Usernames and Passwords... in Kindergarten!

I was recently approached by a Kindergarten teacher asking for some math help for her students. One girl in her class mentioned "IXL" an app her brother in 2nd grade was using to learn more math. If you recall, I have introduced IXL to students in grades 2-4, because of the idea of typing usernames and passwords. Well this Kindergarten student brought the point to her teacher about how her brother uses it, and she and her family would like to use it too. The Kindergarten teacher thought we should teach all the Kindergartners how to sign into IXL. Of course I am up for the challenge!

I have a plan ready, its just a matter of making sure the young Kindergarten students do not get too lost or struggle when we learn our usernames and passwords! I will update this story soon.

"Instagram" Classroom

The power of social media and Instagram has changed the way our students see the world. Social Media sites like Instagram allow people to connect with other people from all over the world. These connections are shared through images and comments. My "Instagram" classroom project idea came from when I posted a picture of nature on my Instagram account. Most of my pictures were usually images of Century Link field, sporting events, friends, or food. The picture I posted though was of a tree that I hugged in the woods. This picture reached out to other nature enthusiasts that liked my photograph and wrote comments to me, people I have never met before.

This reaction reminded me of the phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words." As I browsed the popular page on Instagram, I saw an endless amount of selfies, food photos, and pictures of celebrities with thousands of likes. These images are reaching out to millions of people, and the ones that are the most popular are of people that are already famous? It made me think about how a picture can reach out to so many people and how it can mean so much more with a good comment or story.

I challenged the students in middle school to think of a photograph that had meaning to them, we then used the app "SnapSeed" to edit and filter the photograph, similar to Instagram's filters. Once the photograph was ready, the students were to write a story about the photograph and how it was important to them and I asked them a question, "if you posted this photograph in social media, how would you try to explain it to connect to other people?"

The following week, students partnered up and I provided a worksheet. The classroom setup was designed to have students quietly look at each others photograph and have a quiet "reaction" time, where they would write down feelings, thoughts, and ideas about the photo. Then they would hear the story behind the photograph and then react to the story with any connections or write why they didn't share a connection.

4th Grade Keynotes

Prior to leaving to IslandWood, I had the 4th Graders learn how to use the app Keynote. Keynote is an Apple presentation tool and a great Presentation making app on the iPad. Keynote is used heavily in our Middle School grades and it was my idea to expose the 4th graders to some Keynote making skills prior to entering 5th grade. I had students make Keynote presentations about their excitements, wonders, and fear's about being at IslandWood for four days and three nights.

Students learned to add photos, edit and add text, and animate. My approach to teaching a brand new app is to allow the students to explore and investigate the app on their own. I gave them the goal, learn how to use Keynote and make a presentation of your feelings about leaving to IslandWood. From there, students saved photo's from Safari, added animations, added slides, and edited fonts. When student's learned a cool skill or something I didn't know about yet, I would stop the class and share the idea. If the same question was being asked by a number of students, I would stop the class, address the issue as a whole class, and then allow the students to continue working on their own pace. I found this to be a much better method than having a 30 minute session of me explaining all the aspects of the app.

Back from Islandwood

Well I just spent the past week on Bainbridge Island with the Fourth Grade class at an outdoor ed camp called IslandWood. It was a beautiful experience in the outdoors and away from all the daily technology work and maintenance that I do on a regular basis at Westside. It felt great for me to be outdoors, in the forest and woods, connecting with the nature around me. I took moments to capture these memories with technology to remind me of the power and beauty that is being outside with the Earth.

I really appreciated the time away from the daily routines at work. I hope that the time I spent reflecting and thinking will make my lessons at Westside more powerful and meaningful. How better to use technology, than just entertainment and convenience? To use technology as a tool to expand our thinking as learners...

Here are some of those moments I captured: