Cell Projects with an App Smash or Two...

I am a little behind on blogging, so I thought I would write on my students' last three projects.  To say I am proud of their work is an understatement.  I will try to keep it brief since the projects speak so well for themselves. I have included the project description pages as well as examples of each.

I require my students to keep a digital portfolio folder in Drive for our class. All of their projects are then shared with me using the same file name format.  This has been a great time saver for me, and it also keeps them better organized.  Semester exams are just a few weeks away. Having the biology folder ready to go will make for a great review tool.

Cell Diagrams using Explain Everything and Thing Link The requirements of this assignment were simple. Use Explain Everything  (my favorite app of ALL apps) to draw and illustrate an animal and plant cell. Save the pictures to the camera roll. Create a Thing Link account and upload the pictures.  Create targets on the diagram of each organelle, including the name and description of each.

Website link to sample seen below. 


This "App Smash" (phrase copyright by Greg Kulowiec) was so successful that I wanted to share it with the EdTech App Smash Awards. We had a great response and ended up winning the Steam/Stem Best AppSmash Award! I am looking forward to San Diego in February!

Photosynthesis using Explain Everything, Tellagami, and Aurasma

I divided the topic of photosynthesis into 8 questions for my classes.  Each group had to create a video answer to the question assigned.  That answer was uploaded to the camera roll and then added to our school Aurasma account.  Each group also had to complete a trigger image for the class board. This was my first experience with Aurasma.  The end product is awesome, but it did take some time for me to upload all of the videos and triggers. Thank goodness I have an amazing colleague, Ed Patterson, Director of Academic Technology at Norfolk Academy, (@espatterson) to teach me the tricks of the trade.

Photosynthesis Aurasma Project Information

Photosynthesis Aurasma Rubric

Photosynthesis Aurasma "How To See Our Projects" poster

Use directions in the link above if you are not familiar with Aurasma to use the picture (trigger image)  below to see one of our projects!

Cell Cycle using My Stop Action and My Create
For this project, we focused on creating a stop animation video of the cell cycle. Since my students are familiar with many creation apps, they could choose what they wanted to use, focusing on My Stop Action and My Create for the stop animation portion of the project.  I had specific topics that needed to be covered to show understanding of the functions of the cell during division. I then allowed students to "choose their own adventure" with a topic of their choice that relates to cell division.  They had one week to finish their projects and submit them to me via Google Drive. This was a great way to encourage students to put the processes into their own words and also tap into their creative style.

Cell Cycle Project Description

Cell Cycle Project Rubric



D Bell Daniel William Cell Cycle Project from Elizabeth Glassman on Vimeo.

To learn more ways in which I am using technology in my classroom, follow me on Twitter @eglassman757.

Thinking Critically with Video Projects

One of my main goals of adapting iPads into my classroom is to continually challenge the quality of work that my students submit. I want to make sure that it shows understanding of the subject matter as well as independent critical thinking. I also want to have the work be something that my students can use when they are studying for the exam at the end of the semester. The most recent work that my students have done required them to present  videos on an assigned topic dealing with Protein Synthesis (project information link) and Human Genetics.  I then used a grading rubric to assess, and the best of each category was then compiled into a video to share with all students and their parents. This can be done with any subject matter and any iPad experience level. The apps we used were Explain Everything, Tellagami and iMovie. All three are paid apps, but worth the cost. As always, Explain Everything is amazing with giving students the ability to do pretty much anything they want with creating or presenting information. Tellagami allows for the creation of an avatar with a background of the creator's choosing. Finally, iMovie allows for the merger of the different videos in to one seamless product. As always, focusing on the push and pull of videos with the camera roll will give the best success for work flow. As long as your students can get their videos to the camera roll, you can publish!


DNA, RNA & Protein Synthesis Video Project from Elizabeth Glassman on Vimeo.




Human karyotype genetics project from Elizabeth Glassman on Vimeo.

I used this project format for our chapters on DNA, RNA and Protein synthesis and then on our chapter dealing with human genetic disorders. In both cases, I had five topics, with four groups of students covering each topic. The "best of show" for each category was awarded bragging rights and a few bonus points on their project grade. Both of these projects have been great preparation for the "mockumentary" movies that we will be making at the conclusion of our crime lab!

To learn more ways in which I am using technology in my classroom, follow me on Twitter @eglassman757.

All You Have to Give is Twenty Percent

This is my 10th blog post and we are in the 10th month of the year, so I figured I had to go with something to do with 10 in this blog post.  So, what is better than doing a multiple of 10 and go to 20? Either I have your curiosity piqued or you are not a fan of my middle school logic and are ready to move on to another activity for the day.

You may or may not be familiar with Daniel Pink who is the best selling author of five books dealing with changing the world of doing work.  As a professional development opportunity a couple of summers ago, I read Drive by Pink.  In his book, Pink describes the effectiveness of Google's twenty percent time in which employees are allotted twenty percent of their time to work on a project of their own interest. After getting excited about the idea of giving students time to work on an open-ended project that they design, my colleague, Scott Fowler, and I decided to take this concept and use it in our classrooms to study the scientific method. We designed a project focused on creating a water filtration device design to fit into a two-liter bottle. This idea came from Scott's experience traveling with the Norfolk Academy Global Health Fellows to Haiti in the summer of 2012 when they met with local children and families to discuss and promote the importance of using potable water for hygiene and cooking. We watched our students wrestle with everything from affordability of materials to filtering microbes that the finest of filters can't detect. Bottom line, did they create the next water device? No. However, did we study the scientific method in a way to open their eyes to real world problems and issues? Absolutely.

This year we decided to keep the valuable project time and devote every Friday of first term to another twenty percent time project. Our charge to students was to design a green roof design for our geographic area, focusing on a specific variable of each group's choosing (insulation, run-off, drainage, etc).

The following list of ideas and suggestions chronicles how I worked with my students through this year's project.

1. Introduce with something attention grabbing. We used the NBC video clip about green roofs, Green Roof Saves Chicago. This clip may seem little outdated, but it features one of our own Academy families who served as a resource for our students. You can follow their website at the link, Our Green House. There is also a more recent clip from WVEC 13.

2. Provide parameters to the project, but not rules. You can find my project guidelines by clicking here.

3. Be clear on your expectations for grading. You can find my project rubric by clicking here .

4. Have a pre-determined calendar of dates with intermittent deadlines. I included that with the project guidelines.

5. Keep the twenty percent time "sacred" from everything else. Show your students that you value this time every week.

6. Because we use shared iPads, we had to make sure students could access information out of class.  One of the biggest "mistakes" we learned together was the idea to rely on Evernote as a storage place for group information. We are using Evernote for their lab portfolios, but they are single user accounts. There is not way to do collaborative sharing in those documents. Next year, I will require that all information is stored as a Google Doc for the groups to share. 

Ideas were fantastic, at times frustration was high, but overall, we had similar results to last year ... students were learning, doing research, building prototypes, submitting reports and then told to make things better. This was a true lesson in being committed to a problem and dealing with having to modify and rebuild when a first attempt didn't necessarily come through. This project definitely held our students to the four core tenants of our middle school experience: respect, commitment, grit and toughness.  

To learn more ways in which I am using technology in my classroom, follow me on Twitter @eglassman757.

Putting My Students in the Driver's Seat of Assessment

One of my goals as a teacher is to make sure my students know that they are in the driver's seat during the year. I try to be the teacher who rides in the passenger seat to help provide directions, offer input, and of course hit the brakes if they are ever steering out of control. I want them to realize that their achievements are earned and not just given for jumping through hoops.

A few weeks ago I lived up to that goal, more than I have in the past. I gave up the control of a traditional assessment and left the design of a project to my students. Over the course of two days, they came up with the parameters, requirements, and content of a project covering the respiratory and circulatory systems.  It all started when a group of students approached me about doing a project to help them study for exams. They weren't looking for bonus points, just an opportunity to use the iPads to explore ways to help them study. This then manifested itself into a project for the current chapter rather than a paper and pencil test. I must say, I was little apprehensive at first. I didn't want my students to think that doing a project would be an "easy A" or simple task.  I have never completely replaced a test with a project. However, I figured I would give it a try. So I put on my seat belt and off we went!


Class discussion lead to brainstorm lead to replacing chapter test with iPad project.

Here are five suggestions if you ever decide to take the same risk....

1. Set guidelines, but not rules. The more specific the details are, the more likely your students will have projects that resemble one another. Had I said that everyone needed to use the same app or work on the same topic, the results would have been much different.

2. Give time in class to work. Since I have a shared iPad program, students can only work on filiming the projects at school. I have been very flexble to having a "working deadline" that was not set in stone. Some kids needed extensions for athletic dismissals, coordinated study hall time, or to add more to the project. I had kids asking for more time because they wanted to make their projects better. 




In the project featured above, extra time was given to make an iPad holder out of ring stands
 

3. Regardless of the project style, capture it on the iPad. I loved the fact that boys were dancing, girls were sculpting, and kids who are usually quiet in class were proud to show what they learned.

 








4. Provide a solid rubric for grading. Shawn McCusker's blog post, "Blow the Top Off Your Rubric" was a fantastic starting point for me. My favorite suggestion that he gave was to allow for failure and correction. When my students brought their projects to me, I often said, "This is good, but how can you make it great?"

5. Be patient, anticipate roadblocks and be amazed.





Bottom line, the projects were awesome. I am still amazed at the results. I have learned that whatever bar I set for my students, they will measure it and jump higher.....every time.

To learn more ways in which I am using technology in my classroom, follow me on Twitter @eglassman757.