Introducing Chromebooks to Littles & Beyond!

As we are getting back into the full swing of things over here... many teachers have already jumped head first back into Google Classroom! Here are some tips that I'd like to share from my experience of working with many primary teachers in my own district:

Practice #1

1. Signing into their Google Accounts on a Chromebook: Yes, this can seem painful at first, but trust me... it only takes practice and within a week or two, even the youngest students will master this step! To help make this a little less painful, make sure to prepare cheatsheet cards for each student so they can quickly access their email and password information. To help you, make sure you keep a master list of their emails and passwords so you can quickly help students who misplace their cards. If you're in our district, remember we have password.fsusd.org to help a student reset their password, if their default account information isn't working or they forgot their password from last year. 
2. After students successfully sign into their accounts, have them sign out and practice signing back into their account. This repeated cycle will help give your students extra practice, while you're helping the students who are struggling to sign into their accounts for the first time. 

Practice #2 (Same day or the next day)

1. Joining your Google Classroom! I highly recommend and encourage teachers to set up and have their students join a Google Classroom, even if they don't envision using it right away. Google Classroom allows you to assign, create and manage digital activities for your students. Once students are connected to your Google Classroom, you can quickly share links, resources, templates and pull your student names to create classes in other online tools such as Epic! Books. 
2. How can students find Google Classroom? 
• Open Chrome and start typing Google Classroom... before they even finish Google Classroom, it will show up in the drop-down options for students to click on. Even if they misspell it, Google will know that they meant Google Classroom and it will usually show up as the top option in the search results. 
• Or they can go directly to classroom.google.com to access this tool. 
• Have students click on their App Launcher on their Chromebook (white circle in the bottom left) and look for Google Classroom's icon or search for Google Classroom. 

Pro Tip: You can personalize the shelf on a Chromebook with a two-finger tap on the icons on the shelf to remove them OR add new ones from within the App Launcher. This can be very helpful for students and can be used in addition to or instead of bookmarking websites in Chrome! 

1. Once they reach Google Classroom, if it's their very first time, they will be asked to confirm their Google Account by clicking "continue." Next, they will have to select their role. This year, this step became much more student-friendly because Google added pictures to help identify their role as a "student' or "teacher." This really isn't as important for students as it is for teachers. The only difference between accounts is the fact that only TEACHERS can create classes. Teachers can create and join Google Classrooms as students, but students can only join classrooms. So if your teacher account isn't showing you the option to create a Google Classroom, then you need to reach out to your TSS/IT Department to switch your role in the Admin Panel. The last step for your students is to enter your unique join code to officially join your Google Classroom.
2. Finally, your students are connected to your Google Classroom and are ready for you to add an assignment or activity to complete once they successfully join your Google Classroom! 
• Start with adding a question! These can be either short answer or multiple choice. Personally, I love multiple choice questions for opinion-based surveys. For example, what is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Then give your students 4-5 options to select from and then once everyone has submitted their choice, you can have a quick number talk about the data. Quick, simple and fun!! 

Practice #3 Introducing Skills Through Google Slides

After seeing the activity, Chromebook Skills created and shared by Ben Cogswell and Ryan O'Donnell on Twitter, I wanted to expand this activity to help our students focus on each of the key skills. Here are the three activities that I created based on this one Google Slides presentation:

• Chromebook Skills: Click & Dragging
• Chromebook Skills: Resizing
• Chromebook Skills: Text boxes 

Hopefully, these ideas were helpful for you as you begin to introduce Chromebooks to your students! Please feel free to share these ideas with other teachers and add any ideas in a comment that you've found helpful in your own classrooms! 

Do you Google Slide?

If you've created a presentation using Google Slides, then you already know the Google Slide. Just like a dance... Slide to the right. Slide to the right... Every time I hear those two words together I imagine a choreographed dance routine. Now you might be laughing or just thinking that I'm crazy but follow me for a second...

If you think of Google Slides as a dance then everything to compose in your presentation should flow together like each step of an intricate dance routine. Right? Slides may contain words, images, links and videos combined together to showcase the author's message. Each slide should be related, each sequence should be well planned out, build upon each other and capture the audience's attention. 

After attending one of Susan Stewart's Primarily Google presentations at Solano's GAFE Summit, my mind starting spinning. I began seeing Google Slides as a brand new tool to create engaging, interactive Slides for students to use in the classroom. When combined with my own knowledge, and a little bit of Lisa Highfill's HyperDoc concept, I began seeing Google Slides in a whole new light! 

In working with a second-grade teacher, we used our district's adopted curriculum to create an interactive Google Slides lesson for her students. I've covered most the text from the lesson since the material is Copy Righted, however, I think you can grasp the concept of the lesson design and how the students were able to interact with the content and build a deeper understanding of the text than simply reading their textbook. 

Click here to view full Google Slides presentation 

Google Slides allow teachers and students to create beautiful presentations, digital books, and activities! Google Slides has taken off as a powerful tool that allows for innovation and creativity to blossom! (This post has been sitting in my draft for MONTHS! I cannot believe I forgot to hit publish! Better LATE than NEVER!!!) 

New Year, New Possibilities!

It's been way too long since I've managed to post any updates on here... So much has happened that I'm not even sure where to begin.... But with the new year in full swing, it's time make writing updates on here a priority! I know... I've said that before but I haven't managed to devote time to writing throughout the week to consistently post. I'm hoping this year will be different!

I feel this new school year will be my best one yet!! Here's a few reasons why I know:

First, I've been lucky enough to participate on the NorthBay CUE's board!! Whoop-whoop!! I love CUE and everything they stand for... And I'm so proud to be apart of this great organization!! Our NorthBay CUE board has lots of fun and exciting events planned for this year. I'll get to share those events as they get closer, but for now, make sure to save the date of February 3rd for our annual #NBCUE event!

Second, we finished off last year with a bang! I had so many teachers creating cool end of the year projects with technology! (A few blog posts are in drafts... Hoping to find time to review and publish these!) Many teachers created classroom video projects that were shared with families! I've had teachers reach out to me over the summer about ideas and I can't wait to continue to support these amazing projects!

Third, my position within my district is evolving. I'm no longer "just" our kinder code specialist... Which in theory wasn't what my job entailed anyways, I'm now an educational technology specialist. Our team originally consisted of seven teachers on special assignment that supported teachers in our district for a three-year cycle. However, sometime last year our district decided to no longer continue our positions, however, since I was one of the last teachers to join our team, I have been given the opportunity to finish out my third year. This year, I am working as a team of ONE to support teachers in my district integrate technology! Working by myself seemed daunting at first, but I'm excited to continue to support teachers in my district and use my PLN on Twitter to continue to support me grow as an educator!

This next year is going to be a busy one, but in the world of an educational technology specialist, that's a great thing!

Wiping Off the Dust... So to Speak!

Where has the time gone? I can't believe it's been so long since I have found time to sit down to share any updates on here. Summer is long gone, and I can't believe tomorrow is the first day of October!

We hit the ground running this year! My position has evolved from previous years. This year I am supporting less sites, however I am stepping outside of my Kinder Code bubble into the world of supporting entire school sites. I am excited about this change, however with any change, there has been an adjustment period. All four of my schools are Title 1 schools with 1:1 student devices. Two of the sites are rolling out their 1:1 program for the first time school wide this year. I found myself helping to quickly create rollout plans that best supported teachers and students. We are still adjusting these plans to make the process more efficient for next year.

I'm looking forward to this upcoming month to start diving into collaborative and creative projects with teachers. I've already started hooking teachers by showing them Seesaw, and I can't wait to see how these teachers integrate Seesaw into their own rooms. This afternoon, I will be joining a Kindergarten teacher's classroom to introduce the "microphone" to her students. They have been capturing pictures this week in Seesaw to add to their journals, however today, we will use the voice recording feature to add a new layer to their items. Hopefully I'll find time this weekend to blog about it, if not, I'm sure it will at least be posted on Twitter. Please follow me @MsHorsma.

Do your students like to chatter?

Then you must introduce the free iPad App, ChatterPix for Kids!

This has always been one of my favorite Apps to use with students. The name of the App hints at it's purpose... allowing you to make a picture talk! The art of creation is very simple, yet students can express themselves and information in very creative and unique ways. For example, students could take a selfie of themselves at the beginning of the year and record their voice talking for up to 30 seconds to introduce themselves to the class. This App allows any image to talk. 

Here are some lesson ideas using ChatterPix:

• Have students share their opinion on a given topic with supporting evidence 
• Use a selfie to make themselves talk
• Use an image related to the topic 
• Have students use their selfie to share facts or things they learned about a given topic 
• Use a selfie to make themselves say the facts 
  
• Use an image of an important person or figure to share knowledge about them
• Use an image of artwork or animal and provide them a voice to talk 
• Use the camera to take pictures of shapes and share attributes about that shape
• Use the camera to take pictures of stuffed animals/characters from a book 

When looking at ChatterPix through these lenses the list of ideas start multiplying!! The possibilities are truly endless! What ideas are you thinking of now? 

What do you do for Wiggle Breaks?

Go NOODLE! 

It's normal, almost in any classroom to see that students need a chance to get up and move. Especially younger students, however this is just as important with older students. NO ONE likes to sit in one place for extended amounts of time. What are some things that you do in your classroom to help with this?? 

As a classroom teacher and now as Ed Tech Specialist, I highly recommend checking out Go Noodle! This website allows teachers to create a free account, create a class and select highly engaging videos that let your students get up and move. Each class has a champ character that helps motivate your students. After each video session, the site automatically tracks how long your students have been using Go Noodle. The progress bar tracks every 10 actives to help their champ grow. Once the progress bar is completed, students can select a new champ.

Go Noodle has tons of free videos. Our kinders LOVE Koo Koo Kanga Roo's videos, especially Pop See Ko! You can use the heart to mark your favorite videos and to easily find and select content to use with your students. Go Noodle also allows you to add your own videos from YouTube to your Go Noodle account.

If you haven't tried Go Noodle yet, I highly recommend you testing it out with your students! 

Getting Going With Kodable

Here's a little background: Last year, we jumped head first into using Kodable at SEVEN schools in TK and Kindergarten starting about halfway through the school year! Teachers created their classes, added students and loaded their class code onto their set of iPads. Many teachers depended on my support to make this happen! Most students were introduced to Kodable during centers, and we provided support during this time.

I've had the opportunity to work many of these same teachers again this year! It has been an exciting, rush of energy these first couple weeks of school! As with any classroom, but especially Kindergarten, the first few weeks are ALL ABOUT ROUTINES! Kinder students are learning how to learn at school, how to transition and listen to their teachers, and so much more. With routines and procedures coming together in many of my Kindergarten classrooms, teachers are starting to inquire about ways to introduce Kodable to their students.

What's the best way to introduce students to Kodable??

This is a great question that we are constantly looking to improve how we introduce and continue to reinforce coding with Kodable to our TK and Kinder students. Here is an outline of how our introduction lessons have evolved this year. If you have any suggestions or feedback, please reach out to me on Twitter or email. I'd love to know what you think!

First, we tend to start with a whole group lesson with the students sitting on the carpet. The students do not have any devices in front of them, this helps to have the students focus on the introduction instead of their iPad screens.


Students are informed that they will be learning a new, special language that computers know how to read it too! We connect this to what they are learning in school, their letters, sounds and high frequency words to know how to read English. Our computers don't know how to read English, they read their own special language called CODE. What is it called? "Code" we make sure all the students respond.

Next, we talk about how they have a brain, which helps them learn and think. Their brain makes them very smart. Do you think computers are smart? NO, they don't have the same type of brain we have. To help us learn how to code, or use the language computes can read, we are going to use a fun, App called Kodable. What's the app called? Kodable. Turn to your partner and share, what is the name of the App? We try to have the students focus on key words throughout this whole-group direct instruction chunk of the lesson.

To help us learn code, we will be coding our Fuzz Friend aliens through a maze. Now, do you think our aliens are very smart? NO, you are right! Our aliens are not very smart. They only know how to read these... (holding up paper arrows). Don't say it, think... what is the name of this shape? If you know the name of this shape, whisper it to your neighbor. Depending on the class, it's been very common in most of our title 1 sites, that only a handful of students know the name of the arrow. We spend a few minutes introducing the arrow as a shape. We point out that it is a rectangle with a triangle. The direction of the arrow can be rotated to have different meanings. When the arrow points up, which way would our Fuzz Friends move?

We have the students show the meaning of up on their fingers by pointing in that same direction. Next, we point out that if we were aliens we could go all the way up until we hit the ceiling. Can we go through the ceiling? NO! Would we want to tell them to keep going up? NO, that would be silly. Next, we turn the arrow so it's pointing down. This time we model moving all the way down to the ground and repeat the same procedures for left and right. To help students visualize and make a connection to the Fuzz Friends' movements in the game, we physically move side to side until we hit a wall in the classroom. This visual movement has really helped our students make the connection from the arrows and their meaning in Kodable.

Once we introduce the arrows, our next step is logging into Kodable and modeling the first 2 puzzles. In the second puzzle, we always model a mistake and how to debug our mistake.  Also, as the students point using their fingers (up, down, right and left) to show which arrow comes next, we will purposely point to the wrong arrow on the screen to make sure they are following along. Also, this helps to build a deeper understanding that the direction of the arrow matters. After completing the first two puzzles, we usually say, "Wow! Coding is a lot fun! Now I could continue this all day, but I'm thinking that you are ready to write your own codes!" This is where students are given the opportunity to practice this new skill on their own. Depending on the access to devices, students will log into Kodable and beginning coding either all together or during center rotations.

Other Helpful Hints

• When creating your class on kodable.com, create a class code that will be easy for YOU and your students to remember. With our TK and Kindergarten classes, we usually invest in the time to preload their class codes onto each device. We have found this easier for the students, that having then enter the code. The students only need to select their spaceship and find their name to begin coding.
• We use the playlists to stop students from starting new content. For example, we stop the students after the first two stages, right before the Bugs are introduced in the Sequence unit. We have our students who complete the first 10 puzzles quickly, go back and practice. When most the class has passed the first 10 puzzles, then we have another whole group lesson to introduce the students to Bugs and Debugging! Here's a link to my blog post on our Bugs! Lesson activity! 

The 100th Day of School is Coming!!!

Are you starting to prepare for the 100th Day of School?? 

Our District's 100th Day of School isn't until Wednesday, January 27th this year, however as we all know, that day will be here before we know it! Today I prepared a sample of one of my favorite 100th Day of School Activities... THE AGING BOOTH! The AgingBooth is a FREE App for iOS and Android.

I dare you to take a glance at yourself in the Aging Booth! I find it a little too realistic and frightening to see myself aged that much, however, your students will LOVE seeing themselves age!

Once you have an aged image, the real fun can begin. You can use this image as a jumping off point for multiple conversations and activities. For example, this image can be used with a writing assignment about their lives or what will ____ be like in 100 years from now. One of my favorite extensions, is using this image in ChatterPix for Kids. Students can record themselves talking for up to 30 seconds and then their aged self will speak. Again, with all activities, you have to have a sample for your students, so I've included a link to view my ChatterPix video about what I hope to have done by the time I reach 100 years old! Once recorded in ChatterPix for Kids, we save to the camera roll to be exported to Seesaw.

Cool Tools 2016

Just before Thanksgiving break I had the opportunity to attend a special CUE Board dinner with one of my teammates, Josh Harris. We arrived a few minutes late, so there were only a few open seats left at their table. It just happened that one of the seats left was towards the end of the table next to the fabulous Lisa Delapo, one of the co-presidents for EastBay CUE. It was awesome finally getting the chance to meet her and hear about the amazing things happening in and around East Bay.

During our dinner conversations, I learned about an upcoming event, Cool Tools 2016. Not only did the awesome name catch my attention, but hearing that Jon Corippo will be their opening Keynote speaker, I was sold. All I could think about was, "How am I going to be able to make attending Cool Tools 2016 happen?" I wasn't quite sure. Especially since I just registered for CUE's Rockstar TOSA Camp, and I knew my husband wouldn't be thrilled about another big conference.

Before I could even think of a plan of attack, I received a direct message from Lisa on Twitter asking if I would be willing to submit a proposal to present at Cool Tools 2016! I was so honored to be asked to submit a proposal and I knew this was my ticket to attend, so that same day I submitted my request to present!

AND I am excited to announce... 

I will officially be presenting at Cool Tools 2016 on Seesaw! Whoo-hoo!

The Hour Of Code 2015

Are You Ready?? 

The Hour of Code holds a special place in my heart. The first time I was introduced to the Hour of Code, I was in the midst of teaching a complex science lesson when my Principal walked in with the Superintendent and her crew. As they walked around and observed our lesson, I noticed our Superintendent was waiting to talk to me, she wanted to ask me a question... And that's when I heard those THREE words for the first time, "Will you be participating in the Hour of Code?"

CODE.ORG

Wait... what? I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. The Hour of Code? What is that?? I had no idea what the Hour of Code was nor did I want to admit that to my Superintendent! Thank goodness my shock quickly faded enough so I was able to smiled and uttered something coherent back. Later that day, I glanced at my email to see I had an awaiting message from our Superintendent providing me information on how to sign up for the Hour of Code. Needless to say, I hosted my first Hour of Code event back in December of 2013. I reached out to our local community college and had one of their web design professors come introduce my students to HTML code. It was such an amazing experience! An Hour of Code that I will never forget! Now fast forward two years...

Email Blast

We are in full swing planning and organizing Hour of Code events throughout our district. I am luckily enough to be apart of a small, informal planning committee to support our staff. We created an email blast to send of EVERYONE in our district about the Hour of Code is coming! As apart of my Monday Tech Madness sessions, we will be offering THREE different Monday Sessions to provide teachers training and hands-on support for activities to use for the Hour of Code with their own students. Check out the jammed packed presentation for Hour of Code Resources here! This slide deck was created with an idea to provide MORE than enough resources to host the Hour of Code event and provide teachers with a digital lesson plan. Teachers can make a COPY of the slides, then delete out anything that will not apply to their Hour of Code Event. Now they have their own personal presentation to use during their Hour of Code event with their students! Hopefully with this model, we helped minimize the time required to plan and host an event with the hopes more teachers will jump on board this year!

Please feel free to share this resource with ANY and ALL teachers!

Second Annual Solano GAFE Summit

Click HERE to view slides

Our district hosted the second annual Solano GAFE summit this past weekend, November 13-14! As always with any GAFE Summit by Google's Ed Tech Team, the event was a blast!!! From enlightening keynote speakers, advance sessions to time to network with others, the weekend flew by in a blink of an eye.


Besides attending fabulous sessions lead by Susan Stewart, Lisa Highfill, and Donnie Piercey, I had the opportunity to share out about Seesaw. If you haven't had a chance to take a look at Seesaw, I highly recommend checking out what Seesaw has to offer! The slides in my presentation showcase different examples of the types of items students and teachers can add to digital journal with Seesaw. Participants had the opportunity to join one of my classes as a student to add items. I assigned everyone the task of taking a "selfie" and adding details to their selfie which included writing their name on their picture, recording their voice and adding a typed text caption. To warp up my session, I showcased the teacher dashboard and view on Seesaw.

Technology infused field trip

Towards the end of September, I was approached by one of my Kindergarten teachers about helping to arrange a field trip to the fire station for fire safety. OF COURSE I would! Now this might seem a little outside of my scope of support as an Educational Technology Specialist, however my husband is a fire fighter for the station near her school, so it didn't surprise me at all! It took a little begging to my husband because the field trip would include ALL SIX TK and Kindergarten classes! Thankfully my husband and his crew were up for the challenge!

Each class was schedule to walk to the fire station, take a tour through the station, observed a quick demonstration with their fire gear and have an opportunity to climb through the fire truck or engine. My husband thought all of that could occur in 10 minutes!!! We all got a good laugh out of that!! We scheduled 45 minute time blocks for each class, which was perfect and gave the students enough time to explore and ask questions!

Link to View

It wasn't until the weekend before the tours were scheduled, I decided to take a pre-field trip tour while my husband was on duty with my own two children. We parked our car in front of the school, timed how long it took us to walk to the fire station (7.5 minutes) and captured a couple pictures to highlight the tour. Later that evening, I created an informational flyer for all the TK and Kindergarten teachers, which I emailed to them. I loved this idea because it highlighted the trip and I was able to embed a few fire station vocabulary words like Apparatus Bay or Ap Bay for short for the teachers. Click the link below the picture to view

AND THEN THIS HAPPENED 

On the morning before the first tours were scheduled, another CRAZY idea popped into my head! What if the students took what they observe and learn at the fire station back to the classroom to showcase their experience? The field trip could be a jumping off point for additional learning activities! Students should be able to share their experience with others, and I knew the perfect way to incorporate their iPads into this!

SOME BACKGROUND

Last year, a couple of my Kindergarten teachers at this same school created an easy digital project about their field trip to the farm. We used the free App, Shadow Puppet Edu to select pictures (actual pictures the teachers took with their phone on the field trip and pictures of the student writing on paper about the farm) and recorded the students' voice sharing about the farm. At that time, each teacher only had 18 iPads, not enough for each student. This year, many of the classes are close to 1:1 student to iPad ratio and a couple of my teachers at this site have intergraded Seesaw into their classrooms, which is a true game changer for the classroom!! You definitely need to check it out, if you haven't heard about it! Seesaw allows students to create and share their learning with a digital journal!

SETTING THE BAIT

Back to my CRAZY iPad idea, I had my own son create a Shadow Puppet Edu video with the images I took from our pre-trip to the fire station. It was so cute, that I immediately shared this with the team of teachers who would be touring the fire station with an email. Click here to preview the email and watch his teaser video!

THE BAIT WORKED AND TEACHERS WERE HOOKED! 

2 out 6 of my teachers took the bait and wanted to enrich their field trip tours with a project to showcase their students' learning experience using their iPads.

The original plan: Our first plan involved the teachers taking pictures during the fire station tour. We would use air drop on the iPads to share the pictures from the teachers' phone to the student devices. Once the students had the images, they would select the ones they wanted to talk about and create a movie about their tour of the fire station. Fabulous idea to incorporate digital story retelling of their real experience!

GAME CHANGER: 

This original plan would have been great, however, the night before the tours, I received the BEST text for one of the teachers which was the best surprise ever!

"Part of me wants to bring the iPad's with us and have the kids take their own pics LOL BUT THAT WOULD BE CRAAAAAZY! right?! Haha"

Immediately I was so excited!! There was no denying this idea AND so it happened! Kindergarten students from two classes walked to the fire station, holding their iPads to capture their experience touring the fire station from their own point of view!! It was fabulous! ALL the students were engaged in the experience, the tour, capturing images throughout their field trip!

REVIEW OF THE GAME PLAN: 

Once the students arrived at the fire station, we took a picture of each student in front of the station's 9-11 Memorial site. Firefighter Shaun met the students out front for a short introduction and lead the students through the fire stations. Students captured their own pictures as they toured the station, including the front office, their bedrooms, living area and kitchen. Next they ventured out to the apparatus bay for a demonstration with Firefight Shaun. The highlights included calling 9-1-1 for help and to call out for help. Firefighter Shaun put on all his structure fire gear, including his mask and air tank. The students all captured a picture of him all suited up. Last, each student climbed up into the fire engine and had their picture taken! Not many people can say they have toured a fire station, however these students have the images to share their experience with the world!

FIRE STATION MOVIES

If you've ever worked with kindergartens, you know the struggle to keep their attention and focus on task at hand, however, that was NOT an issue with this project! Each student was so excited to retell their tour of the fire station.

 Link to Field Trip Student Video

The following week, both teachers explicitly taught how to create their movie with the whole class. This helped provide students with a model to follow. During centers, students used Shadow Puppet Edu to create their digital story, retelling their fire station tour. Students selected their images from their field trip, then recorded their voice on each picture. Students were provided the following sentence frame to begin, "Hi, my name is ____ and I took a field trip to the fire station." Then the students shared information about each picture. We were AMAZED at the details each student recalled. Click HERE to view one student's video they created with Shadow Puppet Edu that was uploaded to Seesaw.


Next time you're planning a field trip, I hope you remember this video project and find ways to incorporate technology into your students' experience too!

Bugs Below!!!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to help introduce the programming concept of bugs and debugging to a fabulous group of Kindergartners! This class has been learning the basics of programming through sequencing arrow codes with Kodable for the past few weeks. They learned that computers and their Fuzz Friend aliens are not very smart and need their help because they only know how to read a secrete "code" known as arrows. They have been giving their Fuzz Friends the code to travel through the mazes. This activity will help extended their basic understanding of sequencing, create a connection between an idea they already know to a key concept of problem-solving and programing.

Bugs! That's a BUG! 

We began this activity by having the students "think" about a time they made a mistake. After a few moments to think, I shared an example with the class. It went something like this, "One day, I was writing my name and wrote the wrong letter. I made a mistake! Everyone, what I did I make?" The class responded with, "You made a mistake!" I continued to build the excitement in the room. I asked if anyone wanted to share a mistake they had made with the class. After my first volunteer, I had the class respond to their idea by finishing my statement. I repeated the students mistake, "When he spilled his milk, he made a ______!" The class all joined in to finish my statement with mistake. Before calling on the next student, I introduced our concept for today's activity. I told the students, in programming when there is a mistake we call that a bug! So I changed my sentence frame to include this concept. Instead, I said, "When he spilled his milk, that' a BUG!"  We continued to let students share examples of mistakes or problems. After each example, I repeated the mistake and the students responded with "That's a BUG!" This really helped the students develop a strong connection that in programming the word "BUG" means a problem, mistake or error! In programming we need to find bugs and fix them. When we fix problems, we call that debugging!

Next we played a video on debugging by code.org on YouTube. Check out this video here! After watching the video, we introduced the Debugging: Sequence and Algorithm level in Kodable. The students were all excited to see the "bug" in the maze. Our introduction activity helped the students gain an understanding to why their was a "bug" in their maze and they knew their was a mistake that they needed to find and fix in their code.

During centers, all the students had an opportunity to continue working programming their alien Fuzz Friends through the mazes of Kodable!

Using QR Codes in the Classroom

Have you seen QR codes on products in the store? How about on your fast food cups and bags from the store? Flyers in the mail? QR codes have been showing up everywhere. Where have you seen them? Should they be used in the classroom??

OF COURSE! 

QR codes can serve many different purposes in the classroom. 

QR stands for Quick Response. Once a QR code is scanned with a QR code reader, the embedded content in the QR code is instantly shared. QR codes can be linked to online websites, videos, contain audio and text information. QR codes can be linked to anything related to your classroom.

Do you have a classroom website? You can create a QR code for your website to send home to parents to easily scan your QR code to access your website. Do your students produce digital work? You can create QR codes to share their work. These QR codes could be printed and used to make a bulletin board. Do you want integrate technology into your classroom with a fun, engaging activity? You can link reading or questions to QR Codes which require your students to scan the QR code to discover their assignment. These QR Codes can be printed on a handout or posted around the room for a scavenger hunt!!

Making your own QR codes are easy! In Monday's Tech Madness session on using QR Codes in the Classroom we explored two different options for creating your own QR codes. My personal favorite is using the website, QRstuff.com! This website allows you to paste links to any online site or type your own content to instantly create your own QR code. You can easily change the color of your QR Code and download the QR code image to easily be uploaded into any word processing program. Another easy way to create your own QR codes is using Google's URL shortener and clicking on details to access a QR code for your website.

There are many FREE QR code readers available for iOS and Android devices. If you have iPads, I highly recommend using QR Code Reader by Scan to have students scan QR codes. This App works well and does not contain Ads like other options I have tried out before.

Coding with Kodable

With so many things going on in the world of Educational Technology right now, I've lost track of time and have forgotten to make time for blogging! I need to start making blogging a priority and continuing to document and share my journey.  Last week I was busy everyday, from team teaching and demo lessons to attending an all day conference head at the Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco! What an AMAZING experience!!! Common Sense Media rocked their first Teacher Institute!

Link to Slides

Even though I have been slacking on my blog posts, I am rocking my professional development goal for myself! This year, I am trying to provided weekly, hour-long, technology related PD opportunities for any and all teachers in my district. Anyone can sign up and come learn about a new tool, concept or strategy for free. This week's Monday Tech Madness session was on coding with Kodable! Check out the slides here! 

Building your PLN with Twitter

This week's Monday Tech Madness session focuses on how to build your professional, or also known as personal, learning network (PLN) with Twitter! Our district is encouraging all schools and teachers to jump onto Twitter to share what is going on in classrooms around our district!



Besides sharing out ideas, activities, and resources, Twitter is a great place to find others sharing just like you! Educators are on Twitter sharing ideas, connecting with each and learning about new tools. Twitter chats are great opportunities to share and learn from others on topics that interest you! Don't forget to check out #FSUSD and #FSEdTech to see all the fabulous things happening in our district!

Click here to check out the presentation slides! 

Visit from KODABLE

If you are looking for a great resource to introduce and teach computer programming to your students, don't forget to check out Kodable! They are now across platforms, and work well on both iPads and ChromeBooks.

Our district started our adventure using Kodable with our KinderReady program during the summer of 2014. We extended the use of Kodable into all TK and Kindergarten classrooms at our seven title 1 schools last fall.

We have decided to continue using Kodable as a part of our district's curriculum options to support our teachers teach and students learn about computer programming through coding.

Why Kodable? Kodable helps introduce and teach foundation coding skills to students at an early age. Students program their Fuzz Friends through mazes by writing codes with arrows with the correct directions. Kodable has greatly expanded their curriculum and now offer great unplugged, or screen-free lesson resources related to computer programming with Kodable.

This morning, I had the pleasure and opportunity to meet the creator of Kodable, Grechen Huebner and Brie Gray! We invited them to come out to see Kodable at one of our schools and help us better understand all their new resources available to teachers! What a FUN morning it was!


Our Kindergarten students learned to program a human robot to walk across the room! After we programed, Brie Gray, students tested out our code to program students from their class. My favorite part of this activity was that a "high five" activated our code! This really helped foster a deeper understanding for our Kindergarten students. Students were able to connect their unplugged lesson to the purpose of using the arrows in Kodable to program their Fuzz Friends through the maze.

Coding Session TODAY!

This week's Monday Tech Madness professional development opportunity is a teaser session on Code.org's code studio curriculum.

Click Here to View Slides

Over the summer our district became an official K-5 affiliate! One of our Ed Tech Specialists attended an intensive training and brought back her knowledge to spread throughout our district! With our knowledge and my own personal experience teaching Code.org's code studio curriculum to my fifth graders, I created an introductory presentation that provides the basics of using their K-5 Curriculum in the classroom.

If you are new to Code.org's code studio curriculum, you will need to create your account first! I highly recommend creating your account by logging in with Google, if you teach in a GAFE district. Once you have a teacher account, you can create your class account for your students. You will need to add a new session for each account you teach. Depending your students, you have three different login types. With younger students, I recommend using a picture. Older students can use secret words or their email to login. Also, you will need to decide which course would be best for your students. Here is an overview of each course that is helpful in deciding where to you should begin! They also have a Course 4 in Beta and are expanding their curriculum for Middle School and High School students.

Course URL Address 

Students will need to access your course by signing in on your personalized URL address. For younger (and sometimes older students) this step could be challenging since the URL might look something like this:

QR Code links to Section Login

http://studio.code.org/sections/TKBKTS

Here are a few steps that could hep make this simpler! Think about creating a QR code for students to scan to take them to their login, or have a buddy class come help your students bookmark the page for future or link the website to your teacher website for students to quickly find! Planning this important step will help make the delivery of introducing Code.org's code studio curriculum much easier for you and your students!    

Course Structure

Each course follows a similar design and has 20 stages, or lessons. Each stage is designed to take students about an hour and might contain an unplugged lesson or puzzles to complete online. The unplugged lessons are one of my favorite components of Code.org's code studio curriculum. These lessons introduce and reinforce key coding vocabulary and provide students a deeper understanding of concepts. 

Want to Learn More? 

If you are interested in learning more about Code.org's code studio curriculum, please click here to find a workshop near you! 

Shadow Puppet Edu? YES PLEASE!

Have you heard of Shadow Puppet Edu yet?? This App is FREE and has nothing to do with shadows or puppets or bunnies like the App's icon suggests! Do NOT let this App's name fool you! Students as young as FIVE can use Shadow Puppet Edu to create movies!

                          Simple as 1-2-3

Shadow Puppet Edu is a fabulous tool for creating videos from images and up to 30-second video clips. Simply take photos or video footage with your iPad's camera, or add content from other Apps into your camera role then access those items within Shadow Puppet Edu to create your movie. In addition, Shadow Puppet Edu has built content of maps, famous landmarks and more! Once you select your images and/or video clips, you can rearrange their order then click next to begin recording your video!

Once you tap the big green start button, it will pop up with a count down 3-2-1 then you will be recording! The bottom screen will display the recording time in red counter with a pause button.

While recording a "magic" wand will appear as an option on the lefthand side. This will allow you to select an icon that you can tap anywhere on the screen to display. You can also add text and music to your movie project. If you selected more than one item to add to your movie, then you will have arrows to transition to the next image or video clip.

Once you are finished or would like to preview your movie, click the green save! Next, you will see a prompt that will give you a few options, including previewing and continuing to record or start over, save and send your movie directly to Seesaw!

Here is my Monday Tech Madness presentation on Shadow Puppet Edu! This App can be used to help students create and demonstrate their learning! Students can create audiobooks, practice their reading fluency, explain their thinking, and reflect on their work! The possibilities are truly endless!

Online Field Trip to the San Diego Zoo

If you haven't heard about Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship Curriculum yet, then you must stop reading this post and head over there immediately... then of course you should come back to finish reading this post! Common Sense Media is a gold mine of resources for all Educators, Parents, Families and Kids!

Common Sense Media truly has captured the art of sharing and talking about common sense issues that are at the heart of building strong digital citizenship skills in our students.

Going Places Safely Lesson 

In a previous blog post, Need Help Teaching Digital Citizenship? I mentioned that our awesome district has created a district-wide scope and sequence map that utilizes Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship Curriculum for all students. We are in the beginning stages of implementing this plan! In a conversation I had with one of my Kindergarten teachers, I came up with an idea to develop a resource to help teachers teach their required lesson from Unit 1: Going Places Safely. Based on Common Sense Media's lesson plan, I created a Google Slides presentation with the intention teachers can glance through the slides, view the lesson plan, print any resources they would like to use and then seamlessly teach the lesson with minimal time spend prepping for the lesson.

Model Lesson 

Click her to view Slides

Since I developed this idea during a conversation with one of my teachers, she volunteered her class to test out the lesson. Last week I had the opportunity to teach this exact lesson in her classroom. I had a blast teaching this lesson with her students!!! When teaching a room filled with Kindergartners, you have to be prepared for anything, energetic, engaging and intentionally switch things up every few minutes to keep students focused on your lesson.


We began this lesson sitting on their carpet. I introduced our lesson and had students immediately thinking about trips they had taken with their families. We quickly had students turn to their partner. This classroom uses "Mac" and "Cheese" to assign roles when working with partners to pair-share their ideas. These students haven't even been in school for a full month yet, but they have already grasped the routine for pair sharing! Such an important and essential routine necessary to promote collaborative conversations in the classroom.

Next, we took our imaginary field trip! We had students stand up to act out our actions together. It went a little something like this, "Going on a field trip! Gotta put on our jackets. We have to put on our backpacks and walk to the bus. Once we get to the bus, we have to climb up the stairs. Once up the stairs, we have to walk to our seat. We have to sit down. This bus sure is bumpy. (Students pretended to be experiencing a bumpy ride). Phew! We finally made it! Gotta stand up, walk off the bus and down the stairs. Once down the stairs we have to wait inline for our ticket! Now that we have our ticket, what do we need to remember to keep us safe?? Once there, we had students sit back down to discuss important rules to keep us safe.

Since today, we were going to be taking an online field trip, we watched a movie about Jeremiah's online neighborhood. The students were so excited about Jeremiah's experiences on the computer. After watching the short video, we discussed what we saw in the video and reviewed Jeremiah's three rules for going online. Our Kindergarten students used the App, QR Code Reader by Scan to scan a QR Code that was linked to the San Diego Zoo's website. (Created with QRStuff.com and Google Docs)

Even with the best preparations completed before a technology lesson, there is always a risk that you might run into a few glitches... And this lesson was no exception! Unfortunately when this App was pushed out to her classroom's iPads, the App did not load correctly. Once we discovered this issue, we quickly switched to an unplanned plan B! We announced that our bus BROKE down, and that while it is being fixed, they could go explore another App on their iPad, Starfall FREE!

After a few problem solving fixes on the computer, I was able to get the QR Code App working for most of her iPads. We switched students from Starfall FREE onto the QR Code App, where once the students scanned the code, they immediately arrived at their field trip destination: The San Diego Zoo!

Online field trips are FUN! After exploring around at the San Diego Zoo, students were instructed to push home, and flip to show us Apples! This is a classroom management strategy to get students to quickly switch from one activity to the next when using their iPads. Since these cases have a circular hole on the back that allows you to see the Apple logo on the back, teachers tend to transition students with the words, "flip and show me Apples" or with other cases or older students, you could say "flip and lock" when you need students to focus on you or transition to the next activity. We had students travel back to the carpet to end our lesson with a class discussion about their field trip!