Author: mthorne0503

Tech Tool Thursday!

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Linking up again, with Michelle from Big Time Literacy, to work on completing the challenge for July. If you have happened to stumble across my blog, take some time to check her’s out. The challenge is very easily laid out if you are new to blogged and need some prompts to start!

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Day #3

Yesterday, I could have easily rambled about my ISTE experience, there is just so much that I want to share. However, I felt that my reflection is best done in separate posts. So, today’s theme, we will call it, “Tech Tool Thursday!” Here are some of my favorite tools that I had learned about while attending ISTE. Some even came from just observing a quick walk-by of a poster session. Feel free to explore and learn yourself!

1. Scoodle Jam – A colleague of mine tweeted this app about about a week or two before I had left for ISTE. Since it was currently free, I figured I would download it, but hadn’t had the chance to check it out. Well, for my luck, there was a BYOD workshop I was able to attend covering the aspects of this app. To state it briefly, thing of Scoodle Jam as a white board app, however it isn’t just any white board app. It comes with preloaded graphic organizers, stickers, text options and themes that your students can get creative with. This can be used with project based learning and it even has some lessons already built in with manuals for teachers! One of the best features….students can connect with each other via their device and collaborate together! I can’t mention enough, the GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS!

2. Evernote Clearly – A great little tool I learned from stopping by a Google Session. Imagine assigning your students an article or a project that requires research, only problem…the article is too difficult. Maybe it is a lower reader, an ELL student, an IEP student, or just someone that is too overwhelmed by research and doesn’t know where to look. Well, Evernote Clearly will easily take out that distraction and reveal the main context clearly! It even offers some customizing options for the display of the text. Check it out!

3. Pantomine 3D – I have been a tad obsessed with Augmented Reality this past year. Really trying to learn as much as I can about how to use it in the classroom. While being lucky enough to attend a dinner for @Gripcase with @sjgorman, @shannonSoger, all amazing handles to follow on Twitter by the way, I was introduced to the developer, David. A true amazing man. I can’t even put into words about how fascinating he truly is. Honestly, check the app out. It will blow your mind away!

There are a ton more that I could add…but I will give you three of them for Day #3! 🙂

Big Time Blogging Challenge

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Good evening everyone! I’m linking up with Big Time Literacy to join her/our district blogging challenge for July. After recently attending ISTE, still trying to process everything, I found myself constantly telling others that I wish I would take them time to be a more regular blogger. Then, I saw this challenge come through on our district email while I was in Atlanta. I knew I would be a day late starting, but had to dive in. Hopefully I can keep up!

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For my first few posts of the blogging challenge, I really want to use this time to reflect on my first experience at ISTE. I was very lucky to have the opportunity, and boy, was the experience mind boggling. I learned so many things, met such great people, and also took a lot of time to reflect on my own teaching practice and how awesome the teachers in our district are. 
Having previously attended our local ICE conference in Illinois, I thought I was pretty prepared and ontop of things. I read many blogs before heading to ISTE, writing my schedule on paper and narrowing my “must see” sessions down. Well, after day one that schedule was tossed out the window. 
So today’s topic….planning for ISTE and the advice I could give a newbe who hopes to attend in Philly next year.  Here are my top 10 tips on prepping!
1. Definitely review the sessions that will be offered at free conferences, jot them down and get an idea of what you want to see. 
2. Even though you have ideas, go into the conference with a clear slate. Accept that your plans may change and that is ok. 
3. Be prepared to meet lots of people! Have your twitter handle ready! I noticed many individuals were passing out business cards, but maybe even print a QR code that other attendees can scan with your contact info to save on paper cards. 
4. Bring clothes that are comfortable! It isn’t a dressing conference by any means. As teachers, we stand on our feet all day, but my legs/knees were killing me after the first day. 
5. Have a comfortable tech bag. I didn’t know what to expect and lugged my computer and iPad around on the first day in a shoulder bag. My shoulder was red by the end of the day and extremely sore….I didn’t open my computer once! So, bring with you to the conference only what you need for that day. 
6. Have snacks! Many days I forgot to eat because I was so excited and trying to see as much as I could. This often left me in many long lines that  would take at least 30 minutes to get a coffee and a muffin from Starbucks.
7. Do download the ISTE App or any conference app that is available. Star your favorite sessions. This makes it easier to hop to sessions you had in mind if you switch or a room is full. 
8. Plan your hotels/transport in a good location. If you aren’t close to home, get a hotel in a good central location. Some of the hotels even had shuttles, but otherwise you spend a fortune in cabs if you are on the outskirts. That can make it hard to share a cab with anyone at the evening events. However, I was introduced to Uber for the very first time! I had heard of it, but never tried it.
9.  Be prepared to be overwhelmed. Have a strategy down to collect notes. I found it easy to scan QR codes and then save them into a file each day in my QR reader. Some teachers wrote notes, others typed them on a device. So, have an organizational plan that fits you!
10. Don’t pack too much! Only bring what you need and leave room for goodies. You will definitely find yourself shopping the ISTE swag stand, local city merch for souvenirs, or the goodies that get passed out in the exhibitors hallway. My goal was not to check luggage in, and I managed, but it was a tight fit. ha ha

  

Pixel Press Floors

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One evening, before the end of our school year, I had been on a hunt to experiment more with augmented reality (AR) with my students. One of my favorite blogs to visit for that is, Two Guys and Some iPads. Brad and Drew are very well know for their 2 Guys Show, which you can watch at anytime from their archive on their blog, but also for their use of Augmented Reality.

So, while browsing their blog I came across their latest post that caught my eye on Pixel Press Floors. See the article HERE.

Now, I’ve tried to be the cool teacher and introduce video games into my classroom, what student doesn’t love an excuse to play games? We participated in the Hour of Code, we also used Lunacraft for math review in our classroom, but Pixel Press Floors is truly unique. Students can actually draw their own game out, on a downloadable grid sheet, using the specific codes given in their Sketch Guide. From there, students can then take an image of their grid and it will turn into a virtual world that they have created. Students can test their game out and even edit it from within the app.

I highly encourage trying this, it was by far one of the favorite projects that I received feedback on.

How can you use it in your classroom? The ideas below are not all original ideas, just blog posts I have stumbled upon while researching.

– Math Review – area, perimeter (See Lakewood Digital Literacy blog for more ideas)
– Research & Survey – What makes an engaging video game? Graph results and explain.
– Compare and Contrast – analyze various games to provide peer feedback
– Creative writing – create a comic based on your designed game (Porchester Junior School) 

Of course, the project couldn’t be complete without a little friendly competition game-off. My students wanted to finish the year with an elimination challenge, competing in teams against one another as we reflected the iPads onto my Mac.

Here is how I introduced the App to my students.
1. This was being used as an end of the year math center, so mid week as students were getting closer to starting, I went over the directions. How-to videos and the Sketch Guide were left for their curiosity in our math Blendspace course.
2. Students had an organizer to complete reviewing 3 or 4 games that were already created in the Pixel Press Floors Arcade. Students rated the game, and included pros and cons for ideas they would use. They also received a story map to incorporate their game into creative writing later on. We talked about how games have a storyline and a purpose like our books.
3. Once their organizer was uploaded to Schoology and approved, they were able to begin sketching their plan on the grid paper with the use of their guide.
4. Uploaded their game when finished and began receiving peer review.
5. Ideally if we didn’t run out of time, I was going to use the idea from above for the students to create a comic based around their character and the story line they created.

I encourage you to check the app out while it is free. It is available on both the iPad and now the iPhone! Happy creating! Visit the App Store to check it out!
   


Aurasma in a Wax Museum

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Before moving to a 5th grade classroom last year, the biography wax museum project has been a tradition over the years. As much work as it can be, the students always look forward to it!

What is the wax museum project you ask? Well, just like the famous Madame Tussauds, students select a celebrity or historical figure that has meaning to them. They focus on the standards of nonfiction text features, while also researching to discover any unanswered questions. Following their approved figure selection, the students then receive a rubric to follow that outlines the project, expectations and check-in dates. After having a little over a month to complete this, one of the best parts is the big presentation! All three, fifth grade classrooms, invite the school to participate in this experience. The teachers turn into the museum curators and the students are dressed, silent, and standing like wax figures to mimic the individual they read about as our guests wonder around visit our exhibit.

While the tradition of the wax museum project has always been the informational poster, I remember being a 4th grade teacher and wishing I had the time to read all of the student posters as I walked through the rooms. Having had the students previously, it is always exciting to enjoy and be entertained by their hard work. After recently becoming intrigued with the Aurasma app this school year, the wax museum project was one instantly came to mind that I needed to connect this app with! With a mixture of Aurasma and Chatterpix, below you will find a brief description of how you can incorporate a task like this into your classroom!

1. Once you have your project idea in mind, have the students complete any necessary work in advance in preparation for the Aurasma and Chatterpix portion.

2. Find an image of the face you want to use (check for copyrights), preferably a front profile, and save it to your camera roll.

3. Open Chatterpix, upload your picture, and complete the process to save your Chatterpix as a video on your device.

4. Make sure you have Aurasma downloaded and that the portion of the project you want to connect the augmented reality video to is complete. (My students had their posters finished before we began the chatter pix and Aurasma portion)

5. In preparation for generating the Aurasma trigger pictures, I printed out the Aurasma logo onto labels in advance, this way students could place the label next to the picture on their poster that they were going to use. This made the process much easier for our visitors so they knew where to look since time was limited for visitation sessions.

6.  Setup your Aurasma account, if you don’t currently have one. See my previous post HERE on how to set an account up and get started using Aurasma.

7. Follow the directions above to also create your Aura using a trigger picture (with the label) that will activate your video to play from Chatterpix.  I have students login and upload to one class account to make it easier for internal classroom purposes as well.

8. Once everything is connected, make sure your class or public visitors are informed of your channel name in advance. Then, test out your finished product and you are ready to go! Pay close attention to the tips given in the presentation from my previous post, it will help give reminders about lighting and on making sure to take clear trigger pictures. I even projected a reminder information page onto my Smartboard in case parents didn’t catch our links on social media for instructions.

The great thing about this part of the project, is that the augmented reality really assisted our younger visitors! When they may not have been able to read, they were still able to learn while they visited our room and report back to their teacher with interesting facts!

Here are what some of the final Chatterpix videos look like once completed and attached to Aurasma. 

 

Steve Jobs image from NY Post, Marie Curie image from Wikipedia

Lunacraft in Math

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Well, I’m embarrassed with my absence from blogging for the last month. Between testing and catching the flying germs in the classroom, I unfortunately haven’t had time to write.

I remember being an educator that flipped out when I suddenly found my students downloading Minecraft on the computer. I didn’t understand the game and I felt as if it was taking the students away from my instruction and digital tools. After almost four years, I finally decided to look into it. I needed something to excite my students and get them hooked in math.

After checking into costs on Minecraft for a 1:1 iPad classroom, unfortunately it was something we weren’t able to play out. I began searching for Minecraft-like apps and came across Lunacraft, an app for mining and constructing but in SPACE!

I sought out advice from my students about the project and what app they would prefer, but they quickly jumped on Lunacraft! The hardest part was doing the self-paced lesson first, because they just wanted to start building.

The idea behind this project, was a review on area, perimeter and volume. Being in 5th grade, they should have this memorized by now, but reviewing that and customary unit conversions has been a hard task.

While students are creating their own space town in Lunacraft, they have to construct 3 various types of buildings. For each building, they need to calculate the perimeter, volume and area. Now the tricky part for the kids…. 1 block in Lunacraft is equal to 1M. Since we are using customary, they have to convert that 1M block to 3Ft. So overall, they are reviewing customary measurements of length, conversions and calculating perimeter, area and volume. Not to mention, the creativity that is coming through. One student is trying to replicate the United Center in space!