Donna

Tool 11- YEA!!!!!!!

2011-07-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

I finished!!! Yea.

I have learned some new tools like Google Apps and the form tool for creating surveys. Wall wisher was another tool that I think can easily be used in the classroom to post opinions, thoughts, answers, or questions. I was happy to have a refresher on Animoto. The kids love putting these short videos together. I am really excited about having the ipads in the classroom. They will be useful for many things.

I would like for my students to create blogs this year. I would like to use the blogs to post their learning and showcase projects they have completed so they can be shared with others. I'm not sure how I will manage it all ,but I will try and learn many things along the way. The kids will love making their own Voki. The sound part makes it more interesting.

I don't think my vision has changed. I have always enjoyed using technology to enhance learning. Now I have more tools to use. I will now spend time going back and taking a closer look as some of the tools. I need to have a better understanding of how Diigo works. I think this will be a great place to store all my bookmarks.

The unexpected outcome was the test at the end. I don't like test!!!!!

It always amazes me as to how much is out there. I will go back and take a look at the courses offered on Atomic Learning for help and suggestions. I still have so much to learn.

Tool 10

2011-07-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

Digital Citizenship is very important. Just like we teach our students to be good citizens in the real world the same should apply to technology. Students need to be aware there are people out there that are not very nice. They need to be told what to do if they get into this situation. Students should be taught the Cyber bullying happens. They need to know from the beginning never to give out any personal information. If they get into a site that does not look good. Get out of it!!!! They must look out for these bullies and report it as soon as possible. They must also make sure they are not doing any of the bullying. Students should also be taught that all information on the internet is not correct. They must use their brain and think about what they are reading. They must also find multiple sources to back up information. Just because you read something on the internet don't believe everything with out researching it more. Students should also be aware of what the Acceptable Use Policy for SBISD actually says. They need to read the document and understand there are consequences for violation of this policy. I like the Brain Pop on Digital Citizenship. I plan to show this to my students. G. Moore also presents a lesson(flip chart) to our students on this topic. We need to bring the topic up more than once. We should review with students throughout the year. We do not want them to start feeling too comfortable. Parents and students are required to sign the Acceptable Use Policy for SBISD. After going over the paper with students, I will encourage the kids to talk to their parents about the paper. If parents are willing they should also watch the Brain Pop clip.

Tool 9

2011-06-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

1. Why do you think it is important to tie the technology to the objective?

We have so much to cover in a year. Technology should be our friend. Once an objective is taught, technology can be used to reinforce the objective taught. Technology needs to be used as a tool to enhance student learning. When technology is tied to an objective it helps the students learn and remember. It keeps them alert and wanting to do more. They never have a chance to get bored with learning.

2. Why should we hold students accountable for the stations/centers?

Students need to know they are not just playing. The stations/centers serve to review objectives taught or to explore and learn new things. After completing a technology activity, they need to be able to explain what they did and how it might have helped them. All time is very valuable and needs to be accounted for.

3. Visit 2 of the applicable links to interactive websites for your content/grade level. Which sites did you like. How could you use them as stations? How can you hold the students accountable for their time in these stations?

I visited several sites. I liked Tutpup because it was a way for students to compete in fun with educational games against other kids. Students tend to be very competitive and love a challenge. This site had many ways to compete on quick recall of facts. I can see our kids really getting into this. You must register for an account. Students could use this in a station to practice quick recall of their facts and then record who won the game. They must also tell what set of facts they practiced. They could come back to this site and see if they made improvements. Then record that information too.

I also liked Learninggamesforkids.com. This site had leveled math games. In fourth grade it included algebraic terms, data and statistics, geometry terms, and math terms. What a great way to review geometry terms. Geometry terms have to memorized and students sometimes fail to take the time to do it. This would be a fun way of reviewing the terms and helping to remember them. After using this site in a center, the students should write what they learned. This will reinforce those terms again.

I also noticed several of the sites given under tool 9 were set up to be used with white boards. What a wonderful way to introduce an objective.

4. List two to three apps you found for the iPod Touch/iPad that you can use in your classroom. What do you see that station looking like? How can you hold the students accountable for their time in these stations?

Wow! There is so much out there. I went to the Ed Tech site to look for approved apps and found many that I liked. It was nice to have a list of those that other educations liked. You can spend hours looking. I'm glad our district has a place to share findings. Here is what I liked:
ABC Cursive- Kids can trace cursive letters for practice. Somehow cursive handwriting gets left out. Kids want to learn and they usually learn the letters incorrectly. This is a wonderful app for forming cursive letters correctly. After using this app, students could write a short paragraph in cursive showing what they learned.

I found several with Everyday Mathematics.

Baseball is used to practice multiplication facts. It can be played with another player. This app walks you through what you need to do. It has a total of 3 innings and will create outs so the other person has a chance. They score is determined by how large the product is to the problem that was given. Lots of fun. Once again students get to compete with a classmate. Once finished they would need to write what they did and record who won.

Top It deals two cards to each player. Then each player must find their sum and compare their sum to a partner using greater than, less than or equal signs. Scores are given for the correct sum and the highest sum. Great way to practice two skill: adding and comparing.

Equivalent Fractions is played alone. You must compare fraction cards to find a set of equivalent fractions. Points are given when a pair of equivalent fractions is found. I like that students can move cards side by side to see if they have a match.

5. What about other ways to use the iPod Touch/iPad? Share another way you can see your students using the device as a station.

When looking around at many apps, I found a stopwatch. I thought this would be great for teachers to use when giving DRA. Sometimes our stopwatches on the clipboards did not work correctly.

I loaded many familiar games like: Uno, Hearts, Checkers, Solitaire, Farkle, Tic Tac Toe, Bowling, and Sudoku2 just for fun. They are games that keep the mind sharp and are fun to play.

I can also see students using the ipad as a research tool. They can use it to look up information and create products with it. I also found a Dictionary app. This will come in handy to look up words student don't know when reading. There are so many uses for an ipad in the classroom.

Tool 8

2011-06-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

What I learned from the videos:

The Netbooks books have a SD card reader. Pictures from digital cameras can be downloaded easily.

Dell Webcam Central can snap pictures or make videos. It has a timer so all students could be included in a picture.

On the ipad you can make an app out of a web page you view often by adding it to home screen. You can take a picture of a web page by holding down the sleep (on/off) and home button at the same time. It will click and a picture has been taken.

There is an approved App list with suggestions on the educational technology web page.

I learned how to sync all the ipads to have the same information. I'm going to go back and look at itunes on my computer and make sure I have all the options selected. I should have watched the video before setting up my ipad.

Management:

This is very important. Kids love the new technology and will all want to use it. I like the idea of have students responsible for putting them up each afternoon and getting them out in the morning. I also like the idea of having students help others when there is a problem. I think rules for using the netbooks and ipads will need to be discussed before anyone is able to use them. A rotation will also need to be established so all students have a chance to use them. Once those rules are in place it should be smooth.

I am real excited about getting this new technology. I have had my own itouch for several years and have really enjoyed every part of it. Our classrooms will be turned around with the new devices. I'ts going to be a fun adventure!!!!!

Tool 7

2011-06-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

This tool has to do with extending beyond the classroom. There are many project ideas out there. I spent time viewing different ideas from Taking It Global, iearn, One World Classrooms, and Educational World. I also enjoyed listening to the video clip of challenges when you go outside your classroom.

Content Objective: TX Cities
Plan to Implement: School year 2011-2012 probably around October
What Tools you Plan to Use: Google Doc, Google Form, Wallwisher, Wordle, and Animoto
Description: Select 4 major cities in Texas for the class to research. Student will work on a city in groups. They will use diigo to research sites I have collected. Then use a Google Doc to collect data as a group on their particular city. Students will use the following tools to show what they have learned: Wordle and Animoto. The group will make questions on Google Form about their city for others to answer after seeing and hearing their presentation. Wallwisher will be used to pose questions others might have about their city. It would be great if another class would choose a different 4 cities to research and then share between the classes.

Tool 6

2011-06-27T11:07:00.001-07:00

Wallwisher

Wallwisher is very easy and I think the students would enjoy posting their comments under any given board on a sticky. They may even enjoy making a board themself for other to post on. I see this as a powerful tool. Once postings are made they could be shown on the activboard for all to view. It would be a fun way to get to know students at the beginning of the year.

Build television sms voting polls at Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere: This was very easy to set up. However we have Activotes with our activboards and I think that is much easier. You then get instant results and everyone has an egg (activ vote). I don't see me using this tool that often since we already have something like this in place.

I signed up for a Diigo account. I watched a few videos on how it is used. I am a little overwhelmed now. I brought my favorites/bookmarks in Diigo. Not sure what I should do next. It looks like they are just listed like in Internet Explorer. I will need some time to work on this. I am really confused now. I'll have to come back to this site later.

Tool 5

2011-06-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

After working for some time on my PC at home. I realized I had a problem even though I was using Google Chrome. It would not let me embed anything into my blog. I tried many things then decided to get out the school lap top and in no time I embedded my Wordle. I should have been using the school lap top from the beginning. I spent too much time playing with it on my PC. I guess I have an Outdated Google Chrome. I'm glad they re-imaged out lap tops before starting this project.

I had fun using Wordle. I used words from my recent trip to New York City. This could be use to see what students know before a unit of study and after a unit to see what they have learned. Very easy and does not take much time to create.

I then went to Animoto. I have not used this in a long time. It was easy too. I had to select only 12 pictures since we have the free version. I wanted to find music to New York New York but was not able to do so. I went to the internet to look for a free version of this song, but all I could find was the words. I'm sure there is a site to visit for free down loads. Guusje showed this to me several years ago, but I could not remember. If you don't use it you forget. Animoto seems to take a long time to publish your video. I decided to come type by blog while waiting for it to publish. I hope I will be able to embed it into my blog. This program could be used after studying a unit. I think the student would enjoy showing what they learned.

I love Big Huge Labs and have used them for several years. We made Texas City trading Cards and Texas Hero Trading Cards. The kids loved it. I like the fact that the number of words are limited. That way you know kids are having to put important facts in their own words. I have also use Magazine Covers. We made magazine covers for our Indian Reports. Once again kids had to come up with questions for the front cover and then make sure it was included in their report. If I remember correctly, students had to have an email address for the Magazine Covers. We made collages showing anything about Texas History. This was an end of unit project. The collages included people, TX Landmarks, and anything else we might have studied about TX History. The kids were very proud of their end product. The students had to log in with their email account to use this tool. Once we got past that part it was very easy. Tons of fun!!!!!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Tool 4

2011-06-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Google Apps has lots to offer. I especially like the Goggle Form on line question/survey tool. What a powerful tool to use with students!!! It could be used to gather information and the chart in out in a bar graph. The tool puts the information into a circle graph. Students would love to answer questions using this tool. I made a Travel Survey to practice. It seemed very easy. I'm not sure how to post it to this blog. I will try.

I also made a sample Google Doc. That was easy too. I like the fact that it can be sent to multiple people and each edit made will be sent to everyone. What a time saver. This could be used when teams are trying to plan or get information to everyone. Much faster than opening an attachment. Everyone can add info. or make changes until a final copy is composed. It saves your email from getting too clogged up.

I am not brave enough to give up my paper/pencil calendar, but like the idea of it. Maybe one day I will get brave enough to do so.

New York City

2011-06-22T12:40:00.001-07:00

Tool 3

2011-06-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

I spent lots of time viewing Teacher Tube, School Tube, Kids Tube. I found two videos that I might use at the beginning of school year. They are posted below. Cool! Place Value shows standard form of numbers, expanded form, and word form. It repeats with different numbers so you can get the idea of how to expand a number. The Scientific Method video show all the steps in conducting an experiment.

I then went to flickr to find a picture. I looked up New York city since I just returned from there and found a great picture of the skyline. I will post it for you to see too.

I learned that educators can use pictures for educational purposes without getting permission. This is good to know. We tend to copy pictures all the time.

SchoolTube - The Scientific Method Song WITH LYRICS

2011-06-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

SchoolTube - The Scientific Method Song **WITH LYRICS**

COOL! Place Value

2011-06-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

Tool 2

2011-06-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of responding to people I know. When I took the 23 things I did not know any of the people. It seems easier to respond to the people I know. I learned from reading what other wrote. I decided I needed to go back at look at iauthor and ibook in classroom tools 2.0.

MJ gave the technology committee a short class on using delicious. I think I'm going to work on using delicious since I am more familiar with it. It is a great way to save your bookmarks and have them on any computer you might use. Diigo amazed me with what it could do, but I think I'll take baby steps for now.

Tool 1

2011-06-03T07:38:00.001-07:00

After many hours I was able to find my blog from 23 things. Then I had to remember my password. Once I remembered my password I had to make some changes. I'm in and it is all working now!!!! Yea.

I made a Voki. This was new because voice could be added. I had to get some help from Guusje to save my Voki of my dog, Mia, because changes have been made since I last worked on my blog.

Thing 23

2009-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

YEA!!!!! I finished in the month of June. That was my goal. I have learned so many things. I will enjoy looking back over what I did and think about how it could be applied to my classroom. I am pleased my librarian encouraged me to complete this course. I am still amazed at how much is out there.

Questions:
1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I learned so many things. I think my favorite were the Mashups. I loved the mosaic maker , trading cards, and magazine covers. What a fun way to display pictures. I also had fun with the comic strip generator and wordle. I think these are all powerful tools that my students will enjoy.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

It allowed me to work at my own schedule and spend as much time as I wanted exploring new things. I was constantly amazed at all the different things I was learning. I know it was an 18 hour course, but I think I spend a lot more time than that. The time went by so fast.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Yes, I enjoyed Photo Story 3 so much that I loaded it on my Mother’s computer and showed her how to use it. She was excited about putting her pictures into a video and sharing it with others. When I first started looking at the pod cast/video cast I did not think I would like doing this. I was really surprised at how easy it was and I liked my finished product.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I can’t think of anything that would make it better.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

Yes, I enjoyed working at home when I had time. It’s also a good thing we were asked to blog about each experience because this will help me to remember what I did.

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities?

FUN!

Thing 22

2009-06-29T12:27:00.001-07:00

I thought Ning for Teachers offered many options for classroom teachers. It focused on education. It offers ideas , lesson plans, and education blog groups. This is an education community to connect teachers.

I'm not sure how I would use this with my students.

Thing 21

2009-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

What a fun way to share pictures. I was a little frustrated when I noticed we had to make our own pod cast/video cast, but once I got started I thought this is really a lot of fun and very easy. I think students would love sharing projects by making a video. They would not mind taping their voice. I don't like the way I sound on tape ,so I did not record my voice. I like putting music to the pictures. I am going to try using Photo Story with my kids next year.

Thing 20

2009-06-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Burk Perimeter Rap

Shared via AddThis

Teacher Tube and You Tube have lots of videos that would excite the students and help them to learn in an all new way. I had fun looking at lots of different videos. I choose the one on perimeter because students always have trouble telling the difference between area and perimeter. I also noticed they had a lot on the water cycle. I want to remember this. I think it would be fun to place one of these videos into a flip chart. Once again the time gets away from you before you realize it.

Thing 19

2009-06-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a list. I looked at many of them. In imcooked, you cook it, film it, and then share it. I think back many years ago when we filmed my Grandmother making homemade bread. This would have been a fun way to share with family. We made many VHS copies to share-which took a lot of time. This was many years ago when technology was limited. While on this site I watched a video about cloning KFC Grilled Chicken. At the end of the video it said to go to topsecretrecipes.com. I checked out Yelp. This site has guides and reviews by real people on different business. Many different categories and neighborhoods were listed. It might be fun for students to write a review on a place/restaurant they have visited. I went to one site that had upcoming events for different cities. I thought this was helpful if you are planning a trip. Lulu allows you to make books with photos and then purchase the book. Biblio has many out of print books for purchase.

Thing 18

2009-06-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

I did not know Open Office existed. I was surprised to hear it was loaded on our lap tops already. I can see many advantages to using an online productivity Tool. First of all, it is free and can run on all platforms. It has all the tools like Microsoft-Text, Database, spread sheet, Presentation, drawings. It might be a way for students to show work to their family at home. It looks easy to use if you are use to Microsoft products. The one main disadvantages is you must have Internet access. Google Docs is a great way to share documents and have many different people add information without having to send the document over email.

Thing 17

2009-06-23T11:34:00.001-07:00

Rollyo is pretty impressive. This was new to me. I have never heard of it before. It is a great way to put together web information for students. They would go staight to the places you wanted them to view and not spend hours just looking around and never taking any notes. The video Bruce put together was very helpful! Iit was useful as I was building my own search engine for Texas. I am a very visual learner. I am going to use this with my students.

Here is the link to my search engine for Texas History
http://rollyo.com/search.html?q=Texas&sid=555345

Thing 16

2009-06-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Wiki is a powerful collaborate tool. Our librarian introduced it to our faculty by using it to sign up for lunches from Salad Guy. It was an easy way to make a list of what each person wanted and make sure we had enough people for the order to go through. I think it would be a fun way to have book reviews over novels read. I also think it could be used when students work together in a group to report out what they found on a particular topic of research.

Thing 15

2009-06-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

After reading many of the articles it really shows how our libraries have changed over the years. It also shows what is to come. The kids of today have so much more available to them. They have also become more participatory with the web.

I found this information interesting when describing libraries.
What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchanges.
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm by Dr. Wendy Schultz

It is very exciting to think about the future of libraries. It also tells me I need to work harder to stay on top of what it out there. The web has give us opportunities to grow as life long learners and view libraries in a whole new way.

Thing 14

2009-06-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

Wow! It is amazing how many people blog and tag information for reading. I liked looking at the t0p 100 blogs and top searches. It gives you an idea of what people are interested in. I added the top tags to my blog at the bottom right corner. I'm not sure how I would use this with elementary students. I think you would need to be real careful if you let students search. You never know what they could get into. I think this tool if better for an older audience.

Thing 13

2009-06-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

Our librarian has exposed our students and teachers to del.icio.us for several years now. The kids go to del.icio.us for everything. It really saves time when you bookmark a site and then the kids go there to pull it up. No more problems with misspelling or mistyping a web address. They all know the school log on and password and feel very comfortable using this social bookmarking service. It has saved us lots of time.

I really never thought about using it to search topics of interest. That's a great idea because someone else has already filtered out information and many times they have tagged good information. I'm going to start using it for research.

Thing 12

2009-06-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading the article-How to comment like a King or Queen

Write a meaningful comment. If you don't care don't comment. Good advice!
Remember the power of words. We each have the power to build up or tear down. If someone steals your enthusiam, just delete their words and never look back.

I am more of a "lurker" than a communicater in blogs. This is an area I will need to work on. It seems like time went quickly as I was responding to different people in Library2Play.

Thing 11

2009-06-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Library Thing gives you lots of information about books. You can find reviews of books, author chats, book chats, top books, top authors, top books by star ratings. It was interesting to read what others said about books I have read or books I am reading now. The site was very easy to use.

I was also thinking this might be a great way to keep track of all the children's books I own. I noticed this sight will give you a print out in spread sheet form. This is a good way to keep track of books.

Thing 10

2009-06-15T17:29:00.001-07:00

SignGenerator.org (Happy Face)

Comic Strip Generator Dumpr

This is really a lot of fun!!!!! Students could use online image generators when learning about captions and figurative language. It would also be a great way to get kids interested in writing about picture they create. Wordle would be fun to do before starting a unit of study in science/social studies to see what they know about a topic. Then do it again after the study and see how much they have learned.

Thing 9

2009-06-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Edublog was easy to use. You could find a topic and click on it to find the blog. I found it very easy to navigate around. It showed many award winning blogs.
To be honest, RSS feeds are very overwhelming to me. I can't see myself keeping up with all the blogs sent. Synidc8.com was not as easy to find links and navigate. It was confusing to me.
I found information on smart boards and how teachers were trained on line. I'm guessing the smart boards are like our activboards. This might have been a great way to be trained. You could always go back and repeat information. I found blogs from scholatic.com with many teacher ideas for different books. It continues to amaze me how much information is out there......

Thing 8

2009-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

RSS allows you to see a lot of different topics of your choice quickly without having to go in and out of a site. This would save time. I need to organize better by creating folders. It seems a little disorganized and cluttered. I guess I'm not one to go to any particular web site or blog often. I just look up information for a paticular time and read it then move on.
It might come in handy if you have particular places you want your students to go. It would all be there and easy to access.
They would be able to tag articles they wanted everyone to read and discuss at a later time.

Thing 7

2009-06-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

Google Maps is reallly cool. I put in our school address and was able to see a satellite view of the school. Here is the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=6705+Housman&sll=30.118997,-95.469818&sspn=0.519098,0.86792&layer=t&ie=UTF8&ll=29.800185,-95.469989&spn=0.002151,0.00339&t=h&z=18&msa=0&msid=117060171849906066369.00045329470be6b5282bf
You can email the map or send it to your phone. I could not figure out how to show the map in my daily blog without using a link.

I also signed up for a Google Alert on Houston weather. It amazes me as to how much you can do with Google. I had no idea. Once again the students would love using all the tools to complete projects. I think they would love setting up their own home page and email with igoogle.

Thing 6

2009-06-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

I had fun making a trading card with my pet's picture. This could be used in a lot of different ways like with Texas Heros, Indian Tribe Information, Quick Writes about a picture, point of view, and book reviews. The possibilities are endless. I also like the Mosaic Maker. This would be fun to place a picture of each student from my class into a mosaic at the beginning of the year or use after studying a unit in science/ social studies. The magazine cover would also be great after reading a novel to highlight a character. I can see some great projects for students using these tools.

Thing 5 - flickr

2009-06-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

It is amazing all the different tags that can be found. As a fourth grade teacher, we study a lot about Texas. I think students would enjoy finding pictures about what they are studying. I did not realize all the copyrights on pictures taken off the web. I also think this would be a fun way to show pictures taken from a field trip.

Thing 3

2009-06-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

Setting up the blog was not hard. It was fun creating an image in Avator. I had a little trouble getting it into my blog. I had to go back and read the directions several times. I finally got it to work. YEA!!!!!

Thing 2

2009-06-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed reading/listening about the life long learners. I think the easiest for me it keeping the end in mind when completing a task. I am very goal oriented and look to the end before beginning. The hardest for me would be to view problems as challenges. I tend to get frustraded when things don't go as expected, but I continue to work until they are solved.