This was the first session of the day, taught by Janet Corder and Joan Gore. The first thing they mentioned during the session was how they hate using PowerPoint because “kids are PowerPoint-ed to death.” Instead, they had all of their presentations on Smore, which is basically like a website or blog format. They had all of their information and links on that page, with a “TinyURL” on their business card linked to this page.
We played a game on Kahoot! at the start of the session. It was basically a way to create a quiz for students where they can answer on any device that can access the internet. It was a fun way to interact with material on the screen and find out what students know, but many audience members experienced technical problems during the quiz.
The next tool they presented was called augmented reality. This is a new innovation utilizing tablet or smartphones. The speakers used the app called Aurasma that would scan ordinary items or printed images and digitally add a three-dimensional figure to it. This would be great for things like cell diagrams or space models because it allows kids to digitally manipulate them get a better understanding than just seeing a flat image in a textbook. There was another app called 4D Elements that I tried out at home afterwards. The app takes you to a website where you print off cubes the company has created with different elements from the periodic table on each side. You put the elements on the camera of your device and it makes the cube appear to hold that element. When you put two of them together, it shows what they make, such as hydrogen and oxygen making water. I look forward to finding out more about how this technology can be used in a classroom to enhance learning.
They ended the session with showing us various tech tools they like to buy to accompany their devices. Their Smore has links to the iPad cases they were using as well as the styluses, earbud cord wraps, and microfiber cloths they were handing out.
Flipping the Elementary Classroom
This was the second session of the day, one that I chose to attend from the list of options. The session was taught by Sara Tipton and Greg Katzin from Logan-Rogersville schools. Mr. Katzin is a Senior-level Social Studies teacher at the high school who has flipped his classroom by using Camtasia to create videos of lecture material for students to watch at home before attending class. Mrs. Tipton is a Kindergarten teacher who has spent the past year flipping her classroom in a much different way.
Mrs. Tipton said that she has three main things that are part of her flipped classroom. She create videos for parents to watch to learn how to help their child, videos for students to watch at home over content, and mini-lessons to be used during workshop time in class. The latter of these would be the most beneficial in an elementary classroom, since it would be hard to ensure that all students are able to watch videos at home. This teacher had a few Surface tablets in her classroom on which she would load the videos for students to watch; she taught them all how to scrub through, pause, and rewind. This allows her to be working with a small group of students while still offering instruction to students via the videos.
Some of the pitfalls she found were students and parents with no internet at home, parents that didn’t have the technology skills, and accountability. With families without access to internet, she recommended sending students home with the video on a flashdrive or dvd or allowing them to watch videos at school during a down time. She said her librarian also allowed parents to come in during the last 30 minutes of the day to access the videos. She also recommended having a parent tech night to teach them about using the website and playing the videos. For accountability, you can add in quizzes using Camtasia, which would be more appropriate for older students. She also recommended using a learning log where a student could journal what they learned from each video.
Mrs. Tipton also mentioned she keeps her videos to about 2 minutes maximum to keep the students’ attention. There is also a feature in Camtasia where you can add in the video of yourself narrating the screen capture. She said that she wasn’t comfortable using that feature yet, but it would be very helpful to students to be able to think, “hey, that is my teacher.” She also talked about a teacher in St. Louis that includes a funny picture of a cat behind him in every video, which gets the students excited to watch the videos. I love this idea and plan on stealing it in the future!
App Smackdown
The final session I went to was also taught by Janet Corder and Joan Gore. They hooked their iPad up to the projection system to highlight their favorite educational apps, most of which are available on other operating systems. I downloaded many of them and here is just a summary of a few:
SockPuppets: This app allows the user to create a puppet show on the device. The free version only allows for 30 seconds, but I believe the paid version has no time limit. One funny thing about this app is that it makes all the voices high-pitched and immediately makes the viewer smile. The presenter said she was teaching a class in which two middle school boys were “too cool” to present about a Social Studies topic, but when allowed to use this app, they got very excited and included tons of factual information.
Endless Reader: This app was one I had previously downloaded on my iPad, but it is great to teach reading. The user spells out words by dragging letters to the correct spot. While the child is dragging the letter, it says over and over what it sounds like. When the word is spelled out, it then puts it into a sentence and animates it. It has letters a through f for free, but you can pay to download more words.
Chicken Coop Fractions: This app is free but I think you must pay to download more levels. The level that I got to play on was about estimating fraction values. It had a slider on the bottom with 0 on the left and 1 on the right. The chicken tells you the fraction and you have to move hay to the decimal representation of that fraction to catch an egg. This is a great app to show students the meaning of fractions and converting them to a decimal.
Tellagami: This app creates an avatar person that you can make speak by talking or typing. It would be a fun way to introduce a lesson or have students make to present a topic.
SquiggleFish: This app costs $2.99, but it would be a fun one to use in the classroom. Students can draw and design a fish with a dark outline on any piece of paper. You can then use your device’s camera to add it to a virtual fish tank. One teacher used this as a reward for the student of the week.