Academic Vocabulary and Haiku Deck

What is 'Academic Vocabulary'?

Academic Vocabulary Frayer Example

Why should academic vocabulary be explicitly taught?

• to build students' background knowledge on a concept (not just for English learners)
• because some academic words have multiple meanings, depending on the context (ex: table, root, line...)
• to prepare students to read, hear or speak about a new concept
• because understanding important words related to a new concept can help students make connections to prior learning and/or the world around them

Here's some of the research behind academic vocabulary:

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Education,
"Effective Practices for Teaching Academic Vocabulary"

Marzano's Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction:

Source:
http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/vocabulary-instructiona-strategies-marzanos-6-step-process/

How can technology be used to facilitate and enhance academic vocabulary teaching and learning?

In my experience, a number of edtech apps and resources become powerful tools when partnered with Marzano's Six Steps (listed above).  

One of my new favorites that I'd like to highlight for you is Haiku Deck - a free iPad app that allows you to create powerful presentations using a few words and Creative Commons images.

My first experience using Haiku Deck with my English learners was when I created an illustrated WW2 vocabulary game to use with a group of 6th graders.  Each slide contains a vocabulary word and related image, and students went head-to-head in an around the world-type game to see who could be the first to provide the correct definition for a given word.  They loved it, and will be creating their own vocabulary games using Haiku Deck for a review next week.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


My second experience with Haiku Deck was structured around homophones and the Frayer Model for vocabulary development.  A 4th grade teacher and I met this past week to plan for a new unit, and we realized how powerful it would be to have students extend and share their learning of homophones by creating Haiku Decks with Frayer Model squares for each slide.

Here's a sample Frayer Model:

And here's how we turned it into a Haiku Deck:



Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Check out the tutorial I made for this lesson on Sophia.org for the screencasted explanation of my Haiku Deck: Homophone Vocabulary: http://www.sophia.org/vocabulary-and-haiku-deck-tutorial

We are really looking forward to having our students create and share their own homophone vocabulary Haiku Decks this week!

How have you used Haiku Deck?

What are some other effective apps / resources you use to teach academic vocabulary?

Please share your ideas, comments and questions in the comments below!

Writing Conferences via Screencast

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/4414374988/

I love hearing about ways to do things better and more efficiently, especially when student learning is involved.  This is probably a large part of why I love Twitter and Pinterest (as well as face-to-face collaboration) -- I love to get new ideas that I can try out in my classroom.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36822313@N06/3721705286/

With that said, I've been thinking a lot about a goal that I set for my teaching at the beginning of this year: to provide more timely feedback to my students on their writing. I have found that there is never enough time to conference with all of the students in a given class period...and inevitably, there are always students who are waiting to talk with the teacher about their writing.


So, naturally, I was checking Twitter on a typical evening (probably sometime around 11pm) for ideas that might help me with my goal of providing more timely feedback on student writing....when, lo and behold, I came across a blog post from Amy Mayer of +FriedTechnology talking about Video Grading Using Google Docs and Jing.  The article blew my mind.  It was exactly what I was looking for!

• The basic idea is that you use a screencasting tool, such as Jing (free!) or Camtasia (free trial), to record video and audio feedback / comments to each student about a piece of his or her digital writing.
• I don't rehearse or script out what I want to say because I conduct the writing conference as if I were sitting down with the student to read through his or her writing together.  Once I had done 3-4, I really started to get the hang of it and wasn't worried about making a mistake (it's more realistic that way!).
• Upload each screencast to Screencast.com, which will create a link for the video.
• Then, you post the link on their digital writing assignment in Google Docs using the comment feature.  

• Students can watch the screencast of your feedback when they have time (at home, at school, etc.), make any necessary revisions, and share or submit their next draft.  
• They can pause the video to make revisions or corrections to their work immediately, or they can replay the screencast at any time.
• You've heard of flipped instruction?  Well, this is a way to flip your feedback to students, so that they can become more self-directed, efficacious and resourceful writers.

Here is what the screencast looks like when the student clicks on the link:

And, here are a few samples of what the videos look like: 

I am by no means an expert on screencasting, but it's been really cool to see the results of using video feedback with students' writing.  Students are excited to watch my video comments for them and they are very efficient at making corrections and/or revisions while watching the video.  I have also been using the video comments as a resource for follow-up writing conferences with students.

After completing several screencasted writing conferences on my 4th grade ELs' latest writing project, I have definitely honed in on a few areas of writing we're going to practice: organization, S-V agreement, complex sentences, and varying the beginning of sentences.

Screencasting has been a  really helpful tool for my students and I, and I'd love to hear about other ways people use screencasting in their classrooms.  Feel free to leave a comment below with your ideas, comments and questions!

Annotating with Skitch

I have always been a big (ok, huge) fan of sticky notes -- yes, the yellow squares of paper that you can write on and stick anywhere -- I love them.  Plain and simple.  I think it's because I tend to come up with random thoughts, questions, or connections and love to have a spot to jot them down and stick them so I can come back to them later.  Or, maybe it's because they're so small that you have to limit to-do lists to bare essentials and abbreviate notes with shorthand and symbols.

Therefore, it probably comes as no surprise that I also enjoy incorporating sticky notes into lessons I teach at school.  One of my favorite ways to use sticky notes with students has been to facilitate students' interaction with a text -- by taking notes / annotating what they read, and then sticking the notes to the text (or textbook) for easy reference at a later time.

This practice makes for quick note checks (did you get 5 notes on that topic?), formative assessments (turn in your most important note on this topic), reorganization of ideas (try flip-flopping your 2nd and 3rd sticky notes), recording collective brainstorming (write what you already know about this topic and stick it on the board), etc... (for more innovative and impressive uses of sticky notes in the classroom, check out this Edutopia blog post by Ben Johnson: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/sticky-note-teaching-tool-ben-johnson).

But, I have come across a few important limitations with sticky notes in the classroom --

1. sticky notes eventually loose their sticky-ness
2. sticky notes can be a great record of learning, but are difficult to share with those outside of our classroom

image: http://inthelifeofanerd.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/skitch.jpg

So, I did some checking and soon discovered...there's an app for that! (actually there are several great annotation apps out there!) 

Skitch happens to be my favorite iPad annotation app to use with students because it is very easy to pick up and use and is also very easy to share and save.

First step:
Students select the background image they would like to annotate.  They can use a photo, map, blank screen, or capture an image from the web.

Second step:
Students use the annotation tools (arrow, text, shapes, highlighter/marker, pen color, blur, crop) to take notes and annotate the text or photo to show thoughts, ideas, questions and / or connections.

From: Great Source ACCESS History - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

From: National Geographic Explorer, Pioneer Edition. January, 2013

Third step:
Students save their annotation, either to the iPad to to their Evernote account.

Fourth step:
Students share their annotation:

• create a public link (post on blog, class website, Twitter, Facebook, etc)
• via AirPlay (project and display)
• send in an email (classmates, family, friends, teachers, etc)
• save to the iPad's camera roll

Skitch provides students with a meaningful way to annotate and interact with a photo or text, while also providing options for both saving and sharing the annotations on a grander scale.  Sorry, sticky notes....Skitch's got you beat this time!

How do you use Skitch with students?  Do you use a different annotation app?  Leave your ideas in the comments section!

My next app-y goal: use HaikuDeck with students as a medium for sharing their learning...looking forward to trying it out!

Dividing Decimals and iMovie on the iPad

I have to say that one of the best parts of my job is collaborating with my colleagues -- I love working together to develop plans and turn good ideas into great learning moments for students.

One such collaborative brainstorming session occurred just a few weeks ago between myself and a 6th grade teacher.  We were meeting to rethink parts of our co-taught math class and were discussing the fact that the next unit is typically the most difficult for students.

The 6th grade teacher mentioned that decimal division and 'swooping' the decimals is often an extremely difficult concept for students to catch on to... and before long,  we had come up with an idea to help make 'swooping decimals' a bit more catchy.  (Reasoning: mnemonic devices and songs are great ways to help English learners - and all students - remember steps in a process!)

The 6th grade teacher and her son wrote the lyrics that night, and the next day, we recorded as many students and staff as we could using iMovie for the iPad.  I edited the complete iMovie on my iPad (so easy to do!) and we shared the final product with students and staff -- it was a hit, and before you knew it, 'SWOOP there it is' became a common phrase throughout the building.

Check out our iMovie and feel free to use and share as a resource for dividing decimals:

When you got a problem with

a decimal divisor

Gotta know how to divide

if you're gonna be wiser.

First multiply divisors by a

power of ten,

If it's got two places, 

gotta swoop it again.

Make divisors whole numbers- 

that's what you gotta do

Don't forget the inside decimal

Cuz you gotta swoop that, too!

Swoop, there it is (4X)

You swoop the inside decimal

the same number of places

As you did with the divisor -

Don't mess up with the spaces!

Raise that decimal up

High above that solid line

Then it's regular division

And you're gonna be fine.

Swoop, there it is (4X)

Divide, Multiply, Subtract, 

Check and Bring Down

Are what you need to do to 

To take that problem down!

And....Swoop, there it is! 

Swoop, there it is!

Swoop there it is!

Swoop there it is!

Lyrics written by Ms. Moran.

(Based on the original song: Whoomp There It Is by Tag Team)

-------------------------------

We are already brainstorming our next number....perhaps a science-themed re-make of Psy's Gangnam Style?!  

What are some ways you have used iMovie for the iPad to enhance learning for students?  Leave a comment to share!


Looking forward to many more creative and productive brainstorming sessions with my colleagues in 2013!
--Andrea

The Language of Math: iPads and ELLs

We've all probably heard it said that math is a universal language, however a closer look reveals that the language of math is actually very complex and can be difficult to understand without explicit instruction and opportunities for practice.

A 3rd grade teacher and I (an EL teacher) have worked to incorporate instruction on the language of math into our co-taught math class through explicit teaching of math vocabulary and daily opportunities for math talk. Because our math class has several EL students, multiple gifted students, and many other students in between, we use many differentiation strategies to give students what they need, whether it be pre-teaching, re-teaching, opportunities for practice, or acceleration on a given topic.

One of the differentiation strategies we are excited about involves the screencasting apps ShowMe and Screen Chomp on the iPads. Students who have demonstrated that they are proficient on a given benchmark are asked to choose a problem that addresses that benchmark and write out a step-by-step plan on how to solve the problem.

Then, the student grabs an iPad, chooses ShowMe or Screen Chomp, and records and narrates a screencast of him/herself solving the problem. Students can also screencast what they know about specific vocabulary words. During independent work time, students can watch a class screencast to help them understand a concept or vocabulary word they have been struggling with, or to preview the next concept we will be learning about.

Our goal is that all of our students have multiple opportunities to record and watch the screencasts, so that the iPads are viewed as a resource for everyone. The iPads provide an authentic purpose and audience for math vocabulary and math talk, and our students are engaged and invested in their learning.





Math Language: iPads and English Learners


Don't worry if you can't make it to Minneapolis for our presentation...just check out our presentation via Prezi and Camtasia:





We are very excited to share what we love about ShowMe and ScreenChomp tomorrow!
Have you used them in your classroom before?
Leave us a comment to let us know what has worked well for you or what challenges you have faced with screencasting!

Thanks so much and happy screencasting!
-Andrea