The Miss Zaleski and Mr. Fisher's Class Beautify Project

Sara Zaleski and I are teaming up for a vocabulary writing project. We are modeling our project on the story that we read called "Jamaica Louise James" which is about a girl who makes pictures to beautify a subway. Our students have made a picture and explained how it will beautify a place using at least two robust vocabulary words. We look forward to sharing comments with Miss Zaleski's class!

My Nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards

My Nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards:

Best Group Blog: The Adams 14 Global Learner Blog

Best elearning / Corporate Education Blog: The Atomic Learning Blog

You can check out the Award nominations here: The Edublog Awards Homepage

Project Fall

I thought I'd give an update on Global Learner stuff so far. It has been a busy semester. I'm finding it hard to fit in all that I want to do with my students.

We are currently working on a Fall Project with Tita Martinez' class in Center, CO. The idea behind the project is to compare some pictures and share some fall writing with another classroom. We set up a wiki to show our work. So far the students have taken a lot of pictures, charted some weather, done some leaf rubbings, and shared a book, The Leaf Man, with Mrs. Martinez' first grade classroom. We are working on some poems to include too. We look forward to finishing up the project when Center comes back from Fall break.

The project can be found here: http://projectfall.pbworks.com/FrontPage

More updates will be forthcoming as we add to the wiki.

Primary lesson on Odd and Even

This is a lesson I did to help students get a better grasp on odd and even numbers. The students really enjoyed it and learned a lot. I think it could be used for Kinder or First grade too.


Lesson Plans:


Odd and Even Lesson
Second Grade
Adapted from a Lesson by Alta Allen
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/3621

Objectives. Students will learn the concept of odd and even numbers by counting and sharing candies. Students will demonstrate the ability to identify odd and even numbers by selecting and categorizing odd and even numbers on a Smartboard, showing odd and even numbers of cubes, writing odd and even numbers, and filming or photographing odd and even things around the school.

We begin by telling about things that come in pairs, like shoes, feet, paws etc. We will tell that an even number is one that can be shared equally between two people.
We will model handing out odd versus even numbers of Smarties candy to pairs of students to try to see if they can be shared equally.

Show odd and even movie from DiscoveryEducation:
The Living Numbers: Odd and Even up to Twenty (segment of The Number Crew: Drinks for All). Then students act out forming even number by lining up with matching lines and adding one or taking one away to change it to and odd number.

Practice identifying odds and even numbers to 20 with cubes.
Then show students how to identify larger odd and even number by looking at the last digit.
Students drag objects from Smartboard images that are odd and even to their respective sides.
Practice the odd and even chants.
Then students form groups. Two groups will go around the school with video camera to get students to act out odd or even numbers. Two groups will go with digital camera to photograph evidence of various odd and even objects. One group work with teacher to search Creative Commons photos from flickr.com.
Following day. Students work in center rotation to record audio descriptions of the odd and even photos. One group works to add titles and practice Windows Movie Maker.

Should Teachers Follow Business Media?

What is the teacher's role in keeping abreast of technology advancements that are shaping our society? Should teachers follow business technology blogs and magazines? I follow some blogs, some educator technology groups on Diigo: http://groups.diigo.com/groups/classroom20, http://groups.diigo.com/groups/discovery-educator-network, and http://groups.diigo.com/groups/infusEDtech and subscribe to Wired magazine. Some weeks I'm too overwhelmed to read all that comes my way. What is our responsibility in this regard?

Second Grade Lesson on Teaching Place Value.

Here is a lesson I created last week for my second graders in math:
Grade Level Essential Target:
1.1c Use objects and pictures to represent whole numbers including odds and evens from 0 to 1000
1.2.c Group objects by ones, tens and hundreds according to place value (for example: given 9 ones, 5 tens and 4 hundreds the student can write the number 459; given the number 459, the student can show 4 hundreds, 5 tens and 9 ones)
ISTE NETS Standard 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments (2a: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity)

Student friendly objective: We will use objects to show numbers up to 1,000. We can use place value to help us group and count large numbers of objects.
Language Objective: We will use language that helps us work as a team. We will use writing and speaking with math words and numbers to show our answers.

Resources needed: Smart board, straws, rubber bands.

Open the lesson by reviewing counting by tens.
Begin by telling students that when we get a lot of things to count we need a good way of counting. Bring a bag of M&Ms, a deck of cards and some other items that contain many objects. Ask the students to discuss with their elbow partner something that contains a lot of objects. Give students a sentence starter: One thing that contains a lot of items is…. Put students into groups of five and dump a bag full of straws (at least 50) on the table. Tell them they will need to use complete sentences to ask questions and to help them work as a team. (“I have x straws. How many do you have?”) Ask them to work together to count the straws. Observe how the students work together and praise any examples of teamwork. After a few minutes, bring the students back together and tell them that if you have numerous objects it is easiest to count them in groups rather than one by one.
Now break out some rubber bands and start to group the straws into bundles of ten. Ask students to use polite language such as “Could you please pass me a rubber band? I need five more straws. Could we share to make a bundle?” Show the students that we will group exactly ten straws for each bundle, and then we can count by tens. Leftover straws do not get bundled. Let the students return to their groups and circulate to check with students as they proceed.

After the students have counted write the numbers for each group while counting the bundles. Review the concepts of tens and ones with students. Tell the students that if we want to count all the straws from each table group together we might even want to put together 10 bundles to form groups of 100. Use the Smart board to show place value boxes. Practice writing a variety of two and three digit numbers and call on students to identify the number of ones, tens, and hundreds. Have students use precise math terms such as, “There are x hundreds, x tens and x ones.”
Then use the blank base ten chart in the place value folder of smart board under “Mathematics”, then “Number Concepts and Operations” or search by keyword. Type in labels for the chart then from the Place Value folder use the ones, tens, and hundreds blocks to represent various numbers and have the students write the numeric value for the blocks chosen on white boards. In the video I show how to set this lesson up.

Differentiation: The lesson offers tactile and visual forms of learning. Because of the ease of manipulating the smart board manipulatives the number of place values being taught and assessed can be increased or decreased to work within a variety of zones of proximal development.

An additional lesson based on counting candy can be found here.

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/depts/tandl/mted/faculty/Mted3250/HtmlPapers/Diane%20&%20Michael.html

Communicating More Frequently, Mentoring

One of my goals this year is to communicate more frequently on this blog. I am going to try to update this on a weekly basis even if I don't have anything exceptionally noteworthy. I think that I've been getting away from the original intent which is to reflect on my journey of growth as a teacher integrating technology.

The Global Learner veterans at Adams 14 school district finished giving a two and a half day training for the new Global Learner mentees. I will be working with two fantastic teachers from other schools. I understand the feeling of frustration and being overwhelmed with all the new technology. Two years ago, I went through the same thing. If I had had a mentor I think it would have reassured me. Sometimes you just need a nudge in the right direction every once and a while.

Welcome Second Graders

Bienvenidos al salon de clase de Mr. Fisher. Vamos a utilizar mucha tecnologia interesante. Mi meta es usar la pantalla SmartBoard y aprender y usar VoiceThread. Vamos a trabajar con dos clases -una de Hanson y la otra de Haskin Elementary en Center, Colorado. Mi numero de telefono es 303-853-5862.
Welcome to Mr. Fisher's Classroom. We are going to be using some exciting technology this year. My goal is to use the SmartBoard and really work on VoiceThreads. I am excited to work with Mrs. Talamantes from Hanson and Ms. Martinez from Haskin Elementary.
My classroom phone number is 303-853-5862.

Practicing Embedding VoiceThread in blog

This post is just a practice for embedding a post during the training for the 2009-2010 Global Learners training. This was one of the more popular training segments and I think the appeal of Voicethread lies in it's simplicity. Many primary teachers were excited about using this with their younger learners who do not type or write well yet. More to come on VoiceThreads later.

practice

Animals Internet Inquiry student artifacts

Here I'm posting some student artifacts. The students created them in Windows Movie Maker. For copyright issues we didn't use the screen captures from kids.nationalgeographic.com but instead we found some photos on flickr.com under Creative Commons license. The students recorded their voices with Microsoft Sound Recorder. The students really showed their learning and they reflected on what part of the website was most helpful to them.
You can find the lesson plans here: https://sites.google.com/a/adams14schools.org/mrfisher/lessons

Overdue Kidspiration Needs vs. Wants Lesson

Here's my lesson for distinguishing needs vs. wants. The students created a multimedia file using Kidspiration to distinguish between needs and wants.
The objective of this lesson is to sort pictures to distinguish between a need and a want as well as to select picture files to add to illustrate understanding of the concept. The digital product will be a Kidspiration file. Students will create a multimedia file including a written or voice recorded sentence stating two needs in addition to listing 5 needs and 5 wants. Students will address technology and operations standards to manipulate media to create interactive media files in Kidspiration.
Learning Objectives:
Students will differentiate between a need and want.
Students will show they can drag and drop files, enter text and/or insert a voice recording.
Students will create, locate, and use digital media and digital media tools to create a multimedia file.
The lesson plans (as well as the other lesson plans from this year) are posted here.

First/Second Grade collaborative project.

To get my students ready for second grade I asked them to develop some questions that they are curious about. Each table group developed a question, edited it for errors, and filmed it on their own. I helped them add their questions in MovieMaker. Now the movie/questions are assembled in VoiceThread ready for Mrs. Kellogg's class. The VT can be found here: http://voicethread.com/share/487074/
Lisa and I will post again after we have finished.

Lesson Enhancement with Habitats

I'm taking a course right now on using technology for learners with special needs. Some of the interesting things we have learned about are Lesson Enhancement Strategies and Student Learning Strategies. In this lesson I'm using a Concept Anchoring Routine and a student acronym strategy.

Title: First Grade Habitat Lesson
Standard
Colorado Model Content Science: 3. Life Science: Students know and understand the characteristics and structure of living things, the processes of life, and how living things interact with each other and their environment.

Outcome
Students will be able to explain what a habitat is and describe the things in a habitat that animals need to survive.

Materials and Resources
Anchoring Table created in Notebook software for Smart Boards. Smart Board, projector, book entitled The Little Polar Bear, United Streaming video clip on habitats.

Procedures
Anticipatory Set: Read The Little Polar Bear by Hans de Beer. This is a story of a polar bear that floats away from the arctic on an ice floe and ends up in the tropics. We will use this story as a segue to the discussion of what a habitat is. We will discuss how each animal has a place where it lives and gets all the things it needs to survive. Then we will use questions to draw analogies between human habitats and animal habitats.
Discovery questions:
What do you call a place that you find food?
Where do you get water from?
What do you call the place that keeps you safe at night?
What do you call all these things together?
Where do animals get these things from?
What do you call the place where animals live and get all these things to survive?
Additional questions:
How is the habitat/environment in the tropics different than in the arctic?
What are some things that might make it difficult for the polar bear to survive in the tropics?
In what ways would it be difficult if the hippopotamus were to try to live in the arctic?
Pre-teach vocabulary: Organism, Shelter, Survive. Read the first four questions to the students and elicit responses to fill out the first column of the Concept Anchoring Table. Read the fifth and sixth questions, elicit responses and explain that we are going to be learning about habitats. Finish with the additional questions for higher order thinking.
Show the introductory clip from the Discovery Education video on habitats. Pause the video and annotate and screen capture to the Smart Board the images associated with basic needs. We will gather screen caps of water, food, and shelter. Then we will watch the clips from the forest habitat and the pond habitat. We will screen capture examples of the basic needs for animals found in these habitats.
We will use the learning strategy of the acronym WAFLS (Water, Air, Food, Living space, Shelter) to remember the basic needs of organisms. We will pause to fill out the right-hand column of the anchoring table. We will form groups of three students with mixed abilities to take turns coming to the Smart Board to fill in a Venn Diagram of animal needs and human needs and dragging and dropping both picture and word examples in Spanish and English.

Assessment
The students will work in groups of three at the classroom computers and the Smart Board station to build a complete habitat by dragging images and words from the side of the screen to a circle in the center of a blank Smart Board Screen. Students will then type their names and print their screen shot.

Reference: Habitats: Homes for Living Things. 100% Educational Videos (2000). [Motion picture] Retrieved April 4, 2009, from Discovery Education: http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/

VoiceThread in Action

Last month I posted about a live conversation I had through Classroom 2.0 about Voicethread. I have been playing around with it and trying to figure how to set it up for best usage in my classroom. I decided to go with the $10 teacher account. This lets me create identities for contributing to the voicethread without setting up individual accounts for each student. I put it to test last week as an assessment for a presentation I did on Cross Linguistic Influence for my CU Bueno master's class. Many of your colleagues are here contributing to the Voicethread (under my fish identities).

Here's how it went: After some fumbling to get my powerpoint to play the embedded videos I presented my review of a chapter we were reading. I had asked those with laptops to bring them and we were able to form five groups. I gave each group an identity (I called them fish 1, fish 2, etc. -which is what I'm thinking of using for my first grade groups). Then I logged them into Voicethread and helped them to click on the identity for their group. I showed them the different ways of commenting and let them choose. I gave out some microphones and a webcam and I set one group up with call-in minutes (fish 1). I let them choose how they wanted to respond. I circulated and helped but very little help was needed except trying to adjust microphone volume.

The Voicethread consisted of some videos of students answering questions with prompts for my colleagues to answer specific questions related to the language forms of the students or feedback mechanisms of the teacher. Overall the lesson was very well received. The interest and motivation was high and the quality of the responses were great.

Some instructional caveats: The project was very absorbing and we ended up going well over the 30 minutes allocated for discussion. In a k-12 classroom setting you would need to have a very simplified practice setting (reduced content-focus and increased practical-focus). I might have done better to include a discussion rubric if this was a graded assessment. I also would ask the groups to state their names in their comments next time.

Set up time: 10 minutes for videoing students, 20 minutes editing videos and putting subtitles, 30 minutes setting up the slideshow and creating identities. (A simplified one with just photos could have been done in 5 minutes).

Next steps: simplified practice with classroom. Perhaps just one intriguing photo and ask the students to list three descriptive words for the photo using two different means of commenting. Then, begin using it for commenting on student writing projects and other learning activities. Finally, students create their own. (Note: the way I have it set up, students have editing authority and could accidentally erase the whole Voicethread or other students' comments. I haven't figured out a way around this yet without paying the $60/yr teacher Pro account. Does anyone have some ideas how to remedy this?)

I really had fun with it. It seems like a great way to present multiple assessment options and is great for emerging writers. I think it can help foster collaboration skills in the classroom and serve as a great vehicle for project-based learning. An added benefit is that it could serve as a vehicle for metacognitive self-reflection in a student portfolio.

Anyway, here is the link to the Voicethread.

Classroom 2.0 Webinar on VoiceThread

I just thought I'd share my experiences using the live webinars from Classroom 2.o. This weekend I participated in a discussion on VoiceThreads in the classroom. Classroom 2.0 uses a software called Eluminate which has really nice functionality. I learned a lot more about voicethreads and how they can help foster transformative learning practices through collaboration. I see the real strength in VoiceThreads as an opportunity for students to gather feedback and reflect metacognitively on their projects. Here's a little VoiceThread I put together with some screen captures from the webinar.

Here's the link:
http://voicethread.com/share/360781/