Final Reflection

I recorded my final reflection on Flipgrid (because I lover flipgrid and I'm obsessed).

Here's my flipgrid:  flipgrid

Flip Code: d1f58933

Here are some thoughts, in addition to my flipgrid.

I love blogging.  Thank you for this, I'm going to really blog, outside of cool tools (like everybody else in the world). 

I loved the pacing of Cool Tools, especially that it was over my February break, that made completing all the tasks easier.

I liked that I got to choose the tools that interested me.

I loved Google Draw, that is something I'm going to revisit.

While I thought blogging with my second graders would be fun, I think I'm going to need some older student help with this.

Thing 24: Google Drawing

Holy rabbit hole Batman!!!  Google Draw is way cool, and the Tony Vincent post just keeps going and going with great ideas!  I'm in love!!!!!  I could have spent hours clicking on all his links.  I bookmarked it for later.

I watched the quick video by Jocelynn Buckentin, and that was extremely helpful, I learned how to use the connecting line tool and how to insert an image that was a gif (also, adding png to the end of my search for something transparent).

Then I clicked on the Tony Vincent post and I learned a whole lot more.  I could spend hours clicking and reading all these links.  I learned how to make my fill colors transparent so when my Venn Diagram overlaps it makes a new color, that was cool. 

Tony had links to lots of already made drawings (don't work hard, work smart).  I get overwhelmed when I think about creating everything, so I found all the ready made drawings a life saver.  RCSD read the book "Shake Up Learning" By Kasey Bell, so it was neat to see that she had some Google Drawing ideas I could use.

I really didn't know anything about Google Drawing, like Tony (maybe someone else) said, the thought of creating something in Google Docs was overwhelming because it was so time consuming, Google Draw is very user-friendly.  One common thread I saw on all these posts was how "under used" Google Draw is, and they're right.  I never use Google Draw.  But I'm going to use it now!

I like the idea of creating a book and assigning each student a page in Google Draw.  I also liked the idea of creating a graphic organizer, making a copy and assigning it to all the students to work on, that was genius and I hadn't considered it.  All the ideas I read about were things I really hadn't considered, didn't even realize they were a possibility.

You can view my test Google Drawing Document here:
Practice Google Drawing

Thing 6 - Digital Storytelling

I'm fascinated by digital storytelling, I think it would be perfect for my ELL's.  I dove right in, I read the "6 Reasons You Should be doing Digital Storytelling with your Students"; I read "Digit Storytelling in the Primary Classroom" and everything I read suggested that this was a great way for my students to have a voice and a great way to promote writing (writing doesn't have to be pencil and paper, digital is also writing).

I checked out a few tools, and I was disappointed.  The one I picked, Storybird, turned out to be a pay service and I thought it was going to be free (the older version was free, the newer version to use with student accounts required payment).  Then everything I looked at didn't meet my needs.  I wanted to try Make Beliefs Comix, I've used that before to print comic templates, but I found it very unuser friendly when I was navigating it for digital use.

I currently use Book Creator with my students, and I'm navigating Seesaw right now, and I use flipgrid; I like all of those better than everything I saw here.

So I did try Adobe Spark, which I've tried before for a different class, but I looked at it with a digital storytelling lens, and I think I'll give it a try with my students, it's very different from Book Creator (I would have to upload pictures to each individual ipad, very tiresome), and Seesaw is tricky, but I really liked Spark.

So here's my Adobe Spark.  Every Friday we call it "Fri-yay" instead of "Friday", and I was hesitant to play around with language like that with my ELL's, but they totally get it and it's such fun every Fri-yay!

Below you'll find a link to my Book Creator example that I used with my students.  The task was to create a repeated addition book, they had to model the repeated addition sentence, and then do a voice recording of the math problem.  My example is really poor compared to what my students were able to do.  So I recommend Book Creator as a digital storytelling tool.

My Book Creator example

A student's Book Creator project