Monday, July 20, 2015

Apps & Ideas to Engage Your Students

There are so many apps available for the Ipad that it can be very hard to determine which apps could be useful in the classroom setting. Below I have listed a few of the apps I have found useful in my own practice and the ways that they have been utilized in the classroom so far. The idea behind the use of each of these apps is to help guide students through their own learning process. I will also mention some features that are readily available on the Ipad that can be used to promote critical thinking and engagement in various ways.

Apps/Ideas for Reading Comprehension:

1. Using the video function on the Ipad for short productions, assignment explanations, process journals, etc.
Having students document their process visually and verbally can be a powerful experience. Students can then play back the video or share their video with the class in order to reflect and get feedback. You could also run a quick fire or short, timed lesson where students are challenged to create a video representation of something as a bell work activity at the beginning of the lesson.

Below is a short video showing a quick fire bell work session where 9th graders were given 3 minutes to come up with an interpretive dance about the action in chapter 7 of Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

The students were then asked to identify the scene that had just been performed for them and there was a discussion on why they chose to represent that specific scene. This then led into the detailed class discussion about the chapter and the significance of the action. 

ACTFL Standard met: Presentational Communication: Learners present information, concepts, and ideas to inform, explain, persuade, and narrate on a variety of topics using appropriate media and adapting to various audiences of listeners, readers, or viewers.

2. 
Chaperon Rouge de Grimm - A 3-D pop up book app that can be programmed for different languages. The company produces many different stories with the same features, not just Grimm's fairytales. 

 
ACTFL Standard Making Connections: Learners build, reinforce, and expand their knowledge of other disciplines while using the language to develop critical thinking and to solve problems creatively.


3. Marvel Reads: The Amazing Spider-man, Les Origines
Comic books available for $1.99 per story


4. Storytoys.com
This is a site with a comprehensive list of stories and apps that may be useful in your classroom.


**Have any ideas, comments, or questions about the use of Ipads and apps in your classroom? Feel free to post a comment and start a collaborative discussion.

Multimodal Literacies

How can I effectively incorporate technology into writers workshop?

I was recently at a conference in Ireland where I heard about using iPads in writers workshop and I was so excited about what I heard! Here was the information I took away and plan to use in my teaching.

The end goal for this writing unit is a multimodal literacies project, including a stop motion animation film.

Technology Tool: iPads
Teaching Content: Writer's Workshop (story telling)
Teaching Method: Modeling, Collaboration, Inquiry 

Throughout the writing unit students will:

  • Explore and learn about stop motion animation through inquiry
  • View and analyze examples of stop motion animation
  • Read, analyze, and discuss characteristics of the realistic fiction genre
  • Learn how to generate realistic fiction ideas
  • Work in a group to draft a realistic fiction story
  • Plan a stop motion animation that visualizes their story
  • Use peer feedback and collaborate to revise and edit their writing piece and animation

I look forward to trying this in my classroom because it can be modified to fit the needs of my students. I frequently use story telling to teach language skills, and incorporating technology with story telling will help reach all my students. Each student and group of students can work together to illustrate a story and use language to tell their story. As their language skills improve they can continue to modify and revise their story to include more details and descriptions.

Stay tuned to see how my lesson goes and how you can use this in your classroom! Here is the link to the presenter I got the idea from. Multimodal Literacies Presentation. Her website includes more details and information.

My Self Inflicted Pilot Program

USING THE IPADS IN FRENCH CLASS IN THE LOWER SCHOOL

Teach less for the students to learn more: using the ipads give students more opportunities to play, experiment, and practice  with the language. Activities done on the ipads take the students one step further in the language acquisition process.
I want to encourage the use of the ipads in the LS French classes, by providing authentic examples of successful projects.

This is a reflection, and a description  of  the use I made of Ipads in the Lower School French class, in a “self-inflicted” pilot program during the 2014-2015 school year.
I find the ipads teacher and student friendly. The teaching  material is accessible and ready to use ! No more lost papers !
Students enjoy working on the ipads because it is student centered.
Ipads are adapted to all learning styles. It reduces stress for the slower/weaker students, they can pace themselves, and they can redo the activity until they are satisfied.  Repetition also helps anchor their learning. As all the students are working independently it frees me up to work with students in need.

The activities address the ACTFL standards and promote the development of Interpersonal (speaking  and/or writing),  Interpretive (listening and/or  reading) and Presentational skills (speaking and/or writing). They also promote 21St century skills: Communication, Collaboration, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

The apps I used as described below, also promote independent thinking, and encourage collaboration. I have witnessed students taking initiative, helping, each other, solving problems, experimenting, and learning with and from each other.

Apps such as Book Creator, and Puppet Pal foster creativity, and allow students to show their understanding through their own illustrations, pictures from the internet (using  the Safe Search App), texts, audio recordings, and/or videos.

There is an extended purpose to the activities, beyond completing the task itself. Students showcase, and share their work with an audience: their French group, other classes, and/or their parents. It gives the students a sense of ownership, and of accomplishment. It makes the learning more engaging, more authentic, and more meaningful to them. The results speak for themselves.

In addition, the projects are great for assessment, feedback and for providing evidence of learning, and progress. Students also could self assess, and give each other feedback.  I started developing rubrics for each activity describing the process and/or the content. Other rubrics are/ need to be designed to provide feedback. In 5th grade for example three documented activities done in December, March and June showed evidence of progress.

The tasks done on the Ipads provide the students with extra opportunities to play, create, and practice with the language, and to demonstrate their understanding, The tasks foster the language  acquisition process, and help improve the students’ overall performance. Unfortunately I did not document all the activities, in particular the oral presentations.

The following  are examples of successful ipad projects done with my grade 2 Novice High, grade 3 Novice High, grade 4 Francophones, and grade 5 intermediate Low classes.

I have used the ipads to design from simple to more sophisticated projects. For the simple example that follows students had to practice a rap two by two, and to video-tape each other.
As you can hear in this example, students corrected one another.

BOOK CREATOR:


This is a versatile App that I have used for reading comprehension, reading fluency, story retelling, story extension, and creative writing. Using this app you can create a book that includes pictures, text, drawings, audio, and video. You can then export it as a PDF for printing, as anebook, or as a video clip.

Example 1:  L’histoire de Roule Galette  - 2nd grade Novice High
Mode of communication: Interpretive, presentational
Skills: reading
21st Centrury skills: Communication.
The students were familiar with the story. We read it in class together, and in small groups. Students first read the printed words, and then had to retell the story with only the help of the pictures.
Behavior: students were engaged in the activity. They listened several times to their work, and re-recorded when they were not satisfied.
Students cooperated with each other, which was fine with me.  A couple decided to  sing and record the “Roule Galette” song on the first page. They helped  one another when they could not read a word, or took turn reading. The story was exported and shared with parents as a video.

Post production: I listened to each story, writing down mistakes. I then conferenced with each student, and went over their mistakes. We then did a group correction.
.

Example 2: L’histoire de la Ville d’YS:    5th grade Int. Low
End of unit  1 test
Mode of communication: Presentational
Skills: writing, speaking
21st Centruy Skills: Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.
This is a more sophisticated story retelling activity:
1) Students had to choose, and impersonate a character from the story, and write and record in the first person who they were, they relationship with the other characters in the story, and the role they played in the story.
2) They had to read with expression a poem about the story,
3) They had to record a description of a painting, picturing a moment in the story: what’s going on, what happened right before and what happened right after.
They shared their work orally with an audience, using the SB. Their work was exported as a video and shared with their parents.


Example 3: Diane et Actéon:   5th grade Int. Low
(
End of unit 2 test
Book Creator + Popplet
Mode of communication: interpretive, presentational
Skills: reading, speaking,
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

Popplet (to create mind maps):
Mode of communication: Interpersonal, Interpretive
Skills: reading, listening, writing, speaking
21st Centruy Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

We had  read, and discussed the story in class. We had used Popplet to talk about the characters in the story. One of the students did the illustrations. Students had to retell the story without the help of the text.
Example

Example 4: Daphné et Apollon.
End of unit 3 test
Mode of  communication: Interpretive, Presentational
Skills: reading,  speaking
21st Century Skills: Communication, Critical thinking

We read the story in class once. They had to go over the story at home, and retell the story without the written words.

I assessed the tasks using this rubrique.

Example 5: Persée et Méduse  5th grade Int. Low
End of unit 4 test
Mode of Communication: Interpretive, Presentational
Skills: reading, writing, speaking
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

At the end of the year students in group of 3 or 4  were assigned one Roman Myth to present to an audience (other French classes and parents)  in any format they chose. One group used Book Creator to present their story orally. They created the illustrations, and told the story without notes. Two groups wanted to make a movie, however we ran out of time. They presented their work as a play
Unfortunatey I did not document this activity.

Story Extension: Creative writing
Example 1: “Comment se passe une journée d’école sur la planète Frigorix?”
Mode of communication: Presentational, Interpersonal
Skills: writing, speaking, reading
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

3rd grade Novice High
This was related to the story we were working on in class.  Students, divided into groups of 4 had to imagine, and write a story on a day in the life of a student on an icy and strange planet.  We corrected the stories together. Then they each illustrated the story, either with their own drawings, or with pictures from the internet. They then recorded their story, as practice, and read them to another class, in small groups.
I typed their stories, they copied and pasted the text from Google Drive  into their e book.


Example 2: write and talk about your holidays:
Mode of communication: Presentational, Interpersonal,
Skills: writing, speaking
21st Century Skills: Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

Students used book creator to import their pictures, and wrote paragraphs related to their winter holidays. They had to use the followingrubrique sheet for the writing part.
They also designed a collage,  using the App Pic Collage (see below) about their holidays.
They presented their work on the SB orally, and answered questions fueled by their classmates.

Embed “Book creator file, pic collage”


Puppet Pal HD

Puppet Pal App  allows student to create and animate  stick puppets that evolve in front of a background, also created by the students. We used the App to illustrate songs, and  to re-create or invent dialogues.
Mode of communication: Presentational,
Skills: speaking
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

Example 1:
Students had to illustrate,  animate and record  the song “Belle Lune”.
Example 2:
I have used PP at the end of several mini units. For example students had to imagine a dialogue between two characters of the story, and act it out.
I used the activity to check if they understood the story, and how much of the new vocab they could use. This informed me on what I had to reteach, or insist on. I did not keep any example of those.

Green Screen
I have used the Green Screen App by Doink for students to perform and illustrate songs. The App is fairly easy to use. You film the “actors” in front of a green screen, and  project in the background drawings, videos, and/or photos. The App  could be used to create any type of presentation (book reports, self-portait, newscast…).

Example 1:  3rd grade Novice High, and 4th grade francophone in Monet’s gardens
Mode of communication: Presentational
Skills: speaking
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.


3rd grade: We do an integrated unit on the Ile de La Cité (Paris). In French class students learned about the different monuments along the seine river. The rap they are performing has been mostly written by me.
4th grade: students had to perform a song related to Monet’s garden.
I did the pre and post production work.

Example 2  5th grade Intermediate low
Mode of communication: Presentational, Interpersonal, Interpretive
Skills: reading, speaking
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

Students, in group of 4, had to take pictures around campus to illustrate our French version of the  song “Don’t worry be happy”, , and then to perform the song in front of the green screen.
 I did all the post production work. However 4th and 5th grade students could very well do the production.
Important: when students take pictures, they have to keep in mind that a section  of the background pictures will be hidden by the performers. Of course, no one should wear green, as the green will become transparent.
To complete the project students had to understand and illustrate, and to memorize the song.

Pic Collage



The students used  Pic Collage to design posters for oral presentations, and  displays. You can easily manipulate and arrange your own pictures, and add simple text to do a collage.
Mode of communication: Presentational
Skills: writing, speaking
21st Century Skills: Communication, Critical thinking, and Creativity.

Example 1: talk about your holidays
Example 2: Circus camp
Example 3: Voyage en Bretagne

Quizlet:
Mode of communication: Interpretive
Skills: reading, speaking
21st Century Skills: Collaboration, Communication.

I used Quizlet to generate vocabulary review flash cards. Face A displays the vocabulary word, face B the definition. There are more functions on the website. The students like this program to review the vocabulary. The work is also accessible on Quizlet web site , with more functions than on the ipad.   

Tips before using the ipads with the children:
To avoid frustrations, there are a few things you need to do THE DAY BEFORE
Make sure ipads are charged.
Upload your files to Google drive.
Check that each ipad is connected to wifi on “aspstudents”
Download your files to each ipad from your  Google drive
(show your student how to reconnect the ipad to the network)
Guided learning: this useful function allows you to lock all the apps, except the one app students are supposed to work on.
Settings/general/accessibility/learning/guided access

References:
FLTMAG: a magazine on technology integration in the world language classroom.
Applying iPad Apps in the Classroom: Goal? Language Proficiency!’
http://fltmag.com/applying-ipad-apps/

Thz Guardian: Three ways to use Ipads in the Language classroom

National Standards for Foreign Language Education.” ACTFL https://www.actfl.org/advocacy/discover-languages/advocacy/discov

21st Century skillss

http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework