Pico Vico in the Classroom

Recently my grade 7 students used the web application 
Pico Vico to create an animated slide show of poetry terms. Students were required to, as an extension of our poetry unit, define 8 to 10 poetic terms, give an example, and show a picture. Pico Vico is an online video slideshow maker. You can import pictures from Facebook, Flickr, or your computer, add text and music and you are done. Pico Vico allows you to upload to YouTube with just one click. Pico Vico is like a simpler version of Animoto.

Student work can be seen here. 

Knovio Collaboration 

with Middle School, 2nd and 3rd Grade! 

Knovio: an easy-to-use tool to create interactive online video presentations using a webcam and PowerPoint slides. 


For Earth Day my middle school students and classes from lower elementary joined forces to create a presentation that included Earth Day poems and Knovio presentations. The results were fabulous! You can view the application Knovio here: http://www.knovio.com/ 


Check out our work! We hope you enjoy it!

Some of the third graders:

Emiley:http://knov.io/I2E7E5
Dora: http://knov.io/Jrol65

Kate:http://knov.io/Iz9jdG
Gracie: http://knov.io/IjOsPx

Lucie: http://knov.io/IBrf9N
Channing: http://knov.io/HQHEdW
Charlotte: http://knov.io/IYDkWv
Erik:http://knov.io/HQG1vQ
William: http://knov.io/HOIpVZ
Maleah:http://knov.io/HQGSxt
Paris: http://knov.io/I2DHh2
Graham:http://knov.io/HIcnoC
Nick:http://knov.io/I02d2i
Blake:http://knov.io/HOHZin
Gigi:http://knov.io/HIbzQS
Emma:http://knov.io/IRgmDg
Sophie:http://knov.io/HLGQCK
Mark:http://knov.io/HNb8cG
Destinee:http://knov.io/I0gHmm
Ian:http://knov.io/Jke9QV
Josh:http://knov.io/HUdZll

Some of the second graders:

Emma: http://knov.io/ISymeV
Owen:http://knov.io/I63CuD
Zoe:http://knov.io/ISmeu9
Evan:http://knov.io/IlMoTP
Stella: http://knov.io/J7wVGz
Connor:http://knov.io/HLbz3B
Maia:http://knov.io/I60iQ6
Joey:http://knov.io/IM8RLn
Paige:http://knov.io/I5ksKj
Kennedy:http://knov.io/JlKYKD
Katy:http://knov.io/HUe9ch
Tessa:http://knov.io/HYSGdY
Liam:http://knov.io/ImdxbE
Abby:http://knov.io/HNBXZp

Khan Academy, Google Forms and the Flipped Math Class

I have decided to have my third grade math class watch Khan Academy videos at home, complete a Google Form in response to the videos and then review the material in class. I guess you could say I am working towards a flipped math class. So far students and parents love the idea. I have noticed that math homework is done the minute they get home from school as there is a date and time stamp. Also, all I have to do to check the student work is print out a two page Google Spreadsheet that occurs because of the Google Form. Now how cool is that? Khan Academy also offers the ability for teachers to become student coaches. If you chose this route you get all kinds of data. I am not that far along yet, and it is only third grade. But based on my early success with this FREE product, who knows where this might lead me? Take a look at the videos and forms on my website here.

Want to check out Khan Academy? Look here.

A TED video about Salman Khan and Khan Academy

What my website looked like:

Blabberize

I just returned from the TIE Conference (Technology in Education) 2011. It is a smaller conference but a worthwhile one none the less. I did present to teachers (Animoto and Prezi, see our class projects on these in an earlier post), but I also picked up some engaging ideas for my classroom.


One  I plan to use is Blabberize. Blabberize is is a very easy application that allows you to speak through a picture. Students can manipulate the picture to say what they want it to say. You can manipulate pictures of people, animals, even inanimate objects.


How can you use Blabberize in the classroom? Any report a student has to give can be done via Blabberize, while covering standards for the 21 century learner as seen here.


To check out Blabberize click here.


As always, be sure your students are finding pictures from places that have copyright free material such as Creative Commons, here or the Library of Congress digital collection here.


Update: Here is one of my students Blabberizes. Blogger is having an update problem. When they fix it, I will add more. Also, I have including a link to all of them. Enjoy!








Link to all of my third grade Blabberizes can be accessed here.



Here is a fun Blabberize I found on the Blabberize site. A student is reporting on Mt. Everest. Students and teachers have the ability to make their Blabberized items public (for anyone to see) or private. Keep that in mind.

Skeletal System Glogsters

This past school year my teaching partner introduced her students to Glogster. It was a huge success. Our third graders love seeing one of our laptop carts come down the hallway, it always meant a cool project was going to unwrap itself. And this time it meant Glogster!

What is Glogster? It is an interactive poster making app. Check it out here. Want to see some of our work? Click here and enjoy!

Twiducate, Twitter for Your Students

My students loved when I would turn on the Tweetdeck. I follow some great groups such as #elearning, #edchat, #edtech, and #edapps. The students knew that these groups could lead to new ideas, Skypes, or collaborations. When we had free time between specials and lunch we would see what educators where talking about. When I introduced the class to the student version of Twitter, Twiducate, they were excited. Twiducate runs like Twitter but is in a very closed environment. Students can only "Tweet" to those I sign up into our group. They can live chat, share ideas, and ask questions, thus staying in touch. It is also a great place for teachers to extend lessons, post homework or just communicate with students. To check out Twiducate click here.

Fodey for Your Lessons

In the spirit of sharing some of the ways we have employed technology at our school this past school year, I bring you Fodey. Fodey is an online newspaper clipping generator that a variety of our classrooms use. It is very simple to use, requires no login, and generates a bulletin board worthy product. Keep in mind that what the generator produces is, what looks like newspaper clippings, not whole articles. To take a look at the app, click here.  

Our Spanish teacher, used it to write newspaper clippings about the Japanese earthquake.

Our fourth grade teachers used Fodey to have students write about events in the Revolutionary War: