Year: 2024

7-minute read




Mr. Greg Warren
Kindergarten Teacher / Early Ed Influencer / Guest Blogger

We all know how much technology in the classroom can engage and excite our students. I mean, do you all know how much people love Pokemon Go?! Did you know that Pokemon Go uses augmented reality technology? Imagine if you could bring that augmented reality technology into your classroom with a research-based technology tool.

Technology In The Classroom: Augmented Reality With Alive Studios
Eight years ago, I was introduced to Alive Studios, an amazing company. This company created 3D augmented reality tools called Letters alive® and Math alive® to help students improve their reading and math skills. After seeing the technology at a conference, I had to have it.

So, basically, augmented reality is 3D without glasses. Letters alive brings letters and sounds to life in amazing 3D using animals. For each letter, an animal comes to life, and you learn uppercase and lowercase letters, sounds, and letter formation. You can then use the animal to build interactive sentences!

Letters alive® In The Classroom
Eight years ago I was fortunate enough to bring Letters alive into my classroom. I knew my students would love this technology in the classroom because the tech blew my mind…so I could only imagine a 5-year-old reaction to the software. But the response from my kids was even more than I dreamed of!

We started using the original Letters alive Plus in conjunction with our science of reading-aligned ABC BOOTCAMP curriculum, and the results were astounding. We compared the data from ABC BOOTCAMP without Letters alive and the data after using Letters alive, and we found a 48% increase in letter recognition and a 112% increase in sound fluency. Below is the data from my classroom for over 4 years. Alive Studios also has independent research results showing the effectiveness of the software, and the software is research-based and backed by teachers, literacy experts, and more!

After seeing the amazing results of ABC BOOTCAMP and Letters alive together, we have partnered with Alive Studios to combine the best tools into a new resource called Letters alive 8.0. This combines Letters alive with ABC BOOTCAMP! You get the new Zoo Keeper ABC Boot Camp in an exclusive Zoo Keeper theme that’s only available when purchasing Letters alive!

How Do You Use Augmented Reality In The Classroom?
We use Letters alive in a whole group setting to practice our letters and sounds. We build and read sentences but use them during our center/workstation/time. Yes, I let my students use the technology on their own. After all, it is THEIR technology! In these videos, you see the students using CVC word picture cards (from my What Does The Fox Say CVC word creation) and building the words using Letters alive! As they place the cards, the software says the sound, then the students push the letters together, and the software BUILDS the word on the screen (in 3D) and reads them the word! So they’re practicing blending CVC words. And then they write the words. They can also do word families, blends, and digraphs.

Click Here to Learn More About Letters alive

Technology In The Classroom: Math alive®
With Math alive, students can build number sense, add, subtract, compare numbers, and more! And it all happens in 3D thanks to the augmented reality technology! The exclusive Zoo Keeper 123 Boot Camp is included with Math alive and the results are astounding! Letters alive and Math alive as sold together as Learning alive™. Look at these before and after case study results using Zoo Keeper 123 Boot Camp:

Click Here to Learn More About Math alive

Technology In The Classroom: Rugs alive™
Yes, it’s true. Alive Studios has classroom rugs or carpets that also use augmented reality technology, so the animals in the rug come to life using a free app. Check out this cool tidbit: this rug is THE FIRST one ever made. True story. The first. And now, Alive Studios has completely redesigned the rugs to make them even better.

The new rugs were designed with teacher input to be more kid-friendly (and classroom-friendly). And guess what? I got the FIRST ONE to be put into a classroom! And don’t worry—I still have the original one! The new rug has blue in the middle, and the logo has been replaced with seven animal habitats! One of the best features of the rug is the animals because it makes sitting on the carpet easier. My directions to the class are either “Put your feet on an animal” or “Sit on an animal,” and the kids know immediately where to sit!

The rugs work with a free app and come with Habitat Cards and Animal/Habitat Fact Sheets. You scan the Habitat Card and animal, and the animal appears on your device. Then, you can move the animal and place it anywhere in the classroom!

Click Here to Learn More About Rugs alive

Technology In The Classroom: Journals alive™
Alive Studios also offers My Letters alive Journals and My Math alive Journals. These journals allow students to work independently on letters, sounds, and math skills using the FREE Journals alive app with 3D augmented reality.

Click Here to Learn More About Journals alive

So, that’s how we use Letters alive and augmented reality in our classroom to increase achievement and engagement while working on literacy and math skills! After using this program for 8 years, I can vouch for the effectiveness of these tools and the fun and engagement they bring! This is a MUST HAVE classroom resource approved by Mr. Greg!!!

Video length: 15:36
Includes history of student engagement



Stephanie Dowlearn and Gretchen Doll
Educational Consultants / Early Ed Teachers

Join Stephanie and Gretchen, two former early ed teachers, as they discuss five common challenges facing early education and take a deeper dive into student engagement. In this second episode, Stephanie and Gretchen walk through the history and importance of engagement and they leave you with practical solutions and resources for your classroom.

The 5 Early Education challenges that are being discussed in this VLOG series:

Early Literacy
Student Engagement
Math
Student Well-Being
Special Education
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<Outline and Partial Transcription:>

“Engagement in the Classroom: A Look Back and a Path Forward”

I. Introduction
A. Introduction of the topic of engagement in classrooms
B. Importance of engagement in learning
C. Overview of the history of engagement in American classrooms

II. The Evolution of Engagement in American Classrooms
A. The first speller and its limitations
B. McGuffey’s Reader and its impact
C. The effects of technology on engagement

III. The Challenges of Engagement in Modern Classrooms
A. The impact of technology on classroom engagement
B. Instant gratification and its effects on student engagement
C. The difficulty of engaging students during COVID-19

IV. The Future of Engagement in American Classrooms
A. The importance of social interaction and conversation
B. The role of technology in promoting engagement
C. Strategies for improving engagement in modern classrooms

V. Conclusion
A. Recap of the importance of engagement and its evolution
B. Discussion of the challenges and opportunities for improving engagement
C. Final thoughts and call to action for improving engagement in American classrooms.

Hi, I’m Stephanie, and I’m Gretchen. We’re with Alive Studios.

Today, we’re back to discuss the second challenging problem in classrooms across America, and that is engagement. According to an ED Week research survey, 70% of teachers said their students misbehave more now than before COVID. Engagement is so important because if they’re not engaged, they’re not learning.

One of the things that teachers are concerned about is how to improve engagement in classrooms. And that’s something that has been a question for a long time. But you know, our world has changed, and I think it’s good to look back at where schools started and what they started doing in America in the 1700s.

So, we will show you what engagement has looked like over the past 100 years. Well, since 1734, I believe, was the first one, Noah Webster wrote a speller and published it back in 1734. It was called something like the Grammar Institute of National Something. I don’t remember, but it was long, so if you can imagine being in a classroom, your kids would lose engagement by the time you got to the end of the name of that book, so they called it the Blue Book speller. It taught words, letters, and sounds. The stories were patriotic, and they were about citizenship. That was what kids started with. That was the very first speller in America. Then we got to McGuffey’s Reader, and it was more entertaining. It has lovely pictures and discusses phonics, which were letters, then words. It was a moral book. So the stories were Moral Stories, and that and the blue-backed reader were what American students had in the 1800s to 1900s.

Why is engagement different nowadays? That’s what we want to take a look at.

If you think about it, back in the day, that was what a schoolroom looked like; everybody was in rows, and you had certain textbooks. Then came along technology, and things changed. We have lots of fun things here that probably are like a walk down memory lane for some people who might be watching, and for some people, it might be pure history that you’ve only ever seen in a museum. That is not the case for me. I have been through them all. Oh, the Oregon Trail! Yeah, I remember playing that in elementary school.

There have been so many changes in technology from way back when until now. We have amazing computers, and right in our hands, we have phones that can do pretty much anything. Technology has changed, which has an effect, and that effect is huge. I’ve heard this, and you’ve heard this when we’re at conferences or when we’re at training.

Kids are no longer engaged because they are constantly staring at a screen. Everything is instant gratification, you know when they are watching TV or watching their videos and want their games to do something. They get instant gratification, and so as a teacher, when you’re in front of the classroom, trying to pull things out of them and trying to get them to listen. It has become harder and harder, especially since COVID. I had to do a song and a dance and my songs and my dances weren’t working anymore! We tried everything!

At home, kids have access to technology 24/7 if they want it. Unfortunately, when you go to the classroom, there is also a lot of screen time, and kids are being subjected to enormous amounts of technology at home in the classroom. People are hesitant to want to talk about bringing more technology into the classroom.

Well, and the reason is I think, of course, you hear all over the news that you know kids being on-screen time is not good if it’s all the time, and so parents and teachers don’t want their kids on the screen on screen all the time. They’re losing that social interaction they used to have; if you notice in these pictures and the ones before, they are isolated, and we need to engage children in conversations and social interaction.

How do you do that with technology?

You use it for a good reason and get kids talking again and working together. How do we do that, though? You know education has changed. The challenge of educating kids is already tough. But with all of our technology, things have evolved, and just like technology evolves, education has to constantly evolve to meet the needs of our students. I’ve been looking at different research. I found some interesting things you may already know, but it’s worth repeating.

So, number one, if a child is feeling emotional trauma or emotional stress or they don’t feel safe. For whatever reason, they are uncomfortable, their brain shuts down for learning, and it’s hard to get through that gate. The amygdala is your gatekeeper, and when your instruction is not getting through because the gate is closed, kids are not learning.

The way that we have to engage students these days is to make sure that their needs are met as much as possible in the classroom and let them know. It’s a safe environment. The next thing we can do is make sure that when we’re introducing something, we’re introducing something that is a surprise or really evoking an emotional response. Aha moments that everybody talks about because once your brain intakes that aha moment, it goes to another part of the brain.

That part of the brain, I believe it’s the hippocampus, decides this information is interesting, entertaining, and novel enough for me to keep. Do I want to know more, or am I going to discard it? And we must get past the amygdala and then the hippocampus detector. And that is how you can begin engaging students with that novel surprise, something different and something kids can relate to.

How do we do that? We need to make them feel safe, and most kids would say that their teachers are safe with them. We’re all doing a great job making our kids feel safe and in a welcoming environment for them to learn. We are all doing a really good job of making kids feel safe at school, but sometimes, you can’t do anything about what goes on at home, but when they get to school, that’s the time when they can feel good about themselves and begin to learn. That’s the beautiful part of having that relationship with your students. They can learn and grow under your watch.

Education has to evolve with the times.

We can’t keep sending home McGuffey readers or blue-backed spellers. We’ve got to do something different, and we have to make the technology we’re using purposeful because we don’t want stare and peck. We want something that kids can interact with.

Going back to the brain science part, we’re teaching, and that’s part of brain science, you know, it’s shown that the more connections they have, their hippocampus is going to say. “Oh, yeah, let me keep that information!” So, seeing these kids surprised and excited creates a wave of emotion that imprints and stays in their brains. So they’re hearing it. They’re seeing it. They’re experiencing learning, and we like to say that we make learning come alive.

And that’s what’s going to engage your kids. When you’re using 3D augmented reality from Alive Studios’ resources, it’s very different from virtual reality. In virtual reality, you go into another universe, usually with a headset on that shuts you out of the real world.

To the contrary, 3D augmented reality layers into the real world, making something abstract for kids become something real. They can interact with and think about when they’re young children, and they can interact and do things with our technology, creating that novel experience. That emotion, just being able to see a sentence come to life in front of you to see an animal and understand that animals make sounds, and letters make sounds too. It’s brilliant!

We have independent research that Dr. Tamara Ogletree performed at the University of West Georgia, and you can see the results here. The 90-day study showed a 48% increase in letter naming fluency, and letter sound fluency increased as well. But what was the most exciting was something that wasn’t even studied, right, Gretchen? It was just a side effect. The classroom management problems decreased. Some teachers even reported that students who were having extreme difficulty focusing on tasks and learning were engrossed in what was going on when Letters alive was in action.

So that’s great news! It’s going to help them learn. It’s going to help them grow as a reader, and it’s going to keep them engaged and have fewer problems or opportunities for misbehavior.

The main thing that we want you guys to know is just make it fun in your classrooms. And one of the ways that you can make things fun is with augmented reality and purposeful technology. Look for another chat in a month or two. Regarding math, because that is our next topic we’re going to be discussing.

We’ll see you next time!

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6-minute video
Includes FREE Downloadable Resource



Stephanie Dowlearn and Gretchen Doll
Educational Consultants / Early Ed Teachers

Join Stephanie and Gretchen, two former early ed teachers, as they discuss five common challenges facing early education and introduce an upcoming 5-part VLOG series. In this intro video, Stephanie and Gretchen walk thru how to use the Zoo Crew Alphabet Show which is a FREE early literacy resource with over 6 hours of educational and entertaining content.

And, be sure to watch until the end for free access to our downloadable Interactive Alphabet Chart (pdf), which directs you to the 26 Episodes of the Zoo Crew Alphabet Show.

Topics that are being discussed in our 5 part VLOG.

Student Engagement
Early Literacy
Math
Student Well-Being
Special Education
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<Partial Transcription:>

Hello! We are Stephanie and Gretchen, Education Consultants from Alive Studios!

Over the past year, we’ve talked to over a thousand teachers at 15 different conferences across the country. We’ve discovered that teachers face similar challenges, such as keeping students engaged and motivated, improving literacy and reading skills, and addressing low math scores.

Additionally, COVID has brought up concerns about student well-being and social-emotional learning. As a company, we have a unique approach that can help with all of these issues. Our company uses 26 lovable zoo animals to teach children letters, sounds, and more, using 3D augmented reality technology. This innovative approach makes a novel, brain-based connection and helps children learn in a fun and engaging way.

We offer resources for teachers with big or small budgets, including a FREE Interactive Alphabet Chart that leads to each of the 26 episodes of our Zoo Crew Alphabet Show. Each episode takes children on a tour through the Alive Studios Zoo in 3D augmented reality to explore a letter, its sound, and one of our lovable zoo animals.

Even if you don’t have our resources, you can still use our show to engage children and teach them about letters and sounds. The show is also available publicly, so children can learn and engage with their families at home. During COVID, we wanted to help teachers, so we created the show as a quick and easy way to give back to early educators.

All of our animals have a social-emotional story, and we have these 26 stories available as a free download here on our website.

We are committed to helping teachers improve their students’ reading and learning skills and want to hear from you about any specific struggles you are facing.

You can email us via our website under Education Consultants, or use the form below, and we’ll be happy to help you. If you’re struggling, chances are other teachers are too, and we want to help!

Follow us at Alive Studios Zoo across all social media platforms. We’ll be back next month to talk more about student engagement. Thanks for listening!

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Want to submit an idea for discussion? Message us!