Monday, February 13, 2012

"The Flip"....StudyBlue Online Flashcards


The line at the end of this video, “The Flip”, really made me think.  I wrote it down in my planner and circled it as I watched this video for the first time.  

Between the front and back of the card is you.....Learning.  

Isn’t that so simple and true?  Think about it.  You have your flashcards and you are all ready to study.  You look at the front, flip it over and look at the back.  But as you are flipping it, you pause and take in all of the knowledge and ideas that you have about that specific topic.  Then you turn it into the answer that you are looking for on the back of the card.

Have you ever thought about “the flip” like that before?

When I was in high school and college, I created flashcards for just about everything I learned about and studied.  I created them when I was learning about the different parts of our government; for the geometry test that I took over three times; and for my college geology class when I cut out photographs I took in Colorado the summer before to show the various geologic landforms I was learning about.

On the front of the card, I wrote a term, a thought, a place, a math problem.  I even drew a picture sometimes.

And on the back of the card, I wrote the definition, the answer, the solution to the problem, the destination of where my thoughts took me.

I spent hours creating these cards.  Sometimes I couldn’t put everything I needed to on them.  I was often the only one to use them.  And I always had to create my own.

With StudyBlue, we now have the capability to create beautiful, digital flashcards that can contain more than just these elements.  They can now contain embedded images and audio.  They can be shared online with others.  We can keep them organized in our own online Backpack and can search for flashcards that others have already created about the topics we are studying.  Quizzes can be easily created with one click and progress is monitored and praised.

Studyblue is more than just a tool which simplifies an age old way of studying with flashcards.

StudyBlue makes us better. It gives us a platform that brings together the things we need to be successful in our learning.  It is mobile so it can be with us when we need it....on the go, at school, at home....wherever that place might be.

And it gives us a place to enjoy learning.  To make it fun.  To make it something we can share.  To be proud of what we are achieving.

I know that if I would have had StudyBlue as a student, I would have had “more” in between the front and the back of the card.  I would have been better prepared and informed.  I would have taken my learning to a different level.  I would have been able to share and gain knowledge from others.

Our students today are lucky.  They have what is important between the front and back of the card.
It is them.....

learning more than we ever have before.

~This is also posted on the StudyBlue Blog

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Get Connected On World Read Aloud Day With #WRADCONNECT

On March 7, 2012 we will be celebrating World Read Aloud Day with the world.  

The theme this year says it all....

Change the World, Story by Story
This amazing day is sponsored by LitWorlds, whose mission is, "to use the power of story to cultivate literacy skills in the world's most vulnerable children through Education, Advocacy and Innovation."

Through social media such as Skype, Twitter, and Facebook we will come together to celebrate the power of words and stories on our lives.  

This year we thought it would be fun to mix it up a little and get our secondary students involved.  I contacted my friends Michelle Luhtala, library department chair at New Canaan High School Library in Connecticut, Joyce Valenza, teacher librarian at Springfield Township School in Pennsylvania and Rocco Staino, contributing editor for School Library Journal and chair of the Empire State Center for the Book. We gathered students who were interested in being part of our WRAD group. 
The WRAD Connect group at Van Meter....Lizzy, Quinn, Collin, Paxton and Sebastian.  Meg and Alisa are also members of our group.
At the Springfield Township, a lot of the same members of #SWVBC came together for WRAD too.  
It's a personality-rich group! ;-)
In New Canaan, from left to right, our group includes Michael, Charlie, Molly, Alex, and Isabelle -  Franci and David are missing from the picture, but we'll catch them soon.
And then we put our student groups together in Skype.  It was so great hearing the ideas and plans they immediately started developing for World Read Aloud Day....
and so much FUN too. 
We decided that a cool name was needed for this group right away.  They decided on #WRADCONNECT.  Two of Michelle's students, Michael and Molly created a WRAD Connect Facebook Community Page and 
WRAD Connect Group on Facebook. 
They will use the hashtag, #WRADCONNECT when they tweet to connect with other schools taking part in WRAD.
We have created the "Change the World, Story by Story" wiki.  This is the place where we will stay organized since we are at different schools and need to depend on this tool and others.  We will post different resources and artifacts as well on the wiki. 

We started collecting video clips for the project - recordings of people responding to the prompt, "Tell us about a story that changed your world." The following video is a compilation of four Van Meter students' responses.

We invite everyone to contribute to the clip collection. Videos can be uploaded to the Facebook page, to Flickr, via email, or anywhere else! Short and unrehearsed is preferable - people of all ages, clips in all languages are welcome! We created a form for contributors to fill out, so that we have an "inventory" of WRAD contributions, regardless of where they are published. Here is the form

Our students will collaborate to co-present WRAD activity on March 7. They are contacting authors and other students to interview between 11AM and 2PM. They will also feature selected video submissions. The entire program will be broadcast live. We'll post a link as soon as we have one. 
Michael is developing a schedule of WRAD activity
As we look ahead to the year and all of the events in front of us, World Read Aloud Day is definitely one that will bring excitement, fun, and new friendships to our students and school communities.  

And we hope that you will tune in on March 7th to WRAD CONNECT and celebrate will us.  

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Two Libraries One Voice Celebrate Bubble Gum Day


We celebrated Bubble Gum Day together this week.

On Bubble Gum Day everyone who donates 50 cents gets to chew gum at school.  It is a great day to have fun and raise money for a cause that you care about.  This year we are raising money for LitWorld's World Read Aloud Day (check out how we are celebrating WRAD).
The students at Van Meter raised over $175.00.  They sold dozens of packs of gum to the students in kindergarten through 12th grade....even a few teachers came and bought gum.  John's students will be celebrating Bubble Gum Day on February 24th.
Author Ruth Spiro started Bubble Gum Day in 2006.  She is the author of Lester Fizz, Bubble-Gum Artist.  
We had so much fun Skyping with Ruth.  She read Lestor Fizz to us and answered questions from our students.  She even blew a bubble for us!

You can read more about Ruth's story in this wonderful article from the Winnetka Talk, Deerfield Author Celebrates Life in a Bubble.
The 6th graders at Van Meter created iMovies on Bubble Gum Day.  They were given two pieces of gum and 25 minutes.  Their iMovie was to explain how to blow a bubble.

Shannon taught all of our 4th graders at Oak Brook and Van Meter about FlipSnack today.  They are using FlipSnack with a collaborative state project they are working on.  The students in Van Meter created a ComicLife page to celebrate Bubble Gum Day and they put it into a FlipSnack to share.
The 1st and 2nd graders created little Bubble People out of paper plates and balloons.
And then they wrote the steps for blowing a bubble.  Everyone is having fun reading them in the hallways.

We LOVE Bubble Gum Day!