Let the Kids Teach the Lesson

Way back in August, as I began playing with my iPad, and deciding how I would use it in my classroom, I discovered Educreations.  At that time I wrote a post about some interesting ways to use it and you can check them out HERE.  I have used in lots of these ways this year, but all of these ways have been teacher led.  While they are a great substitute for standing at the front of the room explaining, I have discovered a much better use for the Educreations app – let the kids make the lesson!

This week, my third graders have been working on negative numbers, which is a concept we have spent a bunch of time on already and they have brought pretty close to mastery.  So I decided I wanted them to “teach” others about negative numbers.  Since I still have Marc Prensky’s talk from the ECIS conference fresh in my head, I started thinking of ways that I could have them create a video.  There were lots of options – video an actual lesson on the iPad, use Morfo to have a talking head explain it, etc.  However, the simplest was to simply let them build their own Educreations videos. 

I asked them to explain:

1.  placing negative numbers on a timeline

2.  adding negative numbers

3.  subtracting negative numbers

 

and I told them they had to do it in less than 90 seconds of video.  The students brainstormed what they wanted to say and draw on their personal whiteboards, and then took the iPad and drew out their numberlines.  We talked about having an introduction, body and conclusion and how this mirrored our writing assignments.  They practiced together a bit and then were ready to record, which they did in short spurts, stopping frequently to pass the iPad, switch slides or whatever was needed.

The whole process took less than 40 minutes and they had a pretty successful video.  It wasn’t perfect, which gave us an opportunity to give a glow and a grow.  It definitely won’t be the last video they create, and it was a wonderful learning experience. 

Here is the video that they created:

We marked their videos public, which gives us a link that we can send on to parents or bookmark for their digital portfolios.

Have you ever had your students create their own Educreations videos?  What topics could you have them cover this way?

Take a Bite Out of Learning at BBC

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. You can download my E-Book of Websites for the Elementary Classroom for free from Teachers Pay Teachers or Smashwords, or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

Before I started teaching a British Curriculum, I used the BBC websites as great references with cool games, especially BiteSize.  This year, I am teaching the UK National Standards, and BBC BiteSize has become my go-to site for games, models, student information, and even some videos that help me “flip the classroom”.

The BBC BiteSize is my website suggestion for this week.  It is broken into KS1 (Key Stage 1), which is Foundation through Year 2 or PK – 1st grade, KS2 (Key Stage 2), which is Year 3 – Year 6 or 2nd grade – 5th grade and KS3 (Key Stage 3) Year 7 – Year 9 or 6th through 8th grade.  (Do be warned that if you are teaching US Standards, the UK Standards can be ahead by 6 months to a year in expectations.)

Once you choose your Key Stage, the site is broke into English, Maths (yes there’s supposed to be an S at the end) and Science.  Each subject is also broken down into additional categories.

Then, each sub-subject has games and lessons that are specific to the UK standards for that Key Stage.  My kids LOVE these games because they are interactive and fun.  I LOVE these games because they work on specific skills I need them to work on.  There are TONS and TONS of games and lessons here, but let me show you just one that my kids love.

This week, my third and fourth graders have been working on negative numbers.  They are expected to be able to place a negative number on a number line, compare negative and positive numbers and to add and subtract negative and positive numbers.  This site provides assistance with all of these expectations.

My kids love to play the game – Mission 2nd Negative Numbers. 

 

In the flashy game, the kids order negative numbers from smallest to largest in order to steal the robot’s energy.  It starts with a great tutorial to walk kids through the expectations and even gives them a numberline as a guide.

Then, they can open doors in order to use the keys in ascending order.  At this point, the game also mixes negative and positive numbers.

Finally the students cross a force field by comparing two numbers, generally a mix of negative and positive or two negative numbers.

In addition to the games, there is also a section where students can read through simple explanations of concepts.

Finally, there are quizzes that help give students a chance to check for understanding.

As you can see, this is something the kids can get into and that makes a great math center or math homework.  This is just one of many, many areas available on the BBC BiteSize sites.  Which sections have you used, or would you like to use, with your class?

TESOL Teaching Tip #45 - But Miss, I Heard it in a Song!

As a teacher at an International School, many of my students are English Language Learners. Even my native English speakers are living in a non-English speaking country. Due to my unique teaching position, I have had some readers ask for tips on teaching English Language Learners. Here is this week’s Tuesday TESOL Teaching Tip:

ELL Teaching Tip #45: Teach Taboo Words

As an English teacher in Morocco, my students rarely speak English when they are away from me.  However, they do sing in English.  That is because more than 50% of the songs on our radio stations are in English.  This is not uncommon in non-English speaking countries, due to the prevalence of American pop music.  My husband did not learn English until his twenties, but he grew up singing Michael Jackson in English.  However, because the general public does not speak English, the curse words that are “censored” from general radio in the US and other English speaking countries are not censored here.  So, it is not uncommon to hear kids singing along to curse words and not knowing that they are saying anything inappropriate.

For awhile, I tried to ignore the curse words, thinking if I didn’t give them the power to shock, then it wouldn’t be a big deal.  Then I heard one of my students mis-use a curse word in conversation, not having any clue that the word a bad word.  Luckily he was talking to me and not someone who was clueless as to how he came across this word. However, this made me realize that when we teach children English (or any language) we are teaching them to communicate for better or worse.  Part of communication is understanding what words are taboo.  It’s also not enough to just say “Don’t say that word!”.  We should explain at least a little bit about the meaning of that word, in case they do say it, or in case they have it said to them.  I do try to keep these explanations as simple as possible, but I have realized that it is necessary for students to know that if someone says “Kiss my a**”, this is a bad thing, but if they say “Another word for donkey is a**”, then it’s actually an acceptable use of the word. (I’ve actually recently learned that in the UK, this is the way it is said even for small children.)

In addition, I have learned to explain appropriate timing for other partially taboo words, especially those dealing with bodily functions.  These normally come up in general conversation and I actually found myself saying last week “We don’t say: I do a burp, we say I burped.”  Talk about things you never thought you’d say as a teacher!
Overall some tips on taboo words are:

1.)  Don’t freak out when they say them.  Ask where they heard that word, and explain an appropriate meaning (A** is a bad word for your bottom.)  Then explain that we don’t use that word in polite conversation – or school.

2.)  Address those song lyrics and movie lines with curse words that you hear them using in conversation.  For older students, this is a great time to talk about knowing appropriate contexts for words.  For younger students, give appropriate substitutes that can be used.

3.)  Be careful with your wording, and be prepared to justify your explanation to parents and administration.

4.)  Talk to students about using language as a communication tool.  Remind them that some words are not appropriate for school conversations and that this is true in all languages.

Do you enjoy the weekly TESOL Teaching Tips? Would you like to view an hour long presentation on this topic? I recently presented on Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners at the Everything’s Intermediate Expo. Now you can grab the presentation for just $3.95 from Teacher’s Notebook.


Find more TESOL Teaching Tips here, and come back every Tuesday for a new tip!

Do You Judge a Resource by its Cover?

You know the saying don’t judge a book by it’s cover?  How much of a lie is that!  I was standing in the bookstore the other day and I totally judged each book by it’s cover.  If it was missing the cute cover, I didn’t pick it up and look at it.

This was an eye opener for me.  For almost 4 years now, I have been fighting the “cute cover” that everyone puts on their resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I’ve always thought that people would prefer to see what they are getting than a cute cover.  I also thought that if the product itself was what a teacher needed, than that would matter more.  These days, I am beginning to wonder.

So, today I went through my Vocabulary Packets and re-worked the covers.  What do you think?

Here’s the before:

And the after:

Pin the cover that you like better to a Pinterest board.

Does the change in cover make you more willing to look at the product?  Does the change in cover make you more willing to buy the product?  I’m really interested in knowing your honest responses, so please leave me a comment.

I think that the second cover will get more pins.  I think this is also going to teach me a lesson.  Over the course of the next few months, I will be working on re-covering and re-working many of my products.  Of course, since I have over 400 products on Teachers Pay Teachers and I create new stuff for my classroom every day, this may take awhile!

This concept also got me thinking about my students’ presentations.  In today’s image centered, web based world, should we be teaching more about making your web based productions (glogs, prezi’s etc.) stand out?  Should that now be a part of publishing your writing?  Hmmmm…thoughts to ponder.

Are You Teaching Digital Natives?

On March 15th, I was privileged to see Marc Prensky speak at the ECIS Technology Conference.  If you’ve never heard of Marc Prensky, he is the author of the multiple books, including Digital Game-Based Learning, Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning, Teaching Digital Natives, From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom and Brain Gain: Technology and the Quest for Digital Wisdom.

Marc Prensky is also a wonderful speaker who kept us all very engaged.  He spoke about the importance of using technology to connect with our students, and about teaching students to use technology to connect with each other.  He was nice enough to share some of his slides with me, so I’ll share them with you here.

One of the biggest thing I hear from teachers is that technology is an engagement tool.  However, Marc Prensky says that technology should be more about connecting than engaging.

He also said that the idea of grouping children by age is not the way to reach the needs of our children. 

 

 He reminded us that our students have a completely different viewpoint of technology.

One of my favorite parts was when Marc talked about how technology is not about the cool new tool, but rather about the thinking that goes into using – and creating – new tools.  He also mentioned that most of the time the time spent planning the creation of a technology project provides more learning than the time spent creating a new technology project.

 

The most important thing that I took from Marc Prensky’s presentation was that teaching students to use technology is equal to teaching kids to read in today’s world.

Finally, Marc talked about video and the sharing of short videos on YouTube to increasing the connection process.  He says you should try to post one per week.

Have you ever seen Marc Prensky speak or read one of his books?  If you haven’t I’d definitely recommend it.

Here is his keynote from the conference:

Please leave me a comment about your thoughts on Marc Prensky’s ideas and feel free to stop by next Sunday for more information the other presentations from the ECIS Conference.

Number Combinations App

Understanding number combinations is a key piece to math.  My math program stresses kids being able to find number bonds and connections in number combinations.  So, when a friend introduced me to Hungry Fish, I knew I had stumbled on a great practice tool for my kids.  The games spits out a variety of bubbles with numbers in it and a fish with a larger number on the fish.  The number on the fish is the number the fish must eat.  Students drag the bubbles around to make combinations that will add up to the number on the fish.  Simple and easy, this app makes a great independent math center.

What’s your kids’ favorite math app?

 

 

Make the Most of Your Field Trips

As a teacher at an International School, many of my students are English Language Learners. Even my native English speakers are living in a non-English speaking country. Due to my unique teaching position, I have had some readers ask for tips on teaching English Language Learners. Here is this week’s Tuesday TESOL Teaching Tip:

ELL Teaching Tip of the Week: Use Guidance Sheets During Field Trips and Videos

Field Trips and video experiences give English Language Learners (ESL students) a chance to practice real life listening skills, and experience English in a very hands on way.  However, the rate of speech in a video and the rate of speech used by a tour guide are much faster than the rate of speech of a teacher, especially an ESL Teacher who knows to slow down when she (or he) speaks.  Additionally, during field trips students are moving, walking and distracted by other things to see.  This combination of a lack of attention and increased rate of speech means that many ESL students don’t get everything they can from these wonderful learning experiences.  So, how can we help them out?  Here are some tips:

1.  Prep them before you go.  Before you head out to the bus, make sure that you go over what students will see, reducing some of their distractibility level from the start.  In addition, go over the key vocabulary words that students will need in order to understand a tour guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Give students something to physically do during a field trip.  Create a specific notes sheet or use a general graphic organizer to help students remember to stay focused on listening.

During my class’ recent trip to a furniture manufacturing factory, we filled out this form as we looked for (and listened for) the key vocabulary terms we had been studying during our unit.  Feel free to grab this sheet free from my Teachers Pay Teachers store if you are headed to a factory field trip any time soon.

3.  Debrief after the field trip.  Take time after the field trip to let student discuss what they have seen.  Listen to what they have to say and help them fill in any vocabulary that has slipped by them.

Using these three simple tips can increase the amount of understanding your English Language Learners get from field trips and videos.

Do you enjoy the weekly TESOL Teaching Tips? Would you like to view an hour long presentation on this topic? I recently presented on Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners at the Everything’s Intermediate Expo. Now you can grab the presentation for just $3.95 from Teacher’s Notebook.


Find more TESOL Teaching Tips here, and come back every Tuesday for a new tip!

ECIS–Technology Conference De-brief

What an amazing weekend this has been!  I arrived in London – actually Cobham, 40 minutes outside of London - on Wednesday (March 13th) for the ECIS Tech Conference titled: Learning to Love the iGeneration, and it’s been a whirlwind of activity and thinking for me ever since.  Here is a brief overview of what I’ve been doing:

Wednesday – We got in late, so we stayed around the hotel and ate fish and chips at the local pub – The Fairmille.

Thursday – I didn’t have meetings, but my colleague, Jen Kadiri, went over the first day of leadership meetings.  I will have a full report from her in a blog post coming soon.  While she was in meetings, I walked to the train station and went into the city where I got to walk around and see some of the key monuments.  Here is some of what I saw: 

  

    

 

Friday – We began the conference, which was located at ACS International School in Cobham.  (I have collected so many ideas and suggestions that it will take me MONTHS to give you everything I learned.  So, each Sunday, I will be posting a Conference debrief with further details on one of the speakers I saw.)  Here are the speakers I saw on Friday:

 

Morning Keynote:  Marc Prensky, author of the book Teaching Digital Natives.

 

Breakout Session 1:  Speaking their Language – where I learned about some cool programs to use with students who are language learners

Breakout Session 2: ME!  This is when I presented my workshop on Using Technology to Create Community.  It was well attended and went very well.  You can see what the participants had to say about the 16 websites HERE, and what your fellow blog readers had to say HERE.  By the way, if you are one of those who took the time to critique the websites before today, check our e-mail box for an e-mail from TransferBigFiles, as you will ALL  be receiving the 12 teacher resources in the Goodie Bag Giveaway.

Breakout Session 3:  A panel discussion on how curriculum should change to include technology

 

Afternoon Keynote:  Chandran Nair, a key spokesman for environmental and economic issues in Asia and author of the book Consumptionomics.

 After all of the exciting learning, we attended a wonderful dinner at a local winery and spoke to teachers from Germany, Doha, Italy and England.  We also learned about the fabulous world of geo-caching, so look for a post on that soon!

Saturday – We headed back to the conference full of excitement from the first day’s activities.

Morning Keynote Speakers: 

Jeff Utrecht, who spoke about how students are using technology to change the world and author of the book Reach: Building Communities and Networks for Professional Development

Julie Lindsey  who is a founder of the Flat Classroom movement

Breakout Session 1:  Sorting to Searching with Jeff Utrecht, an amazing session on how to teach kids to use Google to the full of its worth

Breakout Session 2:  Using iBook in your classroom, an example of using this program to create a book about the Olympics

Breakout Session 3:  Flipping the Classroom and Differentiation, a session with Heather Martin, who creates amazing videos and posts them on her YouTube channel in order to flip her classroom.

Afternoon Keynote Speaker:  Caliean Hargrave from IBM, who spoke about the technologies that IBM are creating and the programs they have to work with kids

 

As you can see, this has been an amazing amount of information.  I have provided links to each of the people I have links for, feel free to check them out, but also feel free to stop by each Sunday for more detailed information about each presentation.

French Calendar

This year I am the luckiest teacher in the world. I get to teach at the best school ever – International School of Morocco, with some of the best, most creative, teachers ever. Each time I walk into someone else’s classroom, I get inspired and we just seem to spiral great teaching ideas off of each other. It’s a wonderful place to teach, and since we are all collaborating, it’s a wonderful place for our kids to learn – a teacher’s dream, right? I have tried and tried to convince the other teachers to create blogs of their own to spotlight and share some of their amazing ideas, but everyone is super busy. Instead, they have each agreed to let me spotlight some of their ideas right here on Raki’s Rad Resources. So, each Friday night, I will be posting an ISM Spotlight.

This week, we are spotlighting Gaille Theotiste, our French teacher at ISM.  Madame Gaille, as she is known to the kids, came on board a little late in the year, but she has fit into our school community so well.  She is able to seamlessly balance teaching FSL to our non-French natives with teaching reading comprehension and proper composition to our native French  speakers.

One of the things that Madame Gaille does each day is her calendar routine.  What many of you might not know is that French (at least French in Morocco) is taught in cursive from Kindergarten.  As a school that follows a UK curriculum, our students don’t learn cursive until third grade, so not all of our students know how to read  cursive. So Madame Gaille has created this cute calendar to help them become familiar with three fonts that they need to be able to read the calendar in.  Every day, as students review the calendar, they use a clothespin to indicate the month, and under the clothespin is a number of the day of the month.   

Come back next Friday to find out what the other ISM teachers are up to.