I have been working with some 4th & 5th Grade teachers to set up Edmodo groups for their students, and the students are so excited! I never thought I’d see students so excited to do homework! Many of the teachers have been using Edmodo to “flip the classroom,” which means that what the teacher would normally teach to the whole group in class is being taught through a video posted on Edmodo that they can watch from home. The nice part about using videos is that the students can pause and rewind their teachers instruction as much as they need to so they can learn at their own pace. I’ve also heard that parents are raving about Edmodo because if their child has a homework assignment that they don’t understand, they can refer back to the videos and the teacher explain it. There is also a feature in Edmodo where the students can send a message just to the teacher instead of the whole group, so they are able to ask their questions individually if they’d like. You might be wondering, if your students are being taught the content in video form from home, then what are you going to do with all of that free time in class? Practice and apply the skills! Now there will be time for practice when the teacher is there to help the students. It also frees up time for hands on activities, labs, etc. Here are some ideas of how teachers at Springfield Park and Maybeury are using Edmodo in their classrooms:

Linking to Virginia Trekkers Podcasts to teach the Civil War.

Students posted presentations they created to reflect on a novel they had been reading in class.

You can give your students assignments that are turned in to the teacher and graded automatically if it’s multiple choice.  Short answer requires the teacher to score the response, but you can grade it within the Edmodo site.  (Notice how this student who was absent is able to make up his quiz from home on a Sunday afternoon!)

Edmodo provides opportunities to network with other teachers.  I put Mr. Gardner, 4th grade teacher from Maybeury Elementary in contact with Mrs. Moore, 4th grade teacher from Springfield Park Elementary, so they could share ideas with each other.  In this case, Mr. Gardner saw an assignment that he liked that Mrs. Moore had posted, so he saved it to his library and assigned it to his class as well.  There are many professional groups within Edmodo where you can collaborate with teachers from across the country.

If you are interested in getting started with Edmodo in your classroom, I would love to help you get your teacher account and student groups set up!  Please e-mail me or schedule a consultation at etechplace.org/hues.

Congratulations to the Tiger Robotics Team and their mentor, Elizabeth Lacy, from Baker Elementary for their winning Henrico 21 Student Entry – “Food Factor.”.  The students represented Baker and Henrico County well as they presented their project during the share fair portion of the Henrico 21 Awards Ceremony. All guests were highly impressed with the quality of their work and presentation! Way to go Tiger Robotics!!

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following their research stations on Famous Americans, the student in Pat Waters 1st Grade Class at Springfield Park created a gift for one of the famous Americans they had studied.  The design parameters were that it had to be made from recycled materials found in the CAVE (“Collaborative And Virtual Experiences” lab) and it had to be a gift that the famous American could benefit from.  Check out this great example of a thoughtful gift for Abraham Lincoln.  Keep in mind that the students did all of the video taping with the iPads on their own so it may be a bit shaky, but the students took complete ownership over this reflection piece of their project.

 

The students in Mrs. Waters first grade class at Springfield Park traveled to “The Cave” (their 21st Century Learning Lab) to experiment with matter. Students in Mrs. McGrath’s class at Glen Lea tried the same experiment. They were provided with 13 different substances and had to determine what the substance was by it’s properties. The students identified that state of matter (solid or liquid), conducted a test to determine if the matter dissolved or not, and then properly identified the color of the substance in order to determine the name of the mystery matter. Prior to testing, students had to make their prediction on the Mystery Matter Recording Sheet.

Students then used the iPad to scan this QR Code using the QR Code Reader App:

This QR Code quickly links the students to the Mystery Matter Website that I created in iWeb to use with this activity.

From here, I showed the students the video of salt dissolving (this is flash based & will not show on the iPad). Then the students clicked to go to the experiment. As they identified the mystery substance, they recorded it next to their prediction on the recording sheet. Check out some photos of the students experimenting.

Click Here for the lesson plan & supporting documents.

The first graders in Mrs. Major & Mrs. Water’s classes at Springfield Park participated in research stations to learn about Famous Americans.  The stations included:

Promethean Flip Charts:  Student worked as a team to go through flip charts that provided them with information on each of their famous Americans.  The flip charts had voice overs so students could click on the voice icon to have it read aloud if they were having difficulty reading the text.
Pebble Go:  The students navigated the Pebble Go site to locate information on each of the Famous Americans.  This site is wonderful because it is very easy to navigate, reads aloud while tracking for new readers, and it has a time line and video for each biography.

Juxio on the iPads:  Students selected a non-fiction biography on one of the famous Americans, read the book, and then created a Jux on Juxio for that person.  There are different Jux styles, but many students chose a Jux that has space for a photo, title, and description of their person.  It turns out looking like a bookmark with a picture and fact about their person.

Keynote:  Students filled in the blanks on a Famous Americans Keynote (created by Frank Fitzpatrick), which had a picture and description of each Famous American.  When students play back the Keynote, it has patriotic music and the words that they filled in the blank will appear.

WebHunt:  The students visited a Famous Americans website created by the talented David Clough.  On this site they found information on the Famous Americans.  They typed the information they found on their Pages Document and even added a picture from the website to their document.

Stay tuned for a follow up Children’s Engineering project in which the students will create a birthday present for a Famous American of their choice.  It has to be an object that they think this person would need and they will have to explain their reasoning.

Thank you to Stephanie Wright for creating this tutorial on how to use Audacity, as some of you may be needing these directions for the upcoming SOL’s.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Ms. Lehman at Maybeury Elementary asked for some new ideas for teaching a the Matter Unit to her students. We came up with the idea to introduce this unit by having students conduct research in stations. Throughout their research, the students will compile information they find on their group’s Google Doc. After the research is complete, the teacher will take the information that the students found during research and make a notes page for the students. This way the students are taking more ownership over their notes because they worked so hard to write them. We had 6 Stations with about 4 members in each group. The stations include:

1. Atoms & Elements Atoms&ElementsCyberHunt.pages
2. Chem4Kids Website
3. Papercutting to simulate the size of an atom
4. AtomsAndElements.flipchart
5. Various Print Resources (Kids Discover Magazine, Encyclopedias, Text Book, ScienceSaurus, etc.)
6. Assigned Content on Discovery Education

The students really had a great time with these research stations! Their only complaint was that it was tricky to figure out where to type in the Google Doc, but by the end of the first day, they were pros! Sometimes when you first open the Google Doc, it doesn’t allow you to type right away. We discovered that if you type in the finder window (Apple + F), it will then let you type in the document with no problem. After the first two class periods of research, the teacher and I went into their documents and made comments/asked questions to help keep the students on the right track with their research.

For the final product, students chose from Pixie, Comic Life, or everyday materials (paper clips, cotton balls, etc.) to build a model of an atom of an element of their choice. Here’s an example of one of the atoms they created. The teacher then posted these photos to Edmodo so that students could guess which atom of an element their classmates had created. This was a perfect way to have students reflect on the process and explain how showing the different levels of electron clouds in the model can make it easier to fit the electrons on the atom.