Global Read Aloud - Finding the Right Tool to Connect

Were you inspired by Colette Mondor's post to participate in The Global Read Aloud? 

Now, are you wondering how to make connections with other classrooms?  

Looking for something simple and effective?  Me too! 

I was mulling over my options for sharing, when a colleague mentioned  Padlet, and I knew I found the answer.

The creators of Padlet describe it as, "possibly the easiest way to create and collaborate in the world."  And in many ways it's true! 

Padlet is an online bulletin board, where students share their thoughts and ideas with others. Participants share via text, audio, video, photographs or documents.  

Using Padlet for The Global Read Aloud

It is easy to create and share a Padlet with others, enabling Read Aloud participants, to share their responses to the weekly chapters. This week, students reading, The Year of Billy Miller, are reading Chapter 5 of part one, and chapters 1-3 of part two. 
Take a look at this Billy Miller Padlet created and shared for week 2 by a teacher in the United States.

The Year of Billy Miller Week # 2

You will see this tool in action during the second week of The Global Read Aloud, October 12 - 17, 2015.  
My grade threes are using Padlet to share their Text to Self and Text to Text connections. And we are eager to share with others. Let me know if your class wants to connect with us.

Get Started 

Once you have signed up for your free account, (limited features) log on using your Google user name and password. You can purchase an education account with added features, however I found that the free account meets my needs for now. 

Once on Padlet, click - Create a New Padlet. There are two easy menus, to help you design and share your padlet.  Start with Basic Info which enables you to state the purpose of your online bulletin board. 

The Gear Icon enables you to modify your padlet, by selecting the wallpaper, adding an image to associate with the wall, writing a description, and determining the layout of the posts. 

The Privacy Icon, a small lock, enables you to set the visibility settings for your Padlet. There are several levels of privacy and I chose 'Hidden Link' which means that it is public on the web but not searchable on Google.  You can also select levels of accessibility for participants. Do you want participants to write, view or moderate posts? However most important, scroll all the way down and check  the box - Moderate Posts, which will allow you to approve or delete any posts before they are public. 

Sharing Your Padlet

Under the Link Icon you can find an assigned URL for your Padlet, which you can also personalize. This is the link to share with collaborators.

Another option is to click on the Export and Share arrow where you'll find countless ways to share. I used the embed code to add the padlet below to this blog post. To do this, copy the code under the embed title.  In editing mode for a Blogger post click on the HTML button on the upper left of the screen. Scroll to the end of the text on the page, and paste the embed code there.  Now click on Compose and you will be back in editing mode. The Padlet will appear in your post.  

Try Padlet

Think of the many ways to use a tool like this in Division one.  Now go ahead and try it! Just double click on our wall and share your ideas.  Just so you know, comments on this Padlet are moderated and will appear once approved. 





Padlet is a great way for Division I students to share and collaborate.  In many ways Padlet is like Twitter, students are sharing short snipits of information. The strength is that everything on one Padlet is about a related topic. There are no hash tags to follow and no one will retweet your post. 

Finally,  you can observe others posting on your Padlet in real time.  Share your padlet, keep it open and you will see the bulletin board change as others contribute.  What fun!

So You Want To Participate In The Global Read Aloud

What Is Global Read Aloud?

Last May, Div1Edtech blogger Marge Kobewka mentioned learning about The Global Read Aloud (GRA). The tagline for GRA almost explains exactly what it is: one book to connect the world. GRA lasts six weeks. Teachers who participate read the GRA book(s) with their students and then use Twitter (#GRA15), Google Hangouts or Skype, Kidblog and other internet tools to connect their students to others reading the same book. 

As not all students around the world are the same age, or reading ability, there are actually a number of books that are a part of the GRA. For instance for older division one students there is The Year of Billy Miller. For division two students there is Fish In A Tree.  For division three students there is Fish. For division four students there is Yaqui Delago Wants To Kick Your Ass. While there are suggested ages for each book, there is no hard and fast rule for which book you pick for your students.

There is also an author study for picture books, so each week there is a different book you read. This year the author is Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  Global Read Aloud nicely ties into Read In Week in Edmonton as both are in October. 

How Do You Participate?

This is my first year participating in the GRA. What I have done so far:

1. Selected the book(s) I was going to read. This year I decided to do the author study.
   TIP: Do not wait until the last minute to locate the books. I did procrastinate. I found out that our school library only had two of the six books. So I went to the Edmonton Public Library (EPL). They had nine copies of first book, Chopsticks, but they were all loaned out. As a back up measure I looked to see if any Chapters in Edmonton had Chopsticks available. They were all sold out! Fortunately the hold I put on a copy at the EPL became available in enough time to have it for week one. In the meantime, I have had my school librarian borrow copies of the other books from other EPSB schools. We now have all the books! Phew.
    
2. Filled out the form on the GRA website. This populates a Sheet.
   TIP: Do not fill out the form and hope you will be contacted. I filled out the form and forgot about it. Then during the first week, I was left without any "global" connections to kick off GRA. So I spent sometime looking through the Sheet for other people doing the author study. For my purposes, I wanted people who were also on Kidblog and/or wanted to do Google Hangouts. I sent out a number of emails. I heard back from three people and made two connections so far.
   
   There are other ways to connect with GRA participants. Facebook seems to be a popular way to connect this year.  I did not find using the Twitter hashtag #GRA15 helped for making connections yet. Regardless of how you try to make a connection, remember to be proactive. Do not wait for others to come to you.
    
3. Planned how I will make my students' learning public. I decided to use Kidblog. I decided to get my student blogging earlier this year because of GRA. I felt that blogging was the best way to make my students' learning visible because it was a platform I was comfortable with. Also, it was a way to start participate in GRA without having secured connections. As well, it is an easy platform for others (even those without a Kidblog account) to interact with my students because of the comment feature.
   TIP: Test your settings for accepting comments from the public. I some how had turned that setting off initially.
    
4. Started reading and writing.
   I explained what The Global Read Aloud was on Friday as a wrap up to Read-In Week and a kick off to the GRA. Then we read Chopsticks.  Students did a first draft of explaining their favourite part in their reading journals. As my students are still new to blogging, I am currently requiring them to do a paper draft first. When the recess bell went, some students asked if they could stay in for recess to work on their writing because they knew other children were going to be reading their thoughts! That's the power of having an audience and purpose for writing!
   
   Students will be typing their blog posts about Chopsticks this week. Stay tuned to Team Spectacular's Blog.
    
5. Gave a shout out to the author on Twitter.
   We wrote a short tweet to Amy. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we'll get a reply. Students enjoyed the play on words in Chopsticks, so wanted to use the word "sweet" (said by Sugar in the book)  instead of awesome. There was much debate if the word sugary was needed. 
   

It's Not Too Late To Join!

As it says on the GRA website somewhere: it's okay to get behind, just don't get ahead. Do not worry if you are just getting started. Just start! You can make this as a huge event as you want, or, if you are like me, keep it simple. Check out how Shannon Pasma's class started: CTV Edmonton, Global Read Aloud.

Want To Know More?

There are a lot of resources for GRA. Here are just two:

• Official Website: The Global Read Aloud 
• On The Eve Of Global Read Aloud, Tips For Success

Countdown to a New Year!

The Final Countdown

The countdown is on! Are you sitting back and relaxing, knowing your classroom is ready to go, frantically trying to put everything together, or somewhere in between?

Wherever you are in your planning and organization, take a moment or two to ask yourself, “Am I where I want to be with using technology for teaching and learning?” This is the time for you to be more reflective on what you want to achieve with students, while you are not in the thick of teaching!

Digital Kids

We’ve all watched the videos and heard the conversations around Digital Kids. The message has been clear - use technology with your kids. However, this message comes with no extra time for teachers to learn and build their confidence and skills with technology. While many of you are ‘full steam ahead’ teachers, fully integrating technology, many teachers feel that technology is an ‘extra’ to be packed into an already full curriculum. Once you get going with it, though, you will find many ways to use technology to enrich your classroom practice and engage students!

Small Steps, Please

If you are just getting started, think of baby steps. Each one of the items below will take you 10 minutes tops to set up! Choose one thing that will make your teaching life a bit easier:

Organizing your inbox with Gmail

Using Google Docs to collaborate with colleagues to create units, lesson plans or report card comments

(While you’re at it, why not use the Upload button on your Drive to store all of your favourite Word documents in Drive? Sub plans, lesson plans, centres rotations, all available quickly for editing whenever you need them!)

Using Kahoot to create an engaging question and answer game or even a test

Creating a Symbaloo so all of your links are in one place for easy access for students

I’m Ready For More!

Get your students going with Chromebooks

Have students create Google Presentations to show their learning (Grade one teachers, this is a great activity to do with your buddy class!)

Get students writing with Google Docs and Read&Write for Google

I’m Ready For Even More!

Use Google Draw to create digital worksheets, get pictures for research questions and even write their own Geronimo Stilton story!

Before you know it:

You will be a Digital Teacher!

Subscription Based Websites For Math: Prodigy $

Subscription Based Websites

For the second summer in a row, I attended the GAFE Summit in Calgary. One of the sessions I went to was Emily Fitzpatrick's session: Not Your Momma's Math Class - Elementary. It got me thinking about what subscription based websites I wanted to invest my time in (and sometimes money) and that support the grade two Alberta math curriculum for the upcoming school year. This the second blog post in a series of (number to be determined).

Series

1. Mathletics
2. Prodigy

Prodigy

Emily introduced me to a new math game this summer: Prodigy. Like Mathletics (my previous blog post), Prodigy is solely a math-based program. It is much more gamified than Mathletics. Unlike Mathletics it has a free and premium option. I have not used this with students yet. I did create a teacher account and created a student account so I could explore its potential.

It Is Free... But

When you sign up for the teacher Prodigy account, you have access to all the educational content of the game for yourself and your students for free. The premium features are truly extras and are purchased by parents. However, students will be constantly reminded they are missing out on the premium features throughout game play. 

While I appreciate companies need to make money, it is a negative for me as a teacher making a choice about what to expose my young students to. On the one hand, this is a reality of the many apps that they are probably exposed to on their (or their family's) iPads, tablets and so on. So by having the same experiences in school, it gives me the opportunity to talk about the commerce element of digital citizenship and awareness. On the other hand, it is not something I necessarily want my students exposed to virtually after every task in the game. 

Content Is Read To You ... Sometimes

As a teacher of students who often are struggling readers, I LOVE when a product has reading support. Prodigy does provide players the option to have the question and answers read to students. However, the non-math gameplay also has a lot of reading and most, if not all, of this does not have reading support. While it is not essential to the game play, I can see it being frustrating for students.

It Is Canadian ... If You Are From Ontario

It is Canadian based! Yay! It has a Canadian curriculum you can assign your students. Yay. It has only one Canadian curriculum you can assign your students. Oh. While most Canadian curricula are similar, they are not the same. Initially I thought that might not be a problem. Much like Mathletics, teachers assign a task based on a specific outcome. Great, I can avoid the topics that do not align with the Alberta curriculum. However, once students complete their tasks Prodigy assigns them random questions based on the overarching curriculum you have assigned your class. 

How is this problematic? Well, when playing as a grade one student, I was asked to tell the time on an analog clock. This is not in the Alberta curriculum until grade four. Now students go from independent practice to likely needing direct instruction from a teacher or adult for some of the content. 

Gamification Equals Motivation... And Distraction

All the quests and actions that will level you up are math based. However, there is a whole world to explore. There are shops to look at and other players to check out (you cannot interact with them). Students could easily not do math while in the game. This will require the teacher to be very vigilant in monitoring student activity. As a result, teachers may spend more time monitoring students being on task than assisting students with math.

Digital In-Game Support

When students are answering math questions, they have access to lots of support. They can be given hints by selecting a question mark icon that gives them a tutorial on the topic of their question (there is an option to have this read aloud). Students access to a variety of manipulatives for each question: coloured pens to draw on the question, fraction blocks, base ten blocks, Canadian money and counters.

Diagnostics

Like Mathletics, Prodigy provides teachers with a wealth of data regarding student progress. 

Is It Worth It For Younger Students?

As a teacher with access to Mathletics, Prodigy is not going to be worth me investing a lot of my class time with younger students. They have a great deal of support and resources for teachers. It has great potential and I will continue to keep my eye on it.  I think it could be something I teach my students and then send home or for use in free time. I do not see it being regularly used in my math classes at this time.

Subscription Based Websites For Math: Mathletics $$

Subscription Based Websites

For the second summer in a row, I attended the GAFE Summit in Calgary. One of the sessions I went to was Emily Fitzpatrick's session: Not Your Momma's Math Class - Elementary. It got me thinking about what subscription based websites I wanted to invest my time (and sometimes money) in that support the grade two math curriculum for the upcoming school year. This the first blog post in a series of (number to be determined).

Series

1. Mathletics
2. Prodigy
3. EDpuzzle coming soon

Mathletics

I have used Mathletics for the past seven years or so. The subscriptions have been school-wide. It has been a well used resource in my class. I like it because you can differentiate and assign tasks. Most students like it because of the "Live Math" feature. 

How I Use It

In September, I have (ask the staff member who administers Mathletics) the assigned passwords changed to be the same as the district passwords students have. The usernames are not changeable. I hide all content (under Courses) from students. These will be the assigned tasks that I will use, so I do not want some students completing them ahead of time. I also initially turn off Times Tables (these are songs). 

At the beginning of the year, I do a few whole class lessons to teach how to use Mathletics. Students are prompted when they first log in to customize an avatar. I give them about five minutes and then explain this will now be an "at home" task. I then show them how to access Live Math and allow them time to play a few games. I show them the games in the Problem Solving area, again I allow them some exploration time. As well, I show them Rainforest Maths and allow them to play a few games.

The second time we do Mathletics as a whole class, students are assigned a task. I demonstrate how students can have the words read to them. This is when they learn that all other activities (Live Math, Rainforest Maths, etc) are locked to them until they complete their assigned tasks. Once they have completed their assignment, students are then free to go onto other parts of Mathletics.

In the Results section, I get to see how each student did on the various assigned tasks. The majority of the time, students truly try their best on a task. Occasionally I have a student who I know is capable score 0 or something similar on repeated tasks. They typically click through the assignment to get to Live Math. After a conversation and continued monitoring this promptly stops.

Once I feel students are independent, Mathletics becomes a regular centre in math. It also is something I can easily leave for supply teachers. Students get to take their username and password home and are free to use Mathletics at anytime. I have learned that as a result of this practice, I need to set assignments in the morning of the day I want to use them. As I mentioned above, you can differentiate. Students can receive different assignments at different levels.

Once a unit is complete, I show (turn on) access to the topic under the Courses setting. Typically many of the activities have been completed during centre time, but not all of them. Students are now free to redo activities and/or complete any activities that were not assigned. Near the end of the year I turn on the Times Table Tunes for students (and provide them time to listen to them) to get them excited about what they will learn in grade three.

What I Did Before Mathletics

Before my school had Mathletics, I would use a wide variety of free game-based math websites for centres. What I like about Mathletics is that it saves me time and it holds students accountable (they know I can see their progress). I no longer have to spend time finding math websites (I actually still do, but to a lesser extent) that relate to the current topic for centre work. I also do not have to spend time teaching students how to use new websites each time we do centres because they are already familiar with Mathletics. As well, I have found students are less likely to be off-task.

So, Is It Worth It?

I started with the question is Mathletics a website I want to invest my time and my school's money? Yes, as a division one teacher, this has been a great resource. 

Yes, You can Show Your Students' Faces on YouTube

There are a lot of misconceptions about the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It is often used as an excuse as to why we shouldn’t post videos of student learning or start a class twitter account. It is good to understand your jurisdiction’s FOIP Consent form in order to know what parents are permitting you to do with their child’s information. This is all the more relevant in today’s digitally connected society where the internet is a ubiquitous public space that we frequently utilize for teaching and learning.

Before we look at the FOIP form, it is important to note that the form is only the one step in the process. You must inform parents on how you are using their child's information on the internet. You don’t need a new form every time, but if you decide halfway through the year to do a project that will go on YouTube, you need to let the parents know. Nobody likes surprises, and informing them gives them the option to back out, which is their prerogative.

Here are the elements of the FOIP form from Edmonton Public School that deal with posting information online:

“[School] is requesting your permission to use your child’s personal information (i.e., image, grade and/or name, etc.) in public venues or on the internet where the general public may have access to the information in order to communicate with parents, the community and the general public.”

Notice that this statement says that images and/or names can be used on the internet to communicate to the general public. Further to this point, it also states on the form:

“Examples might include, but not limited to:
-posting pictures, videos, podcasts or presentations online
-accessing and posting information to public websites or social media applications (e.g., Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and other emerging technologies)”

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. It is imperative that you know the purpose for posting online. You could have students make videos of themselves reading stories and post it on YouTube. But why use YouTube? If the video’s intended audience is just you and the parent, it may be better to upload it to a Drive folder. If your class has a message for the community, then YouTube may be the best medium.

And this has to be stated again. You need to let parents know if you are using web apps or posting anything will use the student’s information. This can be done through a newsletter, class blog, Schoolzone (in EPSB) or any other medium that you use to communicate with parents.

Here is a great video to recap (and the acting is fantastic):

The FOIP Consent form ensures that we are abiding by Alberta’s FOIP Act. The Act isn’t preventative legislation. It instructs us on what we need to do when we need to use personal information in order to do our duties as teachers in today's connected, online world. The Act and our FOIP Consent form ensure that we, as a public institution, are being responsible with the information parents are giving us.

If you really want some good reading, check out the full Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Super Sentences Centre

A few months ago I had the need to expand my reading centres to be more literacy centres. So I needed reading, write and word work activities. I wanted the writing activities to be skill development as well as skill application centres. When doing some internet searches I came across "super sentences" activities. In general, most of the super sentence lessons I came across provided students with a simple sentence. Then they needed to make it more interesting by adding adjectives and adverbs. 

I took this idea an tried it while my educational assistance was away. As I did not have an EA, I made the activity a Google Document so that students could use Read and Write for Google for support (this is an extension that will read the text on a Google Document, among other things).

This centre worked really well, and I have kept it in high rotation for reading centres. 

Skills Students Need

Students do need some skills before this centre should be used. Students should:

1. Know how to navigate their Google Drive and find documents in Shared With Me.
2. Know how to highlight text.
3. Know how to use Read and Write for Google.*
4. Know how to resolve a comment.
5. How to use the Spell Check function.

* This is why this activity works so well with technology rather than pencil and paper. By using Read and Write for Google (RW4G), students who struggle with reading and writing are supported. As this is a revision and editing task, even students who are strong readers are supported with RW4G as typically they read what they meant to write and not always what is actually there. When it is read aloud for them, they hear the errors. 

Skills Teachers Need

1. An understanding of how Read and Write for Google works.
2. A way to share Documents with students (using the Share function, Doctopus or Classroom, whatever works for you).
3. How to leave a comment and how to find resolved comments.
4. How to use and model highlighting and the spell check functions in Document.

How I Taught These Centres

Typically I follow the format below: 

1. On Monday introduce the centre and demonstrate it on the Smartboard. 
2. Have chart paper "reminders" for the centre for the rest of the week.
3. At the end of centres each day, read one or all of the super sentences created.
• I did not do this for the voice activity as these were longer pieces of writing and each student got a star and a wish. As such, I usually picked one student to share their work at the end of centre time.
• I did not do this for the editing activity as it would have given away all the edits.

One of the reasons I would read student work at the end is to keep students accountable. It also was a quick way to check for understanding. It also is a good review of the expectations throughout the week for students who might have the centre on Thursday or Friday.

Super Sentence Centre Ideas

Here are a few of the Super Sentence Centres I have tried. Initially I had students work on the skill of revising.

To make this multi-level you could take away the highlighted nouns for a challenge. I did not require one of my groups to write an ending sentence.

This is an example of what I modelled for the students. I usually do the first two sentences. We talk about how there might be more than one choice that makes sense and review how to highlight. The words were current or recent spelling words. 

We had a spring concert. So I chose that theme to have students edit for both adjectives and adverbs. 

For the fourth centre, I had students focus on revising for voice. I made two versions to differentiate the activity. As they had practised the super sentences centre three times, I did a formative assessment piece with the fourth centre. At the end of the week I gave each student two stars and a wish. The next week, they had the same activity for a centre. But this time they had to "grant" my wish. 

For students with more skill and confidence in writing.

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

For students who have less skill or confidence with writing.

I decided students needed practice with editing as well. So for my next centre I had them become editors. Again this became a two week centre. After the first week they were given two stars and a wish. The activity for the second week was to find the corrections they missed in week one.

To support students, I used the highlighting function to help them locate the edits they missed. For both weeks I included an early finisher link(s) in the Documents themselves. For previous activities I often had an early finisher activity on my website. 

Sharing Ideas

Most of these activities can be found on the website Division One Collaboration Site For Educational Technology. Just open and make a copy. If you have an super sentence idea, please share it in the comments!