Student Work: Defining Terms

LITERACY: DEFINING TERMS

In English Class, the book, The Crucible was filled with symbolism.  Therefore understanding many terms, like Communism and Theocracy helps students build a foundation and background knowledge before they even begin reading the book.

This 8th grade student used Educreations, an interactive whiteboard app to describe his understanding of the two terms.

Click here to view his movie: Communism and Theocracy

(Educreations movies upload and are hosted directly to that website- Students are also able to create Educreations movies on the website itself, rather than the iPad. To share his work, he emailed the link to his movie to Mr. Hellerstein)

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Math and Educreations- a perfect combination

Mrs. Perachi - Math
So far, in math class, the iPad has been used mostly for organization, demonstrating knowledge, and study skills. The iCal app has been very helpful for students entering daily homework. They have also been able to use it to enter long term assignments. They set reminders for themselves. They have also set an assignment to repeat daily so that it shows on their list of assignments every day as a reminder to continue working on it. Long term assignments are often the ones that students forget to complete. The option of repeating an assignment has helped students remember that something is due.

Evernote has also helped with organization. Students often have binders that are overflowing and papers are not put in the correct sections. With Evernote, students take completed notes from my webpage and save them in a notebook in Evernote. This has also assisted in helping them study. They have a notebook with all of the notes from each section that they can refer to.

In addition to Evernote, we have been using Educreations and Explain Everything to create lessons that students can use to help them study for assessments. Educreations and Explain Everything allow students to record themselves writing and speaking. They have been recording themselves solving problems and explaining their thinking as they work. These lessons can be used later when studying. It is more engaging than reading through their notes or looking in the textbook. In addition, they have created flip charts for vocabulary. They record themselves writing the word, saying the definition, and also writing some examples. Similar to flashcards, these lessons can be used to quiz themselves before a test. The students can pause the recording, try and come up with the definition and example, and then play it to check for accuracy. Using technology can be more exciting than flashcards and they are also getting the auditory feedback that they do not with a flashcard.

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