Technology Spotlight: Distance Learning Edition!

For our OWNCS teachers, this season has been a challenging time of breathtaking change -- and astonishing growth.

The handful of technology integration projects featured below are merely the tip of the iceberg, attesting to the adaptability, flexibility, and creativity of our dedicated faculty as a whole.

Ms. Bautista's Review of Screencastify Submit

A big thank you to Ms. Danielle Bautista for being our guest reviewer during yesterday's well-attended Tech Tuesdays at Two! She gave a thorough step-by-step overview and demo of Screencastify Submit, which is such a new digital tool (still in BETA), but one that shows great potential. Basically it is a video/screencast response tool, that allows direct submission of student videos into the teacher's Google Drive. The product is free and works well with Google Classroom.

Fairy Tale Adaptations Filmed by Ms. Bobcombe and Ms. Delva's Class

Our OWN 2nd graders clearly have a lot of creativity! Here is one charming example:

Isabella-Fairy Tale Adaptation.MOV

Google Classroom Tutorial Videos Now Available in 5 Additional Languages

We acknowledge the efforts of the following teachers in creating these tutorials, which help parents understand how to submit work on Google Classroom: Ms. Hye, Ms. Aborawash, Ms. Sestan, Ms. Glavan-Reyes, Ms. Kimball, Ms. Cordero, Mr. Hays, Mr. Czaja.

Here are the final video links:

8th Grade Service Learning Video Project

Mrs. Sharkey's Flipgrid Book Recommendations

Flipgrid is a video discussion platform. A teacher creates a GRID (= a classroom community) to house TOPICS (= discussion starters), and students respond with video. The teacher can moderate videos (i.e., require teacher review before posting), give feedback, and determine whether students can respond to each other.

Thank you Mrs. Sharkey for generously sharing your experiences as well as interactive resources during our Tech Tuesdays at Two Zoom meeting!

OWNCS Service Learning Submissions - COVID-19 Appreciation .MOV

Middle School Service Learning Project

Thank you to Mr. Nandkumar and the whole MS Service Learning Team for sharing the culmination of this Quarter's service project. Though we are now operating in digital environments most of the time, how refreshing to see our students making a difference through tangible physical objects presented with love!

Mr. Nandkumar describes the project in his own words:

"[On] May 15th I took a binder filled with work I collected from our service learning students to Weill Cornell Medicine. It was filled with letters of appreciation, poetry, motivational words, and artwork in regards to the COVIS-19 pandemic. This was paired with a banquet sized Edible Arrangement donated from my family on behalf of the OWNCS students.

The residents and doctors at the Anesthesia Department/Educational Program at Weill Cornell were so appreciative, according to our liaison Mrs. Augustine. She said they appreciated the kind words as they flipped through the binder, grabbing pieces of fruit and hurrying back to their cases and the ER. She mentioned once the email went out they came and within 15mins and half of it was gone . It was refreshing to see the messages and fruit as they haven't been offered something like that in a while.....Just knowing that these medical residents and doctors could take a minute and just read and view the students' work was very fulfilling as everything submitted was collected during our time at home.

Thank you to our Service Learning team (Ms. Angrum, Ms. Pabon, Mr. Hughs, Mr. Choi and Ms. Lynn) for supporting me with my students as we have been supporting each other weekly."

Ms. Cordero and Ms. Kimball's Demonstration Video for Google Classroom

Ms. Michalcik's Chrome Music Lab Video Lesson

Try out the "Kandinsky Experiment" for yourself!

Ms. Barrett's Read-Aloud Video of "This School Year was Different"

Thank you Ms. Browne for sharing that book with your colleagues!

Ms. Imam and Ms. Sharkey Both Recommend Nearpod

They separately gave an enthusiastic thumbs up for interactive lessons on Nearpod. Ms. Imam recently used it for a lesson on Bar Graphs. Ms. Sharkey uses it to teach Digital Citizenship. If you want to learn more about Nearpod, join us at the next Tech Tuesdays at Two!

Tech Tuesdays at Two: Discussion on Screencasting Resources

7 Options for Recording Video Lessons

Real-Life Application: Help Mr. Palmisano Plan His Garden!

Thank you to Ms. Escoda and the entire Third Grade Team for sharing this idea. Third Grade had just completed a Math unit on Perimeter and Area and, to reinforce the concepts, they prepared a Google Slides Lesson with a real-life application -- planning a garden. To increase student engagement, they enlisted the help of Mr. Palmisano (now well-known for his emotive acting skills) to record a short video embedded in the lesson slideshow. In the video, Mr. P pleaded for help in designing his backyard vegetable garden. Very creative!

Ms. Antunovic's Live Self-Portrait Session: iPad + Zoom

"I hosted a First Grade Zoom Drawing tutorial, guiding students step by step on how to draw a self-portrait using guidelines and proportions. Ms. Sestan joined the meeting to help support students. I was able to mirror my iPad through screen sharing on Zoom, and I used my drawing app on the iPad to draw with the students....It was a great way to assess and keep track of student's work: the set up allowed me to flip back and forth from demo mode to Zoom gallery view to see student drawings. They enjoyed talking and seeing each other and commenting on each other's work. I also used the Zoom recording function, so that I could later share the session with students who were not able to join."

Ms. Weiner's Loom Videos

Ms. Weiner is our resident expert on the screencasting tool Loom. She began using it early on with her class, and thanks to her, many of our ES colleagues soon discovered its utility. She highlights what she likes about this digital tool:

"Loom is a great screen sharing device that I have been using with my 4th grade students. The program has a shortcut, so it is readily available to create videos, it works with any program on your computer (google, PDF's, videos), and allows the students to see a small video of the teacher explaining the material, which is beneficial for all students. Once created, videos are found on a home screen and can be shared using a link. You can also password protect your videos, allow for comments from the students and more!"

Thank you for the recommendation, Ms. Weiner!

Mr. Palacio's Online Art Lessons

A thankful OWN2 parent sent in the following video of her Kindergartener, pleased to witness her child's engagement in the task!

OWN2 Art.mp4

Ms. Stephanides uses Padlet with her Reading Students

In her own words:

"I really enjoyed using Padlet with my group of students. Padlet is a user friendly tool that is visually engaging and provides opportunities for an interactive discussion. I was able to create a simple graphic organizer representing the various story elements. It helped the students organize their thoughts and ideas about the content. Padlet is great because you have the capability of collaborating with one another and sharing the document with others."

Tech Tuesdays at Two

"Tech Tuesdays at Two" is a weekly Zoom session where members of the Tech Department are available for consultation and coaching, conversation and conviviality.

On the second week of our Tech Tuesdays at Two, we were pleased to welcome participants from all three of our campuses. Some issues discussed: Google Classroom workflow, Zoom sharing controls, Raz-Kids recordings, and Jamboard.

There has been increased interest in the use of Jamboard, so we shared a Demo Jamboard for the participants to explore in real time (the second Jamboard pictured is courtesy of Mrs. Barrios and Ms. Manjarrez). Another passionate advocate of this digital tool is Mr. Paladino, who recently used it for an OWN2 Math Coaching Zoom meeting.

Some uses:

1) Use a single Jamboard with multiple frames, shared with any co-teachers and teaching assistants for the class, to collaboratively plan your school day. Each frame could be for a particular subject, group of students, or exercise.

2) The sharing button works the same way as the other Google tools. Copy the link to share on Google Classroom (where you will have an option to share a view-only copy to your students, a shared editable copy for the whole class, or an individual copy for each student).

3) Google Meet, unlike Zoom, does NOT have a built in whiteboard. Create a Jamboard and have it ready on a tab in your browser, then share your browser on Google Meet.

4) Use a single Jamboard to compile individual student frames. Label each frame with a sticky note containing each student's name, so they can find their participation space.

5) Upload a picture or screenshot onto a frame, annotate during a live session, then save the annotated frame as a PDF and distribute to your students.

A Sweet Thank You Message from Our PTO and OWNCS Families!

Ms. Bautista's 4th Graders are Celebrating Earth Day All Year Round!

Ms. Bobcombe and Ms. Delva's 2nd Graders

Ms. Bobcombe captured the moment when a butterfly emerged from its chrysalis - the culmination of an awe-inspiring Science project.

Earlier in the year, their second graders participated in a writing competition -- and won! Several students were featured in a published book of scary stories. Ms. Bobcombe was kind enough to share videos of the authors reading their own work. Great creativity and reading fluency on exhibit!

Butterfly 203.mov

Spooky Saga1.mp4

Ms. Li and Ms. Aborawash's Seesaw Projects

Thank you Ms. Li for allowing me to poke around inside your Google Classroom and Seesaw account!

We had previously featured this online platform for student digital portfolios (= "student journals"), but this versatile and flexible tool really shines in our current distance learning environment. Some things that jumped out at me this time:

The sheer multitude of pre-made activities that a teacher can save and and conform to our curriculum.
The fact that the child can be given a choice as to the form of their work: e.g., a simple photo of written work, a video, a text note with annotations and drawings, etc.
A student's entire portfolio can be downloaded as a PDF.
The liberal presence of QR codes for easy access to activities and posts.
Seesaw integrates well with Google Drive and Google Classroom.

RESOURCES:

Learn more about Seesaw.

Separate PDF Getting Started Guides are available for each grade level (K-8), with set-up checklists and grade-appropriate introductory lessons included.

Our Teachers and Staff have a Message for our Families:

Mr. Czaja's 4th and 5th Grade Film projects: flipbooks and stop motion animation!

Ms. LaCasse and Ms. Brown's 5th Graders play "Pass the Pencil"

Who says that videoconference lessons can't have an element of fun?

Mr. Palmisano's Morning Messages

What better way to start the workday than to see and hear our OWN students doing what they do best: reminding us that we are all kids at heart! Thank you Mr. Palmisano for this daily labor of love. He describes the format in his own words:

"As I progress and continue to edit them, I learn more and more and become more confident with each video.... First portion is the students introducing themselves and what class they are from. Next, the national holiday and weather for the day. This is followed by some interesting facts....We then start to announce some jokes that I have found on the internet that are appropriate for children. Recently, I added some tips on social emotional learning and now I usually add a riddle at the end to draw the listeners in. The answers to the riddles are on the following morning announcements. To end it all, the students are then presented with an opportunity to state a silly or funny term to leave the listeners with."

Our K-2 teachers and their Google Classrooms

In previous years, it had been our practice to wait until 3rd Grade before introducing our students to their GSuite accounts. When the need suddenly arose in mid-March, it was truly an amazing thing to witness our K-2 teachers setting up their Google classrooms from scratch in the course of a few days, and subsequently guiding their primary classes in the use of those digital classrooms in the week immediately following. They all deserve a special round of applause!

Ms. Rivard's and Ms. Cordero's Spanish Assessments

What better way to assess and give detailed feedback on language pronunciation than to have the students submit audio and video assignments? Students recording on phones, laptops, tablets is the most natural thing in the world...

Ms. Rivard's middle-schoolers are encouraged to sing:

Here's an audio submission, complete with a SONG!

Just in case you wanted to hear Feliz Navidad in April...

Ms. Cordero's younger students are also showing evidence of impeccable pronunciation:

Google Drawings by Mr. Hays' 8th Graders

Want them to learn new vocabulary in context? Why not assign a "Dream Home" design project? In Mr. Hays' own words:

"I just had some great projects from the 8th grade! We were learning about vocabulary for rooms in a house and household items. I gave the students a project to be "architects" and design a dream home. The home had to have at least 4 rooms (kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc.) and 6 items (Garden, window, table, sofa, elevator etc.) of their choosing."

Google Jamboard creations by Ms. Lee and Ms. Aquino's Kindergarteners

Google Jamboard is an easy-to-use shared whiteboard space that naturally lends itself to collaborative work. Our OWN2 Kindergarteners figured it out rather intuitively!

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