What happens when we empower our students as innovators with iPads or other technology devices?  It can strengthen their learning and create highly engaging activities for them!  This is exactly what Christina Phyall, 4th grade teacher at Butcher Greene, wanted to do for her students.  Her fourth graders had the task of working on a research project on a famous Missourian and the contributions they made to society. 

After doing research and writing a paper, she wanted another way for students to communicate their learning in a new way. Her students were asked to "be" their famous Missourian and discuss their accomplishments. Using a simple app called ChatterPix Kids, students took a picture of their Missourian, drew a mouth, and recorded themselves to create an animated picture. Click on the videos below to see some examples from her students.

 Although this app only allows for 30 seconds, it gives students the opportunity to really think critically about what information they could use and how to effectively summarize, which is a hard skill to tackle with our younger students! 

There is so much more you could do to get students to do some higher level thinking with this app:

• Describe shapes
• Animal Facts and drawn animal facts
• Author's Purpose for any story
• Take a picture of an object and add adjectives to describe it
• Take a picture of a character in a book and have them introduce him/herself
• Make figurative language come to life
• Make any report come to life from Science, Social Studies
• Animate a math problem
• Measuring Activity
• Tell jokes!
• Take a picture of ANY object and have students talk for 30 seconds according to your objective for the lesson
• It fits into ANY part of your curriculum and students LOVE it!

Mrs. Phyall had students save their videos on Google Classroom but if you use Seesaw this is another way to "collect" videos from student iPads as well! Contact Diane DeLaTorre for more information on how to use ChatterPix Kids to think critically in your classroom!

Diane DeLaTorre

English teacher, Diane Euston, at GHS has been using iMovie with her Creative Writing and ELA students. In Creative Writing, students read a poem by Maya Angelou called “Still I Rise” which is about adversity.

Inspired by the style of this poem, students were challenged to create their own poems about adversity at school.  Once they wrote their poems, they worked collaboratively in groups of three, decided on the poem of the three that they liked best, and then were tasked to create a video portrayal of the poem.  Using iMovie, the students combined text, images, video, and music to create their own powerful piece on overcoming adversity.  Check out the video "Becoming Strong" below for an example of what students were able to create.  This is a great way to get students collaborating while using a tool that is typically thought to be one-user only!

Mary Cordry