By Elyse Haber, Elementary English Studies and Technology Integration Coordinator
With the idea that 21st-century skills are essential to today’s students, Hebrew Academy teachers are finding interesting and motivating ways to enhance students’ learning using technology. By posting to blogs, our students are beginning to produce and publish to global audiences. Here are a few samples of some of our projects over the past few months:
As part of a collaborative project on weather, the students in 5A teamed up to research, edit and revise their work. The information was then displayed using Glogster, an online learning platform whereby the students created interactive posters. The students learned how to incorporate different media in one project.
The students in 5B, also learning about weather, used Animoto to exhibit their learning in creative ways. The students found images and created text to display their knowledge of their weather topic. They were also asked to choose appropriate background themes and music to enhance their videos.
In their study of adjectives and how to improve their writing, Grade 3A wrote and produced “5-senses colour” poems. After writing and revising their poems, the students searched for images on the ipads to enhance their poems. Then they used the app Book Creator to put it all together including recording themselves reading their work. As part of their evaluation on 3D Shapes, the students made videos using the DoodleCast Pro App to exhibit their knowledge and understanding of the concepts.
In 2A the students had some fun in the style of poet Douglas Florian as they learned about the many verbs that they use everyday. Based on Florian’s “A Monster’s Day” poem, the students created their own versions. Using the Chatterpix app, they brought their monstersto life with voices and moving mouths. What a great way to practice fluency!
During their Global Read Aloud project, 2B used an online tool called Tackk to express their ideas about their favourite Peter Reynolds stories. Global Read Aloud is a project where schools all over the world read the same books at the same time. The collaborative features of Tackk allow other students to contribute to the ideas being posted. The students were able to see the opinions of other Grade 2 students who were reading the same stories that they were.
Both Grade 2 classes created news reports about the Chanukah holiday. The students wrote their reports in class, practiced to make sure they could read them fluently, and then the teachers assembled the reports using imovie. The students had a great time reporting the news!
Grade 4B did a fun activity on word collage while exploring synonyms. First they made a list of “boring” words that they wish to “banish” from their writing this year. Then in groups, students came up with a list of synonyms that they then put in a collage!
After an amazing workshop with Andy Russell, creator of the Toontastic app, the Grade 6 classes made their own Toontastic cartoons based on narratives they were writing in class. The students loved animating their own stories and bringing them to life!
We look forward to many exciting new projects coming up next term!