Learn Like a Pirate~Chapter 4

It's week 4 of the Learn Like a Pirate book study with The Primary Gal!

Chapter 4 is about improvement focus v. grade focus.

This is something I've been thinking a lot about recently, as I believe students need to make individual growth and improvement to be successful, not meet a blanket proficiency statement, so this chapter really resonated with me!

Too often, I see my students striving for that "A" on the test, but not remembering what they learned a week or a few months later, or not even caring about what they get.

We need to shift the focus of our students from the grades they receive to how they can improve themselves.

Some students will get paid for getting good grades (which I don't agree with), and others will be grounded for their grades (which I also don't agree with).

If there is a 'grade' problem, we should be working towards how we can improve upon that for the student!

Paul shows us that we can do this by giving feedback.

Feedback shouldn't be limited to teachers-some of the most meaningful feedback will come from peers!

Of course, we want the students to be able to see their growth, and how feedback has impacted their work.

Instead of having piles of papers on your desks-create a set of portfolios!

I've had writing portfolios for a few years, and I love seeing the changes in their writing from beginning to end.

Paul suggests having an ePortfolio-having it all online!

He does it through a blog (KidBlog, Blogger, etc. ) which has the ability for students to comment on each others work, but I think you could also do it through Evernote, (although that might be more teacher focused for data-see how I use it here!) or Seesaw would be another great option-and what I'll be attempting to use with my class this year (and I've already set up my class list for next year-I'm that excited)! I wrote more about it here.

Paper portfolios would work as well if you don't have the tech needed for ePortfolios. Our 5th grade has the students store all their work in a binder-that way, they can see the changes from the beginning of the trimester to the end.

I will definitely be focusing more on how students can improve-after all, the only person they're trying to beat is themselves. By constantly striving to do better, they won't be as dependent on the money of privileges they could earn for doing 'well'.

They'll be learning that you can always be better at something, and constantly reflecting on how to make that happen-which will (hopefully!) make them great members of society who work hard because they know it feels good.

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

The One iPad Class ~ Essentials, Part 2

This is part 2 of my essentials app post.

You can see Part 1 here.

First up is,
  {FREE} Remind is a way for you to stay in touch with your parents-without them having your phone number or them having yours! It can even work with students!

It's super easy to set up and use.

The Brown Bag Teacher and Flapjack Educational Resources both have posts on this (and I'm sure there are many more!)

Next is:
{$0.99} Team Shake. I first learned about this from Glitter in Third. It's a great way to create random teams and pairing in your classroom!

You just have to add your class list.

Decide if you want a certain number of teams, or a certain number of people.

Give it a shake and it will create the groups for you!

You can also use the 'pick one' feature to just pick on one student (similar to picking sticks)

Very easy to use, and it takes the fuss and bother out of partners!

Last, but certainly not least,
{FREE}Pinterest (What? That's old and outdated, you say!) I actually use this quite a lot in my class-especially when making anchor charts!

First, I follow a lot of educamation types of people, so my home page usually looks like this

(Although there are days when it's mostly crochet pictures :)

I will search during class for whatever skill we are working on, and I'll get to pull up a feed of things related to that skill. I can scroll through and pull out and mention the things that I think are important and relevant.

Plus, it's also good when you have a few minutes and want to procrastinate on the paper grading :) I mean, when all you papers are done being graded ;)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

The One iPad Class ~ Essentials, Part 1

Today is going to be some of the 'teacher essentials', things that help the class run smoothly!

In addition to all the other apps I've mentioned (especially notetaking apps!), I've found that there are some 'essentials' that I use almost every day.

{FREE w/ads; $2.99 w/o ads}Timer+ Now, I know that there are a bunch of timer apps out there, but this is the one I use. I did spend the $2.99 to get rid of the ads-they were in an awkward place when I was using it repeatedly for fluency checks.

I like it because I can set different sounds (and I like to pick fun ones!)

You can also choose different colors for the timers, as well as how long.

And  you can run multiple timers at the same time, plus it saves previous times, so you can just hit the start button.

I use it a lot when I'm doing a turn and talk, or having them do a timed assignment (or when I'm doing fluency checks!). This definitely comes in handy!

Next up is:
{FREE} Pandora! (Or any radio app). I play Pandora's classical music station or nature sounds station when it's independent work time.

I use it during reading groups, to remind the kids to keep it down when they are working on their independent work.  I'll also use it during math independent work as well.

I will run the internet station through my SMART Board speakers (my computer doesn't have speakers-and they were all replaced with new computers this summer-without internal speakers....), but if the SMART Board is off, I'll pull it up on the iPad.

My favorite thing is when the classical music station will play the instrumental version of the popular songs-and I'll start hearing my kids hum and sing along :)

Another one I like is:
{FREE/Premium $5.99/month} Show Me! You can use this to create quick videos or drawing models/skills.

 I used it to show the kids how to FAST-I had some absent the day we did it.

I've also found it handy to write notes to the kids when we were in a lockdown (for half an hour) and they were getting restless-reminders to be good! ;)

Another one like Show Me is:
{FREE/ Pro $11.99/month} Educreations. It works on a very similar principles, so it's up to you which one you choose. The free version only lets you have one saved video, while in Show Me you can have more. You can add photos to both and record over each. This'll be personal preference.

 The Primary Gal uses Educreations to do her math videos-something I'm hoping to work on over the summer!


Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

The One iPad Class ~ Library Apps

I've discovered a few apps that have helped make my library life easier.

Now, I'm going to start with book leveling, since I don't have students check out books-but I do have some apps for that too! (Fifth in the Middle also has a great post on this)

{FREE} Scholastic Book Wizard (just like the website) lets you scan books and add them into your library.

When it works, it will pull up the book with the different levels and description.

But a lot of times, I get this message instead...

What frustrates me about this is that the majority of the books that I buy are from Scholastic-and not listed in the wizard. 

After I scan (and actually get a book), I add it to my library. When I access it, it looks like

One that I really  like is
{$3.99} Literacy Leveler. Now, you can get it in a bundle with the classroom checkout app (and save a dollar). I only purchased the leveler, as the kids are free to take and return as many books as they like in my class.

When you scan a book, it looks like this:

If the book is not in the app, then

I have found that the number of books it doesn't know is way less than book wizard-I don't get that message very often.

Usually, I get

Sometimes it will have the DRA and GRL level filled in as well. If I need to add it to my library, I hit the "Add to My Library" in the corner. It will be blue if I need to add it. I do wish that is was bigger or in a better place-sometimes I forget to hit it.

When I access my library, this beauty pops up

I love that I can see the covers of the books.

It's also cool because it has this handy dandy chart built right into the app

This gives me a nice range for things.

One classroom checkout app that I have found is
{FREE} BookSource. This is also a web-based service, and you need to sign up through the internet before you download the app.

I use this one mostly to keep track of what books I have.

It scans super easy, and pretty much has every book that I've scanned.

Definitely not all of my library-in fact, these are just the fantasy-myth and fairy tales books I have!

The really cool thing is that I can assign genres, collect information on the condition of the book, students can review it and more-all from when they check the book in and out of the app.

Right now, I'm just starting to sort into genres. A summer project will be to scan all my books-maybe I'll start a checkout system next year (dependent on if I get some class iPads!)

Another app I found was Level It Books {$3.99}. I did not purchase it because it did not have the greatest reviews when I was looking at it, and I figured between the Scholastic Book Wizard and Literacy Leveler (which had better reviews, and that's why I purchased that one), I would be covered for most of my books.

Now I just have to go through all of my old books! :)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

The One iPad Class ~ Assessment Apps

Today I'm going to focus on the different apps I use to help me assess and gauge student progress.

Evernote helps a lot with this, as I take pictures of work and write observations. That post is here.

I've also found some fun apps that I'm excited to share with you!

Plickers {FREE} I've talked about Plickers before, but it bears mentioning again.

It's a quick, easy way for me to check understanding, and the kids always love holding up their cards and seeing their name checked off.

I also love how it tells me the percentage of students who go it right-and it's colored coded!

The closer to 100, the greener it is. It does turn to yellow, orange, and I'm assuming red (haven't had that one yet! ;). This lets me know if I need to refocus on a skill.

{FREE} Seesaw is a portfolio systems that can work with one iPad, or a class set of iPads. You can also share with parents!

You start by setting up a class.

You can easily add students, change their icons and delete students.

Once your class is set up-which takes like, two minutes, you're on the manage screen.

This is one of my favorite parts. The students can add their work through the app, but so can you. If you only have 1 iPad like me, you can still use this and share with parents. Plus, you get to 'approve' the things the students submit.

And, they don't have to submit just a picture-there are lots of options!

Students can easily log into their account through a QR code-never forgetting usernames or passwords!

Buzzing with Mrs. McClain has a great post on how she uses Seesaw (and how I found out about it!)

I'm super excited to use this one!

I've mentioned this one in my Standards post, but it also has an assessment component!
  {$25 for assessment piece} Track CC not only has your standards, but for a $25 subscription, allows you to track student progress towards those standards.

They have it set up a few ways. You can either:

View by student

Or by standard.

I haven't tried out the assessment feature yet-I'll wait until next year before trying that out and deciding if it is worth the $25.  But I've gotten plenty of use out of the standards and I Can statements! Right now, it's only available on the App Store, but they are making plans for Google Play.

This is great for people who have a standards based report card-with the standards on it.

The last  app I'm going to share with you is not even out yet-but I'm super excited about it!

{??/$$$} Snapfolio is being created by the creators of Confer.

They have this cool video to show what it all about.


What I like about this is that you can track the standards (like above) and attach documentation as well.

I can't wait to see more from this!

Of course, there are other assessment apps (Socrative and Kahoot), but those aren't one iPad apps ;)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn