The One Where I Storybird on iPads!

I recently discovered that a website I used with my class several years ago has, at some point, rewritten their code to be compatible on iPads! This has been great news for my 1:1 iPad students! Storybird is a site where students write stories and collaborate with artists from around the world. Here is how it works...

As a teacher, I created a free account and was given a passcode for my students to sign up (no eMail needed). The passcode attached each student to my account and allows me access to their stories if needed.

When a student clicks on the CREATE button, they see a screen similar to this one. Each picture is from a different artist and they can scroll through hundreds of artists who have donated their artwork to be used on the site, royalty-free. So, from the pictures below - say a student really likes the "Haunted House" picture. They select it and then....

This screen will come up. On this screen, students get to see ALL of the artwork by this one artist. From here, they select the portfolio of art they want to use for their story. In this case, I selected the Haunted House portfolio but I could choose any thumbnail at the bottom to select a different portfolio of art from this person.

Next, students see their "Desktop" which has their empty Storybird in front of them and all of artwork tossed about on the left and right of there book. Controls are at the bottom for navigation and adding pages. Pictures are switched out simply by drag and drop. 

Hit the Plus sign in the bottom right to add pages. One simple font is used for all Storybirds. 

Another page is added.

This student clicked SAVE in the bottom left corner. As a teacher, this screen shows me my students and their Storybirds. I can share, favorite, comment on, or delete their Storybirds.

When I click on one of their Storybirds, it will enlarge on the screen along with this control panel that allows me to to see some basic data about their 'Bird as well as assign it a grade (viewed only by the student) and notes about their story.

One of the more intriguing features of Storybird is that their books can be purchased as a PDF, a softcover book, a hardcover, or a premium format book. Costs vary depending on how many pages are used. The site also offers fundraising for classrooms or schools. 

Storybird has been a great experience for all of my students. It helps both their writing AND reading skills. We have integrated it into our writing curriculum. I also have several highly motivated students that have been creating their own Storybirds at home.

We have all used it on our iPads using both Safari and Chrome as browsers to access the site www.Storybird.com

Please contact me if you have any questions or need help getting started

The One Where I List What iPads Changed For Me

Last September I started using 1:1 iPads my classroom. Over the past few months I've had my share of successes and failures. To say this has been the largest growth of my teaching career would be a tremendous understatement. These are the Top Five ways "Our iPad Classroom" has changed my teaching:

1) Students as teachers! No teacher knows everything. Even me. As much as I like to pretend sometimes that I know the answer to everything, I simply don't. Using 1:1 iPads, I've had many students come up to me with App usage questions. As much as I am able to help them, just as often, I have no idea how to do what they are asking. 

This is where my students have grown into technology leaders. I will usually ask, "Who knows how to (for example) add text to a picture in edit mode in iMovie?". Usually 5-10 hands will go up and I direct the student to seek the answer with one of them. Students LOVE feeling helpful/useful/knowledgeable and "knowing more than the teacher does" is a BIG confidence booster for them! It is a win-win-win situation!

2) Creating Creative Creations! While my students still handle an occasional worksheet (usually digital), my class has definitely moved more towards CREATING products to show their knowledge of curriculum. Geometry in the Real World iMovies, Explain Everything Story Summaries, and Tellagami Vocabulary Videos are just a few examples of my students using multiple levels of intelligence to showcase their knowledge across the curriculum. Once these projects are created, that leads me to the next classroom transformation....

3) Breaking Down Classroom Walls! These projects are great and would be fine just sitting on their iPads. However - students almost always do better and put in more effort if they know more people are going to see the work than just their teacher and maybe their parent(s). Let's face it - the same goes for most adults. A lot of us will put in extra effort if we know a large audience will be seeing our work rather than just 1-2 people. YouTube, eMail, and Google Drive have allowed us to take these wonderful creations and easily share them with parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, and other educators. 

I have a student who is pretty good at Math. She created an iMovie to showcase her knowledge of geometry. She also created music to accompany it using Garageband. Her music was AMAZING and her video has been seen and commented on by her mom, aunt, grandma, classroom teacher (me), music teacher, as well as several other teachers from across America. Talk about enthusiastic! I share this with my class as an example of what can happen when you create something "Worthy of the Web".

4) 95% Paperless! Paper is at a premium and I'm proud to say that we have figured out ways to go almost completely paperless in our class. Google Drive, Notability, etc. have allowed my students to take tests, complete daily work, and display their knowledge of content all without using a single sheet of paper. 

5) From Teacher-Centered to Student-Centered! This is a move that I have been hesitant to make for a long time. It always felt to me like a student-centered classroom involved me giving up classroom control. The iPads have allowed my to act as more of a coach, letting the students work on their projects while moving around and guiding them when necessary. It also allows kiddos the ability to work ahead and move beyond grade level - truly differentiating their learning. Giving more Project-Based assignments allows each student the opportunity to work at the level they are at. With the integration of technology into these projects, it allows some students to shine who otherwise may not have had many chances in a traditional classroom.

So - Where do I go from here? There are several Apps I've had for awhile that I've never used with the students. The top of the list? Explain Everything. There is also a fairly new App called Stick Around (#StickAroundApp) created by Tech Guru Tony Vincent @tonyvincent (http://tinyurl.com/m57wh2n) that looks very promising to use with my students to assess what they know about certain content. 

I plan to use the same philosophy I had in the first semester: Slow and steady wins the race!

The One Where We App Smash Our Reading Vocab with Tellagami

My 1:1 iPad Tech Specialist, Brent Catlett, recently introduced our class to a "New-to-Us" App called Tellagami. Tellagami allows students to make an avatar and place it in front of a premade digital background OR any picture of your own. Once the picture is placed and your avatar is made the avatar stands in front of the picture and can speak (in your own voice or in several digital voices) about whatever you want to. One nice feature is that the app only allows you to record for 30 seconds so if challenges students to be thoughtful and precise in their creation.

After we had our discovery time with the app, our class was asked to think of ways we could use it within our curriculum. One great suggestion given was to use it to demonstration knowledge of reading vocabulary. We tried it out this week for the first time and below and a few of the results.

Here is the process each student had to go through:

1) Look up the definition of each word.
2) Find a picture (or take one of yourself) the "shows" the meaning of the word.
3) Put each picture in the app Skitch and write the name of the vocab word that matches the picture.
4) For each word, put the picture you chose in Tellagami, create an avatar for yourself and then yourself A) saying the word, B) defining the word, C) Using the word in a sentence and, D) describing the word in the picture behind the avatar.
5) Export each Tellagami video file into iPad camera roll.
6) Open up iMovie and create a single video file with all 8 Tellagami videos. Bookend the Tellagami clips with a video of the student introducing the project.
7) Upload the video to our classroom YouTube account.

Whew! As with anything practice makes perfect. For their first time doing this, I was amazed at what they came up with! We also also working on being original (which may include being funny) in their work. In the first example below - I loved how the student used that comical picture of the owls in the house to illustrate what the word overwhelm means. It was definitely memorable and that is one of our main goals in doing this - making memorable experiences that they can recall from later.

For all of my students, this experience will be something they remember much better than if we, say, just talked about the words and definitions at the board or had them do a worksheet about the vocabulary words for the week.