Digital Images Update

Just finishing up our unit on fractions and thought I'd update some info from my paper on digital images in the classroom. I collected 20 images from Google Image that may or may not have had obvious relations to fractions. Pictures of a striped big top tent, a chess board, some tropical birds, a pirate ship, etc. I had the kids work in pairs to try and identify a fraction or two from each picture. For example the pirate ship had 5 of its 8 sails unfurled or 5/8ths. Some of the pictures I included without any idea how the kids were going to find any fractions at all, but all of them came up with something.

The next step is for them to search images and come up with a simple question regarding a fraction from the picture. Then with another image they have to some up with a somewhat challenging word problem that goes with that picture. The images, questions and answers will be done on PowerPoint and presented to the class. I'd like to try sending out some students with their own camera to take images from around our school to look at and study, but I'm still working out the details. So far the kids are into it and having a lot of fun. Looking forward to the Fractions Computer Test day.

Digital Images in the Classroom

Here are some activities mentioned in my paper on Digital Images in the Classroom:

There are countless opportunities throughout the curriculum to use digital photography. Here are just three examples that I have used in the last year. In the Language curriculum it is important for students to be aware of point-of-view and voice in pieces of literature. One activity to bring this concept home is to re-write a well-known story from a different character’s perspective. Fairy tales are wonderful to use because they are so well known and usually have a villain or sidekick through which the modified story can be told. In addition to re-writing the story in groups, they also had to create a picture book. Instead of drawing the images, they were to act them out using tableau, which is a frozen picture or snapshot of action. One student took the photos with a digital camera while the group posed in their tableau. Once the pictures were taken, the students typed out the book and included one image on each page. The image had to go along with the text that was included on that page just like an actual picture book. The kids brought in costumes and had a ball. Drama and language expectations were covered as well as allowing the kids the opportunity to edit and format the pictures on the computer.

Another language-based activity is creating a magazine. The class discussed the various forms of media we see around us every day and how they communicate with us. We talked about how magazines communicate with both text and images. The students then had to create their own magazine with expository, persuasive and descriptive articles. They also had to include advertisements in their magazine for various products. While some students chose to hand draw their images and others cut pictures out of actual magazines, the majority used digital images they found online. These images lent a feel of legitimacy to their magazine as if it were a professionally published periodical. The pictures they used were easily sized and imported into their documents. Many wrote about celebrities and then used actual photos of them in their articles. The digital images they found on the web worked well because they were specific to the themes of the students work and they look professional because digital imagery is so easy to manipulate and make your own. A few students chose to take the photos themselves and include their family and friends in their articles and advertisements. This creative and personal touch certainly makes a great impression on the reader. Their magazines will no doubt make wonderful mementos of their year in our class.

To extend digital photography into the math class is arguably even simpler. A neat lesson that I have used in the past basically uses images as conversation starters in math. This technique can be used as an intro or a wrap-up to a math concept. An image of a Ferris wheel perhaps might spark a student to think of tessellations or rotations. An image of a pizza might get a student thinking about fractions. The next step in this activity is to send the students out with a camera to capture images that have a math spin on them. The concept doesn’t really matter. It could be decimals, geometric shapes, symmetry, ratios or whatever unit of study is happening in your class. The kids bring the images back and we would discuss them as a class or try to guess what each student was thinking about when they took their picture. I have found that kids love to talk about math and numbers and this is a great way to start the conversation. While finding digital images on-line is a great place to start, the real learning starts when the kids take control of the camera and the images.

A Bridge Too Far

Speaking of digital visuals in the classroom, I'm in the process of making a video from footage we shot in our class. The grade 5's built popsicle stick bridges for our structures unit and the bridges have to hold a live load of lots and lots of textbooks. We set up the bridges and then began piling on the weight. The class was buzzing as we watched the piles grow higher and higher, then the cracking sound of impending doom filled the room. It was a blast.

Prior to the destruction we did a drama activity where the kids had to introduce their bridge as if they were an actual construction company. They discussed how much the project cost, how long it took their company to complete it, where the bridge was going to be used. It was a neat opportunity for some creative writing and role-playing. I'm going to start the video with those interviews and then cut to the action of bridges being smushed and smashed.

I wouldn't have been able to do all of this and still maintain some semblance of order in the room if I didn't have a responsible, enthusiastic and dedicated volunteer behind the camera. As it turns out, my co-op student is a budding Steven Spielberg (except that she's a girl... so, Stephanie Spielberg?) This is one of the major stumbling blocks of using technology in the classroom. The school's cameras are garbage, so in order to use a good camera, I had to bring mine from home. In the junior grades it's still a risk to hand over expensive hardware to the kids, which means you need lots of adult assistance and intervention. I know the kids will be excited by the end product so in the end, its worth the planning and effort. Plus, maybe Universal Studios will buy the rights so that I can finally retire from teaching and focus on golf full time. ...maybe not.

Digital Audio in the Classroom

Here is just the section of my paper on using and creating audio media in the elementary classroom:

The first and simplest way to use digital audio in the classroom, no matter what grade, is to just play the music. Music has the capability to calm or to excite, to motivate or to entertain. I have found that playing music in the classroom changes the environment like nothing else. Students beg to hear their favorite new song. They demand to know what artists’ names are and where they can get the songs for themselves. They go home and ask their parents what they listened to when they were young, and bring in more music to share with the class. Whether it is during art class, during a language lesson, during a game or during a peaceful reflective period, music makes the classroom a more welcoming and comfortable environment. Compared to the cassette tapes and even CD’s of the past, teachers would have to cart around a huge music collection to have a large variety of songs to play. Now they are all in one place. Whether it is a laptop or MP3 player hooked up to speakers, any song that you want to play is easily stored and waiting. Even radio can’t compete. With digital audio I can program a playlist of songs I know are classroom appropriate with a mix of genres, styles and artists without worrying about the reception.
Now as important as it is to have music in the classroom, it is even more meaningful when it can be used to educate. Integrating digital audio into the curriculum for our students with different learning styles should be the ultimate goal, and this extends beyond just playing songs. While music fits into our language curriculum very nicely (thematic song lyrics, poetry, voice, point of view), there are so many more options available to teachers who want to differentiate their instruction for their students benefit. Find the novel you are reading and download an audio version. Do the same with famous poems. My grade 7 class studied two poems by Robert Frost, “The Road Less Traveled” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. We read them, analyzed them and then I downloaded the poems as read by the author. To hear him read his own work was bone-chilling and it gave us several new insights into how the work was meant to be interpreted. I found the recordings in minutes on iTunes and was able to have them playing in my room before our discussion was even over. The technology has reached the point where we can collect resources and use them in real time so that we don’t lose the Teachable Moment when we recognize it.
Another option for the use of digital audio is what I call the “Guest Lecture Series”. It consists of whatever podcasts or interviews I can find that sync up with the unit or theme we are covering in class. Why reinvent the wheel when the world is full of experts who can come into your class via downloadable audio clips? They can speak with authority on subjects that our students will find interesting, informative and educational. The teacher’s only job is then to moderate discussion, jump start creativity and push the students further in their own thinking and understanding of the topic.
Even something as simple as “Word of the Day” podcasts can add something new and interesting to your word study program. It might be different enough to catch your students’ attention (especially those auditory learners) and the best part is that it is already done for you and waiting on your laptop via iTunes. Depending on the grade level you are teaching at, there are multitudes of podcasts that are capable of easily enriching your lessons and maybe even hitting the learning styles of specific students.

Once teachers are comfortable using digital audio media in the classroom the next step is to modify and even create their own audio resources. Teachers have been making their own audio for years by using cassettes, however the advent of digital media not only improves the quality of those recordings, but also makes it easier. In addition to simply recording our own voices we can modify and edit other audio files to suit our own needs.
As mentioned earlier, poetry is one area of the curriculum that can be made much more interesting by listening to professional poets and famous actors reciting the poetry kids are studying. After listening to those clips the students with the help of audio software like GarageBand or Audacity can try their own hand at reciting poetry in a way that enhances the poems meaning. Teachers will find that they are covering Oral/Visual Language expectations, Drama expectations and Reading expectations all at once. Many educational experts have expressed for years that integrating curriculum expectations is the best way to deliver lessons in the most meaningful way. Using student created audio, the kids themselves are preparing and performing activities that hit on many expectations at once.
Another modification that can be very useful and enriching is having level 4 students prepare listening centres for any struggling readers in your class. This can help those students who need extra time and practice with a text or novel as well as instilling responsibility and ownership in the better readers. The best way to reinforce a concept is to teach it to others. If those students who have easily completed the basic expectations can then create resources to teach other students they will have truly mastered the concept.
Creating songs with your students to reinforce the key points in a novel or concepts in a science unit is another great way to create your own audio study guides. A fellow teacher and I have created multiple songs in the last few years about topics such as the water cycle, parts of speech and novel studies to name a few. We have co-opted such tunes as Burning Ring of Fire (Burning Ring of Nouns), Sweet Caroline (Sweet Salsa Words) and I’m a Believer (I’m a Verb Learner). The kids have fun writing the lyrics and inevitably learn about meter, tempo, rhyme and syllables. When we listen to the song their little brains have no choice but to soak up the information. We have had great feedback from parents who have their own song suggestions, although some playfully complain about having the song stuck in their head for weeks!

Pencils, Books, Dirty Looks

Peter posted a link to an interesting article which put an updated face on what people have been saying for years about laptops in the classroom. Soon it WILL be more cost effective to buy each student a laptop than a set of classroom textbooks. That realization changes the whole foundation of our schools. No more pencils, no more books a wise man once said. What would that classroom look like?

The one thing that I disagreed with was a student who when interviewed said there would no longer be any excuse for late assignments ("you can't say the dog ate it anymore") I have lots of faith in my students being able to come up with excuses for just about anything. Seriously though, we have thousands of employed, over worked IT professionals that live on fixing problem after problem with software and hardware. I think the more important realization here is that these students are not just comfortable with technology, it IS their culture. They communicate, create content, trouble shoot ... and they are younger than ever when they attain these skills.

Will I be teaching when this happens. Possibly. These kids may need it to happen sooner than later. I got my first cell phone 10 years ago and now I reach for it without thinking. Imagine what its like for these students who will never remember a time they didn't have their phone with them like a part of their body. The time is fast approaching.

What's New in Music?

I had to laugh when thinking about this because I had a moment a few years ago that highlighted my techno-bias towards our modern luxuries. My wife's grandmother had an 80+ year old gramaphone in her house that I refused to believe worked because it didn't have a plug! lol While I realized how stupid I was as soon as it came out of my mouth, I was still stunned when we cranked it up (literally) and the thing absolutely filled the room with a ditty by Wilf Carter "The Yodelling Cowboy" (Johnny Cash's father in law) from the early 30's.

The fact that vinyl is not completely dead and is in fact in the middle of a little rebirth speaks to the need for people to have a "real" connection to their music. They need to have something to hold onto, something that has a physical presence not just taking up megabytes on their laptops. That being said, even though we still crank up the g-phone when new company comes over for the first time, my ipod and blackberry are chock full of MP3s. Even just being able to catch some streaming radio stations that I wouldn't be able to listen to normally is very cool. Nothing beats catching a band on a Seattle or San Fran station 6 months before anyone has heard of them.

Finally, cassettes just sucked. No technical evidence of this. I just hated them.

Software Evaluation: Take That Math Circus!

I can't wait to get into evaluating some of the software programs available to our students at school. Most of what has been listed on our computers, up until last year, was total garbage in my opinion. Some of them looked like they were still running on the DOS operating system, if not made for Commodore 64! So now that I've dated myself terribly, lets get down to business. Crumby programs that serve no conceivable purpose beware... you are about to get a severe rubricized slap down!

I'm not quite sure where I will begin. I may ask students which of our programs are the most popular, or least popular. Which programs they go on when they have free time or what programs they find the most useful. I'd be interested to hear their responses. While my grade 5's are not as techno savvy as my grade 7's were, there are definitely a few who are old hands at word processing, power point slide shows and even some animations. I bet they would actually have some worthwhile suggestions that these software creators could take some lessons from.