"Hour of Code" comes to CAIS!

From this week's school newsletter, the Thursday Flash:

Sixth Grade Students Participate in Worldwide ‘Hour of Code’

During Computer Science Education Week, from December 9-15, millions of students are learning computer code during the "Hour of Code." The campaign was launched by nonprofit organization Code.org and is designed to get students interested in computer science. The goal of the worldwide campaign is to get 10 million students of all ages to participate in the Hour of Code.

CAIS sixth graders participated in the Hour of Code on Thursday, December 12. Educational Technology Coordinator Kerri Willa and math and science teacher Mark Churchill teamed up to bring students a one-hour introduction to coding. The interactive activity included a lesson on computer generated drawings, a coding challenge and a free form activity using what students learned during the lesson.

"The idea is to show students that anyone can learn the basics of programming," Kerri Willa said. "Understanding the power of computing is crucial to success in today’s world, and Mark and I were excited to introduce our students to and participate in this worldwide campaign," she continued.

What's Happening in Classroom Technology

Welcome to my first 2013-2014 newsletter on technology in the classroom at CAIS! Each month I will bring you a sampling of the exciting classroom projects that are happening in the area of technology. Read on to learn about what's been happening with tech this fall at CAIS! 

Building Better Digital Citizens
Our school-wide implementation of the Common Sense Media digital citizenship curriculum is now in full swing! In the lower school, lessons are taught in English classes; in the middle school, Common Sense Media lessons are taking place in advisory. Students have been studying topics ranging from choosing good keywords for online searches to learning about their digital footprint. In third grade, students kicked off their digital citizenship lessons by brainstorming what the words "Common Sense Media" meant to them. Coming soon: Chinese translations of key vocabulary and questions for each Common Sense lesson to allow students to discuss newly learned concepts in Chinese.

  

Koalas, Emus and Dingos, Oh My!

This fall we unveiled a new keyboarding program to our third, fourth and fifth graders called Typequick. (Fun fact: it was once used by our very own Pete Moore with his students during his former life as a technology teacher in Australia!) In Typequick, students build keyboarding skills while traveling around Australia accompanied by adorable native Australian animals. Third through fifth grade English teachers have been busy introducing Typequick to their students in class. The new program is getting rave reviews from kids, who enjoy its video game-like features that make learning to type more fun!

A New Spin on Paperback Chinese Books

Kindergarten and first grade students and teachers are using technology to transform traditional paperback Chinese books into interactive, multimedia reading experiences. Using the Educreations iPad app, students and teachers take photos of the book pages and record themselves reading the books aloud. The digital storybook is automatically saved online for public access. Students can access these books at home using links that teachers email to their parents. In addition, teachers attach QR codes linked to the online storybooks to the back of the paperback books. Students use iPads at their classroom listening station to scan the QR code and read the digital storybook. See below to watch a Kindergarten student in action!

Not Your Mother's Book Report
Book shares have taken on new life this year in Jake Sproull's sixth grade English Humanities class! As Jake has continued to innovate the integration of iPads to his curriculum, he has developed a new take on an old project: each month students are using a different tech tool to report on their independent reading. For their first book project of the year, students used iMovie to make a trailer designed to entice people to read their book. Each student had to incorporate basic literary elements such as theme, characters, a plot summary and setting to their iMovie trailer. "It definitely made it a more interesting and authentic way to share books," said Jake. See below to view an example of a student's iMovie book project.

Middle School Multimedia Essay Project

This year, seventh and eighth graders are experimenting with new ways to share their outdoor trip experiences. Seventh graders used iMovie to make short slideshows highlighting their trips. Eighth graders participated in an "Outdoor Trip Essay Press Release Event" in which they read their trip essays aloud and fielded questions from an audience of classmates, then created and edited videos of these presentations. In both seventh and eighth grades, students posted their videos online and created QR codes linked to the videos. Finally, students printed out their QR codes together with their essays. Click here to see a sample of a student essay. Don't forget to scan the QR code with your smartphone to watch the video! 

Fall CUE Gets High Marks from Teachers

On October 25-26, four CAIS teachers (Kimberly Reid, Ryan Hughes, Susan Sherman and Jake Sproull) joined our educational technology coordinators for two days of learning about teaching with technology in sunny Napa Valley. Mark your calendars for the next great opportunity for ed tech PD: the fantastic Annual CUE Conference in Palm Springs, CA, on March 20-22, 2014!

Tech Tool of the Week: Pinyin Learning App 儿童拼音游戏-细菌大挑战HD

This week's featured technology tool is an iPad app for learning Pinyin called 儿童拼音游戏-细菌大挑战HD, which translates to "Children's Alphabet Game - Bacterial Challenge". Here at Chinese American International School, our first graders have been busy practicing their Pinyin using this fun app. Students listen while Mandarin Chinese Pinyin syllables are pronounced. Meanwhile, floating bacteria (each labeled with a Pinyin syllable) move across the screen. Children must tap on the bacteria that corresponds to the sound they heard in order to "kill" the bacteria. In this way students can practice their spelling in Pinyin. Skills covered by the game include recognizing the full range of Pinyin syllables from simplest to most complex, including all four tones, as well as spelling commonly used Chinese characters. Clearing all levels of the game indicates a full grasp of the Hanyu Pinyin content. Our first graders aren't quite there yet, but it's only a matter of time!

Below are screenshots of the app:

 

 

Check out this first grader's excitement as he progresses through the game levels! 

Tech Tool of the Week: Catch Me If You Can!

Catch Me If You Can! Primer 1
level with simplified characters.
Topic: restaurant phrases.

This week's featured technology tool is a set of Mandarin learning apps created by none other than one of our very own parents here at Chinese American International School! "Catch Me If You Can!" is a series of games designed for children or adults with some knowledge of Chinese.

In the Primer 1 level, students practice
vocabulary used in corresponding
Level 1/2 games.

In each game, students listen to and “chase after” Chinese words and phrases to create sentences. These words and phrases are drawn from a single topic of interest, and different versions of the app exist for different topics. (For example, topics include classroom, cooking, restaurant, shopping, swimming, and even losing a tooth!) 

The app lets students listen to the sound of each word and see how words are used in making different sentences that are idiomatic and colloquial. While the goal of the game is to "catch" all the phrases and sentences presented, students have the ability to advance at their own pace and replay words/phrases as needed. In addition, students can choose to listen to the phrase word by word, listen to the whole sentence, or have only visual cues. Finally, students can also freely explore the sound of each word and try to make phrases and sentences independently.

The inspiration for app developer Tiny Watt Games in creating these games was found in a problem faced by students at our school. Learning a foreign language in a classroom setting means that students have limited opportunity to hear how words and phrases are used in daily conversation. By playing Catch Me If You Can!, students can improve their Mandarin acquisition by increasing their exposure to spoken Chinese.

Level 1 is more complex than Primer 1
and requires students to listen to and
"chase after" Chinese words and
 phrases to create sentences.

Catch Me If You Can! Level 1
with simplified characters,
restaurant theme.

Catch Me If You Can! is available in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. In addition, for each topic, several versions of the app exist: P1 (Primer 1), L1 (Level 1), and, in some cases, L2 (Level 2). The P1 level is free and is designed to give students the ability to practice the vocabulary used in the corresponding Level 1/Level 2 games. Level 1 is designed for 3rd-5th graders learning in a Mandarin immersion environment; Level 2 is more appropriate for 4th-6th graders.

To learn more about these fantastic apps, check out the Tiny Watt Games blog. Here you will find more information about the apps as well as all the phrases used in each game. Special thanks to CAIS parent and Tiny Watt Games founder Pei Yu for developing this fantastic series of apps and allowing us to use it on our school iPads with our students!

Tech Tool of the Week: GoAnimate

This week's featured technology tool is a terrific, easy-to-use tool for creating animated videos called GoAnimate. 

GoAnimate allows users to quickly and easily make videos consisting of animated characters. It features easy-to-use drag and drop tools and libraries filled with a variety of characters, props, backgrounds, and music. You can create your own characters and record yourself speaking, or use text-to-speech actors in over 20 languages. There is nothing to draw or download; everything is ready for you to use. Story lines can be as simple or complex as you wish, and with so many different options it is easy to differentiate for different students' needs.

Here at Chinese American International School, several of our Mandarin teachers are using GoAnimate with their students to create digital stories in Chinese. In our 5th grade Chinese classes, students recently completed a unit that focused on vocabulary related to the idea of "lost and found": losing an item and then trying to find it. Students created a dialogue in which one character loses an item and has to question other characters to try to find the missing item. After composing their scripts, students created a GoAnimate video to bring their skit to life. While GoAnimate does not support Pinyin input, students were able to copy the Chinese text from the typed version of their script and paste it into speech bubbles in their GoAnimate videos. The final step was to record their own voices reading the script. Using GoAnimate adds new dimensions to a project that was once strictly paper-and-pencil based. It allows children to creatively express their ideas, practice speaking Chinese, and create a final product that can be easily shared with a wider audience. Check out some samples of the finished products below!

What could you use GoAnimate for in your classroom? GoAnimate videos would be great for flipped classrooms, teacher lessons, student presentations, creating video tutorials, creative writing, and more. Here is a list of some other ways that schools around the globe are using GoAnimate with their students.

GoAnimate includes both a free and a paid version. It also offers special school subscriptions that allow teachers to set up classes and student accounts, keep student work private (if desired), monitor and review student work, allow downloading and sharing only with teacher approval, give kids access to characters/backgrounds/props that are school safe, and more. Our school subscribed for a site license. For more information on GoAnimate for Schools, click here.

To learn more about how to create a GoAnimate video, check out GoAnimate's YouTube playlist of "How-To's and Tutorials". Below is a short tutorial that includes a brief introduction to GoAnimate:

Tech Tool of the Week: Chinese Writer

Chinese Writer app by trainchinese

Here at Chinese American International School in San Francisco, where half of our students' daily instruction is conducted in Mandarin, one of our top priorities in educational technology is to identify tech tools for Chinese language instruction and practice. One of the tools that has been widely used by our Chinese faculty this year is an iPhone/iPad app called Chinese Writer. Chinese Writer is a game in which students can practice writing characters, study stroke order, and listen to pronunciation of characters. Its options for customizing characters for student practice are extremely valuable for our teachers.

In Chinese Writer, students tap on characters that fall from the top of the screen. Once they tap the character, they must quickly draw the character using the correct stroke order. While students are writing the character, they are also listening to an audio recording which allows them to listen to and practice the pronunciation of the character. After each game, students can review what they practiced and view stroke order diagrams if they need extra help remembering how to write a certain character.

Screenshots of the Chinese Writer app

Chinese Writer comes with its own, ready-made sets of characters that are divided into packs by difficulty level. In the free version, you can access several hundred of these characters. Additional character packs require an in-app purchase. Here at CAIS, we chose not to use the pre-set character packs but rather to create our own sets that are customized for our students' Chinese curriculum. In order to accomplish this, we set up a subscription on Chinese Writer's parent company website, trainchinese.com. Next we gathered vocabulary lists from our Lower School Chinese faculty. Based on these lists, we then created our own, customized "character packs", one for each grade level. We then downloaded the character sets from trainchinese directly into Chinese Writer. Students enjoy racing against the clock to write the characters in time before they fall to the bottom! This app has proven to be a valuable tool for practicing characters in our Chinese classrooms this year.

To see Chinese Writer in action, check out the brief demo video below:

Tech Tool of the Week: Wallwisher

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! This week's feature is an incredibly fun, versatile, FREE tool called Wallwisher. Wallwisher is an online multimedia bulletin board. It allows students to post their thoughts on a common topic using electronic sticky notes on a shared digital wall.

Think of Wallwisher like an electronic corkboard. You create a board, then share that address with your students, who can then go on to the board and simply click on it to add their comments. Students can not only add comments but also links to images, videos, or websites. And they can do all this without ever having to sign in! Best of all, it works on both laptops and iPads!

What can you do with Wallwisher? There are many potential applications of this tool in the classroom. For instance, you could use Wallwisher to pose a question, get students' answers, and give them feedback - all on the same page. Check out Wallwisher.com for great examples of different kinds of walls. Here is an example of a wall where a teacher posted a Word of the Day and asked each student to write a sentence using that word.  Other possible uses include: collecting feedback from students; making lists; sharing videos; and brainstorming ideas. You could use Wallwisher for collaboration to share ideas, resources, and thoughts on a topic. You could use it to create a KWL chart and ask students to share what they know and what they want to know about a topic. Lots of different possibilities!


To learn more about using Wallwisher, check out the video tutorial below.