iPad Basic....taking baby steps

As part of the long process, I was tasked to present to all the educators in my school today a basic workshop for the iPad2.  Our school, with the vision of our administrators, embarked on this adventure to have the teachers "play" with the iPad2 before it can be launched school-wide in the future.  The objective is for the teachers to learn the basic and get the students engage in learning with the tools that they are already accustomed to at home.

Equipped with the latest iOS version, I demonstrated just the basic skills with the iPad2 User Guide as my guide.  Some of the basic gestures with the fingers were modeled as well.

All throughout the workshop though, I find myself touching the SMART Board where I have projected my presentation (see above).  I have to remember that it isn't interactive on the SMART Board so I re-traced my steps and head back to my iPad and touch the screen!

Maybe we all needed a break

Even the birds needed to take a break too...maybe I should play Angry Birds while on hold...

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Collaborative storytelling for all ages

Back in the summer of 2011, our Language Arts teacher told me that she is interested to learn how to use Storybird in her classrooms.  So my last 2 in-house technology workshops have focused on collaborative storytelling.  After reading reviews from other ed tech specialists and after trying the tools myself, I came to conclusion that Storybird is more suitable for students from 3rd grade on.  I then looked for a tool geared for the younger audience, PreK to 2nd grade.  And so I found Little Bird Tales.  The best part is that both tools are free and provides a safe learning environment for the kids as there are no ads/banners/advertisements.

Little Bird Tales Workshop

Flexibility to accommodate changes

We've used NASA's DLN programs and this is now our 2nd year collaborating with them.  However, this is our first time to have a distance learning from the Glenn Research Center in Ohio.  Pretty interesting.  Mr. David A. Mazza, DLN Education Specialist/Technology Specialist was very helpful in scheduling and accommodating changes in time, length of the program as there were last minute conflict with school activities.

The 3rd graders really enjoyed "The Moon" program.  These are the same children who were first immersed into the distance learning programs that I initialized in 2009.  

As the before-the-scenes event, I had to find distance learning programs that tie in to the NJ Core Curriculum Standards as well as the ISTE - NETS standards for global learning in the digital age.  Once a program is found, we send in a request for the program and wait for NASA to approve it.  Once it is approved, confirmation and test calls are needed.  Then comes the day when I have to make sure that the distance learning room is ready and that the Polycom unit is working properly.  It is always advisable to try to connect 10-15 minutes early in case there are technical difficulties and that is just what we did today and luckily, it all went smoothly.

A Seasonal ASK Author Event

What a nice set of schools we had for this seasonal distance learning program called ASK Author "A Clever Beatrice Christmas with Margaret Willey".  There were a total of 5 schools that connected.  The name and location of the schools our 3rd grader collaborated with are listed below: 

• Fieldcrest Elementary School Bradford, ON, CA
• Valley Elem and Mesa Verde Middle schools Poway, CA, US
• Saint Kilian Parish School Cranberry Township, PA, US
• Upson/Indian Hills EUCLID, OH, US

Author Margaret Willey

A Clever Beatrice Christmas

These are the things our students learned:

• A Cleaver Beatrice Christmas is the 3rd Book of the Beatrice series.  The series are folktales that took place in the area of French Canada, set in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
• The character Beatrice was named after the author's mother in-law who was a very important figure in their family life.  She was the inspiration in writing this book.

Rocks & Weathering

I've shown this website at one of my in-house tech workshops from last school year.  However, as I was troubleshooting the SMART Board for a middle school science teacher due to an orientation issue, I happened to notice that she will be discussing about rocks and other formations to her students.  So I suggested to her to use this website from BBC on Rocks & Weathering.

Courtesy of bbc.co.uk

Not only did the teacher loves it, her students loved it too!  The students started talking with British accent after the class.  How funny!  She used it in the classroom and as a homework for her students.  When the school administrator saw it in the teacher's wiki discussion log on "great interactive lessons" topic, the school administrator gave it a thumbs up!

OCR Scanning and Interactive Quizzes

Quia is no longer just a board game that we grew up playing.  Quia.com  provides an avenue for teachers to create their own games and quizzes.

One of our teachers who bought the paid version of Quia encountered a hurdle though in creating her own interactive lessons.  There are a lot of typing involved and she needed to enter texts from printed materials.  However the typing is taking a lot of her time preparing for lessons.  So comes the solution of using the OCR scanning feature of our HP Scanjet 3110.  I was able to show her during one-on-one session how to use it and saved the scanned image as PDF or Word.  Voila!