Greenheart Ship Designs 2013-2014!

Earlier in the year when I was super gung-ho and diligent about getting Skype in the Classroom routinely into my classrooms, I discovered this interesting Skype lesson hosted by Greenheart Ship Designs called Designing the Green Ships of the Future.

Check out this video from Al Jazeera that Greenheart shared which explains the need for these projects:

  (Click here if it won't play)

We connected our Intermediates with the project and opened it to students voluntarily. Only those who felt they had something to contribute worked on the project and would be invited to the follow up Skype call. Then life happened and months passed. Now, finally!, we are ready to connect those successful student designers with the Greenheart people themselves and bring a real-world relevance to our eco-friendly shipping adventure.

The photos of their designs are too large to send to our wonderful Greenheart contact, Gavin, via email so here's my solution! Enjoy, and stay tuned for an update on how our Skype finale goes... :)

UPDATE: June 19, 2014 Well today was the day! Almost all our designers made it to our Skype call, despite it being the morning of Grade 8 Graduation and an acceptable day for more than half of them to NOT be here. Our call started promptly at 9:15 am (14:15 pm in the UK where Gavin was). After months of planning and missed dates, the students were nervous but excited to finally hear from a real grownup working in this career that they had an opportunity to contribute to. As a teacher, it was amazing to connect students to such an authentic learning opportunity. It was also fabulous to hear how so many of the ideas the students came up with through their independent research, discussion, and creativity were truly viable and even already being implemented. Gavin gave quality feedback on more than element of each design and even students who were originally reticent about sharing on camera chose to read and talk about their designs. Below I've included the videos of our call, and within each group, their discussion and feedback.

The Highlights Reel!

Cole & Stephan (Grade 7)

Amber & Diana (Grade 7)

Kristen & Sarah (Grade 7)

Alexa & Sanobar (Grade 8)

After talking with Alexa, Gavin provides feedback for our absent Grade 8 designers Kayla, Sam, Sarah & Skyler, as well!

Kayla & Sam (Grade 8)

Sara & Skyler (Grade 8)

(Apologies to Sara who was actually present in the building but did not realize she was one of the VIP groups invited to the call!) :(

Josiah & Mohammed (Grade 8)

(no explanation provided)

Saihaj & Shakira (Grade 8)

Hiba, Caitlyn, Ben, & Kaitlyn (Grade 8)

Djellza & Sukhdeep (Grade 7)

Phew! So many great designers! After receiving such encouraging feedback, we had the opportunity to ask a few questions of our own...


This was a wonderful experience for students and teacher alike and I hope to be able to continue connecting with Greenheart and similar authentic learning opportunities via Skype in the future! Many thanks to Gavin and all the students who participated! :)

Here's the collection of live tweets from our special event, via Storify...

Some Student Work Samples

So much to write about, hopefully once report cards are handled I'll find time to debrief everything we've been doing and what I've learned about it! As for right now, part of our requirements is to share some of the student work that was created with the iPads, so here's a few things for everyone so that I can provide the link to the gracious powers-that-be! ;)

In Science we have been creating nonfiction books about animals. One of the requirements is that the students produce their own labelled diagram. We used Skitch to create a sample together and then they created their own. Here's an example:

Another thing we did was a text features search of non-fiction books. Students learned about various text features and then worked in partners with an iPad on a text features photo hunt. They needed to find an example from a book of their choice of their assigned feature, take a picture of it and list their names and the title of the book. We chose to use Explain Everything to create this.

Students also created drawings to be used later in BookCreator. They used an app called Colorific to make good copies of the pencil sketches they had planned.

In Drama, students recorded radio plays as a supplement to the Health unit they were covering in their homeroom using AudioBoo2. One of the young students in this group traditionally struggles with working in groups or completing assignments. However, the chance to record on AudioBoo and share with a wider audience seems to have inspired her to push past her challenges and participate.

listen to ‘Emilie,Cece & jina stop smoking!!!!’ on Audioboo

An older group used AudioBoo to record a rap about the character trait their class was assigned to teach during a monthly assembly. I shared it in a early post which you can find here.

That's just a few of the things we've been working on. Thanks for tuning in! :)

Responsibility Rap

listen to ‘Responsibility Rap’ on Audioboo

Audioboo for iPhone

Here's an example of a rap created by our Grade 7 class around the Character Education Trait: Responsibility. Each class prepares for an assembly around a different trait and the Sevens decided to create a short movie and rap. This was before we had purchased iMovie unfortunately, so technical difficulties limited the quality during final presentation somewhat. :(

They recorded the rap on the iPad but using an iPhone app called "Audioboo" (not to be confused with the iPad app of exactly the same name that does NOT allow for recording audio but only listening). It has an option to post directly to this blog, apparently, because I was surprised to see it posted here! LOL

This is what the iPad version app icon looks like (less the title)

We have yet to discover how to pull the "boo" off the program for an offline copy. However, it appear Audioboo has released a version 2 which supports downloading. The new iPhone version's icon is IDENTICAL which is annoying when I have iPads with both apps installed. It also appears that the user account with the boos from version 1 does not grandfather in to version 2 (although it accepts the same Twitter login, which is convenient, no record of the recorded boos are listed that I can see, at least).

Record screen from Version 1

Record screen from Version 2

I discovered this app when I observed Mrs.Wideen using it to improve oral reading fluency during Literacy stations with her Grade 1/2s. We are in the process of incorporating it into Library Literacy stations as well. I'm finding I need to train one or two "Station Masters" who can then train others when it is their turn to visit the station for the first time. Finding leveled books in the Library for an independent reading "just right" fit seems to be a bigger challenge for the primaries than first expected, so we are working with the homeroom teacher to solve this issue as well.