I had the pleasure of working with Shannon Foley, Librarian Extraordinaire at Cedar Creek Elementary School, for several years as an Ed Tech. I learned way more from Shannon about technology than she ever learned from me and she helped to make my transition into Eanes ISD as an Ed Tech a wonderful experience. 

This week, Shannon invited me to her library see the EduDisplay in action. We are looking into purchasing one of these for our library and I wanted to get a clearer picture of what its potential was. Below is the information that I gathered from my visit. 

Here is a diagram of some of the parts of the system. 

Some of the pluses are:
1. It has its own built in hard drive so it is an awesome combination of computer and doc camera with the option for iPads to be connected as well. 
2. It comes with software that is very much like the SMART Notebook software which allows you to have on-screen interactivity. 

For the project that I observed today at Cedar Creek, students each researched a different president. They transformed their notes into a short speech as if they were the president introducing themselves to the class in the form of a Chatterpix video. Shannon used the doc cam to project a book of poems called "Rutherford B., Who Was He? Poems about Our Presidents"  and after she read each poem, the student assigned to that president shared their Chatterpix project. 

Here are some photos and a video from today. 

Oh how I love the power of Social Media. Here is an example. 

Laura Wright, Third Grade Teacher at Eanes Elementary and the 2016 Iditarod Teacher on the Trail, is a believer of growing her Personal Learning Network by connecting with people via Twitter. One of the people that she has connected with is Erik Brooks, an author and illustrator whose inspiration is the Arctic and its animals, particularly polar bears. Erik lived in Alaska for about 9 years and it left an impression. 

The fact that Laura leaves at the end of February to go to Alaska to  join the mushers on the Iditarod Trail as a representative of students and teachers across the country, means that she has spent a great deal of time exploring all aspects of the state of Alaska, including children's literature on the subject. She made a connection with Erik's publisher - Sasquatch Books - which led her to sending a tweet to Erik. 
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Once that contact was made, Laura concocted a plan to have Erik come and visit our campus and our PTO loved that idea so much that they decided to fund not only his presentations to K-2 and 3-5, but also an additional 2 days during which he would work with all grade levels in their art classes. 

So, on Monday, Erik met with all students K-5 in the cafeteria and shared his stories and his artwork. The students (and teachers) were enthralled. I have been in this business for a long time and I don't think that I have ever seen such a gifted presenter. His pacing, his management of the crowd and his choice of activities were beyond compare. See below for some photos of the assemblies. 

One of my favorite parts of his presentation was towards the end when he began to talk about his move into digital art. He is using both Brushes and Photoshop to produce some of his art work these days. Here are some samples. 

For the rest of the day Monday and all day Tuesday and Wednesday, Erik moved to one of the art rooms where he answered questions and presented a hands on art lesson to every single class K-5. I can't say enough about the quality of this investment by our PTO. It is something we will all remember for a very long time. We are all better writers and thinkers because of it. 

Mrs. Simmons's 5th Graders dug deeply into fables this week and I was lucky enough to see the lesson in progress. Thanks, Mary Ann, for inviting me in!

1. The students made noticings (observations) about fables and recorded them on a chart. 

2. Student groups of 2 or 3 were given a fable to read and a story map to fill out on that fable. They were familiar with the story map because it was one that they have used all year. This was the deconstruction phase of the lesson. 

3. The next phase was the construction phase. Students were asked to create a fable of their own using the iPad app, Puppet Pals, which had the same moral has the one that they had read. 

This is the second Socratic Seminar that I have had the privilege of observing in Mr. Matus's class. If you are not familiar with Socratic Seminars, click here for some background information. It is evident that Mr. Matus spends a lot of time working out the details of this event and they are therefore huge successes.They offer students the perfect opportunity to not only learn more about current events, but to express their opinions on what they are learning about in a safe environment. 

The topic for this Seminar was whether or not Muslims should be allowed to immigrate into the United States and this is how the lesson was laid out. 

1. Mr. Matus used Nearpod to share 3 articles on the topic. After reading each article, the students were either polled on their opinions or were asked to answer a question on the article. 
2. The first article was on immigration and why it was important to this country. The subject has come up in their Social Studies curriculum recently, so it was fresh on the minds of the students. The question that was asked after the article was, "Why is immigration important?" One student responded, "Immigrants made the United States."

3. After students completed their readings, Mr. Matus polled them on whether or not their readings had changed their minds. 

4. Next, the students set aside their iPads and made a T-chart on which they listed reasons for and against the issue. 

6. The discussion began and it was an amazing thing to watch. Students were polite and respectful of their peers's opinions. The moderators in both groups did an excellent job of guiding the conversations with their questions and encouraging all students to participate. Students were completely engaged and focused and the adult observers in the classroom were more than impressed. Mrs. Corbett summed it up nicely in this note that she left for the students. 
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