Week 2 Assignment

Promote Student Engagement and Achievement (and cover your standards) 

with Shutterfly's Photo Story App

Shutterfly is an amazing website that offers everything from printing out individual pictures, making photo books, creating your own cards, stationary and calendars and making your own photo gifts such as magnets, iPad cases, lunch boxes and coffee mugs. Shutterfly also has its own interactive App that is used in many classrooms. Shutterfly's App “is to help teachers engage students and promote student achievement by giving students an easy to use, multi-media tool to facilitate learning and creatively express themselves.” 

While listening to the webinar, that you can find by clicking on the above link, I learned so much about this app and plan on using it in my future classroom. It has many benefits for students, teachers and schools some of the benefits are that it is fun and easy to use, it is engaging to the students and gives them pride once it is published. For teachers it supports curriculum standards such as the Common Core Standards, State Standards and ISTE Standards. It is ideal for project based learning to start as a whole group lesson and then each student is engaged within their own story. As I said before, it is FREE to use for schools. It is adaptable for any grade level and subject matter. Its also a great way to showcase student progress and achievement to parents. 

Bits and Bytes promoted this webinar through their blog. They provided an opportunity for growth and learning for their teachers and students in a supportive environment. The had access to iPads for all the students before beginning the project for a class of first graders. They demonstrated two different lessons for an English language arts lesson. The first thing they needed to do was meet with the teachers and watch a webinar to learn about the app. Next, they brainstormed ideas to tie in the standards that needed to be met. Once that was done they developed a lesson plan which incorporated specific features of the Shutterfly App. Finally, they planned for the technology to be accessible and also called for support in the classroom.

Once they gathered with students they started to build background knowledge for their topic. They brainstormed ideas and put them down on large pieces of paper for all the students to see. They explained that each topic would be put on a different page and broke it down from there. The students were sent back to their seats to start their journal writing activity which would later be used to help organize each of their pages. Once the journal entries were complete the teachers showed the children how to login, choose a theme or layout, how to add text, take pictures, add a doodle, and how to edit and change background page colors. The teachers created step by step charts which served as a visual reminder for the students. At the closing of the project all the students families were invited to come and celebrate the great accomplishment their first graders had achieved. The best part about this project was that it could be sent digital to family members that were in different states.

 The student impact was wonderful overall. Their engagement while using the app was 100% and they were excited when it was time to work on their book. It promoted creative thinking and problem solving. I found it interesting that the ESL students thrived in this setting and their progress was greatly improved in their speaking and writing skills. The teachers did learn some key points while piloting this app. Using a checklist of tasks for students definitely helps with management.  Also, projects can be incorporated into long range plans and be spread out over a few months time. Finally, publishing the students work was critical to the projects success and a must have moving forward. I learned so much about the Shutterfly App from this webinar and will definitely be using it in my future classroom.

Learning Outcomes

#2. Learn ways to promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding.

-I believe that this learning outcome was met because while learning about Shutterfly during the Webinar I was taking notes. I also went to Shutterfly.com to see if I could create a book. I did not download the app on my phone because I thought it might be to hard on such a small screen. Their website was definitely user friendly which makes me believe that their app would be an easy tool for any grade to use.
#5. Demonstrate an understanding of the use of assistive and adaptive technologies and other digital resources to personalize and differentiate learning activities for every student

-Using the Shutterfly App, every student is allowed to create their own book, in their own style and way. Having a classroom full of students with different learning styles, I believe that this app can be used for any of them. The students that are the higher achievers can go further with their books where as the students that need extra help that may be in inclusion will be able to complete it as well.