Camera App in Kindergarten

I have to give all the credit for this great idea to Kelly Smith, Instructional Technology Facilitator in Greenville, South Carolina!  Thanks, Kelly!

It all started when I saw this tweet from Kelly:

I was immediately intrigued by this activity as I love working with our Kindergarteners and their teachers on ways to use the iPad in their classrooms.  Yes, we cover some basic "parts of the iPad" and talk about what certain buttons do, how to four finger swipe, five finger pinch, close open apps, etc., but I never thought about building the foundation on the basics of the camera app. 

Man, I love the ideas shared on Twitter! I asked Kelly for some details about this activity and she shared what she does when introducing the camera app to her students. 

We use the camera app for a lot of different activities in Kindergarten.  I've never taught Kindergarteners how to utilize all of the tools within the camera app.  Until now!  Thanks to Kelly, we have spent some time showing our Kindergarteners how to do some of the following tasks, to better prepare them for some of the tasks we will be doing with the iPads throughout the year. 

• Using the cropping tool.  The students loved using their math manipulatives along with a simple numbered card to take a picture, then cropping the image.   So simple, but the students loved it!
• How to rotate photos.
• How to use the zoom feature.

All this sounds pretty basic, but I actually created an App Task Challenge for the camera app to better educate my teachers on the various features within the app. Check it out here.  

I think we take the camera app for granted sometimes.  There are a lot of great features in this app that has so many uses in our classroom! 

Give this activity a try with your students.  I plan on building on it this week as we introduce the Pic Collage app.  Students will take a photo, edit it, then insert their edited image into a collage we will be creating. 

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Top 36 Educators To Follow That Have Less Than 1000 Followers

***This blog post is co-written by Craig Badura & Brent Catlett***

As connected educators Brent and I strongly believe in ALL educators being connected.  We believe that building and developing a PLN (Personal/Professional Learning Network) is an important task for ALL educators to be doing, not just a few.  We also believe that ALL educators bring great value to the table as someone who can SHARE the great things happening in their classrooms, schools, and districts via Social Media like Twitter!  

As educators we sometimes become idea hoarders and are afraid to share some of the successes in our classrooms because we feel like we are bragging.  I am convinced that there is a plethora of great educators out there who  have started a Twitter account, used it consistently, but haven’t gained a large number followers, for some reason or other.

Perhaps our list of 36 educators are typically not listed in articles talking about the "Top 25 Educators to Follow" on Twitter by popular educational companies like Edutopia or Education Week, or another person on Twitter with a massive amount of followers, but it doesn’t mean they are any less of a potential contributor to one’s PLN.  They are simply great teachers.

To Brent and me, the number of followers we have on Twitter doesn’t matter!  Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in that when you first get started on Twitter. Heck, I even wrote this blog post back in 2012 about my Twitter numbers.  What was I thinking?!

In one of our many discussions about Twitter we discussed how awesome it is to FOLLOW educators back that follow us!  Not ever limiting ourselves to certain numbers or acting as if we are too good for them because they may only have 24 followers.   Every member of your PLN is important. Follow them. Never limit your numbers. We also discussed the fact that we try to respond to ANYONE who tweets us with a question or thought.  I know I was frustrated several times when I started on Twitter because someone wouldn't respond to a tweet I had directed at them.

We feel like anyone who wants to join our PLN is more than welcome!  You follow either of us, and you are an educator, we are probably going to follow you back!  Just make sure you have a great bio explaining who you are and what you do in education!  And be sure to add a profile picture of yourself!

This amazing group of 36 educators that have less than 1000 followers are a group that anyone could easily learn from, collaborate with, and break down classroom walls!

So, GO FOLLOW THEM because they are fabulous educators!  

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Digital Citizenship Resources for the Primary Classroom

I know it may sound a bit odd, but I love Monday mornings.

Why?

I get to start every Monday morning during the first semester talking Digital Citizenship with our 94 Kindergartners.

 If you are a Kindergarten teacher and you're reading this, thanks for being AWESOME!  I admire you more than you will ever know.  I have a hard enough time keeping these students engaged for 25 minutes, I can't imagine what it's like for 8 hours!  Honestly...thank you for what you do!

As we get settled into our new school years, I thought I would share some of my favorite resources that I use with our primary students here at Aurora Elementary School. I hope you find a thing or two that you can use in your classroom!

Goodnight iPad: A Parody for the next generation
Yep, it's a Parody of Goodnight Moon, the classic by Margaret Wise Brown.  I read Goodnight Moon first, then head right into Goodnight iPad having students take note of all of the technology that is in the book.  We then have a great conversation about if there ever is a time when we can have too much technology in our lives.

If You Give a Mouse an iPhone: A Cautionary Tail
The follow up to Goodnight iPad is yet another great message for our students to hear.  We are all guilty of being distracted by our devices.  This tale drives home that point.


Arthur's Computer Disaster
Our conversation after reading this book is about how we should always keep our parents in the loop when it comes to technology.  Students should never be afraid to talk to their parents about something that happened online.

The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV
My mom used to harp on me all the time about watching too much TV.  I don't think our kids watch too much TV today, they spend too much time with their devices!  After reading, we talk about the importance of taking "tech timeouts" and getting outside and playing and just being a kid.

hello! hello!
Great book with a great message! Similar to The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV, the emphasis of this book is to unplug and enjoy the world around us!

My Online Neighborhood via Common Sense Media (who, in my opinion, have created some of the best resources to use in your classroom in regards to teaching digital citizenship)





Pause & Think Online via Common Sense Media





Hector's World via Thinkuknow
Join Hector and his friends as they embark on a trip to the local carnival and learn some valuable lessons along the way.


NetSmartzKids Videos
Your students will love learning with Clicky, the main character for NetSmartzKids.  I absolutely love everything that is created by the gang at NetSmartz

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