Saturday, September 21, 2013

2nd Graders Use Forms and Create Blogs

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a 1:1 classroom with iPads last year.  This year I have fifteen iPads with a class of nineteen students.  Our district has a Bring Your Own Device policy (BYOD) which has helped me to get three more devices in my room.  We are now a 1:1 class with the use of my teacher iPad.

Check out how my 2nd graders are using iPads so far this school year!

Google Forms:  

This year our school district is using the Math Expressions program to support our math instruction.  Part of this program includes a Quick Quiz to help guide the teacher's instruction after a certain skill has been taught.  This year I am giving these quick quizzes through the use of a Google Form.  Check out what I did!

I opened up the online version of our math expression book.  I used a snipping tool to snip a picture of all the problems.  I uploaded the pictures as a question in a Google Form.  I was able to add a blank question below it to provide a text box for the students to type in their answers.


Next, I took the link from the form and created a QR code for the quiz.  My students were then able to scan the code during their Quick Quiz math station to take the assessment.  It was perfect!  I had results within minutes which guided my instruction immediately for their small groups.  Check out some of the results!


I was able to provide immediate support for students who were one off and some who were transposing numbers.  It also confirmed that I have students who are still unable to count on.  I didn't have to wait until I was home to grade these papers and provide support the next day.  My students still remembered how they worked through the problems and we were able to correct some of these mistakes immediately.

Feel free to check out the link to our quick quiz here.  Or scan the QR code.  Please do not complete the form.

Quick Quiz


Next steps:  I want to add a centralized location for these QR codes.  I will always have previous quizzes up for student access so I can have students quickly retest once I feel he/she is ready for that concept.  

Check out some other forms I am using in my class this year or previous years, but please do not complete the forms.



Parent Contact - I have a button for this form on my phone!  So easy!  Thanks Cindy Geddes for the suggestion! :)



KidBlog:

This year I am using KidBlog for Science Notebooking.  This first post is just an observation post, so my students didn't complete an investigation.  In the future, they will include all the parts to the scientific method as we complete our investigations.

You can use Kidblog on computers, but the iPad app is so kid-friendly and it was easy for my students to take pictures.  I love that this app/site is very secure.  Outsiders can not view our blogs.  Parents can sign in using their child's username and password to view their site or you could create a single account for parent access.  What a great way for parents to stay up to date with the learning that is going on in our room!

Check out a few blog posts from our observation of our caterpillars.




Ahoy Mateys!  We celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day this past week and had a blast dressing up like pirates!  After learning a little bit about pirates my students worked on one of their first blog posts.  They were asked to give some facts about pirates and to take a picture of their partner to upload to their blog.  Check out this post:


Next Steps:  I hope to continue using KidBlog for school events as well as Science Notebooking.  My goal for the year is to have my students blogging about the 8 Mathematical Practices!  

We are off to a great start this year.  Hopefully, I will have more to share as the year continues!!  Happy new school year!  Hope it is as great as mine!  :)


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