Making Your Class Pop!

As many of you know, using technology in my self proclaimed project-based portable is essential to our success. Collaborating with each other and other classrooms, creating projects, research all require the use of tools that make learning meaningful. A tool that I thoroughly enjoy using is BrainPOP. Tim and Moby are hilarious and do a wonderful job engaging the students during a short lesson that explains some very interesting and sometimes complex topics, but have a way of putting in words that all students can understand.

Now, when starting a project in my class, I attempt to use the CBL method by developing everything around an essential question. Then I provide links to websites, paths to various resources that will allow the students to work in groups to learn the new topic. They answer various questions while playing different roles in presenting what they have learned. This helps me keep the students motivated and makes their learning relevant because they do it themselves.

Well, BrainPOP is usually one of the links I use to explain a topic. However, I learned to enhance Tim and Moby experience while sitting in on a recent webinar given by Lisa Parisi and this is what she gave us.

"Fifth graders are more than capable of this student centered type of learning.  But getting started is sometimes quite a challenge.  When the world is open to them, it is often too overwhelming to narrow anything down.  So my job is to keep their topic focused.  And BrainPOP helps me do just that.

At the start of every new topic, I create a wiki or webpage that features the main unit, each group topic, the essential questions, and a resource page.  This resource page is where the students begin.  They find their topic and beneath it, a list of webpages, videos, image sites, and books.  Where do they always begin?  The BrainPOP video links, of course.  Tim and Moby are ready to provide the students with the basic ideas for each topic.  But BrainPOP doesn’t stop with the motivating videos.  They also provide related features for each video.  There are quizzes, activities, timelines, and Cassie and Rita show up to discuss background information.  By the time the students are done with the one BrainPOP link I provided, they have ample information to move onto the Internet and expand their research.

BrainPOP helps me run a successful project based learning classroom.  By covering topics in a simple, fun way, and including related information, the site makes the learning easier for my students. And it keeps my students motivated and working.  What more could a classroom teacher ask for?"

To add more technology to what Lisa does, I will bring the quiz back in at the end of the unit and use the Activotes to allow the groups to input their answers on the screen. If I have checked out the ActivExpressions, I will allow the groups to type in different references to prove their answers. Just another way to use the tool. Do you have any other ideas? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

BrainPop UK

Back From Kilgo Kountry

Earlier in November, Mrs. Goss, Mrs. Shelton, Ms. Jocab, Mrs. Pinkston, took a trip to see the Testing Guru, Margaret Kilgo of Kilgo Consulting, Inc. The ladies enjoyed themselves so much that it behooved them to share their "Aha!" moments with the staff in their own unique manner.





Blabberize is a tool that can be easily implemented in your classroom instruction. This Web2.0 tool is simple to use and loads of fun to work with. In the beginning of the school year, Mrs. Whittington's class had a chance to use Blabberize to talk about what a scientist looks like. Smittie's K.I.D.S. used blabberize to conduct a podcast interview with European explorers where students worked in pairs and researched a specific explorer. From the research, each group developed a minimum of 7 questions that used to interview the explorer. One student was the interviewer, while the other student took an image of the European Explorer and blabberized the answer to each question.

Students were completed engaged in both classes as they learned invaluable information mostly on their own and had the opportunity to have an audience to share their knowledge with. That's what it's all about.

How can you use Blabberize in your classroom? Leave a comment.

Gaze At The Skype With No Roof to Your Classroom

Classroom collaboration is a must this year and we continue to encourage students to communicate their knowledge in creative ways. We all know that many times, the students learn better from each other then from us as adults. I have witnessed collaborative groupings all over the campus and in other schools throughout our district this year. So, how about we take collaboration a step further? I know, let's use Skype! Woohoo! Some of you know that I have used Skype in the classroom for some time now. Last year we were able to communicate with a classroom in Kansas City, Missouri while discussing our novel study on Rick Riordan's "The Lightning Thief" and the students were super thrilled.

Skype is a free download that you can actually put on your teacher and student computers in your classroom. The steps are easy to take and you can be up and running in less than 10 minutes. Once you are ready, you will be able to tear down the 4 walls of your classroom and expose your students to the world. Imagine doing projects on Skype with another class in the building or on another campus. Maybe a collaborative writing project with a classroom outside of our state using Storybird. What about being able to do problem solving in math with a group of students in Canada. The possibilities are endless. Check out some additional ideas for using Skype that Smittie's K.I.D.S. came up with.

• Vertical tutoring
• Parent/teacher conferencing
• Online Reader's Theatre
• Global collaboration
• Interviewing Authors, community leaders, occupations, etc.
• Staff developments
• After-school  help
• broadcast a class performance to parents, grandparents...etc.

Using Skype will definitely flatten your classroom out, blowing the roof off collaboration limitations.
How can you use Skype in your class? Leave a comment below. Also, check out Skype in the Clasroom beta.

How To Bring Thompson to the 21st Century???

As many of the Thompson family understand already, technology in education is a heavy passion of mine. This year, considering the Lord still has me at Thompson, it behooves me to share my passion with our complete staff and the rest of the world. Now, I realize that I'm still an amateur compared to the technological savvy educators across the globe, but it's time that the collaboration of ideas to begin; starting here with you. I've taken it upon myself to begin this blog as a communication device to begin sharing the "Cool and Drool" of technology applications being used in classrooms across the globe and provide way to implement each tool in your curriculum at each grade level. Don't think that the same tool that is being used for a 6th grade student can't be adapted for the kindergartner. The 5 year old may pick up on it faster.

I will also offer video tutorials that will post to this blog and my class website to help guide you along the way. In addition, we will convene every 3-6 weeks to for "Tech Talk and Take On", where lessons will be provided for hands-on learning as new tools are steadily being introduced and applied.

This is going to be a terrific year and we plan to lead the way in Mesquite as the true 21st century school.

Online Magazine Publishing Using iWork's Pages

Check out this publication that demonstrates some fantastic ways to use the iWork applications on our Macs.

Open publication - Free publishing - More macintosh

November Learning in August...

We haven't started school yet and I'm jacked up all ready. Especially after spending the last two days with Alan November founder of November Learning: A consulting foundation that offers strategies in the form of online courses, workshops and conferences that help with "Expanding the Boundaries of Learning."

Alan was invited to hold a workshop of the Principals and administrators of the district to convey a simple of message of going from the automating learning approach to using technology to the informating approach which will lead to a higher quality of learning. Alan demonstrated this transition by introducing several online applications that bolsters leverage of empowerment for both teachers and students. He talked about Jing by TechSmith. The crowd went wild from the demonstration, but I also saw wheels turning as each Principal imagined the possibilities for student led tutorials right from the desktop. While introducing tools to these eager-at-the-time administrators, Alan emphasis the global collaboration expansion with these tools; something that is somewhat of a passion for him. Khan Academy was introduced along with Wolfram Alpha: Computational knowledge engine Diigo, Delicious and more. All this prompted a conversation covering the desperate for a PLN within the districts to keep up with what technology applications are changing the face of education. This was a proud moment for me. Learning 4 Leading was launched. This was all day one, a day that I was not apart of. However, because of the enthusiasm that filled that room, the details from the lips of principals were easy to gather. I was privileged enough to participate in a dinner that evening and the next day's activities where Alan emphasized more about how risk-taking educators are taking advantage of this changing world and are providing students with collaborating opportunities with their families, students in other classrooms in different states and across the globe. This provides an audience to where today's digital child is motivated to perform for. Alan states in his book (can be purchased at Amazon) that, "One of the most powerful lessons I have learned about student motivation is that if a students are given an authentic audience, they work harder as a group than they work for their teacher alone." (Empowering Students with Technology, second edition 2010) Therefore, principals, along with other invited guest, including myself, left with that mission in thought. If you expand that classroom, you expand the mind along with expanding the possibilities for that child to change the world.

Read more at Learning 4 Leading and take a look at the notes for each session.