late in the day

things have been busy so I will quickly update

• grades 1-5 voted and read for Black Eyed Susan Book Picture award- no surprise Scaredy Squirrel won in my school and state wide
• presented at MICCA to a small crowd -it was fun
• Used the Flip camera to record reader's theatre, mystery to medicine and interview with a patriot
• supported my team during cultural arts night- I acted as the reporter for rock and roll review 1950-2000's
• digital storytelling class for 6 weeks after school - 18 students signed up and 14 completed fairy tale using digital photos from home and power point
• National Poetry month and Autism Awareness Month celebrated with second poetry contest oer 50 entries, poetry book will be published next week. First grade award of excellence went to a first grader with autism
• Reading incentive book clubs otherwise known as Chessie ended first week in May- end of year parties are happening every week it seems until close of school

there is more but that's just the highlights so far. I am now planning for the summer reading lists and how to locate the nearestpublic library

soooo excited

I am ! got the email yesterday that I will be presenting at MICCA this year. I have wanted to present at MICCA for years and now I am! I walked on a cloud for all of 10 minutes after I read the e-mail twice.
Then I had to get laptops set up for my "high flyers" in 3rd grade and teach 3 classes and do lunch bunch with 4 th grade. So now I return to the cloud.
And think, well ,now what? I have asked another teacher if she wants to come too. Have to arrange registration for her if, if, if. Check to see if I take a sick day ,all day or 1/ 2 day or do I take a personal business day?
But that's not all, I need to plan the presentation, though I know what I am going to do. I will talk about how we manage autism students in media by using technology. And this is simple tech for the teacher.
Autism students are largely visual learners, as more and more students are becoming. So I copy the Boardmaker way of using social stories to instruct autism students. My school has two classrooms-ful. I consult with the classroom autism teacher for topics. Currently they are doing nutrition, Maryland and the United States. I search in the catalog for books that connect with the topics, or browse the shelves. So for nutrition I read I Wouldn't Not Eat a Tomato and The Food Pyramid, one ficiton one non fiction. For Maryland I found a book at the public library Chesapeake Bay Walk, animals around the bay, and B is for Blue Crab, a Maryland alphabet book. Both non fiction but loads of good pictures. The U.S.? The Great Seal of the United States and Celebrate the 50 States. Again non fiction.
Here's the tech connection: a template in Powerpoint, title and author on top in a text box, I use an image of the book cover for the first picture, labeled cover. Then the fun starts. I read through the book locating vocabulary that is familiar and unfamiliar. Type the vocab words in to more text boxes 10 words or so for each book, sometimes more. I look for clip are to describe the vocabulary word. This can be tricky. I serch in clip art, MS online and other free clip art/photo places. The last two pictures on the page are for YES and NO. I can ask questions for review. Truely this sounds too simple to be real. It does take time but for planning I am done for the next six weeks for my autism Monday class.
BTW this class is scheduled in my planning time. Autism students usually need extra practice for any instruction.
The payoff: Today one of our students who can be a behavior handful , actually sat down during his regular media time and listened to the story for part fo the class. And I saw him interacting with others. Big Wow and finally I got direct eye contact with him and some speech "Thank you", "Time to go", "goodbye" .
Of course I won't know ever if this new student behavior was because he has practiced media more, so that his behaviors have changed or if he is moving along and at a faster rate because of the instruction he is getting in regualr classroom or what.
Any how it was a great moment for him and me.

progress

End of February and I am moving right along with program and assignments. Started a digital technology club after school, on Fridays (!) I have 18 students signed up. About 14 appear each week. Students 3-5 grade are creating thier own storybook by writing a fairy tale and photographing common objects from home to tell the story. We use Ms Power Point and teach the basics and sometimes more. Today they created the pages of the book, did a title page and began to practice inserting clip art and photographs.
Students must storyboard out their ideas before the can begin to photograph with a digital camera. They can email the photos or put them on a flash drive. If the student tries to skip the storyboard step they are asking for lots of frustration and trouble. I do a storyboard with second grade at the end of the year during the Open Court immigration unit. They have to plan before they write and illustrate the pages.
Most of the kids are moving right along. They played for awhile with Word Art, I like Word Art, for several minutes. All of the sudden it was time to go...
and then I came home to a dark house. Power company came and found it was outside wiring yeah! no bill for the repair

digital kinder

This week I bit off a huge piece of technology by using digital cameras with kindergarten students. And so far so good.
I think most of us understand that this generation of students is more digitally and visually oriented than earlier generations. What gen are they? Integrating technology for this group can be a challenge- for the teacher. When I was a tech I found that the teacher was the one person in the classroom that needed the training not the kids! "What they can't save a document!" meaning "I can't save a document." What were the kids doing with their Game Boys all those year ago? Saving the game! (Makes me crazy that people are still saving to the HD on a networked computer because they are too lazy to go find their own drive and save in a folder they made for worksheets or book lists or whatever), and we are way beyond that now.
So digital cameras. Well yes I was a bit and more wondering how this would go. All I really wanted to do was get photos of the Kindergarten with their "Reading Buddies'- a stuffed animal or toy they hold while they read a book before going to bed. We talked bedtime routines and who reads you a story (or do you read to yourself?)
Then I thought, "shoot for the moon, land in the stars" take a chance and see what happens.
It happened awesomely. I drew a sketch of a digital camera front and back on the new easel with whiteboard we now have in the story area. We identified and labeled the wrist strap, the lens, the view finder screen, on/off button and the shutter button. BTW my school has Kodak Easy Share digital cameras, different models but essentially the same. My rule for kindergarten or any student is keep the wrist strap on your wrist- camera can't fall on the floor. If you don't follow the rule you loose the camera. Then I split the students in to small groups 3-4 max, 3 works best and let them go at it for 10 minuets.
They have to stay on the story rug - this helps for crowd control .The rug is 6 x9 divided in to colored squares. Meawhile I am circulating and shooting video with a Flip video camera. Students traded and shared the cameras and here's the shocker they took some pretty good pictures. Few heads cut off, the Reading Buddy and face together, good head shots, few feet.
I have one class to go and will have a photo inserted into a picture page for students next week so they can write about their Reading Buddy and stories.
Technology is great - when it works.

mid winter blues

Sigh, it's mid January and past my most un-favorite time of the year. I go to work in the dark and I come home in the dark. But not today. My younger son Sam started back to school today and we ride share. This semester it will be four days a week. So I will have to leave my building as soon as I can to get him home and to work by 5 pm.

January also means lots of days that are off, rescheduled and early closings. Trying to keep consistent and do instruction is hard. We have done several Black -Eyed Susan nominees, for picture books. I do these all grade levels except kindergarten. This week is really strange and I sensed we need a break so we are playing Dewey games. Practice and review but also the way I vamp until the normal schedule is resumed, this year in February.

The Dewey game I found on line can be adapted for 2-5. I added the OPAC for a third grade today and then we compared which way was more efficient for the students. Conclusion it was 50/50 using the laptop to find the information (type in a subject heading) or going straight to the shelves, locate a book with the selected Dewey number and then recording author title and publication date. Very interesting. First grade will play Sort Dewey by topics, we'll see what they remember from October. they only go from 500-800, I cover the rest of the sections in second grade. Oh oh oh, hot idea - have them select another subject heading for each section as an extension. Students pick symbol to add to game. I have been thinking of trying with the Kindergarten too. Hmmm

Autism students are going to start Chessie Book Club in February. We'll need a peer buddy and a TA to do this, but I am hopeful. Will recruit this week in fourth and fifth grade.

to do or not

Stella Louella went well, in fact the group was pretty quiet while I told the story. That's another thing - with some books I don't read it as much as tell it. I caught myself doing that today in a second grade class. I am half way through this week (taking a sick day on Friday) doing a Black- Eyed Susan nominee and I am telling the book with the pictures not reading it word for word. This could have something to do with the document camera. Have to think about that.

This post is supposed to be about presenting at MICCA the state wide technology teaching conference. I was to present on how I use technology to create the lessons I make for the autism class. Got the email for presentation submissions today and I'm thinking about it. As in what do I need to include for 45 minutes? Autism students need lots of visuals, and after much of trial and error I figured out a way. A way to at least tell a story to a group and have them respond. Autism teachers write social stories for their students describing what to expect during the school day. I have taken that format and turned it sideways sorta.

Next weeks book is What Happened to Marion's Book