Grade 4 Computer

Fourth graders will be working on whale research projects. They have each chosen a whale to research and will be putting all of their research onto a digital poster. Along the way they will be learning how to bookmark, using Diigo, how to use online highlighting to take notes, how to find images that are licensed for reuse and how to synthesize their research into one poster. This is a lot for these students to take in, but they are doing an excellent job thus far. We have begun the research phase. Students may research at home by logging into their Diigo accounts. Each of the items in the list must be in the completed poster. Students must cite all sources of information, image sources and video sources. This is what makes using an online bookmarking, note-taking application so useful- all of the citation information needed should be found in the bookmarks.


Whale Project Grade 4

Fourth graders spent some time watching videos about staying safe online and discussing what they need to do to use the Internet safely. They are working in toondoospaces on cartoons to illustrate one thing that they have learned.

Here a few of the first toons finished. All finished toons will be added to the Finished Work Page

Josh

Alex

Charlotte

EmmettW

The 4th graders have begun to build their portfolio websites on http://sites.mybcd.org/ Everyone now has a site and most have all 4 of their projects embedded in their computer page. Ask your child to log you in with their username (firstnamelastinitialbcd) and colornumber password. They are doing an excellent job!


We will be starting a short unit on Internet Safety this week. We will be concentrating on how to stay safe online, not putting all your personal information out on the internet, and being careful when you download. The first one, Tracking Teresa, is always an eye-opener for children. They need to know how to limit the amount of personal information that they share online, without being frightened by the myth of the sexual predator behind every keyboard.

Tracking Theresa

Faux Pas- Internet Safety

Faux Pas- Cyberbullying

If you want to learn more, check out CommonSenseMedia, an excellent resource for Internet safety, as well as movie and game reviews.

Today I asked the 4th graders to write down words that described the project they have finished. We took the words and made a wordle of them. The words that are the biggest in the picture are the words that appeared the most.

This project was based on 3 essential questions. Last week the 4th graders reviewed many of the projects that had come in and worked collaboratively on a Google document to answer the questions.

1. What are the similarities and differences among children around the world?

Lanna's drawing for Environment Team 2B

The fourth graders did an excellent job on this project. They got to talk to kids from all over the world and worked in small groups with students from various states in the U.S., as well as children from India, Korea, China, Poland and Canada. The project centered around 6 topics. Each student worked in a group with 6 or 7 other students in different classrooms, and most had a different teacher who supervised their work. They had to learn so many things! Each day in class, they checked Edmodo to see if they had replies to their conversations with other students, checked for assignments or comments from their teacher and then got to work on the various projects. Many students took pictures or short videos and put them on a voicethread, and commented on them; others used Glogster, a digital poster, to organize their pictures and others used Prezi, a non-linear powerpoint like way to present their work.  So they not only learned how to use email, email attachments, digital cameras, record with microphones, use Edmodo, Voki, Voicethread and in some cases Glogster and Prezi, they also learned about their topic, learned more about the differences and commonalities between cultures and geographical regions and how to communicate with and collaborate with others.  It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work!

Most of the work from the projects has been uploaded to the project wiki.  Just look on the left navigation bar for the Final Project Showcase which has links to all of the topic group work.  You can comment directly on any voicethread by signing in with either your own voicethread account or you can use your student’s ( firstnamelastinitialbcd@mybcd.org with their color number password. Some of the projects, particularly the glogster posters are harder to comment on, but the wiki is open, which means you can comment by using the discussion tab at the top of each page.

Each 4th grader will be putting his/her own project on their google sites later this week, but definitely before winter break.

Congratulations 4th graders! You did an excellent job!

This is an example of the conversations the students in 4th grade are having online with students from around the world. This post has kids from Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio and 2 students from China talking with one another. Just click the image to enlarge it to make it legible.

We are in the final phases of this adventure with the Flat Classroom Week in a Life project. Most of the students have gathered their media and have posted it to a project site. Since each student is in a different group, it’s been a learning experience for all, as we try to keep up with the various tools used and the different assignments for each student. On Monday, Nov. 21, each 4th grader will try to get all of their requirements done for the project. I have each assignment written out and each student will cross the pieces off as they complete them. If they have any work not completed, the sheet will be coming home with them to be completed, if at all possible.

Some of the groups, such as the food and celebrations group, require pictures of everyday food, special occasion food, etc. Holiday or celebration pictures are also needed for this group. Another group that needs photos that are hard to get at school is the Housing and Transportation group. How do people get around in the Berkshires? Other than personal vehicles, what else is used-public transportation? bikes? canoes? 4-wheelers? tractors? These students need to take pictures of some of the various ways people and goods are transported. They also need photos of various types of houses, made with different materials. Photos, or super short videos (less than a minute- 30 seconds is fine) can all be useful for this project.

Getting images from the internet is not something that the 4th graders should be doing at this point. They do not understand the copyright restrictions, and assume that they can just use whatever they find. As these projects will live online, it is essentially republishing the photos, which is far different than putting it into a paper, giving it to one teacher to read, and having it live on for a while pinned on a refrigerator magnet. We will get to this later. Kids who are really stuck may use http://www.pics4learning.com/, a site specially designed for students to use.

Have your student show you what they have left to do, and check out their various projects, works in progress. We hope to be able to Skype with at least one of the classes the students have worked with before the winter break. Thanks for all of your help!

Students have been added to their work groups now and will have a chance to talk with 6-7 other students in their group as they work on their projects.  Although some students will be working on the same topics as others in the class, they will actually be collaborating with students in other schools.

Below is a map showing half the schools currently involved in this project. With over 500 students the project has been split into two teams for simple logistical reasons. These are the schools that the 4th graders will be interacting with. If you have Google Earth and want to fly to visit the other schools- click here to download the kml file. ( It will say cannot preview- click the download button on the top right.)

View A Week in the Life 11-2: Team B in a larger map

The other project we are beginning to work on is to create a Google site to contain all of the student work from various courses. These are websites, created by the 4th graders, with a page for each subject. They can put their best work, work in progress, projects, etc. on this site and take a bit of time to reflect on their learning. For computer class they will be asked to write about what they learned, what they did well and what they could do better or differently the next time. It gives the students a place to reflect on their work and to self-assess their work.

Several students have asked if they can create their own sites at home. This is perfectly fine with me. We have just begun to learn how to use the sites and have not covered how to add content, but if you poke around, you can probably figure it out.  Please take the time to set up any additional sites with your child and pay attention to the sharing settings under more options. This allows you to control who can see any web sites your child creates. The sites we create in school are only shared with other students at BCD and their teachers.