Every beginning of the school year, my language arts class writes something called "The Shades of Summer" to kind of warm up for the year by telling me what they did that was exciting over the summer. In addition to the writing prompt, students usually draw themselves doing the activity in the lenses of the glasses. It is very fun for them and interesting for me. I was very fortunate to be nominated as a Keystone Technology Innovator this summer and attend a weeklong seminar at Kutztown University. It was the best educational experience of the my career. One of the things I wanted to implement immediately was green screening. This project was the perfect outlet! For those that are unfimiliar with an "App Smash," it is when you use multiple apps together to obtain one goal. Sometimes the app you need isn't made yet or it doesn't have every feature you need. That is when it becomes neccessary to smash apps together. For this particular Smash, I am using the iPad Mini Camera App, DoInk's Green Screen App, and Union Photo Blend App to achieve the ultimate green screen! After a quick search, I found two apps that could possibly do this: Photoshop Touch and Union. One was $9.99, the other was $1.99. So I ponied up the two bucks and purchased Union. From the moment I opened up the app, I was amazed at the functionality and ease of this app. Not only could I do exactly what I wanted, it was so much easier than if I did it via Photoshop on a computer! All I had to do was find images with one color backgrounds to input in the pictures and place them in there. Then, by simply using their magic wand, you can take out the solid background with one click! It's that easy!
To finalize the project, I used the Photos App on the iPad to find a filter to put over the photo. I'm not a huge fan of photo filters all the time, but I wanted something to tie the whole picture together and give it some uniformity. I think it did just that. Let me know what you think by tweeting me at @FlippingFifth. Thanks to @DoInkTweets for creating such a great app and helping me through this process! Make sure to give them a follow.
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This year I will be "flipping" my math classroom to allow me to do more things inside the classroom. The major difference will be that students will receive instruction at home via videos I record or choose. One of the major concerns other educators have with this method is that how do you know when and if students are watching and what happens if the students do not have access to internet at home? I will address both of those concerns in this blog post. First off, if students are not watching, they are not only hurting themselves, but the entire process and class. The focus of flipping or blending your classroom is not what they do outside the classroom, but rather the projects and experiences inside the classroom. By not watching the videos, they will have to do so instead of activities during that period. This negates the real purpose of flipping the classroom which is: More time in the classroom to engaging self experience activities. They will get time to watch these videos inside of school, or outside of school. They can go at their own pace and even re-watch them multiple times before tests, quizzes, or other assignments. An added benefit is that they can log in using their Edmodo accounts! In the beginning of the year, I always tell my parents that e-mail is the best way to get a quick response from me. The problem is that I am not on my computer much throughout the day due to teaching and helping students. I sometimes do not even get to my computer at the end of the day. It's a real struggle. However, this year my problem has been solved. Last year, I piloted ClassDojo in my homeroom. The students absolutely loved it, and my parents appreciated the fact that they were getting instant feedback (both positive and negative). The students liked it because they were rewarded for doing good things. I enjoyed it so much that I will be using it with all of my classes this year! On top of using it for a behavioral management system, they have implemented a new feature call "ClassDojo Messenger. To see more about it, click the image below. This will allow me to privately or publicly text parents when something happens. This is all done without giving out my cell phone number or knowing the parents' number. I can use this for reminders, notifications, or even telling a parent how a student did on a particular test in the matter of seconds. So, I am asking you to sign up for it and download the free ClassDojo Messenger on iTunes/Android markets. For more information, please go to I'm very excited to welcome all of my students back this year. We will be doing a lot of fun, engaging things this year. Among those things, we will be using social media in the classroom, taking videos and green screening, and using mobile devices to collaborate with each other. I hope you are all ready and eager to learn and HAVE FUN! Come to school on the first day with a smile on your face and be ready to experience the best school year of your life!
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AuthorHere I will keep a journal of different things I have done in my class with some degree of success or failure. It is just important to document why something didn't work as opposed to why something did work. Archives
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