My perspective on Mobile App tools and one to one initiatives is a positive one. I serve in a district where we are one to one with chromebooks. These devices work as major incentives for students to complete work on time, and provides engagement in numerous apps and learning possibilities. Phil Hintz describes his experience, “We have seen an extreme amount of growth in every facet of education in our district thanks to this initiative (Solomon and Schrum, 2014, p. 223). I agree with Hintz, my students enjoy having their own personal device and it creates a higher overall engaging atmosphere. Devices serve children in a way that one classroom teacher simply cannot. Devices allow teachers to meet the needs of students, while maintaining classroom management. Apps and tools that students are engaging in matter and create this dynamic learning environment that promotes technology literacy and an environment that students look forward to.
I enjoyed exploring tools in this module. I created a math and writing assignments on my Seesaw Dashboard for students to submit work to. The writing assignment is to help create a conversation among students about a Narrative writing piece students will engage in for the next few weeks. They will explore and read letters about life in the Thirteen Colonies and take on a role of a person living during this time. Students will share and receive feedback from peers through this online forum. The only problem with using Seesaw in upper grades at my school is that we have only one Ipad for our classroom. I adjusted my requirements for this purpose. Students will upload math discussions in my “teacher” small group rotation. Each day and rotation, a different student is in charge of the group. They are the teacher. This will be their time to share and post the work they do with their group. In addition to this, I have created and shared a presentation from Nearpod, an interactive slideshow for students. I loved that this tool has the ability to limit moving forward in the slides and the ability to allow students to work at their own pace. The NearPod presentation for Narrative Writing includes a poll for students to submit where their colonist will live, a link to the History.com and the ability for students to participate in a collaborative post about what occupation their colonist will have. I have never used Nearpod in my classroom but I have seen it presented and participated in a slideshow. It is such an awesome tool. Students will also be able to share other information about their colonist through a Ticket out the Door activity using Padlet. This tool has been very successful at our school and we use it across subjects at our grade level and school. These tools give students a lot of time to participate in creative forms of collaboration. I have included the rubric for their Colonial Narrative Writing below.
Pinterest is also another great tool to use when trying to gether teaching strategies, resources and curriculum based ideas. Solomon and Schrum(2014) state, “This tool can help make the 21st-century collaboration and its documentation an equitable and achievable goal for all discoveries” (p. 298). I have multiple boards to save different pins to. Students would benefit from this abundance of information. The problem is, this site is blocked by our district. It says it is restricted due to mature content. I can always share these resources with my students using email, google docs or Google Classroom. Many people don’t realize that this is good for so many different ideas; gifts, cooking, and so many others are available. The content can be mature and makes it difficult to be accessed safely by students.
The app that I decided to try out was iMovie. I accessed this on my iPhone and was able to create videos from my iCloud storage. I created two videos. Both were a short clip of students acting out and demonstrating a character trait word from our vocabulary list earlier this year. One of my students created puppets and performed a puppet show on my arm while another student recorded it. The puppet show consisted of a little boy walking in the woods. When he is encountered by a bear his dog saves him. Her word was loyalty. It was great to share this video with my parents and teachers at my school through iMovie. Another young man acted out the word “empathetic” by collaborating with a student in another class. His dog had just escaped and he reenacted this time of his life friends life; understanding that he was able to understand his experience because it was similar to his own life.
The assessment tool I examined in detail was Padlet. This tool is easy to use as a formative assessment to weave throughout your lessons. It can be used to open up a lesson to get students thinking about what they already know about a given topic, a place for students to post questions while learning to prevent losing a thought, to get those shy students to collaborate or even as a ticket out the door. You have the ability to post anonymously and this helps with some students. Sharing a Padlet is simple. Embed or share the link in a slideshow that students have access to or share it via email. Students can easily comment. The one concern is if students are unfamiliar with how to post. Making sure to be clear about what you are looking for will prevent confusion like any tool you use with students. Clarifying how to answer and how long you would like the answer to be makes it more manageable to students. It is beneficial for students and teachers because it is an easy way to share, collaborate and determine how much students have learned for any given lesson. I created a screencast to explore how to use and create a Padlet for formative assessment. My example is a response to literature. I ask my students how they feel about the new Interactive Read Aloud that we have started.
Assessment Tool Screencast: Padlet
These tools and assessments definitely help make instruction more meaningful and engaging to your learners. I can add these new resources to my tool belt. Here is a complete list of Technology that I explored in this module. Thanks for reading.
Resources:
Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2014). Web 2.0 how-to for educators: the indispensable companion
to web 2.0: new tools, new schools. Eugene, Or.: International Society for Technology in Education.
I enjoyed exploring tools in this module. I created a math and writing assignments on my Seesaw Dashboard for students to submit work to. The writing assignment is to help create a conversation among students about a Narrative writing piece students will engage in for the next few weeks. They will explore and read letters about life in the Thirteen Colonies and take on a role of a person living during this time. Students will share and receive feedback from peers through this online forum. The only problem with using Seesaw in upper grades at my school is that we have only one Ipad for our classroom. I adjusted my requirements for this purpose. Students will upload math discussions in my “teacher” small group rotation. Each day and rotation, a different student is in charge of the group. They are the teacher. This will be their time to share and post the work they do with their group. In addition to this, I have created and shared a presentation from Nearpod, an interactive slideshow for students. I loved that this tool has the ability to limit moving forward in the slides and the ability to allow students to work at their own pace. The NearPod presentation for Narrative Writing includes a poll for students to submit where their colonist will live, a link to the History.com and the ability for students to participate in a collaborative post about what occupation their colonist will have. I have never used Nearpod in my classroom but I have seen it presented and participated in a slideshow. It is such an awesome tool. Students will also be able to share other information about their colonist through a Ticket out the Door activity using Padlet. This tool has been very successful at our school and we use it across subjects at our grade level and school. These tools give students a lot of time to participate in creative forms of collaboration. I have included the rubric for their Colonial Narrative Writing below.
Pinterest is also another great tool to use when trying to gether teaching strategies, resources and curriculum based ideas. Solomon and Schrum(2014) state, “This tool can help make the 21st-century collaboration and its documentation an equitable and achievable goal for all discoveries” (p. 298). I have multiple boards to save different pins to. Students would benefit from this abundance of information. The problem is, this site is blocked by our district. It says it is restricted due to mature content. I can always share these resources with my students using email, google docs or Google Classroom. Many people don’t realize that this is good for so many different ideas; gifts, cooking, and so many others are available. The content can be mature and makes it difficult to be accessed safely by students.
The app that I decided to try out was iMovie. I accessed this on my iPhone and was able to create videos from my iCloud storage. I created two videos. Both were a short clip of students acting out and demonstrating a character trait word from our vocabulary list earlier this year. One of my students created puppets and performed a puppet show on my arm while another student recorded it. The puppet show consisted of a little boy walking in the woods. When he is encountered by a bear his dog saves him. Her word was loyalty. It was great to share this video with my parents and teachers at my school through iMovie. Another young man acted out the word “empathetic” by collaborating with a student in another class. His dog had just escaped and he reenacted this time of his life friends life; understanding that he was able to understand his experience because it was similar to his own life.
The assessment tool I examined in detail was Padlet. This tool is easy to use as a formative assessment to weave throughout your lessons. It can be used to open up a lesson to get students thinking about what they already know about a given topic, a place for students to post questions while learning to prevent losing a thought, to get those shy students to collaborate or even as a ticket out the door. You have the ability to post anonymously and this helps with some students. Sharing a Padlet is simple. Embed or share the link in a slideshow that students have access to or share it via email. Students can easily comment. The one concern is if students are unfamiliar with how to post. Making sure to be clear about what you are looking for will prevent confusion like any tool you use with students. Clarifying how to answer and how long you would like the answer to be makes it more manageable to students. It is beneficial for students and teachers because it is an easy way to share, collaborate and determine how much students have learned for any given lesson. I created a screencast to explore how to use and create a Padlet for formative assessment. My example is a response to literature. I ask my students how they feel about the new Interactive Read Aloud that we have started.
Assessment Tool Screencast: Padlet
These tools and assessments definitely help make instruction more meaningful and engaging to your learners. I can add these new resources to my tool belt. Here is a complete list of Technology that I explored in this module. Thanks for reading.
Resources:
Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2014). Web 2.0 how-to for educators: the indispensable companion
to web 2.0: new tools, new schools. Eugene, Or.: International Society for Technology in Education.