QR Codes

I have never thought about using QR Codes in the classroom until I attended a conference in Baltimore. Of course, I sat there thinking, "Why didn't I think of this?" I tend to have a go-getter personality, so I sat at this conference contemplating how I was going to use QR Codes in my classroom. Since then, I have developed a QR Code job chart for next school year and how students could use them for getting the homework. Currently, students are testing, which means no homework this week, so we aren't able to test out the QR Codes for homework, yet.

However, next week my class is performing a play for the school, Red Writing Hood. It is a cute fractured fairytale play, that incorporates many of the fairytales and nursery rhymes all in one play. The children all have a part in the play and had to memorize their lines. Wanting to make this small 20 minute play seem like the real deal, today we worked on autobiographies to post on the bulletin board in the hallway. But instead of posting the actual autobiography, I taught the students how to create a QR Code that we will post by their picture and part.

At first the students, were a little puzzled as to if this would actually work. So, I created a demo QR Code using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to link to our school website. I projected this code onto the Activboard took out my iPad and scanned the code. Some of the students were a bit questionable as to if this would actually work, could the iPad really scan off the Activboard? Within a couple seconds, everyone was viewing the school website off of my iPad. Hooray, I had won the students over on creating their own QR Code.

The students worked eagerly to write their rough draft, which I approved for the next draft. Tomorrow we will finish our final drafts, take pictures, and create QR Codes for the bulletin board. This will be the first time the students have used QR Codes in the class and I am excited. How do you use them in your classrooms?

I love Edmodo

Shortly after I began FLIPPING my math class, I began having my students use Edmodo as a means of commenting and leaving questions on what they were learning in the videos I post on youtube. Edmodo instantly became a class hit because to my fourth grade students, it looks like facebook. My students are at an age where they still have some play that imitates the adults around them, especially their parents. Before we became a 1:1 iPad classroom, students used to create their own paper iPads because I had one, paper laptops with brands based on the brand of laptop their parents owned, and paper smart phones. Since many parents are on facebook, the children have this natural attraction to it. Honestly, the mentioning of facebook can make a lesson more interesting. Take for example run-on sentences, I told my students that most of the posts my friends post on facebook are one long run-on sentence. On that specific day, we pretended that the sentences we were correcting were facebook posts.

Getting back to Edmodo, Edmodo was easy to setup, the children were able to register themselves (without an e-mail address), and with little help from me were able to easily navigate through the website. Like facebook, students may upload a profile picture, but since this is the first year I'm using Edmodo, I have limited my students to only using the clipart pictures found on the website already. You can use Edmodo for a variety of purposes: communication, polls, tests, etc.

I use Edmodo currently just for my FLIPPED math program. For homework, I post a video on youtube, that I link through my classroom website on the lesson we will cover the following school day. The students are expected to go home, watch the video, and then go on Edmodo to either post on my wall what they learned in the video or send a private message about what they did not understand. The following day in class, I will focus on reviewing (anonymously) the questions students sent me. Because the homework is as easy as watching a video, most of my students will watch it within the first hour of returning home and then post on Edmodo. When I arrive home I will take a quick five minutes, read the posts that students write and either tell them they did a great job or ask them to expand on what they posted by asking them a question. Before I go to bed, I will check Edmodo one more time, for any students who may have completed the homework later in the evening.

Although, I currently use Edmodo just for math, I do have plans to use it in a variety of other subjects. My next goal is to add Edmodo to my reading program to allow students to discuss the novel we are currently reading in class. The one thing I have found with my math program is that if a student posts onto my wall and I return back with a question, I will get a number of students responding to the question I posted, not just the student that I originally asked. So, I really feel that Edmodo will be a benefit in many different subject areas.

There are a few rules I put in place for my class when I started Edmodo, they are:

1. You must write in complete sentences.
2. You may not use acronyms, e.g. lol, jk, brb, etc. 
3. You may not post or send information that is not school related. 

How do you use Edmodo in your class? Are there any rules you have with using this website or iPad app?

How I use Poll Everywhere

My fourth grade class is running a 1:1 iPad pilot program, meaning currently every student in my classroom has an iPad. This idea started when I raised money through a school fundraiser, Race for Education, and purchased an iPad 2 for the classroom. Before the iPad came into the classroom, our technology consisted of a computer that was probably being used new when I was in high school. Okay, so I'm not that old, but still, it was time for some upgrading.

With the money I raised, I was able to purchase the iPad 2 and a computer table to replace our old table which was broken. The iPad quickly became a favorite item in the classroom, the students were excited to use it and even with one iPad everyone was engaged. I still remember my class playing Rocket Math multiplication and all the students screaming out answers, which caused my principal to walk into my room one day and be surprised by seeing a classroom full of engaged students. 

Shortly after, I was asked to begin a 1:1 iPad program for the fourth grade class. What is exciting about running this type of program is the students' excited about learning. Slowly, I have been transitioning the students to doing more and more with the iPads, but we originally started using the iPads with one website, Poll Everywhere. 

Poll Everywhere is a free website and takes less than 30 seconds to register, just like the website says. Trust me, even though you can use the website without registering, you want to register, so you can preload your polls and reuse them. 

The main way I use Poll Everywhere is to review students homework. Currently, I teach a math FLIP program, and the polling gives me a better understanding of whether or not students understand the concept for the video I posted on youtube the night before. The way it works is I post a question with multiple choice answers and project it onto the Activboard. I ask students to submit their answers using their ipad. Each answer choice has a special code to type into the ipad, so that it sends directly to my poll. Typically, the first time I post the question, I will not receive the correct answer for 100% of my class. Instead of taking over, I ask the students to discuss their answers with their group explaining how and why they chose their answer. Students rethink their method based on hearing how others solved the problem and then resend their answer to the same poll. I would say 90% of the time 100% of the students will send the correct answer. 

This method of teaching works great in a 1:1 classroom and can also be used using a simple cell phone. The reason why I love using Poll Everywhere in this way is because there seems to be a huge concern that if we put technology classroom, it will cause our students not to socialize with others. But my goal as a 21st Century Educator is to use the tools of the time, while fostering an appropriate social atmosphere for my students and Poll Everywhere allows me to do this.

Class Dojo: A Fun FREE Behavior Program for the Classroom

I haven't used Class Dojo all school year, I actually started shortly after returning from an A+ Educator conference in Phoenix, Arizona, where I first heard about www.classdojo.com. Most of my students and I fell instantly in love with Class Dojo. Yes, I did say most! Some students had a hard time adjusting to Class Dojo and even tried to rebell against the system for a while (these are the students who need Class Dojo the most), that is until they realized that they control Class Dojo not the computer and not me. When the students who rebelled against the system realized this, I didn't have any problems with them getting their assignments done, calling out in the middle of class, and being a disruption in the classroom. Trust me give it two weeks and you will be hooked, if not on the first day.

Class Dojo is really easy to set up. You put in your students, make some modifications on the behavior points, and maybe you are feeling really good and decide to pick out little avatar monsters for each one of your students. If you are lazy like me, you just leave the ones that the website picks. Really, why make extra work for yourself? 

Now, you are ready to begin the day with Class Dojo. I open up my class on the website and project it using my Activboard in the classroom, this way all the students can see their little avatars and their positive and negative points. Throughout the day, I carry my iPad around the classroom and use mobile.classdojo.com as a remote to control the website. This makes it convenient to be anywhere in the classroom and give both positive and negative dojo points to students. Because in order for Class Dojo to really work, you have to be able to control the points at any time or any place, or students will realize that it is okay to cut off if they know you aren't going to take away their dojo points.

At the end of the day, Class Dojo creates these beautiful pie graphs on each of your students that can be emailed out to their parents. Come on, you have to love that! I used to stamp colored dots on calendars and when a child didn't have a good day, write why they received the color they did. Now the chart is easy to email and hey, you don't have to write a long note on the child's behavior the parent can already see that they were talking out, constantly out of their seat, not completing their work, not wearing a proper uniform, etc. Trust me, if you aren't using Class Dojo in your classroom, you should be, it's FREE, teachers love FREE!

A 21st Century Educator

My name is Jestine and I'm a fourth grade Catholic school teacher. I absolutely love my job, sure some days are harder than others, but at the end of the day I still love what I do. The past year, I have dedicated a lot of time towards studying about 21st century education. Already a fan of technology, I guess 21st century education became a natural attraction. Now that I am adapting my classroom to a 21st century classroom, I could not imagine teaching using traditional methods. 

In the past year, my classroom has made a huge jump from the traditional classroom. I currently run a FLIPPED math program, 1:1 iPad program, and use a number of iPad applications and websites to engage my students. I try to attend as many conferences as I can to learn the latest education trends. This year, I have attended an A+ Educators conference in Phoenix, Mid-Atlantic Technology conference in Baltimore, and am excited to be attending the BLC 12 conference in Boston this summer.  Every conference I go to inspires me to adapt the way I teach to meet the needs of my students. 

I hope to use this blog, to discuss websites and iPad apps that I use in the classroom and how to easily incorporate them within your own classrooms.