Sharing Our Thankfulness At Van Meter Schools On Our Flipgrid MixTape!

During this week of Thanksgiving, all of our elementary students, teachers, principal and others at Van Meter Community School in Iowa shared our thankfulness. 

We have added almost 500 videos, 8000 responses and over 42 hours of engagement on our Thankfulness Flipgrid.  

We would like to share our stories of thankfulness with all of you, so we put together a little preview in this very special Flipgrid MixTape. You will find the Sharing Our Van Meter Thankfulness MixTape here. 

You might be asking what a MixTape is! 

As Flipgrid shared on their blog, 

Back in the day (as in the 80s and 90s), when we wanted to do something special for our BFFs, we spent hours copying our favorite jams onto one tape to create the perfect listening experience. “Mixtapes” were the perfect space to share whatever we wanted with whomever we wanted!

Fast-forward to 2018. Educators are helping students share their ideas, wonderings, projects, questions - their MAGIC - in new and creative ways every day. So we’re kicking it old school to help you amplify and share #StudentVoice like never before!

Introducing MixTapes, the raddest way to share mic drop moments with the ones that matter.

I just love all of the ways and things that can be created and shared using MixTapes.  Can you think of ways to use them too? 

As I looked at almost 500 videos the last couple of days, I knew creating a Flipgrid MixTape would be the perfect way to give everyone a little sneak peak. 

The Flipgrid MixTape is just a handful of the videos from the Van Meter Thankfulness Flipgrid, which everyone can view at this link too.  

Happy Thanksgiving from our library and everyone at Van Meter! Enjoy the holiday with your family and friends.

The Week Virtual Reality Came To Van Meter!

This week something new has captured the attention, curiosity and conversations of our students, teachers and community.  

We have added Merge goggles and...

 ...Apple iTouches to the district bring lots of new adventures and opportunities to our students.

With the opportunity to visit the design process of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from YouTube 360 videos with the Merge googles after reading....

....Balloons Over Broadway....The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet. 

You can read all about this project in this first post from my blog last week too. 

On Monday, Staci Braun and her 2nd graders focused on....

...Balloons Over Broadway, 

as they...

...listen to my friend Rocco read the book on KidLitTV.  

We then explained virtual reality and showed them the four Macy's tours in New York City they could take with their friends and the Merge goggles. All they had to do was go to the board and scan the QR codes on this slide.  

It would pop up in the YouTube app and they were set to visit the design studio too. 

Today, the excitement continued as we had another awesome day of using the Merge googles and visiting the Macy's Day Parade again!

First, I visited Tracy Ferguson's 2nd graders.  

Tracy printed off the slide which was perfect because we took them down to the Collaboration Space.  This was the perfect spot because the tables can be moved out of the way to allow them to have a large space to roam around with the goggles. 

As you can see, there were very excited and loved exploring the tours. 

 

Second, I popped into Megan Algreen's 5th grade classroom.  Megan has such a great flexible space, which was really awesome for the activity.

She put the slide up on her board as we explained virtual reality and the Merge goggles to them too.

It was wonderful watching them work in pairs as they explored the tours and showed lots of excitement for the new technology and opportunities at Van Meter.

It was wonderful watching them work in pairs as they explored the tours and showed lots of excitement for the technology and opportunities at Van Meter.

We can't wait for all of the new adventures and how virtual reality will take us around the world!