Winning Writing Apps

For quite some time, I have been looking for an app to help my students practice their handwriting skills to help them when writing independently. While I have come across many apps, Writing Wizard is one of my favorites. 

This app is for the iPads and tablets, and helps guides students to write using the correct uppercase and lowercase letters, relating to the Standard:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1.A- print many uppercase and lowercase letters.

There are arrows to show students where exactly to write, and when the students stray from the letter, the line will not proceed and the students have to start over. The different color rainbow lines are very appealing to my Kindergarten students. Also, this app offers sight words, CVC words, and allows individual word lists that the student or teacher can create! Therefore, when using this app, I can differentiate for each student. We have a few students who need extra assistance with their fine motor skills, and the students are more apt to use the iPad, compared to a simple pencil and paper.

Hutchinson and Colwell comment on the aid of digital tools to assist students, specifically as a tool for students who may have motor or cognitive development delays. The authors note that when the students are able to see the word actually written by their own hand, the students will be able to comprehend that word more in written form.

Although, Hutchinson and Colwell comment that before students are even able to write, students should be able to understand oral words can become written words. Typically, students retell students orally as a narrative. With apps such as Dragon Dictation, students can now watch their oral words transform into written words. Then, students are able to create stories independently.

The standard that relates to this is:

CCSS.ELA.W.2

2. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

Students will be able to create pictures through other websites and apps, such as Story Creator, and then add text through Dragon Dictation.

Reference:

Hutchinson A. & Colwell J. (2015). Bridging technology and literacy.

The Missing Print Mystery

Using a variety of tools, my digital literacy story is coming together. My digital story is created specifically for a few Kindergarteners in my class who are having difficulty remembering the concepts about print. I would use this book in the future in my career to teach concepts about print.

This book correlates with the following CCSS standards:

CCSS.RF.K.1-1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.

a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.

b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.

c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.

                 and

CCSS.RF.1.1-1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.

a. Recognize the distinguishing features

The idea of the story is that the main character of the book (a book) is trying to locate some elements of his story that went missing.  The story entails finding an author, illustrator, and editor to fix the main characters book.  Several features of a book are pointed out. The title, author, and illustrator are shown on the cover and title page. Then, the spine and back cover are shown with appropriate features. The print in the book is fixed, going from left to right, adding spaces between words, using capitalization, and punctuation. After the book is fixed, the editor checks out the book for errors, specifically pointing out the concepts about print that were fixed with color coded graphic symbols and labels.

As the ISTE standards for educators note, it is important to create learning experiences that are differentiated. The following ISTE standard strongly correlates with my digital story:

ISTE.5.A.

Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.

To create this story, I had to use several different websites and applications to create original pictures and diagrams that will be meaningful to my students.

First, I started with the website Popplet. I explored Popplet in a previous post as a brainstorming tool. I applied what I learned about Popplet as brainstorming tool, creating a story outline to follow.

Then, I used the application, PicsArt. This app helped me to add text and edit clip art images to personalize my story. I could even edit the main character, the book, to have facial features that go along with my story.

After that, I needed a way to include diagrams that students would easily understand. With Skitch, I could easily annotate the book, adding color coded arrows and text.

Next, I needed a way to get all of the images together to create the story. I created a powerpoint from the images used on PicsArt, and the text used from Popplet. The story was finally coming together, but it was missing an auditory element to make it more engaging and interesting.

Finally, I uploaded the powerpoint slides to Animoto, another tool I explored in previous blogs. Then, I could add background music to the slides, to make the digital story have an audio element as well.

Here is a copy of my digital story:

One thing that I would like to change in this book is adding voice, rather than background music. I can even get students engaged in the story by having students narrate. I can use a website such as Voicethread to add narration to each page of the story.

Also, I think that the video went a little too fast between slides, and the students would not be able to read at that rate. In addition, I would like to extend the digital story even further, by providing some type of assessment at the end of the story, holding students accountable for what they learned, as well as assessing how well this digital story helped teach concepts about print. Otherwise, I am excited to share this story with my Kindergarten class and colleagues. I couldn’t find any digital stories explicitly about teaching about CAP and I think that a lot of teachers could use this story to teach about CAP in the future.

I hope you enjoy my story! Please complete the survey below to let me know your thought and opinions about my story.

Skitch, Annotating With Style

This week, I started to work on my digital storybook. My story is about a book who is trying to find his missing print concepts. I used a variety of media tools to create the images for my story such as Popplet and Animoto.

I was looking for an application that would help me to make a diagram explicitly stating the print concepts I wanted the students to learn:


CCSS.ELA.RF.K.1-1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.

a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.

and

CCSS.ELA.RF.1.1- Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word,
capitalization, ending punctuation).



So. I came across the application Skitch!

It is easy to annotate diagrams with this application. I can add color coded arrows and labels to get my point across, and then circle the main ideas as well. This was simple for me to use as a tool in my lessons, and I can see my students using this tool with ease as well. 

Here is an example of a few of my diagrams I created to show concepts about print:

This tool helps with organizing thoughts and putting ideas into a format for students to easily understand.

Students should be engaged in simple diagrams that are easy to comprehend. Authors Cromley et. al. (2010) support this stating teachers should, "Use diagrams to supplement text to increase the likelihood of individuals engaging in deeper, meaningful processing" (As cited in McCrudden Schraw & Buckendahl, 2015, p. 33). The different arrows, symbols, and highlighted text will help students to recall the elements of the story. 

Reference:

McCrudden, M., Schraw, G., & Buckendahl, C. (Eds.). (2015). Use of visual displays in research and testing : Coding, interpreting, and reporting data (Current perspectives on cognition, learning, and instruction). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Storyboard That!

Hi there!

Last week I was explored the website Storyboard That. This website offered backgrounds, images, avatars, and speech bubbles to create a story that resembled a comic strip. I could add text under each image in the story.

Here's a picture of my story!

I can see this website being used in the classroom when addressing the following standards:

CCSS.ELA.W.1.3- Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

CCSS.ELA.W.3.6- With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

This story would be an excellent resource for retelling stories, especially in a narrative piece. There were various opportunities to sequence the events of the story I was following, and write under each picture to describe the events. There was an opportunity to introduce the story, write about several events, and then provide closure to the story by adding an end. Students will be able to use sequencing words such as: first, then, next and the end to show they understand the sequence of events.

Also, it was simple to publish the story and save it to a PDF file. Students will be able to review their own work and others work either online or in print. By creating a work to share with others, students will be more apt to create a writing piece they will share by publishing their work. Students can learn from others work as well how to appropriately retell a story, including all of the elements of a story.

I may give website a try again in the future, I can see grades 3 and above using this tool well to rewrite stories and write their own narrative pieces.

Popplet

This week I explored some new websites and applications to create graphic organizers. One application that I am very excited to use in the classroom is Popplet.

There are so many times where our classroom makes webs to brainstorm ideas as a large group. This closely relates to the standard:

CCSS.ELA.LITERACY.RI.K.1-With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

My students can work together to find the main idea of the text, and then find some supporting key details to go around the web.

With Popplet, we can take our webs one step further. One of the best things about this app is that you can include real pictures from the internet. I also like that I can draw in the web, or students can draw as well. This gives a story web a while new look; I find the multimodal element captivating.

Also, this app closely relates to the ISTE Standard for educators:

ISTE.5.B.

Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning.

This is an excellent instructional strategy for English Language Learners, as well as students who are in Pre-Kindergarten, or Kindergarten, who are just learning to read. Adding pictures to text can help students activate prior knowledge, specifically assisting ELL's in recalling information based on prior experiences.

Digital Story Telling

This week, I explored a few different resources for my students to create digital stories online.

The first resource I looked at was the app Story Creator. 

With this app, students are able to create their own digital stories, adding details using markers, write on pictures, add text, and record their own voices to make a story. The best thing about this app is that my Kindergarten students can record their own voices to really tell the story. Most students are still getting familiar with typing, so this was a great way to ease them into the process. My students also enjoyed reading other students stories on the iPad. In the future, I can see this being a great communication tool to put up on a blog or website to share with parents. 

While I really liked Story Creator and so did my students, some of my students were asking for more tools to draw with. Also, some students had trouble getting started to use the iPad to draw and write. We purchased a few stylus’ to help out with this. I was also looking for something bigger and better for my students to use, so I checked out Doodle Buddy.

This app helped my Kindergarten students use stamps, pre-drawn backgrounds, and more tools to draw and write with. Similar to Story Creator, students can draw, write, and use photographs. Although, students are able to create more with more tools such as a pencil option for writing and use backgrounds on the app to start a story. I like how it had more tools to really get students to express themselves.

Two more apps I looked at for digital storytelling to add an audio feature to create a video were Animoto and Voicethread. With these apps, I can collaborate many videos and pictures into one final project. 

I can see my students using all of these apps/websites to retell stories, give facts and opinions, and learn the key details that make up a story. There are many effective practices for improving and supporting comprehension when reading and writing. For example authors Duke and Pearson (2008) note it is effective to allow, "Lots of time spent writing text for others to comprehend... Their instruction should emphasize connections between reading and writing, developing students abilities to write like a reader and read like a writer" (Duke and Pearson, 2008, p. 208). Therefore, students will be able to produce and publish books, whether on their own or with the apps such as the ones discussed above.  

Specifically, some CCSS standards that fit in with these applications and websites are:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7
With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.9
With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3

Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.1
Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (e.g., My favorite book is...).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.2
Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.3
Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

Also, these standards also correlate with the ISTE Standards for educators, specifically, 

ISTE.1.A.
Set professional learning goals to explore and apply pedagogical approaches made possible by technology and reflect on their effectiveness.

I can't wait to use these apps more in the classroom, my students are really enjoying being able to tell stories of their own. 

References: 

Duke, N., & Pearson, P. (2008). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. Journal of              Education, 189(1), 107-107.

Smart Board Activities

Hi there!

Scholastic has been a staple in our classroom whether we order books through a flyer, purchase books at Scholastic book fairs, or read our monthly magazine. I had no idea that Scholastic had so many activities, games, and interactive stories on their website as well. While I was looking for smart board activities, I came across this website that can be used during large group instruction time on the smart board or independently. My students and I enjoy Clifford books, so I found a Clifford themed example.

The interactive story books can help get the whole class interacting and helping "write" a story as they go along. The students can practice decoding skills and fluency, while learning about syntax. Students are able to choose a noun to complete a sentence as the story progresses. Each story has a Spanish option as well.

The standards corresponding with this interactive storybook are:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words

 Here are some examples:

Link: Interactive Stories and Games 

I can't wait to try these out in the classroom, I know our students will laugh at some of the silly nouns, just as we make up our silly sentences in a literacy center. 

In addition to all of these interactive books, there were so many games on Scholastic that promoted literacy skills such as this game to build cvc words. Students are able to drag vowels to the correct cvc words to fill in the blank. 

Link: Build Words Game

This game corresponds with the standard: 

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.B Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.

Finally, I really liked the sound matching game that promotes phonemic awareness. Students can listen to the sounds and find the matching sound. Here is an example:

Link: Sound Matching

This activity corresponds with the standard:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

These large group activities can promote teachers using multimodal ways. The content is engaging, with multiple pictures, moving pictures, sounds, and speech. Students will enjoy the novelty of the activity and will become engaged in a large group setting, or in small group work. Hutchinson and Colwell comment on the multimodal forms of literacy, stating that with the multimodal lives are students are living, constantly engaged in moving pictures, tables, and television, among other forms of technology, reading content should be multimodal as well. The content such as the activities described above, engages and motivates students.

Reference:

Hutchinson A. & Colwell J. (2015). Bridging technology and literacy.

Diigo!

Today I explored the Diigo app, where was this all my note taking life?! This app is a social bookmarking tool that has so many features. The best thing about Diigo for me is that the information is saved across all devices. There wont be any more searching for that one article saved on a USB drive; all the information is online. I like how I can not only save to favorites, but I can highlight exactly what I need for notes on that website. There have been so many times I have saved pages upon pages of internet research just to be confused what exactly I needed on that one page! There is no more cutting and pasting ideas into Microsoft Word document, Diigo does that for me. I have already saved some websites I have found useful for this class and created a group to store the websites in. I will be using Diigo in my classroom as a favorites toolbar, I like how I can write a sticky note about what standard the website/game/app applies to. This will make it easier to navigate to known websites, differentiated per student.

The standards that correlate with this app are:

CCSS.ELA.LITERACY.CCRA.SL.2

Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

ISTE.3.A
Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.

ISTE.3.C
Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

Diigo is an excellent resource in the classroom, especially for research. Students can highlight information, annotate, create sticky notes, and create an outline on any piece of information. This is an excellent way to really help students understand credible resources by comparing information. In addition, there is the accountability piece involved that my students understood the article by providing an outline. I also like that students can create groups to collaborate resources found on the internet. Also, this could be an incredibly useful tool for homeschooling, when students are out sick for a long period of time. Students will be able to review online sources at home and take notes and I can comment on those notes.

Collaborative and Team Based Learning is found to be an effective instructional strategy because students work together to complete group projects, not only accountable for themselves, but for the members of their groups as well. Authors Christina M. Cestone, Ruth E. Levine, Derek R. Lane (2008) support this in the article Peer Assessment and Evaluation in Team-Based Learning. The authors note that when implementing Team Based Learning (TBL) effectively, students are held accountable and help others with peer review, improving communication skills.

Cestone, Levine, and Lane (2008) support TBL as an effective strategy when they state TBL is, "A unique pedagogical strategy that facilitates the development of a variety of skills relative to future professional pursuits, including individual accountability, problem solving, interpersonal communication, teamwork, and organizational skills (Cestone, Levine, and Lane, 2008, p. 70). This means that there are so many more skills added to the learning process with TBL. Diigo is just one resource to further connect  students together when implementing the instructional strategy of TBL.

References:

Cestone, C. M., Levine, R. E., & Lane, D. R. (2008). Peer assessment and evaluation in team-based learning. New Directions For Teaching & Learning, 2008(116), 69-78.

Garageband for Fluency

Last week, I watched a video to show how to improve fluency in the classroom by using Garage Band.

Here is the link: http://edtap.psu.edu/video/reading/

The instructional approach to record the student reading in order to improve fluency was an excellent approach to incorporate technology to assist with reading. The student could read in her own time and assess how fluent she was. The student and teacher reflected together when the story was finished, so the student could set her own goals and self assess. One thing I learned was technology can really help students become motivated! This specific lesson was very student centered. The student and teacher could work together to decide what goals could be achieved through this lesson; the teacher used content area here. The student reflected on goals and decided to use punctuation with more reflection (using tone more), increase the speed of speech and use more expression. This helped the student take her own learning into consideration to improve.


I currently read the article, Implementing Readers Theatre as an Approach to Classroom Fluency Instruction, by Chase Young and Timothy Rasinski (2009). These authors support this strategy of using Readers' Theater to increase prosody in the classroom. A study was complete to show the correlation between using the instructional approach of Readers Theater to positively affect prosody when reading in the classroom. Young and Rasinski (2009) explain, "Readers Theatre had a profound positive effect on all readers and gave an opportunity for struggling readers to read fearlessly in the limelight... performance reflected proficient reading that was adequately paced, prosodic, confident, accurate, and filled with meaning and enthusiasm. Every performance day, the struggling readers were in step and were virtually indiscernible from the rest of the class" (Young and Rasinski, 2009,  p. 12).  There were such profound effects by using Reader's Theater because students were using metacognitive strategies to improve fluency while reading. The student's were more aware of reading fluently because they were aware that others were listening.

The standard that correlates with this lesson is the standard CCSS.ELA.RF.1.4: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
a. Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
b. Read grade-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings. c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

I would definitely use the instructional approach of Reader's Theater in the classroom in the same way to help my students improve fluency. Reader's Theater has proved to be an effective instructional approach. Using the same type instruction, except with Garageband instead of reading to the class, will be something to help student's fluency in the future. While I currently teach Kindergarten, I have some students will benefit from reading at a first grade level, focusing on fluency.

References:

Young, C. and Rasinski, T. (2009), Implementing Readers Theatre as an Approach to  Classroom                     Fluency Instruction. The Reading Teacher, 63: 4-13. doi:10.1598/RT.63.1.1

Introduction

                                                       Welcome to my blog!

My name is Sam or Miss Milne in the classroom. Currently, I am an Assistant Teacher in a Kindergarten classroom. I am creating this blog to document my skills this semester as I learn about new and existing technology to enhance literacy lessons in my Kindergarten classroom. Currently, we have two chrome books and two iPads. Our students use this as a technology center during literacy and math centers. Our students enjoy using technology in this center.

In the beginning of the year, it was difficult to get students accustomed to technology. We spent a few weeks helping students log on to the class account, log on to our different online accounts, and choose appropriate content on the websites. To make things easier, we included a "technology expert" in our classroom job list, with the previous expert training the following expert, so that by the end of the year, everyone will be an expert!

One thing my co-teacher and I like is that we can really use this technology to differentiate lessons. The students pick from a "menu", which is a list of appropriate games, book levels, and apps depending on their learning needs. We have different colored arrow sticky notes, dividing the class into different levels based on skills. The Kindergarteners use Raz Kids and EPIC to practice reading ebooks. Also, our students use ABCya and Starfall to play games.

On the two iPad's, our students use a variety of different apps, varying based on independent needs. All of our students use Writing wizard and Letter School to work on handwriting. We just purchased 2 stylus' to help our students with their grip. Most students use different phonics apps, such as Kids Academy and Phonics Farm. Also, many of our students use apps that make sight word practice fun, such as sight word machine and reading monster. For our more advanced learners, we use apps like Word Master, Words With Friends, 2 Pics 1 word, and Reading Magic. These apps help with some concepts we are working on such as spelling practice, compound words, blending sounds, r-controlled words and segmenting multisyllabic words. Like I said before, our classroom is all about differentiation and we really like technology as a tool to help us with this even more.

I look forward to acquiring new skills to integrate technology to enhance my lessons. I am excited that I will be able to really use technology to add to my existing lessons and objectives. We are fortunate to have endless information on the internet in our hands and I would like to teach my students how to use this information in a safe, fun, and new way.

In this blog, I will be referring to how the CCSS and the ISTE (technology standards) can be applied in every resource I find. Also, I will use refer to knowledge as discussed in TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) to apply what I have learned are effective instructional strategies using content, pedagogy, and technology.

While there are many ISTE standards that I will use, I will be focusing on ways to enhance my lessons to adapt for specific needs for individual students.

I will be using the following ISTE Standards:

ISTE.5.A.- Use technology to create, adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner differences and needs.

ISTE.5.B.- Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active, deep learning.

ISTE.1.A.- Set professional learning goals to explore and apply pedagogical approaches made possible by technology and reflect on their effectiveness.

ISTE.3.A.- Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.

ISTE.3.C- Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

Also, I will be using specific online tools to help students with phonemic awareness and learning about print, using the following standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3 Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.B Associate the long and short sounds with the common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.

In addition, the following standard I will use for my storyboard and my digital story to teach my students about Concepts About Print:

CCSS.RF.K.1-1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.

a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.

b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.

c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.

I will also be focusing on comprehension and improving writing. Students will be able to determine the key details of a text and write narratives or retell stories using technology by using the following standards:

CCSS.ELA.LITERACY.RI.K.1-With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3- Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.1- Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (e.g., My favorite book is...).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.2- Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

CCSS.ELA.W.1.3- Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

CCSS.ELA.W.3.6- With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

By applying standards to what I know about TPACK content, my digital tools will be used in a way that is engaging, and content that shows my knowledge and research regarding literacy and early childhood education.