Global Read Aloud 2020: Student-hosted Twitter Chats

 For Global Read Aloud this fall, I had the pleasure of working with staff and students at Miniota School to host Twitter Chat discussions about their books.  Mrs. Tynelle Graham's Grade 3/4 class hosted two chats about Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet.  Ms. Stacy Paull's Grade 5/6 class hosted a chat discussing Indian No More.  Mrs. Tricia Lelond's Grade 7/8 class hosted a Twitter Chat for Prairie Lotus.

Before the Chat
I met with each class for a planning session prior to the date of the live chat.  Each group of students brainstormed discussion questions and then narrowed it down to a rich question set for the Twitter chat.  The question prep led to lots of great discussion before the "official chat" even began.  The Grades 5-8 students used a Canva template I'd created to prepare the graphics for each question.  We Tweeted out the question graphics ahead of time for any classes wanting to prepare answers before the live discussion and shared the details for our chat in hopes that lots of other teachers and classrooms would join in.

Students also prepared their own answers to the questions for the chat, so they'd be well-prepared to participate in the discussion and share their ideas.  Some students wrote their answers on sticky notes to be photographed and Tweeted during the chat and some (older) students typed their answers in a Google Doc to be copied into a Tweet during the chat. 

On the day of the chat, each class developed a schedule for posting questions within their one hour live chat time.  Each class designated a couple of students to Tweet out the questions at the scheduled times...and they were very precise about following their planned schedule! 

During the Twitter Chat
During the live chat time, students had a few roles:

(1) Designated students posted the question graphics at the planned times with question numbers and a reminder to use the chat hashtag.

(2) All students posted their own responses to the questions.  Students answered 1-3 of the questions and the class made sure someone contributed their ideas to the chat for every question.  (ie:  Student A might have wrote an answer for questions 1, 2, 3 and Student B might have Tweeted their answers to questions 4, 5 and 6).  

(3) As a class, students worked together to moderate the chat and reply to other participating classes.  The teacher in each room used TweetDeck to follow the chat hashtag and projected their screen so all students could see the Tweets coming in.  Classes composed their responses together, with the teacher typing and sending Tweets that they could all view.

After the Chat

Tweets continued to come in after the live chat time, so classes continued to moderate and respond to messages on Twitter.  

It was a lot of fun to be involved with these student-hosted Twitter Chats.  The students did an excellent job of planning and hosting!  I hope it's something I'll get to experience again!

Tech Tips: Quick Communication with G Suite

Today, students are returning to school here in Manitoba.  It's exciting to be back, but also a very different back to school experienc given that we are teaching and learning during a pandemic.  This school year, I'll continue to serve as the Literacy with ICT Teacher Leader for Park West School Division.  In this role, I support students and teachers in using technology for education.  It's an awesome job and I'm very excited to be back at school!

Our school division is currently using G Suite for Education.  I wanted to share a couple of tips for quick communication using Gmail and Google Classroom.

(1)  Use labels for your email contacts to make it quick and easy to email a group of parents, students or colleagues.

For example, I might create a label called "Parents 2020-2021".  I can label all contacts for parents & guardians of that class.  Then, when I go to compose an email, I simply type the label name "Parents 2020-2021" into the TO or BCC field of my email to message all parents at once.  

Note:  When you are emailing a group, using the BCC field to send a blind carbon copy is good email etiquette so that you are not sharing contact information with others.  The BCC field prevents other recipients from seeing email addresses that the message is being sent to. 

The instructions for using labels are here 

(2) If you are using Google Classroom, you can quickly email students and guardians from the "People" tab.  

Once you have invited students to Google Classroom, you can easily contact individual students, multiple students on your class list or your entire class.  Similarly, once guardians have signed up with their student, you can also email them using the list in Google Classroom.  

The instructions for emailing students, guardians and co-teachers in Google Classroom are here.  

Book Trailers released by Rossburn Elementary School Grade 5/6

Along with some other classes from around PWSD, the Rossburn Elementary School Grade 5/6 class has joined me in creating book trailers for some of their favourite books this year!   Similar to the process we've used with other classes taking part in this project, this group of students viewed sample book trailers, set criteria, made a plan for their video and then started designing with Powtoon.

Here are the videos released by RES Grade 5/6:

Where the Red Fern Grows 
book trailer by Deegan


Hockey Superstars
book trailer by Reid


Bridge to Terabithia
book trailer by Anna


Patches
book trailer by Faith


Front Desk
book trailer by Tatum


Where the Red Fern Grows
book trailer by Jackson


The Maze of Bones
book trailer by Natalie

See more trailers by Park West School Division students

Book trailers released by Decker Colony School 

Book trailers by MPS Grade 6

More book trailers by MPS Grade 6 

Book Trailers released by Decker Colony School!

One of the projects I have done with students this year is creating Book Trailers.  The latest book trailer releases come to us from the Decker Colony School Grades 7 & 9 class.  This group of students began by planning their trailers with a graphic organizer.  We viewed some sample book trailers (both professionally-created and student-created) and set criteria for their work.  Next, students had an overview tutorial of WeVideo.  We reviewed the basics of how to use this video creation tool, which we are currently accessing as part of our Edwin pilot.   Students eagerly got started with this video creation project. 

When I returned to visit this classroom last week, it was evident that students had worked diligently to create book trailers which convey the mood and message of their chosen novels.  I was impressed by their video design skills, including their choice of music, images and fonts to enhance their trailers.  These book trailers sure do the job of hooking a viewer - I want to read them all now that I've watched these!

Check out their awesome work below:

Camp Blackeagle by Sigmund Brouwer
Book trailer by Matthias


Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan
Book trailer by Alex


The Emperor's Code by Gordon Korman (39 Clues)
Book trailer by Gabriel


The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Book trailer by Daniel


The Night They Stole the Stanley Cup by Roy MacGregor
Book trailer by Jesse

Booksnaps by SCS Grade 10

I visited the SCS Grade 10 ELA class last week to introduce them to a different kind of reader response: booksnaps!   The idea of a booksnap (inspired by Tara Martin) is to "snap" a picture of a page in your text which you reacted to and then respond to the text by adding emojis and a short annotation explaining your response.   Booksnaps are a fun way for students to show their thinking about a text.  Students explore their response to the text and demonstrate understanding when choosing symbols and a caption that reflect their ideas about the selected section. 

For this class, students began by reading their choice novels with instructions from their teacher to flag something significant with a sticky note.  The class discussed that a significant passage could be something important to the plot or something that caused a reaction from them.  Once students had some time to read, we introduced the concept of booksnaps by presenting a few samples (student-created and teacher-created examples).  Through examining samples, we set criteria for their work.  Then, it was time to get snapping!

Students returned to the passage they had flagged as significant or read on to find an appropriate section to "snap".  This group of students primarily used SnapChat to create their booksnaps.  (PicCollage, SeeSaw, Google Slides and other tools also work well for creating them.)  Once they had a picture of a page in their book, students added their annotation, emojis and the title and author of the text. When their booksnaps were complete, they downloaded their snaps (rather than sending them to one of their contacts).  Then, students submitted their work to their teacher via Google Classroom.  Their finished products were very well done!

The following are Booksnap examples from this great group of students.

(*shared with permission* thanks for sharing*)

The Wax Museum: A BCI Grade 7 Class Project

I was recently invited to attend a unique museum exhibit.  It was held at a local school and organized by a group of Grade 7 students.  This talented crew of students featured important activists with various exhibits around the school library.   Not only did they research the activists and develop the displays, they also posed as the "wax statues" of the people they'd researched.   I was so impressed with this project and was excited when the class gave me permission to write about their work!  I've shared the details of this project from my perspective in hopes that some other students and teachers might be inspired to try a project like this.

Each student in Mrs. Bowley's class selected an activist to focus on for the project.  I saw displays on Rosa Parks, Desmond Tutu, Cesar Chavez, Craig Keilburger, Malcolm X, Viola Desmond, Agnes Macphail and more.  Students researched the significant life events and important contributions of their activist.  Students created an audio recording explaining important information about their activist.  They used first person narrative to share the facts they'd uncovered through their research in a unique and engaging way.   Students used the Audio editor & music editor AudioStudio Chrome extension to record on their Chromebooks.   Many students sourced royalty-free background music to enhance their audio.

Each student created a poster for their display, which included some key details about the activist, along with a QR code linking to their recording.   This format allowed museum visitors to view each display while listening to the audio on their phone or personal device. As guests moved through the exhibit, students posed as their activist, wearing costumes selected from the local Value Shoppe. 

I really enjoyed the time I spent visiting each display.  As I scanned each QR code, I learned more about the activists featured at the museum.   Many of the people were ones I'd heard of before, but I got to learn new things as I listened to the students' work.  It was an interesting museum for both the adults and students who had the opportunity to visit it.

As the Literacy with ICT Teacher Leader for our school division, I noticed that students had used many important skills in developing their project.  A few important LwICT skills that I saw evidence of were:

Gather & Make Sense:  students conducted research to gather information on their activist, they organized that information and made sense of it in order to create their posters and recordings

Produce to Show Understanding:  students created their posters, audio recordings and their display to demonstrate their understanding of the person they researched

Communicate:  students communicated their ideas to an audience of museum visitors with this project.  They developed an engaging museum exhibit that used various components to share knowledge with others.

I know that students also used their ELA skills in their research, writing and recording and demonstrated an understanding of their Social Studies outcomes through this project.   It was awesome to see student learning showcased in this unique project! 

A Student Perspective on Minecraft EDU

student-created Minecraft civilizations

After students had completed their Minecraft civilization projects for Mr. Obach's Grade 8 Social Studies class, I asked them to share feedback with me.   This is the first time we've used MinecraftEDU for a classroom project, so I was curious to see what students had to say about their experience.








Here are Kylin's responses to my questions (shared with her permission):

Describe your Minecraft project in 2-3 sentences.  What were you trying to do/show/learn?

We were to make an imaginary civilization with a partner. Our imaginary civilization included a temple, houses, a river, farmland, forest. We used Minecraft to show what our imaginary civilization looked like. 

Positives: What were some of the things you liked about this project?  What are some advantages of using Minecraft for this project? What did you learn?

I liked having the freedom to create a 3D representation of a civilization that was created through imaginary. It was cool because we worked for about 3 hours on our civilization. After three hours of work it was cool to see it coming together, walk through it and see all the things you made.

The main advantage was that once you think up things you can just build it in Minecraft. There are no limits to creativity. You can just think of something and you can build it. If we were to be working on the same thing, it is easier because it would be done faster instead of one person working on it. If we were working on separate things, after you finished something or one person finished something you can immediately start working on other things and not have to worry about finishing other buildings.

I learned that there is a lot of planning to do before you can start creating your civilization.

Challenges: What were some challenges that you faced while working on the project?  

When you first get in, we had trouble finding our partner in the world we created. We eventually found each other and once we did we got straight to work.

The amount of time we had in each class was a challenge. We only have 30 minute classes and if we were to have an hour class I think we would have had more time to add more detail.

You always had to go to the same computer or you had to scroll through your files to find the correct file.

Other: What else would you like people to know about this project? 

I definitely think other students and teachers should try something like this because it is a fun experience and.. It’s just fun! It’s a fun way to learn.

Do you need to be an expert at Minecraft to do something like this?  

No, you do not need to be an expert. It’s super easy to just build anything because all you have to know is how to place a block. That’s it. After that you just create anything with different blocks or materials.

Could MinecraftEDU be used for other projects?

Minecraft would be better for some projects than others.

Learning with Minecraft EDU

I've been learning more about Minecraft Education Edition this year and I was excited to visit a Grade 8 class where the students were using this tool for a social studies project.  Mr. Obach's class designed civilizations using Minecraft EDU to demonstrate their learning.  They were asked to address work & trade, architecture, food sources, sustainability and natural environment in their designs. Students were also expected to explain how the environment impacts the civilization.

When I was learning to use Minecraft EDU in my training sessions this fall, I was pretty slow at building and sometimes frustrated when I couldn't quite get things to work.  I failed often.  I was certainly no expert in building with Minecraft.  However, I could see the awesome potential for students to design and create with Minecraft.  I also really liked the Education Edition add-ons such as the camera, book & quill to make it easy for students to document their learning.  

When I met with the Grade 8 class, some of them had previous experience with Minecraft and some did not.  We introduced Minecraft EDU and gave students a bit of time to try it out.  I was impressed with how quickly and easily all students learned the tool and got right to creating their designs.  When I visited the Grade 8s again, they were efficiently collaborating with a partner in a "shared world" to build different elements of their civilizations.  When I asked those students who hadn't used Minecraft about their experience, they told me that they'd found it was easy to get started and fun for them, even though they'd had to figure out a new tool. 

During one classroom visit, students gave me a "tour" of what they'd built .  I was blown away!  They had created incredibly detailed and thoughtful projects.  They explained reasons for creating their civilizations in certain ways and told me about various elements they'd included.  Here are a few pictures of what I got to see that day:

"While I was working on my civilization, I had a lot of fun. I had fun exploring the world I chose and there were so many areas to choose from. Advantages of using this would be that you could let your mind go wild. I really enjoyed working on Minecraft." - Grade 8 student

As part of their assignment, students used the camera and Book & Quill features in Minecraft EDU to document and share their learning.   Check out a few samples from their documentation and notice the variety of elements that were included in their civilizations.

New Book Trailers released by MPS Grade 6

The Grade 6 class at MPS continues to work on producing book trailers featuring some of their favourite books.   To see previous releases, check out this post.

Once students have their trailer ready in Powtoon, we've been watching them in small groups to give feedback based on the criteria we set at the start of the project.   Students then have the opportunity to make revisions before exporting their video.   Here are the latest trailers from this talented group of young video producers!

Sisters by Raina Telgimar
Book Trailer by Kimy 


Secrets and Scones by Laurel Remington
Book trailer by Tara


I Survived the Children's Blizzard 1888 by Lauren Tarshis
Book trailer by Owen 


The Junction of Sunshine & Lucky by Holly Schindler
Book trailer by Chloe 


Middle School: Just My Rotten Luck by James Patterson
Book trailer by Evan


Too Much Drama by Laurie Freidman
Book trailer by Alexis

Designing Digital Posters with Binscarth Grade 7/8

I had the opportunity to work with an awesome group of Grade 7 and 8 students at Binscarth School last week.  This group of students used Canva to design digital posters related to the concepts they are studying in science class.   The posters turned out really well, so I asked students for permission to share their work here on my blog - you can see their designs below!

Designing digital posters is about more than just learning to use technology tools.  This project integrated important Literacy with ICT skills and science knowledge.  

• We began by co-constructing criteria for our work, which relates to LwICT outcome P-1.2 participates in establishing criteria for own work. 

• Next, students had to select a concept/term from their science studies and develop a description/definition of the term (which links to science outcome 8-3-01 Use appropriate vocabulary related to their investigations of fluids and LwICT outcomes G-1.1 gathers information from given source(s) and G-2.1 identifies relevant information from sources)

• Then, students had to select images that related to their concept and design a poster that conveyed the meaning of their concept/word (which links to the "Produce to Show Understanding" section of our LwICT continuum, particularly P-2.1 uses a given format to demonstrate learning and P-3.1 edits work based on feedback from teacher and/or peers, according to established criteria, conventions, and/or standards). 

• The final designs turned out really great!  Plus, I think that students will be able to use their knowledge of how to design digital posters as a way of sharing their learning for other projects and activities.  

P.S.  Canva recently announced free premium accounts for educators - get the details here!