoy creating their own, personal templates using tools like Prezi, Emaze, or Google Presentation.

This packet can be found on our TpT store, and not only includes the anchor charts, but it also includes the entire unit lesson plan for both reading and writing. It also has the analysis page templates for students, two different poems to analyze, and a 4-point assessment rubric.

Click image to be taken to our TpT store.

We began by doing a shared reading of a poem, "Millions of Strawberries" by Genevieve Taggard. We went over the different questions they could consider while analyzing poetry, then they read it by themselves for their first read. They tried annotating on their own. We got lots of "I don't get it", or "This is hard." Which, made us as their teachers, thrilled! 

Annotation of "Millions of Strawberries"

We, then, came back together to discuss what they noticed on this first read. Once they realized that their noticings were actually great analyses, then the room erupted in discussion/ideas! We wrote their annotations from their first read in one color on a class anchor chart. Then we sent them off in partners to annotate more! They wrote their new annotations in a different color. We then came back together for a final time to complete our analysis and theme thinking. The grand conversations that we had during this activity gave us goosebumps!!

Partner annotation

Our final anchor chart

In writing, we discussed different techniques that they could use in their poetry (example: figurative language, stanzas, line breaks, speaker point of view, etc.) We used some great tools to support that. The Brown Bag Teacher, has a great blog post about how to use "Let it Go" to analyze stanzas and theme! We also used fun online resources to practice line breaks like Magnetic Poetry and Storybird.

In reading, we then analyzed poetry of their choosing for these different things! We also tied into our Revolutionary War social studies unit by analyzing "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" as a way to tie all of their new poetry learning together!

We are about halfway through our unit, and the engagement is off the charts for our kids! We have had to build in extra "discussion" time for each workshop, because they are SO excited to share their writing and analyses! 

Their anthologies are starting to take shape! Even our writers that often struggle or dislike writing are engaged right now. Poetry is such a universal tool. There is something for every style, interest, and emotion! We cannot wait to see how this all wraps up! We'll post again soon with examples of their beautiful words!

How have you taught poetry? Do you have any other fun resources that you have found beneficial? Please share in the comments!

Happy Teaching!

~Angela

DocHub- the cure to your PDF problem!

Many of us have used PDFs in our classrooms. They are quick and easy to create. They have the ability to compress enormous files into something more compact. They're self contained, meaning you can preserve the visual elements between computers, across applications, making them visually appealing- a definite plus for most elementary teachers that love their clip art and cute fonts. The list of benefits go on and on...

As much as I love PDFs I have always been frustrated with the fact that they're difficult to edit. By nature PDFs are created so they can not be changed, revised or manipulated. They are not an editable document- they're basically an image of a document, almost impossible to edit, until now...

I have been trying to tackle this challenge for years. I have talked to many teachers and tech. directors and have been mostly unsuccessful. I tried converting the PDF back to a Word doc, but it wasn't pretty. Leave it to my AMAZING students to figure it out, almost by accident, how to edit and save a PDF. 

It all started when one of our extremely responsible students forgot their Genius Hour folder at school. Our kiddos write weekly reflections on their passion project work, and this young lady had left her folder and reflection form in her mailbox at school, but was determined to find a way to finish her homework! Knowing that the PDF doc was saved on our Genius Hour website, she downloaded the PDF to the DocHub app, wrote her personal reflection, then saved the edited PDF to her Drive and printed it for me the following day. YES...you read that correctly...she edited a PDF, saved it, and printed it for me! 

When our wonderful student got to school the following day and explained what she did, Angela and I just looked at each other in disbelief. For a minute this young lady thought we were frustrated that she had forgotten her folder at school...little did she know that she had just helped us solve an ongoing frustration without even realizing it. Enter DOCHUB!!

Needless to say, I quickly checked out this amazing website (also an app in the Chrome Web Store). Once on their site, you can easily create an account using your Google Drive or Dropbox.

Upload a file in seconds and let the magic begin! The amazing part of DocHub is that it allows you to edit and share PDF's online. It gives you the ability to insert text, draw, highlight, comment, even insert images. These items are "layered" on top of the PDF. You can save and come back to your edited PDF within DocHub as many times as you like. If that wasn't awesome enough, you can reorder pages, rotate pages, even delete pages you don't want included!! 

Collaboration is key in our classroom, and that is definitely an option with this app! When you're completely done editing, you can share your edited PDF with others via email, link, or save to your Google Drive.

Like I said earlier, two of my students introduced this amazing tool to me a few weeks back. I hope to share it with my entire class next week. Before that, I decided I should play around with it to better familiarize with all it has to offer. SOOO glad I did that! My students will be using it soon, so I'll let you know if we learn any other amazing features! 

~ Kate

Technology Thursday Link Up-Weebly

Link Up Party Hosted By Teaching Trio

Okay, friends, this is our first attempt at a "link up party"! We recently found the Teaching Trio blog (linked above), and were excited due to the multiple teacher view points they provide! They offer a weekly "link up party", so we decided to try it out and see how this goes!!

For our Technology Thursday Link Up, we wanted to share more about Weebly For Education. We've blogged about this amazing tool before HERE, but it is so awesome, it is definitely worth sharing again!

So, why this tool??--It is great for anything that requires a website or a house/hub for information. The number one way we use it, is for our student's digital portfolios! Last year, we utilized Google Sites for our digital portfolios, and we found the tool to be clumsy and definitely no where near as user-friendly as other Google Tools! When we looped up to 5th grade with these amazing kiddos, we were on the hunt for a better resource!

Enter...WEEBLY for Education! Our students have a page for each subject area, as well as an "All About Me" page. Each page houses artifacts and reflections that they feel demonstrate proficiency in different standards. They also keep track of the weekly goals, actions steps, and reflections in a blog-style posting under their "All About Me" tab! 

Besides the digital portfolio use, there are many reasons we absolutely LOVE this tech tool. Here are just a few:

• It is so incredibly user-friendly! Everything is "drag and drop", which makes it really manageable for kids!
• It is extremely easy to personalize each page. The kids love messing with the hundreds of themes, fonts, styles, etc.
• You can control your class sites! Which gives you easy access to each one (super beneficial for us with a class of 53!), rather than hunting or trying to find links you saved.
• It can be password protected
• It can be free (although, we paid the extra money for the upgraded version and found it to be completely worth it!)

Another way that we utilize this great resource is as a "hub" for information for our students. We can make as many different sites as we want! This makes it really easy to update or change them in a unit of study! Here are a few that we have made for various inquiry units:

Age of Exploration Weebly Site: We used this as our main hub for our social studies unit on early explorers! We were able to update resources as kids found them, they had tools at their fingertips (docs we created), and more! We "married" reading (nonfiction), writing (informational text) and social studies for this great unit!

Genius Hour Weebly Site: Like many other personalized learning environments, we also have "Genius Hour" every week, where our students explore topics of their choosing and interest (see link to previous blogpost). It is one of my favorite times of the week! They get SO excited about the different things they are learning about, from interior design to robotics and everything in between! We also try to connect our learners to members of the community that work in the field or have expertise on their topic! Truly magical learning! This site helped launch and give ideas for our kids (and parents!) 

Next year, we plan on using Weebly for Education for our classroom site, as well! We had to keep our classroom Google site this year, since we looped with our class and our families were already familiar with our old one! The ease of Weebly makes it easy to switch!

Hope this helps you on your own "site-building" journey!

Happy Teaching,

~Angela

StoryJumper

We are knee-deep in our fantasy unit of study. We connected Reader's and Writer's Workshop for this purpose. In case you missed it, check out the reading connection HERE.

Our kids enjoy writing...when they have the choice! Nine times out of ten, they would choose fiction writing. That being said, we don't have a true fiction unit in our 5th Grade Units of Study kit. We have a narrative unit, but it is a personal narrative. Our kids hunger for fun, creative, fiction writing. When we began long-range planning, we knew we needed to incorporate as much fiction writing in...whenever we could get it! Our Reader's Workshop fantasy unit was the perfect time. This writing unit falls within the "If...Then..." book in the Units of Study. The section of the book is fairly wordy, so we mapped out our own lessons in conjunction with our Reading unit.

We launched the writing unit with a picture book study. We started with our general observations in partnernships, then layered in different fantasy elements. Our kiddos examined their chosen picture books for character archetypes and quest structures. We then moved into brainstorming their own ideas using things they were passionate about (example: one students is a baseball fanatic....he could write a story about a magical baseball card that transports him to the past).

They flash-drafted, selected their story of choice, completed graphic organizers, and are off and running with their drafts.

Now what??

Sure, we conference, pull strategy groups to target certain skills, model with mentor texts, and the like. But what will happen when the story is done? Sure, they could publish using Google Docs. We could print them and put them in the hallway. They could share them on paper with our kindergarten buddies. But we wanted something more and different!!

Enter the amazing resource: StoryJumper!!

Our absolutely amazing student teacher, Liz, was digging around one lunch hour while I was complaining about wanting something different for our kids to do. I wanted something more meaningful for them. She began digging and found StoryJumper. Check out this quick tutorial video. Trust me...it is worth the 7 minutes:

And the absolute best part of StoryJumper...it is FREE! I don't know about you, but we are all about FREE in our space! I love that they can upload their own images/illustrations. I especially love that they could upload a picture of themselves, and crop their face to put on the bodies from the StoryJumper toolkit! You can generate a permalink when you are done that will be perfect for their digital portfolios, too! It also offers tremendous security features to protect our youngsters!

Another great feature that ups the SAMR scale...they can share these with the world! You can publish them in the StoryJumper library for the world to read! Talk about changing the audience and motivation for writing! If parents/schools were interested, they can order hardcover books for $24.95 or softcover books for $12.95. Even cooler...they offer a school fundraising option! Who wouldn't want one of these awesome books instead of overly-expensive popcorn or wrapping paper??

Bottom line...I was SO, unbelievably excited when Liz found this! It absolutely made my day! We cannot wait to share this option with our students as a choice for publication (I'm guessing MOST will choose this amazing tool!). We shared this with all of our school peeps, as well! Our friend and amazing colleague, Lisa, from Growing Firsties, already wrote her own blog post about it! Needless this to say, this tool is FANTASTIC, and everyone should try it!

How do your kids publish? Have you tried StoryJumper? Do you have another amazing tool? Sound off below!

~Angela :)

Technology Connects Learners

Would you rather...

Tough question, right? Not for our 5th graders!:)

Have I mentioned how much I love being in a 1:1 environment? I am continually amazed, humbled, and WOWED by what my kids can do each and every day!

That being said, working with my students and in the type of learning environment that we do, I am constantly challenging myself to learn more, as well. One tool that I am working more with is Google+.  It is amazing what is out there!

A few months back, we received a message from another teacher in our district via Google+. She forwarded us a note from a community that she was a part of. It was from an instructional technology coach from Illinois, Michael Johnson. He was working with a math teacher, Tara Nunes, in his middle school, and was looking to connect with students from other states on some math problems. We reached out and became connected! A slew of e-mails and a video chat later, we were in business!

Tara's math students created these amazing real-world math problems called "Would You Rather", based off of ideas she got from this blogpost. She had her students post the problems to their Kidblog pages. Kidblog is a fantastic tool that allows kids to share their work via their own blog page. It has hundreds of different uses! Be sure to check it out, if you haven't before! It is an amazing tool!

One of the cool ways Kidblog can be used, is to connect one class to another. With some help from Michael, we connected Tara's Kidblog class with ours. Voila! Our students could now see each other's work, give feedback, and most importantly in this case--answer some tough math questions!

Now, Tara teaches 8th grade math students. Our kiddos are only 5th graders. They were pretty excited to not only hear that they were going to get to solve "harder, middle school math problems", but also that these kids were from ANOTHER STATE! :) 

For one week during math workshop, they worked in groups to solve the problems during "May Do" time in our math workshop block! They looked at the various problems posted by Tara's students on her Kidblog page, chose the ones that made sense to them, and worked to explain their mathematical thinking to "big kids" that they will probably never meet in person!

They loved it! The problems challenged their thinking! They need to collaborate, solve problems they might face in the real world, communicate their thinking, and most importantly--HAVE FUN IN MATH! We LOVED the experience! Thank you, Tara and Michael, for collaborating with us! We hope to do it again soon!

Google+ is this exciting, never-ending world! It boggles my mind how fast technology is moving and shaking our educational landscape. Because of technology, we could easily collaborate with teaching peers from another state. Because of technology, our students were given a real-world, problem solving experience. Because of technology, our students were connected with other students for a joint, educational purpose. Because of technology, our students could collaborate, communicate, and critically think about math in a brand new & exciting way. Because of technology, our possibilities are endless.

How have you collaborated or connected with others? We'd love to hear from you!

Happy Teaching,

~Angela :)