5th Graders invited their parents to school in early November so they could show them WHAT they learn and HOW they do it. I teamed up with one of my favorites, Helen, to help students demo our "Augmented Reality Book Reviews" - this is one of my favorite new techy tools because it works like magic (really). The students interviewed each other on which book they were currently reading, then matched the video to the cover of the book. When using the app, Aurasma, the camera captures the cover of the book and plays the book review video atop of the image. I've loaded a video before (see "Flexing my Library Muscles" to view a tutorial) but here are some photos of students in action - with parents watching on! I think the parents were blown away by the technology, but more so, how creatively their students were learning how to use it as a literacy tool. My favorite comments (much like the Destiny Quest comments) were "I can't wait to read more so I can do another book review"
I LOVE books and will be blogging all about our local book fair (and my trip to YALLfest in Charleston!) but want to catch up on some awesome technology lessons and special things that have been going on these last busy weeks! 5th Graders invited their parents to school in early November so they could show them WHAT they learn and HOW they do it. I teamed up with one of my favorites, Helen, to help students demo our "Augmented Reality Book Reviews" - this is one of my favorite new techy tools because it works like magic (really). The students interviewed each other on which book they were currently reading, then matched the video to the cover of the book. When using the app, Aurasma, the camera captures the cover of the book and plays the book review video atop of the image. I've loaded a video before (see "Flexing my Library Muscles" to view a tutorial) but here are some photos of students in action - with parents watching on! I think the parents were blown away by the technology, but more so, how creatively their students were learning how to use it as a literacy tool. My favorite comments (much like the Destiny Quest comments) were "I can't wait to read more so I can do another book review" Another new technology adventure I went on was doing my first Google Hang Out with 4th graders. At our Summer 2014 DCS Technology Conference, I attended an awesome presentation by a HS media coordinator & English teacher about how they use The Book Whisperer method and the impact it has had on their students. I've been inspired to try and adapt the self-selection/reading for pleasure model at our elementary school and have built a great relationship with the media coordinator who presented it, thanks to social media! We knew we wanted to get our kids connected somehow, and we decided to kick it off by doing a casual chat about what both groups of students like to read, how they pick their books, and what to do if they end up not liking what they picked. It went surprisingly well considering we had some audio issues, and the age gap between students! Our next Hang Out will be students doing Book Commercials to plug some of their favorite books :) Talking live on a Google Hang Out is pretty awesome - but hard to coordinate all day every day... so we found a pre-recorded book talk/hang out with Taylor Swift and invited a group of 5th graders to have lunch in a classroom as a reward. They loved hearing her talk about what inspires her to write and why reading books has always been important to her. This was such an easy thing to set-up, but very rewarding for us and the students - we never had to tell the students to pay attention because all of them (boys included!) were engaged in listening to what she had to say! I appreciated hearing her suggestions on how to address bullying - they were realistic and its important for students to hear that even adults (and superstars!) have had to battle insecurities and bullying. If you want to watch the video in its entirety: scholastic.com/taylorswift/ Last thing - but SO cool!!!! I love Twitter because it makes authors so accessible (just one reason why...) and I thought I would plug one of my all time favorites while reading her book to students. Laurie Halse Anderson writes books for all ages of kids - I was first inspired by her when I read "Speak" in high school. Just a warning: it's a very high school book. Over the years, I've read her Young Adult work, but also some amazing books for younger ages. There is a great trilogy called "Seeds of America" and both Chains and Forge take place during the American Revolution and give readers a very personal perspective of what it would be like to be a child during that time in History. She also wrote Fever, 1793 which is rooted in the facts of the yellow fever epidemic. On a more positive note, she has written the extremely popular "Vet Volunteers" series that my animal-loving students can't get enough of, and a great historical informational text about Sarah Hale, titled: Thank You, Sarah! The Woman who Saved Thanksgiving. Since I was reading the book to get students amped up for the holiday (and teach them something cool that they could share around the dinner table), I posted on Twitter that my 4th graders were really loving it. Guess what: she retweeted it! My students were floored that not only did the author know we were reading her book, so did 28,000 of her followers! Connected world = connecting readers! I also happened to love seeing my name on her feed up there with prominent authors Margaret Atwood & Linda Sue Park - crazy!
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