Filming continues on in this week after Spring Break. Here are some photos from our adventure.
Right before Spring Break, we busted out the iPads and started filming. Within the class, we had a varitey of film genres being produced:one documentary and one narrative and multiple stop motion animations. Erin found a great app called iStopMotion for iPad and we bought just enough seats to make it possible for 2 or 3 students to share one iPad with the app on it. Filming continues on in this week after Spring Break. Here are some photos from our adventure.
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Wednesday's class brought more learning from the Animation Chefs. Here is a link to their lessons on movie making. The Chefs use index cards for storyboarding purposes and we thought that made sense since it allowed students to rearrange the story in an easy to manage way. Once you have all of the pieces of the storyboard the next step is to decide where your camera will be for each shot. Here is the Chefs's suggestion for locations: Long shots are for settings. Medium shots are for characters. Close ups are of emotions. So on each index card, the students were to draw a picture of the scene, put a number in the top right corner of the card to indicate the card's position in the movie, and in the top left corner they were to put an L, M, or C representing the camera position. Completed storyboards are due at the end of the next class meeting.
Day 1:Erin Krieger and I started working today with her 5th Grade students on developing a concept for their iPadpalooza Film Festival Entries. We began by watching the winners from last year and having students comment on a Today's Meet about the strengths and weaknesses of those videos.
Today we were visited by 6 educators from across the state who traveled to Austin to be a part of the first ever iLeap Academy presented by the Ed Tech Department in EISD. Our visitors consisted of Principals, Ed Techs, and Teachers. They came to Austin for a variety of reasons. Some are embarking on a 1:1 initiative and wanted to see what such a pilot looks like 3 years in. Some were looking for organizational and managerial strategies to use with these devices. Some were wondering how to build teacher leaders in the field of technology on their own campuses. We spent a couple of hours together and it was a rewarding experience for all of us. We met our visitors as they checked in and went immediately to Elisse Newey's class. Elisse's students were in the midst of completing a Social Studies documentary project and students were engaged in a variety of tasks that they were working on with their groups of 4 or 5. Some were working in Popplet, some in Evernote and some in iMovie. We had ample opportunities to visit with students as they worked and they were more than happy to answer any and all of our questions. They shared information about the app they were using and proudly showed off their work to anyone who stopped by their area of the classroom. Elisse moved through the room conferring with individual students along the way. It was a great way to kick off the day. We went from Elisse's room to the Mustang Room for a 45 minute debriefing session. I was joined for this session by Kelly Van Meter, our Instructional Partner, Jodie Villemaire, Principal, and Lesley Ryan, Assistant Principal. We had a great discussion based not just on what we had just see, but on questions that our visitors brought to the table. Kelly spoke about the value of peer mentoring in building teacher leaders across a campus. We closed by overviewing this Thinglink that I put together showcasing teachers on our campus speaking about an app that they had implemented in their classroom. Then we moved on to Drew Watson's room. In contrast to the group work that was happening in Elisse's room, Drew's students were working in a whole group on a Writer's Workshop lesson on poetry. Drew read the students a poem and then used Today's Meet to gather student's noticings. Drew had several students explain their noticings and then he modeled the writing of his own original poem about an orange. Next, students s were sent to their seats to compose their own poem about a pretzel. Drew took pictures of the strongest examples and put them on Instagram for parents to view. The activities in these two classrooms complemented each other beautifully. As one of our visitors said, in spite of the differences in the structure of the classrooms, in each of them you could sense a climate of trust and respect. Here are a few pictures form our day. Thanks so very much to Elisse and Drew for letting us into their classrooms and sharing their expertise with us. One of the most wonderful things about having 1:1 iPads on our campus is the ease of use that this initiative provides for classroom teachers. Things are not quite as easy for our Special Area teachers. Having students show up with iPads seems like a simple thing, but in reality it is anything but. Often times, Special Area classes are preceded by or followed by recess and/or lunch. Not an insurmountable issue, but enough of a roadblock that it could easily dissuade a teacher from taking that extra planning step. The EE Special Area teachers, however, made it a priority and all 6 of them are now successfully integrating iPads into their curriculum. Here are some of the things they are doing with them. 1. Our Art teachers, Caitlin Maher and Erin McElroy are using the iPads for research and they are also having the third and fourth graders record their projects from start to finish using the time lapse setting on the iPad camera. Once their project is complete- students pull the clips into iMovie and edit/add text/music to complete the documentation of their projects. 2. Our Music teachers, Pat Karaguleff and Tracey Aycock, are busy with GarageBand. I was in Mrs. Karaguleff's class last week and students were taking music that they had written and creating a GarageBand version of it. 3. Our P.E. teachers, Jeannette Michael and Stephen Presley, are having students use their iPads to video themselves practicing various skills and then using the recordings for self and peer assessments. Student also will use their iPads to record their fitness scores when they do the Fitnessgram tests later this year. Wow. How lucky are our students to have such dedicated teachers? Here are a few pictures from Mrs. Karaguleff's class.
In early January, I had the pleasure of spending the day with a group of teachers from my campus at Region 13 at a workshop on Differentiation led by Brian Housand. The focus was on differentiation using technology so it was right up my alley. It was one of those presentations that had many, many takeaways, but one of the best was a tool called Plickers. Plickers lets teachers collect formative assessment data without student devices. All that is required are the cards that students will use to designate their answers and an iOS or Android device with the app on it that the teacher can use to scan the cards. Teachers create an account on the website and then set up their class. Once that is done, the next step is to download and print the cards on white paper or card stock. It is recommended that you laminate the cards so that they will last longer. This is what the cards look like:
Today, Lesley and I had the pleasure of observing Maci Shannon's class as they used Plickers to answer questions about the Main Idea of some short reading passages. Maci had created her questions on the Plickers's site in the Library section. So today she logged in, clicked on Live View and the fun began! The answer choices were projected next to a list of the students in the class each with a checkbox next to his/her name. Students held up their card designating either a, b, c, or d as an answer.
Here are just a few things going on on campus yesterday according to our Instagram accounts! Documentaries in Mrs. Newey's ClassI always love it when Elizabeth Hudgins invites me to her room to join in her Math reviews using Kahoot. First of all, I love the feel of her classroom. I don't know about you, but the Math classes that I remember all involved sitting in rows of 4 or 5 and listening to a teacher drone on and on about the topic of the day. Elizabeth's class is the complete opposite of that even when Kahoot is not happening. Kids are up and moving and conversations are happening. There is a sense of excitement that confuses me every time. Excitement? About Math? In Elizabeth's room, this is a daily occurrence. Here are just a few pictures from today's game which was a review of the following: Our Fifth Grade Team came up with an engaging afternoon of "Choose Your Own STEAM Adventure" activities.
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Debbie Smith
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