2nd Graders create Google Slides of Alaskan Animals

Ben's Walrus Presentation

What: Students share their research on Alaskan animals through a slideshow that is a published version of their written work. Students type their words and select pre-approved images to add to their sites. They share "view only" with peers, but "editing rights" for their teacher and Ms. Frens.

Materials:

• Student handwritten drafts of student research on Alaskan animals
• Google accounts for all students
• Google slides prepared as a template, then shared "can edit" with each student.

Time: 2-3 days

Challenges: 

• Basic word processing skills like the @ symbol and returning to the next line are being introduced for the first time. Take the first lesson slow.

Tips: 

• The template has red letters, wherever students need to change the font color. The text boxes were tinted a light blue so students would know where they were when they first clicked in them (the default is transparent).
• Create a Citations slide for the students of sites they visited to collect data and images. Since this is second grade, we included a link to the websites only. We did not use MLA style citation guide.
• Create a second citations site for students to enter the title and author of their print resources.
• Share the students' slides with their names on them in a shared "View Only folder." Then share the individual student name with that students "Can Edit." 
• Have students type in the text before adding images to the slides. 

Narrative:
This is a culminating publication of the students' research and informational writing unit.

This is the template we created: 

5th Graders Investigate Global Book Project

Template for a page in the book, If You Learned Here.

What: If You Learned Here investigation

Materials:

• If You Learned Here
• If You Lived Here book
• KidBlog accounts

Time: 1-2 sessions

Challenges: 

• This was a global project that our school attempted to join too late. This meant that we were lurkers, rather than participants. Yet. the video sharing of the international schools interested the students.

Tips: 

• Review the 7 continents, including Oceania and the Central American / Caribbean countries.
• Have students open 2 tabs or 2 browsers with KidBlogs open in both. One tab for the directions and the other for their own post.

Narrative:This is the assignment posted in the 5th grade Kidblogs for the students to complete.

Inspired by If You Lived Here by Giles Laroche, a global connection project connected schools from around the world to collaborate on a book called, If You Learned Here. This project is almost finished so it is no longer accepting new participants. However, you have the opportunity to view the videos and descriptions from each school.

Your assignment is to post a blog which includes the following:

1) Click on the If You Learned Here link and choose a color cohort. Sort all the schools in that cohort into the continents where they are located.

Example: Red Cohort (Just 2 schools listed here, but list all of the schools for your post.)

Asia: American School of Bombay (India)

Europe: International School of Zug and Luzern (Switzerland)

2) Find videos and descriptions posted by at least 2 of the schools you chose in both the FlipGrid links and the Padlet links (grey buttons on the right). Then reflect on what is the same and different about how you would learn at that school compared to your experience at Ada Christian School. This should be at least 3-5 sentences and up to 3 paragraphs if you find enough information.

Example:

[Name of school / Location] Example: Worser Bay School, New Zealand

This school has posted lots of videos of students doing martial arts, dancing and theater inside and outside. There seems to be an emphasis on the arts and movement at this school. At ACS, we have PE, but we don’t have a theater arts program for elementary students. However, we have a wonderful music program in which we have performed musicals each year.

3. Complete the information you would put in this template about ACS, by posting the information to the prompts in a blog post:

If you learned here . . . 

Learning Materials:

Location: Fun fact about school / town / state . . .

Date: When did the school begin?

Fascinating Fact: 2-3 sentences about a school tradition, history or fascinating fact

5th Graders Map the weather in March

What: Students participate in global weather tracking with other schools.

Materials:

• Weather Underground or other weather site
• Google Maps
• Kidblog accounts
• Same Day in March book / video

Time: weekly for 1 month (March)

Challenges: 

• Students will log into Google Maps through their @adachristian.org accounts.

Tips: 

• Sign up for wikispaces to create a wiki first.
• Show students how to navigate Google Maps and embed a map they have created into a blog post.

Narrative:This is the assignment posted in the 5th grade Kidblogs for the students to complete over the course of 3 weeks.

We have joined schools around the world to participate in a global collaboration project called, Same Day in March. This is based on a book that you see in the video. We will be sharing the temperatures of our city on our wikispace. We will also be investigating other schools through this project as well as sharing a bit about where we live.

Log into Google with your username and password.

Here is your assignment:

1) Click on this Weather Chart.
*Make a copy of this with your name in the title.
*Share this file with jfrens@adachristian.org

2) Use Weather Underground for Ada, Michigan to find the temperatures for the past week. Add them to your table. Look up the freezing temperature in both Fahrenheit to Celsius and add this fact this to your table.

3) Click on the Same Day in March link.
*Think of questions you might want to ask the other students.
*Check out the Ada, Michigan page. Share ideas you have that could be added to the page.

4) Explore at least 3 other cities from different countries who will also be sharing their weather.

5) Go to Google Maps. Make sure you are logged into your google account. Create a map called, “Same Day in March, [your name]” Share this with Ms. Frens.

Drop a pin on the map in the locations of at least 3 of the schools.

3rd Graders Create Weather Channel Blog

What: Students forecast the weather.

Materials:

• Weather.com
• Photobooth
• Shared Google Folder
• Access to a YouTube Channel
• Blogger account
• Script for weather forecast

Time: ongoing for a unit

Challenges: 

• Students must learn how to film and upload video to a shared google folder.

Tips: 

• Create screencasts to help students remember and train others, even if the tech teacher is not in the building.
• Compose a script that students use to collect information about the weather.

Narrative:
The 3rd graders wanted to create a daily digital forecast. We originally thought to use ZimmerTwins as a fast and easy (fun!) way to portray the weather forecast digitally. But we found the amount of typing and artistic decisions that each movie required may have taken more time than was allotted. We potentially can use ZT on a different project.

We have decided to use ZT in a different way at a later point in the investigation.

We decided instead to have students shoot quick forecasts in PhotoBooth that would later be uploaded to a shared Google Drive. Then the teachers can download the information and upload the videos to a file sharing site like YouTube.

As another option, students can embed the YT links to their KidBlogs account.

1st and 2nd Graders contribute to digital story

What: Students illustrate the Easter story to contribute to a digital movie.

Materials:

• student illustrations
• color scanner
• iMovie
• Quicktime Player (audio recordings)
• Historical fiction readings related to the Easter Story

Time: 2-3 days

Challenges: 

• Scan student images and sort them into folders to match the narration.
• Sort students illustrations to match narration.

Tips: 

• Record audio narration in Quicktime. Save recordings with numerical file names to make the sequence easier in the end.
• Illustrations that match the narration are helpful so a familiarity with text before students create their drawings would be most effective.
• Divide the total time by 4 seconds to discover how many illustrations per narration.
• Illustrations can be used twice if not enough.

Narrative:
The first and second grade teachers had an idea to create a powerful digital representation of the Easter Story as illustrated by their students. Teachers volunteered to read various narrations to bring the story to life. Students created illustrations for each narrator.

Illustrations were scanned and then sorted to match the subject of the narrations.

Leftover illustrations were compiled for a slideshow to run pre- and post- digital story showing.

4th Graders create digital poster of Michigan Product

Padlet by Emma

What: Students create digital poster of Michigan Products to share with classmates.

Materials:

• Padlet
• Mrs. Slauer's directions

Time: 2-3 days

Challenges: 

• Students will need to sign up for Padlet with their school email and password on their own.

Tips: 

• Students will export as an image in order to print or share in a blog. The pdf format changes the layout.

Narrative:
Mrs. Slauer wanted to change the digital publishing of the Michigan Products posters since Glogster was so clunky last year and had trouble loading. We decided to try Padlet and it seemed to work well for the students with every little waiting for images to load.

The students reported that they enjoyed using Padlet and that it was easy to use. Here are 3 links from students willing to share their work:

Blueberries
Cherries
Strawberries

3rd Graders share their 3 Consumers Posters

Andrew's 3 Consumers Poster from Comic Life posted in KidBlog.

What: Students share classroom project results with students from various participating schools.

Materials:

• ComicLife
• KidBlog accounts

Time: 2-3 days

Challenges: 

• Students will need to export their Comic Life files as .jpg or image files before uploading to KidBlog

Tips: 

• Make sure students have saved their Comic Life files in a place that they can locate again 
• Show students how to align, resize and caption their photos before inserting them into post.

Narrative:
Mrs. Witte wanted to know how we could share the students' Comic Life posters digitally. We decided to export the students' Comic Life Posters which they had created 100% with their classroom teacher in science class. We simply prepared the poster for upload in KidBlog. Then we taught them how to caption and to comment appropriately.