Week 9 Thing 23

I liked Sliderocket best because it was easy to create interesting powerpoints.  Flicker is connected to the dashboard so you can search specifically for photographs. 

Learning Web 2.0 for VCS Educators: Thing 22: Glogster and the webquest

Learning Web 2.0 for VCS Educators: Thing 22: Glogster and the webquest: This tool is really versatile. It is a virtual poster maker called Glogster. It is capable of doing a multitude of things including po...

Week 9 Thing 22

I have been playing around with Glogster for a little while and am getting better at it.  Today I learned how to attach a video from school tube.  The Inspiration video I chose was created by high school students.  They were very clever about how to display favorite sayings to inspire students without ever talking.  I enjoyed watching it. 

Week 8 Thing 21

I previewed the digital storytelling site called storybird, but didn't find it to my liking.  Unfortunatley, I didn't even know where to begin.  So, I was pleased to see that Goanimate said easy to make in minutes!  Anything fast is for me, because I lead a fast paced life in the classroom.  Don't waste your time trying to create your own template.  Use one of theirs like the wildlife characters.  My third grade team decided to use a cloze style type of poem with our students on the first day of school.  I thought it would be fun to create my own using this Goanimate.  Check it out,  I think my students will love it!

GoAnimate.com: A good friend by Rightstuff

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Week 8 Thing 20

Digital storytelling is so much easier to create with animoto.com than photostories.  Nowadays they can be shared among teachers without the fear of photographs not being "zipped" properly.  One of the ways I used digital storytelling in my class was to create science presentations.  I uploaded pictures from Pics4learning and used my own voice to share key concepts with my class.  It was amusing to see how entraced my students were with hearing my voice on the audio.  A perk was that the students could view it over and over as a center which they actually requested.  Absent students were able to view the lesson they missed at their convenience. 

To get started, I would recommend trying Voicethread.com


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Week 8 Thing 19

Week 7 Thing 18

Week 7 Thing 18

http://www.wordle.net/

Wordle is a great instructional tool for spelling words, vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms.  I copied the vocabulary words for my first few weeks of my science curriculum map for third grade to make this wordle. 

Welcome!

tp://zanygeek.edu.glogster.com/welcome-page

Week 6 Thing 13

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/iTFso8lSKD

The first classroom application for this website that immediately came to mind was wishing students "Happy Birthday."  I would think they would get a really big kick out of this activity. 

Once I started brainstorming, I was thinking you could make a wall for a concept such as mammals.  The students could search for images on Pics4learning and then post an image of a mammal on the wall. 

Week 5 Thing 12

https://sites.google.com/site/meetthegeeksii/Home

I had the most fun this week exploring the 100 websites for educators.  I found so many things that I can use in my classroom.  One website that intrigued me helps you search for sounds which would  add spice to a read-a-loud.  For instance I love to read the Bearstain Bears book, The Spooky Tree.  Now I can easily add sounds to make it even more impressive.  http://sounds.com/

911writersblock had numerous prompts and interesting leads for stories which is a must if you teach 4th grade.  Another fun writing website that reminds me of mad libs is called rinkworks.com  The twist is that they select memorable books for the cloze reading.  It is extremely helpful because it has a dropdown box in case your students get confused between adjectives and nouns.  Gigglepoetry has always been a class favorite.  http://www.webook.com/911writersblock
http://www.rinkworks.com/crazytales/
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/

I really liked glogster for creating posters, but probably will just keep it for my own personal use.  Since I am concerned for student safety,  I would like to hear any comments from anyone who has previously used this site in their classroom.  Librarything seems perfect for my personal hobby and I am considering signing up twice, once for school and once for fun!  Once again I am concerned about how to keep this safe for my students since it is a type of social networking.  http://www.librarything.com/

 I have been searching for Roman games all week, because I possible might be transferring to third grade this school year.  I had not been able to find anything worthy until I used the advanced search engine.  I found a lovely website that shows a picture of different settings in that time period with one thing that is out of place.  You click on all the different items trying to find the one item that is misplaced.  If you choose wrong, it tells you what the item is called and its use.  Once the game is over, you select the time period that all the misplaced items were from.  What fun!  http://www.wartgames.com/themes/list.html

Beautiful World

Click on Beautiful World to see Tulum:          Beautiful World

This summer I cruised to the Tulum Coast which is located about 128 kilometers south of Cancun. It is an important archaeological remain of the ancient Mayan civilization. The main building called the Castle Tower is built on a 10 meter high cliff looking out over the gorgeous turquoise waters of the Caribbean.

If you ever get a chance to visit, take your snorkel. Within swimming distance of the beach there is a large barrier reef to explore. A fact about the construction of the Tower which fascinated me is what I consider ancient technology. If you place lanterns in the two windows overlooking the sea, you will see a reflection glittering off the water. This manmade reflection highlights a natural passageway through the coral reef barrier which lies just in front of the ruins.

Week 4 Thing 10

http://voicethread.com/share/2151121/

For some crazy reason my microphone would not work on the blabberize website, however it worked perfectly for the voicethread website.  If this technology frustrated person can  figure it out in less than an hour than this will definitely be a plus for my 3rd grade classroom.  I absolutely loved the center idea, but can imagine many more possibilities for reading, science, writing, and math.  Hopefully,  I was the first at my school to register.  After sharing with others at my school,  I don't think their joining will be a hard sell. 

Week 4 Thing 8

I think the Voki website is wonderful because with text to speech capability you don't need a microphone!  Students will have fun finding an animal that looks similar to a pet they have.  Then they can create dialogue for their pet to share with the class. 

Week 3 Thing 7

Playing with photos on picnik was extreme fun for the whole family!  My sons enjoyed goofifying my picture until I resembled the hunchback of notre dame, but I refused to post it.   I did threaten to goofify one of their pictures and post it to facebook the next time they forget to wash the dishes.  I've never seen them move so fast!  However,  My favorite feature for the site was getting rid of wrinkles.  I can't resist a one click face lift,  so I'll be back! 

Week 3 Thing 6

By aljollie | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

http://www.toondoo.com/

My students love to use technology. They spent hours scouring the web looking for pictures for their Avatar when I first introduced them to Edmodo. I can only imagine the amount of time they would be willing to spend on toondoo.com

Not all students like to demonstrate their learning in the same ways. Some students like to draw pictures to show the meaning of vocabulary words while others like to write a story using the words with context clues. In the past I have had students make a simplistic hand drawn comic strip to help them in the writing process for a narrative prompt. Since not all students draw well, this website will help them in the planning process to think about adding the setting and character traits.

Students love to share their creations and comment on what others have made. It is interesting to also see how outsiders view our projects.

Week 3 Thing 5

     I've been a scrapbook fanatic every since my boys were born.  My Creative Memories Consultant was very sad when I was first introduced to shutterfly!  I really like the mixbook for creating scrapbooks even better because it is easier to upload pictures from multiple sources. 

     My classroom scrapbook will be even easier to create because parents can easily send pictures straight to my mixbook from their own computer at home.  I was even considering having students take pictures to demostrate the different concepts and create their own class mixbook.  For instance if we were learning about erosion, students could use their cell phones to take pictures of real life examples like the beach.  Then they could upload to our classbook to share with their classmates.  I think this will really excite my students to become more active learners.

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

Writing

     This morning while at an Orlando Writing workshop a roomful of Florida finest teachers were handed an opening to copy down.  The room buzzed with sounds of pencils and pens as teachers hastily followed the instructors directions.  If only my own class were this obedient, I would have the perfect dream job! 

     Then we were orally prompted to create certain types of sentences to carefully craft a six sentence paragraph.  Our goal was to describe one moment in time as we stood in line at Dairy Queen.  Diligently we all pondered clever ways to word our thoughts, feelings, and actions.  Excited to read our finished paragraphs out loud to the class,  we giggled as we shared our stories flowing over with weak verbs, limited transitions, and no sentence variety whatsoever!   To my amazement I actually had written two descriptive words that I don't even tolerate in my writing community. 

     Thinking that I owe a few previous students apologies, I was lost in my thoughts as the instructor explained that our homework for the summer was to finish our story.  Wearing her professional business attire and flashing her biggest smile the instuctor leaned towards us whispering... when we meet again "We will be using the 4th grade rubric to score your writing, you will need a 4 to receive points for this weeklong workshop." 

    With our teeth clenched we all silently gathered our belongings and slowly exited the conference room on wobbly legs.   A few short days ago I had entered this room feeling confident of my teaching ability.  Afterall, my class had scored well this year on Florida Writes.   However now that I am expected to show my true mettle among my own peers, my hands feel shaky and knots are forming in my own stomach.  Words of horror from a previous writing teacher creep into my mind.  Hmmm... I'm so grateful I kept copies of my student's best writing.  Maybe I can grab a few ideas from them!