Yes!
No one is better at creating a story line and quirky, engaging graphics than Lorrie Salome, RTI Specialist at our school. Add to that, her love of data, combined with a dedication to the success of every student, and the outcome is a fun, yet useful system of formative assessment that has become fondly known around campus as Pierre. Capturing Student InterestThe students look forward to the adventures of the hapless detective Pierre, and his sidekick Poodle, Pauline, every two weeks. They love Pierre and Paulette so much that a mystery student has dressed Paulette for the Sock Hop this Friday and Pierre for Halloween. Every 2 weeks a team of 3 or 4 Support Staff visit alternating 3rd and 4th grades with a story about Pierre and Paulette. The students are charged with helping Pierre solve a mystery around campus using the STAAR Readiness math skills that had been covered the previous 2 weeks. We use Nearpod to deliver the story and the formative assessment questions, some of which are draw or write an answer and some of which are multiple choice questions. Simple and SystematicLorrie uses one theme for both 3rd and 4th grade each new session. But the STAAR Readiness skills are specific to what each grade level has covered. The students are required to show their work on the Nearpod slide, when applicable, and on a separate sheet of paper. The Nearpods consist of about 12-15 slides and have the same format each time. A story about Pierre's problem, and some quiz type questions covering math skills, aimed at helping Pierre solve the mystery. Easy to Understand ResultsStudents sign in with their name in the first slide of the Nearpod. Nearpod generates and emails reports of the session with overall progress percentages and item percentages. The reports are shared with the teacher, by the RTI specialists, and specific areas are highlighted that individual students need to work in during follow up FIT time or math time. Targeted Follow Up Learning ActivitesThe follow up differentiated reteach and extension activities complete the cycle. A combination of Thinglink, Notability and eBackpack make this step meaningful and useful. Jenna Holmes, our Instructional Partner, works with the RTI specialists as they go into the classrooms and pull small groups based on these results. The teacher works with large groups or small groups based on these results also. See the slide show below the video for examples of this. The Ed Tech (which is me) helps students and teachers navigate to the Thinglinks; save this website to their iPad's Home Screens; open the PDFs in Notability; work with Notability; and save to eBackpack. I go into the classes as many times as teachers request to help with this process, as well as use the Nearpods for the formative assessment sessions. Here is a short video showing a teacher and some students working with a graphing activity. For more information on how Pierre is being used, check out Debbie Smith's blog post. She is the Ed Tech at Eanes Elementary.
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This week's hAPPy Friday app, Ask3, is from Juan Orozco. Juan is the EdTech at Barton Creek. "Ask3 is a TechSmith experiment in turning a class of individuals into a high-performing team. Ask3 turns classroom iPads into recordable whiteboards enabling peer-to-peer teaching and collaboration, focused on team-building and student collaboration. Check out the App Integration Snapshot that I created for this app. " Juan has created a great video tutorial for Ask 3 on his website where this original post for Ask 3 resides. This Week's hAPPy Friday App comes from Lisa Johnson, EdTech at WHS. hAPPy Friday! ABC Magnets HD is a digital version of the age old favorite alphabet fridge magnets. This paid version is on our elementary iPads and includes upper case, lower case, numbers, punctuation, and 3 sets of icons. Each magnet comes in 6 different colors (e.g. red, green, blue, azure, pink, and yellow). Magnet size and sound effects can be managed in the settings. Multiple backgrounds are available as well. For tutorials and ideas for integrating ABC Magnets into your curriculum checkout the App Integration Snapshot. Thanks Lisa! This week's hAPPy Friday app comes from Debbie Smith, the Ed Tech at Eanes Elementary. It's Bookabi!! "Bookabi is an app that lets children of all ages write and illustrate stories. Check out the App Integration Snapshot that I created for this app. Included in this snapshot, you will find links to a video tutorial and to a List.ly list of Bookabi resources that I have accumulated for you." We all know that if we want to learn something, we can always ask a 5th grader. To that end, our 5th grade students were the teachers yesterday afternoon, as they each took a Kindergartner under their wing for a pattern hunt. Each Kindergartner had their own personal 5th grade buddy to walk with them and their iPads around the school to find patterns. They helped the Kindergartners describe the patterns they saw and helped them take photos of each pattern. Afterwards they came back to the classroom and helped their buddy recreate one of the patterns they photographed using Draw Free. Be sure to check out the videos below the slide show, too!
This hAPPy Friday comes from Lisa Johnson, the EdTech at WHS...ThingLink is a tool that allows you to upload a single photo and then link media on top of various portions of the photo. Media can be text or a link. Links can be web articles, Google Docs, videos, websites,blogs, audio files, etc... Anything can have a link! While this APP is not on our elementary student iPads, it's a great FREE APP for teachers! Check out the App Integration Snapshot for more information, thanks Lisa! Nancy Abell, our GT Teacher, posed this question to her 5th graders. She asked some initial questions for discussion and to get them thinking. •How do kids learn best? •What things should or shouldn’t be in a school? •What should classrooms look like? Feel like? •How should students interact with the teacher? With other students? They also discussed ideas around these topics Obvious Important Features… Classrooms would be… Outside there could be… Inside there could also be… The students could … The next day, they worked in groups to gather more (sometimes crazy, sometimes terrific) ideas. Then , they met in "expert" groups to design classroom, outdoor learning, common spaces, and a playground. Each group presented their ideas to the Principal, who was extremely impressed. Afterwards she explained to them how the Master Facilities Planning committee for the district had been researching some of the same ideas, and fielded questions. hAPPy Friday, everyone! With over 130 apps on our elementary iPads and 100s of apps used on the secondary level, the EdTechs decided to feature an app or two every Friday with some ideas for curriculum integration. This Friday's app is Puppet Pals 2, a great creativity app that makes it possible for you to create your own amazing puppet shows! Check out the App Integration Snapshot for Puppet Pals 2, below; and watch the tutorial above for a quick start to using this app in your classroom.
hAPPy Friday, everyone! With over 130 apps on our elementary iPads and 100s of apps used on the secondary level, the EdTechs decided to feature an app or two every Friday with some ideas for curriculum integration. This Friday's app is Type Defender, a great game that increases keyboarding fluency. You can even customize lists to include your spelling or vocabulary words! Check out the Type Defender App Integration Snapshot and watch the tutorial above for a quick start to using this app in your classroom. |
Hi, I'm Margie Brown, an Educational Technologist at Valley View Elementary School in Eanes ISD. I love working with students and teachers and discovering new digital tips and tricks everyday! Archives
August 2016
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