Educreations and KidBlog

A while back I wrote a post about how I love using Educreations and KidBlog together to assess student learning in math.  Recently, someone asked me how that works and to simplify it for first graders.

In my new technology role, I don't teach any regular classes, so my student blogging days are on hold for now.  That means I haven't done this in a while.  The good news is that it's like riding a bike.  I picked it up again pretty quickly and made a short video to show you how to do it.

The steps are numerous and a bit confusing.  All I can say is that it's worth trying.  Practice yourself till you feel comfortable.  Then, write the instructions on the board for them to follow.  If you're with little kids, trying printing the icons and placing them next to the instructions.  (This link will get you to the post you see in the video.)

I hope this helps.  If not, ask away.


NOTE: I apologize for the low-tech recording session.  I propped one iPad on books to record another iPad. I was also in a room with noisy fans and air ducts.  There has to be a better way...

KidBlog and Educreations: A Beautiful Combination!

In my attempt to combine language arts and math, I have converted our note-taking process out of the spiral notebook and on the web. We're using KidBlog, which I'm learning to love.

Imagine a blog site built just for students to use.  However, it looks and acts just like WordPress.  My personal blog is on WordPress, and I love working within that format!  In addition, the blog is private, presumably only in our class. I love the privacy and security! Toward the end of this post, I'm going to give you links to good examples.  You'll have to let me know if you can access them.

The teacher creates the class and uploads a class list with passwords.  The kids log in and start typing away.  So far, we've done simple things. This last post was "summarize chapter three."  In essence, students merely wrote the lesson headings rather than really summarize.  Soon I'll be giving them harder writing assignments.  "Tell me the steps in long division."  I'm looking forward to them putting these steps into words. 

Since I am a blogger (maintaining both a professional and personal blog), I want to see my students doing their writing online as well.  Publishing online is a great practice to learn in a safe environment and helps them see that their work is important to others.

I've added another piece to the puzzle -- an Educreations presentation.  I give the students a specific problem they need to solve and talk through using Educreations. This gives me a chance to see exactly how a student solves a problem and hopefully gives me the reasoning too.  

In one blog post, I can read, see, and hear how a student solves a problem and can connect writing and math together.

I had one glitch connecting Educreations and KidBlog.  The steps to embed the video to the blog were complicated for a 10 year old.  Since it's set up like WordPress, I could figure it out, but it was too many steps for the students to put together.  So, I emailed both companies.  Chris at Educreations, Matt at KidBlog, and I had multiple emails back and forth (and I assume between them) to make the process easier.  Once again, I love how these developers work along with teachers to make sure things work easily in our rooms. 

Feel free to look at some of the best blog entries below.
http://kidblog.org/6thGradeAdvancedMath/e82b9e69-04ba-4dbf-b388-c856d50200df/chapter-3-summary/#comments
http://kidblog.org/5thGradeAdvancedMath/9aae1923-d97b-428b-948b-4130119cb357/what-i-learned-in-chapter-3/

Tech Lead Projects

I was recently asked by a friend what projects I'm working on as Tech Lead. Really, I'm just doing random things... reading whatever comes along the blog roll and Twitter feeds.  I do have a few pet projects going on.  I was recently reminded the need to focus my attention on just a few things for more efficient production, so I'm whittling this down into three categories.

Front Burner: (Things I need to work on now.)

1. Course Selection: I've written about this briefly in the past. My principal put me on a quest to find out what web tools other schools use to receive course requests from students and parents. Funny how I've confused people on this question. They think I'm talking about distance learning or online classes. In reality, I'm looking for a web tool for students to sign up for courses for the next school year. So far, I've contacted a number of schools and asked them what they use. I've had too few responses to get a read on a good answer. Till then, here's a Google doc I'm working on with my research. Feel free to make comments on it if you want. 
2. Showbie: Last year, we started asking the same questions a lot of other people were asking.  How do we collect, grade, comment on, and return student work on the iPads without littering our inboxes?  It seemed that no one had the answer, or at least they weren't sharing it with me.  Then along came Showbie.  Showbie is a web site and app, where teachers can upload an assignment file, students can turn work in, teachers can make comments (with text or voice), and give it back to the kids... without publicizing their grades or comments.  Sweet!  The only problem at this point is that they only play nice with apps that use WebDAV.   Most of the apps we use are not in that category.  Fortunately, they are working to also create ways to turn in apps that use web links.  Until then, we can only sit and wait.  I do have the green light to use it once they align with the apps we're using.  Incidentally, these guys are great to work with and did a lot of digging to answer my questions.  I love working with app developers!

Coleman Stove: (Things I'm working on for my own classroom.)

Kid Blog: I'm using Kid Blog in my math classes this year as a math journal, complete with Educreations presentations. I've hit some technical difficulties, which wouldn't be so difficult if I could convince my 5th graders to follow directions. :) Otherwise, it's going to be a great project! I'm currently in e-convesations with the Kid Blog and Educreations people to help make it work best.  I love that they are also conversing with each other to make my life easier.

Back Burner: (Things I want to do, but I'm awaiting approval on.)

1. GAFE: I am really interested in using Google Apps for Education. I've converted myself, using Office as little as possible. I love how my docs can easily be linked to my web site for parent and student access. I now need to convince my principal to start with the students. Honestly, I think she is swamped with her new position and attempt to unite our elementary and high school divisions to be too concerned about this one.  We've talked at length about GAFE and attended a conference about it together last spring.  She loves it too and we'll get moving soon. Till then... I need to put my focus elsewhere.  In the meantime, read this great article from my friend Jon.
2. Digital Footprint: We are a private school. Our very existence depends on tuition dollars and donations. I got this crazy idea that using social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and blogs will only help bring about public awareness of our school and share our vision with people in our community and far away.  Used correctly, we could build community online, which is where so many people can be found. Ironically, I'm learning a lot from a former student who now is the director of social media at a church in Chicago.  The things he is learning about social media and church can certainly be applied to our private school.  Now, to convince my principal it's a good idea. Then, we can get started.  (Look here for an article on YouTube and here for an article on Instagram.)

How are you focusing your technology research?

Gearing Up For Back to School

It's been quite a summer for me.  I jokingly call it the laziest summer of my life.  The weekend that school let out, I was hospitalized with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and spent the rest of the summer recovering and recouping.  Needless to say, school was the last thing on my mind for most of the summer.

In less than two weeks, I need to be at an inservice day, so it's time to start thinking about school starting.  Get ready for some random thoughts.

I have been given the title of Tech Lead this year, which means that I get a five hours a week to read about technology happenings in the world and try to implement them in our school.  My first job in this role is to lead a round table discussion about our acceptable use policy for technology.  Please feel free to read what we have and make comments on the Google doc.  

If you've been reading this blog, you know that we are an iPad school.  The iPads were used well in 5th and 6th grade, but we found that they were not quite so well received in middle school and high school.  Also, we had a number of 6th graders bringing Kindle Fires and other technology.  For this reason, we are morphing into combination of iPads and BYOD.  Here is an interesting article about how BYOD is working in other schools.  I intend to sit down and read this closely, taking copious notes, before school starts.  I think it will be a good foundation to build our program on.  Your thoughts? How does your school focus on BYOD?

My course load has changed a bit.  I will be teaching Advanced Math for 5th and 6th grades.  You know that I struggled last year to excellently integrate technology into my math curriculum.  I will be using Kid Blog as an online math journal for kids to take notes.  As we get comfortable in this setting, I expect to be able to use this in a flipped classroom model as well as having students use Educreations to put their examples on their blogs.  How do you use Kid Blog?

Question?  Does your school issue email addresses to each student?  What is the benefit of each student having a school-issued email address?  Since we are using Google Drive this year, I am pushing for each student (and teacher) to have a school-issued gmail address.  Can you give me any ammo for my discussions?

Finally, I thought briefly about having no posters on my walls this year... just QR Codes to poster links.  Then, I realized that it's probably not aesthetically pleasing.  Oh well!

Enjoy the last few weeks of freedom.  Thanks for reading and commenting!