"Twas the Night performed

On Friday I went to the ELL students' classroom to play the Moving Tales "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with the students' narration.  They really seemed to enjoy hearing themselves and each other.  As soon as someone started narrating, they called out the name of the person.  I narrated one page and the vice-principal narrated the last page and the students seemed tickled that he participated.  They applauded when the book was done.  I really do think I'm hearing improvement in their fluency already.  I'm going to look for more interactive book apps which will allow us to record their voices and then project the book.  It would also be nice if I could save a copy of the recording.

Still "Twas the Night

I wanted to be sure to record as many students as I could reading aloud in the Moving Tales app.  I pulled some of them out during lunchtime today and they recorded a page of the story, so that tomorrow we'll all be able to watch it again with the students' narrating the whole thing.  I might have to sneak in narrating the last page.  Today their teacher, Ms. Sigler, told me she said to them, "I don't remember what we're doing tomorrow,"  and they reminded her, "Ms. Fox is coming with the iPads!"  I love that they're so motivated by this project.
One thing I realized I have to constantly remember is to always write down when I download a free or paid app.  The free iBook app I downloaded to all the iPads last week costs $1.99 today.  I'm keeping a spreadsheet with all the apps and dates that I download them, so that we don't run into any problems.  As an individual I can purchase an app and put it on five of my own devices, but since these are for a school, I'd need to purchase one for each iPad.  When I get them for free I have to be sure to keep track of that in case they start charging money for the app in the future (like what just happened).

T'was the Night

Objective:  students will know how to use tools in iBooks on the iPad to improve their reading comprehension.
Continuing Objective:  students will focus on reading with expression, with correct phrasing, and at an appropriate rate.

One of the apps' companies I really like is Moving Tales.  They create a cross between a book and a movie in app form.  In the future I plan to use The Unwanted Guest and The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross, but today it's going to be T'was the Night Before Christmas.  'Tis the season, you know.  I did just find out they have a new book app called This Too Shall Pass that I'm going to have to check out soon.

When the students came in I told them we would be having holiday fun today reading a story/poem by Clement Moore.  First I did a brief lesson on contractions and archaic English, so they would understand the word 'Twas.  As part of the introduction, we also talked about rhyming couplets.

Then the fun began.  We watched, listened, and read the Moving Tales version of "Twas the night Before Christmas," and I asked the students to be attentive to words they might not understand.  After viewing the story, we switched to a free version of the story that I had downloaded to iBooks.  It was a version they could also listen to.  I modeled how they could use the iBooks magnifier tool to define a word - we used it to define "coursers."

Students then worked in pairs practicing reading aloud while using the magnifier to define words.  While they were doing that, I called up individual students and used the Moving Tales app to record them reading pages of the story.  I would play the app with the narration, have them practice, and then record them.  We ran out of time to record all of them, so I'll keep you posted on how we followed up.

Toy Story

Objective:  Students will be able to read a children's story with expression.

Today we had some fun with the free Toy Story app.  Using the Apple VGA adapter, I hooked up my iPad to the LCD projector and we all watched and listened to the interactive book, Toy Story.  I told students they would be expected to read it aloud themselves next so they needed to pay close attention to the narrator and how he showed expression with his reading voice.
Afterwards students were paired up with an iPad and assigned two pages to practice reading aloud.  I showed them how to use the recording option within the book so that they could listen to their own recording.  Some of the students came up to me fairly quickly telling me they were ready, but when I reminded them that we would all be reading aloud, they quickly said, "Oh, no, I'm not ready.  I'll practice more."  I overheard one boy tell another, "You need more expression."

When they were all done, we read the book aloud as we watched it, taking turns to read all the pages.  Even before we started the first boy who was to read, stood up and said, "We should stand," so all students stood to read as their turn came and tried to show expression in their reading.  When we were done, one of the students said, "I didn't do very well.  Can I do it again?"  We went back to his part, he stood, and read it again doing a much better job.  I was thrilled that he took the initiative to critique himself and publicly reread and improve.

Once, Twice, Three Times the Charm

Objective:  Students will be able to recognize ways to improve their reading aloud.

For this lesson I spent quite a bit of time going over students' DRP® (Degrees of Reading Power®) scores so that I could choose specific books to match each individual's reading level.  Most of the students are in 6th grade, with a few in 8th grade, but their reading levels are much lower.  When students came in I handed each of them a book and an iPad to use.  This is the first time they're not working with a partner so I had to borrow some iPads from administration so that I'd have enough for each student to have their own.  Once again we reviewed what their focusing on for improving reading fluency: expression, pacing, and phrasing.
The students quickly got to work, recording themselves reading their book.  They recorded for two minutes, then read the same passage again recording themselves again.  When they finished their 2nd recording they listened to both recordings and evaluated themselves on sheets I had given them.  They evaluated what they noticed after the 2nd reading: did they read faster? smoother? with expression? and did they remember more words?

I was very impressed by many of the students and their critique of their own reading.  Here are some of their written comments after their third recording:


"I noticed that I did the better job than the first time.  I have more expression.  Still struggle in some words."
"I have to get better on the vocabulary to not stop in reading."
"I read with expression.  I read smoother."
"I noticed that I didn't read smoothly."
"I read smoother and read with more expression after I remembered more words."
After the 2nd reading one student wrote:  "mumble on some words and was reading too slow, but after the 3rd reading she wrote, "I was reading great."

Which Free Apps to Use?

These are the free apps I've downloaded so far:
 24/7 Tutor
AirSketchLite
CalculatorProFree
Capitals
Chicktionary
Dictionary
Dropbox
Find My iPad
Google Earth
Google Search
Google Translate
Hangman
iBooks
International Children's Digital Library (ICDL)
iTalk
Mad Libs
Math Skills
MeeGenius
PS Express
Seattle Times
Sonic Pics Lite
StoryKit
Toy Story
USA Today
Word Pops Free

Some of these will be specifically for the reading and writing work with the students and some of them are word or math games for the students to play with when they have completed their work ahead of others.  I wanted to be sure to have some educational, fun games ready for them to use.  Many of the students seem to like Chicktionary and using the iPad camera, of course.

Reviewing Reading Aloud

Objective:  Students will be able to recognize ways to improve their reading aloud.

While students followed along on their iPads in MeeGenius, I read aloud the story "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."  I deliberately read aloud making similar mistakes that the students had when they recorded their reading last week, asking the students to write down errors they heard me making.  I also asked them to write down how I could improve.  They did a good job as a class, noticing things like:  read too slow, read too fast, read haltingly, read in a monotone, read without expression, skipped words, and added words.  They suggested that I slow down, read with expression, focus on phrasing, and focus on each word as I read.

After discussion on how my reading aloud could improve, pairs of students used headphones to listen to their reading from last week and recorded in writing how they and their partners could improve.  Having seen me model this for the class, they did a pretty good job of critiquing their own reading.  I asked most of them if they thought they could improve in their next recording and they all said they could.  They began recording the same story again.  Unfortunately we always run out of time before both students in the pairs could rerecord their stories.

Recording a fairy tale

Objective:  Students will be able to read aloud using appropriate expression and pacing.

Students are going to choose from six simple fairy tale retellings from the MeeGenius app and listen to them being read aloud to them.  They will be instructed to listen carefully to how it's read and the inflection and tone used.
Then they will use iTalk to record themselves reading the same story aloud getting feedback from their partner about their expression and pacing.
They did a pretty good job with this task, though we did have a little trouble getting all of their recordings uploaded to Dropbox.  I spent some time after they left making sure we had a copy of each of their recordings saved in Dropbox.  I had students answer this question on an Exit Card:  Do you think it helps your reading to record your reading aloud and listen to it?  Almost all of the students wrote "yes" and focused mainly and how it helped them to hear their expression or lack of expression in their reading.  Only one of the students wrote "no" because "I have to point to follow along but I also skipped a page."  I think she will feel better as we go along and she gets comfortable "swiping" on an iPad.

Predicting with Evidence

Lesson objective:  Students will use evidence to make predictions about their reading.

Today the lesson was on using evidence from your reading to make predictions.  The students did a pretty good job with this and stayed focused while reading because they were anxious to watch the 4 minute video ending to the story.  I used the app 3:15 and the free story, "Buried Treasure."

We began by discussing the definitions of the words "prediction" and "evidence."  Then we watched the teaser for the story and read five pages.  Together we made predictions and showed evidence on a chart.  Then students were instructed to read the rest of the story on their iPads and fill out a form making three predictions at pages 10, 15, and 22.  They were also instructed to make an adjustment to their predictions as they continued reading.
As students finished reading, I checked their written work before I gave them headphones with which to watch the scary video ending.  It was great to watch their reactions to the ending:  several boys gasped and immediately and animatedly began talking to each other about the story.  One boy said he went ahead and read the story at home twice because he knew we would be reading it today and it seemed so interesting.
Unfortunately not all students finished the story, so next time we'll need more time to finish up the lesson.

First Lesson

Objective:  Students will be able to identify what good readers do when they read aloud.
I asked students to help me identify the reading aloud behaviors of good readers.  This is what they came up with:
1.  Read loudly
2.  Read clearly
3.  Pronounce words well
4.  Use punctuation
5.  Use expression in your voice
We talked about their list and I shared my list with them:
Reading Behaviors:
1.  Phrasing - the ability to read several words together in one breath.
2.  Rate - the speed at which we read.
3.  Intonation/Expression - the emphasis we give to particular words or phrases

Then students paired up with another student and were given the iPad they will share for class use during the school year.  We did a brief overview of how to take care of their iPads, including wiping down the screen before they hand them in to be put away.
The pairs were given a one page story to read called "The Princess Easter."  They read it to themselves first.  Then they used iTalk to record themselves reading about 1/3 of the story, listening while their partners recorded.  Finally they listened to their recordings.  We will keep these as their first recordings.  Students have been instructed to always name their recording with their names and the date.

Okay, then I found out that using the free version of iTalk was not such a good idea.  We couldn't save the recordings because they were too big to e-mail and I needed iTalk Premium to link it to a Dropbox folder.  I went ahead and purchased iTalk Premium using VPP, but it still won't let me upload the first recording the students created with the free version.  Oh, well, at least we'll be able to save all the recordings they do in the future.

Late Start

It's been challenging to get this iPad project started because there were just so many details to getting the iPads set up for our students' use.  I am excited about this project, and the students' faces just lit up when I told them what we were going to be doing with the iPads this school year.

After I received the 15 iPads and the Bretford cart, it took many hours to set them up properly for the students to use.  Since I'm in the library with no assistance, I had to ask a volunteer to come in for 1 1/2 days to work on them in the back room while I worked with students in the library.  I couldn't use student help with most of this because passwords needed to be used.

Here's a list of some of the things that needed to be done:
1.  Charge and sync all iPads to the MacBook iTunes account after having set up an iTunes account (without a credit card attached) and an Apple Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) account.
2.  Individually set each iPad with restrictions:  I restricted deleting apps,YouTube, and allowing changes to  Location (so that Find My iPad can't be turned off).
3.  Individually set each iPad to sync with a folder with the student pairs' names on them.
4.  Individually set each iPad with Find My iPad and add location services
5.  Individually organize folders on each iPad
6.  Sign into Dropbox accounts on each iPad
7.  Link each iPad with a Dropbox account for the iTalk app
8.  Set up student pair folders in iPhoto to import photos from the iPads.

Then I created a form with all the passwords and user names for restrictions, iTunes, Dropbox, VPP, and Mobile Me to share with the principal so that I wasn't the only one who knew all this info.

Some of this I figured out with trial and error, but I couldn't have done most of it without some great Live Binders such as this one created by Mike Fisher.

I created a Live Binder too back in March when I was applying for the Qwest grant, but it's nothing like Mike Fisher's.  It's actually somewhat chaotic and spare, but it has been useful to me.

Qwest grant (now Century Link)

I applied for a $10,000 Qwest grant in February and found out in April that I was one of nine people in Washington State to receive it.  One of the other teachers is Stacey Churchill who's an art teacher at Foster High School in my school district of Tukwila.

Here's what I said I wanted to do:

This will be a yearlong project with students in an English Language Learners (ELL) class. Students will be paired up to read interactive books that embed audio and video on an iPad. Students will record their own voices reading the books to improve their reading fluency, which according to Johns and Berglund (2006) extends to include reading comprehension.  Students will then practice editing digital books using the StoryKit app from the International Childrens Library.  Eventually students will be ready to create their own digital books, representing themselves and their cultures, and publish them online for the school community to access and respond to.  The digital books will include audio (student narration), video, photographic, and written elements and will be created using various apps such as iTalk.

My district received the money on July 1st, and we placed out Purchase Order immediately.  Thankfully I have the support of Mike Cullum,  the Director of Instructional Technology for the district, and my principal, Brett Christopher, or this project wouldn't have been able to even begin.  When you're purchasing iPads, $10,000 doesn't go far.  With their help and the grant, we were able to purchase fifteen iPads, a Bretford cart for simultaneously syncing and charging the iPads, iPad covers, and $500 for the Apple Volume Purchasing Program for apps.  Additionally, Brett purchased five more iPads for staff to use for classroom walk-throughs, so I can borrow those when needed.

Truthfully, as I read over the twelve pages of my complete application, I wonder if my plan is bigger than I can actually handle.  I think I have some great ideas, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it all with the students.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how long it took just to get the iPads set up, and you'll understand what I mean.