I consider myself pretty up to date on social reading and book stuff so I recognized a lot of the topics including NewsELA, Tagxedo, Storybird, and more. I am an avid Twitter user and follow many people and chats that I get tons of knowledge from.
I looked at the Tech Tools for the Love of Reading from the workshop by Polly Alida-Farrington and Blackout Poetry struck my interest. I've been familiar with Blackout Poetry but I've never actually figured out when and how to teach it. We have state testing coming up and usually we are in the middle of research but I like to do a standalone lesson during that time and I think Blackout Poetry will be perfect. The padlet on Blackout Poetry was so helpful. I looked at many of the resources but the most helpful was the YouTube video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=327&v=Nt5nguT3hEM I plan on showing the beginning to students so they can see that there are many different ways to do blackout poetry. I also just googled samples of blackout poetry to show the different options and there are so many! https://www.google.com/search?q=examples+of+blackout+poetry+elementary&safe=strict&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS761US761&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjahebF3ZHaAhVvtlkKHUpUCiAQsAQIQw&biw=1024&bih=637#imgrc=_ I think some students will be super creative with it! I do worry that some students will just highlight random words that don't make sense but I will mention that in my directions. I did like the Blackout Poetry Generator https://mkremins.github.io/blackout/ that turns any website into blackout poetry. I tested it on a few Wikipedia articles but I wasn't thrilled with the outcome because some didn't make sense. I thought it was going to be where we could decide which words to blackout but that wasn't the case. Still, it was a cool tool but I don't see myself showing that to students because they are going to do it on a page from a discarded book.
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This topic could not come at a more appropriate time. In the past our ELL population of 80 or so students has attended another school that has more resources. In the next two years, students will be transitioning back to our school, including a large Arabic population. The two articles were helpful to provide resources including Britannica, PBS Learning Media, Teachingbooks.net, and CultureGrams. The idea of having MakerSpace activities that don't require language skills like puzzles and coloring is also something I could see myself doing in the library. Interactive stories with repeated phrases or songs, and music can also help. Graphic novels was also an option that I did not consider. We have a large graphic novel collection already that I can refer students to. Wordless picture book are also an option.
I spent time exploring books we already have and books to purchase. I found that our district allows us to purchase from http://sawabooks.com/ which has multiple different languages. I created a list of wordless picture books we have already that I could use: https://follett.spencerportschools.org/cataloging/servlet/presentbooklistform.do?listID=17389044 I also started a list of books to purchase through PermaBound including many picture dictionaries that I think would be helpful for teachers and other students. Some other great resources I found were: http://blog.tesol.org/teaching-language-to-pre-k-12-els-through-picture-books/ #ELL chat on Twitter on Mondays at 9 I think there's some things I can do with what I have now including highlighting our wordless picture books and graphic novels and incorporate more MakerSpace activities that don't require language. I already incorporate quite a few and have many supplies so this won't be a huge deal for me. Over the summer I will work on purchasing additional books for ELL students. I explored audio tools today and found a few I really liked! I found many of them overlapped in that they had the same features so multiple options weren't necessary but these were my favorites. Flip Grid! All the buzz lately! Our district has showed us Flip Grid but today I took the time to figure out how I will use it in a lesson. I am going to use it with second grade today. They have been learning about library organization and Destiny through videos and quizzes on Schoology. Today is their last portion of learning so I am going to ask them to use Flip Grid to tell me one thing that they learned. I'm not sure how much experience they have with using Flip Grid so at first I thought I would teach them in small groups but now I'm thinking that I will teach one person at their table and they will be the Flip Grid expert to help. If they have used Flip Grid in the classroom, then it is a whole different scenario because they won't need as much assistance. We'll see how it goes today! https://flipgrid.com/dc6b5e Soundation I explored this one on a whim and I loved it! I loved how you didn't have to have an account and just begin playing around. It was easily downloaded as well. I could have students design an audio clip and then upload it to Schoology. Sometimes I offer a product choice of creating a song and this could be the background but I really think I want to share it with my general music teacher. She also teaches at the middle school and I can definitely see middle school students loving this. Students are also 1-1 with HP laptops so this would be easy for them to add lyrics or sounds via the microphone. Vocaroo I looked at this one but it seemed too simple for my needs. I did like that it was only audio so you didn't need a webcam but thought there were better options that I could use. Overall I am eager to try Flip Grid with my class this afternoon and to share Soundation with my music teacher!
I explored many elements within Digital Storytelling and found some great ideas. A bit of background... I teach specials to K-5 students. I have 20 55 minute classes with K, 1, and 2 students once a week and 12 55 minute classes with 3, 4, 5 students once a week. We do a major research project with all grade levels at some point during the year and I like to give a few options for final research projects. In the past, we have used Wixie, PPT, or videos as options. I don't have a ton of time to teach many tools to students so I have debated having student experts on certain tools do the teaching but I don't know if there is time for that. I am always looking for tools that student's can quickly pick up without needing a lot of assistance from me. THE GOOD: I loved using Adobe Spark. I found it very easy to use and user friendly. I would feel comfortable using it as an option for students during their research projects. I made two reading posters with Adobe Spark. I didn't see how to embed the file so I uploaded it below. I'm not sure if multiple students would be able to use my account at one time. I definitely don't want students to have to create their own account. Microsoft Sway was also a hit with me because we are an Office365 school. That means that students would not need an account which I love. It's a nice option other than PowerPoint. We have an upcoming countries research project so I made an example. https://sway.com/CXvZOFFC79W6zcGy?ref=Link THE BAD: I played around with Photos for Class which is a cool tool to use for finding images. We tend to teach our students how to find images in Google and cite them but this is a nice option as well. I didn't love that you had to download the photo though because that is another step of importing the photo into whatever it is students are working on. I attempted to use Teachnology's timeline and while I loved that you did not need to log in, it did not have enough overall features for me to want to use with students. I would choose a different timeline option. I also tried TimelineJS but that linked to Google accounts which we do not have. I loved the idea of using Sharalike but had issues creating an account. I liked that it was marketed as simple with not as many options as others but I can't attest to any of this because it had an error every time I tried to make an account. I looked at Exposure but it looked a bit too complicated for elementary students on the time limit that I have with them. THE UGLY: I often stand in my own way when thinking of what students are capable of. I am trying to let go of control and I hope that if I can offer different products, students will choose what they want to use and they will also take the effort to learn whatever tool they choose. Perhaps after student's choose what they want their final product to be, I can group them so they are sitting next to each other and can help each other. I am fortunate that I generally teach the same material each year so I can continue to adapt lessons to best suit my students needs or never teach them that way again! ;)
Blogging isn't a new thing for me. When I graduated grad school, it was recommended we publish a blog as our portfolio. I don't know if anyone ever looked at but at least it was there! I've also used Weebly in the past for my library's homepage. We now use Schoology, and Sharepoints but Weebly was an easy way to get my library's information out there.
I do follow many blogs as well including elementary librarian blogs to get ideas for my classes and I have a favorite adult fiction blog that I am always looking to for reading suggestions. I toyed with the idea of creating my own children's book blog but ultimately decided that I enjoy reading much more than I enjoy writing. I explored links related to different ideas of what students can blog. I especially enjoyed the ideas of students creating an online portfolio - even first graders! - and how that is beneficial to a have a portfolio from K-12 and beyond! I also liked the article by Rayna Freedman and students' comments about how they preferred to blog over doing homework. I love the idea of offering blogging as a option for homework. I also loved the 100 word challenge! |
AuthorDebbie Nobles - elementary librarian and avid reader. ArchivesCategories |