kwohlhieter

Now that I have had a year with ipods in my classroom, I think of teaching differently. I have learned how to use a class blog, made a web page that is linked to our Conway School page, google forms for book reports and Shakespeare in hand. I am going to use my summer to write lessons that incorporate the use of the computer lab and ipods. I have already discussed with my principal my proposal to teach the students how to write and produce Morning Messages similar to Central School. I want to add photography and ortal story telling to the set of media skills to be learned. I want to try claymation and will plan for it to happen. I want to expand beyond the reading strategies to include all subject areas. After all, to learn about history or science, you must first do a lot of reading. With ipods in the classroom, I want to give students power over their learning path.

This is the first complete visual book report. It is a bit rough, but Rebecca is proud of her finished product. She is very particular about her work, so I gave her extra time in class to master PicMix and Sonic Pics. She is now our class expert.




Alexa has her own iPod touch and she is a very independent worker. She did her visual book report as homework. She created her own pictures as she visualized the events based on her summary.





Nate, too, has his own iPod touch. His visual book report uses film clips and is very rough. Nate has a tendency to rush through his work, even digital work, to just get it done. He is a very strong reader, but he rarely reveals deep thinking.




Book Reports are part of our Fifth Grade Goals. Students must do a report every two weeks. In an effort to keep the process new, I have created digital book reports. I have used google docs to create a form that is completed on line. Twelve students chose to use this method, the others simply filled out a form using paper and pencil. I provided students with an assignment sheet.


They used a bookmark with strategies and a story map outline which they used routinely during reading time. These tools emphasis the comprehension strategies.





I will use this project again with a few modifications. First, the assignment sheet needs to focus on the visual aspect of the book report. Instructions to record their thinking while reading would be included. I would ask students to create visual representations of their thinking choosing events that made an impression on them or events that they found to be exciting. Then I would have them combine their records with the visual picture using Sonic Pics. I would not use the story map. Instead I would use a rising action graphic organizer and have students visually represent the events lead to the climax of the story. This would reveal more about their visualization skills. I think that this book report could be modified for primary classes, scaffolding classes and for GATE students.

I learned more about the two apps that I used and how to make a podcast that I can sync to all ipod touches. It is the beginning of a digital portfolio that I plan to implement in next year's class.

This project will utilize computers and ipods. Students will create a visual book report. Students will follow a guide and visualize the book as they read creating illustrations to highlight the report and put it into a podcast or into reel director. They will have to use all of the reading strategies to complete this task. The class will then get a CD or a DVD of all the podcasts.

For my second project I have decided to have students record a think-aloud while reading the first half of James Forten. A Think-Aloud uses all the comprehension strategies, especially the power standard R2.4 which is in our Action Plan for this theme. Students will use a Reading: Think About It! bookmark as a guide. Before recording, students will practice using Katie's Trunk and recording on MobileStudio. After recording, students will upload their recording to my computer so I can monitor their thinking. They will listen and evaluate their Think-Aloud using a rubric based on the bookmark. Students will post their reflection on their blog.

This keynote was the one I made for the students that explains the assignment. .

This was made by 2 highly motivated GATE students.


This was made by 2 reclassified students who are "bubble" students.



Students using computers and ipods.

From the very first day I used the ipods with students, i was hooked. My teaching and my approach to teaching has changed. The way students in my class learn has changed. iPods empower students; they hold learning in their hands. While I'm not quite a 1 to 1 class, I have 25 ipods and 29 students. iPods have changed the way I view the curriculum and extended it beyond the textbook. Little by little, I'm bringing my teaching into the 21st century.

My expectations for the keynote project were met and then some. I'm finding out just how computer literate my students are. And they just amaze me. They help each other using the 4 computers in my classrroom. They problem solve and resolve constantly. My students took over the logistics of distributing the 25 ipods and more importantly, collecting them before they exit the room. They know that the ipod is a learning tool not to be abused (or they lose the priviledge of useing one).

I paired students to work on the keynote. I took about 2+ weeks to complete. During this time, I also set up edublogs. Now all my students have a blog. We are using the blog to reflect on the process of learning with iPods. They also have writing assignments that must be posted. In addition to the blogs, students use a wiki page to answer questions from the selection they are reading. The iPod enables them to all use the web to complete these assignments. The learning curve time for this application was around 10 hours of classtime. But, now they all are adept at using the iPod to blog and use the wiki pages.

I have learned how to manage the cart, sync all the ipods, set up the cart computer with grade levels, restructuring playlists and finally how to set up blogs. As with all technology, the more you use it, the easier it becomes. I'm sure that this could be used with grades 2-8 easily. Because I didn't give the title of the selection away, as the students read the story they were immediately making connections and mentally checking their predictions. It was a great introduction into a difficult selection. Their selection test show that they truly connected to this story. I plan to use this project again in a different subject area to see how they make generalizations from pictures and labels. I also plan to use this project at our GATE parent night.

Students will predict and infer what a selection will be about based on a story bag provided by the teacher. Students will work in pairs on a keynote presentation using " a digital story bag". As each pairs pulls an digital object out, they will make a slide with the object predicting how it would fit into the selection. Each additional slide will show the first, second, and subsequent objects and predictions will be refined . This is based on the ELD technique that we learned at a school-wide workshop in August. Students should have a reasonable prediction before they listen to the selection. After listening to the selection, students will add a slide to the keynote describing how close their predictions were and how it helped in understanding the selection.

I predict that this will take at least 4 visits to the computer lab to complete, so I plan to pick a selection from a theme unit that we will be reading in late November. The digital story bag will be a file that will contain pictures of real objects taken with a still digital camera.

This is my movie file.








This is my zipped keynote that can be edited.