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Presenting Learning with Stop Motion Animation

September 14, 2011Kelly Tenkely16 Comments6731 views

What it is: At Anastasis Academy, we have some Stop Motion Animation PROS in the form of an eight year and ten-year old boy. These brothers taught themselves how to use stop motion animation, proceeded to create several learning videos (without assistance from a teacher) and, if that wasn’t enough, went on to teach the rest of our students how to do it! Incredible. Nothing like starting the day with a little viral learning! Today these two young boys stood before our junior high students (twelve to fourteen year olds) and taught them how to make a stop motion animation video. The young boys are SO proud of their accomplishment and were incredibly articulate as they taught the older kids about stop motion, the programs that can be used for stop motion and talked about technique. The older students followed along as the boys led them step-by-step through creating their own short stop motion video with a pencil or shoe. The ten-year old then issued the jr. high a challenge: Create a stop motion video before the end of the school day to show me, I’ll give you tips on what you can improve on. Above is one of the jr. high created videos that was presented. It was incredible to stand back and watch kids teaching and leading kids this way. The age difference was no barrier today!

Today, our students used the iMotion HD app on the iPad to create their stop motion animations. This FREE app is powerful in the hands of creative kids! The brothers have been using stop motion regularly to reflect on, or display learning.

The older of the two brother’s started learning stop motion using SMA (Stop Motion Animator) this is a free program that works using a PC, webcam and a whole-lotta (technical term) imagination.

For the Linux crowd, there is the free Stop Motion.

For the Mac crowd (cheers), there is the free Jelly Cam.

How to integrate Stop Motion into the classroom: Stop Motion is a great way for students to create their own animated videos. Students can use stop motion to display learning, as a way to reflect on learning, to tell a story, to demonstrate a time-lapse of a scientific process or just as a creative outlet. Stop motion requires students to do some pre-planning. First students have to decide what story they are trying to tell, next they have to decide how they are going to demonstrate that story visually, finally they need to move an “actor” frame by frame through the scene. The results are pretty incredible (as you can see above).

Tips:Some tips from our Stop Motion PROS: Make sure not to move your actor too far each time or the end result will be choppy, make sure to move your hand out of the shot before snapping the picture, plan through your story BEFORE you start.

Check out our YouTube channel for more stop motion animation from our students. The Bones, Gnome.Eaten.By.Jaws, and Anastasis Academy videos were all created by the 8-year-old! (P.S. The kids LOVE comments on their videos!)

This, my friends, is what happens when you give kids room to learn! Onward.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Stop Motion Animation in your classroom!

Learning Box Base 10 Blocks: Virtual math manipulative

September 7, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments8363 views

What it is: Today while I was doing a quick Google search for a place I could buy a set of base 10 blocks, I came across this AWESOME digital version by accident. What a happy accident! Learning Box has a virtual version of base 10 blocks that builds in a fun practice game. Students are given a target number and drag base 10 blocks onto the paper to represent that number. As students add blocks, a counter at the bottom of the page shows how many blocks are currently on the paper. This is a great way for students to digitally practice place value, counting by hundreds, tens and ones.

The outcome of my shopping trip for base 10 blocks: the digital version is MUCH cheaper (read:free) than the physical version (not free). While I understand the value of the physical blocks, the digital version is a fantastic alternative for classrooms without the budget for each student to have a set or for students to continue practice at home.

How to integrate Learning Box Base 10 into the classroom: The Learning Box Base 10 blocks are a great example of a virtual manipulative. They help students visually represent numbers and place value. I like the way the slider and cups on the bottom of the page help track student progress as they drag blocks to the paper. When students get the target number, they don’t start with a blank slate, instead a new target number is given and students have to figure out which blocks to add or subtract. You can adjust the level of difficulty and place values practiced by clicking on the 1, 10, and 100 circle to the left of the paper.

Learning Box Base 10 would make a great center activity in the one or two computer classroom. Students can use the digital manipulatives with the built in game or to help them represent real-world problems.

Start a whole-class game with the Learning Box Base 10 blocks using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Students can take turns at the board solving the problem and “phone a friend” if they need some additional support.

Tips: This Learning Box activity is flash based…I’m hoping that someone comes out with an app of manipulatives for the iPad (hint, hint).

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Learning Box Base 10 Blocks in your classroom!

Make your own QR Code Scavenger Hunt!

August 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely35 Comments33683 views

Today was the first day of school. Ever. It was pretty epic. Since the students didn’t know where things were located in the building yet, I thought we would have some fun locating them with a QR code scavenger hunt. It was SO easy to do, I thought I would share the process here.

1. First I made a new website where each page of the website contained a clue. I made my site with Weebly.com because it is SO easy to use. I made the entire site in under 10 minutes.

2. Next I used goo.gl URL shortener to shorten the URL of each webpage and generate a QR code. Just copy and paste the long Weebly URL into the goo.gl shortener and voila. A short Googlefied (that is a technical term) URL. Click on “Details” next to the shortened URL to view your QR code. I just dragged and dropped these QR codes into a Pages document so that they were all in one place for easy printing/copying.

3. Print out QR code sheet and make enough copies for each classroom. Because we have a 10-1 student-teacher ratio, I made up 10 clues to find. Each student was in charge of one clue. I cut up the QR code sheet so that each student had a little QR code clue card.

4. Set students out on their mission. Each student takes a turn using the Scan app to uncover the clue. They read the clue out loud to their group and brainstorm what the answer could be. When they thought they had the answer, they went to that place and took a picture of it using the camera app. For example, one of our clues was: “The Grub Hub”, students went down to the kitchen and took a picture.

5. When all pictures have been collected, students gather and add up the points they won.

*Below is my example of the QR code and website they were connected to.

This was a really easy activity to prepare for from a teacher perspective. The impact was huge with the students. They had a great time with this!

We used this hunt as a way for students to familiarize themselves with the layout of the new school but it would also be a great activity for a math scavenger hunt “Find an item that represents three times four”, or colors in art “This is the color you get when you mix yellow and blue”, or literature “find an object that represents this character in our novel”. The list could go on and on if you use your imagination! The QR codes are so easy to generate, students could use these for almost anything!

Visual.ly- Infographics Galore!

July 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2677 views

What it is: I am a geek for infographics. I love the way they convey ideas so clearly (especially for visual learners like me!). Visual.ly is infographic geek heaven. At Visual.ly you can search all the best infographics from the web in one convenient place. Do you (or your students) have infographics to share? Upload your infographics to Visual.ly and share them with others. Visual.ly even has a lab where you can create your own infographics! Way cool! Right now the create feature is limited to a Twitter infographic.

How to integrate Visual.ly into the classroom: Visual.ly is a great place to find infographics on any subject. Search infographics by subject or keyword. Use infographics to introduce new concepts, to begin a research project (is the infographic accurate?) or for review. Infographics are brilliant in the way that they help communicate complex ideas in a clear, compact and visually appealing way.

Visual.ly can help students better understand infographics so they can create their own. Right now Visual.ly only has the option for creating a Twitter related infographic (see mine below). This is great if your class has a Twitter account, students can see what their connections online look like (of course just part of the story!). You don’t have to wait on Visual.ly to finish their creation tool, use Excel, Numbers, Pages, PowerPoint, Keynote, etc. to create your own infographics! Any time data is involved (science, math, geography, economics, history, government) students can create an infographic to visualize the learning. It would be fun to create a class infographic bulletin board for the first weeks of school. Collect data about students and use picture, shapes, etc. to create a customized infographic. If you do this, come back and share pictures!!

Tips: Because infographics are user-created, some may not be appropriate for all classrooms. If your students are going to spend time on Visual.ly, make sure you preview first!

**By the way, Visual.ly if you are listening, it would be AWESOME if you had an education version!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Visual.ly in your classroom!

Pegby: Online Collaborative Peg Board/Organizational tool

July 19, 2011February 12, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3775 views

What it is: Pegby is a neat online organizational tool that has fantastic customization features. With Pegby, students (and teachers) can share boards enabling them to collaborate with friends, family, coworkers and classmates. Pegby is organized by a series of columns, students can decide on the number and organization of columns. Columns can be easily expanded and collapsed so students can focus on exactly the columns they need at any given moment. Students (and teachers) can add cards to each column. The cards look just like a 3×5 note card and can include a title, content, tags, attachments, a due date and color coding. Note cards can be dragged from one column to the next, shared with others or added to a stack of cards. Students can filter all of their cards by tags to find exactly the cards they are looking for when they need them! Pegby lets you have multiple boards so you can organize life to your heart’s content. A Pegby board can be downloaded as a .yaml file (not familiar with that file extension, it is a unix executable file.)

How to integrate Pegby into the classroom: Pegby is one of those tools that I get totally geeked out about. I love the 3×5 note card look, the columns, the tagging, the associated calendar dates. A recipe for edu-love I tell ya! Pegby is a great tool for organizing your teacher self this year. Add ideas for the school year, tasks, lesson plans, to-do items, etc. to your board as cards. Create columns that make sense to you and organize to your heart’s content! Want one better? Share your board with colleagues so that you are all on the same page and can share lessons/resources/task responsibilities.

Older students can keep their school year organized by adding assignments, tasks, uploading work, taking/keeping notes and sharing their board with Pegby. As students work on and complete tasks, they can move items from one column to the next. Those unit tests won’t be a problem because they can tag pertinent information and easily study and review tagged information.

Pegby would also be a great tool for organizing research projects (even collaborative research projects). Students can decide how they want to organize their research and notes, tag information and attach documents. All of the research is in one place and tagged for easy reference when it comes time to compile the research. Pegby could be a useful tool for students attending college classes online.

Does your school use standards to keep track of learning? Why not create columns of Standards headings, and associate each standard with a note card? Students can upload any files or work associated with the standard. OR instead of making each column a standard heading, columns can be associated with mastery level of the standard. As a student moves through levels of mastery, they can move that standard card from one column to the next making stacks out of the standard subject. Students can keep track of their own learning, share their “Standards” board with teachers and parents.

Is your class collaborating with other classrooms? Create a collaboration board where all involved classes can organize a project together.

For younger students, create a class Pegby that can be accessed on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. The Pegby can be added to and organized as a whole class. Make Pegby updater one of your classroom jobs that happens first thing every morning. Each student will have the chance to be in control of the board throughout the year and all students will benefit from observing and helping organize the day. (Something we don’t model enough for kids in my humble opinion!)

Tips: Pegby does require a verified email account for access!

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

Automatoon: Create HTML5 animations

July 13, 2011Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment14859 views

What it is: Oh. My. Word. I’m slowly but surely making my way through my Google Reader and stumbled on a post by @rmbyrne on his EXCELLENT blog Free Tech 4 Teachers about Automatoon. I immediately started playing with Automatoon and cannot say enough about how COOL it is! Automatoon makes it simple for students (or teachers) to create animations within a web browser. My very favorite part? It was built-in HTML5!! Do you know what that means? It works on iDevices (like the iPad and iPod touch). A non-flash animations site! Pure genius. This is one of the easiest animation programs I have seen. Students can draw characters in pieces (kind of like a puppet or paper doll) and then create points where the pieces connect. The drawings can animate by moving, bending or adding pieces to the picture. SO cool! After watching the demo video, I think even young students could have Automatoon mastered in no time. The tools built into Automatoon are pretty robust for what a simple program it is to use. Your students will look like animation masters, bringing their creations to life. When students are finished creating their animations, they can download them as a zip file to be uploaded to any site. There are two ways to login, students can login with a “throwaway” login that will not save their animation (but will let them create and download a quick animation) or login with a Google account. This is fantastic for schools that take advantage of Google apps for education!

How to integrate Automatoon into the classroom: Kids of all ages love cartoons and animations, Automatoon gives them the tools to be the creator of those cartoon animations. Students can create animations to animate processes in science (think the water cycle, plant life cycle, rock cycle, etc.), vocabulary words (in either native language or a second language), animate a piece of creative writing, animate a persuasive argument (think advertisement), animate a “book report”, animate solving a math problem, animate a story problem or animate an event in history. The possibilities are really endless on this one, students will only be limited by their imaginations.

Automatoon is easy enough to use that with a little pre-planning, students could create animations in 5-10 minutes. This is handy for those situations where you have one or two computers in the classroom or a limited time in a computer lab. After learning how to use Automatoon, students can quickly create animations to illustrate learning. Automatoon is a FANTASTIC little tool for your visual learners…they will “get” it.

Are your students having a hard time understanding a math or science concept or a vocabulary word? Why not create an animation that illustrates the concept/word and share it on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer? The animation can be saved on the classroom website so that students can go back and access it throughout the year.

If you have a classroom website or wiki you could create a classroom animation collection. Students can upload their creations to the class site for a great collection of learning. It would be neat to animate sight words (Snapwords style), math or science vocabulary and create a visual “glossary” online that all of your students have contributed to. Classes can add to it every year or you can work with other classes around the world to create a collaborative glossary. This would also be a great tool to aid students in creating their own “e-textbooks” about any subject. Students can create animations to embed in their other research, reflections and links.

Way cool.

Tips: Be sure to watch the intro video (above) to get a 5 minute low down on how to use Automatoon…very useful!

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

Boy’s Life Comic Creator

July 12, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2541 views

What it is: Boy’s Life Magazine is a great place to reach those boys in your class that are reluctant readers or writers. On the Boy’s Life site, you will find a Comic Creator where students can create a comic strip. The Comic Creator is easy to use, offering enough tools for boys to really customize their comics but not SO many that they get lost in the forever search of pictures. A great balance!

How to integrate Comic Creator into the classroom: The Boy’s Life Comic Creator is a great little tool to help your boys connect with writing and story telling in a way that they enjoy and understand. The tool is simple enough to use as a writing station/center on classroom computers. The comic does need to be created in one sitting, there is no way to save and come back to a comic later. Completed comics can be printed off and shared.

The Comic Creator is a great entry point into writing but could also be useful in math for creating and solving story problems. Students can create a short math comic strip that can be traded with other students to solve.

Students taking a foreign language class could practice new words by creating a comic strip story in Comic Creator.

Use Comic Creator the first week of school as a way for boys to tell all about themselves. Each student can create a comic strip that stars them as the main character. Invite other students to try to match the comic strip with the student as a fun interactive bulletin board activity (Think comics on one side, student pictures on the other and string to draw the “line” between matches).

Tips: I learned about the Boy’s Life Comic creator from The Book Chook, be sure to follow this GREAT kids lit blog! The Boy’s Life website is packed full of goodies that your boys are sure to enjoy (there is even some reading that gets sneaked in there 🙂 ).

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

Mastery Connect: Standards Based Grading made manageable

July 8, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments8394 views

What it is: Mastery Connect is both an online standards tracking tool (parts of it are free) and a free iPhone/iPod/iPad app. Because the app is truly free, I’ll start with it. The Mastery Connect app is a handy way to keep the Common Core standards accessible while you teach. The app sorts the common core standards by grade level, subject and strand. This is REALLY nice for quickly locating and referencing standards. Mastery Connect the website is the real gem. The site is brilliantly designed, easy to navigate, aesthetically pleasing and best of all, it works the way you think it should. With the Mastery Connect Master Tracker, teachers can assess core standards, monitor student performance and report student progress to parents and administrators. Master Tracker makes formative assessment that is standards based manageable to keep track of. Rearrange standards in the Master Tracker based on the order that you teach them in. View only the standards you are currently assessing, and view the entire standard as a pop-up. Within Mastery Connect, teachers can create and share common assessments. Similar in feel to other social networks, Mastery Connect lets you connect with other educators to share assessments, interact and offer each other support. It is easy to expand your PLN into the space, just find teachers with similar interests and goals and start sharing!

And now for my VERY favorite part- bubble sheet scoring. Mastery Connect uses GradeCam technology to make assessment about as quick as it could be. Just hold up bubble sheets to your webcam or a document cam and it is instantly scored and entered into the Master Tracker associated with the student it belongs to and the standard it is addressing. Seriously cool. I am not a big fan of multiple choice testing (mostly because I think it is a lazy way to find out what a student knows and doesn’t give a true picture of what a student knows or can do) but I think I have figured out how bubble sheets can be used by teachers during formative assessment. Students get immediate feedback from Mastery Connect and can see where in the standards they need some extra work. Teachers can view class wide item analysis of assessment and can track progress by standard.

Students can also use iDevices (iPad/iPodTouch) with the bubble sheet app. This is connected to Master Tracker so as soon as students input answers, it shows up live. Are you feeling your assessment work-load lighten yet?

Students can also take assessments using any web browser. It really is a tool that works for schools with minimal tech, to schools that have ubiquitous tech.

Mastery Connect exports to ANY gradebook or student information system. A one touch export feature makes it about as quick as it could be!

Mastery Connect makes it quick and easy to keep parents informed of student progress. Student reports can be quickly created and emailed or printed out for parents. You can also enable parent notifications that will notify parents of student progress as it is entered.

How to integrate Mastery Connect into the classroom: Mastery Connect is actually the tracking tool we will be using at the school I am starting, Anastasis Academy. We are doing away with traditional A, B, C, D, F grades all together. I have yet to be convinced that traditional grading is productive and helpful for students (or teachers for that matter).

At Anastasis Academy, we are using the Common Core Standards as a framework for setting learning goals. I see these standards as the critical-mass-of-knowledge that students need to be successful in learning. Hear me say, I DO NOT believe that these standards are comprehensive of everything a child should, or wants to know. They are simply the framework that we will use to build the rest of learning around. They will help us to ensure that we have a rough road map of where we are headed in learning. Students, teachers and parents will sit down for a conference each block and use those Common Core Standards to help map out learning goals. You will notice that we don’t leave this up to teachers alone. We want our students to have ownership and a say in what their learning looks like. We don’t want the teacher to be the holder of all the keys, slowly revealing learning to students as they see fit. Instead, we want students who can look at the learning ahead of them, and offer input about how they would like to go about that learning with parents and teachers acting as guide. The Mastery Connect app will be SO helpful in this process. Everyone will be able to access those standards easily at any time they need to recall them. Brilliant.

We will use Mastery Connect a little differently than I’m sure most schools will. Instead of bombarding students with multiple choice “bubble” quizzes and assignments, our bubble sheets will be for teacher use. For example, we may create a bubble sheet based on a standard with the specific skills or content that we are looking for. As we formatively assess students, the teacher can fill in that bubble sheet either on paper or on the iPad for instant input into Master Tracker.

Tips: I have been extremely impressed with all of the Mastery Connect tools. Not all of it is free but the portion that is not free is very affordable ($4/student/year). I like that Mastery Connect offers parent, teacher and student all of the information and tools they need to understand where they are and how they are learning. The people at Mastery Connect have been dynamite, they are helpful, flexible and friendly!

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

PlanbookEdu: Lesson Plans in the Cloud

July 6, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments4349 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!

Swiffly: Convert SWF (Flash) files to HTML5

June 28, 2011June 28, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2615 views

What it is: Google rocks my socks. The good people at Google that are dreaming up ways to change the world never cease to amaze me. Today, new to Google Labs is a little tool called Swiffy. Swiffy let’s you upload a SWF file (otherwise known as Flash) and convert it to HTML5. Sweet. This means that you can use flash content on devices without a Flash player (i.e. iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch). You know what that means? The iDevices are officially the PERFECT device thanks to Google. (No need for the list of reasons you don’t like iDevices, I’m a hardcore fan and you are not likely to change my mind with a rant. Deal? Deal.) Swiffy works directly from your web browser, I have tried it out in Firefox, Safari and Chrome. It worked in all three well! It will also work from Mobile Safari which means it will work from your iDevice. Very handy. Using Swiffy is as easy as uploading a file and clicking “upload and convert”. It couldn’t be easier.

How to integrate Swiffy into the classroom: When I was in college I had a professor that often said “The wheels of academia are SLOW to turn.” She couldn’t have been more correct. I have seen this in nearly every arena of education. Technology is no exception. Many wonderful resources are available as flash files. The problem? iDevices (the iPad, iPod Touch) are becoming more frequently used in the classroom and they are not flash friendly. Google labs comes to the rescue with Swiffy. Simply upload the flash file and convert it to HTML 5 using Swiffy. The new HTML5 files can be distributed to student devices so that learning can continue uninterrupted by something silly like file type. Very cool.

Tips: SWF 5 currently gives the best results. If possible save the SWF file this way!

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