It’s Project Season – Find some Inspiration to Update Your Projects

In this blog post access my interdisciplinary end of the year project (U.S. History and English) lesson plan here and the tech tools I would use to update the project if I were in the classroom today. 

Nearing the end of the year students are ready to make the connections between concepts they’ve been learning all year, and across subjects. I teamed up with my grade level teachers to create interdisciplinary projects. Most of the students were ready to choose their own projects and partners, and I provided project selection oversight based on their needs. We created the project with student input and offered several choices in their mediums. I’m attaching the project directions my colleague and I created, which include objectives, options, rubrics, and daily progress monitoring checks. 

If I were in the classroom today I would allow my students to create an online project (which I would add to my instructional resources for the following year) using the following content creation tools:

For the Presentation Portion (Powerpoint is so old school):

Online:

Xtranormal – Turns your words into 3D animated movies.

Prezi – Non-slide platform that transforms presentations into stories or conversations.

 

Apps:

Video Scribe HD  A unique way to create engaging animated videos quickly. To see one that I created select the following link: http://youtu.be/fifWcNfFwyc

StoryKit - Create an electronic storybook.

Haiku Deck - a free presentation app for iPad, makes presentations simple, beautiful, and fun.

 

For the Visual/Poster:

Online:

Glogster - Interactive posters loaded with text, graphics, music, videos, and more.

Thinglink – Interactive photographs

Apps:

Phoster: Make your own poster.

For Review Games:

Study Stack - Create online flashcards and find flashcards for subjects already made.

Jeopardy Game – Online creation of this game

Who Wants to be a Millionaire  - Online creation of this game

 

For the Quiz Portion:

5 Online Quiz Generators

 

From Chalkboards to Tablets: The Digital Conversion of the K-12 Classroom

Our friends at VCOE shared the following article that gives supporting data about how digital classrooms are changing our curriculum and learning.

Speak Up 2012 National Findings K-12 Educators and Parents

April 2013

Blabberize it!

Looking for a new way for students to showcase their biographies or a creative way to present their research? Blabberize.com is a great tool that will allow students to do just that.

This site allows students and/or teachers to upload a picture of one to multiple people or animals, record their voices, and create mouth movements to match the voice of the recording.  It's an engaging way for students to speak as if they are a historical figure or an endangered species...and so much more.

Check out this video tutorial on how to use this tool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEtUu1r8Pe4

 

 

Aeries.Net Demo

If you are interested in learning about the Gradebook in Aeries.NET try the demo site.

You can get to the demo by selecting the following link: http://demo.aeries.net/

Under “Aeries PORTALS” select either “Elementary School Teacher,” or “High School Teacher” then “Start.” A screenshot is shown below.

If you want the manual to learn about the different features, request one via email jpeyrot@lvusd.org.

Aeries Gradebook Tip

Have you ever received a phone call from a confused parent about the unwarranted “F” showing in the Parent Portal for a student that has transferred in or out of your class? This post will describe how to fix this student’s grade without having to manually change the grade of all the other assignments.

I will explain how to do this through Aeries.NET and Aeries ABI separately.

Aeries ABI:

Select “Gradebook” choose the class you want under “Choose Your Gradebook” then “Gradebook Maintenance” then “Manage Students.”

If a student has left the class, like Sargiz in the screenshot, then you would put the last assignment he/she completed under the “High Assgn” column.

If a student came to class after the semester, like Christopher, you would put the first assignment they completed under the “Low Assgn” column.

[click on the photo to see the full size]

 

Aeries.Net

Select “Gradebook” on the left, then choose your class by clicking on “Gradebook” in the middle of the screen, then select “Add/Edit” under Edit, then select “Manage Students.”

If a student has left the class, like Thais in the screenshot, then you would put the last assignment he/she completed under the “High Assgn” column.

If a student came to class after the semester, like Jason, you would put the first assignment they completed under the “Low Assgn” column.



 



 

 

 

Cyberbee: Copyright Laws for Kids!

Cyberbee is a fun, easy kid friendly website where kids can find the answers to their copyright questions.  Kids can choose commonly asked questions and get the answers to what they can and can not do.  It is a great place to introduce what copyright means to students and how they use it everyday.

CUE Reflections Part 2: Getting Ready for Conferences

*Note: If there is a conference you want to attend but are not able to, there is likely a dedicated webpage for the conference that contains helpful information, and/or apply the Twitter tip I give below.*

Thinking about all the different learning opportunities and people I’ll see at a conference is almost as good as being there. That was how I felt before heading to CUE 2013. Overwhelmed was also another feeling I experienced as there were more sessions I wanted to attend than I could, and I had to prepare to lead a session. In order to maximize my learning experiences and fun, I decided to be strategic and plan.

I started by adding ALL the sessions/events I wanted to attend to my schedule online (which links to my Google Calendar and can feed into an iCal account). I had approximately five overlapping events per session time. When narrowing down the events I considered the following:

1. Current district technology initiatives


2. Relevant trends


3. Ensuring that there isn’t much overlap between the sessions I’m choosing.


4. Checking out the resources that the session speakers post online. Sometimes they post enough I don’t have to go to the session, or see that it won’t be a substantive enough session to attend.


5. What will be inspiring, or my fun session. I’m applying Google’s “20% Time” principle.


6. Fun networking events, meeting new people and continuing to build on the relationships I’ve already started. This was also a great opportunity for exchanging new insights/tools with friends that attended sessions that I couldn’t.


7. Drop by current vendors, and any others that may have products needed in the near future.


8. Down time to allow for processing all the information. 

I wasn’t a stickler in holding to my schedule but I was glad I had it. The day before I headed out, @AliceKeeler recommended I follow the conference Twitter feed #cue13 and to tweet throughout. Following this advice and learning more about Twitter in education may have been the most fruitful experience from my time at the conference. More to come about that.

May your conference attendance bring you lots of great learning experiences, resources, inspiration and good times!