Trading Card Final Sharing Activity in AP Human Geography

The Trading Card activity was taking to a level by Mrs. Brylski that actually had the students print the Trading Cards and trade!

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Impact On Students:
Creativity:  Students needed to decipher the information that should be placed for each question.
Collaboration:  The discussion that incurred during the trading of cards was pretty in depth.  Some great feedback was provided for each student by each student.

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Basic Anatomy Students Helping Patients

Last year, Mr. Anderson embarked on a problem-based learning opportunity for his Anatomy students.

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This year, Mr. Anderson invited my to his classroom for the final days of the learning environment.  Students were introduced to a patient.  That patient was shown an informational iMovie describing the body part that was being affected.  The iPad provided a great conversation starter between the patient and the students. Within that movie, students provided factual information along with specific footage of the students describing the body parts functions. (Special thanks to Mr. Gosse for being a patient)

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Impact On Students:
Collaboration: Students worked in partners to develop an information iMovie that would provide patients with some of the knowledge they needed to understand what was ailing them.
Creativity: Students need to use a multi-media approach complete with audio, video, and still images to convey information in a clear and concise manner.
Critical Thinking: Students experienced a wealthy of information and placing the correct information into the video was vital.  In addition, students needed to transfer the knowledge they had of the body parts to the patient while having a conversation.  It wasn't all about the technology.  Students needed to critically think about the most important information and provide that to the patient.

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Illustrating A Book On an iPad or Online

A teacher recently sent me this:
I was wondering if you knew of any apps for students to create scenes?  Students have written stories in Jenny's class and we were thinking they could illustrate a story/plot outline of five scenes (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution).  I threw out a couple examples, one using Google drawing and another using a free Photoshop type program that I have installed in my lab (Serif), but was wondering if you knew of another program for iPad or web-based.

iPad Options:

• Book Creator for iPad: Illustrate pictures or add photos--combine with text or having the pictures standing alone creates a great book

• Draw-n-Show: an amazing free drawing tool.  Create multiple pictures, take screen shots, and place the pictures into Haiku Deck, Explain Everything, or iMovie

• Penultimate: An incredible free drawing tool that integrates with Evernote.  Learn how to be effective in Evernote.
• DrawPad:  Easy, free.

Web Options:

• Google Draw: if you are a GAFE, this may be THE option.  It's located in your Google Drive. Create a Google Doc, a page for each drawing, and insert a drawing on each page.
• Draw.io: Looks like Google Docs, connects with Google Docs! Insert picture and annotate it.  Drag and drop numerous figures and add to them. Search images and drop them into your drawings.
• Draw Island:  Free, numerous drawing options, download images, no username needed

Impact On Students

• Creativity: Students connect the words from their stories with images.  They create the images completely on their own.
• Critical Thinking: Students must determine the level of clarification that their drawing will relate to their writings.  Some students may work to make the drawings completely clear, others may decide to make the drawings more abstract and left to interpretation. 

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LucidPress For Class Newspaper

LucidPress was presented by me as an option for seventh grade students to create a collaborative newspaper. Collaborative in the sense that all students across multiple classes have different responsibilities ranging from report to writer to layout to tech.  The students immediately recognized the features that would prove valuable in a class creation.

LucidPress Has Effective Features:

• Google Drive Integration:  this is it!  Students write articles in Google Drive and share it with the students who are in charge of layout.  Students who are designing the layout of the paper can connect LucidPress with their Google Drive account.  The article immediately appears in the newspaper with the options of changing the design.
• Templates:  There are enough templates to start to resemble Microsoft Publisher.  Since we are a Google Apps For Education school, Publisher as been eliminated.  Now it is back in some form!
• Collaboration:  Multiple students (in this case the designers/layout specialists) can work on the same newspaper.
• Publishing:  Multiple methods for publishing including instantly on Twitter & Google Plus via a link.  I like how the published item is a flip book format.

Listen to what the students say!

LucidPress Tutorial

Impact On Students:

• Collaboration:  Multiple students designing a LucidPress publication.  Multiple students contributing to the LucidPress publication through their Google Docs creations.
• Creativity:  While templates do exist, the blank publication is available as well.  Students need to make decisions on design, placement, colors, texts, and publishing.
• Critical Thinking: Students must decide so many facets of the design.  Layout of the design continues to be a critical thinking skill.

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iMovie Updates In iOS 7

Many great features have been added to the iMovie app in iOS 7 for iPad.  My Explain Everything video will, well, Explain Everything.  Providing students with a storyboard prior to creating will help in the process.

Important Features

• Three tabs get you access
• Video
• Project
• Theater
• ? Button always has answers (use it)
• Yellow tab has > provides more information
• +
• Movie
• Trailer
• Movie
• Flexible, Creativity
• Pictures/Videos
• Add any music you want
• Trailer
• Set areas for pictures/videos
• Set areas for text
• Rigid
• Music is provided
• Projects Tab>Click Specific Project
• Small Triangle Button--play video without producing it
• Box With Up Arrow--produce video
• Trash Can--Delete
• Pencil--Edit Title

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CANVA--Creation Tool

Impact On Students

• Creativity--It's all about creativity.  It's endless
• Critical Thinking--Providing a storyboard prior to creating a video will enable efficiency while using the app
• Citizenship--If the videos are being published to the web, consideration must be made for proper digital citizenship.

Medium--informational text

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Essential Skeleton 2 iPad App For Anatomy

The Essential Skeleton 2 iPad app provides every student with a model skeleton that can be used to learn and master the bones and all their features.  Mr. Anderson believes this app is a great app especially in large classes.

Some benefits include of the app:

• Seeing individual bones
• Rotate bones 360 degrees
• 3-Dimensional
• Full model for each student (great for larger classes)
• Mobile
• Highlight individual bones
• Identify and isolate an individual bone away from the full model
• Annotation tools
• Zoom In & Out 
• Screen shot for Pic Collage and SMORE
• Correct audio pronunciation
• Multiple search options
• Exporting options of annotated objects
• Quick Reference to all skeleton parts
• Quiz Set Up-multiple choice & free response

Video Link

ITLS: Standard 3
The impact on the students...

• Collaboration--N/A
• Creativity--Combined with SMORE or Pic Collage provides for creative finished product of concepts learned
• Critical Thinking--Quiz format for analyzing aspects
• Citizenship--if documents are shares, students will understand that their creations are visible by the world.

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Google Maps Tour Builder

Because of @rmbyrne 's FreeTech4Teachers post on Google Maps Tour Builder, I was able to create a tour of our school district's schools.  Our district encompasses a large geographical area consisting of five elemendary schools, one middle school, and one high school, a Google Map Tour was a perfect medium to show case our schools.

In 2009, my students created Google Earth Flying Tours.  While it was easy in the end, there was a learning curve that caused some students to struggle.

Google Maps Tour Builder required little to no learning curve.  Since we are a Google Apps For Education school, logging in and creating a tour will be a very simple process.

An additional bonus is the ease at which one can keep the tour private or share with a peer or staff member. Sharing documents through Google is second nature to our students so this process will be efficient.

View My Tour   View How To Make A Tour

Google Earth is available in BETA for Chromebooks
Google Earth integrated with Google Maps

The impact on the students...

• Collaboration--Students could work in partners or groups to create their tour
• Creativity--adding additional pictures that students take or find to each destination can provide additional insight.  The opportunity to include additional comments for each destination is important for deeper understanding.  Students need to determine the best path for their tour.
• Critical Thinking--similar to creativity
• Citizenship--students will understand that the map while by default is private, it may be shared with peers and teachers.  The map is on the web!

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