Book Talk Podcasts with QR Codes

With CCSS lexile levels are important. I have my students read books within their lexile range independently. This is the sheet I make them fill out as they read https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxOiAHva3B1haGhSQnJPd09ZRDQ/edit?usp=sharing. It takes them 10 days to read their book (I tell them they can pick to read on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday). Then when they have completed the book and their sheet they complete a book talk podcast and create a QR code of their podcast. To do this I first created a blog in Blogger. I used the dynamic template and called it Mrs. Morgan's Book Talk Podcasts. I also created an Audioboo account at http://audioboo.fm/. Then in settings on Audioboo I selected Posting to Other Sites and selected Blogger. Then, I selected Mrs. Morgan's Book Talk Podcasts. So, now when my students record their podcasts in Audioboo they post directly to my class's book talk podcast blog! Sounds simple and it is! My students record their podcasts using the Audioboo iPhone app on our class iPads. On the iPads I just have to download the Audioboo iPhone app and log in with the same credentials I used when I created my account on the computer. After they have recorded they go to the blog and the students then create a QR code to take others to their book talk podcast using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/. Here is the direction sheet I give my students to create their book talk podcasts and QR code https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxOiAHva3B1hLXB5SnBfUkhyLTg/edit?usp=sharing. I walk my students through the process once, and then they have it! They enjoy listening to their own podcast and to other's! You can even put the QR codes of exemplary book talks inside the book in your school's library or your classroom library!

Here is a link to last year's book talk podcasts - http://mrsmorgansclassbooktalks2012.blogspot.com/.

Dot Day with Augmented Reality

Today my class celebrated Dot Day! http://www.thedotclub.org/dotday/ We enjoyed reading Peter Reynolds book The Dot http://www.amazon.com/The-Dot-Peter-H-Reynolds/dp/0763619612. Then we worked on making our own mark with dots we would later use with the colAR app. http://colarapp.com/ We used the colAR app to make our dots come to life. It was great fun to do this in our classroom. But, it got even better when we connected through Skype with Mrs. Harju's class of 2nd graders at St. Stephen's School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mrs. Harju's 2nd graders guessed where we were Skyping from based on clues my 6th graders gave them. Then we shared our dots through Skype! The students took turns holding up their dots to the camera and the school on the other side of the Skype used the colAR app to bring them to life! It was just like magic...

QR Codes for 4 Kinds of Sentences Fun

At the beginning of each year in 6th grade grammar we review the 4 kinds of sentences. This year after we reviewed them we had some fun using them. I had found 6 amazing and thought provoking pictures from very old National Geographic Magazines. Then I created a google form for each picture. The form was basic and just asked them to type in their sentences to go along with the picture.

Then I created a QR code, using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/, for each of the forms so kids could scan the QR code and go directly to the form for that picture. The printed QR codes were taped to the pictures and hung up for kids to access as one of their centers for the week. The kids enjoyed this project and I enjoyed having all of their responses in spreadsheet form for easy grading!

App Smashing

On August 28 we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. In honor of this historic day we shared our dreams visually as a class. To share our dreams we used the app WordFoto. Students took their own photo on iPads and then typed in their dreams. The app puts their words onto the photo as part of the photo. Then we used the app Telligami to introduce Dr. King and our project. The app telligami lets you create and share a quick animated message called a Gami. When we finished all of the WordFoto projects and the Gami we put it all into iMovie to create our finished project. Our final project is published on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe08rKfXZTI - Please enjoy!