A Video for Teachers--C5

Last Spring as a member of our campus Technology Vision Committee, I was asked to make a video to share with teachers at Hill Country Middle School to help alleviate some of their initial concerns over placing iPads in the hands of middle school students.  The committee came up with the name C5 as our campus theme for the iPad initiative.  The words are theirs and are the vision that group had for iPads in the classroom.

I worked with an amazing group of students to make this video.  I shot all of the footage with my school provided iPad and edited it on my personal MacBook Pro.   The students wrote their own scripts and brought in their own pictures.    It was a great success and really fired up the campus for our 1:1 iPad initiative.

8th Graders as Teachers

In the beginning of this year, one of the things that most excited my students was the idea of connecting with younger students.   We watched the anti-bullying PSA made by students in the district, and it really sparked their interest in being more involved in our community.

Before the Winter Break, an opportunity presented itself for us to collabortate with a nearby elemenaty school, Cedar Creek Elementary.   It is within walking distance which would make the legistics much easier.

After letting my students decide what they wanted to do to connect with younger children, they elected to teach a lesson on the American Revolution.  We used the state standards for the American Revolution as our starting point.  In Texas, 5th grade social studies has very similar standards to those in 8th grade.   Additionally, the 5th grade at Cedar Creek Elementary had a 1:1 iPads in their classrooms.  Our goal was to make several mini-lessons on a variety of topics and then compile them into a iBooks Author eBook to share with the 5th grade.

I formed homogenous groups. Then as a class, we viewed the standards on the projector screen and students chose the topics of their interest.   Once the topics were assigned, student groups were to decide what they believed would be the best iPad medium to explain their topics to 5th graders.

Some groups chose to make Puppet Pal shows using the characters of their much beloved "Liberty's Kids" show.   Others would make Nearpod presentations to share on their iPads. 
 Still others decided to make Keynote presentations with You Tube videos embedded.  All of my classes worked on these projects until the Winter Break began.

After we returned to school in January, my students were very excited to resume working on their projects and it was decided we would go in two groups to Cedar Creek to share in our work in rotations.  In order to trouble shoot in advance, we did mock presentations of our work to each other.

I created this form for students to record their evaluations of each other.


Please use this form to complete your evaluation.

Saratoga FLIPPED

Lets start our flipped class with a great movie on the Battle of Saratoga.

Here is the video:


Battle of Saratoga

Liberty's Kids' music videos using Video Star

The two days before Thanksgiving Break can be frustrating to teachers.  We had school Monday and Tuesday, but sometimes these days are glorified babysitting.   This year we incorporated the students' crazy love of


 Liberty's Kids

and made an original music video using the


 VideoStar App.

We had a contest between classes and the winner is.....3rd PERIOD!!!

Listly of Educational Games

Book mark this page to get regular updates on my students' favorite educational games.

Educational iPad games

View more lists from T fiske

My new profile picture

Several years ago I read a book called, Managing the Madness: A Practical guide to Middle Grades Classrooms, by Jack C. Berkemeyer.  In it he promotes letting students decorate their classrooms and be part of the construction of their learning space.   I started letting students submit designs for murals on my walls.   Now my classroom is filed with historical paintings all completed by students.

One from a few years ago accidentally turned into a semi-biographical portrait of me.   It started with this ad and a SUPER bright young woman named Kayla.   

She proposed turning this add into a mural about history and how the bubbles can be a metaphor for the passing of time and events in human existence.


Here is her version with the first 7 presidents (which is one of our standards) in the bubbles.

 It is right beside my computer in my classroom and it makes me happy to see her name and work.  She had never painted with acrylics before.   Some of my current students want to "spice it up" some this year, so it might go through a transition as my room continues to reflect the personalities of my students.

Tech Forum Austin

Last Thursday I had the wonderful opportunity to attend Tech&Learn's Tech Forum as the guest of Techchef4u.   It was an incredible learning experience.

The keynote speaker, Diana Laufenberg, was so inspirational to me.   She is a history teacher from the Science Leadership Academy and is using many interactive history activities.

 Her TEDtalk is shown here.


One of the ideas she shared was to have students take pictures of history around them and then write a six word story about the picture.

  I found a twitter page dedicated to this practice here: @sixwordstories.


In addition, Techchef4u, Yolanda Baker and iPadSammy led a session called Apptivities which you can view below:

Watch live streaming video from techlearning at livestream.com

You will see them mention some things from my classroom.    I love the way they present ideas in such a visual way.

This experience was truly enlightening and I am so inspired to try new things in my classroom!!