It's been a while & our PSA PBL.... don't you love acronyms!

This school year has been filled with lots of change, so I haven't been blogging as much, but that does NOT mean that my kids haven't been producing amazing work!  I moved to 8th grade English this year and have really enjoyed the transition.  As such, we focus a but more on the persuasive genre.  My students worked through a PBL (project based learning) and created their own PSAs.  I'll highlight the project and a few examples here.

Students were to select a community issue/problem that they are passionate about and want the community to come together and change/take action to solve.  They worked in groups of 3-4.  I tried to keep groups at 3 for this project.  As in all of my PBLs, they were provided an Entry Event Document and video, Rubric, and Calendar on day one which we revisit throughout the project.  I held workshops and mini-lessons throughout.

The PBL lasted two and a half weeks which was plenty of time.

Note:  What I've learned as I've created and implemented more and more PBLs is that they don't need to be as long as you might think, and 2-3 weeks is the perfect time frame.  Anything over too weeks is generally too long.

Students used iMovie and other self selected apps to create their PSAs.  One group tried out the Green Screen app that was a lot of fun and turned out pretty well for a spur of the moment idea.  I would definitely recommend the Green Screen app by Do Ink for student use.  It is only $2.99 and can be setup as a station during projects.  It's really easy to use and students are forced to manage their time well when it is a station. You do NOT need a real green screen!  You can create your own with green butcher paper.  Below you can see my creation.  I used a mobile white board covered in green butcher paper.

Maas' Green Screen 

As you can see, this green screen is nothing fancy, but it worked perfectly!

Now for some student examples.  Theses are REAL student examples with all of their flaws and no special editing from me and not perfect... enjoy!

Example #1: Using Green Screen & iMovie
PSA Example - Debt

Example #2: Using Chatterpix & iMovie
PSA Example - Littering

Maas Out!
www.aprilmaas.com

So the School Year is Over...Now What??

My sixth year in teaching has come to an end...  I've spent all of my six years teaching English Language Arts.  This upcoming school year, I am switching hats.  I never thought I would teach ANYTHING other than ELA.  However, I'm headed into the ESL Zone! ...Which... to me... IS still in my realm of ELA.

I'm excited to head down this new path.  My personality lends itself to learning to things and taking on new challenges.  I'm ready for this new challenge.  I really just need prayers that I'll get all the paperwork right!  Who knew ESL is so paperwork intensive!  Whoa!  But not to be deterred, I will be teaching in a way that I never could in a general ed classroom.  Smaller environment, I'm in more control of pace and fluid lessons! Ready!

So wish me luck folks!  I can't wait to begin posting about my new adventure!

Maas Out

Research to Creative Writing....My favorite!

In our current 7th grade English Language Arts Curriculum, we move from Research Unit to our Creative Writing Unit.  Now THAT's an interesting and difficult transition.  : )

As a writer myself, I try to build a love for writing in my students all year long.  Standardized testing and writing to prompts makes that difficult sometimes.  That's why I LOVE our Creative Writing Unit!  My students constantly tell me they enjoy this unit because of the freedom of topic.  Me too!

This year, I asked my students to create an original short story.  Not to overwhelm them, I did brief mini-lessons on how to write character descriptions, develop conflict and hooks, create flow to a story, and build a connection with readers.  Students ran with it!  I only had two weeks, so I had to start small.  I used the book Outlining Your Novel as a guide for some of my mini-lessons.  Students love learning from real authors and not text books.

I feel like this unit allowed students to end the year with an open mind and creative brain.  They really struggled at first to just let go of what I expected them to write and embraced their own creativity and imagination.  I used free writes and prompt sentence starters to get them thinking with LOTS of choice involved.  They could then use any of their free writes for their stories or start something new.  It did wonders to open them up to the possibilities before them on the page.

Alongside our writing, we read a novel to use a guide to our own writing.  Some classes read Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson, and others read Half Upon a Time by James Riley.  These were PERFECT for helping students understand how to develop believable characters and conflicts so readers can relate to them.

What's Happening Now
Students are simply using paper to create a cover for their stories and publish to me.  Students are turning in their work today!  I can't wait to see their final copies!  Hopefully some of them will let me share here.

Check back for student examples.

Maas Out.

Research Website Examples

As promised... Here are a few basic student research website examples I promised from my last blog post.

Review:  Students learned basic online researching skills.  Students selected their research topics based on our novel, The Giver.  We worked through mini-lessons on writing research questions (tough for 7th grade!), searching Google and how Google searchers work, collecting research that answered their research questions, then making connections to the novel we had just completed.

Students were fascinated!

We used www.bibme.org to complete their Works Cited page and then began creating their informational website.  As mentioned in the previous blog, we used Weebly for Education to create the websites because it is user friendly and has security features for education.

Below are examples of the basic finished product of some of my 7th graders.  This was a SHORT 2 week project, so not in depth.  They are raw with NO revisions by me!  Pure 7th grade work.

In order to view the websites, you will need the password:  maas.

Example 1: 
Topic:  Alzheimer's
Link:  http://alzdiseaseinfo.weebly.com/

Example 2:
Topic: Gender Roles
Link:  http://stopgenderroles.weebly.com/reflection.html

Example 3:
Topic: Human Trafficking
Link:  http://humantraffackingsadbuttrue.weebly.com/connections.html

Enjoy!
Maas Out!

Doctopus, Weebly & Research PBL...What I've Learned!

2 Week Research PBL Reflection

I used our Research PBL to test out technology I have been wanting to use but haven't.  Students selected a topic that was related to the novel we just read, The Giver.  Their end product was an informational website.

Doctopus
I started off our Research Unit using Doctopus.  This is an Add-On in Google Drive.  We are 1:1 with iPads, so I learned A LOT about the differences between using it on a laptop vs an iPad.  There are some important differences to understand BEFORE beginning your project.  I learned the hard way...you're welcome!  lol

Use this LINK to access Doctopus Directions.

Benefits of Doctopus That I Love:

• Students can share documents/spreadsheets for collaboration.
• Students are working on the same document at the same time. - NO WAIT TIME!
• I can see ALL of the work being done, which students are doing the work and when, and leave feedback real time!!!! WOW and LOVE!
• Students can work together from home if they have internet access.  
• It does NOT matter what type of device is used (mostly-see differences below).  Students don't need the same device every day.

Differences Between iPad and Laptop using Doctopus: (things I wish I knew BEFORE I started)

• You cannot share a Google Presentation on the iPad.  You can only share a document or spreadsheet.
• The Google Drive App is really only good to use if students are working on text.  You cannot add pictures or other advanced items using the app.  This severely limits the use on an iPad.
• DO NOT add tables to your document.  I used table to try to help students organize their research they collected, but the tables did not show up using the Google Drive App.  -- Even better (grin) - If they opened Google Drive on the web, they could SEE the tables, but NOT Edit them.  I tried Desktop version and Mobile version. - Mobile version worked for a day, then stopped. -- So really... ONLY TEXT... nothing fancy for things to go smoothly.
• Students could not add images as mentioned above.

Basically, I wish I had laptops for all students to use during this part of the process.  However, it would have been fine if I had known a few things in advance and could adjust for the iPad differences.

Weebly

Students used Weebly to create their Informational Website end product.   FREE for a certain # of websites.  Use this LINK to access Weebly for Education.

I used two of my own emails to create two Educator Weebly accounts.  You get 40, 5-Page student websites with a single account.  At secondary, I needed at least 80 for partner groups.  I entered the usernames and passwords for my students then printed them for each group.  It didn't take more than 30 minutes to setup 80 usernames and passwords.  Well worth the time.

Students created a 5-page website with their research.  They basically copied and pasted what was on their Research Outline in Doctopus (Google Drive) with some tweaking.  As 7th graders, we focused more on researching skills.  Weebly worked great on the iPad except for changing the pictures on the themed, template pages.  They could add NEW pictures easily, but they could not change those that existed within the template.  A laptop cart for one day would easily get around this issue.  My teaching partner and I shared a laptop cart.

I would highly recommend this product for student use.  You can keep the websites private and require a password to access them after they have been published.  Perfect for even younger students.

All in all, this was a good process. Students are presenting and evaluating each other today using Google Forms.  Will post website examples in the next few days.

Maas Out!

TCEA 2014... Learned Some Things

I was lucky to be able to attend TCEA 2014 which is basically a technology conference for educators for those not familiar.  Since I have become embedded in edu tech over the last few years, I have looked for more and more opportunities to share my thoughts and learn from others.  TCEA is just one of those venues.

Over the course of this semester I will be looking into and implementing some of the following ideas I've gotten from TCEA sessions this week (more to come).

1.  Pen Pals - Oldie BUT  a Goodie with a Techie Twist
I am hoping to find digital pen pals with another secondary class somewhere outside of TX.   I'm actually hoping to find a class outside of the U.S.  I will ask them to email or use some other form of written communication (blog?) that I can monitor for a period of time and use this to help students with their writing...  Maybe even do a Google Hangout at the end.  I LOVE GHO, but that's for another blog.

2.  Google Docs - specifically for student collaboration
I use Google Docs for myself a lot for collaboration with coworkers and other edu tech colleagues, but I am now going to jump in with both feet to incorporate collaboration among my classes/students and PBL groups using Google Docs.  No MORE WASTED time!  This is a big subject, so I will just leave it at that for now until I implement.  I will post more during a project.  Perhaps our Novel unit coming up in a few weeks.  (See later Blog labeled Doctopus)

3.  Gamification! - for flipped learning and stations
I will use some cool gaming sites to deliver some of the more boring content that needs repetition and perhaps in a flipped setting.  This is REALLY new to me, so I'm looking forward to this one. Kahoot is a big one I'm excited to try out!  Google Forms is an option as well.  We currently have a staff member using Google Forms for student game end products, and it has worked well.

4.  ePortfolios
Still not sure what platform, but plan to use an ePortfolio next school year and do a trial run for our Research and Creative Writing units coming up after testing.

Those are my BIG ideas for now for implementation.  I will blog in more detail about each as I implement and share their projects/end products as we move through them and test them out!

That's it for now...

Maas Out!

Naive... perhaps...Idealistic... Yes!

I usually write about what I'm doing in my classroom and show student examples when I'm proud.  Today is a little different.

I've been quite reflective... okay... more reflective than usual as I tend to think too much... But as I consider my next professional step and the path I want to take, I have been considering truths that I have learned not only throughout my teaching career but life.  I have always been a little too passionate about my beliefs some would say.  I tend to go all in.  I'm not really sure how else to do things.  So as I ponder my next step in the education system, I have really been asking myself the following:  Why am I in education?  Is is because of my love of the content?  Is it because if you can't do, teach? (I love to write) Is it for the kids?  Of course the real answer to those questions is quite complicated.

The reality here is that I am reaching that point in my career as a teacher than I am becoming disappointed with the education system as a whole.  I'm sure most reflective teachers reach this point in their careers.  I realize how much helping kids is part of my reason for staying in the system I am becoming disheartened with, but I also start to wonder which path I should take as a result.  Giving up is not really in my blood.  I simply don't back down from a challenge.  To me, this broken system is a challenge, but it is one that can be all consuming and I fear that I will allow it to change my core beliefs and just give in to acceptance that I can't change anything.  That's not okay with me.

I had to speak to a harsh realization this week that I know but don't want to verbalize: we can't save them all.  I know this.  I know that this system, one teacher, one administrator can't save all children from their own, many times, unfair circumstances.  But I still ask, WHY?  Am I really that naive or just too idealistic?  If the system can't save them all, do we just accept that as a reality or do we change the system?

It seems a simple answer.  I realize the solution is not nearly that simple, but nothing that is worth doing ever is.  Food for thought.

I would apologize for my ramblings of my opinion on this, but that's not really in my DNA either.

Maas Out!