TechChef » 2012

08 Nov 2012
Comments: 1

DIY Prezi

After I completed a round of teaching Evernote to Fiske’s class, I strolled down the hallway to say hello to Mrs. Yenca (otherwise known online as Mathy Cathy). She waved me in and I decided to stay for a while. Now, I have to say that her normal teaching methods are on par with a rock star. She knows how to orchestrate a lesson and keep students engaged like none other. BUT, today, I too fell under the spell and was mezmorized and floored by the app-tivity.

Mathy Cathy's Estimating Square Roots Zoomable PDF iLesson

Truly the idea of estimating square roots is nothing to write home about (or blog about for that matter). It was how she built her lesson that had me intrigued. Students used a PDF that Cathy created from a Keynote slide and zoomed in and out to problem solve. No need for extra paper or space because a PDF does not become grainy when zoomed in and out.

Zoomable PDF for Problem-Solving

I don’t want to steal her iThunder – for more details on this truly ingenious apptivity, visit her blog.

I do want to give you a taste of her personality, though. Few educators could enthrall a classroom and an ed tech with estimating square roots. Teachers like Cathy are ideal candidates for a Flipped Classroom and video instruction model. Her teaching methods truly match her captivating apptivity.

For more about Mathy Cathy, read my first Mathy Cathy post, and check out her blog.

Creative Title (e.g. DIY Prezi) credit goes to @Classroom_tech

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05 Nov 2012
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Channel your Inner Doogie

A request from a “Novel Ideas” teacher to provide students with blogging info led me to reflect on my own journey with blogging. Two years ago I began the TechChef4u blog out of a need to have a place to put resources and info for an upcoming tech camp and partially as an online brain dump – a place to put ideas to retrieve and access later. At that point, I didn’t realize that I would have an audience or that people would utilize these resources to benefit their students. Upon reflecting on my blog and reviewing tips for novice bloggers, I noticed a significant change in the layout and form of my more recent blogs.

The Side by Side app compares an earlier blog I wrote (on the left) with a more recent one (on the right). Since that earlier blog two years ago, I have tried to be more concise, use spacing and images to improve layout and readability, and clean up my bullet points and subheadings.

Blog Comparison showcased with Side by Side app

The Original Blogger: Students in the Novel Ideas class would be blogging about books that they read and “selling” the book to others through their blog review – much like a book commercial. For some reason, my mind drifted to the original blogger and my childhood crush, Doogie Howser M.D. Realizing that these students would not know who this pre-internet reference was, I opted against using the following video:

Blogging Tips for Students: Rather than showcase Doogie’s concise blogging style (as seen here on his Blogspot), I opted to merely curate a list of novice blogging tips gleened from the internet:

Choose the right topic / define your goals / stay true to your blog – this is pretty simple as the blogs will all focus on book reviews
Ask for Help / Find a Role Model – Mrs. Schubert, our librarian, shared a list of student book chat blogs that would assist students in finding their own voice
Be Yourself / Throw Perfectionism out the window – encourage students to write the same way they talk and emphasize the content over form. That is not to say that grammar and spelling should be be overlooked but merely that students should feel free to find their own voice, flow, and style
Visual Layout – Utilize font and formatting features such as bold and bullets and subheadings and paragraphs to make your article easier to read and digest
Pretend you have an audience – even when you don’t
Add Photos and Multimedia

Use photos from sites like Morgue File and Photo Pin
Create your own visuals on the iPad using apps like Pic Collage and Strip Designer
Compose audio reviews using the Audioboo app and embed the final product on your site
Include URL’s to supporting or further info
Include movies as book trailers (created with iMovie, Puppet Pals, or Animoto)

End Post with Question – a great way to snag your readers and get them thinking

Feed Novel Ideas with RSS: The teacher had also requested info about RSS feeds. She wanted an app to allow students to follow other’s blogs and have access to them on the iPad. I located Feedly which works in conjuction with our google emails. It was the perfect app to search for blogs and articles and access them in a beautiful and visual way.

View and Aggregate Blogs and News with Feedly app

Sites I gleaned blogging tips from:

Probably two of the best resources for class blogging were found on Kathleen Morris’s site:

Other Teaching Resources Found along the way:

450+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!

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27 Oct 2012
Comments: 1

iPad Academy

I truly enjoy sharing my app-thusiasm for iLearning with others. Over the summer, I conducted a two day iPad Academy with East Central. Since then, I have been asked to return to facilitate curriculum planning sessions.

EC3 Summer Academy

While I am there to share my iKnowledge, I always find I learn something during the process:

@TechChef4u

Podcast Reflections: Miguel Guhlin, East Central Technology Director, pulled me aside after lunch and spent a few minutes (15:16 to be exact – full interview here) interviewing me about the framework of the session and response to teacher concerns about limited number of iPads and unfamiliarity with the device. I love the idea of using podcasts to reflect on learning. Even just listening to it a few months later was such a wonderful digital testament to how much had changed and how much had remained the same. I plan on “borrowing” this model to conduct a podcast series featuring students “10 Things I Wish My Teacher Knew About the iPad” and a vodcast reflection series with teachers that are using the iPad in the classroom to document their struggles and successes.
Planning vs. Workshops: I also would like to emulate the idea of scheduling an iXpert to collaborate and facilitate curriculum planning with a district. Oftentimes, districts bring in someone to conduct a 1 day workshop that leaves little time for collaboration and support. Using this model, East Central brings me in once a nine weeks to align their CScope standards to the iPad and then support teachers as they plan their nine weeks. I spent 30-45 minutes sharing apps and project ideas with each group and the rest of the day was devoted to curriculum planning. Teachers were not only pleased with this model – they were very productive!

If you are interested in creating your own iPad Teacher Academy, please contact me lisa.johnson@techchef4u.com.

400+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!

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22 Oct 2012
Comments: 15

10 iPad Management Tips and Tricks

With a 1:1 iPad initiative in full swing, I encounter many questions each day from classroom and file management to queries for the best apps for mind-mapping and annotating PDF’s. As an ed tech group (aptly named the iVengers by our fearless leader Carl Hooker), we band together to address these issues and provide solutions.

Greg Garner, my counterpart at West Ridge MS, shared his top 10 list for iPad Classroom Management:

10. You Can’t Overcommunicate

9. Set Clear Behavior expectations. Daily.

8. Rethink and Relocate

7. It’s OK to NOT use the iPad sometimes.

6. Practice your lesson/activity/workflow at least 24 hours before class.

5. SUB Plans

4. Have an established procedure for the beginning of class

3. ALWAYS have a tech-free back-up plan

also good for students who are off-task to have an alternate assignment

2. Ask yourself, “What is the ultimate point of what I’m trying to accomplish?”

1. Help your students get organized

Greg was kind enough to Creative Commons his top 10 list and save it as a PDF (iPad Management Tips and Tricks). He also goes in to greater detail to illustrate each of his points.

iPad Management Tips and Tricks

Also check out “10 Important Questions to Ask Before Using iPads in Class“. For ideas for managing the iPad at home, check out EdTechSandyK’s post on Parent Concerns in a 1:1 iPad Initiative and Redlands College’s Tips for Supervision.

400+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!

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19 Oct 2012
Comments: 4

iHealthy Living

Food, iMovie, and Keynote… what could be better? This iLesson showcases how our HC Top Chefs used a combination of iMovie, Keynote, and various note-taking apps to evaluate their favorite dishes, create a healthier alternative, and showcase it all using the iPad. While the project had been delivered in previous years, this year Mrs. Barron commented, “This is so much better than a PowerPoint” and a student shared their app-thusiasm for the lesson by chanting “thank you for making this unit so much fun”. Though the original assignment was intended to be a PPT and the teacher had limited comfort with iMovie and Keynote, she found that she didn’t have to teach the apps or the technology – the students took their iPads and ran with it … all the way to the kitchen and delivered projects that far exceeded her guidelines and expectations. I commend her for giving students the freedom to express their learning in multiple formats.

Here is the original assignment:

“Select a family favorite recipe. Modify the recipe by reducing fat, calories, sodium, and/or sugar. Investigate ways to modify the recipe by researching substitute ingredients. Conduct taste tests, nutritional analysis, and cost comparisons of modified and original product. Present to the class the results of the modification project in a PowerPoint presentation. You need to make and bring enough of the modified recipe for each person in the class to have a small taste on your designated day.”

HealthyLiving Project Summarized with Strip Designer app

The beauty of this project was in the differentiated design. Students could use multiple mediums to create their final product from iMovie and Keynote to Explain Everything. Some students added their text in Keynote slides and took screenshots of those to use in their iMovie and others typed in Notes or Pages and took screenshots of that. While each video entailed pictures and video of the group making the recipe, the before and after recipe, nutritional benefits, cost comparisons, and the health benefits of the new recipe, every project was entirely different and showcased unique attributes of the group’s personality from soundtracks and voice overs to blooper reels.

After the first period of presentations, we made a few edits and discoveries:

Video Control: When presenting, students learned to pause the video during important text slides (rather than try and time it to play for an allotted amount of time). This allowed the group to spend more time discussing these details as well as provided time to for the teacher to grade integral elements during the presentation.
Panning Text: Sometimes screenshots of text that pan or have certain effects can be difficult to read the text in the video.
Host Family Video Taste Test: Some students made two batches of their recipe – one to eat at the host’s home and one to eat at school. We suggested having the host’s family film a quick video review to detail their official taste test and include this element in the final project.
Google Form Reviews: Next time we plan on using a Google Form to have each student review the class samples with the intent of sharing the final results with the class at the end of the project.
Class iCookbook: We also plan on having students send a final photo and recipe for their healthy version and compiling them in a class iRecipe iBook.

Every time, I crash a class or observe a project, I learn something new from the students. In addition to sampling healthy versions of key lime tarts, pumpkin fudge, margherita pizza, ice cream sandwiches, and apple pie, one student shared this website she located to compare foods during the project. Another app to support the project is Fooducate.

Two Foods: Instant Food Comparison

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16 Oct 2012
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5 Ways to use Virtual World Apps to Support Writing

I am always enamored and entranced with virtual worlds and tours. I find them inspiring and rich with vivid and enchanting imagery. Thought I would share 5 ideas for how these apps can be used to support literacy in the iClassroom:

Write about a character that lives in one of these worlds
Write a descriptive paragraph or poem about the setting including the sounds and sights
Create a movie or cartoon using these worlds as a backdrop (e.g. screenshots) for inspiration
Compose a postcard from one of the destinations as if you have actually visited there
Discuss how time has changed various locations and imagine writing a letter from someone living there now to someone in the past

How else might you use these virtual worlds and tours to support creative writing and literacy? Please share in the comments section.

[listly id=”1yC” theme=”light” layout=”full” numbered=”yes” image=”yes” items=”all”]

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13 Oct 2012
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Student App Reviews – the Next iFrontier in Personalized Learning

I recently published a post on documenting iLearning that detailed how one teacher supports a “digital learning farm” in her class by publishing student products and student-written app reviews to a class blog and showcasing student achievements using a class Twitter account.

A few weeks ago, we got the idea to have students create video app reviews and tutorials using Reflection. Now it has become a popular event. Students visit me during advisory and I set up the mirroring with Reflection and the screen recording with Quicktime on my MacBook and in 2-3 minutes, we have pure app magic.

Thought I would share some of the most recent ones: Type on PDF FREE, Designs for Pages (BTW… had never seen this one and bought it as soon as our screen recording session was over), HMH Fuse Algebra, and iStudiez Pro.

Type on PDF FREE

Designs for Pages

HMH Fuse Algebra

iStudiez PRO

Notes on Screen Recording and Publishing.

Create your own network – I have found that in some settings Reflection doesn’t work unless I create my own network on my Mac and have the students mirror through that network.
Certain portions of apps do not mirror – Through trial and error, I have discovered that audio recording and toolbars in certain apps don’t always mirror. (The audio notes feature in HMH Fuse caused a blank screen during recording and the toolbar in PaperPort Notes does not appear when mirroring.)
Editing – Rather than re-recording an entire review, I will oftentimes import the movie into iMovie for quick edits.
Photos and Privacy – When filming the Designs for Pages vignette, I noticed that the student accessed her photo library. While ultimately she did not use a photo of herself, those photos were scanned through and visible while recording. To avoid a privacy situation like this, we created another album with just the photos that she was going to use during the screencast.
Publishing and Privacy – The original version of the iStudiez PRO review included the student’s email address as she was showcasing the ability to sync with Google Calendars. Unfortunately, I did not catch this while she was initially recording. Try as I might I could not remove or edit that clip in iMovie without losing meaning to the original work. I even uploaded it to YouTube and tried using their editing and annotation tools to add a callout over the address, but found the callouts always appear transparent and can easily be clicked on at any time by the viewer to be removed. Needless to say, to protect the student’s privacy, we re-recorded the review without showing that feature.

As it becomes easier and more seamlessly integrated to publish student work online, we as educators need to be more cognizant and aware of student’s privacy and protecting personal info. While none of our students are on the “do not publish” list, I still am wary about posting names and photos online.

Helpful tips for publishing student work online:

Consider taking photos of students from behind or the side (not head on) and reviewing photos and video before publishing to ensure all info is appropriate. Many times certain elements in photos can be blurred or written over using an annotation app like Skitch if caught before publishing.
When publishing to Youtube…

Do not include the video location if using publishing from home
Allow only approved comments
Model appropriate licensing and rights ownership by teaching students to select “Creative Commons Attribution”
Consider setting a video to anyone with link if you would like to heighten the privacy

Tips for Publishing Student Work to YouTube

As our app reviews do not include student names, photos, or personal info, I felt these would be appropriate to share publicly. Also, I wanted to ensure that students felt their work held value for not only their class and school but others abroad.

Check out an elementary example of Documenting iLearning.

Check out a MS Math classroom’s iLearning journey.

370+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!

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09 Oct 2012
Comments: 2

Fiske Class: Documenting iLearning

In true Alan November-esque style, Tanna Fiske empowers her 8th grade students to lead and contribute valuable resources to the “digital learning farm”.

Published Products with a Purpose: Mrs. Fiske’s students share their “triumphs and failures” in a class blog that documents their 1:1 iPad journey. One of my favorite projects was accomplished the first week the students received their iPads. They used Explain Everything to showcase the 5 themes of geography (embedded below) and even reviewed the “modern powerpoint” app. Also check out their most recent project – 13 Colonies Commercials.

Published with a Voice and Purpose: students also use the blog as a venue for reviewing apps they utilize in the classroom.

Fiske Class App Rating System

The class created their own app rating system. Here is the running record of Fiske’s Class iToolkit of app reviews: Type on PDF, ImageChef, PDF PROvider, PromtWare Plus, Type on PDF free, DocAs, Quizlet, Flashcards*, myHomework, Explain Everything …

I love that the reviews are brief, written in a friendly student language, feature personal recommendations and comparisons amongst a group of reviewed apps, and include the features they feel are most valuable. Some students are even beginning to use Reflection to record their own app video tutorials. One of the first was based on the organization app iStudiez Pro.

Digital Learning Legacies: Mrs. Fiske has set up a class Twitter (which displays though TimeKiwi) to visually showcase their iLearning journey and shares it with students and parents alike.

Fiske Class Time Kiwi

Check out an elementary example of Documenting iLearning.

Check out a MS Math classroom’s iLearning journey.

370+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!

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27 Sep 2012
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Creating Digital Artifacts: Part 4

Continuing on a trend (or tour) of digital artifacts… showcasing examples of how traditional tasks can be digitally archived and sharing the steps of student workflow, I wanted to highlight an elementary Science iLesson from one of my favorite elementary teachers, Lisa Carnazzo.

Last year she had students use the iCardSort app to classify objects by motion (see Clever Carnazzo’s Cards iLesson for more details).

This year she reinvented the lesson using Turbo Collage and Audioboo. I love the idea of showcasing a traditional lab in such a digitally delightful manner. For all four student group examples and their audioboo explanations and reflections, visit the Carnazzo Class Wiki. Want more ideas for how to digitally archive and display student learning… bounce, roll, spin, or slide on over to the Carnazzo Class TimeKiwi.

Digitally Showcasing Traditional Tasks with Turbo Collage

listen to ‘Motion group 4’ on Audioboo

More Digital Artifact Inspiration:

More TechChef4u Math iLessons HERE!

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25 Sep 2012
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iMovie or uMovie?: iMovie Student Biographies

I am constantly amazed with the level of instruction and innovation in the classroom at HCMS. Mrs. Musci, the speech teacher, invited me to observe her students presenting their iMovie Biographies. The first day of the project involved students brainstorming questions to use which eventually were sorted into three categories: background, favorites, goals and future plans. Mrs. Musci had mentioned that while she had done this project in the past, it was much more fluid with iMovie and a 1:1 iPad initiative for her 8th grade students.

Over the next three days, students interviewed their partner, located supporting images from their phones and the internet, and even took video footage and photos to include in their iMovie project. They also utilized other apps to achieve a custom look and feel to their projects:

Collage apps like PicStitch and InstaCollage to include multiple photos in a shot.
Hokusai to edit music from their iTunes library to remove inappropriate content or irrelevant lyrics

On the day of the presentation, students presented their iMovie projects behind a podium and introduced their partner to the class. Another group of students filmed each presentation and burned it to a CD for each student to review for personal critiquing purposes. When asked if they would change anything about the project, one student said he would spend a little more time on the timing and slides. This project was well planned and exceptionally executed! Mrs. Musci had a very thorough road map for students and the projects clearly reflected her expectations and detailed guidelines:

Project Guidelines:

Create an iMovie video with at least 15 pictures including the photo of your partner and his/her name.
Include a Title and Concluding Slide.
Add transitions and appropriate music.
Organize your interview into an outline
Write a brief introduction and conclusion
Include at least one story about your partner (funny or serious)
Add a video of your partner and a voice over.

Collage Created with PhotoGridPro

Some suggestions:

Use Videolicious (especially with its new update) as a free option for iMovie and use another app to add captions to the photos like Skitch or Doodle Buddy.
Create an iMovie trailer for a book or to introduce a character to the class or even as a commercial to showcase an invented product.
Use Google Advanced Search on the iPad (step-by-step directions here) to locate Copyright free images.
Use Popplet Lite as a way to storyboard a project.

Check out some other student products created with iMovie:

300+ iPad Lessons Pinned HERE!

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