Did your child receive a new device for Christmas and they are asking for access to all sorts of apps but you are not sure which ones are best for them. Common Sense Media, the organization that provides our digital citizenship curriculum, recently published an article about choosing the best platforms, apps, and games to fill them with. I thought I would pass this on to our families who might be looking for more information. You can also search their reviews on different apps as well.
Click the link below to read the article. Parents's Ultimate Guides
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A few of our classes has some time to create some Thanksgiving projects. Both first grade classes listened to the story, Balloons Over Broadway about how the balloons in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade came to be. They used a new app, Tayasui Sketches School, to draw their own balloon. The students then uploaded their drawings to Seesaw where they could record why their balloon should be in the parade.
The third graders created acrostic poems using PicCollage EDU. They searched for images to spell out the word Thankful and then completed their poems. The students were also able to choose a background and images to complete their project.
I hope that everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be thankful for.
Over the last week, our first through third-grade students began their first digital citizenship lesson for the year. We follow a curriculum from Common Sense Education that teaches topics of media balance & well-being, privacy & security, digital footprint & identity, relationships & communication, cyberbullying & hate speech, and news & media literacy. This curriculum is taught several times a year all the way through eighth grade. Our first graders learned about their digital trail and how everything that they do online can leave behind a trail for others to find. We discussed the difference between personal information (hobbies, first name, interests, favorite things) and private information (full name, address, phone number, age, birthday, school/team name) and how personal information is ok to share but private information is never ok to share. For some tips about digital footprints and identity, see the pdf below.
Our second graders focused on communication and creating norms for being online. The students discussed how people should act while they are online and what to do if they found that people weren't following these norms. In Seesaw, the students had to write one norm that they would follow online. We then opened up the Seesaw blog, talked about the norms for using the blog and then allowed the students to practice the norms they came up with. For some tips to guide your student, see the pdf below.
Finally, our third graders focused on being responsible digital citizens and how what they do in life, both in person and online, can affect themselves, their community, and the world. While practicing using the zoom feature in Seesaw, the student completed an activity where they had to determine how their actions could affect the world around them. The students did a great job with this and some of the questions were not easy to figure out. You can find some tips as well as an activity you can do with your family in the pdf below. Over the last few weeks, our first through third grade students learned how to log into their online McGraw Hill accounts. This include Everyday Math (EDM) and Impact Social Studies. In EDM, the students have access to many great tools online. They can access their HomeLinks as well as find the Student Reference Book (SRB) to help them review different concepts. The students love using the digital manipulatives in the eToolkit and online games. They allow the students to use the same tools and play the same games anytime. For a brief overview, please watch the video below. The students will learn how to navigate Impact Social Studies throughout the year. This past few weeks, our first through third grade classes reviewed how to login to the HMH website to access their reading and science (3rd-8th grade) curriculum. The students were shown how to locate their textbook. We focused on finding the story they were reading last week and were excited to discover that by pressing the speaker button next to each paragraph, they could listen to the story and follow along on the screen. These features are wonderful for the students who want to listen to the story one more time or who forget their book at school. The HMH website can be a little difficult to log into the first time. Here is a video that should help you. All of our kindergarten through third grade students are 1:1 with iPads. The iPads are updated to iOS 16.7 with the latest security update. We were able to get them all passed out and the students logged into Seesaw before i-Ready testing began.
Our kindergarten through third grade students have begun their first i-Ready diagnostic test for the year. Since our first, second, and third grade teachers and students are familiar with using Seesaw and XtraMath they have already begun using these tools in class and many have been encouraged to use them at home. Our kindergartners have learned how to log into Seesaw and took a selfie. Over the next few weeks, we will explore more of the tools. If you ever have any questions, please reach out to me at [email protected]. |
AuthorMs. Sowa is the technology coach for Pre-School through Third Grade Archives
January 2024
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