Story Math: Storytelling and Math

What it is: Story Math is a portion of the Hey Math! website.  Story Math is a collection of 3 activities that use storytelling to present math in a new way.  Students take part in the interactive stories to discover math in new ways, help them learn new math vocabulary and understand concepts more completely.  There are currently three story activities available on Story Math: Mystery on the Block (students join the Premium Private Investigators and discover that geometry holds the key to the mystery of the missing kittens); The Perfect Arrangement (where students are introduced to permutations and how one clever lady uses math to subdue some squabbling scholars); and A Suitable Partner (where students engage in river-crossing puzzles to help Cammue pass the King’s test and marry Bindu).

How to integrate Story Math into the classroom: Storytelling is powerful!  I believe that we are all wired for story. We yearn for it, it helps us to connect with the world around us.  Story Math takes the power of storytelling and applies it to math.  Through story, students see math concepts unfold and discover connections between math concept and math application.  In addition to the story, Story Math includes games and activities where students can practice putting the math they have learned to the test.

Story Math makes a great introduction into new math concepts.  Story Math can be used whole-class with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.  Students can take turns reading (mute it for this option because the text is read automatically).  The story can be paused along the bottom while students discuss the stories and the math in the stories.  Each story invites interaction, provide students with an opportunity to interact with the story.  After the story, discuss what math connections were made.  How can they be applied?  What new vocabulary was learned?  Follow up with the games/activities on classroom computers as a center activity, or again as a whole class on the interactive whiteboard.

Want to do one better?  Show your students Story Math, ask them to explore each of the stories and make notes about the math concept introduced, the vocabulary and the story.  Then have students take a math concept that they are learning, and ask them to create a story of their own.  The first thing they should do is decide on the math concept they want to teach and the vocabulary that is associated.  Next, they should create a storyboard of what will happen in their story.  Finally, they can create the story animation using a tool like GoAnimate, Kerpoof Movie, Zimmer Twins or an app like Sock Puppets or ToonTastic.

Tips: The stories on Story Math take a few minutes to load. They are flash based and require a little patience for the first load.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using  Story Math in your classroom.

Help me personalize education for EVERY child!  Donate (even just your coffee money!)  and spread the word about the Learning Genome Project.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Re-imagine & Digital Blooms: different ways to approach learning

I’ve long been a fan of Bloom’s Taxonomy…not necessarily for all the ways it has been pushed into different fads throughout the years, but instead for the way that it helps me (and my students) think about the learning process.  It helps me approach the learning process in a more holistic way, ensuring that I don’t camp out in one way of thinking and evidencing learning for too long.  I think it is human nature to get excited about one way of thinking and suddenly everything we do falls into that.  It can be a little bit like the new car that you purchased, you begin to see that car everywhere because you have a new awareness of it.  I’ve noticed myself doing the same in teaching.  Bloom’s Taxonomy helps me to keep myself cognizant of all the different ways to approach learning.

A few years ago, I created some different versions of Bloom’s Taxonomy for my students.  I wanted them to really think about all the different ways that they can approach learning.  Learning isn’t just memorization.  It isn’t just reading and understanding.  Most traditional schooling has them believing that this is all there is to learning.  One of my goals over the past year is to help students understand that learning is life.  It is a part of everything we do. There is something to be learned in every situation and from everyone we encounter.  There are different ways to learn that give us a larger understanding and help us to make connections.  That is exciting!

You will notice that my images don’t have the traditional Bloom’s pyramid.  That is intentional. Each of these ways of thinking is important in its own right. I have used these with students so that they have an awareness of the different ways of learning, but also so that they can see what options are available to them when they are demonstrating learning.  Powerful things happen when students can make decisions about how they choose to learn. Challenge them to enter into learning in different ways.  A new approach to the same question can bring about amazing new insights.

Are you looking for the full-size poster version of these images?  You can find them here, best of all you will be helping me make personalized education a reality for EVERY child.  The poster options are along the right side of the page.  My favorite is still the Peacock 🙂

 

And the digital version:

 

Breakdown of the digital taxonomy with links:

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

I have also started a breakdown of apps for the iPad by Bloom’s Taxonomy. This one is a work in progress and has not been added to in quite some time.

 

Are you wondering how you can help me make the Learning Genome Project a reality?  Tweet, blog, send it as a story tip to news organizations, donate, send it to family/friends/colleagues/acquaintances.  Buy the Bloom’s images above in the Poster version.  Thank you for all of your help and support!

Zimmer Twins: New site just for schools!

Read my previous mentions of the Zimmer Twins here
What it is:  The Zimmer Twins movie maker is one of my favorite classroom tools.  Recently, they added a Zimmer Twins at School site that has extra goodies built-in that make it an even sweeter deal for the classroom.  Yesss. I love it when that happens.  On the Zimmer Twin site, students can create really impressive cartoon animations (seriously this is saturday morning cartoon quality). Who are the Zimmer Twins, you might ask?  Edgar and Eva Zimmer are 12-year-old twins who appear normal but have developed psychic powers.  Strange things began to happen when the twins adopted a black cat named 13.  On the Zimmer Twins website, students can create their own cartoon movie endings to a story starter or create their own animated movie from scratch.  Students can create and edit movies solo or “Collab-o-write” and work together creating a collaborative movie.
With the free school account, teachers can add 5 students, make 12 movies, visit a profile page for each student and teacher, and have the ability to moderate content.  Very handy for classroom use!  In the past, I had to create an account for every student, work out how to keep track of everyone’s creations and make sure we could share with each other.  Thanks to the new school account, all of this can be handled easily right within one account!
How to integrate the Zimmer Twins School into the classroom:  Your students are going to love this site!  They can direct and produce their very own animated movies.  The easiest way to start using Zimmer Twins in the classroom, is to use it as a story starter.  Students can watch a “starter” video and finish the story however they would like.  The first time you introduce the site, it might be fun to complete a video as a class.  Then students can take over and create their own ending to a Zimmer Twins movie.  These video clips make excellent story starters for journal writing even if you can’t take the time to make it into an actual video.  To use as a story starter, show the beginning of the short animation to your students on an interactive whiteboard or projector, then let students take over on classroom computers, working together, or writing a journal entry.  After your students are familiar with the Zimmer Twins website, they can start a story from scratch.  Students could direct “screen plays” of their writing, as a way to publish their finished work.  Zimmer Twins would make an excellent alternative to the traditional book report.  Students could create a movie where the main character is being interviewed, the story is being summarized, or retold.  Students could also create movies about historical events, describing a science experiment or concept, in math as a story problem, to demonstrate understanding of character education or for vocabulary practice.  My students have really enjoyed creating movies to show what they have learned on any topic, it is always a sure winner!  Are you looking for new ways to engage your students? Why not create a Zimmer Twins original yourself to introduce a new topic.  If you are looking for more great ideas for using Zimmer Twins in your classroom, be sure to check out the lesson plans on the teacher page, there are some good ones.
Tips: Zimmer Twins School also offers a VIP account with lots of extras including the ability to add 40 students, make unlimited movies, open comments, write blog posts, write polls, enable/disable student comments on videos. Right now a month-long VIP membership is FREE!  You can get a year membership for $89.95.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zimmer Twins School in  your classroom!

Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloomin’ Tree

Okay, here is my LAST Bloom’s re-imagine (although I’m not promising it is the last that I will come up with, it is just the last I created for my classroom).

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing some of my Boom’s Taxonomy re-imagines.  I created these for my classroom so that I could share Bloom’s with my kids in different ways that would make our classroom fun, but also give them a different way of viewing the information.   Today I am sharing my Bloomin’ Tree.  As I started making my Bloom’s re-imagines, students started coming to me with ideas of how to display the information.  The tree was a student idea and the boy underneath is Lance, who made the suggestion.  (Lance was my personal Dennis the Menace, loved him to pieces!)  Some of you have asked what program I used to create my pictures.  I use Apple’s Pages for almost everything, the Bloom’s Taxonomy was no exception.  I use the free hand drawing tool, the shapes, fill tool, text box, and inspector to make my version of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Below you will find my original Bloomin’ Tree, along with my digital version.  Many of you have asked for a printable version of these Bloom’s Taxonomy re-imagines, you can now find a bundle of 4 (Bloomin’ Peacock, Um-bloom-ra, Bloomin’ Pinwheel, and Bloomin’ Tree) in my store.  You will get 8 8.5″x11″ posters, this includes the digital version of each.

Digital Bloomin’ Tree

Here are links to the digital resources in my digital Bloomin’ Tree:

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloomin’ Pinwheel

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing some of my Boom’s Taxonomy re-imagines.  I created these for my classroom so that I could share Bloom’s with my kids in different ways that would make our classroom fun, but also give them a different way of viewing the information.   Today I am sharing my Bloomin’ Pinwheel.  As I started making my Bloom’s re-imagines, students started coming to me with ideas of how to display the information.  The pinwheel was a student recommendation.  I think it turned out pretty cute!  Some of you have asked what program I used to create my pictures.  I use Apple’s Pages for almost everything, the Bloom’s Taxonomy was no exception.  I use the free hand drawing tool, the shapes, fill tool, text box, and inspector to make my version of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Below you will find my original Bloomin’ Pinwheel, along with my digital version.  Many of you have asked for a printable version of these Bloom’s Taxonomy re-imagines, you can now find a bundle of 4 (Bloomin’ Peacock, Um-bloom-ra, Bloomin’ Pinwheel, and Bloomin’ Tree) in my store.  You will get 8 8.5″x11″ posters, this includes the digital version of each.

Here are links to the digital tools in my Boomin’ Pinwheel:

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

 

Um-bloom-ra Bloom’s Taxonomy

Last week I blogged about my Bloomin’ Peacock, a new Bloom’s Taxonomy visual I made to share with teachers in a training.  Over the years, I have created a number of Bloom’s Taxonomy pictures to hang in my classroom for students to refer to.  My Bloomin’ Peacock was such a hit with you all, I thought I would start sharing the others I’ve made.   Today I revived one that I created for my classroom and added the digital version (again the digital tools displayed relate directly to the Treasures reading curriculum).  This is my Um-bloom-ra Bloom’s Taxonomy:

…and the digital version:

Here are the digital tools included in my taxonomy:

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

Some of you have asked what program I use to create my Bloom’s Taxonomy re-imagines, I use Apple’s Pages to create them (it is SO much more than a word processor!).  Pages makes creating easy, the only downside is that the images aren’t big enough to make into posters larger than 8.5″ x 11″.  Luckily I married a graphic artist and after the initial laughter that I used Pages instead of something like Photoshop or Illustrator, he agreed to help me make a larger poster happen.

If you are interested in my Bloom’s images on a mug, mousepad, tote bag, etc. you can find it in my store.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: Bloomin’ Peacock

Tomorrow I am doing a training on the Treasures Supplement that I created over the summer.  Most of the supplemental suggestions fall into the bottom two tiers of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Remember and Understand).  I want to show teachers that just because these activities help students practice basic skills and remember and understand, there are SO many more options that will reach the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy!  I created the Bloomin’ Peacock to show teachers the Blooms Taxonomy break down and the Bloomin’ digital Peacock that shows how the digital tools in the supplement break down.

Below are the tools listed in my Bloomin’ Digital Peacock

Bloomin' Digital Peacock

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

I have received a lot of requests and DM’s for the Bloomin’ Peacock on posters (I’m still working on these), mugs, etc.  For those of you who asked, here it is:

Digital Book Talk: Book Trailers for K-12

What it is: There is a new trend in reading: book trailers.  It seems that lately book trailers are popping up on all of the video sharing sites.  Digital Book Talk is a collaborative effort from the University of Central Florida where Dr. Robert Kennedy and Dr. Glenda Gunter have completed research on what motivates reluctant and striving readers to select, read, and complete books.  “The student productions of DBT (Digital Book Talk) focus use the technological skills taught in the undergraduate Digital Media and graduate Educational Technology curricula that teach teachers how to create dynamic digital games, trailers, and Web sites. Many of these skills include research and writing, Flash animation, visual storytelling, video recording and editing, audio recording, graphic design, website development, programming, and database creation.”  On the Digital Book Talk site, you will find high quality book trailers that will whet your students appetite for a good book.  Students can search for books by content level, and interests.

How to integrate Digital Book Talk into your curriculum: The Digital Book Talk site is an excellent place for students to start their search for a book that will hold their interest.  Just like a movie trailer, the book trailers give students just enough information to leave them wanting more.  The Digital Book Talks will help your reluctant readers understand the adventures that await them in a good book.  Find a book trailer to introduce a novel that the whole class will be reading or set up classroom computers with a link to Digital Book Talk where students can be inspired to find their next read.  After students read, they can create their own Digital Book Talks using video cameras or tools like Xtranormal, ZimmerTwins, or Kerpoof movie.

A few years ago I had my students create bookcasts.  These were the same ideas as a book trailer but instead of being video, they were audio podcasts only.  I created a wiki where the students uploaded their bookcasts as they finished them.   The wiki was a place where students could recommend books to their peers, demonstrate their understanding of a book, and find the next book to read based on a classmates recommendation.

Tips: Be sure to check out the student work tab to see book trailers created by k-12 students around the country.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Digital Book Talk: Book Trailers for k-12 in your classroom!

The Goal of Education

Tonight’s #edchat topic on Twitter was: Can we agree on a common goal of education?

My response:

The goal of education is to provide the conditions for learning.  I think that it is a broad enough goal for everything else to fall into place.  I engaged in some discussion about how current conditions keep us from that goal.  While I agree to some extent, I think that excuses are an easy way to stay where we are.  We can create conditions for learning without administrative support, without funding for technology, without the best conditions.  How do I know this?  Because I had teachers who did it for me.  They used what they had, within the system they were in, to provide us with the conditions for learning.  And guess what?  We learned.

Now, this is not to say that the goal wouldn’t be more attainable if we weren’t mired in a system that is run by testing and policies.  It is better to have ubiquitous use of technology and freedom within our classrooms.   I believe that those things will come.  But right now we are working within this system.  For now we can create conditions of learning for our students using what we have available to us.  Is it ideal?  No.  Is it possible?  Of course.  All it takes is some creativity.

I want to be clear, creating conditions for learning does not mean that every classroom looks the same.  It means that the conditions created match that unique student population.  The conditions that I learn best in may look different from the conditions that you learn best in.  This means that teachers have to know and understand the needs of their students.  The conditions of learning may change every year, every month, every day, and even every hour.  We are human, our needs are constantly changing.

Someone mentioned during the #edchat, that it would be great to see how students answered this question.  I actually know how my students answered this question, because I asked my 3rd-5th grade students to answer it last year.  My students answered something like this: the goal of education is to get good grades and pass tests so you can go to college.   Not the answer most of us would like to hear but there it is.  Did we really expect differently?  This is what our school system breaths.  This is the current goal of education, to move students through so that they graduate and go to college.

Being the computer teacher has some major advantages, one of which is that there is no curriculum to follow.  I write my own curriculum every year.  I have a scope and sequence of skills that I want my students to gain and I use a different path to get there each and every year.  I didn’t originally intend for this to be a year-long project, but that is what it became because it made my students think differently, creatively.  It made them question, discuss, and debate.  It was brilliant.

We had just finished learning the Internet safety rules, and were practicing netiquette.  I wanted my students to have an authentic place to practice their newly acquired skills so I sent them on their way to write their first blog entry.  The topic: Write about your dream school.  If you could make a school look like whatever you wanted it to, what would it look like?  How would learning happen there?

After the students had a chance to blog their dreams, I asked them to pick their favorite idea and add it to our class Wallwisher.  I cannot tell you how disappointed I was with the answers.  They were the most unimaginative answers I had ever seen.  I’m talking zero in the creativity department.  It was as if they were writing what they thought I wanted to hear.  Then it hit me, they were writing what they thought I wanted to hear.  Isn’t that what their education has primed them for?  Guess what the teacher is thinking.  There is only one right answer and then we move on to the next thing.

Not willing to let the project go, the next week I sat all of my students down and asked them again what their dream schools would look like.  They hadn’t gotten more creative with their answers in the week they had to think about them.  The look of utter confusion on their faces was obvious.  They couldn’t figure out what the right answer was, the one that I wanted to hear that would move us on to the next topic.  I showed my students pictures of the inside of Googleplex and Pixar.  You have never heard so many “oohs” and “awwws”.  By the end of the slide show, every kid was declaring that they were going to work at Google or Pixar some day.  I asked them why they would want to work there?

“Because it is SO cool!”

“Did you see the Lego room?”

“They get to play all day!”

“It is so colorful.”

“It looks like a playground.”

“They have a chef that cooks lunch for them.”

We talked about why Googleplex and Pixar look the way they do and the philosophy that each company has.  We talked about what it means to be creative and the things that help us get in that creative element.  Then I showed them some pictures of schools,  one had a slide in the building, another had students singing and dancing on top of desks, another of students sitting on exercise balls instead of chairs.  The common phrase uttered was “they are so lucky!”  I also showed them the YouTube video of the piano stairs.

I asked them to go back to their seats and blog about their dream school again.   I told them that there was no right answer.  The right answer was their answer.  The sky was the limit.  This time the ideas were infinitely more exciting.  Some students still played it safe and stuck to what was possible in the confines of the school system they knew.  Others wanted anti-gravity classrooms.  There were common threads in every one of my students blog posts: they all wanted flexible learning spaces, they all wanted more hands on/active learning, they wanted school to feel like play, and they all wanted animals to be involved in some fashion.

You can see some of their answers on these Wallwishers:

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4th Grade1

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My students got so excited about this little blogging activity that they continued to post about what their dream schools would look like (even though I hadn’t assigned it).  I had students stop by my classroom and tell me another idea they had for a dream school.  Then I had students start asking if I would ask the administration to make our school a dream school.  I can only imagine how that would go, so instead I expanded the project.

I asked my students to imagine that they actually got the go ahead for their school, and now they had to advertise for it.  They had to convince me to send my imaginary children to their imaginary school.  They had to make a convincing case for why their school made the best place to learn.  Each student made a brochure advertising their school.  They highlighted the features of their school, promised amazing things, and sold it!  I am telling you, I have never seen such amazing work out of my students!  I would have sent my imaginary kids to any one of their schools.  Boy did they sell it!  The brochures looked amazing.  I brought them into the teacher’s lounge to pass around.  The teachers couldn’t believe what their students were capable of.  It was great!  A few of the kids brought the brochure they created to the administration to show off.

The kids hadn’t had enough, they wanted to explore the idea further.  I had them create commercials for their school.  I showed them the Kaplan University commercials and told them they could be inspiring like Kaplan, factual, funny, or any combination of the three.  They set to work using their method of choice.  Some used Keynote, others recorded in Photobooth and edited in iMovie, some used Xtranormal, some GoAnimate, and others used the ZimmerTwins.  The commercials were fabulous.

Toward the end of the year I had the kids create websites for their imaginary dream schools.  They used Weebly to create the websites.  I cannot tell you how impressed I was with the level of creativity, innovation, and fun that showed up on those sites.  The kids were convincing, but more than that, they were right.  They may have started with every student having a laptop, pony, and anti-gravity rooms, but where they ended was with rich learning experiences.  At the core what our students want is an opportunity to discover, play, and experiment with their learning.  They want to feel safe.  They want to be active.  I wish I could share the finished sites and commercials with you, I can’t because they contain pictures of students and other identifying information.

I learned a lot from my students as a result of the project, at the heart of it is this: provide conditions where we can learn.

The Zimmer Twins

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What it is: Who are the Zimmer Twins, you might ask?  Edgar and Eva Zimmer are 12 year old twins who appear normal but have developed psychic powers.  Strange things began to happen when the twins adopted a black cat named 13.  On the Zimmer Twins website, students can create their own cartoon movie endings to a story starter or create their own animated movie from scratch.  Students can create and edit movies solo or “Collab-o-write” and work together creating a collaborative movie.   Zimmer Twins runs well in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari making it easy to get to and use in any classroom setting.  You will need Flash 8 (or higher) installed for the Zimmer Twins to work properly.  

How to integrate Zimmer Twins into the classroom: Your students are going to love this site!  They can direct and produce their very own animated movies.  The easiest way to start using Zimmer Twins in the classroom, is to use it as a story starter.  Students can watch a “starter” video and finish the story however they would like.  The first time you introduce the site, it might be fun to complete a video as a class.  Then students can take over and create their own ending to a Zimmer Twins movie.  These video clips make excellent story starters for journal writing even if you can’t take the time to make it into an actual video.  To use as a story starter, show the beginning of the short animation to your students on an interactive whiteboard or projector, then let students take over on classroom computers, working together, or writing a journal entry.  After your students are familiar with the Zimmer Twins website, they can start a story from scratch.  Students could direct “screen plays” of their writing, as a way to publish their finished work.  Zimmer Twins would make an excellent alternative to the traditional book report.  Students could create a movie where the main character is being interviewed, the story is being summarized, or retold.  Students could also create movies about historical events, describing a science experiment or concept, in math as a story problem, to demonstrate understanding of character education or for vocabulary practice.  My students have really enjoyed creating movies to show what they have learned on any topic, it is always a sure winner!  Are you looking for new ways to engage your students? Why not create a Zimmer Twins original yourself to introduce a new topic.  If you are looking for more great ideas for using Zimmer Twins in your classroom, be sure to check out the lesson plans on the teacher page, there are some good ones.

Tips: Students can create a movie on Zimmer Twins without registering; however, they will not be able to save their creation.  Creating an account requires an email address.  If this presents a problem in your classroom you can do a few things: 1. create a classroom account that every student logs into and saves their videos on.  Students will need to include their first name or a class number in the title of their video to differentiate it from others in the class.  2. Set up an account for each student using your email account.  You will have to check this email account to provide your students with their passwords. 3. Ask parents to set up accounts for their kids to use at school.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zimmer Twins in your classroom.