google apps – iLearn Technology

Seesaw: The ultimate ePortfolio for every classroom!

September 1, 2015Kelly Tenkely5 Comments11808 views

What it is: Seesaw is the first truly student centered/driven digital portfolio tool that I’ve seen. What makes Seesaw such an awesome option as a digital portfolio is the way that it empowers kids to build and keep a digital portfolio totally independently with features like QR code login for young students. Students can log their learning using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. Seesaw also has direct import features from lots of popular apps. From the teacher perspective, Seesaw makes it simple to access student work immediately from their own device. Content is easily searchable by student and makes it simple to review student progress over time and keep track of growth. In addition to browsing by student, teachers can use folders to organize work by subject area or project. There is also an awesome flag feature that makes it easy to highlight work that you want to go back to for conferences or follow-up with the student. The built in audio recording and drawing tools mean that students can reflect on what they’ve learned or explain how they reached an answer. Parents are also able to login to see work and give feedback on it (you as the teacher can control who sees what and what feedback can be given. Teachers can approve peer feedback before it is seen by students or parents.

How to integrate Seesaw into the classroom: We’ve long used Evernote as our eportfolio of choice, because it was a simple (enough) entry point and gave students enough flexibility to show what they were working on. With each new release of features, Seesaw is quickly winning me over. This is an app that was clearly created with students and teachers in mind. It has incredible flexibility while equipping with just the right tools and features to make it extra valuable in a school setting. I love the options for feedback that teachers can give, and that all stakeholders are able to login and see what kids are working on. The way that Seesaw enables teachers to give quick feedback to students is incredible. I am also impressed with the integrated audio and drawing features that allow students (even young students) to comment and reflect on their own learning and thinking process. The metacognition implications of Seesaw are awesome!

At Anastasis, even non-digital native assignments get captured in our eportfolio through the camera or video. This means that work “travels” with students from year to year. Future teachers can go back through their progress, but students also have this incredible “bread crumb trail” of learning that they can go back through. It is always fun for us to hear students exclaim over the difference in their writing from day one to day 100. Often the learning process is so infinitesimal that students (and sometimes parents) have a hard time seeing the growth. An eportfolio is a great way to capture all learning so that those baby steps can be seen over time. This has been encouraging for our struggling students especially.

Seesaw supports a variety of platforms making it super simple to use in any classroom environment and particularly in a BYOD setting. Supported platforms include iOS devices, Android devices, Chromebooks, and any computer with a Chrome web browser.

Best of all: Seesaw is FREE!!! If you want to store and organize a child’s portfolio beyond the current year, a Plus account can be purchased by parents for $9.99/year OR a school account.

Tips: Seesaw also has Google App integration, if your school uses Google in Education, they can login with the same Google login they use for everything else!

Tynker: Computer programming for kids

November 22, 2013November 16, 2013Kelly Tenkely9 Comments7961 views

What it is: Tynker is about the coolest way for kids to learn how to computer program- absolutely NO prior programming experience is needed! Tynker leads kids through design thinking through interactive courses where kids can learn how to program at their own pace.

Anyone can teach kids how to program (no really!) because with Tynker, you don’t need any prior knowledge or understanding. Tynker provides teachers with tools, curriculum and project ideas that will have your kids programming in no time! The Tynker curriculum pack starts with 6 lessons. Each one is appropriate for a 45 minute work period. Through the teacher dashboard, you can assign lessons to your students. A built-in tutor provides step-by-step instructions that guides students toward creating a working project. The teacher dashboard also helps you track student progress as they learn and master concepts. No data entry is required, students login and the teacher dashboard auto-magically populates.

When students have completed projects, they can publish them to the class showcase and be shared with family and friends through email, Google+, Twitter or Facebook.

Happily, Tynker works entirely in your web browser. There is nothing to install or setup. It is good to go right away! Equally happily, Tynker is FREE for your school! Woot!

How to integrate Tynker into your classroom: Not only will students learn the basics of programming with Tynker, they can use it to demonstrate their learning through their creations. Students can compose stories and comics that retell a story, historical event, recent field trip, fiction or non-fiction. Using the physics features, students can learn some basics about physics and cause the games they create to be more realistic. They can also demonstrate understanding of physics principles through their creations.

Students can use Tynker to create their own apps to show off their understanding of new math/science/social studies vocabulary, math or science concepts, retell stories, character sketches, games, animations and more. In addition to being able to create stories, games, and slideshow- students can also program original music and create computer art.

Don’t think you have time in your curriculum? Take a look around Tynker and think about natural ways you could use it to enhance your curriculum. Instead of asking your students to create a book report, have them program a retell using Tynker. This will take some additional background knowledge (they will need to go through a Tynker tutorial or two) BUT the outcome is well worth it. You will have asked your students to learn something new semi-independently, beefed up logical/mathematical thinking skills through programming, and invited students to think critically about what they read to tell the story to others through a program. Worth the additional 45 min! Students could demonstrate a math concept, show the steps in a science experiment, retell an event in history, and even compose their own music through program. When you start thinking like a maker as you play with Tynker, you will realize there are infinite opportunities for including Tynker in your curriculum. If you are still convinced that you can’t find the time in your heavily scheduled (sometimes scripted-sad) day, why not start a before or after school program, summer camp, lunch club, etc.?

At Anastasis, we have Crave classes every Wednesday. These classes are offered by our teachers every 5 weeks. Teachers choose an area of learning that they crave and create a class based on that (we have everything from programming, to cooking, to forensic science, hockey history, junk orchestra, iPad rock band, to chess and da Vinci art). Students get a list of classes at the beginning of a new block, and get to choose a class that they crave. The result is a wonderful mixed age (k-8) class of passions colliding. The kids LOVE Wednesdays for this awesome hour of our day. I’m excited to offer a Tynker class for our next block of classes (along with playing with our new Romo robot!), I think this is going to be a popular class!

Tips: If your school uses Google apps for education like we do, your students can log in with their Google information.

What do you think of Tynker? How do you plan to use it in your classroom?

PlanbookEdu: Lesson Plans in the Cloud

July 6, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments4319 views

What it is: Planbook EDU is a great cloud-based (a.k.a online) lesson plan book. Because Planbook EDU is hosted in the cloud, all you need is an Internet connection, your plans travel with you. Planbook EDU is listed in the Google Apps Marketplace and is a natural fit for schools already using Google apps for education (email, calendar, documents, etc.). The free version of Planbook EDU has nothing to install, let’s teachers access their planbook from any internet connection, is easy to use with word processor like editing, is fully customizable, works in all major web browser and is iPad/iPhone supported (word processor editing doesn’t work on these devices).

How to integrate Planbook EDU into the classroom: I am a big fan of organizational tools, they let me organize my thoughts so that in the fire hose of ideas what is important (the learning goal) doesn’t get lost. Planbook EDU is a simple way to organize and plan units and your school year. I love that it is cloud-based so that I can access my plans from anywhere and any time. The basic features are robust enough to get your planning in place and the extras that can be added on make it VERY useful.

The premium version allows you to embed your planbook directly in your classroom website…very handy for keeping students and parents up to date with what is coming!

Tips: For $25/year, you get all of the free features plus- attach files to lesson plans, assign Common Core Standards, embed your planbook on any website, share lesson plans with anyone, print from your browser, export to Microsoft Word or PDF, built-in spell check and enjoy access to unlimited planbooks each school year. EVERY user gets a free 14 day trial of all the premium options from Planbook EDU.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using PlanbookEDU in your classroom!