Self-Paced Learning

Today our 5th Grade Math block consisted of each student on a laptop. It was funny cause as we were getting the laptops from the cart, some of the kids were like, "This isnt an iPad, does that still count as technology??" I had to explain to them that technology comes in many forms and not always just an iPad. Anyways, the past few days, I have been working on creating screencasts that students can watch and then apply. They have been learning about Scatter Plots, Spot Plots and Stem and Leaf. I created one for each and today was the day that the students were to work them out. Going into this project, the teacher wanted to incorporate technology into these areas. I told her that I would make the screencasts if she would introduce them to the students. It was a mutual agreement and also big stretch for her because of the fact that she had never let a screen-cast teach her students before. On top of that, students were not only doing one assignment but three!

Again our process for making this a success included:
-Logging each student in T's Google Drive account.
-Creating 25 copies of a spreadsheet and numbering them 1-25. (There is a "make a copy" tool in Google.)
-Assigning each student a number 1-25. (Students will then match their given number with the proper spreadsheet number- this way students wont cross work.)
-Having students put their names in the top left hand corner.
-Having a place to pull data from. In this case, the student website.
-Constantly reassuring students that their work is "always saved" via the cloud.

I also suggest giving students breaks in between assignments. Each project lasted about 20 minutes and although they wanted to jump in to the next one right away, we made them go get water or stretch so they could go into the next lesson with a fresh mindset.


Again, as simple as the work samples may look, there were many steps involved in doing this. These were students teaching themselves from a screencast with minimal teacher assistance.

"Hey, I Really Like it When Students Can Research Real Life Info!"

Ok, so this activity was 2 weeks in the making and I really wanted the teacher to hit it out of the park with her kids on this one! About a week prior to me writing this post, the teacher and I sat down and talked about what she wanted to do. She told me that students were learning about bar charts and needed to create one and wondered if there was any way to incorporate technology into this lesson. Immediately I had flashbacks to my ITS days in which we had to show the kids how to create pie charts, bar graphs, etc in the computer lab!  I told her of the idea that I had in which kids could go research the number of wins of their favorite basketball team and graph them. (We had done this in the past years and the kids had loved it!) However, she was like, "No, I just want to keep it simple." Resisting the urge to pursue my idea, I had respectfully listened to her and helped plan out the activity her way. We had talked about taking a survey on "Student Transportation" (car riders, walkers, bikers, and bus riders.) She had drawn a T-Chart on the board and students had to place a sticky note for their category.

Now the technology piece! Even though I had worked with bar charts before, I wanted it to be easy for the teacher to get back the student work. In the past, I have always used Excel to make spreadsheets. I actually started creating a screencast using Screencast-O-Matic which used Excel as the tool to create them. As I was wrapping up making this screencast I thought to myself, "Students are going to create one, and do what with it? How are they going to get it off the laptop and printed so that the teacher can grade them?" I then shunned the idea of Excel and looked at iPad apps. The first one that I looked at was Google Sheets. Upon playing with it, I found it very easy to use, however there was no way to actually create a graph! I then looked at Numbers- Apple's version of Excel. This one again was user friendly, and actually let me create a graph, but then again there was no easy way for me to get them off of the device. I could use photo stream, and then email the graphs to her, but that would have taken a lot of time. Finally, I wanted check out Google's version of Sheets on the Laptop to see what it had to offer. Sure enough, I played with it and it was everything I wanted and MORE!  Here is what I did to ensure ease for the teacher and student:

-Created about 25 blank spreadsheets and labeled them 1-25. (Use the "duplicate" tool- it makes life much more simple.)
-As students walked in the door I assigned them a number 1-25.
-Once students were given a number, then they found their number in Sheets and changed it from the number to their name. (This would greatly help the T when it came to grading.)
-I created a screencast for this teacher that explained to the student step by step on what to do.
-I manually showed the student how to navigate the screencast (pause as needed, and apply using their own data.)
-Explain to the student that their work is automatically saved in "the cloud" (this baffled them!)
-Showed the teacher how to view student work.

As students were finishing up their first bar graph I asked the teacher how much time they had left. She was like, "Oh they still have plenty of time." I had asked her if we could do the Sports project (as talked about earlier.) She was more than willing this time!  For this part of the project, students would go to ESPN.com and click on "Basketball" and then "Standings." I told them to pick their 5 favorite basketball teams and create bar charts on their! Talk about engaged!

I am proud of this teacher! I think this was a big step for her and her class. She has something similar coming up next week and we plan to use the same approach. We agreed that I create the screencast if she (on her own) uses the laptops as means to do this activity. I as more than happy with that deal!

Click the image to take you to the screen cast:

Student Work Sample:

"I Have NEVER Seen my Class THIS Engaged!"

A few blog posts back, I wrote about the first time a 5th grade teacher used Explain Everything with iPads to help enhance learning fractions. Yesterday, I had a random 5th grade teacher come up to me and literally ask me, "Can we do something awesome in my class?" I was like, "Uhh yeah!" (This teacher also teaches 5th grade Math / Science and had recently saw what her co-teacher did!) Needless to say, we took a look at what she wanted to do and we designed the lesson from there. Originally the plan was to upload an Explain Everything template with the problems pre-loaded. However, we had issues logging into her Google Drive account so we had to call an audible (again a football reference!) Instead, I printed out the problems on paper and gave each partner one. The teacher modeled the first problem on her iPad so that the students could see how it is done. Once she was done modeling we let the kids start their work. I am a firm believer that a student should be able to work in an environment that they are comfortable in so we let them sit around the room, lay on the floor, sit under desks, or whatever it took for students to be "in the zone." I know one may think that classroom management might be an issue, but it really wasnt because the kids were so engaged. Once the students started wrapping things up, I showed two students how to export them out to Google Drive. They got the hang of it and helped the rest of the class! Once the students were done, I had a mini post-conference with the teacher. She literally told me that she had never seen the kids so engaged. Even the students who had a hard time with discipline were engaged and on task! #eduwin

Anyways here is a work sample of a 5th grader's FIRST time screencasting with a partner!

Building Our Library

A year ago I hadnt fully grasped the concept of how powerful screencasting can be. I was using an app called Show Me and Educreations. Both apps have recently made changes where it makes it more difficult (in my opinion) for students to produce their work in. I now use ONLY Explain Everything because of its flexibility throughout all of the content. 

A year ago, I hadnt really grasped how powerful Google Drive was going to be. I was using a tool called Dropbox which I absolutely loved at the time, but I no longer use it thanks to Google Drive and its 30gbs of storage.

I think my campus is finally hitting its stride when it comes to screencasting. All of this week I have been working with 5th graders in small groups putting together a library of lessons that students can refer to when needed. I would pull about 4 students and take them to somewhere where it is quiet so that they can record. I am finding out that my students are becoming very good at putting these together. I force them to write / solve their problem out on paper first that way they can understand how to work out a concept. Once they are done, they are allowed to go to the iPad and record it. Since we only have a handful of problems to work on, I am asking students to take the problem they have, and re-word it using different names, places and numbers. Oh my goodness- you would not believe how creative students can be coming up with problems! The best part about this is the fact that they are having to work these problems out on their own without me having to tell them to do so! It's actually fun and engaging for them to do this!

Here is a tutorial that two of our 5th graders made today: