Genius Hour is on!

Today was an exciting day at the Shepard classrooms. I got to come out and launch our Genius Hour project. This project is probably the thing I'm looking forward to the most this year. If you aren't familiar with Genius Hour, check out the site I created to house our resources: CPS Genius Hour. 

I think the best part about coming out to the classrooms now is that they all seem so excited to see me. I imagine that's how grandparents feel. So for today, I walked them through a couple of things. First, we all experienced a Kid President pep talk. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check it out. I wasn't sure how it would translate to third graders, but I think they understood quite a bit. After the pep talk, I asked what the Kid President's message was. They offered great ideas like "never give up", "you're in charge", and "we are all on the same team". And it's a funny video, so that always scores points. 

Second, I went through a Haiku Deck presentation I made to highlight the goals of Genius Hour. It was really fun and easy to make. The students really loved the pictures, and because you can't put much text on the slides, the message was very clear. Basically, we are going with four rules of Genius Hour:

1. The project must be approved by your teacher
2. You must research your question
3. Create a passion project to show your learning
4. Present and share your project to others

By the time we were finished, you could feel the excitement in the room. We could tell that most of the students already had ideas in mind for their first projects. Several asked whether they could make slideshows or videos. Yes and yes. Some wondered how many projects they could do. As many as you want. 

The next step is to start coming up with questions and wonderings. Mrs. Heath and Mrs. Guillory have their boards up and ready to receive responses. I look forward to coming back next week to see what they have put up there. If this first meeting is any indication, I think it's going to be a great year.  

Classroom Evernote Accounts

iPads are a great productivity tool. You just have to rethink the old ways of doing things. For example, the biggest complaint I still hear is "there isn't Word for the iPad". Who cares? There are several great, free alternatives. Evernote has always been one of my favorites. So when it came time to think of how our students could research, word process, and publish with their iPads, Evernote seemed like a great place to start.

Last week, I created two classroom accounts, one for Mrs. Guillory and one for Mrs. Heath. The plan is to use these as a shared drive for students to create and manage their work. There are several benefits for Evernote in this structure. 

First, we can create a notebook for each student to use. It will take some teaching, but the goal is for students to learn how to create notes in their notebook. Then they'll be able to store all of their files for the entire year, a kind of portfolio. Yes, they'll have access to their classmates' work, but they've always had that with their shared drives as well. So I don't think it's that big a deal. 

Second, the Evernote app allows for sign-in/sign-out. I went and signed in on each of the ten iPads in each classroom. Now when the students open the Evernote app, it automatically takes them into their class account. We aren't going to need to sign in each time which will save a lot of instructional time. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this works. I think it will be great for word processing and compiling research materials. I'm sure we'll have to make modifications along the way, but that's what makes it so fun. 

All about me

Last Thursday, I got to spend time with all three of my current third grade classrooms. It was a lot of driving around, but well worth it. Each teacher gave me about 30 minutes to introduce myself and tell a little bit about my life. I decided to make an iMovie trailer to show what I'm all about. You can watch it here:

All about Mr. Villasana video

We also were able to chat about the fun things we are going to do this year: iPads, Genius Hours, blogging, tweeting, and more. In Maggie's room, I also read the new classic, Goodnight iPad. It was a lot of fun.

First Student-Created Videos

I'm impressed. It's just the third day of school and we've already finished our first student-created videos in the Shepard classrooms. The project was to create a tour of the classroom that we'd be able to share with anyone. Here's how we made it happen.

We decided to use the app 30Hands to create the video. If you aren't familiar with the app, you should check it out. It lets you take pictures, add narration, and publish as a movie. Both classes organized their video first by brainstorming the content. They came up with a list of spots in their room that were important for day-to-day operations. Examples were the lunch tub, class library, desks, iPad area, and classroom job board. Then students were assigned expert areas to highlight in the video. That was the hard part.

In both classrooms, we pulled the expert groups to create their segment. The other students had other work to do while they waited. The project was completed on one iPad to make it simpler. Each group only took about five minutes to make their segment, which would have been shorter had we not needed a few minutes to show how the app worked. We had two jobs, the photographer and the speaker(s). One took the pictures, we quickly worked up a short statement, and then recorded. If a mistake was made, it was really easy to rerecord. Of course, they loved listening to their finished segment.

After all the groups were finished, we simply published the video to the camera roll. We then let the class see the finished product via Airserver. It was great. And so easy. I'm heading back there after school to work on publishing the videos to the web. I'll send out the links as soon as we get that part started. 

Scavenger Hunt in Action

Today was an exciting day at Shepard! The students got to use the iPads for the first time. In the morning, students worked to come up with a contract for how they should use the iPads (I'll put examples up later). Then when I arrived, we got going on the scavenger hunt.

I was really impressed at how easily they went through most of the tasks. I gave them a little bit of background and just a few hints. I showed them how to access the smart search to find apps. We walked through what to do when you get certain popups like "push notifications" and "location services". They handled it well. 

The toughest part of the hunt was definitely sending their picture to the teacher in an email. Mrs. Guillory's class found out that they could just type in "Leanna" and her email popped up. I don't think Mrs. Heath's class found that out. But it was really cool to see all the emails appear on the teachers' screens announcing the arrival of a funny picture. I think that's going to be a huge help during the year. 

We ended up with a QR code. They did an awesome job of reading the code. Those are going to be all over the place this year, both as teacher created resources as well as links to student work. 

I couldn't have been happier with how today turned out. They handled the iPads very well. They were excited and then disappointed when it was time to stop. In fact, Mrs. Guillory's class decided to skip recess and Mrs. Heath's class didn't even complain even though it was approaching 90 degrees in their trailer. Hot. 

First Day of School 2013

Usually, the first day of school is pretty slow for me. Teachers are doing their own things and don't usually need support. But this year was much different. Susan and Leanna invited me in to be a part of their first days. It was a lot of fun getting to help pass out papers, organize supplies, and see the cool things that they prepared for today.

First off, both Susan and Leanna made a short video about playground expectations using the app 30Hands. I gave them this assignment so they could learn the app and model how students would be using it. We plan on using the app with students later this week. It went really well. The students were so engaged. They learned in five minutes what would normally occur in a half hour walking around the playground. Of course, it will be seen how well the information was learned. I left before lunch/recess...


I was also impressed with Susan's surprise use of a word sorting app. She had all the students' names on cards with headings for how they would be getting home. While some students were setting up their desks, other passed her iPad around and moved their name to the correct heading. And she was displaying it using Airserver. Very cool. 

This afternoon, both classes were going to work on their iPad handling and usage expectations contract. They'll have those signed before they start using them tomorrow.

I was a great morning. I think it was a nice blend of using new tools alongside the established routines. Which is exactly how we were hoping to start out. I'll let you know tomorrow how our scavenger hunt goes. 

Sites are ready to go!

After just a short time, Leanna and Susan have their classroom blog/site ready for publication. They were surprised at how easy it was to put create posts, pages, and add helpful widgets on the sidebar. Our goal to start the year is to have one post written each week. That's the theme: start small. Here are the links to their new sites. Follow them to keep up with their learning throughout the year. 

Susan Heath's "Thoughts of a Third Grader"

Leanna Guillory's "Third Grade Class"