Project Literacy

On Saturday, April 16th twenty-four 1st-5th grade ELA/R teachers braved the storms to learn about iPad Apps available through the IAL grant. There were two sessions each which were tailored to meet the technology knowledge and abilities of the participants. They learned about Digital Storytelling using Story Wheel & Puppet Pals apps, and learned about Reading & Language Development through Word Match, Lingo Zoo, and TTT. I was the Lead Instructional Technology facilitator who designed an implemented this event. I focused on creating two tracks, the Tortious and the Haire.


IAL Literacy iPads

Each of Harlandale’s 13 elementary campuses received 64 iPads, a cow with built in Wi-Fi access, and a plethora of literacy based apps through the Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) grant. The iPads are housed in your campus library and can be used checked-out for 1st-5th grade teachers to be used for delivering ELA/R lessons. The iPads were purchased to allow students to participate in project-based activities (PBL), as well as allow them to interact with reading materials in multiple formats.


Please visit our Project Literacy: Learn, Love, Live! Website to learn more about these apps and ways to integrate them into your daily instruction. Please contact your campus Instructional Technology Facilitator for support in integrating iPads into your classroom, developing lessons using these apps, or developing a blended learning environment using these iPads.

“ I  Love the StoryWheel app! It’s very easy to integrate into the classroom as a center.”

“How to be creative and interactive with the iPads to promote student success.”

“I enjoyed learning about the different apps. Now, I know what I can have the students doing (as far as technology) instead of relying on BrainPop! for everything!!!

“I learned a lot of ways to add more technology into my classroom and make it more meaningful.

Its time to Start thinking about the Global Read Along 2015!!

I love when I'm inspired beyond my core subject of art. Global Read Along is a movement is an amazing program that allows students to connect from around the world. 

Students read the book then connect with other classrooms from across the globe to talk about the book! Sign up now for the 2015 school year! 

From the: http://www.globalreadaloud.com/p/faq.html

The premise is simple; we pick a book to read aloud to our students during a set 6-week period and during that time we try to make as many global connections as possible. Each teacher decides how much time they would like to dedicate and how involved they would like to be. Some people choose to connect with just one class, while others go for as many as possible. The scope and depth of the project is up to you. In the past we have used Twitter, Skype, Edmodo, our wiki, email, regular mail, Kidblog, and any other tools we can think of to make these connections. Teachers get a community of other educators to do a global project with, hopefully inspiring them to continue these connections through the year.

Genius hour

What can your kids learn in an hour? Let students be in power of their own learning environment for an hour and see what happens! Give students and Hour to research any topic’s they want. Then after the hour they have to present their findings to the class. Maybe they use Movenote to present their presentation?  Todd Nesloney introduced me to the idea at the Google 20 Summit. But I was able to take this idea and just run with it! There are so many possibilities!  

As a Education Technology Graduate student at American College of Education I’m currently taking a research class that's exploring how students and adults use the internet in search of knowledge and truth.  I recommend that you take advantage of Google’s Search Education blog. Its full of lesson plans and activities all ready to go! I’m a big fan of a google a day challenges its like twenty questions but your students can Google for the answer!  Use these challenges to get your students brushed up on their searching skills. Use the opportunity to teach students how to vet (review)  internet materials for facts.

You can narrow down students focus to a particular subject.  What would you like to learn in math? science? history? Art? or just about anything. Students should create a question that guides their work. Then teachers could approve or deny the question. Be careful of questions that are way too broad or narrow. But then again if a student is passionate why not let them go with it!

Do your students need some inspiration? When researching I searched twitter for #geniushour to see a ton of great examples.

I would love to hear about genius hour in your classroom!

Genius hour, letting students be in control