We are starting a new year and so we have created our first digital book about our school this year! We read a story in one of our books about a school. We decided to create our own version using the iPad. First, we decided which places we needed to have in our book. Then, we went around the school and took pictures with an iPad of the places in our school the children thought were important. The Big Rock and Chester were key items on our list!
The next step was to take the pictures and import them into a neat app called Strip Designer that lets us add captions to our pictures. We saved those pages to the camera roll and then imported them into another app called Explain Everything which lets us create a book! We imported each page onto its own page in Explain Everything and then recorded our voices saying the words on each page.
After we finished recording, we saved our book as a movie. Then we watched and listened to the book we created about our school. We hope you enjoy it! You may recognize a voice or two!
We have been having a lot of fun creating our own digital books! The children have been using a combination of different apps to create their own version of Read to Me stories! The children pick their favourite books and then use the camera on the iPads to take pictures of each page.
Then they import each picture of each page into the Explain Everything app.
When they have imported all the pages they go to a quiet place and record themselves reading the story! We wanted to make it like a “read to me” book where each word is highlighted as it is read so we used the pointer option in Explain Everything. There are a lot of different pointer options in this app. You can use an arrow, a hand, and the very special light sabre! You can guess which pointer is the most popular!
I love that you can listen to each child reading and how it encourages their reading growth! They can hear themselves and they want to make their reading come alive for the listener. They often will redo pages if they don’t like how they sound! How cool is that!
When the book is complete we save the book to the camera roll. When the project is saved to the camera roll in Explain Everything it becomes a video. Then you can open it and listen to the student reading the story as they point to each phrase or word in the story! It is amazing! The best part is that they can share their reading with everyone! During Eat and Read time I open up the SeeSaw app and we watch and listen to the children in the class read us stories on our big Promethean board! The children love listening to their classmates read their stories. It doesn’t get any better than that!
We have been using the SeeSaw app to share our work on the iPads this year!
This is an amazing product that lets us share the work that each child does in a digital format. Each child saves their work to their own folder which can be accessed at school using a class QR code.
The children can access their own work at home using their own personalized QR code.
The children are able to create projects and then share them using the QR codes to access the site and then upload their projects from the camera roll! Way to much fun!
We also read our books to our favourite stuffies without any technology! Both ways are awesome! Had to take this picture as it was way too cute!
Welcome to a new school year! I thought we would start off the year with an iPad project we have just completed!
This is a book we created on the iPad about our school. Just click on the play button to see and hear our book! We went around the school and took pictures with our iPad of the important places in our school.
We imported the pictures from the camera roll into a great story telling app called Explain Everything. We added text to the pictures and then the children volunteered to record some of the pages of the book. Some of the pages we did together.
We based our book on a story in one of the books we are learning to read in our classroom. I thought it might be more fun to make a book about our own school. It was fun to see which places the children thought were important to have in the book!
After we completed the recordings for each page we saved our book to the camera roll and uploaded it to Youtube! We hope you like it!
Please check back often or choose to follow our blog and receive reminders whenever we post! This blog will be like a sort of digital newsletter! We hope to share our projects and learning with you each week! Enjoy!
This is the alphabet book that we created this year using augmented reality! We think it is pretty cool!
We used a combination of apps to create this project. The children have been using the app AR Alphabet Flashcards this year a lot!
They love trying to hold the augmented images that appear when you hold the iPad over the trigger images.
We created the pictures for our pages in our book by having each student pick a letter. Then they searched the classroom to find other real objects that began with the letter they had chosen. We grouped the letters together around the trigger image picture. Then we opened up the app and took a picture of our collections with the trigger imaged engaged.
The children then imported the picture they took into the app Strip Designer from the camera roll. We used a simple frame to title each page. They then used the balloon option in this app to label the objects in the picture.
I imported all the pictures into Explain Everything in alphabetical order. Then we had Owen, Celia, and Elsa narrate the story!
We then saved it to the camera roll and I uploaded it to our Youtube channel to share with the world!
Hopefully, everyone had a great Mother’s Day! The children had a great time making their special project for you! Some of them were very comfortable making a video and some were a bit shy but I think they all turned out perfect!
Thank you for your help sending me an email so I could forward their special Mother’s Day cards to you! It made the whole process a bit simpler. We use the app Explain Everything to make the cards. I took a picture of each of their cards that we made using their hand prints. Then I superimposed a video onto the page and recorded their comments. Some of them need a little prompting but I think they were pretty happy with their efforts! Then we saved them to the camera roll as a movie.
I copied them off the iPads and saved them onto my computer at home. And sent them to you!
We hope you enjoyed your Mother’s Day flower pen bouquets as much as we enjoyed making them!
When I explained that putting the florist’s tape on the pen was like wrapping a hockey stick with hockey tape the boys really got it!
I wish you could have listened to their comments as they were making the flower pens! Lots of nice comments about their Moms. It was fun to hear about why their Mom might like a particular color or flower!
We have been using the Explain Everything app to create our Shape books. The children used the camera option within the app to take pictures of objects in the classroom.
We made a list of the different shapes and they scoured the room taking pictures of the shapes they wanted to put into their books. Then they added a sentence describing their shape using the text option. After they had completed a cover page and their pages they went back to each page and recorded their voices reading each page. Some students even added arrows pointing to the words or objects on the page. Once that was complete I saved their project to the camera roll and uploaded it to Youtube.
The children were amazing. They found the objects that they needed and even learned how to crop their pictures so that only the part of the picture that had the shape they needed would be in the picture! They also recorded all of the pages all by themselves!
It was really fun to watch them create this book! They are becoming so independent and proficient on the iPads. Nothing scares them!
We have been working hard creating our Snowman books on the iPad! We have the first few finished projects to share with you! We hope you enjoy reading and viewing them as much as we have enjoyed creating them!
The initial sparks for the projects are the amazing snowmen that were created at home by the students with their families!
They are fabulous! To set the stage, we read the story The Snowman by Lois Elbert. It is a great story about how a family saves up a variety of materials to decorate their snowmen.
I sent home the template with the children and several weeks later these wonderful snowmen returned to our classroom!
Then we started to compile a book on the iPads about the snowmen. The first page of the book contains a photograph taken on the iPad of their snowmen.
The children opened a project on the app Explain Everything and imported the picture of their snowman from the camera roll. Then they added the title and their name using the text feature.
The children created an additional four pages to their books.
On one page. they had to draw a snowman and then label the snowman using the text feature.
We made one page about what they thought their snowman might like to eat. They had to draw the plate with the items on the plate and label it once again.
The new feature to our snowmen books this year is on the fourth page! It is a new favorite of mine! The Explain Everything app allows you to record every stroke you make as you draw it and narrate your drawing as you build your picture. I thought it would be interesting to have the children describe or teach how to build a snowman. I think you will really enjoy them. I know I can’t watch them without smiling!
The last page is, of course, about the author! The children had to draw a picture of themselves and then add a few sentences about themselves.
The final step was to create a script for the first page describing the snowman. The children had to complete a few sentences describing their snowman and their favorite parts of the project!
Then we had to have the children record their script on the first page of their book as well as adding a comment or reading their work on each of the pages of their book. Then we saved the book to the camera roll as a video within the Explain Everything app. Love, love, love this app!
Then I was able to upload the video on the camera roll to Youtube and import it into the blog so that you can see it. I think I will also create a QR code for the video when we have completed them. You know you have a group of students who love technology when they ask you to turn everything into a QR code!
We have been working with some Augmented Reality apps in the classroom over the last few weeks. The newest one is AR Flashcards Shapes and Colors.
This is a really neat app that introduces colors and shapes in a fun way. The children hold the iPad over the trigger images and these lovely augmented images appear. You can change the color of the shape by tapping the color icons at the top of the screen. Lots of fun practice learning about colors and shapes.
There is a story in one of our beginning readers that talks about shapes. We decided to make our own book using these augmented images as a starting point!
The students searched our classroom for the different shapes and then we arranged our collections around the trigger image picture. Then we took a picture of the shapes within the app with the trigger image engaged. Next, we opened up the Strip Designer app, imported the picture and added a sentence about the shape to the page.
Then we opened up the Explain Everything app and imported our pages to make a book. The students volunteered to narrate the pages. We saved our book to the camera roll and uploaded our book to YouTube. This is the result!
This was a fun project! They had a great time searching for the shapes we needed and arranging them around the trigger image! Great practice and fun, too!
We have been having a lot of fun during the first few weeks of this school year! We have had a lot of fun creating a book using the iPad based on a story we have been working on in one of our readers.
The story focuses on introducing the school in the story. We decided to create our own book about our own school using the iPads.
We had a great time travelling all around the school taking pictures of the important sites in the school according to the children! Then we imported the pictures into an app called Strip Designer and added the text. Then we imported these pages into another app called Explain Everything to create our book. Then we recorded our voices reading the text. We saved our book to the camera roll and exported it to Youtube. We hope you enjoy our efforts!
I have also been experimenting with Aurasma again this year. This app allows us to attach files to a trigger image such as a picture. When you view the picture within the Aurasma app it triggers the attached file to display. You need to follow our class on the Aurasma app to see the Aura.
To see our auras, please follow the following steps.
1.Download the app Aurasma on your device. It works on iPads, and iPhones. I believe there is also an android version. The app is free. It will ask you if you want to register. You do not need to register to see the auras.
2. Search for our channel and follow it. Our site is
mrsantonsclass or mrsantonsgradeone
You can do this by choosing the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen. Type in either site name. Our channel should come up! (I have tried it on every device in my house and had my family try it so it should work!) Then choose the Follow button. The text will change to Following.
(image from KPM Doodles)
You should then see a little snapshot of the picture above.
3. You can then trigger the aura by choosing the option at the bottom of your screen that has the four corners (the one in the middle).
Aim your device at the trigger image above on this screen on your computer and you will see the aura activate with a purple swirl. The attached file should then display. The attached file is the book that we created above. It is pretty cool! Now you have two ways of viewing the same book!.
We tried it out this morning in our classroom with my iPad and the pictures! Lots of fun!
As we create other auras this year we will share them to this channel.
You can share the aura by choosing the share button. You can share it via email or twitter.
I have also shared the book on our Twitter site. Our twitter address is @mrsantonsclass.
I have added the twitter feed to the blog on the right hand side! You can see some of our tweets.
Today we tweeted about the Global Read Aloud 2014. We have joined with a large group of teachers worldwide who are completing an author study of the Peter Reynolds stories. This week’s book is I’m Here. We watched the trailer about the book. Then we posted about it using the Global Read Aloud hashtag. You can see our tweet in the twitter feed on the side of the blog. We are hoping to connect with other classrooms in the world and find out what they think about the books too!
Isaak’s Mom has voluteered to help us with our Twitter page. We have started sharing our news on the twitter board and will soon be posting our tweets on our Twitter page on the computer!
Having lots of fun with technology! Definitely something to tweet about!
This is our Augmented Reality Alphabet Book! We think it is very cool! We have been working with the AR Flashcards app a lot this year! This book is a compilation of a lot of work!
The children each choose a letter of the alphabet and then scoured the room looking for items that begin with their letter’s sound.
Once they had a good collection of items we arranged them around the trigger picture for that letter in the AR Flashcards app! Then we opened up the app and took the picture of their collections when the trigger was activated! Very cool!
Then we used the Strip Designer app to import the pictures to create a page for each alphabet letter. We wanted to make an alphabet book to share with the kindergarten class!
We made a variety of pages using these pictures. We made pages with the trigger picture and other pictures using Doodle Buddy as well as taking pictures of items in the classroom or the school! Once the students got started they wanted to make more than one!
Then we decided that we needed the label the objects in our pictures. We used the text function in Strip Designer to add the captions to our pictures.
Then we took all the pages and imported them into another app called Explain Everything!
After we had the book put together with all the pages we had to record our voices on each page. Each student recorded their page!
Once the book was complete we saved it to the camera roll!
Then we watched and listened to our book! Too cool!
I uploaded the book to my channel on Youtube so we can share it with everyone! We think we might have made the very first Augmented Reality alphabet book!
Mrs. Anton's Class! 