Creating a Storybird Book

I found out about this site called Storybird via my Twitter network and decided to give it a try. Songbird is a collaborative story builder in which you are given some illustrations and you can build a flash-style book. You can also add collaborators, which I did not do (this time). Instead, I tried to fashion a story about the start of school and the magical power of books and reading.

You can read my book — called The Book and The Frown — here.

I found the experience interesting and I loved the illustrations. I did have some trouble finding the illustrations that I wanted, as they kept getting buried underneath the pile. It’s hard to explain, but I felt as if I spent as much time finding a pictured I wanted to reuse as I did writing the story. That might cause some frustration for young writers.

See what you think. Storybird has some great possibilities. (I do wish I could embed the book right here at my blog, but I did not see a way to do that from the site).

Peace (in stories),

Kevin

Stopmotion Name Movies

We dug right into technology in our first days of school as I had students use Pivot Stickfigure to create short stopmotion animation movies using the letters of their first name. You should have seen the engagement and concentration, and heard the laughter. And you should have seen students reaching over to show another a trick they discovered or share their movies in progress with each other.

It seemed like a real “bonding over technology” period of time and I can already gauge who is comfortable with working on the computer, who is not, and who can meet deadlines and who will have trouble with deadlines. That was part of my learning experience.

I also began showing the movies to the other sixth grade classes (this particular project was just with my homeroom class to start the year) as  way to signal that we will be getting creative this year. And my class got raves and applause from the others. Nice.

Peace (in the motion),

Kevin

Wordling our Way into the New School Year

In the ongoing efforts to get to know my 77 students, I decided to tap into Wordle to show some brainstorming we were doing around the things they are excited about and the things they worry about now that they are in sixth grade. This was a simple activity. I gave them a notecard, they drew a line down the center and on one side, they wrote what worries them and on the other, what excites them.

I then took their notes and put them into Wordle, using the Wordle Advanced option so that I could weigh responses, as there were many that were multiple student lists.

Just so you know, Quidditch is a game that we play at our school with sixth graders that culminates in a huge tournament in the Spring. (See our video about our game of Quidditch.)

Here are the things that excite them (I like that writing class was on many lists):

Here are the things that worry them:

Peace (in the new year),
Kevin

Back to School Funnies

Today, we start the year. I found this link to a collection of funny school cartoons in my RSS feed. It’s worth a look and a chuckle.

Peace (on the first day, the second day ..)

Kevin

Making My Writing Curriculum Visible

I’ve been working for a few weeks on a website that shows the progression of my writing, reading and technology curriculum for my sixth graders. In the past, I used a basic Curriculum Map that I shared with parents at our Curriculum Night and left a link on our blog page, but I was never really happy with it. With a website (which I created using Yola — fantastically easy to use, by the way), I think I can better show student work and make the projects and skills being taught a bit more visible.

What I still intend to do is to link in the standards of our new report card (we’ve moved into a standards based reporting system this year) so that projects and activities are better aligned with the progress reports. But I think our administration is still tinkering with the progress report document, so I will wait on that.

And sometime, I will go through and connect with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, too, so that I can show alignment to what I am teaching.

One thing I did find is that creating this kind of document really forced me to rethink the rationale of what I am doing and placed me in a very reflective mode. That’s always a good thing.

Take a look at my site. I would love to get some feedback on the project.

Peace (in the year),
Kevin

Day One Activity: Make a Movie of Your Name

Each year, I try to find some new and interesting activity for my incoming students (they arrive on Wed, although a few have begun blogging at our classroom blog already .. cool). This breaks the ice, gets them engaged in an activity and allows me time to wander and have conversations with them.

This year, I decided I will show them Pivot Stickfigure and have them create a short stopmotion movie using the letters of their first name. Pivot (a free download, by the way) is always a huge hit with students, and I am curious to see how tech-savvy they are in the first few days. With pivot, you can export the final movie as an animated GIF. Or use it in Moviemaker (I won’t go that far with them yet, however).

Here is a sample that I created to show them:

Peace (in frames),

Kevin

Mr. Teach is a bit Loopy

In my comic, Boolean Squared, the teacher — Mr. Teach — is looping with his students this year — meaning he is going with them to the next grade as their teacher. OK — so, this narrative device allows me to keep Mr. Teach in the picture for another year. I didn’t want to lose him.

Peace (in the new year),
Kevin

What happens to Boolean Squared?

As some of you know, I worked out an arrangement with our regional newspaper to publish my webcomic, Boolean Squared, last year and it was a fun adventure. But, this year, with cutbacks, layoffs and other things going on at the newspaper, we decided to end the relationship. It’s a bit sad, but not too much. I accomplished what I set out to do: publish a comic about teaching and technology in a newspaper.

So, now I am figuring out some self-publishing possibilities and for now, as I create new comics, I will post them here at this blog first and then add them to my Boolean Squared website. I may eventually set  up a Boolean Squared blog so that there is an RSS feed for folks.

So, here goes — the first Welcome Back to school BS (with two more to come):

Peace (in the frames),
Kevin

Smartypants Board and Boolean Squared

I found out this week I have a Promethean Interactive Board in my classroom now. It’s ironic, because they have to cut part of my chalkboard to make room for it. Getting rid of the old to make room for the new?
Anyway, the idea of the board inspired me to create a few new Boolean Squared comics. Here is one:

Peace (with smartypants),
Kevin