Google Drawings to Seesaw Activities

And here is a link to the snowgirl activity, if you're interested!

Gingerbread Men in PicCollage Kids

This was such a fun, simple way to introduce students (and teachers!) to PicCollage Kids, and the concept of setting an image as a background and having students complete a project. You could either send students an image (via Seesaw or AirDrop), or let them use the web search tool in PicCollage to find a blank gingerbread man template.

I like the idea of using Seesaw Activities to distribute the image to students, plus give them directions. Teachers can give students audio AND visual directions on how to complete the task in PicCollage, then upload to Seesaw under Activities & it will be organized if you tag a skill or folder. I also like that when using Activities, I get the grid view where I can see which students have completed the task, and which I'm still waiting on.

Weekly Tech-y News December 18-22

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Getting Started with Epic! Books

The FREE app Epic! is an amazing resource for classrooms, providing students with access to thousands of books. Using this app is so easy, but it does take a little initial set up. It's important to set up an account as an EDUCATOR, so it's free. I also recommend setting up student profiles. It only takes a few minutes, and it allows each student to save their favorite books and preferences, as well as you to track their progress and save their reading logs. Keep reading to see how to get started.

Christmas Books with Green Screen Awesomeness

This project was so much fun! Inspired by Brigitte Hollohan, we used the DoInk Green Screen app ($2.99) to take photos of each student in Mrs. Parisien's first grade in front of an image of Santa in the night sky. We used this image, but you could use any you like. It would be really fun to let students make their own using the Make a Scene: Christmas app ($2.99).

Once the pictures were taken, we could have done any number of things with them! Print them for cute Christmas cards or gifts, add to Seesaw and type or tell their story, create a collage in PicCollage Kids ... really the possibilities are endless! We decided to have each student write a Dear Santa letter using this cute FREE template, then load all the photos into Book Creator app, and have students read their "Dear Santa" letters onto each page. It easily shared to Seesaw, and turned out absolutely adorable!

Weekly Tech-y News December 11-15th

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Hour of Code Stations

Loved helping with Hour of Code stations in Mrs. Bishop's 1st grade. Students were split into groups of 3-4 and participated in each of these activities. The combination of hands-on, "unplugged" activities, plus coding on devices, was amazing. The transfer of skills was apparent, and the students' perseverance and stamina for creating code and problem solving was phenomenal.

Read more to see the activities the students participated in!

Christmas Tree Apps

There are several fun, free Christmas tree apps for your iPad that allow students to be creative and decorate their own Christmas trees. Use these apps for math problems: Have them create arrays or simple equations on the trees using the ornaments, then put into Seesaw or another app to annotate, solve and explain their thinking. You could also have them create illustrations for stories and upload to apps such as Seesaw, Shadow Puppet Edu, or Book Creator, where they can add text and voice.

Weekly Tech-y News: Hour of Code Edition

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Apps for Guided Reading

Great iPad Apps for K-2 Centers!

Weekly Tech-y News

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Talkin' Turkey with Adobe Spark Video

Arrowhead 2nd graders did an awesome job of sharing facts they learned about turkeys using the FREE tool Adobe Spark Video (available on an app or via web). They completed a graphic organizer before beginning the project, which helped them organize the information and plan out their videos by placing one fact on each page. You can find some free turkey graphic organizers on the website What the Teacher Wants.

As the students worked, the teachers were making anecdotal notes on all of the MANY proficiency scales they were targeting with this project! Truly impressive. Check out the example below.

Weekly Tech-y News

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Turkey Labeling in Seesaw Activities

Use the new Seesaw Activities feature to send your kids a turkey template they can use to demonstrate their understanding of turkeys! Click the image below to download the image and directions.

Directions can be differentiated depending on grade level.

Check out this awesome example from one of Mrs. Huskey's 2nd graders!

Thankful Cornucopias in PicCollage!

Let your students make a cornucopia of thankfulness using the apps PicCollage or PicCollage Kids! Students will add the cornucopia image to PicCollage and set as the background of their collage. Then, they'll use the web search tools, drawing, text and stickers to add things they are thankful for. This is a fun activity to personalize and share what they are grateful for. Click the image below to grab a copy to share with your students!

This idea was inspired by the amazing Erintegration!

Label Thanksgiving Dinner with Seesaw Activities!

Using the template below, students drag labels to the correct Thanksgiving foods. Students then use the drawing tool to draw their family in the photo, and add their favorite Thanksgiving foods. They can use the microphone or screencast option to tell about the foods. Click the image below to access a template with directions, and keep reading for examples from Mrs. Erickson's awesome first graders!

Weekly Tech-y News

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PLTW Books Using Book Creator

Broadwater teachers Mrs. Bishop & Mrs. Romei had this AWESOME idea to digitize the Project Lead the Way activities using the app Book Creator. This allowed students to complete the books digitally, then upload finished books to Seesaw to share with one another and their families. Check out the example below, and continue reading to access the templates to share with your students.

Weekly Tech-y News

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Seesaw Social

Don't forget! The Billings Seesaw Social is next week. This is a fun, informal opportunity to connect with other teachers, learn more about Seesaw, or share ideas. Because this isn't a PD event, no OPI credits or MEA Trade will be offered.

LEARN MORE OR REGISTER FOR THIS FREE EVENT

Montana PBS Seesaw Webinar

Join me and my awesome friend Nikki Vradenburg, tech integrationist for Montana PBS, in a Seesaw webinar! This webinar will focus on Seesaw basics and is geared toward beginning Seesaw learners. Webinar will be held from 3:45-4:45pm on Wednesday, November 8th and will be worth 1 OPI renewal unit. Step up available, but no MEA Trade. Sign up below!

Teach Like a Pirate Book Club Flipgrid

I am so impressed by these teachers' reflections after reading Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. It's been a super fun book club! Hope you'll join us for our next one!

Weekly Tech-y News October 30-November 3

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Happy Halloween!

Create Student Avatars Using PicCollage Kids

In Mrs. Podoll's 2nd grade we used Erintegration's awesome idea for creating student avatars using the app PicCollage Kids. Allowing students to customize their avatars for use in Seesaw and other programs that require a profile picture gives them ownership of their journal, as well as helps protect student privacy. Plus, this was a really fun activity for learning how to use PicCollage Kids and encouraging student creativity. Read this post on the PicCollage Educators blog to find out how to make them. Continue reading to see some more amazing examples from Mrs. Podoll's class!

Seesaw Social

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Growth Goals

Love these awesome technology #growthgoals shared by TILT Phase 2 teachers! These were created using the Seesaw activities feature.

Rainbow Words Activity on Seesaw

I shared an idea on Twitter where teachers could upload templates for high frequency words into Seesaw, and have students "rainbow write" the words using the drawing tool in Seesaw. My amazing friend Sara Malchow used Keynote to create a whole bunch of awesome templates for rainbow words, which you can access here. She also gives directions for adding these to Seesaw, where students can copy & edit to complete the rainbow words. However, using the new Seesaw update with activities, you can not only share these, but save to your activity library to use again and again. Keep reading to see how!

New Seesaw Update: Activities

Run ... don't walk ... and UPDATE YOUR SEESAW APP! The new activities feature is a game changer for your classroom. Choose from the Seesaw library, or create your own. These activities are then saved in your activity library to easily use in your other classes. Excited to use this new feature! Click the image to learn more.

Weekly Tech-y News October 23-27, 2017

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Spooky Good Costume Collages!

Fall is such a busy and fun time of year, and I know my kindergartners were always super motivated to learn when I could somehow incorporate one of their favorite holidays - Halloween - into my lessons! They love the excitement of Halloween and it helps them to become engaged in so many learning activities. Using the app PicCollage Kids is a fantastic and easy way to let your students illustrate their Halloween costumes and share with the class, and this simple activity could be tied to many different concepts in your classroom.

Weekly Tech-y News

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Pre-Make Labels in Seesaw for Students!

Did you know you can add labels to a post in Seesaw, have your students copy & edit the post, then they can access the labels and move them around on their own copy?! Super cool for word scrambles, word sorts, and labeling images. After they copy & edit the post, they just need to select the label tool in order to open it and be able to move the labels around. See the example below! And if you like this pumpkin example, you can access the image here for use in your own classroom. (Choose File > Download As > .jpg to create an image that you can upload to your Seesaw class.)

Sight Word Scramble in Seesaw

Make word scrambles for your students! They click copy & edit and then unscramble the sight words.

This same technique can also be used to pre-make labels, place them on top of an image in Seesaw, and have students arrange the labels where they belong.

Interactive Alphabet Cards Using Seesaw

These interactive sight word QR codes I made last year were a hit, so here's another set, this time featuring ABCs. The QR codes were created in Seesaw by adding a screenshot of each letter and graphic, then using the microphone tool to record my voice reading the letter name, sound and word. Once posted, Seesaw automatically generates a QR code that even has the image in the middle! Genius! These QR codes can then be printed and attached to the back of alphabet cards to create an interactive learning experience for young learners.

Weekly Tech-y News

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Visuals for Adobe Spark Video Projects

I created these visuals to help students as they complete projects using the free tool Adobe Spark video. This is available as an iPad app, or can be accessed from Chromebooks or computers via spark.adobe.com. PLEASE NOTE: A sign in with Adobe ID is required before students begin working. I usually sign young learners in under my Adobe ID so all of their projects are synced to my account and I can view their progress. This also makes sign in much easier. You'll only need to sign in once, then it should remember the account information. Click the images to download PDF versions of these visuals.

Seesaw Social

Register for this FREE event!

Weekly Tech-y News!

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Helpful Apps for Guided Reading

Weekly Tech-y News

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Weekly Tech-y News

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Apps Recommended for 2nd Grade by BPS Teachers

Teach Your Monster to Read

Teach Your Monster to Read is a wonderful, engaging program that motivates children to learn the basics of reading. It features a variety of levels for pre-K and kindergarten students, and would be helpful for beginning of year 1st graders and struggling readers as a "boost". Continue reading to see how to use this tool in your classroom.

Teach Like a Pirate Online Book Study!

Apple Clips + Pic Kids App Smash!

I discovered two awesome tools this summer that I am super excited about: 1) the Apple Clips app and 2) the doodle tool that’s now featured in the app Pic Kids. The ability to doodle, write or draw directly onto a collage opens up so many opportunities for our kids to learn and create using Pic Kids. The short Clips video below shares some ideas for integrating the doodle tool into teaching and learning.

Beginning of the Year Apps for K-2

Here is a collection of some tried and true learning apps to get you started for the year! Remember to be intentional when using technology in your classroom. Always consider your purpose, and how it relates to student learning. Email me or book me into your classroom for help getting started!

Weekly Tech-y News

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FREE Technology Courses on the OPI Learning Hub!

The OPI Learning Hub is a great place to find good FREE courses to further your professional development. Take a course determined to learn, & we promise you’ll learn some cool new things. Check out these technology courses Ann & I created. (And ignore the “HS” designation on Ann’s course, it’s definitely applicable to all grade levels.) Can be used for Step Up, but not MEA Trade. If you take a course, please give us feedback so we can continue to make these courses even better!