Pic Collage and Videos with Famous American Speeches

Students in Ms. Barger’s fourth grade class just finished a huge unit on Famous Americans.  As part of a STEM activity, students were responsible for writing a speech about a Famous American.  They also had to create a poster to use in their speech with a pop-up and movable part.

As students were given speeches, I filmed them (on their assigned iPad).  Students took notes when other students gave speeches.  Then students watched their own speech and used a self-evaluation sheet to foster self-reflection.  They used their notes and each other’s posters to create a Pic Collage containing three facts they learned from listening to other classmates’ speeches.

Students enjoyed the project, and it really gave ownership to giving speeches and listening to others.  Both these skills are important Fourth Grade English SOLs.

Kicking Machines with Augmented Reality

As students in Mrs. Grave’s Science class studied force and motion, they created Kicking Machines to move a ping pong ball into a cup 12 inches away. They started with the idea from the Design Squad but added a technology twist.  Once students created their machines, they used an app called VideoPix to film their Kicking Machine in action.  This app allowed students to slow down their videos. Then, they were able to capture images from the video showing the machine and ball in action.  Using these pictures, they created a Pic Collage showing potential and kinetic energy.

Finally, using an Aurasma app, the slow motion videos were imposed on the Pic Collage.  Now, when someone scans the Pic Collage with the Aurasma app, a video will pop up and play.  It’s hard to explain without seeing the posters in action, but here are a few examples.  If you follow the Clearbrook channel on the Aurasma app, you can scan and see their videos.

They students absolutely loved this project and were amazed at the final product.  And by the time the project concluded, students were very clear on Potential and Kinetic energy.  If you’d like to try to scan the posters and see the videos, the directions are below:

aurasma

ABC Digital Books

Students in Mrs. Clapper’s class used the Pic Collage app on the iPads to create an ABC book.  They were each assigned a letter (a few did two), and then they took pictures of things in the classroom that started with that letter.  They were so cute!  Here’s a few examples.

I can’t post them all because most had students names and pictures on them.  If you want to see all the letters, though, check with Mrs. Clapper or I.  We’d love to show you!

 

The Big Bad Wolf

Mrs. Downey’s and Mrs. Corbett’s class completed a S.T.E.A.M project centered on a beloved children’s story, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Mrs. Coffey and Mrs. Pettipiece helped too!

Video Trailer (Just a Tease)!

Longer video

 

After discussing and analyzing the story, and comparing and contrasting it to the real Three Little Pigs story, students spent the next week delving into the world of engineers, architects, construction workers, realtors, consumers, and presenters. Each group of students planned, drew blueprint, tested and revised a house for the Fourth Little Pig.  Each house was created to withstand gusts of wind from The Big Bad Wolf.  They even completed a purchase order and shopped on a budget for the materials to use to construct their house.  They also used the app Pic Collage to create a real estate listing to market their house to potential pig buyers.

To see their pic collages and read more about the project, please visit Mrs. Downey’s blog post about it! You can find it here.

Cross posted on the Oak Grove Digital Library.

High Tech Snowmen at night

Students in Mrs. Osburn’s writing classes introduced their new class blogs with high tech snowmen! They created snowmen based on the book, Snowmen At Night, and wrote short blog posts about them. Then, they created QR Codes to attach to their snowmen. When parents came for the 5th Grade Music program, they were able to scan the QR codes, read the corresponding blog posts, and leave comments for the students.

 

Check out their blogs here:

Rotation 1

Rotation 2

Rotation 3

Would you please leave a few comments for these new bloggers?

 

Read to Me


Watch on-line streaming videos of children’s books read aloud by celebrities!  Check out the Read to Me Website!

On this site, children’s storybooks are read aloud by celebrities and storytellers.  Books are available for watching  and there are even lesson plans to help you incorporate the Read-To-Me videos.  You will see such stories as Fancy Nancy, Duck Soup, Excuse Me, Chrysanthemum, and even Hooray Hose (with Sign Language).  Very cool!

 

Letters Alive

Preschool Teachers and Primary Special Education Teachers received a new program, Letters Alive, to use with their students!  It’s pretty cool.  See a video below that talks about it:

When trying to implement this program, we discovered a couple of things that may help others, so I’m sharing them here.  The most important thing we learned was that this program needs an integrated video card with lots of memory in order to work properly.  If you descide to use it, it’s very important to work with Logical Choice before purchasing anything to make sure the computers you plan to run it on will work.

If you are one of the teachers that was lucky enough to recieve a kit, here are some things that may help you out!

 Letters Alive Tips and Tricks

  •  Use your cart for Letters Alive. Keep the document camera with the cart and leave it set up.
  • Make sure mat is flat as possible (store rolled, not folded).
  • The neoprene Mat is washable (do not put in dryer).
  • You can wipe cards with damp cloth but DO NOT LAMINATE or submerge.
  • Make sure the dongle and document camera are plugged in.
  • Keep the document camera as high as possible.
  • Use training videos in the software.
  • Bring alphabet card in from the right (up high).
  • Be careful not to cover cards.
  • The program runs in Full Screen Mode.  Use Esc to exit and Alt+Enter to go back to full screen mode.

 If you are having Document Camera isses:

  • Choose Letters Alive
  • Choose Letters Alive Camera Setup
  • Make sure auto focus is unchecked

There are three different modes for Letters Alive:

Letters Alive Mode

  • Introduces Letters
  • Uppercase and Lowercase
  • Sentences

Root Word Mode

  • Sounding out letters one at a time.
  • Uppercase and Lowercase practice

T-Shirt Mode

  • This works with Letters Alive T-shirts.

Ideas for the Classroom:

There are lots of ideas for using this program in the classroom on the Logical Choice Website .  Check them out here!

Spelling City on the iPods and iPads

I know many of the teachers in my schools use Spelling City in their classrooms. I see the students come to the computer lab on Fridays to take their tests.  I was so excited, though, to see that the site now has an iPad/iPod Touch app!  Now students can practice in their classrooms or on their own handheld devices.  It does allow you to take the Spelling Test, but it does not allow  you to print results.   You could have students bring you their device when they are done, though, and record their score right off their screen.   If you have the premium membership, student grades area already recorded for you in a grade book  like format.