Greetings from Big Sky Country Montana!

It's about to get busy around here as we approach conference time and our much anticipated Spring Break 2012 - so I'm posting in advance with a few examples to share.

We moved on from scanning QRcodes to using our device to take pictures and video of our learning.  I still keep the QRcode book handy, and up-to-date, just in case the kids want to revisit and write in their journals. In the meantime, my goal is for them to get a feel for some of the things they can do with the iPad - taking pictures and video.  I created a Wonderful Word List using vocabulary words or terms that pop up in our daily discussions, or from Wonderopolis-talk in general. There are a total of five words on the list that they must read, search for, and take a picture of.  For example - if the word is "hexagon", they must find the real thing, or a representation of it in the room and use the iPads camera to capture an image of the object. 

The kids love the added responsibility of walking around the room with the iPad.  There is literacy (verbal communication, reading) naturally blended into the activity so the focus of this go-around is primarly technology. Digital cameras (not just the iPad) are a great technology tool for kids to learn with.  It is likely one of the simplest tools for them to use to collect and share information. I gave a quick 5-minute mini-lesson on the "how to" of the iPad camera and video recorder and I sent them off. Again the kids worked in pairs to help each other out. They quickly found that reaching the camera button (with their small little hands still holding the device) was not as easy as it looked, so their partner helped to capture the image.  We talked and modeled some examples of good pictures, and great pictures - as well as how to to keep the camera steady to eliminate blurring. There was a lot of that in the first few days.  Most have figured out that they can keep the iPad on the desk or floor and take a picture from there. The final step is to use the video function to capture their partner sharing the about the things they found - nothing fancy, I'd say 30 seconds or less of video.

In order to complete the task and move on to more choices of things to do at the center they need to share their findings and what they learned. I ask them to show me the Wonderful Words they hunted for. They read the words to me, then show me the pictures they took.  I'll ask questions like "How did you decide to take that picture?", "Please show me how to use the camera/video?", "What is one tip you could share with someone who is taking a picture?" and whatever will engage them in some fun conversation.  Again, its a great way for them to practice verbalizing their understanding of technology while supporting literacy - both traditional and digital.

When we get back from our break we'll move on to some screen capture applications and digital storytelling.

We love you Wonderopolis & Better World Books!

We ventured into the second stage of learning at our Literacy Center and my kindergarteners simply can't get enough of Wonderopolis. The Literacy Center has become the most popular corner of the classroom for learning. I only open up the center in the morning, and once again in the afternoon. In the meantime I play border patrol, attempting to keep the kids from inching their way to Wonderopolis - not because I don't want them to, but mainly because I'd have a mob of kids in an area that comfortably fits only about 3 students. I wish my room was bigger.

So, phase 2 of the literacy center called for the kids to use the device to find the "Wonderful Word" using a quick response code - also known as a QRcode.  After they find the word - they use it in an I wonder, or I know  statement and write it in their journal. This is a simple way to blend using a technology tool to enhance a learning activity. It gets them away from the typical "watching" and "playing" of the device and actually using an app to gain access to something they need to complete the learning activity.  I was randomly choosing working vocabulary words until I figured out that the kids could easily use a word that was discussed when we visited the Wonder of the Day on Wonderopolis. You'll see in the video and some of the pictures I documented below how the kids did using the QRcode and journaling their learning. As expected, I modeled using the app to scan the QRcode and finding the Wonderful Word only once, and the kids pretty much said "Okay, we got it Mr. Fines...see ya!". 

Here are the steps I used to complete this Phase of Learning with our iPad:

• I created a google document that is the home for the Wonderful word. It takes less than a minute to change the Wonderful Word each day.
• I took the URL of the google document and created a QRcode using this QRcode generator.
• I created a QR code book for  storing the codes we've generated - from popular wonders to favorite websites.
• I downloaded this free scanner app to scan the Wonderful Word QRcode.

The kids were having so much fun I left this QRcode activity up for an extra week - and boy did I get an earful if I ever forgot to change the word of the day (and I did that a couple of times). The best part, as always, is engaging with the kids. I can see them growing their confidence of using  technology for learning as well as communicating their learning in the journals, or on video with me. They treat their Wonderopolis Journals like gold and have been producing some incredible work. I am so proud of them.

We've already transitioned into the next steps. For the next couple of weeks the kids will be using the iPad's camera and video to document different things in their learning environment.  Unless there is a change in direction, I'll keep you posted here on our progress in the coming weeks.  It's all shaping up to be an awful-lot of fun!  And to think...the fun has only just begun.

Thank you again - NCFL, Wonderopolis, and Better World Books - for this Wonderopolis opportunity!

(cross-posted at A Year of Reading)

The $500 mini grant from The National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) and Better World Books that I was awarded (announcement post here) purchased an iPad intended for using Wonderopolis to teach nonfiction reading skills. So far, the iPad has done a little of that, but SO much more! In the spirit of Wonderopolis' goal to "engage children’s natural curiosity and transform it into a lifelong love of learning" the iPad has become a reading/writing/math/reference tool in our classroom.

This is the first in a series of posts about how I use a couple of iPads, a couple of iPods and a Kindle in my fourth grade classroom. We'll begin with What's On My Wonderopolis iPad.

Here is the first screen. Book Creator and Comic Book are composition apps. Story Builder and iSentence are primarily for my ELLs. Pages, Keynote, Explain Everything, and Whiteboard are also composition apps. I don't know how to use Dropbox, but it was on the school's iPads, so I included it. BrainPop, Discovery News, The Weather Channel, and the Kindle app are all reading/viewing apps. (Poetry Tag Time by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking by Alan Katz, and What I Do When I Could Be Sleeping by Greg Pincus are the most popular books in the Kindle.) NineGaps and Long Division are math apps. More on the Reading Folder later. i-nigma is a QR code reader. And Wonderopolis, Storynory, and Animal Facts (wild-facts.com) are bookmarked on the first screen for easy access. They are also reading/viewing apps.

On the second screen, there are reference apps. Merriam-Webster, the bookmark for Merriam-Webster's Word Central website, Google Earth, Google Translate, iMovie, Videos, Motivational Poster, and Comic Life. There are folders for word games, more math apps, science apps, FlipBook, and two new ones I just got for my ELLs and most struggling spellers: Word Wizard and Montessori Crosswords. (As I'm describing these pages, they don't seem very organized, but I set them up to somewhat mirror the school's iPads, and then tucked my extras in where they seemed to make most sense.)

Page three is off limits to the students and so far they've been good about leaving the utilities and my apps alone. They'd rather follow the rules than lose iPad privileges! Along the bottom of each screen for easy access are Maps, Camera, Google, Safari, Photos and Music. What's in Music? All the songs I collected to go with BabyMouse: The Musical, the poems from Hip Hop Speaks to Children and Poetry Speaks to Children, and some Bach, Glenn Miller, LA Guitar Quartet and Playing for Change.

In the Reading folder are iBooks, Charlie Brown Christmas, Peekaboo Forest (I love Charley Harper's art!), The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, and Sports Illustrated for Kids (we get the print version for our classroom library). In iBooks we have two books by Scott J. Langteau: Sofa Boy, and The Question; Scaredy Squirrel and Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend; and Yellow Submarine. If you click on "Collections" at the top by the "Store" button and choose PDFs, you'll find two new Stenhouse professional books I ordered recently as eBooks -- I See What You Mean (2nd Edition) by Steve Moline and Opening Minds by Peter Johnston.

The Word Games folder holds WordSquares, WordFu, wurdle, and Chicktionary.

The Math folder has Math Bingo, Rocket Math, Slice It, MathBoard, and SET.

The Science folder has iBird Plus, pUniverse, and Star Walk.

In my next post, I'll tell you about the QR codes my students created. The QR code reader is one of the hottest apps on the iPad and the iPod Touch (the one with the camera) right now, and my students are finding QR codes everywhere!