mp3 Players in the Classroom


Written on January 23, 2012 – 12:42 pm | by Catina Chapman

 

One of my elementary schools has several cheap mp3 players.  My principal charged me with coming up with uses for them.  This is what I’ve come up with so far:

  • Read Sight Words/High Frequency Words
  • Use in a listening center with sight words/high frequency words
  • Record books for others
  • SHORT video (ours only hold 2 Gigs)
  • Read aloud tests/Spelling Tests
  • Homophones: Students write the sentence, underline the homophone, and illustrate.
  • Audio Tour Guide for Field Trip
  • Following Directions Activity

 I’m open to other fabulous ideas.  Please share!

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Classroom Management for 2 Player Game on iPad


Written on January 23, 2012 – 12:36 pm | by Catina Chapman

This is not my idea.  It’s what I observed when I walked into a fourth grade class a colleague was teaching. 

The class was partnered up to play Bluster, a neat app where players (alone, as a team, or versus each other) find the three rhyming words or words with the same prefix or suffix.  The reading specialist had assigned each partner a number: 1 or 2.  She then directed 1′s to come get the iPad, 2′s to turn it on and scroll to find the app, 1′s to select the app, choose the setup she directed, etc.  She was careful to be sure that each had ample opportunity to touch the device.  There was no tugging, arguing, or bogarding. 

Great idea!

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Why are there Post-its on the Screen?


Written on December 9, 2011 – 2:35 pm | by Catina Chapman
Screen in the library.

For a very good reason. 

 
Last week, the librarians presented an ActionPoint activity to kindergartners and first graders on alphabetical order.  Creating the activity took very little time; it’s like a PowerPoint but with answers marked in the “Add-Ins” tab.  This is very user friendly.
 
The librarian showed the first slide: Which comes first alphabetically? 
 A. Santa
B. present
C. cookies
 
The kids were excited, but as we looked they had a variety of answers on their remotes, like the three students at this table.  Uh oh!
Sure enough, the graph revealed what we’d feared:
Actual results for the first grade class.

So before she showed another question, she stopped, grabbed some post-its, and wrote a letter on each.  Then for each one, to check and see which answer was correct, they placed each word on a Post-it and the class placed it where it fell in the alphabet. 

 
Now that’s realtime remediation.

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Spelling Counts: Mali Activity


Written on November 18, 2011 – 4:24 pm | by Catina Chapman

Two blog posts in one day!  When I returned from my math lesson, there was a third grade class working on an activity I had to share.  The teacher had found a great PowerPoint about Mali on Rockingham’s site.  I liked that the sound is embedded in the buttons for choices, so students have the question and other choices in front of them as they click.  If the correct answer is clicked, the user hears applause.

What I love is that she had typed up a handout with fill in the blanks to go with the PowerPoint.  I love that the directions included the words “Correct spelling is required for full credit.”  I love that the blanks were not word for word.  I love that her questions went in order but did not correspond one per slide.  Example: Number 7 said List three physical characteristics of Mali.   It corresponded with question 8 on the PowerPoint which said Which of these were NOT a physical characteristic of Mali?  She did give help to students by providing the right number of blanks for the right number of words in the answer.  However, students really had to read and apply to get this “easy grade” that would also serve as good information for their notebooks and as a sheet they could study for future assignments.

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Getting SMART with Virtual Math Manipulatives


Written on November 18, 2011 – 4:10 pm | by Catina Chapman

One of our third grade classes was having trouble borrowing in subtraction. Today, I wheeled the SMART board in at the request of a teacher who’s colleague had suggested using it with “Base Blocks Subtraction“. This site gives a really good visual of the tens changing to ones and hundreds changing to tens as we borrowed. If I could wish one thing, it would have been that the SMART board would allow us to use the pen on the site, but it’s in Java, so that was a no go.

We did get smart later in the class and open SMART notebook as a minimized screen that we toggled to to write and work the problem, then check with the virtual manipulatives. The children had really gotten into the lesson, even incorporating a “poof” each time the blocks shattered and helping count as a blue and red combination would make the blocks disappear. However, without the writing and working out, I’m not sure they would have made the connection.  Next time, I’ll also be sure to drag RED blocks to BLUE instead of the other way around; that makes more sense with the “poofing”.

While this lesson went on, our math specialist worked one on one with a student using digiblocks. These real-life manipulatives kept him engaged on the same content. This was again a reminder that one approach does not work for all, and that electronics are wonderful, but are not the only way to teach effectively.

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Scratch Enrichment Class: Rise to the Challenge


Written on November 2, 2011 – 10:46 am | by Catina Chapman

Each afternoon, my Scratchers randomly draw a number from a tissue box of the computer at which they will sit.  Today, there is a secret message taped to the back of it.  It contains a challenge.  I have rigged the challenges so that they will be seated in “partners” if they need help. 

Challenges

When students first come in, we will refer to page 2, which I will project as a Word Document.  Together we will construct the how-to as I type the steps.  Then I’ll print a copy for anyone who wants one. 

Next, I’ll play some Mission Impossible music, then have them remove the challenge that is taped to the back of their computer number card.  They will have the rest of today to figure it out and type up the How To Steps to present next session. 

 

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Enrichment Class: Calling All Techies


Written on November 2, 2011 – 10:38 am | by Catina Chapman

At one of my schools, I have the opportunity to teach an hour-long enrichment class once a week.  I have thirteen boys and one girl who are learning Scratch.  For our first challenge, I showed them an uploaded project at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/nickbrickmaster/2078954.  Using my favorite method of “Imagine, Test, Debug”, my students and I recreated a pumpkin and various costumes of eyes, nose, and mouth that would switch when a button was pushed.

Before the second session, I went into the server drive and viewed each project, and made notes about what still needed to be done.  Apparently the students had gotten caught up with the fun of Scratch and had added lots of recorded sounds and other animations instead of completing the task. 

Students love sharing their projects for others to see.  So, when we reconvened for our second session, I projected the networked folder and opened each file if the creator allowed (all but one wanted to share).  However, I would not PLAY the game unless the task had been completed.  I only spent about a minute on each project, and had the class help the creator figure out what scripts were missing from each sprite.  For some students, I even dragged the scripts over for one of the face part sprites and resaved so that an example would be there for the other face part sprites. 

I had much better success, and reminded the students that Scratch is a free download if they want to pursue creating other projects.

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Classroom Management/Time On Task in the Lab


Written on October 13, 2011 – 7:48 pm | by Catina Chapman

I’ve learned a lot from my colleagues. “Hands in your lap” seemed a bit severe to me at first, but now I see it helps students focus without the distraction of touching their computers. “If your screen looks like my screen, put your hands on your head” keeps them from clicking too far off in the daisies.

Today, as I led first graders through signing into www.rainforestmaths.com, I cringed to see students with their hands on their heads for several minutes. I do not like to see students sitting idly; I want to give them opportunity for as much time for practice and feedback as possible. I knew, however, that I had to keep students on the same step so they could get to the site, watch what I did, then try themselves.

As soon as they signed off and returned to their classroom, I decided that from now on, I’ll show them the site and how to use it first, THEN allow them to follow along as they sign onto the site. That way, students who sign in with no problem can begin working right away.

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My First Hyperstudio Stack


Written on October 5, 2011 – 7:44 pm | by Catina Chapman

Last week, I had a teacher ask to use the SMART board for spelling.  I decided to create an activity in Hyperstudio so that students could spell out words by clicking and dragging letters and use it on classroom N-computers, with the schoolpad, or on the SMART board.  

This evening, I had my first grader try to spell words in the “refrigerator magnets” I created.  One might expect the son of a technology resource teacher to have a lot of experience on computers, but that is not really the case.  He’s played on nickjr a bit and he got a DS last Christmas from his godparents, but he doesn’t spend a lot of hours on either.  He does spend a decent amount of time on the iPad.  He was engaged with the virtual magnets in my Hyperstudio stack at first, but quickly had trouble manipulating the letters.    

 I was surprised that he had so much trouble clicking and dragging the letters.

 After some frustration, during which he would not let me watch what he was spelling, he’d finally produced one word.  I helped him with the second word.  Note how many stray letters there on the screen.

 

 

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Matching Quiz, 2011-Style


Written on September 16, 2011 – 8:39 pm | by Catina Chapman

Against my personal stance against “set computer times”, one of my two elementary schools talked me into a set schedule.  I’ve always felt that the computer lab should be reserved when what students are working on activities for that class, not just as an “extra” once a week.  However, after trying to work in twenty-eight classes with set special times, rest times, recesses, lunch times, and pull out times with resource teachers, I see how scheduling time in the lab during a particular class is just not feasible.  Teachers convinced me that: 1.  They would swap subject times to accomodate their set time (I usually go to the computer lab during my science block, but I have a math website I want them to use, so I’ll teach science during math time this week) and 2. That they would still check out wireless carts at other times and integrate technology into other subjects as well as visit the lab once a week. 

When I scheduled a fifth grade teacher, she’d already planned her entire following week.  I asked her what she’d had planned for that scheduled time.  She showed me the matching science quiz students would have taken.  “I guess I can reschedule the quiz,” she said–a common response!

I borrowed the quiz and opened PowerPoint.  I inserted a table, merged the top two columns, and made the new cell a “Name:” block.  I typed each term in the left column, then created an orange text box with each definition in it. 

 

Today, the teacher walked them through how to open the document in Open Office, close out the task and slide panes to maximize the slide’s workspace, and move the text boxes without resizing them.  Students then printed their work, checked to be certain that’s what they wanted to turn in, then reviewed Virginia Studies material on www.solpass.org. 

True technology integration is using technology in place of instruction in another form.  While technology does not have to be involved in every lesson–there are lots of effective strategies that don’t involve technology–integrating technology effectively helps students prepare for life in an increasingly technological world.

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