I have been using my tablet when my history class is working on reading comprehension and Cornell Notetaking skills.  I pull up a blank electronic Cornell Notetaking worksheet that is saved as a word document and project it on the white board.  My students have either completed the Cornell Notetaking form for homework or in pairs in class. To make sure everyone has the information I want them to have, we complete the electronic Cornell notes form together meaning I fill in the form using my tablet while my students give me the information to include on the form.  In the end, we have one electronic completed form which students can use to double check their answers.  After class I print out the complete Cornell notes and put it in my master class binder. 

My next adventure on my tablet will be pulling up a website and writing on it.  I think I can find a few good ones for my next chapter in history -Role of the Medieval Church.  It will be a nice way to show students different  architectural techniques of gothic churches.

I have started to really enjoy my tablet.  I no longer have to deal with "printing" problems the students conveniently have when submitting papers.  They can now email their papars to me and I can read and edit their papers right on the screen.  Gone are the stacks of papers on my desk!

I have also enjoyed posting notes on the board with my projector and adding comments and additional notes as we discuss the topic at hand.  I am starting off slowly, but I am definitely looking forward to becoming tablet savvy by the end of the year.

  

 

I just got a chance to spend some time with Kathy's first grade class.  We set up the computers in Windows Journal for them when they arrived in the classroom.  The students explored wring with different pen thicknesses and color.  Since they have been introduced to the Tablet in Art class, it was easier for them to write on the Tablet.  They enjoyed writing some words and sentences but most of all they enjoyed drawing pictures and coloring them.  We saved their documents so they can be retreived later.  Next time we plan to get together, we will plan to spend about an hour usning the Tablets.

Today I worked with Emily using a Journal blank template for 5th graders to write out their country name for their flag. They learned to change pen colors, thickness, and the toolbars.

I also worked with Suzy in 2nd grade art where they used Ink art and the paintbrush in that program. They learned to open the tablets, twist, and log in.

Then I worked with Rob and Journal Music notation. We are looking at using the Power Toy - Music Composition to create and playback music notation.

We found that the fully charged tablets could remain on and open from 12:30-3:00 without incident. But we also found that some are having trouble grabbing the laptop profile therefore making it a little challenging to save and open programs.

 Suzy has found that while learning to use the tablets and the software students need to be able to work through the process in a locked step fashion especially if their is only one teacher. "Lay the stylus on the table" is a great way to hold their attention.

Tablets need to be wiped down with the blue cloths after use.

 

My second graders have been exploring the Windows Journal program.  Since this is the first time they have used the tablet they needed to learn how to open the program and how to manipulate the pen setting.  They have enjoyed writing with different pen thicknesses and colors.  In addition to writing sentences and short stories, they are drawing pictures to go along with their writing.  In our study of apples we visited an apple orchard.  Their latest Windows Journal project was to invent an apple picking machine and then write about how it is used.  Their writings are continuing to develop as it is more fun for them to write using the Tablet rather than in their writing notebooks.

Last week I had an afternoon class with 5th grade working with their tablets.  It was exciting and frustrating at the same time.  In the first activity, students were asked to color in a country flag from one of the South American countries.  I copied blank flag outlines into MS Word and students colored the flags after looking at the National Geographic website for the actual colors of their country flags. 

The students worked really hard to color in their flags.  When they printed them out, I realized that coloring in MS Word was not the best choice.  It seems that depending on the size pen they used (ball point, highlighter, felt tip) the quality of color varied.  Some students used several different pens on the same flag and ended up with lighter and darker color patches on their flags. They were a little upset about this.

Next time I plan to use Corel Photo House for coloring.  I think this will use produce a more consistent color and less frustration for the students.    

In the free Microsoft Experience Pack for Tablet PC is a program called Ink Art 1.3 which is amazing! Our art teacher, Suzy, has been working with her classes on the tablets and Art Ink. She has the students make a  5 X 7 piece that she puts in acrylic stands and uses them as the name plates for where students sit in her class. This year, she decided to make one side of those name plates in the traditional manner and the other side with Ink Art.

Like most "painting" programs, Ink Art has a palette of tools and a palette of colors. But unlike other programs, when you stroke with the paint brush in Ink Art, what appears on the canvas has depth and "consistency". You can see the brush stokes! And you run out of paint in your brush at a certain point in the stroke. You can use the palette knife to pull the paint from that stroke or lay on a different color and blend the two.

The other tools behave similarly appropriately.

One class of 6th graders have been learning to use the tablets and Art Ink this week. We began with the tablets open (literally) and the program running with a template open. After demonstrating how to use the tools we let students experiment with those tools. The results were gratifying, enlightening, and instructive.

We learned that sometimes, and we haven't figured out  the why of this (I think it is a "stall" of the stylus), the tools disappear or the program freezes. To get the tools back you right click by holding down the stylus until red circles appear, or and this is easier, click on the keyboard by the Start button in the quick launch, and press Enter.

We also learned there is a "clear all" in the Edit menu and that you can move your canvas from side to side and top to bottom which might be a way to make paintings that are bigger than the screen.

 

Hi everyone!

 

It is the second week of school and today was the first day my students were Plugged-In.  We began independent reading in class and I think it went very well.  I have about half of my students choose to use a book of cd from the PITR Level 2 collection.  Some students chose to read books from this selection, but opted not to use the cd support.  I noticed a few of students who chose not to use the cd had a difficult time staying on task with the reading, so next week I'll be making a few changes.  All and all, I will say almost of my students were engaged and were even fighting over the books already!

 I teach 9th grade Reading.  I'm going to begin "Among the Hidden" tomorrow with my freshmen.  Last year when I did this book my students were very engaged and it was easy to keep them on task with the reading.  Like Lee, I'm not going to over do it with supports and strategies with this book.  Though I want to make sure that they understand the main idea, build their vocabularies, and making connections to the novel, I also want my students to enjoy reading our first class novel!  I will definitely do a word a day and use the visualizing strategies. I plan on using the nonfiction readers with my students, as my students last year found the articles interesting.

 I don't plan on doing Lit Circles until October when I know my students better and spend more time setting up my classroom community.

 

Well, that's it for now.  I'll post later when we being our novel and share our progress.

 

 

Well, we're back in the swing of things here in Orlando.  I've spent the last week doing team building and "get-to-know-you" activities, and now that the students' schedules have been corrected and adjusted, I'm ready to get us started on our books. 

 

I have 9th and 10th grade again this year, although unlike last year, this year three of my five classes are honors classes.  It's been fun to consider how I might do things differently with the honors class.

 

So, here's my plan for the beginning of the year.  I'm going to use Among the Hidden (Level 2) with the 9th graders.  It's so engaging and, while the reading level isn't incredibly challenging, there are really important concepts that we can discuss.  The one negative comment my students had last year was that I had them do too much 'stuff' while we were reading.  In retrospect, I agree with them.  There's so much to do and such good stuff in the teacher's guide, but it can be overwhelming for the students.  So, I'm going to try to focus on visualizing and vocabulary.  We'll do the "Vizualizing to find main idea" and "Visualizing reading by making connections."  We'll do one vocab word a day as a class and I'll ask students to find another word of their own to add to their notebooks.  We'll keep a word wall and develop and organization for the words we add to the wall.  We'll also use a few of the nonfiction pieces to begin practicing research skills like developing questions and noting facts.

 

Both of my 10th grade classes are honors classes.  We're beginning by doing The Hoopster (Level 3) as Book-in-a-Day.  This is actually an independent title, but I did this with the students last year and it went well.  Each student is responsible for a small part of the book.  They read, summarize, and note questions they have about what happened before and after their parts.  Then we go through the chapters and each person shares their information.

 

After The Hoopster we're going to begin Lay That Trumpet in Their Hands and then To Kill a Mockingbird.  We'll focus on tolerance and civil rights.  Then we'll move into a study of the Holocaust with Night .  Although this isn't a core novel in Level 3, we teach it to all 10th graders at our school.  There are several great nonfiction pieces in PITR that tie these two together nicely. 

 

That's my skeleton plan right now and I'll blog more details when we get going.