On Thursday, February 5, 2015, I had the privilege of joining Steve Johnson, Brad Grumbles, and 3 other teachers on a visit to multiple elementary school sites in the Panama Buena Vista School District.
Buena Vista Elementary
Panama is in the process of rolling out 1:1 Acer laptops, running Ubermix to their student populations. Since PBVUSD is a Google Apps for Education district, we were able to see some of the incredible things teachers and students were doing in the classroom! The first class was Mrs. Torbert's class...
App Smash! Google Drawing + PDF worksheet = AMAZING!
Students add text boxes over the pdf answer fields and respond!
A Presidential Cyber Hunt: A live document with links to further research
Smalls Groups with BIG impact: A list of digital choices for students, while teacher works in small groups or one on one with students.
Using Padlet for springboard into the web makes tasks easier for students to find. Some student favorites were We Give Books and Nitro Type.
Then we visited Mrs. Leppke's class...
Genius Hour!
These students used laptops to access Genius Hour! Passion based learning. Check out the teacher's PowToons video:
A Genius Hour project proposal helps to guide students to effective passion based learning
Student projects ranged from car technology to videogames, with 100% engagement! Genius!
Google Drawing + PDFs = Interactive apostrophe worksheet with highlighting!
Students can post on Google Classroom as long as it is on a subject that is academic-- this was a neat post by a student who wanted to share a photo of his cat on the stream :)
Google Drawing + Writing Graphic PDF = Paperless Classroom!
Google Drawing + Spelling Test PDF = Wow!
Student Google Drive folder organization
Ronald Regan Elementary
We got to visit the school where I complete my student teaching with my Master Teacher, Erin Buell. Today visited Mrs. Grumbles 2nd grade class where students were 1:1 working on a writing assignment. Then, I was distracted by the amazing classroom tree!
Sandrini Elementary
Students work on 1:1 Acers with Google Slides, responding to online reading.
The website Speakaboos plays a story on video with subtitles for reading along.
Earbuds are kept in a plastic Easter Egg!
Students also create Prezi presentations, with a non-linear, zoom, multimedia experience.
Great reading centers in class.
Stine Elementary
Students use Google Docs to research and write on Ancient Israelites.
Old River Elementary
We concluded our visit in Misty Higgins' classroom. Just walking up the ramp, you could tell this was a special place...
Inspiring and fun posters were a great theme in her class!
Mrs. Higgins has trained 2 students to welcome guests into her classroom, which was an amazing idea!
Students were 1:1 Acers working on Popplet, a fun digital graphic organzer app. And YES! Those are REAL couches in her classroom! A local business passed on this furniture to her class, which has turned her learning space into a hip-quasi-coffee shop environment!
Students spent their time synthesizing their research of candy bars on Popplet.
Custom whiteboard walls is a great use of space, with socks at the ready for erasing!
Some of her posters were too awesome to pass up!
Thank you Steve for letting me tag along!
