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Digital Art Portfolios

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Tana Rosehill is our Art Teacher.  Mrs. Rosehill wanted to make the integration of iPads meaningful for students so she decided to use the tool to encourage our student artists to reflect on their own work.  Using the app Book Creator, every 5th grader at our school has created an Art Portfolio.

The students went through a process of reflectively writing about their work and what it means to be an artist.  Mrs. Rosehill also found a whole new opportunity for lessons.  As the students were putting together their portfolios they were reminded about key art concepts in the actual design and placement of the components of their portfolios.

Here are a few screenshots that showcase some of their portfolios.  The students all did an excellent job!

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Tutorials – Backing Up iPad and File Sharing

There is so much to learn about photos and videos on our iPads!  These tutorials will help you learn a few tips to managing content on your iPad.  Please note that these tutorials are for teacher iPads only.  There is a separate process for saving work/photos/videos on student iPads that will be shared with teachers and students in late April. 

iTunes – Backing Up Your iPad

iTunes – File Sharing – Getting Documents from your iPad to Your Computer

iPhoto – Saving Photos and Videos from your iPad onto Your Computer

Photos – Organizing and Managing Photos/Videos on Your iPad (coming soon – by 4/16)

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Google Forms for Formative Assessment

Fifth grade teacher, Karyl Ah Hee, has been enjoying the journey with 1:1 iPads in her classroom this year.  There are many ways that Mrs. Ah Hee is using technology to enhance learning but one of the simple ways is using google forms in Math.

Mrs. Ah Hee uses google forms to formatively assess her students.  Google forms is a great choice for formative assessment because it allows students to be assess in a non-threatening way.  Students honestly answer questions and then Mrs. Ah Hee is able to look at the break down of their answers (using the tables and charts that google forms creates)!  This data is used to create groups, see who needs more support, and see who can move on to more complex tasks or concepts.

One of the reasons Mrs. Ah Hee enjoys using google forms is because it is fast.  The use of technology also helps engage her students.  Data needs to drive instruction and google forms gives a clear snapshot with information that can immediately help teachers make decisions.

Check out Mrs. Ah Hee’s blog post – Figuring out Fractions to see one example of how students access a form.  To make it quick for students she creates the assignment in google forms and then creates a QR code to that assignment.  All the students have to do is scan the code and complete the form!

Are you interested in using Google Forms in your classroom?  Here are some great tutorials to help you get started!

 

 

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5th Graders Skype with Laura Schroff

Mrs. Ah Hee is an amazing fifth grade teacher at our school.  My entire blog could be post after post describing the wonderful things that she is doing every day with her students.

Today was a very special day!  The students were able to Skype with Laura Schroff, author of “An Invisible Thread.”  These particular students have had many Skype sessions over the past few years with some pretty awesome people from places all over the world, but this may have been the most excited I have seen them before a Skype.  We asked her questions, she gave us advice, we shared with her, and she shared with us.  We mahalo her from the bottom of our hearts for taking the time to Skype with us!

You can see a few pictures and video clips of our Skype in the video below:

 

 

 

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Safari Tips and Tricks on iOS

During our January iPad Playground we covered a few tips and tricks for using Safari on your iPad.  You can print out and use the cheat sheet below to remember some of the things we went over.  As always, contact me if you have any questions!

Safari tips and tricks

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Using Tech to Connect – 5th Graders Study Colonization

Fifth grade teacher Nani Pai is using technology to connect her students with other indigenous peoples around the world.  Watch the video below to hear Kumu Pai discuss her goals for the project.

The students have been fortunate to Skype with a number of students and teachers from all over the world.  Click on the Map below to view excerpts of their Skype sessions.

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Second Grade Bloggers!!

The second graders in Mrs. Oyama’s class are bloggers.  They have been learning how to use the wordpress app on their iPads to write blog posts.  They are very excited about being bloggers and sharing their work with the world!

Mrs. Oyama’s goal of having her students blog began with an idea that she could use the writing process to create meaningful publishing opportunities for her students.  From the moment she first introduced the idea to her students they have been excited.

The first thing they did was make a page called Nā Hōkū o Ka Lani.  On this page they introduced themselves and used the app Drawing Pad to draw a picture which they uploaded to the blog from their iPads.

Their next step was to partner with another student and pick a topic to create a blog post about.  Using the writing process the students went through note-taking, rough drafts, and editing before they published their final pieces on the blog.  They used iMovie to publish their final pieces.  You can view their blog here.

Below is a short video with Mrs. Oyama and a few of her students talking about blogging.

This blogging unit aligns to:

SAMR –

NETS-S –

Danielson Domain –

 

 

 

 

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Our Teachers are Jumping in with their iPads!!

It has only been a little more than a month since we rolled out and our teachers are already doing so many amazing things!  This blog post would go on for days if I talked about all the ways technology is being used in the day to day learning of our students.  But, I will talk about a few of the awesome things that are happening.

Yesterday during our faculty meeting Kumu Derr and Ms. Manliguis shared about the kindergarten/third grade collaboration that is happening.  The third graders are helping the kindergarteners explore informational text.  Check out the short video that Ms. Manliguis made that explains the collaboration:

Mrs. Oyama’s second graders have been busy blogging!  That’s right!  Blogging!  Check out their latest work here – an autobiographical page for their blog!  The students were so excited when they learned that their writing and artwork was going to be published on the blog for all the world to see!

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Here they are working hard typing their final draft into the WordPress app.

 

 

 

In Art the kindergarteners are beginning to create their self-portraits.  After discussing self-portraits with the class, Mrs. Rosehill showed the students how to take a picture of themselves with their iPad.  The students then referred to their picture as they drew their self-portraits.  They are wonderful little artists!

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Here is Mrs. Ah Hee and her fifth graders.  Mrs. Ah Hee created a google form for the students to complete, they did so rather quickly on their iPads and Mrs. Ah Hee shared the results with them immediately.  In the words of the students, it was “very cooooool!”

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iPads in the Library

Kanani DeSa, or Kumu Kanani as our students lovingly call her, is the librarian at our elementary school.  She works with students in grades K-5 and loves integrating technology in her lessons.

One of the most recent projects she has implemented was a Biography unit with third graders.  Having iPads allowed Kumu Kanani to enhance her lesson in a number of ways.  One of the biggest was the fact that she was able to go completely paperless!  This not only helped our environment but made the unit more engaging for students.

Kumu Kanani began the unit with a mini-lesson that defined the biography genre.  She used the keynote to create her presentation.  You can view her presentation as a movie here:

That went by pretty fast, didn’t it!  To download the keynote file you can click here:

Intro Biography Kumu Kanani

After the mini lesson the third graders scanned a QR code with an app called i-nigma.  The QR code took them to Kumu Kanani’s blog where they were able to download a digital worksheet.

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This project aligns with:

SAMR –

NETS-S –

Danielson Domain –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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After opening the digital worksheet in Pages, the students completed their work and emailed it to Kumu Kanani as a PDF when they were finished.

Here is one student’s completed worksheet:
5-Ws-of-Biography – Student Sample – 3b

The integration of tech, a FABULOUS librarian, and an interesting topic have helped these third graders off to a great start on their biography unit!

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