A Starry, Starry... Keyboard?

Every year third grade is faced with an exciting, but potentially overwhelming experience.  They move from iPads to Chromebooks.  Which means they move from totally touch screen, to {gulp} keyboards.

Like I said, exciting, but definitely overwhelming.  It's the same every year, with every group of kids, too.  They come in very excited about their Chromebooks, in awe of all they will be learning throughout the year.  And then they try to log-in, and realize how challenging that is, and how long it takes.

After the first day of struggle, I ask the kids what would make it easier for them to log-in. And every year, the answer is the same.  "We need to know where the keys are!"  And every year, this kicks off our typing journey.

This year, I've added a mathematical twist.  And a little motivation.  Because many kids in this year's group, I noticed, are content rushing through each level of typing.com, earning the minimal score to pass to the next level.  No matter how much their teachers and I emphasize the accuracy over the speed, they continue to try to race through the practice (not a shock at all!)

For the first time ever, we're allowing the third and fourth graders to put stickers on their Chromebooks.  There's a large, clear, sticker that I put on the top of each device, and the rule is, the stickers must stay on the clear cover.  But for the third graders, they have to earn those stickers.

Enter typing stars.

Instead of focusing on levels or words per minute (at least for now) the focus is on stars.  Typing.com gives kids the opportunity to earn three stars on each level, and each of their units has approximately 12 levels.  That means kids can potentially earn 36 stars in each unit.

And in order to put their own stickers on their Chromebooks, they have to earn 100 of my typing stars.  And those typing stars come 10 stars per sticker.  Which means when I passed out the first round of stickers, students had to calculate how many stars they actually earned, and how many more they need until they can put their own stickers on.

Two things were accomplished with this new addition to third grade typing.  First, students are highly motivated to practice their typing.  Second, they stop asking me when they can put stickers on their Chromebook!

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Stop Motion + Earth Day = Creative Explosion!

This year's mini-unit on Stop Motion culminated not with state tours.  Instead, it culminated with something equally as important.  Earth Day videos.

After watching a few clips on Earth Day, 3rd graders were given 20 minutes to design their own Earth Day clip.  Yes, we're using the somewhat clunky Chrome app.  Yes, 20 minutes is not a lot of time.

And yes, these kids created some pretty adorable clips!

Stop the Motion!

One of my favorite activities to introduce in third grade is Stop Motion.  Every year they do some sort of stop motion animation project and from there, they add the idea of stop motion to their tool belts for future projects in other grades.

We use the free iPad app Stop Motion Studio, the kids work in partners, and we start from the ground up.  Kids first animate their names, then we bring in the clock and they review telling time, before finally heading into their project.

This year, third grade doesn't have iPads.  

But we didn't let that stop us!

Enter Stop Motion Animator for Chromebooks.  It's definitely clunkier.  It doesn't have as many features. And taking pictures with Chromebooks can be a bit tricky.

But it works.

So this week, third grade got to play with Stop Motion. 
They still got the concepts, the ideas, and the exposure to the simplicity of creating animations.  

Was it as fancy?  As easy?  Nope. 
Was it as fun?  Yup. 
Will we revisit it again next year?  Absolutely.

Oh.  One more thing.  There are two version of Stop Motion Animator in the Chrome app store.  I prefer the one that has187+ reviews.

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A Technology Tail?

I love reading.  I love stories.  And I especially love picture books.  My personal collection of children's books, ranging in age from birth to high school, is embarrassingly large.

When it came time to introduce digital citizenship in 3rd grade, I decided that this year, I'd start with a book!  Unfortunately, this particular book is in my office at school.  And I'm working from home.

Never fear!  Another mashup to the rescue!  Thanks to the amazing teachers on the planet, I was able to find a video of the book on YouTube.  I then embedded the video into Seesaw, where the kids would complete a follow-up activity, and voila!

We read the book A Technology Tail, by Julia Cook.  If you don't know it, it's a great introduction for kids about how everything they do online makes an impact in the "real world" whether they realize it or not.  It's a great book to add to a digital literacy library.

After we read the book (thank you YouTube) the kids completed an activity in Seesaw that asked them to first pick examples from the book, and then look for examples in their lives.  They needed an example of a "hole" or something you do online that is unsafe, a "tear" or something you do online that is unkind, and an example of a "gift" or something you do online that is positive.  

The book does a fantastic job of examining why some things might feel like a "gift" to one person, but are a "tear" to another.  The kids came up with some great examples from their own experiences, too!  If you're interested in the Seesaw activity, drop me a line and I'll send it your way!

 

You've been Framed!

Every year, our third graders engage in a biography unit.  And every year, they present their learning in some sort of wax museum format.  And every year, we try to add one new twist to the unit.

Three years ago it was recording the presentations with the Green Screen (Love DoInk!) Two years ago it was having the kids use Osmo Masterpiece (one of my favorites!) to create portraits.  Last year, Covid crashed the plans, but Flipgrid fixed things!

This year, with some kids on campus and some kids remote, we turned to Flipgrid again.  Flipgrid, with a twist.

Since discovering the fabulousness of Flipgrid Frames, I look for any excuse to use one!  This year's wax museum was the perfect excuse!  Especially because it can be done with no special tools - just good old paper and coloring supplies.  No Green Screen needed!

Even better, math can be integrated in the process too.  How?  Because you need to start with a regular piece of drawing paper.  Fold that paper in quarters.  Measure two inches from the side (or one and a half) and cut out the center.  Unfold and you have a frame to decorate!

To create the virtual frame, Google Drawings was used.  (I am sure there are easier ways - share if you know of any!)  Then the kids added the frame as an image in Flipgrid, stretched it to fill the screen, and you have some very fancy videos!

Authors in Action

Wow can those third graders write!  And thanks to Book Creator, their writing is looking very professional in the books on which they are working!

Book Creator makes it very simple to take a piece of writing (or pieces of writing!) and turn them into polished, easily accessible, and engaging (read: you can make them interactive with links and audio!) products.

The third graders have been working hard polishing their writing in Google.  Over the past few weeks they've reviewed adding backgrounds and images and textboxes in Book Creator.  This week we learned how to copy and paste their edited writing from Google into Book Creator.  It never gets old, watching their eyes light up as they see their writing magically appear in a new place!

Through these Book Creator experiences, we also get to talk about the aesthetics of publishing.  We all know how easy it is to get lost in fonts, so we talk about how you want consistency of font style, chapter titles one font across the book, body style consistent, and how readability is key.  Those are some tough choices to make when you're in the heat of your publishing!

The kids add a table of contents, and thanks to the beauty of Book Creator, they can make each chapter in the table of contents linkable to the specific page in the book!

Book Creator offers a completely free option, completely, free!  You get one library with up to 40 books in it!  Great to play around with before you dive into the give-me-more-space-for-more-books-it's-so-much-fun world!

Book Creator: Let's Get Writing!

The 3rd grade tech journey has been pretty basic thus far: Typing and Google Slides.

It's time to kick things up a notch (remember Emeril?) in the tech game!  It's time for Book Creator!

A huge writing unit in 3rd grade is Informational Text.  They review elements of non-fiction, explore supporting details, and develop writing skills in general.  The kids get to choose their own topic, which the kids love.

The writing starts in January.  The tech practice starts now!

To kick things off, we practiced typing in a website - yikes!  Thankfully, GoGuardian makes it easy to send websites to kids computers!  Once they got to the website, the kids had to make sure to click on student login and login with Google.  Then, they're in!

It was fun exploring cover design, learning to add text boxes and import pictures, and yes, change fonts.  The drawing tool in Book Creator is amazing!  You can add little details to enhance your pages, create custom backgrounds, and so much more!  It's all so intuitive, to, so after a little practice, the kids are good to go!

Quick Post: Quick Draw!

Quick post about a quick activity that my friend Megan did today with her 4th graders.  Megan is teaching remotely this year, and just like her on-campus counterparts, she always opens with a class activity.  

I was blown away by the quality of these quick draws!  Next time I pop in and see it happening, I promise I'll get pictures, because let me tell you - 60 seconds is not a lot of time, but their drawings are amazing!

 

Time to (go) BACK (to) SLIDE

Now that the 3rd graders have had *some* experience with slides, and they loved Shapegrams, we took their slides practice to the next level.

That level is fonts.

Because as much time as I spend playing with fonts?  Introduce fonts to 3rd graders and there goes your time!

Part of the push for for fonts is that the next project the 3rd graders have is publishing a book.  And my favorite part of that project is the font conversation!  The one where we talk about all the fun fonts out there, how you can pick fun fonts for titles, how your writing fonts need to be readable.... all that facets of fonts!

Not only that, but now that the kids learned layering in Shapegrams, they practiced that, too!

We're having fun "sliding" along our technology journey in 3rd grade...!

Shapegrams!

Goal: Be able to design images online.

Some of you are looking at this going "No. Freakin'. Way.  I'm fine with finding graphics online.  Plenty good enough!"

What if I told you that 3rd graders are able to create their own images online?  Really, they are!  Wanna know how?

Tony Vincent (read more about him here!) created Shapegrams.  You may have heard of Google Drawings before since it's part of GSuite, but have yet to use it.

(Created by Tony, Shapegram Style!)

Enter Shapegrams!  Tony created an engaging and simple program that guides users through step by step instruction on each of the tools offered in Google Drawings.  More than that, the videos that accompany his direction make it possible for anyone to stop and start their way to completion. 

Each Shapegram has three elements - video and hints, drawing space, and an extension activity.  All of these are perfectly laid out on the Google Drawings canvas.  And... Tony has graciously offered the first four Shapegrams completely free!  (Want more once you start? Membership is worth it!)

Back to 3rd grade.  They're still in the phase of tech where they're practicing drag-and-drop.  Pretty basic.  Check out their first attempt at Shapegrams:

Not bad for first timers!  The image on the left is Tony's original image that the kids are to recreate.  It takes practice for sure, and is a great way to reinforce the drag-and-drop skill for 3rd grade!

As you become more experienced, you learn how to change line styles, border thickness, and a plethora of other helpful tips to allow us regular folk to create our own graphics!

Third Grade Slides!

Once third graders have the basic down - and by basics I mean they can login to their Chromebooks and access Google Drive - we jump right into one of the most used (and sometimes overused?) GSuite tool: Google Slides!

(Don't get me wrong, it is definitely my most used tool, and a favorite.  I mean, I have a few presentations ready to roll on how to make Google Slides work for you.)

The biggest hurdle to pass is that for most of these kiddos, it's the first time they're using a trackpad (or mouse) and not a touchscreen.  Because of that, we start with drag and drop skills.  Now there are lots of templates and activities out there for this, ready to go.  But when you teach in a school that is dual language, you have half the time to accomplish what you need to do.  So you get a little creative.

That meant that this activity accomplished not one, not two, but three tasks: introduction to drag and drop, BrainPop login, noun review.  Check out some of the tasks!

They logged into BrainPop for the first time and watched the assigned movie.
Then they practiced drag-and-drop activities based on the video.
They weren't expected to have mastery of this last one, but it brought up great questions!

Kickin' Off 3rd Grade Tech!

Third grade is a BIG year for technology at my school.  It's the first time the kids get their own devices!  Well, typically they share an iPad and a Chromebook with a fourth grader.  This year, though, everyone got their own device, K-4 (thank you COVID.)  That meant all kids, K-3 got their own logins this year. 

However.

In third grade, they got their own Chromebook which meant learning to type.  Still a very big deal!

Enter typing.com

That is where the third graders spend most of their tech time.  At least until they can login proficiently!

We've been through a few other typing programs, and while I won't name names, I will say that typing.com has been my favorite by far.  The kids login with Google, it syncs with Google Classroom, making it easy for teachers to check progress, and the lessons are bite sized.  That last part is important because the kids feel very like they're accomplishing things even when they only have 10 minutes, because they can complete a whole level (or two!) in that short bit of time.

Did I mention it's free?  Yes, there is a paid platform too, that gives you loads of customization options (highly recommended if you have the budget!) Thankfully the free platform has been just right for our needs this year!

It's a Masterpiece!

Seriously!

This week our 3rd graders were readying to trace pictures of the famous people and turn them into masterpieces in art class.  (They are researching different people as part of their biography unit.)  While taping a picture to a window, and taping another piece of paper on top of it is nice... things took a technological twist, instead!

Enter Osmo Masterpiece!

From my perspective, it was one of the coolest experiences this year - seeing all the third graders, so focused, so intent, and so excited about what they accomplished with this new tech toy?  It was awe-inspiring.

If you're not familiar with Osmo Masterpiece, it takes an image you upload (or use one of the many provided images!) and turns it into a line drawing on the screen.  From there, you place a piece of paper in front of the Osmo, and you see your hands tracing the picture on the screen, while the pencil draws the lines on the paper.  Definitely not the greatest description, so check out the intro on Masterpiece for details that make more sense (hey, it's been a long, long week here!)

Because we used pretty big paper (12 x 18, maybe?) and Osmo Masterpiece works best with letter size paper, we experimented with elevating the Osmo base using blocks.  And while I can't exactly explain how it worked, it definitely worked, as the kids pictures filled much of the paper.  Oh, forgot to mention one of the neatest features!  While you're creating your drawing, Osmo is recording the whole process.  At the end, you have a time-lapse video of the process!  So cool!

Now that the kids have finished their drawings, they'll be taking them to Art class to turn them into detailed works of art in time for the 3rd grade Wax Museum in a few weeks!  I had a blast watching them work, and the kids?  They are already asking when they can use Osmo Masterpiece again!

Another win for Osmo!