Third graders have been working hard on their power point presentations. They chose three of their favorite things to create a presentation about. They then added slides and text to the presentations, changed backgrounds, searched for pictures via Google Images, and inserted those pictures into their slideshows. Some students were able to move on to using transitions and animations.
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Fourth graders are finishing up with their longer Power Point presentations, and I have been busy each class period circulating to grade the presentations. The students have done an awesome job on these!
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Fifth grade classes completed a two to three week process of discussing and writing about what it means to do one's Personal Best. We are now adding our new band students to our Edmodo groups.
Next week: Begin researching podcasting in preparation for creating our own podcasts.
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Sixth graders have been hard at work researching their chosen topic. They have completed their writing, submitted it via Edmodo assignments, and have been searching for videos and pictures to include on their web page. Monday we begin assembling our Weebly site. Once complete, we will officially invite all in the blogosphere to check out the finished product!
Showing posts with label Edmodo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edmodo. Show all posts
Friday, March 1, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Reflections on Recent Lessons
The third nine weeks has just begun, and already the technology lab at KCSMA is a whirlwind of activity. Here is a short synopsis of what I have been doing with each grade level as well as my thoughts on the success of each lesson.
SIXTH GRADE: This nine weeks I am teaching a first period 6th grade connections class. This first period is only 6th grade, whereas my 6th grade connections have been mixed with different 5th grade groups on different days. It was quite a challenge to get used to have the same 6th graders everyday with a changing group of 5th graders, and figuring a way to teach different lessons to 2 groups at the same time. The tool I found to help was Edmodo. The students love the familiar format, and I enjoy the secure learning environment where I can post links, assignments, polls, quizzes as well as (a recent plus) find educational game and learning apps for students to access.
In grad school last semester, I created an entire online class in Edmodo which the 6th graders are now working through. This is the semester I get graded on my facilitation of this class. My goal with this experience is that students come away with an understanding of how classes online work, as at some point before graduating from high school, these 6th graders will be required to take an online class. Their college experience will definitely be peppered with online learning.
FIFTH GRADE: The 5th graders are also on Edmodo, and this week most of the classes have spent time reviewing the apps that I purchased with Edmodo credit and then voting on their favorite app. One class completed the lesson which will be used this week; They listened to a 5 minute science podcast, took notes while listening, and then created a document with their thoughts on the podcast. This document was then uploaded to the assignment in Edmodo.
*Reflection: The students were able to choose the format of this reflection on the podcast, either a Word document or a picture drawn and captioned in Paint. I would also like to include Glogster as a possibility for an assignment like this, if the bandwidth at school will support use of Glogster.
FOURTH GRADE: Fourth graders are on round 2 of specials where they are working on a 7 slide "All About Me" Power Point presentation. Week 1 began with a demonstration slideshow, an example from a 6th grader, as well as a planning document for each slide. This week, students are adding pictures from the Internet that they have saved to their computer and then inserted into Powerpoint. Some students emailed me photos or brought flash drives from home of personal photos to use. All students are practicing editing text and formatting backgrounds. Next round of specials, we will attempt to put the finishing touches on the slideshows, with animations and transitions. It may take one more week of technology lab to finish up the slideshows. I will give the students the option to share them with the class, or only share them with me.
*Reflection: I can honestly say that at least 80% of the students are seemingly enjoying this task as well as doing a great job of learning the steps of creating a presentation. I know this will come in handy for them in years to come with school projects. I only wish I had an assistant to walk around the room and reach more students during their 45 minute class.
SECOND & THIRD GRADE: Third graders will be moving on to learning the task of cutting and pasting, as the second graders have learned this week. Second grade has been a doing a great job with this task, which is small but powerful throughout the years of typing book reports, research papers, etc.
*Reflection: Some second graders have already been exposed to this skill, and some were learning it for the first time. Most of them tried hard to accomplish the task, which was the level I was hoping to achieve with them. It will be interesting to see what third graders do this week.
FIRST GRADE & KINDERGARTEN: First grade and Kindergarten are both utilizing the ABC Magnet Game on ABCYA.COM. Kindergarten is using the letters to spell their first and last names, with emphasis on capital letters beginning each word. First grade is creating a sentence with the letters, with emphasis on capitalization skills, punctuation skills, and spacing skills as well as sentence creativity. Also, during the demonstration with first grade, we are using the Cloze technique to identify what word could come next in the sentence based on the letter I select.
*Reflection: The students are doing well with this short lesson. I am enjoying their sentences, and especially liked the comment made by one student yesterday, asking if he could make a number sentence. This tells me what his interests lean toward! Another student created this image, which intrigued me to search into place value identification, so that we could determine exactly what this number was! See below:
SIXTH GRADE: This nine weeks I am teaching a first period 6th grade connections class. This first period is only 6th grade, whereas my 6th grade connections have been mixed with different 5th grade groups on different days. It was quite a challenge to get used to have the same 6th graders everyday with a changing group of 5th graders, and figuring a way to teach different lessons to 2 groups at the same time. The tool I found to help was Edmodo. The students love the familiar format, and I enjoy the secure learning environment where I can post links, assignments, polls, quizzes as well as (a recent plus) find educational game and learning apps for students to access.
In grad school last semester, I created an entire online class in Edmodo which the 6th graders are now working through. This is the semester I get graded on my facilitation of this class. My goal with this experience is that students come away with an understanding of how classes online work, as at some point before graduating from high school, these 6th graders will be required to take an online class. Their college experience will definitely be peppered with online learning.
FIFTH GRADE: The 5th graders are also on Edmodo, and this week most of the classes have spent time reviewing the apps that I purchased with Edmodo credit and then voting on their favorite app. One class completed the lesson which will be used this week; They listened to a 5 minute science podcast, took notes while listening, and then created a document with their thoughts on the podcast. This document was then uploaded to the assignment in Edmodo.
*Reflection: The students were able to choose the format of this reflection on the podcast, either a Word document or a picture drawn and captioned in Paint. I would also like to include Glogster as a possibility for an assignment like this, if the bandwidth at school will support use of Glogster.
FOURTH GRADE: Fourth graders are on round 2 of specials where they are working on a 7 slide "All About Me" Power Point presentation. Week 1 began with a demonstration slideshow, an example from a 6th grader, as well as a planning document for each slide. This week, students are adding pictures from the Internet that they have saved to their computer and then inserted into Powerpoint. Some students emailed me photos or brought flash drives from home of personal photos to use. All students are practicing editing text and formatting backgrounds. Next round of specials, we will attempt to put the finishing touches on the slideshows, with animations and transitions. It may take one more week of technology lab to finish up the slideshows. I will give the students the option to share them with the class, or only share them with me.
*Reflection: I can honestly say that at least 80% of the students are seemingly enjoying this task as well as doing a great job of learning the steps of creating a presentation. I know this will come in handy for them in years to come with school projects. I only wish I had an assistant to walk around the room and reach more students during their 45 minute class.
SECOND & THIRD GRADE: Third graders will be moving on to learning the task of cutting and pasting, as the second graders have learned this week. Second grade has been a doing a great job with this task, which is small but powerful throughout the years of typing book reports, research papers, etc.
*Reflection: Some second graders have already been exposed to this skill, and some were learning it for the first time. Most of them tried hard to accomplish the task, which was the level I was hoping to achieve with them. It will be interesting to see what third graders do this week.
FIRST GRADE & KINDERGARTEN: First grade and Kindergarten are both utilizing the ABC Magnet Game on ABCYA.COM. Kindergarten is using the letters to spell their first and last names, with emphasis on capital letters beginning each word. First grade is creating a sentence with the letters, with emphasis on capitalization skills, punctuation skills, and spacing skills as well as sentence creativity. Also, during the demonstration with first grade, we are using the Cloze technique to identify what word could come next in the sentence based on the letter I select.
*Reflection: The students are doing well with this short lesson. I am enjoying their sentences, and especially liked the comment made by one student yesterday, asking if he could make a number sentence. This tells me what his interests lean toward! Another student created this image, which intrigued me to search into place value identification, so that we could determine exactly what this number was! See below:
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Recent Happenings in Technology Lab Grades 4-6
The K-3 post was getting a little wordy, so I thought I would split the upper grades into a new post.
- 4th Grade: As you know, we have been exploring the world of blogging for the last few months. I can honestly say, I never expected it to take off like it did, although I was hoping that the students would enjoy it. In fact, I had to turn off viewing rights for posts and comments temporarily, until I have a chance to catch up with reading and approving posts! I am thrilled that students are practicing their typing skills in a context that is meaningful. These students are also realizing the importance of writing for an audience.
So, the blogs will be utilized throughout the year. However, we are going to move on starting Thursday to a few new technology concepts.
The students are studying about European Explorers in Social Studies. Therefore, we are going to implement technology into these lessons to approximate the distance between where the explorers set sail and where they made landfall, utilizing Google Maps.
The week after the Thanksgiving break, we are going to place these numbers into Excel and create a graph. I know this will be the first time many students utilize Excel, so I will make this as painless as possible with a ready-made document on each computer. We will then create a graph that shows the differences between the distances covered by each explorer. FINGERS CROSSED: This is a lot to take on as fourth graders, but they are very smart and I know they can rise to the task. - FIFTH GRADE: I am in the process of getting 5th graders signed up for Edmodo, an online learning platform completely secure for elementary, middle, and high schools. Once this process is complete, there will be no wondering what we are covering each day, as students will log on to Edmodo and a lesson will be there, or a directive of what to do next.
We have explored blogging as well in 5th grade, and last week we experienced a web tool called Wordle. I am attempting to get Prezi accounts for all students, so that we can explore this presentation software. In the meantime, we will implement Social Studies standards into a Google Maps/Excel assignment as in 4th grade. - SIXTH GRADE: My small but powerful group of 6th graders that are in my class daily have been blazing trails with Edmodo, navigating online learning terrifically. Yesterday they began planning their "All About Me" Power Point presentations utilizing Google Docs and Google Images.
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