Hooray! Email finally works for Story Kit

Yesterday was one of those days when I LOVED teaching and yes I am screaming!  The students were so excited as Mr. Mark, our TST, helped the students send me their Story Kit story.  It was so much fun to see their faces light up as I had my email account open on the Smartboard, and they saw their name come through with the story. Here are some of the comments you could here throughout the class.

-Hooray now I can write more stories because I can send them to Mrs. Caplin.

-I want to see my friends stories.

-Look at all the amazing titles.

-It was well worth the wait-but the wait about killed me.

As their stories loaded into my email, I opened them up so the students could see each others. That is where the amazing conversations started including some great questions

-How did you do that graphic?
-Look how Bobby used figurative language.
-How did you mix the art tool with imported graphic?
-I can visualize that in my mind from the BIG words.
-Can we add background color to all the slides?
-Look at the lead that Cindy wrote-I am hooked.
-I went to the same place on vacation I think I will write my own story.

I now have all their digital stories on my own laptop.  I will be able to assess them digitally and my goal is not to have to print them off.  Also the coolest part in my opinion is next week,  Mark is going to teach me how to download the stories to my district web page.  We are going to put them on a password protected link so all the students will be able to see each other stories.  What an amazing tool for them to see their friends stories as well as the parents will be able to read other students stories.  I am so excited that the entire writing process from start to finish was completed on their iPod--can you tell?? On a side note, I would love to share some of the stories with the blogging world so I will be working on learning that process-keep checking back.

Bump in the Road

I knew it would happen at some point with technology. Honestly I would have thought it would have happened sooner than now. We have completed our Story Kit stories and the students are ready to submit them through email however, that is the problem.  Email is very difficult in my perspective with student iPods. I want them to be able to email me their projects, but I don't want them to be able to receive emails from anyone but me.  After much conversation and lots of support from Mark we thought we had it figured out.  The students tried to submit their final story this past Thursday and the email system did not work at my school.  The crazy thing is that the email addresses worked in other buildings in my district as well from Central Office.  How many times has that happened to you with technology?  Ask my friend, Bill at Literate Lives about our crazy technology glitches. The difference now is that I value the iPods as an integral part of our instruction in the classroom, the students ability to create a story on the iPod as well as the opportunity to use a new app.  I am frustrated but not ready to give up which is what I would have done five years ago. A HUGE thanks goes out to Mark and Mike for their help on this glitch! I know this glitch will get figured out for our class, so I can post their wonderful stories in a future blog.