Technology Tuesday: Dot Day Aurasmas

Last week for Dot Day, my 4th graders thought about their goals for the year and how they were going to make their mark.  In class, they wrote out a script and colored a dot and then brought them to the library to make aurasma videos of themselves reading their goals using their dots as the trigger. We are planning to hang the dots in the hallways for other students to watch.

A Little Hand Holding

When I first came to my school 12 years ago, there was a third grade teacher who never took her kids to the computer lab.  She is a wonderful teacher.  She is very structured, has very detailed plans and very high expectations for her kids.  She just would not step foot in the computer lab because of the high possibility that the technology would not do what she wanted and she would be left to wing it.
 

Fast forward 12 years… this particular teacher (now in 5th grade) checks out the iPad cart from the library. She asks for ways to integrate technology into her lessons. She finds a way to complete projects on the iPads when the computer lab is closed for testing.  She is blogging. And hold on to your hats… She is even flipping part of her Language Arts class this year!

How does this transformation happen you might ask?  I don’t really have the answer.  I do know that 12 years ago when I came to the school and in the spring suggested that we do a lesson in the computer lab, after she stopped hyperventilating, she trusted me enough to meet me in the lab and let me walk her students through creating a Book in a Box PowerPoint.  She saw how engaged the students were and how proud they were of their finished boxes.  I am sure that we had technical difficulties (who doesn’t when they are in front of 23 students?) but we just made a plan B and carried on. 

After that, when I heard her talking about another project they were doing, I would casually mention a technological component and again with promises that I would be there with her, she would cross her fingers, hope I knew what I was doing and venture into the lab again. 

The next year, she asked me if I was available to help her in the lab when it was Book in a Box time again.  I went with her and while she taught the kids what to do, I stood by as a security blanket in case anything went wrong.  Of course, she handled everything fine.

The next year, I caught her going into the lab with the kids BY HERSELF!  I peeked through the window and she was doing the Book in a Box lesson.  Later that day, when I asked why she didn’t let me know, that I would have come to help, she said, “You were busy and I thought I’d try it myself.”

And now look where she is. 

I am proud of this teacher.  I am proud of the risks she takes for her students.  I am proud of her for stepping outside her box 12 years ago and venturing into uncomfortable territory.  And I am proud to see how even though she still does not consider herself “techie”, that she is integrating technology into her space every day.  

So today, on the day after "Dot Day", I realized that all it takes sometimes is a little hand holding to help a person make their mark

Technology Tues: Dot Day

We are celebrating "Dot Day" again this year.  Dot Day is inspired by The Dot book by Peter Reynolds.  The Dot is the story of a teacher who encourages a student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to "make her mark". What begins as a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a a challenge to create bigger and more inspiring things. This movement has gone on to connect students and classrooms around the world.

This year, I made the "D" page in my kinder journal D is for Dot Day.  I shrunk the page that was given on the website to use with the Quiver 3D app and had the students color.

Then they brought their journal to me and we made their dot come alive.  It was so fun to see the amazement on their faces as their dot became 3D.

 

I also wanted to get in on the skyping part of Dot Day, so Matthew Winner and I connected our kinder classroom - Texas to Maryland.  The students from each class shared some of the Dot Day activities they had done and we please to discover that BOTH classes had made dots out of their initials.

While we were waiting for Mr Winner to call us, we sang the Dot Day song.

A fun Dot Day today and we have more stuff planned the rest of the week.  I love special events like this that put the "FUN" back in learning.  

Dot Day

I love my teachers... they are always willing to try something new or play along with my ideas even when in true Mrs. Romine fashion, I spring it on them.  This year I heard about Dot Day for the first time.  And so two weeks ago, I sent out an email telling the teachers about International Dot Day with a link to this blog  with some ideas and said if anyone was up for doing an activity to let me know.  Some teachers took it and ran with it, planning activities to do in the classrooms, like these kinder teachers.  For math, they read 10 Black Dots and gave each kid a different number card.  They had to tell the teacher the number and count out the number of dots to make their picture.

a snowman

a car

In Language Arts, they happen to be studying beginning sounds, so the kinder idea from the blog above went perfectly.  Students had a paper with the first initial of their name and had to put dots all on the letter.

My 5th grade teachers departmentalize and one of the math teachers and I collaborated on how to use dots with their objective of two-digit multiplication.  We decided to have the kids make a drawing of two shapes.  It could be abstract shapes, geometrical shapes or 2 "things" that go together.  Some even did their initials. 

Then they had to color around the shapes for their background.  When they finished that, they took a Q-tip with paint and dotted the inside of their 2 shapes.  Then they counted the number of dots in each shape and wrote a multiplication sentence and solved the problem.  Then they made a QR code on the iPad with the answer to the problem. 

Finally they attached the QR code to their drawing and signed their picture.  

Now the pictures are ready to be hung in the 5th grade hallway for a self checking multiplication station.