Joan Bohnstedt

Today we had an exciting inservice day where all of the 4th & 5th grade teachers got together with Tom Borer and learned more about working with the iPods in our classes. Lots of sharing and learning. It was very overwhelming and exciting at the same time. We are so jazzed to have all of the 4th & 5th grade have this incredible learning opportunity. Thanks Tom for sharing your knowledge with us today!

We are up and running with the iPods in the classroom. Last week the students worked with how they are set up, learned about the home, volume, and sleep buttons, and had some free exploration time. This week they are beginning to use the applications. For spelling they used the Hangman application and in social studies they learned about Google Earth.

The students will also begin using their iPod log books to keep track of the applications they are using and what levels they have passed. This log helps me keep track of what they are doing individually and also provides some accountability for them in staying on task.

Part 1 - LOADING STUDENTREASURE BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS & RECORDING - First I downloaded to iPhoto the illustration photos that I had taken with the docucam for each student before the books were sent off to be bound. I set up a separate folder in iPhoto for each student and was able to quickly drag the photos from my thumbdrive into the students folders. Then I uploaded the students illustrations to Photos on their individual iPods. The class then went into Photos on their iPods, cropped the illustrations and took a screen shot. Next the students followed the directions on the organizer worksheet and were quickly able to upload their illustrations to SonicPics. This first part went surprisingly fast.

Later in the week, the students began recording their stories in SonicPics. I had printed a copy of the story that they had originally written, blogged, and pasted to a word doc to use in their StudenTreasure book so that they would be able to read and record it and know where the page changes occured. Overall the students have been quite successful with this part. Some have chosen to rerecord their stories because they didn't like the way it sounded or they messed up the recording or changing to the next illustration. One of the best features of SonicPics is that it was a pause button when they record. Once this part was done they were ready to find a partner and start the interview process.



Part 2 - INTERVIEWING IN ITALK - After students had recorded their stories, they found a partner and listened to each others' stories in SonicPics on their iPods. Then, using the Interview Directions Sheet, they wrote 2 (or 3 in some cases) questions to ask their partner in the template. I chose to use th template because the students have never conducted an interview and were unfamiliar with the format. They practiced interviewing their partner and then recorded the interview in iTalk on the iPod of the author. After they recorded one interview they switched iPods and roles and conducted the interview on the iPod of the other author. The students were very successful and loved doing this part. They seemed to feel like they were on TV and really like moving the mic from one person to another.




The two samples below are from 2 Highpoint students in my class who are reading about 2 years behind grade level. The author of the SonicPics story is the author in the interview segment. This was a great project for them because it worked on their English skills. They both were very enthusiastic about doing it.






This turned out to be the best project I've done all year and in unexpected ways. The students were so excited to get to record their own stories (expected), were also enthusiastic about listening to each others' stories (expected), and were thrilled beyond words to get to interview each other (unexpected). They came up several times and said to me, "Can we do the interview now?" or "I have a partner for interviewing. Can we start?"

This made me think that I will be doing a lot more interviewing for the rest of this year and will include it regularly next year. It could be done with one child taking on the role of a character in a book and being interviewed about his/her actions or interviewing historical characters in Social Studies. This technique could also be done where one students asks another to explain a science or math concept. There are so many possiblities with this.

PART 3 – REFLECTION

There were 2 parts to the reflection. One was the audio/visual rubric where they listened to their story and interview again. Then on the rubric they scored themselves using two different colors, one for the SonicPics project and one for the interview. The second part of the reflection was a self evaluation where the students wrote about 2 things they learned while doing the project, something they did well, and something they will do better the next time.

It was interesting to see how the students evaluated themselves. Some were really easy on themselves, some were very hard on themselves, and most had a fair accurate assessment. In the self evaluation it was interesting to see how some students focused on the global aspects of the project (i.e. “I learned that books are long to do.” or “To not give up. To keep on trying.” and other students focused on technical aspects (i.e. “I learned how to move my story in SonicPics.” or “Next time I will not put the microphone all the way up to my mouth.”

Doing the reflection made me realize that I should have done more written reflections with my students during the year rather than mostly oral. It really made them think and I was very pleased with what they noticed as strengths and weaknesses. I tend to self reflect quite a bit and I need to give my students that opportunity as well.






I am definitely going to repeat this project next year because it involved so many different skills and learning modalities and had a very high student interest.

-Wilda Storm "Types of Nouns" book done in StoryKit or SonicPics. Could also do for other small books or foldables.
-Create a folder of projects in their accounts and then burn to disc at end of year.
-More interviewing (i.e. as characters in book, historical figures in Social Studies, science & math concepts)

More to be added later as I think of them.

The students have been struggling with the difference between long and short vowels. We did a review lesson on hearing the difference between the two and used a sound/spelling card to help notice the different ways that they can be written. After that we used the application DoodleBuddy on our iPods to check for understanding. I would say a one- syllable word. Then the students would write the vowel and put either a straight line for a long vowel or a curved line for a short vowel over the vowel and "flash" their iPod at me to check. It was very successful because I could see who was struggling and who got it right away and give them immediate feedback.

Project 3 is a 2 part project.

Part 1 - Earlier this spring students wrote and illustrated their own books and sent them off to the StudenTreasures publishing company to be bound. Before the books left, the artwork was photographed using the docucam. Students are going to use the photos of their artwork in the Sonic Pics application on their iPods and then record themselves reading their own stories. After they have completed the recording, they will then upload them to a computer and burn a copy to a disc to take home to their families. They will also be able to show their parents at Open House later in May.

Part 2 - After students have finished their books, they will work with a partner and listen to each others' books. Next they will write down 2 questions to ask the author about their book. The questions will need to reflect higher thinking levels and must be answered with more than a "yes" or "no". Then in iTalk they will interview each other and have the author give an answer to each question. This will work on the reading strategies of Questioning and Monitor/Clarify.

For both parts of the activity students will have an organizer/worksheet to work from which will help them with how to follow directions from a written source.

Most students have successfully completed the Story Kit Vocabulary Project. Having them do a short summary project to learn the Story Kit application before taking on this vocabulary project allowed them to have a high degree of independence.

To get ready to do this project I loaded the 18 photos that went with the vocabulary words and created the prep worksheet. I made the prep worksheet generic to any story.

The first day of the project I modeled how to do the prep worksheet and how to use it in the application. The students had 2 days to complete the project. There were 18 words in the word bank from the story "The Last Dragon" and they had use 8 of them in the project.

The steps the students took for the project were:

Directions:
1. Choose 8 vocabulary words.
2. Write a definition for each word. DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY, BUT USE YOUR OWN WORDS.
3. Use each word in a sentence that shows you understand what the word means.
4. Check your work using the editing checklist. Correct any mistakes.
5. Show your definitions and sentences to a partner and have your partner check and help you correct any mistakes.
6. Open a new book in Story Kit.
7. Choose the photo that matches your vocabulary word.
8. Write the definition in the text box.
9. Record your sentence using a microphone.
10. Show your finished project to a friend.
11. Turn this paper into the All Done Basket.

Scoring:
• 8 points for photos
• 8 points for definitions
• 8 points for sentences
• 24 points total - 22-24 = A 19-21 = B 17-18 = C 14-16 = D below 13 = F






Most students were very successful in completing the worksheet, but when they did the Story Kit application they tended to write the sentence in the text box and then read the same sentence into the audio file instead of writing the definition and reading the sentence. To help clarify the directions I reviewed the my model with the class and then on the students papers I put a post-it note with what they needed to fix. The students were then able to go back and successfully complete the project.

One aspect of this project that was really enjoyable was watching them use Story Kit with minimal help from me since they had previously used this application. It was also interesting to watch them working with partners during the editing stages and interesting to see who they chose for partners. The students with higher language and writing skills were asked more frequently to edit. But there were also some students who chose their partner purely based upon friendship. The students their editing partners according to writing ability made more corrections than those who based it upon friendship.

Another interesting part of this project was to see who actually read the directions as they went along and who picked up the iPod and just started to input data without having done the preliminary work. After a reminder they did go back and do the preliminary work.

For some students the preliminary work of writing a definition in their own words after we had been working on what the words meant was difficult. Most students were able to come up with sentences that demonstrated correct English, although the word "raked" (with the meaning of searching intently) and the verb "snaked" did confuse some students.

Overall I think this was a very successful project even with most students having to redo part of it. It really helped them to monitor and clarify what the vocabulary meant and I have heard some students using the vocabulary within the classroom in a different context from the story. I will definitely be doing this project again this year.

The most difficult part of this project for me turned out to be how to post a student sample since you cannot download a Story Kit project to a laptop. Thanks to Heather Peterson's brilliant suggestion, I used the docucam to take photos of the students' work on the iPod and then used Audio Recorder to record onto the computer the audio from Story Kit. Then I created a keynote presentation and uploaded it to here with the student sample. While this made using Story Kit a little more difficult, the vast majority of the time in the classroom that we are using it we don't need to download since it is shared in small groups. Thus I look forward to using Story Kit across the curriculum. My mind is already working on a math project.

When viewing the student sample, click on the window after each vocabulary sentence has finished playing.

During the past few days the students have learned how to use the application Story Kit to summarize the HM story My Name is Maria Isabel. Story Kit is similar to Reel Director, but easier for the students to use. The students were successfully able to load photos from the story, write their own text to summarize, and then record themselves reading their work. Each student did a minimum of 4 pages. A few students chose to do more including one student who had 8 pages. Each page contains a photo, text, and a recording.

Today we started listening to each other's summaries in the small universal access groups. It was interesting to hear the difference in the summaries and to discuss what was missing and what was awesome in each student's work.

I think the students are now prepared to do the vocabulary project that we are doing for iRead.

Today I learned how to use iChat and successfully was able to upload a story from a student for an individual book project that each student in my class is doing. I think this will make it much easier to do editing and also look at their work when I have time rather than during the height of activity in the classroom.

My second project will be emphasizing the monitoring/clarifying strategy. 95% of my students are second language learners who struggle with understanding and using new vocabulary that they see in text. This project will help them to understand the meaning of new vocabulary words from the HM reading selection, The Last Dragon.

Students will use the application Story Kit. First they will choose 8 different vocabulary word photos from the Photo Library on their iPods. Next they will create a different page for each word. On each page they will paste in the photo, write a definition in their own words (not the dictionary's), and then record a sentence using the word correctly. Prior to using the Story Kit application students will write their definitions and the sentences they are going to record.

To ensure success with using this new application, the students will do a mini project of 3 pages in Story Kit with a previous story to either predict or summarize.

By using visual, written and oral modalities students will be able to better internalize the vocabulary in the story which will help them to monitor and clarify meaning which will lead to increased comprehension.

The "Where In the World Am I?" project overall was a success, but did present challenges along the way. It was the students' first time using keynote and my first time teaching it. One method I used to make enable me to successfully teach the lesson was that I created my own "Where in the World Am I?" keynote and a day or two before I would do it with the students I would do the next step to ensure that I understand exactly what the students were going to do and what challenges they would face. I also talked to 2 of my colleagues who had done this project before about the pitfalls I might encounter.

The first session involved 2 steps. The first was for the students was to access the template from the common folder and save it into their documents folder. Most students were very successful with this and were helpful to each other. The second step was for the students to take their photo in Photo Booth. They took a few photos and then choose one and dragged it into the first slide of the project. There was much hilarity during this session when they were taking their photos.

During the next session the students typed the sentences onto the template. They had a paper with the sentences by slide number to help especially with their spelling. This was challenging for many students because they had to spell the words correctly and use capitals and periods correctly. This was mostly done in the computer lab. Students who didn't finish were able to follow up in the classroom and finish there with other students who had finished acting as mentors.

The third session involved adding the maps and photos to the presentation. Students again had to access the common folder to get the slides. Most were able get to the common folder much faster than the first time. Some students quickly understood how to put the maps and photos in their project while others took a bit longer. Once again, students who didn't finish this in the lab were able to finish in the classroom.

The fourth session was the funnest for the students. They got to put add the special effects for the maps, photos and transitions. They also did the voice recording. Most students quickly grasped how to do the special effects, but a few had to have some individual attention to be successful. I noticed in going through their presentations that 1 or 2 students were missing the special effects. The second part of this session was recording. This was very challenging for the class in particular because of having to get the timing of the making the special effects happen to coincide with what they were reading on the slide. About 1/4 of the students had fairly good timing on this, while the other 3/4s didn't match the words and special effects for the transitions well. In some of the playbacks the sound of students hitting the spacebar multiple times can be heard. This is one part lesson that I would teach differently the next time. Many students did choose to rerecord in the classroom. Some were more successful doing that.

The final part of this project is that the students will be loading their "Where in the World Am I?" presentations into their blogs. They will be learning how to export files from Keynote to do this. That will be done later this week.

Overall this project went very well and I would do it again. Two things that I would do differently would be the wording on the slides and teaching how to record. Next time instead of giving the students the wording for the slides I would do a class activity where we came up with the words together to give them more ownership in the summary of their place in the world. I would still give the students the paper with the words, but the difference would be that this time the words would be theirs. The second change I would make would be teaching how to get the next special effects transition when recording. i would really emphasize how the transitions work and I would have the class do a mock one together where we practiced hitting the spacebar together during the recording.

This project also really helped the students build fluency in summarizing and also really worked on monitoring because they had to be very careful with what they were typing and when they were recording that their entries made sense. Two or three students said "country" instead of "county" when they were recording. I would recommend this project for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students because those are the ages when students really become more aware of their place in the world. "Where in the World Am I?" was a great learning project for both the students and teacher.

Today we set up our iPods to have access to our class wiki page. Most students were very successful doing this. Tomorrow we will take a district survey on our iPods.

I've also figured out how to change the background on my wiki and how to add a URL link to another page. Not groundbreaking, but still part of the giant learning curve I'm on with these.

This is my first blog from the iPod Touch. I am very excited to write.

My Keynote Project is called "Where in the World". It is social studies & language arts related. Students will create a keynote presentation that involves seven slides. The students will write about where they live in the planet, hemisphere, continent, state, county, city, and school. They copy and paste pictures from the common folder, add transitions, and finally they will add voice over (voice recording). This is a perfect project for second language learners who tend to mix up where they live. Many of these students are reading more than 2 grade levels below in reading including 7 students being in the highpoint program. The students love this project and are very motivated to learn. This is also a great introduction to keynote.

The Reading Strategies that this project reflects are: Summarizing and Monitor/Clarify. It is a summary of our unit on maps and geographical locations. It is also monitoring and clarifying that the students understand the difference between planet, hemisphere, continent, country, city, and school.

This is my test movie file.




This is the zip file.