Map Skills - 21st Century vs 20th Century

I walked in to one of our Third Grade iAchieve classrooms on Wednesday right after they had completed a very intense math lesson on fractions where the teacher had included using the iPods. There was only about 10 minutes before the class went to lunch, so the teacher gave the students "free time" on their iPods. They could choose to do anything they wanted.

What did they choose? Most of them wanted to play the "Stack the States" app! A fun educational game that helps users learn facts and information about the states - identifying the state, nicknames, cities, bordering states, and so on. When you answer a question correctly, you start stacking the image of that state with others to create a tower. When the tower gets to a specific height you earn a state that gets added to a US map in the app. It's rather addictive!

The students asked the teacher to pull down their 20th Century wall map to help them answer questions.

This is an ELD (English Language Development) classroom and the students were motivated, engaged, and helping each other learn. If one student did not know how to pronounce the name of a state, another student provided some "verbal scaffolding" to help them. The excitement was contagious!

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Digital Science Fair Projects

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.

Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers

Check out these online graphic organizers from Holt: Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers The site has over 30 graphic organizers for a variety of tasks. Each graphic organizer is interactive and can be downloaded onto a computer with Adobe Reader and be filled out right on the computer. There are also Teaching Notes available with tips and lesson ideas for each organizer What we really appreciate is that they also work on the iPads! Using the "Open In" feature in an IOS web browser such as Safari or Chrome, you can import the graphic organizer into the Adobe Reader app and easily fill in the fields. Students can then take a screenshot of the completed graphic organizer to share with their teacher or import into another iPad project.

T. A. G. Strategy

We want our students to reflect on their own work but also to be able to give effective feedback to each other. This is true for writing, conversations, or digital work. It's tough for us as adults and even more difficult for our students - no matter the grade level. As we have started using Seesaw ( https://web.seesaw.me/ ) and its student Comment feature, I've seen lots of "I like ..." and "That's cool" comments. Not very meaningful. I recently came across this simple strategy called T.A.G: Tell, Ask, Give. An easy to remember acronym and a good way to get students started in making effective comments. I've seen several variations but like these descriptors for the acronym: Tell - something you learned or was meaningful ("like" if they are specific about what they like) Ask - a question Give - a compliment or recommendation (depending upon the purpose for the comment) Download a pdf here . Here are some additional

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