Global Read Aloud is Going Strong

This fall in Park West School Division, a number of classes are participating in the Global Read Aloud. I’ve been participating since about 2014 and many classrooms around our division have joined in over the last several years!  The idea is that classrooms around the world read the same book on the same schedule and then make connections with partner classes in a different location to learn and share. I believe these connections are the most powerful part of the project!

As classes read their book over 6 weeks, they are making connections in various ways. I'm passionate about students and teachers making connections beyond the classroom and I think that Global Read Aloud provides a great opportunity to build those connections.   Participating classrooms typically connect with at least one other class to discuss the book, get to know each other and share their learning. Participating classes can plan as many different connections as they wish, and there is plenty of sharing happening throughout the GRA.

Here are some ways our PWSD are connecting with others:

Video Calling

One way we’re connecting classrooms is to host live video calls between classes in different places.  This is a great opportunity for learners of any age to share and connect with each other.  Students typically ask questions about each class to discover similarities & differences and also discuss their Global Read Aloud books.

Mystery Meet

Some classes have met their GRA partners through a Mystery Meet call.   Each class asks yes or no questions to determine where the other class is located (think 20 questions, but with a world map).   I was part of one of these calls recently and I heard grade 7/8 students asking questions like “Are you in South America?” "Do you live in the United States?  “Is your school in British Columbia?”  Is your town in the northern half of BC?"  A mystery location call is a great way to build communication skills, apply mapping skills and learn about other people and places.

Online Book Discussions

Many of our PWSD classrooms have had the chance to discuss their Global Read Aloud book with a partner class in another town, province or country.  Thanks to tools like Padlet, our students are able to participate in book discussions with learners in other locations.   Through these discussions, students often hear new perspectives.  Students practice communication skills and learn how to collaborate using technology.  It’s also a great opportunity to practice digital citizenship in the context of online learning.  There are also opportunities for students to learn about other cultures, traditions and communities as learners are typically eager to get to know their classroom partners.  

We’re excited to continue building connections through the Global Read Aloud and other projects!

From Pencil to Publication: Book Creation at SCS

Ms. Fraser’s Grade 5 and 6 class at Strathclair Community School has been working diligently to develop their writing skills, undertaking the project of creating short stories.  Many students have now published their digital books with text and illustrations using Book Creator.  You can see their work showcased here in our PWSD Library:  https://read.bookcreator.com/library/-Ma-CVa4E0FsnEgnHer1

When I visited this class recently, the class shared the steps they’ve taken to create their work and it was evident that they’ve invested much time and energy in this writing project!  

Ms. Fraser provided a comprehensive planning guide to help students with the writing process.  Students used Ms. Fraser’s template to brainstorm and plan their title, setting, characters, problem, events/action in the story, resolution and conclusion.  Next, they drafted each section of the story including a beginning that introduces the setting and character(s), description of the key events in the story, a conclusion etc.   Students drafted each section of their story with paper and pencil before incorporating technology for the final publications.   

After drafting their stories, students created their books using Book Creator.  Authors added text and images, which could include hand-drawn illustrations or images sourced from the internet.  Students also recorded their voices to add narration for an audiobook version of their story.  

The Grade 5 and 6 class has shared their work with staff and students at their school and I’m excited that many of them gave me the opportunity to share their work online too! Choosing to publish their work led to some good conversations about online privacy and sharing. We explained that students who wished to publish would need to have completed PWSD permission forms for sharing work online. (This is part of our division's registration package that goes home each year for families or guardians to sign and is kept on record at the school office so we can check before sharing student work.). We also had a discussion about how much personal information students wanted to share in their published books: Did they want their full name listed as author or just a first name? Did they want to include their photo in the about the author section or not? Was it a good idea to include their full birthdate when sharing online? I think having these conversations in context is one of the best ways to help our students develop digital citizenship skills and online safety. Students chose to revise their books if they wanted to adjust how much they were sharing before I published them.

Storytelling & Coding with Scratch Jr.

As a technology coach and former Grade 1 teacher, I’ve got a few longtime favourite coding apps for young students and the Scratch Jr. app is definitely one of them!  I appreciate that Scratch Jr. offers students the opportunity to learn basic programming while also embracing storytelling.  

Ms. Blair’s Grade 3 & 4 class at Strathclair School has been working on developing coding skills through unplugged activities and programming in Kodable. This class has learned about sequencing, loops, conditions and functions as they complete the coding challenges in Kodable and learn to code the Wonder Workshop Dash robots, so they brought lots of prior knowledge into this activity.

When I visited their class recently, I introduced students to the Scratch Jr. app and then they tried some of the coding activities from the teacher resources on the Scratch Jr. website https://www.scratchjr.org/teach/activities

For our next session, I explained to students that we’d be using our skills in summarizing, sequencing and retelling to write a program that retold a story.  We read “Up, Up, Down” by Robert Munsch.  Pairs of students used a graphic organizer to identify important story elements for the beginning, middle and end of the story.  Learners identified key events, settings, characters and phrases. 

Next, I asked students to use the Scratch Jr. app to program their retelling in 3-4 scenes/slides.  They were asked to include the important characters, events, settings and phrases from the beginning, middle and end of the story. The Scratch Jr. app works so well for this type of learning activity because it offers different characters and settings to choose from and customize.  Learners used the block-based coding to add actions to the story.  They added text or speech bubbles to share important phrases that came from the story.  

Supporting Storytelling with Tech Infusion at BES

What happens when you mix a great book with a little bit of technology? You get a classroom full of empowered storytellers! The students at BES have been using technology to share their voices while building important literacy skills. Check out how these storytelling projects allow even our youngest learners to become published authors and digital narrators.

The Grade 3s at BES read "You Hold Me Up" by Monique Gray Smith and used the story as inspiration for writing their own book about showing kindness and supporting others.  Students brainstormed ideas together as a class and then each created their own page for the book.  We used the Book Creator app to put together our pages and some students also added their voice recording.  

The Kindergarten class at BES used technology to support their storytelling as well.   The Kindergarten’s read The Mitten by Jan Brett.  Then, we challenged them to retell the story by sharing a comment/phrase each character/animal might say.  This can be tricky for young learners as they have to shift to taking the character’s perspective, rather than just retelling the events of the story.  This capable group of Kindergartens was up to the task and had fun writing a script of what each character/animal might say.  

BES Kindergarten script for the characters from The Mitten

Next, we used the ChatterPix Kid app to record their lines from the script and make it look like each character was talking.   We used animal images sourced from Pixabay.  Check out the fun retelling video below:

Projects shared with permission.

The Wild Robot: A Tech-Infused Novel Study with Ms. Lussier's Class

Ms. Jlee Lussier’s Grade 4 class at MPS read The Wild Robot by Peter Brown and they’ve done so many exciting learning activities connected to this awesome novel!  This novel study has become an annual tradition for Ms. Lussier’s class and I was excited to be invited to join in on some of the activities again this year.  I had the chance to visit this class for 3 sessions to help them learn about programming and how technology works!

Ms. Lussier challenged her students to create their own robot designs using recycled materials.  In our first session together, the Grade 4s learned to program the micro:bits.  Each student successfully wrote a program to display an image and a string of text on their micro:bit.  For example, students may have programmed a smiley face to appear when button A is pressed and programmed “Hello my name is ______” when button B is pressed.  Students will attach their micro:bits to their robot designs so viewers can interact with the micro:bits when the robots are put on display in the school.  

The micro:bit has 25 programmable LED lights. 

In our second session, students learned to program the Wonder Workshop robots.  Students completed different programming challenges working with a partner or small group.  They learned that the robots measure distance in centimeters and practiced programming lights, sounds and movement.  

The Dash robots from Wonder Workshop are one of my favourite and most-used tools in my tech kit as a K-12 technology coach. 

Students desiged a map to represent the island which the story took place on.  As a class, they chose key locations that were significant to the story and then students worked together to create a large map in 9 sections that was taped together. 

When the map was completed during our third session together, we photographed it and displayed it on the interactive whiteboard.  Students worked together to measure the distance between key locations on the map and we added these measurements to the map, which remained on display for the next part of our activity.  There was lots of great math practice included in this activity!

Students worked with partners to choose locations on the map and planned the steps (on paper) to program the robot to move around the map, including measurements for how far the robot would need to travel between locations.

Finally, using their planning, students wrote a program to move their robot around the map to their planned locations.  Each team tried out their program and then made adjustments if needed.  Students were all able to successfully program the robot to move along their planned path on the map and we celebrated as each team completed this fun challenge!

Thanks to Ms. Lussier and her class for inviting me to join in this amazing learning experience.  I enjoyed watching students engaged in these fun activities, which allowed them to build important skills like communication, collaboration, persistence and problem solving!

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Outdoor Education Learning Extension with Minecraft EDU: Arbour Build Challenge

 I recently had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Carla Gambler's Grade 4 class at Waywayseecappo Community School.  The Grade 4s had participated in an animal scavenger hunt for their outdoor education class, which involved them locating animal decoys around their school grounds and learning the Ojibway names for each animal.  

Mrs. Gambler extended the learning activity by developing a Minecraft build challenge for her class.  Students were tasked with the challenge of re-creating their school arbour in Minecraft. The arbour is located on the school grounds and outdoor education classes are held inside. Check out the screen recordings and screenshots below from Grade 4 students to learn more about the outdoor education activity and the Minecraft EDU project.

Thank you to Mrs. Gambler and her class for inviting me to view their creations and showcase their work here to inspire others!

 

The arbour on school grounds,
which students were asked to re-create in Minecraft. 

During outdoor education, students were challenged to find the animal decoys above around their school grounds and record the animal name in Ojibway.  

Mrs. Gambler's instructions for the Minecraft build challenge

Note:  Work has been shared with permission.  Thank you to the contributing teacher and students!

Truth & Reconciliation Monuments with Minecraft Education Edition

 I've been working with Miss. Baker's Grade 5 and 6 class this year to integrate Minecraft EDU with their social studies learning.  In our latest activity, students were challenged to build a monument in Minecraft that represents moving forward with Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.  This learning activity was inspired by the Logics Academy activity: Changemakers of Canadian History.

The students worked in teams to brainstorm possible Monuments and discuss the meanings of the symbols/objects they might construct.  Each team decided on one monument to build and then worked collaboratively to create it in Minecraft.  Students added a sign to explain their monument and took screenshots or screen recordings to share their work.  

Some of the groups chose animals from the 7 teachings, which they'd learned about before.  Other groups designed original Monuments.  

Thanks to the Grade 5 and 6 students for sharing their work to be featured here for others to see! Not all groups had permission to share, but there is a great selection here to check out.