In the Classroom

Using iPads in content areas in the classroom

Everyone Can and Should Create

/ Kristi Meeuwse / 2 Comments

I must admit, I’ve been in a creative desert for a long time, which has been reflected in my lack of blog posts this past year. I think we can all relate to that feeling of “I got nothin’…” Recently, I was able to spend the week in Austin, Texas  with Apple Distinguished Educators from around the world and our theme for the week was “Everyone Can Create”. We were immersed in creative activities involving photography, drawing, video, and music. It was, without a doubt, a much needed kick in the creative pants!

I’ve always been a firm believer that our children should be content creators and not content consumers. I’ve seen first hand the creativity of the kindergarten students I taught and was amazed at their seemingly endless well of imagination. However, my own creation abilities had layers of dust heaped upon them and needed to be unearthed and energized. The new creation tools in Apple’s Pages and Keynote on the iPad make creation easy for even the most creativity-challenged individual. Using tracing of opaque images and shapes, and adding detail, bring ordinary pictures to life. Here are a couple of my attempts. 

I uploaded a picture of my dog Coco into Keynote, lowered the opacity, traced around her and added the detail. Then pulled the original photo out, which can be deleted. In the second photo, in Keynote, I added the barn shape and the chicken shape. I traced around them, deleted the original shape, and added detail. With Keynote, I can then animate the shapes if I choose.

By incorporating creativity in student learning, we are activating their deeper learning pathways and bringing meaning to their learning. Apple is developing a comprehensive curriculum for creating and it should be available sometime this fall.

As part of my time in Austin, we were tasked to create a project around the Everyone Can Create theme. I teamed up with my good friend and fellow kindergarten teacher, Marc Faulder from the UK.  In our discussions over the years, we found so many people interested in doing some of the more elaborate projects we were doing with our young students but they had not done a lot of the scaffolding necessary to get to that point. Their responses were, “My students can’t do that.” So, our project became the creation of four guides for the teachers of younger children in the areas of photography, drawing, video, and music. These guides serve as a road map and they are divided into activities for the beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year. These activities are adaptable to all grade levels in elementary school and to the particular context of your classroom thematic units. You can access each of the four, free books in the iBook Store or click on the links below:

The Rich Potential of Young Children’s Photography

The Rich Potential of Young Children’s Drawing

The Rich Potential of Young Children’s Video

The Rich Potential of Young Children’s Music Making

You will notice there are some of the same activities across all of the books. This is intentional and is meant to show how the same activity can incorporate a variety of methods of creativity.

So if you are in a creative desert, I encourage you to find the nearest oasis and try your hand at creating. Regardless of our adult shortcomings, kids never seem to tire of creating. We need to tap that source and encourage and develop it so they don’t wander in the wilderness with the rest of us!

Let’s get creative!

Using Clips App for Small Moments and Student Reflection

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Many teachers use portfolios to collect and showcase student work throughout the year. These portfolios demonstrate growth over time, provide a means for authentic assessment, promote communication and reflection, and can give some students an alternative means to demonstrate mastery of skills. Portfolios, whether analog or digital, are individualized and promote student agency and self-efficacy.

While portfolios often reflect long-term projects or activities, they don’t necessarily have to. Small moments, ideas, and “aha’s” happen daily. How can these be captured, reflected and expanded on? The Clips app is a good solution. It is an iOS app for making and sharing videos, incorporating text, voice over, music, and graphics. Using the camera on an iOS device, like iPad, students (or teachers) can capture everyday moments as students work individually or collaboratively.

After the images are collected, they are uploaded into the Clips app. The combined clips are saved to make a video. This video can then be viewed by student and teacher, then reflected on. Some questions for reflection might include: “Tell me about your work” “Why did you choose to do it this way?” “I saw you had some trouble, how did you solve the problem?”This reflection helps make thinking and learning visible for students. The final video can be shared with peers and parents as well. To extend the learning, students may blog or journal about their reflections. Here is an example of Clips demonstrating the concept. You can see the video here.

Clips is a free app in the App Store. It is easy to use and can create short videos or students can continually add to existing videos, much like a regular e-portfolio. There are many benefits to using video in education, such as increased student motivation, enhanced learning experiences, development of learner autonomy, and authentic learning opportunities.

Give Clips a try!

 

Character Analysis with Book Creator

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Many of you may know I have left the classroom and am now the project manager for a school improvement grant for two priority schools in my district. Part of my work includes providing embedded professional learning for teachers integrating the iPad into instruction in meaningful ways. It’s no secret Book Creator is one of my favorite apps. I’ve written about it numerous times. The appeal is its versatility in using it across all grades and subjects.

This week, I’ve worked with teachers using Book Creator in various ways in their instructional contexts. A favorite activity was creating a character analysis book featuring a character in a recent story. Often, teachers and students need a visual to get started when trying new instructional strategies. Below are screen shots from the book I created to share with teachers. (The image with a ChatterPix video is a screenshot and won’t play, but the video is me sharing what I see as Pete’s character traits.)

This particular example is a more involved project and could take a few days to complete. The apps I used to create this were the iPad camera, Pic Collage, ChatterPix Kids, and Book Creator. Younger students, or students new to using the iPad, could simply create the whole thing in Book Creator, as it allows for multiple images, annotation with the draw tool, video and voice.

Providing students with alternative ways to demonstrate learning in creative ways engages and challenges them. Learning a specific skill set doesn’t have the value in today’s world that it once did. Learning how to be more creative, and therefore, more adaptable, prepares students for life beyond the classroom.

For a different spin on book analysis, read my post here on Book Snaps.

 


 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snap to It with BookSnaps

/ Kristi Meeuwse / 1 Comment

Who among us, both old and young, has not entertained themselves with the many filters on SnapChat? I tend to gravitate more toward the ones that lighten my face and erase the fine lines and wrinkles…I digress…but the universal interest of SnapChat, particularly in young folks, can be used to engage students in new ways across content areas without even using the SnapChat app. While some educators use the SnapChat app to create BookSnaps, others aren’t comfortable using the app or their district has blocked the use of it.

BookSnaps is quickly gaining interest in many educators’ classrooms. The concept is to encourage more interaction with content in books the students are reading. For very young students, pictures can be taken of their favorite story parts and characters. The student can use the photo markup toolbox in the photos app to highlight areas of interest or focus. In photos, tap the parallel lines (see green arrow below).

From there, tap the three dots on lower right and then tap the toolbox markup. See below. In markup, students can annotate with drawing and text.

In introducing the concept of a BookSnap, it is helpful to students if you model it. Here is mine. I love The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I took a picture of my favorite passage in the book, used Markup in photos to make a circle around the passage and add text. Then, I uploaded it to PicCollage where I added stickers.


A kindergarten student chose Pete the Cat Rocking in my School Shoes to create a BookSnap in Pic Collage.

The student chose Pete the Cat playing on the playground because this was his favorite part of the book, and his favorite part of the day. He wrote that he liked recess and he used the doodle tool in Pic Collage to circle the words that showed Pete was playing.

A variety of creation apps can be used to create a BookSnap. Here is one done in Book Creator app:

The student took a picture of the front cover of the book and then a picture of her favorite page. She is too young to write a sentence so she dictated it in the app. I added the text for the picture since you can’t hear it. In this BookSnap, the child resonated with the character Vashti because she doesn’t think she is good at drawing, just like Vashti in The Dot. While these are very basic BookSnaps created by young children, older students can definitely create more elaborate BookSnaps.

Using BookSnaps, students can make text to world, text to text, and text to self connections.  They can identify the main idea, parts of speech, synonyms, etc…and reflect about the content they are learning. Older students can collaborate on a book study and create BookSnaps to share what they learned. In Book Creator, multiple snaps can be created to represent several passages in one book, or to create a book of BookSnaps reflecting a child’s learning across several books.

So…snap to it! BookSnaps are fun!

 

 

Using the iPad Camera with Young Students

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One of the questions I get asked most often regarding the use of iPad devices in early childhood classrooms is “How do I get started?” If you’ve not used the iPad with young children before, it can seem a bit overwhelming. There are so many things to consider…classroom management, finding the app, making sure they are doing the right thing, ensuring everyone is on the right screen…it’s a bit like… well, frankly,

And if you are a bit unsure of yourself, then it can be totally unnerving. I often suggest starting small by just introducing how to find their iPad in the cart, how to turn on and off the iPad, and how to navigate screens. One of the best apps to start with is the camera app. The camera is truly a versatile tool that can be used across the curriculum. And, with proper instruction in the use of the app, you can curb the number of nostril shots you will find in the photo roll.

The camera can be used to document learning such as demonstrated work in reading and math journals. Such as:

 

It can be used for student introductions with name cards, picture timelines, and help with vocabulary words. Really, its uses are endless. With young children it’s important to give them a brief lesson on how to take a good photo. You can see my Clips projects on that here, and here.

Once you have your basic lesson, you can move on to taking photos with a purpose. There is an excellent blog post written by fellow ADE Marc Faulder here. He has an awesome iTunes U course on using the camera to take photos in early learning classes here.

With a new school year starting here in the United States, explore how you might use the camera with your young students in creative, new ways!

 

Anchor Charts and Book Creator

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I love anchor charts! They are so useful in any classroom, as they help make thinking visible. They can be wonderful supports when building new learning and gives the child something to “anchor” their learning when new concepts are introduced. Anchor charts also build a culture of literacy in the classroom. My students refer back to them on a daily basis as they are writing. The print-rich environment surrounds my students all day.

The students and I create an anchor chart for every letter of the alphabet and I like for them to stay up year round; however, there is only so much wall space in the classroom. I started stringing fishing line across the ceiling and hanging them from there, but I know not every school allows that. Plus, there are some charts that are seasonal or thematic in nature and maybe don’t need to take up wall space all year. Having the iPad devices in the classroom has solved this problem for us.

Each time we create a new chart, students open the Book Creator app and snap a picture of the chart…even the alphabet charts that stay up all year.  This allows me to take down charts that don’t necessarily need to stay up all year and it gives the students the ability to look at any chart, any time without having to get up and go across the room to look at it.  In the beginning of the year, I create the book template and send it to every iPad in Showbie. The first page has the title and the chart with all of the students’ names on it. This way they look the same, and they can access their friends’ names when they write.

One of the first charts we create together for Writing Workshop is our favorite foods. This is not a chart that has to stay up all year, especially since they will have it in a book on their iPad device.

This is one of our alphabet anchor charts. It will stay up all year. Because this one hangs from the ceiling, it might be difficult for students across the room to see it. Having it on the iPad allows them instant access at their fingertips.

Creating these books has really freed up some space in the classroom and still gives us the opportunity to introduce new anchor charts all throughout the year. Give it a try!

Using the iPad to Develop Student Agency

/ Kristi Meeuwse / 4 Comments

Through agentic action, people devise ways of adapting flexibly to remarkably diverse geographic, climatic and social environments; they figure out ways to circumvent physical and environmental constraints, redesign and construct environments to their liking… By these inventive means, people improve their odds in the fitness survival game. -Albert Bandura, 1989

Agency is the capacity to take purposeful initiative. Bandura’s quote above is a timeless reminder of the need for human beings to construct their own environments-including their learning environments. However, agency goes beyond just voice and choice. It is giving students the ability to actually own their education. It means strengthening growth mindsets in our students as well as in ourselves as educators. It means focusing on student learning and not on grades. It means creating a student-centered culture where students have choice in their learning pathways.

In our kindergarten class, we have found using the iPad is a great way to encourage student agency, particularly in literacy. By incorporating choice into our writing curriculum, students are more engaged in their writing across the curriculum. See a video on choice writing here.  When students use creation apps as a way to demonstrate concepts, they are creating new learning in deeper meaningful ways. You can read more about that here. 

Whether students are writing on paper…

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Or on their iPad…

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Or they are demonstrating math or science concepts….

 

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Student agency is encouraged as individuals choose activities and extend their learning. Agency requires collaboration between both student and teacher. This partnership depends on developing meaningful relationships with students. The iPad provides students with opportunities to create learning, expand learning, and share learning with authentic audiences beyond the classroom. This empowers students and encourages ownership.

Look at the ways you are incorporating technology into student learning and determine how much of their time is spent consuming content and how much time is spent creating it. By taking a look at our pedagogical practices, we can make minor changes to empower students and encourage agency.

 

Using the iPad for Deeper Learning

/ Kristi Meeuwse / 8 Comments

Deeper learning is the process of learning for transfer.  Student competencies that allow for deep learning include cognitive reasoning and problem solving, intrapersonal competencies which involve self-management, and interpersonal competencies which refer to working and communicating with others. When these competencies are in place, students are better able to experience deeper learning.

Math is a natural subject to incorporate these competencies. Recently, we were working on composing and decomposing numbers to 10. Initially, students worked independently to compose numbers using M&M’s and a work mat.

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By working independently, students engaged their cognitive and intrapersonal skills. Next, students were able to work together on their iPad devices to compose numbers in a variety of ways.  Students were able to choose the app to demonstrate learning.

Here are a couple of examples:

unit blocksThe above example is from the Number Pieces app.

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These examples are from the Felt Board app. Do you see the difference from left to right? The pair of students on the left composed 10 in ways that were more traditional. The pair of students on the right were both advanced in their thinking and were able to  demonstrate far beyond the expected standard. All of these examples meet the standard, yet, given the opportunity to have choice in how they demonstrate learning, students often perform higher than our expectations.

Integrating technology into your teaching practice can transform learner outcomes. Through voice and choice, students develop “creating and doing dispositions”. Through inquiry, problem solving, and collaboration both with peers and teachers, students are better able to lead their learning more effectively and transfer their knowledge to their world beyond the classroom.

In what ways are you creating deep learning opportunities in your classroom?

iPad Math Journals in Kindergarten

/ Kristi Meeuwse / 11 Comments

When I was growing up, I always knew I’d be in the top of my class in math, and that gave me a lot of self-confidence. -Sergey Brin

Math confidence is something I did not have in school. While I am super proud of surviving doctoral stats, I feel the pain of my students when they struggle with math concepts.

This week we are working on 2 dimensional shapes. We have found them in our environment and discussed the sides and number of vertices. We have a couple of apps that have helped us as we work with shapes. We add our work to our math journals that were created in Book Creator app.

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Using the Geoboard app,  the kids made different shapes. Their first inclination is to use a different rubber band for each side. I challenged them to create the shape using just one rubber band. Then, they used the drawing tool to write the number of vertices inside. We had a discussion about why you can’t make a circle using this app.

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We also used the Pattern Shapes app. Students made patterns using shapes and colors.

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Again, using the drawing tool, they numbered the vertices. In addition to the shape and color pattern, they noticed there is also a number pattern.

To reinforce these iPad skills, we have pattern blocks in our math center and real geoboards. During our math talks, we talk about the attributes of these shapes. By bringing in both virtual practice and hands-on activities and putting them in our math journal, we are making connections and developing confidence. During these activities, it became more evident that I have some students with fixed mindsets. While we actively work on having a growth mindset, those who tend to struggle are the ones that give up easily. By providing multiple modalities of learning, engaging in math talks, and reinforcing learning with hands on, the aim is to encourage that growth mindset, even if it means a bit of productive struggle. For many, productive struggle is difficult because the grown- ups in their lives tend to rescue them from it. We work diligently to create independent thinkers and problem solvers.

 

 

 

 

Here’s to a New School Year!

/ Kristi Meeuwse / Leave a comment


“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

Well…it has been way too long since I have posted! Life has gotten in the way, but we are back at school and are just finishing up our 20th day. We have been working hard on procedures and routines. These procedures and routines include the use of our iPad devices. We have gotten off to a slow start with them this year as we have had a whole mess of problems with our MDM, but things are getting back on track.

At the beginning of the year, we do not use the iPad for the first full week in kindergarten. I usually like to begin using them the second week, but this year it was the third week before we were actually able to use them. We start off in small groups learning how to open them, navigate screens, find apps, etc. Then we return it to the cart until the next day. As many of my students seem to have an iPad at home, or they were part of our four year old program last year, this was a quick learning curve. We are now able to use them in our math center and in our ABC center. There are two passes in each of these centers. Students are able to choose a pass, if one is available, and work in either the math or ABC folder on the iPad, depending on which center they are in. Each of our apps are grouped by either ABC, math, drawing, or teacher. The teacher folder contains apps that I am not ready for them to access yet.

We’ve used the iPad devices in whole group time to draw a picture of ourselves during our All About Me unit, draw a picture from one of our Pete the Cat books, and we have worked on some math activities with the number frames app. Here are a few samples:

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At this point, we are doing what we can with what we have. International Dot Day is coming up and we will be making our mark and creating our own dots to share with our friends in the UK. You can read about that here.

Remember to start small and slow so you can speed up later!