Padlet (A Test Run)

Too Busy to Read Much? Scroll down to the bolded text. Then if you have time, and this interests you, read the rest!

One of the great (or not so great, depending on your perspective) things about trying new technology in the classroom, is that you never know how it's going to work. I like it when there are things to correct after the first try, as long as it doesn't cause total chaos in the room, because I get to show my kids that it's ok for things not to work the way you want. I want them to know that nothing works perfectly all the time, and that no person is perfect all the time.

That being said, today's experiment went pretty well!

PADLET

Padlet is a modification of a common classroom task. Instead of writing the causes and effects, they were expected to accomplish the task through the use of computer technology. It made my lesson better, because the kids had to come up with new ideas, not just "slop down" the first things that came to their minds because they were not allowed to use something that had already been written on the wall.

Busy Teacher Description

Padlet is like an online bulletin board that the kids stick post-it notes on. All posting is done in real time. As the kids type, their responses are immediately seen by the others on the wall.

Some Quick Ideas:

Padlet can be used anytime you want the students to add their ideas to something. For example:

• Responding to a question that requires the students to think more deeply on an event from a story.
• Practicing a skill (this is what I did today)
• Sharing prior knowledge before beginning a lesson. 

 

The Basic Process

• Go to www.padlet.com and create a free account.
• Click on "New Padlet"
• It's ready to go, just like that, unless you want to be fancy and change backgrounds or add your own notes to it.
• Click on the settings gear at the bottom of the menu to set privacy and get a link to share with your class. Make sure you choose that the kids can edit the wall!
• I sent the link to the kids in my class that did it today, but you could create an easy web address to write on the board as well.
• In order to create a note, all the students have to do is double click on the "Wall". A note will appear for them to type into.
• When they are done typing, they can just click in another spot and the note is on the wall.
• It's automatically saved and the results can be printed!

More Details About My Lesson (If you have time!):
I tried this for the first time today with a small group of kids in my reading classes that did not need review on main idea and details. Their computer time was spent working on our current skill which is cause and effect. I found a funny picture of two dogs. One had a silly string can in his mouth and the other one was covered in the stuff! I made this the background of the Padlet and asked the kids to write ideas of what the cause of the picture could have been, and what some effects of the picture could have been. The part that made it more challenging for them, was the "real time" issue. Since they could see what the other kids were typing, they were not allowed to copy any of their classmates' ideas! That really made them think more creatively than they might have otherwise.

I learned:

• Make sure the settings are made so the kids can edit the wall.
• Since I didn't make them log in to any account, they had to put their name or class number on each note.
• I kept the screen open in front of me while I taught other groups, so they would know I was watching.  This way, I knew they were aware I'd be looking for anything inappropriate. I didn't have any problems with these kids.
• I didn't show the first group how to move a note, and some of their notes ended up on top of one another.
• There were only 4 kids in the groups in each class today. If I wanted to do something similar with everyone, I might want to make more "Walls" and give each group their own wall.
• Most importantly, they really enjoyed this, and I got some great data on their grasp of cause and effect!

Try it out and tell us what happened! Keep it short! We're all busy teachers!

"Googling is a Verb?" Asked a Confused Teacher from 1991

What would I have said if someone told me 24 years ago when I started teaching  that I would be teaching my kids to "Google"? I probably would have laughed in their face. It's such a funny word.

Anyway, it's standardized testing week! Ok, weeks. So I was looking for something to do during down time that would be interesting, engaging, academic, and low stress.  Like almost everything that I decide to do at the spur at the moment, it's been growing and growing.

It started out as a simple endangered species project. Here's a picture of the species. Use the Chromebooks to find out what it really looks like and then color the picture to make it realistic. Find out what states it lives in and color the correct states on the map. If you finish that, find some cool facts about the species to share.

This grew into a series of teachable moments. The first of these should have been obvious to me. I knew the kids knew about Google, but we had not really spent much time on how to use it effectively.

So we did a quick lesson. I used the following graphic from wwwatanabe and demonstrated everything in the "Simple Search" box as well as using quotation marks.

We also learned how to filter results by the reading level. It doesn't do the kids any good to wade through a bunch of sites that are way above their heads. Just click on Search Tools, then All Results, and finally reading level.

This is what you will see. Click on Basic and the sites that come up will more likely to be more on an elementary student's reading level.

Back on Track (hopefully)

The beginning of the year has quickly, though not quietly slipped away from me. I have a challenging class this year that keeps me on my toes at all times and in a matter of seconds, they can completely sidetrack my thoughts so that nothing gets accomplished!

It wasn't necessarily such a bad thing that I haven't blogged in a while. Even though I haven't put words to computer screen lately, I have still been using technology with my kids. More so than ever. Even though my school has some updated technology, we still seem to be lagging behind, especially in hardware, and that has made my job a little more difficult. I've had some of those problems solved, such as receiving a new computer for my SmartBoard and some ways around needing district money to do some projects online (since they have none, and neither do I:)
Another good thing about being silent in the blogosphere, is that I've learned some lessons by actually using the technology with the kids that I may not have thought of if I had just posted it as a "cool idea".

So what is the best thing I've used so far this year? It has to be ClassDojo. This is a great way to keep track of student behavior and until they are done with Beta testing, it is FREE for teachers who sign up now!

The basic idea of ClassDojo is this. You put your kids' names into the site, and it assigns little monster avatars for each student. Then, you can give the kids either positive or negative points for behaviors that you see in the classroom. Here's an example of what my class board looks like:

The things I really like about ClassDojo:
1. My kids love it. They ask to have their "Monsters" put up on the board.
2. It has created some level of self control for several of my kids with serious behavior issues. I find them making better choices when they notice that their point total has slipped into the negative. In my room, that means no Friday reward time.
3. I can print out a PDF of the kids behavior for the month. I can also email that PDF to parents very easily, so they can see where their child has excelled or struggled when it comes to behavior. I try to do this at the end of every month.
4. If you have a smart phone, it works as a remote! I can be working at my desk, observe a behavior, touch the button on my phone, and it appears on the screen. I can also use it on
5. Even if you don't have a SmartBoard or other way of projecting it, just keeping it up on your computer can help you keep track of behavior and report it to parents.
6. You can choose to add your own behaviors to the list, or delete some of the default ones, therefore making it really easy to make it appropriate to your classroom.

Check it out! It may help you keep your sanity during the month of December--Lol!

Things I'm trying #1

On the topic of things I am trying with my kids, last week I tried giving a spelling test using a Google Docs Form and then grading it with Flubaroo.
Ok, before you stop reading because you have no idea what I just said, let me break it down for you.
Google Docs is a way for you to share documents and collaborate on them. You can create word processing documents as well as spreadsheets and presentations similar to PowerPoint. You can create a document by creating a Google account, and then click on documents at the top of your email page. Play around with it. You can create documents for school and they are automatically saved in your account...no hard drive storage space required.
One of those types of documents you can make is a form. This can be shared online and filled in by anyone you choose. I put it on a web page for my kids to access. My form looked like this:

Then I read the spelling words and had the kids minimize the window after they typed in the words (The high-tech method of hiding your paper?)
When the kids submit their form, it looks like this on my spreadsheet:

The top row is the key that I typed in. There are some blanks because we ran into some glitches, but all but one kid had all of the words on the spreadsheet, just not necessarily in the same row:) Then I used an add-on called Flubaroo (I have no idea how the creators came up with that name, but I like it). When it ran, it gave me percentages for each kid in about 20 seconds! That's a timesaver!!!
If you are interested in trying this, I'd love to help you! The kids really liked doing it and I didn't have to spend precious minutes trying to decide if that letter was an "a" or an "o"!

Cleaning up YouTube

Showing a video from YouTube on the projector or SmartBoard can be a very interesting way to introduce or explain a concept. Sometimes, though, it can end up being a distraction because the kids get so involved in the related videos that show up along the side. Another problem is that the comments that show up underneath the video can occasionally be inappropriate. This can be solved by installing an add-on called A Cleaner YouTube to either Firefox or Chrome browsers. (It is not available for Internet Explorer, but there may be others that are out there that will work on that one) By downloading this program, you can eliminate all of the extra clutter on the YouTube site. No comments. No suggested videos. Just clean white background surrounding your video.
When you have the program installed, your main YouTube page will look like this…

And when you are showing a video, it will look like this…

Much better.

YouTube is a wonderful resource for all kinds of information. And the kids love it! This is something that will make it even more effective in your classroom!

Taking revenge on the seating chart...among other tricks

Making seating charts or choosing groups for students to work in can be time consuming. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past pulling my numbers out of my number jar and organizing new groups. Now that I’ve discovered Super Teacher Tools, this can be done much more quickly.
The first thing this site will ask you do to do is to create a class list. Then they will email you a link to that list. Click on the link. Once the list has been created, you can do a number of things. To make a seating chart, click on “Tools” and then the seating chart icon.

You have to click “shuffle names” for the names to appear on the desks. Then, the thing that makes this different than other seating charts I’ve seen, is the ability to rearrange the desks to match the configuration of your room. To change the names without changing the arrangement you’ve made, just click the redo button. The names will switch around randomly. Then the whole thing can be printed out!
I like the idea of using random group generator when I need to put the kids into groups quickly. They can’t complain when the computer does it (well I guess they could, but I’ll just blame the computer!)
Try some of the other tools on this site and share how you used them!

Make your own posters

This flood-induced four day weekend gave me time to spend doing research on various educational and/or technology topics. I discovered a online behavior management system, a way to structure my language arts time, and many other interesting things. But, I am absolutely in love with the site Block Posters!
On this site, you can design your own posters in a program like Microsoft Publisher, save them as an image file and the site will create a PDF for you that you can piece together. I created this poster as a standard 8.5 X 11 inch sign, and Block Posters turned it into this...

This is perfect for those objectives that you want to display, and wish you had a poster that said exactly what you want it to. This could be done for reading vocabulary, daily routines, or creating your own diagrams for science. I'm planning on making one for volcanoes!

Happy poster making! And here's to a dryer week in south central PA!