BrainPop

Students and teachers have been exploring the site BrainPop as a resource that provides much more than animated videos featuring the characters Anne and Moby.

Once a teacher sets up a class, the students are then invited into that class with a special code.

Students create an account with a username and password and then are ready for assignments from their teacher.  By logging in all, student work is saved for easy access.

The first assignment was to watch the video, Food Chains and then take the graded quiz. When those assignments were completed and submitted, students played the Food Chain Game in BrainPop.

Working with the Make A Map feature challenges students to reflect on their new knowledge and share it in a visual format. We discovered how to add arrows to join ideas, as well as how to color code the connecting boxes. Students loved this feature.

Click on the picture below to see what these activities look like. Watch the video, take the quiz, and play the game.

• How are animals and plants dependent on one another?
• How is energy transformed and transferred as it flows through the food chain?
• How does studying cycles help us to understand natural processes?
• How do living things adapt to the environment?
• How does energy flow within an ecosystem?
• How is energy transferred and transformed as it flows through a food chain?

Mrs. Lampe's Class Creates New Creatures

Grade 4 students in Mrs. Lanpe's class were given the challenge of creating a brand new animal. They had to think of all the adaptations and features of the new creature.
What is its habitat?
What are the prey and predators?
What adaptations does it have?
In CLIC students molded their new friend into a 3D representation.
Students created very imaginative animals.

Slothem by Anthony

All the new creatures ready to be photographed.

Trying to get the right angle for a photo.

Using the app ExplainEverything these new animals come to life. Click below to learn more about each creature.

Tech Tip:
The rubric for this assignment was placed into google classroom so that students may reflect on their own work. Mrs. Lampe then added her comments as well.
Animal Project Rubric

Global Read Aloud 16

Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Papillo joined their kindergarten classes and had a google hangout with the PreK class in Middleton, MA to talk about the book Yard Sale by Lauren Castillo as part of  Global Read Aloud 2016.
All the students enjoyed this special event. Mrs. Papillo even got to visit with some of her students from last year.

NPEN

This week, I had the pleasure of presenting at NPEN 2016 with Miss Klipfel.

The Northeast Professional Educators' Network sponsors a full day of professional development for educators in specialist areas. Library, Technology and Media specialists all met at Wilmington High School on election day and had the opportunity to choose from a wide selection of PD offerings.

Our first session was to introduce the app GreenScreen by DoInk. This hands on session, asked participants to take photos and short videos in front of three large green screens set up around the room. We then showed all the features of the app as participants used their own devices to create green screen magic. Because it was election day there were a lot of White House photos!

The next session was an opportunity for networking. All the library, technology, and media specialists met in the auditorium and mingled and chatted. I designed  NPEN BINGO and everyone was engaged in conversations around library, technology  and all things teaching.  At the end there were even raffle prizes!

This padlet was one of the choices on the BINGO card. Click and add your own thoughts.

Our last session was the introduction of the app ExplainEverything. Participants were very excited to learn all the possibilities of this app in all areas of the curriculum to help students "explain everything".

This was the second year of NPEN and I look forward to next year's session.

Talking Treats

The day after Halloween is the perfect time to have some fun using the GreenScreen by DoInk app.

Students first thought of their favorite treat. Then then wrote a short script in google docs, first from the perspective of the treat and then another script from their own perspective.

Once their scripts were memorized they recorded the two short segments.

Click on each picture below to hear the "talking treats".

Tech Tip:

This project is done in multiple sections.

1.First find both the background and the candy image and save to the camera roll.

2.Record the treat person and in DoInk add the candy on the bottom layer with the recording on the second layer. Save as an image and as a video.

3. Record the person with hand out. Save as an image and as a video.

4. Layer all these pieces in the order of the script. Using the images to fill the space on the recording sections. Use the masking tool to edit any unwanted background.