Seesaw = Digital Portfolios of Progress!

The chromebooks have arrived!

Download for free!

Now that we are a 1:1 school, I can use technology any time. No making deals with other teachers, so that we can have the laptop cart. No searching for the cart that I did check out. 
So much to be thankful for!

Recently, I shared my initial impressions of Seesaw. Well, I was clueless! Since then, I've learned that anything shareable, can be shared on Seesaw.

I have printed my class QR codes to give to parents at conferences. As long as they have an iOS, Android, chromebook, or any computer using Firefox or Chrome Browsers, they can stay up to date on their child's work.

Other reasons for my love of Seesaw:

• Seesaw has student activity ideas. I will be using a few of those, so that my students can get comfortable with uploading their own work. I've been a bit of a control freak until now.
• Teachers can flag work. I have flagged a student's work that I want to share at her Annual IEP Review, this week! I don't want to be distracted by work that we have already discussed.
• Students can share to Seesaw from Shadow Puppet Edu, Haiku Deck, Storybird.com, ChatterPix Kids, and Total Recall!
• Simple to monitor IEP goals, without pulling students from grade level instruction
• Students can snap pics of their work. Then they can add text, drawing or voice, before sharing to the class journal.
• Your class can even blog, connecting with a global audience!
• If you are feeling especially proud of your students, you can tweet their work. Seesaw's posts remove all personal information, so that the students' anonymity is protected.
• Free!
• No Passwords!
• Promotes strong communication between home and school.
• I still love it most, because it is a portable, organized way to share multiple students' Portfolios of Progress!  

Bye, bye paper!

Seesawed at an IEP Meeting

I could not be more pleased with how easy and convenient Seesaw is to use! I have been putting if off, because I thought it would take time to figure out. Wrong! I looked at it after work and was using it at an IEP Meeting in the morning!

All you do is add your students and start uploading their work! With a few touches I was able to show parents the improvement their child has made in math and writing. You can upload documents and include links to work students have done on-line, such as Storybird books and Shadow Puppets.

There is so much more, such as the ability to share student work with other students and to invite parents to view on-line. I want it for organizing data to share with parents at meetings.

Folder portfolios are not too cumbersome, but this is less to muddle around with and it's technology. Gotta stay with the times, ya know!

The Good, the Bad and the Pretty

The Good

Engagement

My small groups are loving Nearpod! When my Haiku vocabulary lessons, and Touchcast and Powtoon videos were integrated with Nearpod, my lessons were infused with "Woah! What just happened?" and "Cool! Is that your voice, Mrs. Michalski?"

Concentration~
He was the star of the lesson!

It was nice to be able to share student examples anonymously, in order to discuss what could be done to make them better and what was done well.

I particularly enjoyed how careful they were to edit their sentences, before submitting them to be viewed by the group!

I shared two Haikus on Meaningful Sentences and the Powtoon video on prepositional phrases with the classroom teachers. Two of them used everything I shared. This has been an exciting adventure; more engaging for myself and students than I expected.

The Bad
My Touchcast was pretty bad! I was tired and slow at using the app, and it showed in the lesson! I will definitely use it again, when I'm more alert.

Another bad experience is currently with ShadowPuppet. One of my reading groups worked hard on a readers' theater. They practiced reading with expression, took pictures of the illustrations and marked up their parts, so that they would be able to pass the iPad around to each other efficiently. Alas! the microphone is not working in the app. I get a message that says the mic is being used by another app. Blasted! I have closed all apps, checked settings for sound and for ShadowPuppet.edu; even restarted the iPad. No luck. Honestly, I will go into a depression, if I cannot use ShadowPuppet any more! Help 880j!

The Pretty

Students' First Map
~below grade level

Total Recall is a great app for reading comprehension and recall. An unexpected benefit of using Total Recall is that a student who has terrible speech patterns and intense stuttering, made an enormous effort to think carefully and focus while verbally filling in his bubbles! I was not prepared for how motivating it would be for him. He is not self-conscious at all about his speech, so he will stutter and blurt out frequently. He quickly learned, without feeling judged, that he simply will not be understood unless he slows down and forms the sentence in his mind before saying it aloud. Also, the maps are pretty!

Remember how cautious I was at the beginning of the semester? No more. I've embraced the technology I've been exposed to. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Students' First Map
~far below grade level

The next maps will be more complex. I think I will present them with the first bubbles that they can edit, and let them take it from there; something like this...

Follow Up: It worked beautifully! Here is the students' finished map...

New Haiku for Vocab and the Students' Storybird Books!

Unit 2 Week 4

I spent 10 minutes making the above vocabulary presentation. Even though we've been working on these words all week, the kids enjoyed a different representation of each word. It's also good for them to see meaningful sentences written differently than the ones that come with the curriculum. I'm wondering if I can put this into Nearpod to make it more interactive...

These stories were written after planning their beginning, middle and end with illustrations. I was impressed that J.K. who has autism and a very hard time with language was taking his time. He was asking for feedback and using it! I think he took pride in making his own book. This took him two weeks to complete. Whereas K.K.'s was done in about 45 minutes. ;)

J.K.'s Story

I'm having so much fun learning how to use these new sites and apps. My fear is that I will not continue to stretch myself once this class is over.

PowToon, TechEDGE, GetEPIC and Twitter Chats!

Flipped Classroom? Maybe not yet...

I truly hope this is easier next time, but here is the link to the corny PowToon video I made for my writers and readers!

Seriously Folks. It took me a day to make this and it's a template!

I was agonizing over what my first screencast topic should be! I went with prepositional phrases, because they are tested heavily in Unit 2, and every year they are a struggle. Furthermore, my students need all the help they can get with forming complete sentences.

The thing I wanted to do most was incorporate quizzes and videos, but that didn't happen this time. I have lots to learn and it should be an exciting process! The thing I thought most bizarre, was the fact that you are expected to do the voiceover first! So, you write a script, record it, then make the slides.

That was just too backwards for me so I had to go through quite the process to complete my PowToon. I made the slides first. The animation is a tedious process which took me forever, yet it did get easier throughout. Once my slides were complete, I then had to record the movie on the iPad as it played on the computer. This is because you cannot do the voiceover while watching the video. :/ So, the voice over recorded is based on the video that was taken on a different device. It certainly worked better than doing it blind, but it isn't a perfect match at all times.

The second thing that freaked me out was the fact that you have to record the entire voiceover in one shot! Oh my! Recording each slide or while viewing the video would have been so much easier. Maybe this is why it is not one of the tools recommended in class?? Silly me. Not sure why this one appealed to me. I think I would try it again. Once you put in the work, it's there to use repeatedly.

EPIC!

My students love EPIC! When they get their own devices, I will be able to log them in and with their four-digit code, they will be able to access their books of preference at any time. Nice! I love how students get to choose books that they are interested it. I will be learning more about this during the coming months. Love that it's free for teachers.

Twitterbug in Twitterverse!

I've participated in several Twitter chats the past couple weeks. They are fast-paced and can be fun, if you love the topic. As a technology newbie, I just listened and learned during the #edtech chat, but on the #SpEdChat and #nebedchat, I felt I had something to add to the conversations. People are friendly and enthusiastic. They encourage participation. It seems like a great way to connect with like-minded professionals, who are also obsessed with teaching and education.

TechEDGE Conference tomorrow!

No doubt about it. It will be information overload, but I'm looking forward to it. I want to more about Google Everything, Epic and online Storyboards. I'm exhausted, so I should check out the break-out sessions and charge my devices.

Edit 10/18/15: At the TechEDGE conference, my co-worker, Molly Barnett, was the one I learned the most from! Her introductions of Nearpod and Blendspace were perfect! I wish I could have gone to another session that was taught by one of my classmates, but it didn't work out.

Getting More Comfortable

This week was all about getting more comfortable using the technology available in the school building, experiencing a twitter chat, and trying out Story Bird, which was recommended by a colleague. The classroom teachers that I co-teach with are always in charge of the projector, smart board, apple TV, and iPad mini. Unfortunately, support staff in our building does not have any of these cool tools. That results in a feeling of appearing slightly less competent when we teach in the general education room. I will take some of the blame, since I know they are used to these things, I let them do it all. That is why a teacher's absence was a blessing in disguise. I discovered that I am perfectly capable of managing the technology, even in her absence. I still used my personal iPad, since I don't know where she keeps the mini and I'm comfy with mine. Anyway, I managed to show the class a video, using the Apple TV and projector, and model the graphic organizer using the document camera with no problem. I'm growing up!

I participated in a Twitter chat, #nebedchat on Wednesday night. At first, it seemed random. Then I realized that I had to click "all tweets" in order to follow the entire conversation. After that, I enjoyed it. It was fast paced and fun! The moderators (not sure what they are actually called) posed a question (Q1, etc...) The answers are labeled by the participants (A1, etc...) so that everyone knows what they are responding to. I would do this again!

Story Bird will require more tinkering. I added a student to my class, but he has had to work on his book in my account, since we can't get his log-in to work. Once we work out this glitch, I will add other writers. It is awesome, because the illustrations trigger their imaginations, much like a good writing prompt. My student who struggles to write a sentence, has written a paragraph for each picture! THAT is worth a little extra time to figure out.

More Technology on the Way!

We learned yesterday, that our district will be providing 3-5th graders with their own Chromebooks, midyear. Also coming soon is text to speech as an accommodation for students with disabilities. I have used free text to speech applications, but they do not sound very natural. Hopefully this will be an improvement.

It was another exciting week in special education!

Shadow Puppet Edu

Everyone has Something To Say.

The majority of my students with social and cognitive issues initially hate writing. They shut down at the mere mention of a sentence. My primary goal every year, is to motivate them. When they are motivated, wonderful things happen. Three of the best moments in my young teaching career have involved writing.

The first one was a student with a learning disability, living in an unstable home. His positive attitude about writing was rare and refreshing. 

He said, "I love writing, because it helps me get my feelings out."

Another moment involved a student with emotional disturbance, who had rarely been in the classroom due to behavior issues until 5th grade. Although an extensive amount of scaffolding was required, he ended up having such a powerful message to share. He wrote about his brave dad helping the US Army in Iraq. He described feeling safe for the first time, when his family landed in the States. His dad was dying from cancer at the time my student was writing his story. Writing was a way for him to sneak out from under his anger to express himself. 

The final moment was a student with Aspergers, who wrote a story about his 4th grade teacher. It began with his first impression of her being an old hag! By the end of his story, there was no doubt he loved her and she was the best teacher in the world! When he shared with the class, he was a one-man show; extremely entertaining and not a bit self conscious. 

Most of the time, my students are convinced they have nothing to say. Shadow Puppet was a great motivator for them, making it a perfect first writing project of the year. Shadow Puppet is easy for students to use. There is no visual clutter on the site; just simple steps to follow. They loved choosing the background music and recording themselves!

I have shared the students' puppets below. Unfortunately, one of them works in the app, but when I share it via a link or in email, it doesn't play the music. It's a small draw-back.

AC's Puppet

JK's Puppet

A Bit About Me