A New Twist on an Old Idea

Mrs. Coole, a Grade 1 teacher, always launches her Reader's Workshop by asking students to bring their favorite book to school.  Students have the opportunity to identify if it is fiction or nonfiction, give a brief retell of the story, and explain why it is their favorite book.

This year, Mrs. Coole wanted their work to be presented in a more engaging way, have more longevity than a pencil and paper version, and to share them with a wider audience (i.e. Parents at Back to School Night).  So, Mrs. Coole used this as a perfect chance to seamlessly integrate technology with the lesson.

First, students planned out their retell and reasoning why the book is their favorite.

Next, the tech teacher, me, delivered a discovery lesson on how to take clear photos and edit photos so they are cropped and rotated.

  

Then, I worked with students on exploring the functionality of the Doodlecast Pro app.  After, the app was used to record their planned 'book talk' with the clear, cropped, and rotated photo they took in the previous lesson.

Finally, Mrs. Coole's IA worked with me to create the QR codes for each student's book talk.

Embedding Digital Citizenship Lessons into G1 Q1 SS Unit

Grade 1 Social Studies committee members have been working with their tech coach to develop an updated Our Community unit in order to embed digital citizenship lessons.  Our Community is a unit that focuses on:

• both 'real-world' and 'online' communities
• student roles and responsibilities within these various communities (classroom, school, neighborhood, online)
• the variety of ways people within communities communicate with each other

Four digital citizenship lessons will be explicitly taught either by the classroom teacher, tech coach, and/or librarian.  Optional follow up lessons are also provided for teachers to reinforce these key concepts and skills.

    

Stop Motion with Building Shapes

Grade 1 students are learning about Geometry in their current math unit.  One of the lessons focuses on using pattern blocks to build shapes.  The students absolutely adored the app Stop Motion to record an animation of their shape building.

Socrative in the Chinese Classroom

Some of the K-2 WL teachers have been using Socrative with great success.  Students listen to a story as a whole group and then answer comprehension questions using Socrative.  The teacher runs the 'quiz' at the teacher's pace allowing for the class to see the correct answer after each question and giving time for discussion on why that answer was correct and the others were not correct.

Planning an Independent Project

Grade 1 students are learning about an appropriate way to plan an independent project by asking themselves some guiding questions.

1. What do you want to share?
2. How do you want to share it?
3. What tool would be the best to use?
4. How will you break it down into manageable steps to complete it?

Here are some student samples. 

QR Code Work Choice

Students in Grade 1 are becoming extremely independent learners with their ipads in our 1:1 program.  For this lesson, students are exposed to three different stations and they can choose one to complete.  The goal is for them to scan the QR code at the station, watch the directions, and then follow the directions from the video to create their project.

Station 1
Students apply their knowledge of cloud types learned in science class to make a clouds iMovie.

Station 2
Students apply their mathematical thinking skills to make a screencast of how they solve a math problem.

Station 3
Students create a drawing of their NF research animal in its natural habitat as a background.  They then make the animal 'talk' and share some of the new learning they discovered when researching the animal.

Below is a student sample from each station.

Visual Literacy in Grade 1

First graders are beginning to look at techniques to make posters that are easier to interpret.



During this lesson, we discuss the differences between images that the eye can make meaning of quicker and easier versus images that are confusing and make it difficult to gather meaning.  In order to create posters that encourage an awareness of visual literacy, students were taught about:

• bold, obvious titles
• choose only 1-2 fonts
• solid color backgrounds that are not distracting
• arrange images in a grid
• various colors can evoke certain emotions
• use complimentary colors

It was amazing to see how well even the youngest of learners quickly grasped the importance of making more visually appealing posters.  Their finished products were amazing.  Two examples are below.