Recently, someone shared Blendspace with me.

If you want to create stations, differentiate instruction and/or preview, enhance or review topics with students, you’ll want to check out this quick demo of this service:

Using Google Classroom? Blendspace lessons may be a perfect match for organizing links and online content for access via a Classroom Assignment. It also will work on Chromebooks. (Win-win for us!)

I know it’s the end of the school year, but that often is the time when teachers will look for new ideas. Perhaps, you will have the leisure of putting together new lessons or approaches during the summer? Just something to think about and play around with (if you choose) during your time off!

I had such a great time today with two third grade classes that I’m going to make this a “Two for Tuesday” with a second post!

I did some interactive “writing” with students where I modeled choosing a prompt and then how to tell my story using the app Toontastic. This easy to use app took us through the elements of a story, guiding us to choose backgrounds and characters. We even could add mood music! I brainstormed with students as I constructed my story and then made choices. I even asked students to get into character and help me with the animation and voices. What an engaging way to “write” a story as a class. They loved it, and are highly motivated to try out this app at a literacy center for writing their own stories or retelling stories that they have read.

The prompt that I chose today is holiday inspired… please enjoy the two different versions below! And of course, this app has so many backgrounds and characters, plus the option of creating your own, that the possibilities for topics are endless in your digital storytelling. Any subject will work, too. I envision seeing these embedded on blogs for sharing with an audience… How can you use it?

Please double click on the boxes for the videos to begin.

Cookie Conflict

Elves on Strike

Research is complete. Now what? How can students share their new found knowledge?

There are many possibilities…

• Write a report (with Google Docs).
• Make a presentation (with Google Slides).
• Create a slideshow/movie (with Explain Everything).
• Put the information into a collage (with PicCollage or PicCollage for Kids).
• Produce a series of inanimate objects talking (with Funny Movie Maker) and synthesize them into a movie (with iMovie).
• Snap some pictures and create a photo montage with voice over (with iMovie).
• Synthesize a media collage (with PicPlayPost) of pictures and videos (created in iMovie or right from the camera roll).
• Draw a poster and include QR codes for people to scan and listen to the information (via AudioBoom).

And that is just a short list. (Please search out my blog for more details about each of these…many are apps for the iPad.)

This winter/spring, I came across another output method that I think has a lot of potential… and is very different from the above list: Tour Builder.

Tour Builder uses the power of Google Earth to tell a story. Originally, Tour Builder was created for veterans to log where they have been with photos and maps (so it’s fitting that I am sharing this tool around Memorial Day). The tool has been opened now for anyone to use.

I have been a proponent of Google Earth for a long time. However, I have found it to be rather challenging for elementary students to create something in the software. They have done well using a file created by a teacher in Google Earth that takes students to exact locations and views with embedded videos and pictures. To create such tours in Google Earth, is labor intensive. Most teachers who I have taught how to do this process have not made it a regular practice. That’s why I was so excited when I saw Tour Builder. It streamlines the process and scaffolds the steps. Finally, a map tool, that elementary kids can get some quick instruction on and then run with it! It also is a tool that teachers can create something to share with students, and they don’t mind updating or creating something else.

What I also like is that it is not just for social studies. We recently found this tool to be the perfect way to pull together Renewable Energy research for science. Honestly, we could have used any of the above projects to share. Yet, Tour Builder gave us the opportunity to put it all in a literal global perspective with easy to use image insertion (that pays attention to usage rights). Here is our blog with student work. I’d love to know what you think, and what other possibilities there are for this tool… I’m thinking creative writing… thoughts?

I don’t like to end on negative notes, but I must put out a few cons for this service before you run out and fire up your Chromebook because it won’t work. Tour Builder does not work on Chromebooks or Google Chrome. Also, students must have a Google account in order to make a tour. Our district has accounts for all students, so it’s a non-issue. Just something that you may have to work around. OK- now go get on a computer or laptop, and check it out!

Today at Abbot, we had the opportunity to address specific student learning objectives in three 90 minute sessions. And it wasn’t even a District PD Day!

Instead substitute teachers were hired to come in and cover each grade level’s classrooms on a schedule, allowing teams of teachers to attend digital learning workshops with me throughout the day. With so many initiatives and demands on everyone’s time, I have found it very challenging to meet with entire teams at Abbot this school year. While meeting with individuals is an important part of coaching, I think meeting with teams also is equally important. These team meetings give me a sense of curriculum priorities across a grade level as well as letting team members brainstorm, share and support each other with their growth in digital learning.

In the past, technology PD was approached by participants attending a session and being presented with a tool or service. For our Digital Learning PD sessions, each grade level was asked to submit a student learning objective that they would be addressing this spring that may need a fresh approach. This shift in designing the workshop around that specific student learning objective personalizes the PD for teachers. How many times have you gone to a workshop and found that the material presented didn’t really work with your curriculum or age level? Nothing is 100% guaranteed, but I’m pretty sure that teachers today walked away with at least one concrete idea of how technology could enhance, perhaps even transform their students’ learning in the very near future because the workshop was created with that student objective at the forefront.

Moreover, another break from tradition tech PD: these sessions today were not a showcasing of every possible example of how the technology could be used. I designed one specific example, took teachers through the process of how to recreate that example with step-by-step directions and then encouraged brainstorming and exploration. Often the brainstorming went beyond that student learning objective. And that’s the key. As a digital learning specialist, I can suggest tools and services, but without knowing what a teacher is trying to achieve with his/her students, it’s a shot in the dark. We then are beginning to border on technology just for technology’s sake.

A digital learning specialist can not do his/her job well without conversations and collaborations. I think today’s PD allowed for both, and I look forward to coaching teachers in their efforts of meeting students’ needs.

In the spirit of sharing, here are the samples that I created for today’s sessions.

Grade 3 – Student Learning Objective: To study an author – Cynthia Rylant

This example is a BrainPOP Style Video using Explain Everything and iMovie Apps

Grade 4 – Student Learning Objectives: to look at physical features in conjunction with geology (Science), to look at places and to look at climate i.e. weather (Social Studies), and to travel between places discussed in literature (ELA)

This group challenged me with a set of objectives, so we spent time looking at the various layers in Google Earth to start. All of those objectives could be addressed with making a tour; however, I focused on the Tour Builder online service as a user-friendly alternative to making tours as Google Earth tour creation in the software itself is very time consuming. For our 90 minute session, this tool would be a good fit, especially with “looking at places” covered in the social studies curriculum as the example shows.

Grade 5 – Student Learning Objective: To give supportive details from text

This is an example based on a Hypothermia article. The Explain Everything app was used.

Last year, in a post entitled Show (And Tell) What You Know Apps, I mentioned the Pic Collage app.

I wanted to share a couple of recent examples because this creation app can help students achieve so many different learning objectives

• Self-Reflection on Teamwork

Grade 4 students used Pic Collage to reflect on their Genius Hour group work dynamics. See the examples on their blog here.

• Observation

Grade 3 students used Pic Collage to make observations of the Abbot Nature Trail. Students had to show evidence of Autumn in photos (that they took themselves) and words. (This project may be replicated for all of the seasons so that a multimedia comparison can be made.)

I also used this app with Grade 3 recently as a part of a Digital Citizenship lesson on private and personal information. Students practiced making online profiles, making sure not to share private information. See mine below:

This online profile activity easily could be modified for an English Language Arts objective with characters in a story or a biography study.

• Formative Assessment for Science

Grade 5 students were sent on a scavenger hunt to see how many simple machines they could find (snap photos and label) in the school within a time limit.

With all three of these activities it was not about the technology, but rather the learning because there is not a lot of time devoted to directions about how to use the app. Pic Collage is easy to use. Take photos and add text quickly.  Arranging and rearranging is simple. The collage shares via email or right to the camera roll where it can be used in another app, moved to an online space or inserted in another document or presentation.

I know that time is a factor these days… so much to do in our school day. I think you will be amazed what learning objective can be undertaken (and even accomplished) in a 45 minute block with this app.

Gotch ‘ya thinking? I’d love to chat.