Posts tagged technology
Save Our Rhinos!
Feb 7th
by Andrew, Zac and Cameron
Our class and Mrs. Moore’s class are participating in the Travelling Rhinos Project. We are excited to meet “our” rhino, Makulu, as soon as it comes in the mail! To prepare for Makulu’s visit we have been doing research about the rhinoceros. Here are some facts we learned:
- There are 5 species of the rhino family: white, black, Indian, Sumatran and Javan. The Javan rhino is the most endangered.
- Next to the elephant, the white rhino is the second largest land mammal.
- Rhinos are found in parts of Africa and Asia.
- Rhino habitats can be very different. Some species live in a savanna and others live in forests.
- Rhinos have bad eyesight but good hearing.
- A rhino is actually related to the horse.
- A rhino can turn very quickly and run as fast as 60 km per hour for a short time.
- Rhinos are endangered mostly because of poachers.
- They are hunted because some people think their horns can be used for medicine.
- Rhino horns are made of the same thing as fingernails. They can’t really help with diseases.
Here is a ThingLink we made. Click on the colored dots to find out more about rhinos!
Here is a Smilebox of the rhino art we made. We learned to draw rhinos from this site, then we painted them with watercolors.
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| This free picture slideshow customized with Smilebox |
What is your favorite animal?
What do you think kids can do to help endangered animals?
A Day in Our Class
Jan 18th
What does a day in your classroom look like? We were visiting Mr. Avery’s blog and we saw that last year they made a time-lapse video showing everything that happened in their day. We thought that was a fantastic idea and we wanted to try it ourselves! We set up an iPad in the corner of our classroom and programmed the Motion Pictures app to take one photo every 10 seconds throughout the day. The app compiled the photos into a video, then we added some music and text using iMovie. Now we have a video showing our entire day in less than 90 seconds!
When you watch this video, see if you can spot:
- Our Morning Meeting
- A Mystery Skype call where we met our new friends in Ohio
- A readaloud and video about Ruby Bridges, in honor of Civil Rights Day next week
- Our daily 2-minute dance break, and…
- A surprise fire drill!
One Day in Our Classroom from S Hamman on Vimeo.
What would we see if we could spend a day in your classroom?
Student App Review: Nearpod
Nov 27th
It’s time for students to start writing blog posts! We are starting with a student app review.
By: Aiden, Zac and Darren
Nearpod is awesome. We get into groups of three to share the iPads. First you have to get a code to log in.
After that your teacher shows you pictures with facts, like a food pyramid or mammals with other animals. You also can watch videos. Your teacher flips from page to page if you are done or not. You get to control it on slide shows.
Exploring Nearpod from S Hamman on Vimeo.
You can take quizzes about what you learn. Your teacher will see your scores or group scores. For some quizzes you can draw or write on the iPad and some are multiple choice.
We think it would be good for classes because you get to learn a lot about stuff you did not know. So if you have access to an iPad at school then ask your teacher if your class can try Nearpod on the iPads.
Do you have iPads at your school?
What are your favorite apps?
Flat Stanley
Nov 19th
Do you know who Flat Stanley is? He’s a character in a series of books written by Jeff Brown. He’s a regular boy except that he is totally flat! Because he is flat he can go on all kinds of adventures; all he has to do to travel somewhere is get mailed there in an envelope!
We are starting a Flat Stanley project. We are making our own Flat Stanleys and sending them to friends all over the world. Our friends will take pictures and tell us stories about the adventures Stanley had while visiting them. If you’d like Flat Stanley to visit you, please leave us a comment!
A group at our Saturday Academy made a trailer about our Flat Stanley project. A trailer is supposed to give you a little bit of information about something that is coming up, just to get you excited about it.
Flat Stanley Trailer from S Hamman on Vimeo.
Did our trailer work? Are you excited about the Flat Stanley project?
Green Screen Experiment-2012
Aug 20th
In our classroom we have one wall covered with a fabric green screen:
Do you know why we have a green screen? We want to make a lot of movies in our classroom this year, and we might want to use special effects in some of them. If you film in front of a green screen you can superimpose the video onto another picture or video to make special effects. Last week we took some sample video to test our green screen for the first time this year.
Some students in our class acted out different emotions, and we edited the video to put some nature shots behind it. All of the background video came from http://www.stockfootageforfree.com/
The lighting and position of the camera is very important when you make a green screen video. We can tell that we need to make some adjustments on our next project, because some of our actors were invisible or cut out of the picture!
Check out our experiment:
Green Screen Experiment 2012 from S Hamman on Vimeo.
What do you think we should do for our first real green screen project?
