Displaying Student Work with Picasa Web Albums

This week we had multiple assignments where in the end students published their final works on Picasa Web Albums.  Those assignments were both a representative flag of the Second Continental Congress' belief that the colonists had better "Hope for Peace, Plan for War."  In our research of this saying, we learned that few examples exist which depict this slogan.  So, our students made their own flags, which can be seen in the following web album:

Hope for Peace, Plan for War Flags

Along with each flag students had to write a descriptive paragraph about their flag which stated why they chose a particular symbol and used certain colors.  

This week our students also created color poems.  Their color poems had to be about one specific color, and spoke about what that color reminded them of, what it smelled like, tasted like, sounded like, and more. Once students completed their color poem they entered them into Tagxedo, which is a word cloud generated.  This generator is unique in the fact that it creates clouds that can be formed into specific shapes.  Students had fun with the clouds, but the goal was to see if their color was the word that appeared to be the largest on the cloud.  As you can see in the following album, most of our students colors will jump out at you...the clouds are pretty artistic as well:

Color Poem Word Clouds

Enjoy!

How To's with iMovie

Today we began the final portion of our "How To" writing projects.  Students will be creating an iMovie using an iPad which both tells and shows how to create a simple car they regularly use in their Motion and Design science unit.

This morning we began with one of our students, on the spot and with no preparation  teaching her classmates (and MOSTLY her teachers) "HOW TO" use iMovie.  After she taught how to use the trailer portion of iMovie, as a class we decided that the project portion might work better.  On a side note, more times than not, this on the spot teaching by peers offers SO MANY additional benefits to the classroom.  Why don't we do this more!?  Check out our teacher in training below:

Then, with very little instruction, we sent our groups off to work, using our set of seven iPads.  In just 25 minutes students created quick plans of action and began working.  Even better, after LEAP they were begging to keep working.  This time of year, there is no point in slamming on the breaks when a school writing/technology project has momentum!  Check out what this looks like for most of our students (the Chromebooks were used to look at original written directions on a Google Doc):

A Common Core Way to Compare and Contrast: Hugo vs. The Invention of Hugo Cabret

On Monday our class began watching the movie "Hugo."  Hugo is the movie based on the Brian Selznick novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which as a class we spent reading during the entire month of January as a build-up to our upcoming Renewable Invention Unit.  Now we realize that watching a movie to compare and contrast versus a novel is not a new, up and coming idea; however, it is one strategy suggested in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to use when teaching students to compare novels to other mediums of related media.  

As said at the beginning, we have only began the movie.  To make the movie more of an educational experience, we are delivering it in 30 minute segments.  While watching the movie students are filling in a series of Venn-Diagrams (see to the right) with as much information that seems similar or different from the book.  We are finding that many students are able to find several similarities and tons of differences.  

This movie is standing the test of time, or the age-old teacher saying, "The movie is not the same as the book."  Our students are seeing that this could not be more true.  The movie and book are way different from each other.  The book goes into more detail about certain characters, while the movie neglects to have some of those "certain" characters.  The movie creates much more drama and even suggests hints of "love," while the book does none of this, other than Hugo Cabret's love of his father and automaton.  

Our next step, after watching the movie in two more 30 segment chunks, will be to take all of the information we gathered (which is an unbelievable amount) and begin making sense of it.  Our goal is to have students write precise and detailed papers, which convey more than just movie versus book.  We also want them to recognize some of the major differences, which are beginning to outnumber the similarities.  We also want our students to begin writing more creatively, than just one paragraph with similarities and one paragraph with differences.  

We are excited to see what happens next, as we begin our next significant writing piece.  

A Few Views...

In our classroom we integrate lots of technology and 21st century skills.  That said, we also work on becoming independent learners.  The below collage is just a mini-glimpse into our classroom during one of our "Daily 5" rounds this morning.  Along with independence, students have choice.  As you can see, books are definitely alive and well in our class, whether it is paper or electronic.  Magnetic letters are great for word study, but so is our SMARTboard.  Google Docs are becoming the norm for work on writing.