4th Annual Goody Triathlon

It's that time of year again!

Mr. Goodness, physical education teacher, organizes a 10K triathlon for special needs students throughout our area.  Over 150 students participated by swimming, biking, and running 6.2 miles!

It is my role to video the entire event and have a highlight video ready to view after lunch.  I use the iPad and iMovie as it is the EASIEST method for creating a video in such a short turn around!  After the race ends, the video needs to be ready in 30 minutes.  Not a problem with iMovie on the iPad!

I love this day, because students ALWAYS succeed when they think they can't.  Much of that is because of our many high school and middle school students and teachers who volunteer their time for encouragement!

Fantastic Event! View It!

Fuzel Collage Creation App

I recently discovered the redesigned Fuzel App. There are many apps that all for creation of collages, but this one seems to have an enormous amount of templates in which to insert pictures.

Sharing options, including save to camera roll, can provide easy uploading to Google Drive.

Video Link

iDevices, Google Drive, and Over App To Document Successes

Mr. Fullerton, our middle school principal, and Mr. Krause, our middle school assistant principle, created an opportunity for staff to use two and one half hours of a professional development day to allow staff to create their own learning environment.  Staff were able to choose their own area to think, question, collaborate, and create.  Some staff chose our own school forest and made bacon over an open fire, some chose a local coffee shop, while others chose a comfortable couch in our school.

To document these great areas of learning, Mr. Fullerton and Mr. Krause asked staff to send in a picture via email or text of their learning environment and who they were with.  After receiving the pictures a place to house the photos was needed.  Before doing this, the Over App was used to include messages that were sent with the picture.  The Over App allows for text to be placed on a picture.  A Google Drive folder could be accessed by both men so they could simultaneously upload pictures to the same digital area.  To share the folder, the two gentlemen placed the link on their Google Docs agenda.  This work flow provides digital documentation of successes from the original agenda.

I am extremely proud of our middle school administration team as they are utilizing the technology to enhance their learning environment.  As they become familiar with the technology, they can offer innovative technology solutions for our teachers!

View Their Story!

U.S. History 1990 And Early 2000 iMovie Trailers

Mr. Krause recently invited me into his classroom to assist students in developing an iMovie trailer on the iPad.  The task was to create a movie trailer highlighting an assigned topic in U.S. History during the 1990's.

PURPOSE: Movie trailers are done to attract an audience to the film.  The movie trailer will be trying to do the same thing by attracting the audience to your topic by highlighting the important or interesting things about your topic.

See how students created their final U.S. History product.
View the actual documents of the project.  To create the documents to be viewed, I inserted the pictures into   a Google Drive folder, changed the viewing access to "anyone with a link".  I then copied the link to the statement above.

3rd Annual Goody Challenge

Today's Goody Challenge combined everything that is good about our school!

• Students competing to accomplish something
• High School students volunteering their time
• Adults helping organize

From a technical side of it, the iPad and iMovie served as a great tool to put together a video in less than thirty minutes that all participants could see.  Having the video cap the day off was a great way for students and adults to relive the incredible accomplishments of the day!

World Geography Cultural Study Using Pic Collage and Skitch

In the past, Mrs. Brylski had students create advertisements for a beverage to be sold in a European country.  Students would use Microsoft Word or Publisher and the cut and paste method.  The final products would be placed into plastic sleeves in a binder.

Since we don't have Microsoft products, we needed a different method.  We decided that Pic Collage would be a great alternative because it provides layering, cropping of imported pictures, text, stickers, and multiple exporting options!  We did need to incorporate the Skitch app as we experienced a better paragraph writing experience.  We simply exported the Skitch creation to our camera roll.

Combine that with the Google Drive app to share the final products with the teacher and a real marketing person, the students are experiencing an authentic learning experience.

View the process!

Superimposing Photos On iPad In Calculus 2

Our calculus teacher came to me with this:

I want students to bring in an object, take a picture of it. superimpose it on a grid and take measurements.  Then develop the equation to calculate the Volume of the object using calculus.  I need you for the image capture and superimposing,

and this link.

I have never been asked this.  Off to discover I went!

1.  Explain Everything-a go to app, but not for this-can't blur one photo on top of another
2.  Visualize - used before, but not for this-can't blur one photo on top of another

Another Need: find a piece of graph paper!  Initially I was using Visualize app and it needed a specific resolution of an image.  This lead me to the Graph Paper app.

Eventually, I found this...

Superimpose App

It didn't require a specific resolution of graph paper.  Therefore, I was able to simply save an image of graph paper from a Google image search.

After one hour, this is the final solution that I have come up with...

Take picture of an object with iPad camera, store in camera roll

Save image of graph paper from Google Search to iPad

Use Superimpose App for combining two images.

Export final product of two pictures to camera roll

If the students need to manipulate the two images further, the SKITCH app will be used for annotating.

See final products:

Lunch N' Learn Trailer Using Intro Designer App

A great app that will enhance any iMovie production on the iPad is the Intro Designer app.  It creates a variety of stunning video clips that can stand alone or be included in an iMovie production.  Below is the :11 second intro that teachers may watch when deciding to attend Lunch N' Learn.



See a video tutorial on the features of Intro Designer:

Coach My Video & Physical Education

This might be the BIGGEST SUCCESS story of my two year involvement with iPad use.  Our physical education teacher met with me for a total of about two hours.  During those meetings, we discussed video taping students in physical education class to demonstrate proper fundamentals.  In the past, the teacher would review the videos and try to verbally apply that to the next class period.

With the use of CoachMyVideo and the iPad, today he showed the students directly on the iPad the movement of the students, added lines, and talked about correct fundamentals for jump roping.

The success comes in that for three years the student progressed minimally.  After ten minutes of the student being video taped and correcting the jump rope movement, the student HAS successfully mastered jump roping.

The iPad, the video, the instructor, & CoachMyVideo led to immediate gains of success!

Please wait until :55 seconds to hear the teacher tell the great story!

iMovie To Document Hunger Banquet

Something exciting happened today.  Students who had multiple experiences using the iPads to record video footage while using iMovie recorded a Hunger Banquet that was occurring with a group of students.  Not only were the students using the technology without any instructions, the teachers thought about and planned for the students to record the event.

Thank you to Mrs. Stainton and Mrs. Brylski for providing a real, thought provoking, learning experience.

Vernier Video Physic App In Action With Students

Today, was the culmination of a few hours of prep work with and without the physics teacher, Steve Blackford.  I completely taught the Video Physics app during first hour while the content teacher focused on the objectives of the lab.  The classroom teacher and I took more of a team teaching approach during second hour.  During the third hour, I was present in the classroom to simply provide support and to answer any tech questions that may arise (there were very few) during the content teachers complete explanation of the lab and the tech tool being used.  For the rest of the day, the content teacher is teaching both the lab and the tech tool features that will be implemented to fulfill the lesson objectives.  If he does have any questions, he can always review the video tutorial that was made for him.

I believe that having gradual release of the tech tool responsibility to the classroom teacher is truly the best way to support implementation of tech tool into the content area. Combine that with discussions with the content teacher to determine the best tool prior to the lesson and students are receiving quality, efficient instruction.

See how the day progressed!

Vernier Video Physics App

For the next few days our Physics students will be plotting the motion of an object.  Our physics teacher decided to purchase the Video Physics app which will allow for videoing and graphing options.

Since I can't be in his class for all seven class periods, I created a four minute video that can be shown to all students prior to use of the app.  The video allows for the teacher to not have to master the use of the tech tool, but can focus on the content which is a much larger aspect of the learning than the tech tool.

When creating these video tutorials, I always act as if I am presenting in front of the students.  This way, I virtually am!

Insert Video with Explain Everything 2.0 Beta

I have been blessed to be able to test the new Explain Everything.  It is not available to everyone, and I appreciate the opportunity to test it.

With that being said, I believe one of the greatest additions to Explain Everything is the opportunity to insert not just pictures and web content, but video.  Video that can be acquired via the camera roll or directly from the camera.  Not only can the video be inserted, but it can be played while being annotated and voice recorded at the same time.

See three different options as to how I see this being used by staff and students.

Home Video and Angry Birds To Find Parabolas

Using home videos with an overlay of graph paper created with Camtasia, the math students discovered parabolas in real situations.

See how this was so easily accomplished with the use of an iPad.

Teacher Progression of Implementing Technology

Modeling implementation of technology came full circle yesterday with the teacher that I taught the tech to now teaching her students.

Let me explain.

On October 31, our science teacher wanted to use iMovie and Skitch with two classes to demonstrate the transfer of matter.  She had never used either tool, but believed the use of these tech tools helped engage and solidify the concepts.  She believed that they helped so much that she wanted to implement the tools with other classes that she taught.

The great thing is that during yesterday's implementations, SHE DIDN'T NEED ME!  She felt confident from using the tools in other settings to simply not need any support.  She spent about seven minutes showing some features of iMovie and then let the students discover how they were going to use the app.  She also used the assistance by a student who had used iMovie!

Perfect!

I really feel that our district is teaching teachers in the correct manner.  Providing guided assistance so that they teachers become SPARKS to future teaching and learning!

QR Codes Provide Quick Individual Tutor

After two meetings and about an hour and a half of planning, this activity came to fruition today in class.  We used the Scan app, which seems to be the fastest app in the land.

See the process and the teacher's reaction.  The teacher was able answer students' questions on an individual basis, because each student was a different pace.

iMovie Tutorial For Teacher To Show In Class

As previously documented, I have found a way to be in more than one classroom at a time.  Earlier this week, a teacher wanted me to provide insight into iMovie.  I was already booked with another teacher.  I created the video below knowing that she would play it in front of her students.  She did, it was perfect, and I was in two places at once.

iMovie For Seven Deadly Sins of Video

The media teacher wanted students to create "how to" videos revealing how the seven deadly sins of videoing can be avoided.  Instead of videoing with a camera, uploading it to the computer, and then completing the editing, he chose to use iMovie on the iPad.  This allowed students to video tape and edit all on the same machine.

Removing the step of uploading.

I entered the classroom and in five minutes instructed the students on the small amount of details functions of iMovie.  The students then grabbed their iPads, their media passes, and headed out to make the videos.

PowerCam HD camera app and One Minute Videos

Students completed their "Affects of Westward Expansion on Native Americans" study by forming an opinion on whether the treatment of Native Americans was an example of a holocaust.

Students used their Draw Smart Venn Diagram app to create a one minute video on whether they believed or didn't believe that it was a holocaust.

The process of recording a video was enhanced by the options on the PowerCam HD app.  Students had fun choosing an effect to be incorporated with their video.

We used Dropbox to upload it to a folder in which we could view the video.  Some students even had time to email their video to their parents using the public link feature in Dropbox.

Finally we used a Google form placed on our iPad to use while watching the videos.