Friday, March 27, 2015

Balanced Math Equations with Story Kit and QR Codes

In Math we have been working on "Balanced Math Equations" and understanding the true meaning of the "=" sign.  We brought in digital learning by doing 2 different activities relating to this concept.  The first activity involved having the students use the "StoryKit" app to create a "book" on Balanced Equations.( A big shout out to Mrs. Delia for teaching us this!)  The students learned how to create a title page and then had to create at least 2 other pages in which they had to write equations that were balanced and prove how they knew they were balanced.
 After doing this activity, the students were asked to take a true/false quiz that I created using QR codes.  The students scanned the QR codes using the QuickScan app.  They had an answer sheet to record on. An example of a question:  3 + 5 = 6 + 1 is a balanced equation.  The students then had to circle true or false on their answer sheet.
We had a great time using our devices to enhance our learning, and I am excited to create more lessons!



Quiz using Google Forms

Today my students took their vocabulary quiz using Google forms and graded by the add-on called Flubaroo! It was so easy and took one minute to grade! No more paper quizzes and they are actually excited to take their quiz next week ;-)

#onereamamonth #challengeaccepted



Thursday, March 26, 2015

Google Docs for Peer Editing

Yesterday in class we were peer editing our perspective papers using a Google Doc..  I was inspired by Mr. B to try to create a Google form to help guide students with peer editing.  To help students better focus on their peer editing, I gave guiding questions which each partner needed to complete with each other's paper.  I created a classroom gmail account which allowed all students to use my Google form.   The best part is, I am able to look at their responses to see all of the suggestions, celebrations, and any particulars we were working on in our mini-lesson.  It was very easy for students to find the link on our weebly page and complete on their device or the classroom computers.  I found that students were more focused/ engaged and excited about completing the forms.


Monday, March 23, 2015

Friday, March 20, 2015

Pettey's Map Scavenger Hunters with QR Codes

Ms. Pettey and Mrs. D'Elia collaborated to create an activity where Ms. Pettey's 1st graders put their map skills to test using the iPads and QR codes.  They scanned QR codes using an app called Quick Scan which gave them questions to answer.  (Thank you, Mrs. Bouchard for showing us the cool web tool http://www.classtools.net/QR/ which allowed Mrs. D'Elia and Ms. Pettey to create the questions!) The students referenced different maps using links on our Student Links page to find the answers.  The students had a great time reading maps and map symbols, collaborating and being 21st Century learners!



Thursday, March 19, 2015

Don't forget...Simple Technology can be fun too!


At the NCTIES conference I learned a lot of new things, but it was also nice to hear "Don't forget the simple things"...such as using the recording feature on our devices! It was an exciting day in first grade...during Writers Workshop, we were learning how to add dialogue to our Narrative Pieces. So we took out our devices and got to work. My students worked in pairs and pulled open the camera. One student recorded their partner stating one complete sentence. Then the person who was recording had to watch the video and write what their partner said in their journals using the correct quotations and punctuation! For example my boys above recorded the sentence: I love I-Pads and Ms. Willner, so they had to write in their journals, "I love I-Pads and Ms. Willner" said Joe. Once we got the hang of stating complete sentences, we changed the way we delivered the sentences...yelled Joe, whispered Joe, ect. We had an awesome time and every student has transferred this skill into their daily writing! Yay!

Jumping on the Linoit Venn Diagram Bandwagon!

It was so cool!  My kids loved it and were totally engaged.  We read the story Cenderellon and then I assigned each student a color and a group.  Then I gave them the QR code to the linoit I created and then I set the kids loose! They did a great job and needed very little guidance from me.  Finally, when we were all done we went over our sticky notes to review what we had learned and compared!

Here is a link to our linoit!Cinderella Linoit

Thanks to Caroline Page, Aubrey McCoy and Susan Bouchard for the inspiration!!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

App Smashing Vocabulary


Using the vocabulary we have learned from the article we have been reading in class, we did some App Smashing.  First, we found our own meaning of the word, paraphrased the meaning and then used the camera and photo slideshow to show what we learned.  Students were to find a picture of the word (screen shot), take a picture of their word and definition written and created a slideshow of their work.  Students then either emailed or photoshared their slideshows with me.  Students were able to use their devices to search for pictures, definitions and take pictures of the words or their handwritten meanings.  Students really enjoyed using their device to share their understanding




Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Thanks to Miriam Perez and Caroline Page, I successfully used Linoit to brainstorm goods and services for Social Studies.  Afterwards, I was inspired to find out more about QR code activities.  I found this great set of QR code equations to help my students choose appropriate addition strategies.  I also found a website to create a QR code treasure hunt-I have created some codes, but am still working on the idea of using them in a more novel way.  Here is the link:  http://www.classtools.net/QR/

Brier Creek ES Featured on Wake County Public Schools Website

A video that Wake County Public Schools created to showcase the benefits of a BYOD school is currently posted on the front page of www.wcpss.net. Brier Creek is featured throughout the video and our very own Dr. Chambers shares her thoughts on the exciting new pilot.



Sunday, March 15, 2015

More Linoit in First Grade

After reading Caroline Page's blog post about using Linoit to compare texts, I started wondering if we could adjust the background to make it look like a Venn Diagram. So Caroline and I put our heads together, and guess what we figured out how to do?


Once that was in place, I had students use it to compare the information in two different nonfiction texts about spiders. Students had already worked with partners to create Venn Diagrams on paper, so each pair used the lino to share out a couple of ideas with the class.


When they were finished creating a sticky note or two, I called all the partners to the rug, so we could read through all the sticky notes and make any adjustments we discovered were necessary. We fleshed out incomplete thoughts, changed the color of some sticky notes to get them in the right places, and corrected any factual errors about what the books actually said. (As you can see if you look closely, we left the spelling mistakes alone for now!)


It was great to have sticky notes that could appear on the Smartboard, large enough for the whole class to see A big improvement over squinting to see the tiny paper variety! Having students contribute to diagram we could all read created many more opportunities for discussion and reflection among the students. (And it was a lot of fun, too.)

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Main idea and details

I chose to use Caroline's idea to use linoit.com as a student response after reading nonfiction. My students read a scholastic reader about the wind then met with their groups to discuss the facts in the article.  After that we pulled out our devices and scanned a QR code to take us to linoit.com.  There, the students typed on the stickies the facts they read in their articles.  We then discussed the stickies and categorized them based on their topic.  We then looked at it as a whole to figure our the main idea.

After discussing with Caroline I found some helpful hints to get me started, especially for the young'uns.

I started by introducing them to lino. They worked in groups to scan a QR to get to lino.  They then pulled a sticky and typed their names.  For students with devices from home, their friends spelled their name and they typed.  This helped them get used to collaborating with the device even though everyone couldn't touch it.

The next day we got back in our groups, scanned a QR and went to a different lino.  Students worked together to say a sentence with the word where.  They then typed that sentence on a sticky. For students with dictation enabled they were able to say their sentence and didn't need to type.  We also found the suggested text to be helpful to build sentences.  Students quickly figured out how to select the suggested text and if they didn't see the word they wanted, they started to type that word and it would show up.

I was really worried about having kindergartners type... BUT... it was not scary!  The auto-correct was a BIG help!

I'm providing links to the linos we made so you can see all the hard work!!

names

using where in a sentence

wind






QR coding

QR Addition after a math assessment!

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Which version did you like better?

We have been reading lots of different versions of Cinderella in our classroom!   Today we read CinderElephant and then created a Padlet to share our thoughts about which version of the story we liked better.
Cinderella Padlet



Monday, March 9, 2015

QR Codes and Padlet Fun in Miss McCommons' 2nd grade class.

Today we used QR Codes and Padlet to start our track in day off on the right foot!! We had so much fun.  First we scanned a QR code to get us to our morning work! It showed up right on our devices so we could have the work right in front of us.  Then after we finished  our morning work we shared our track out adventures via Padlet.  Padlet is an amazing online collaboration tool that allows multiple users to post their thoughts to a collective online bulletin board.  This way we could all see the amazing things that each person did during track out!  WE LOVE BYOD!!

Click the link below to see our awesome padlet.
What did you do over trackout? Padlet

Friday, March 6, 2015

Linoit in First Grade!

Today we used Linoit in Readers Workshop. We were comparing two scholastic news articles on weather. My first graders started by adding a sticky for any fact they learned from the text. As a class, we categorized the stickies by color to decide if it was unique to the text or a similarity about both text. I plan to have kids decide the main topic of each text based off of their sticky notes on Monday.

The best part: Some of my students had a hard time with typing into their sticky so a PROBLEM SOLVER figured how to continue. One of my students discovered that instead of typing their response they could use the voice recorder on their device to add a note quickly.

Another neat part was when a few students began editing their stickies by changing the color to match. They are in First grade and they self-corrected their own work without me asking them to do this!!!

Check it out: http://en.linoit.com/


Thursday, March 5, 2015