If you read this post then you know that my kindergarten class wrote a book in collaboration with another kindergarten class in Yokohama, Japan. We created an eBook using Book Creator for the iPad. While I’m not a super fan of this app it was simple to use and got the job done. If you’re a bit intimidated at using iBooks Author and want something that’s easy to use without all the bells and whistles, then Book Creator is your app.
I decided to try and build digital portfolios using Evernote in my Kindergarten classroom. I was thinking of doing this next year but though I’d give it a test run for the last trimester this year. That way if I found I didn’t work for me I would have all summer to find something else that might. We have about 4 weeks left in the trimester and I thought it would be a good time to reflect on how it’s been going.
If you’ve never heard of Evernote take a moment to check out this video.
This and other videos and testimonials can be found on the Evernote website. These users range from nurses to musicians to teachers on how they’ve found ways to get their organizational geek on. There’s definitely a wealth of information on the website so take a moment to check it out.
So if you’re still reading this post and haven’t been sucked into the wealth of examples on Evernote’s website I’ll attempt to explain how I use it in my classroom. Real quick side note… I will only attempt to learn and incorporate a new tool if it’s relatively easy to use, quick and efficient. In addition it has to add value to what I already do. If it doesn’t adhere to these qualifications I won’t use it.
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OK on with it already! The first thing I did was to download the Evernote application onto my computer as well as my iPhone and class set of iPads and iPods. I created a free Evernote account and signed in to said account on both my phone and my computer. Since Evernote is a “cloud” based service, theoretically you can access your information from anywhere. What that meant for me was that anytime I updated or added notes on my phone those changes would sync with my computer etc.
Next I created “notebooks” for each of my students. The idea is that everything that I wanted to document for each student would be kept in their respective “notebook”. I then started thinking about what I wanted to put in the portfolio. This is when I hit a bit of a hiccup. Like I said before, if it takes to much time I don’t want to do it. For example if I wanted to insert a piece of writing in a students notebook I would have to take that piece of paper to the scanner(with is at pretty much the farthest point in the school from my classroom) scan it, email it to myself, download it to my computer and then add it to a note. Not simple or efficient, so it was out.
In searching for a solution I did find a little something on the Evernote website about the ability to scan something and have it send directly to Evernote. In theory this sounds great… but the likelihood of making this a reality at my school is not likely.
Adding a Snapshot to a Note
The solution I came to is actually very simple and this is where an iPhone or iPod or iPad comes in handy. I realized that you could take actually picture of something from within a note while in the Evernote application. So whenever I want to add something such as a piece of paper I can just take a picture of it rather than scan it. I know I know… you’re like “DUH!” but it was sort of an epiphany to me. It made adding things to portfolios sooo quick and easy. I could whip out my phone, open Evernote, snap a pick, add some comments, tags and BAM, I’m done!
In my mind the beauty and power of using Evernote comes with the use of “tags”. Tags are a sort of label that you give to notes. Let’s say for example I am reading with one of my students named Budhi. We read a book that is a “Level C” book. When we’re done reading the book I can create a new note in that students notebook and either take a snapshot of the book or simply use the book title as the note title.
Possible Tags
I can take a couple notes about how the student did and what specific skills and strategies they may have struggled with. Now once I have done this I add some tags. I would add these tages: Budhi, Literacy, Level C, Reading, and possibly a couple others. What makes this is important is that at any time you could generate a search (or apply a filter depending on how you want to look at it) in Evernote and you will only see notes with those tags. Say for example I search for only notes tagged Budhi, level C, reading. I would only see the notes with those tags displayed. I could then these notes see his progress over time. I can also see if there are certain skills or strategies that he may be struggling to grasp with and I can address these specifically with him next time we meet to read.
This idea can be applied to any area of the curriculum. I am a big believer in process and I believe the flexibility Evernote provides (voice, text, images, etc) lends itself to really documenting the entire creation process, not just an end result.
Next year I was thinking of assigning each child a specific iPad. I would then creating a shared Evernote notebook on each students iPad where they could add notes. They could also see the notes that I have created. It would be a nice way for them to reflect on their own learning as the year progresses. (assuming they could read my notes) This would provide them with an opportunity to participate in the process as well as give them the occasion to possibly discover a new way to utilize Evernote as a digital portfolio tool. Their little minds work in such fascinating and unrestricted ways it wouldn’t surprise me if they repurposed the app in a truly enriching way.
I know many of you other educators are using Evernote to build digital portfolios. Please chime in and tell us how you utilize this tool!
I thought I’d share a couple things I use in my classroom on a daily basis. My hope is that as people read this post they will be inclined to leave a comment and share something they use regularly as well. I’m focusing on hardware but that’s not to say everyone has to!
First up I would have to say that I use my SmartBoard an awful lot. That said I almost never use the “Notebook” software put out by Smart Technologies, the makers of the SmartBoard. I find I use it most with the my students for what it is, an oversized tablet stuck on the wall. It’s a way for us to Tweet together, blog together, research together, reflect on work together, etc. I know some people do really cool stuff with the notebook software and if you’re one of them please share an example!
The next piece of equipment kind of goes with the first but I think even if I didn’t have a SmartBoard I would still use a video projector. I honestly can’t think how teachers do without one of these! I think I’d be in big trouble if I was ever without one.
The next thing I really dig is my wireless keyboard. Now this really is something that is more a matter of convenience than necessity. That said it saves so much time over using the on screen touch type pad that I was using with our SmartBoard. It also allows me to sit back and let the students run the show. This is something that I’ve gotten used to and would be very hard to live without. Typing on a flat keyboard is much more intuitive for the kids and is a skill that they must acquire anyway. The on-screen SmartBoard keyboard is just too clunky and too often encourages mistyping.
Of course to even have a keyboard you would need a computer!! The computer I use was supplied to me by my school but it’s the same computer I would be using if I had to buy it myself. It’s a MacBook Pro running the Lion (10.7.3) operating system. (You can check out a short video highlighting the features in Lion here.) I have a dual screen set up which I find very useful as well. I use the dual screen set up for a variety of reasons. The first is that I find the 13″ laptop screen a bit small and I like to have a bit more real estate when working on projects that involve multiple windows. For instance, when I am running multiple browsers or working between multiple programs where I am taking something from one program (usually images, video, or blocks of text) and moving it to another. In addition the secondary screen is the screen that is projected on our SmartBoard. This way I can que things up (such as videos ect) and can drag stuff on and off the screen for the kids to see without having to dive through a bunch of stacked windows.
You can take this a step further with the multiple desktop feature and load up stuff on different desktops. With Lion it’s easy to three finger swipe between desktops. I also find this useful when giving presentations. You can load up specific things on different desktops and just swipe back and forth rather than trying to find the proper window among 5 or six tiled windows. As I said earlier this can allow you to load up videos or webpages that are ready to go.
Multiple desktops displayed across the top
This is nice when presenting as it doesn’t allow a slow internet to mess with the “flow” of your presentation. No more sitting around to wait for a page to load, just swipe over to a different desktop where it’s already loaded. If you’re running a Keynote or a PowerPoint slideshow on your main screen you can swipe over to another screen to give specific examples of something from your presentation.
One thing that I came to use rather recently has been a lazer pointer. I know I know… those were cool.. in junior high. (Back when they used to call it junior high!) I actually find it very helpful. Since the wireless keyboard allows me to sit back and let the students take control of the SmartBoard sometimes I need them to navigate to an area of the screen that isn’t obvious or easy for me to explain. That is where the lazer pointer comes in. I can just point it out quickly and accurately. We had a couple lying around the tech office and I grabbed one a while back when I was heading to a conference to present. After I got back I had it sitting on my desk and thought I would impress the kids with it. I was like “hey guys check this out” and they were like “meh”. Even though they weren’t impressed I actually found it useful and now I use it everyday!
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One thing that I don’t have currently but will next year is an Apple TV. The screen sharing capabilities are very exciting! I’m a bit bummed that I will not be able to use it’s streaming features to the fullest as I’m outside of North America. Nevertheless I still think it will be a valuable addition to the classroom. As it states on the Apple website:
AirPlay
Play content from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch on your HDTV. Watch movies, play music, show off your videos and photos — even show what’s on your screen to enjoy games, web pages, and more.
I think it will be cool to have an iPad screen wirelessly thrown up on the Whiteboard. Now as the class watches on the big screen individual students can share what they are working on or how they created something or walk us through how they solved a problem right from their iPad. Sweet! What I think would be really really cool is if you could control the iPad using the SmartBoard as you AirPlay the screen.
The one thing that I don’t have that many of my cohorts use is a document camera. Those who use them seem to think they couldn’t live without them. Since I’ve never used one I really just don’t know what I’m missing. I think when my Apple TV arrives I am going to fashion a stand of sorts for an iPad so that I can use it’s camera coupled with the AirPlay screen sharing feature to use the iPad as a document camera. That’s the plan anyway….
What are you using that you couldn’t live without?
My students have been loving Skitch so much that they have been trying to find ways to use it all the time. This past week we used it when we were working on developing descriptive words. Using descriptive words is something we have been discussing as a way to make our stories more interesting.
To begin with we all took a picture of the same thing, a shell. Each student went about trying to think of words they could use to describe this shell to someone who has never seen it. Too cool!
Next they wanted to work on describing something of their choosing. This proved to be a bit more difficult for some of them. A couple students chose to take pictures of things that were very difficult to describe. After they struggled a bit we discussed why they were having difficulty and they then chose to try again with something that lent itself a bit more to the exercise. Here are some of the results:
I have been participating in a wonderful VoiceThread project called “Kindergarten Classrooms Around the World” which was started by #kinderchat star Nicole Cingiser (@ncingiser). So far four classrooms have participated. To get the project going we gave our students cameras (in my case iPods) and set them free to take pictures of whatever they felt was worth sharing about their school. Actually, before we did this we sat and discussed which areas or “spaces” of the school they wished to share and why. We made a list and then they went off and took pictures of these spaces.
After the students were finished we came back and looked at the pictures. We discussed which pictures were not only clear and well composed but adequately conveyed what we liked about the particular space. After we decided which pictures adhered to these standards we went out again and everyone tried to take pictures that were clear, conveyed meaning and were well composed. I think they did an excellent job!
It’s turned into quite an impressive collaboration and I wanted to share just a few of the things the kids have come up with:
My students have had a wonderful time with this and look forward to continuing work on this as well as similar collaborative projects.
Kindergarten Classrooms Around the World Use VoiceThread to Connect
I have been participating in a wonderful VoiceThread project called “Kindergarten Classrooms Around the World” which was started by #kinderchat star Nicole Cingiser (@ncingiser). So far four classrooms have participated. To get the project going we gave our students cameras (in my case iPods) and set them free to take pictures of whatever they felt was worth sharing about their school. Actually, before we did this we sat and discussed which areas or “spaces” of the school they wished to share and why. We made a list and then they went off and took pictures of these spaces.
After the students were finished we came back and looked at the pictures. We discussed which pictures were not only clear and well composed but adequately conveyed what we liked about the particular space. After we decided which pictures adhered to these standards we went out again and everyone tried to take pictures that were clear, conveyed meaning and were well composed. I think they did an excellent job!
It’s turned into quite an impressive collaboration and I wanted to share just a few of the things the kids have come up with:
My students have had a wonderful time with this and look forward to continuing work on this as well as similar collaborative projects.