Claymation Creations

From creating their own set, modeling their characters, and writing their scripts, 5th grade students at Cox Elementary got to experience what it is like to create a claymation short film.  Using the Stop Motion app, students were able to capture picture by picture each action in their story.  

Mallory, Kaylea, and Paige's group truly enjoyed this project.  "We started with the idea of creating our set in space," mentioned Mallory.  "This was a crazy idea, but Mrs. Ascher helped direct us to some tools that we had in the art room that could help. Paige added, "We learned  how to make a background that looked realistic.  We used shiny stars and made a planet out of a 

plastic ball and pipe cleaners.  We used glitter, so with the black light, everything appeared to be glowing in space." The team agreed that planning an entire story requires organization, time, and attention to detail. They team had 304 pictures to put into their film. 

Kaylea points out, "The most challenging part of this project was moving the pictures just the right amount so that that movie was smooth and not choppy."  The group agreed that planning the script and assigning roles was important to getting things done on time.  "We helped each other think of new ideas to add on to our story.  Two people worked on the background, while the other worked on props and organizing the pictures," stated Mallory. This project required much communication and collaboration.

In art, these students were introduced to several famous paintings. They decided to include The Mona Lisa, Starry Night, and Dancing Lady in their film. "These are paintings in our classroom and we’ve talked about them as a class," said Paige. "This is why we decide to have our characters talk about each of these in space. We wanted to do space to be different and think outside the box." Overall, these students and the entire class learned not only about story creation, but organization, communication, and how to publish entertaining work for a target audience. In fact, it's not just the students at Cox Elementary that felt this project had impact. The University of Southern California featured this project in the Toolkit for Digitally-Literate Teachers.

Crazy and Unpredictable Weather Right Here in North Texas

In Mrs. Briseno’s 2nd grade class at Justin Elementary, students are learning just how extreme and unpredictable our weather can be.  

"Our teacher gave us a choice of weather topics like flash floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and heatwaves.  We brainstormed different avenues to collect our research using graphic organizers.  We were also charged with how are we going to share our knowledge with a global audience.  When our information was presented in class we asked for feedback from our class peers.  Mrs. Briseno then posted the projects on her class Twitter to share."

Project 1 -  Grey wanted to showcase his learning using the graphic organizer about Tornadoes.  He chose the app on the classroom iPad called Corkboard.  He found his free educational images on Google.  Grey states, “Did you know right here in Justin, TX, we are in what is called Tornado Alley? The weather trackers find the storms and send the data back to the news or home base to protect the people in our community.”

Project  2 - Tyler and Gracie wanted to learn about Flash Floods.  Their collaboration and research began with several questions: How do flash floods form?  How do they stop? How can you protect yourself if you are in a flash flood?  They chose to culminate their research in a document with images that were converted into a flipbook using a tool called FlipSnack.  

Click here to see the book in action

Tyler mentions that Oklahoma, Mississippi, and China are more prone to flash floods due to their weather habits and the soft land.  Gracie stated that her dad is always looking at his radar on his smartphone when bad weather is approaching.  He is a paramedic/policeman and he needs to protect people.

These are just a few examples of projects that will be showcased at Night of No Limits in May.  

This post was written in collaboration with Grey, Tyler, Gracie, and Mrs. Briseno

Stepping Up to Educreations

The first graders at Peterson Elementary were preparing for their math SBBBs. I talked with Mrs. Sanders and discussed apps that would work well for students to represent their work. After discussing pros and cons of several we determined that Edu-creations would be the best fit.

We presented the following math problem to out first graders:

There is a staircase that goes up three steps. How many blocks are needed for the first step? How many blocks are needed for the second step? How many blocks are needed for the third step? How many blocks in all are needed to make this staircase of three steps?  Explain how you know.

The problem involved a growing stair case.  First we let the students practice with their manipulatives and paper products to organize their thinking. Then we brought in all the ipads, gave the students a brief tutorial on the Educreations app and let them do their  ‘thing’. The children were engaged in their learning and talking with each other as they worked on the problems.  After discussing with students their experience of using the program, some of their comments were:

• Adria said, “I used the typing, it was easier than writing with my finger.”
• Haven said, “I liked it better, if you messed up you could just erase and not get another papers. It doesn’t waste paper.”
• Greyson said, “I didn’t get to do that one (Educreations) before. I liked it more than paper and pencil because you had so many choices to do that were fun.
• Armand said, “I had colors to use.”

 

The students are already asking when can we do it again.

By: Debbie Kahler, 1st grade teacher, Peterson Elementary

Fourth Grade Authors, First Grade Audience

by Hayley Sample, 4th Grade Language Arts Teacher, Sendera Ranch Elementary

My 4th grade Sendera Ranch Elementary students had been writing narrative and expository pieces all year. This time was going to be different and we all were excited to integrate technology into the mix. After studying the ins and outs of children's literature and all it has to offer, together we created a Google form survey (see snip below) asking interest questions for each story element ie: characters, plot, problem, solution, sequel etc. We then met up with our first grade buddy. Each 4th grader took their ipad , books they were using to help plan their story and sat with a first grader asking them the questions for what they would like to see in the book that would be written specifically for them. This perked not only the first graders interest but my students interests as well. After we conducted the survey through google forms. We viewed the results and had a class discussion of the importance of having a good balance of what your reader wants and what the author wants when creating a book. 

Next was creating the plot pitch. Students planned out their story making sure to include all the components of the assignment as well as keeping in mind what the survey results showed. Great conversations resulted and many began see the full scope of what needed to be taken into consideration as the author of a book. My students faced this challenging task head on. Students who might typically be unmotivated where thriving. It was amazing to see their creative ideas come alive through the planning and then continue to develop and change throughout the process.

Once they finished their plot pitch, conferenced with a partner, they were ready to meet with met. Each child discussed their plot pitch with me. Once it was “publish ready” I approved the pitch and the budding authors began publishing in book creator on the iPad.

Book creator is a wonderful app that allows for all kinds of possibilities. There is a free and paid version of this app. My campus leadership agreed this was a great investment and bought the paid version for us because it allows an unlimited amount of books to be made on one iPad. The free version only allows one.

Prior to starting this project I made a PowerPoint with specific directions to “get to know the book creator app.” It was prior to reading STAAR.  We used this time to review and also learn the app so when they kids began to type their books they would feel comfortable and allow everyone time to become successful. This was the ultimate lifesaver. The kids were able to review in a fun way and learn a new app they would soon use!

The students typed all of their text for their book into book creator first then added their illustrations. There are many options for illustrating. Several drew on paper and then took a picture and imported them into their book, others brought props from home and took pictures of those and imported them in, some found pictures off the internet for their backgrounds and some drew with the pen feature in the app. Basically the opportunities were endless! During this process kids stayed focused on producing their books. They would ask others opinions, assist each other with drawings or trouble shoot if they couldn't figure something out.

Once their book was “done” they had to partner revise and edit. This process is a natural part of the writers workshop all year long, it resulted in many great conversations and significant improvements to students’ product. 

When the students were ready to publish they uploaded it to Showbie. Showbie is a excellent management app that is like drop box. It is free and you can create folders for each assignment. The kids then upload it into Showbie where it can be graded and left with verbal or written feedback. Through Showbie I would access all of their books to grade using my iPad. Within Showbie I retrieved the book then opened each book in iBooks where is makes it into an actual page turning book (this blew the kids minds). You can also email from Showbie. To continue the interaction and sharing of books, I emailed each book to our first grade friends teacher. Then she had each one of the books on her iPad for the first graders to read.

After 2.5-3 weeks of writing and illustrating our books were ready to be revealed. We made our way down to first grade and shared them. The kids loved their books that were specially made for THEM. Several of my kids dedicated their books to their first grader and this was very special.

After doing this project and sharing about it at assembly the word was out. I then helped third grade teachers learn the app and their students created a book to go with their inventor for their living museum.

This integrated learning experience allowed for such deep collaboration on so many levels. Across the country, district, campus etc. It impacted these young lives and was a tremendous SUCCESS!

A Shape Is Not A Shape Unless You Add An iPad….

During Kindergarten Math workshop students listened to the story The Shape of Things, by Dayle Ann Dodds and Julie Lacome (Illustrator).

The class created a shape poster by looking around the room and finding objects that look like their shapes they chose.  Students then incorporated the iPads by taking pictures of their shape and thought about what they could add to it to make it into a digital design.  After they completed their designs, students wrote a sentence describing their picture.  Adding the finishing touches students recorded themselves talking about their shape picture using the sentence:

“A ____ is just a ____ until you add _____, then it is a ____. “

Creating the project, sharing with others, and the conversations about the learning helped to solidify student learning and build a strong conceptual base for their understanding of two dimensional shapes.  Additionally, because students saved their video in Educreations to be shared online, student projects could be re-visited time and time again to help refresh and review their knowledge of shapes.

When Mrs. Laura Janese and Mrs. Julie Peters set out to transform student learning through technology even they were amazed by the end result of 2 students in particular: Ally Peng and Kasey Dwyer.  This product not only was a classroom experience that changed student learning it became an exemplar that became a showcase product at and at TechnoExpo 2014

"Smart" Storytelling

Last summer Melissa Quisenberry, the Library Media Specialist at Seven Hills Elementary, discovered a few tools that encouraged students to learn emerging coding skills. She immediately began brainstorming ways to integrate coding to allow students to learn and problem solve while working on literacy skills.

"Derek is a wonderful writer and storyteller so I knew that he would be able to use those skills to create a dynamic piece. We started off with the app itself. Since this was new to both of us I urged him to create his Hopscotch code first. I showed him the different features such as changing the colors of the lines and changing the characters. We discussed angles and the commands to enter to make the characters move in different directions to create shapes. Then I let him work with the app and he created his design which became a school."

After he created his code, Derek began to write his story. His code became the illustration for his story and he used it for inspiration. He wrote a great story about monsters working together to build a school because monsters need to go to school, too, right?

He then used Screencast-o-matic to record him reading his story while his Hopscotch design played. "If we were to do this project again, now that we really know how to use the app, we would begin with writing the story first and then moving on to create the illustration."

Derek had an opportunity to share his "smart" story with an audience at the 2014 TechnoExpo.