A Reflection

What a busy summer! This class feels like it has flown by. I am happy to report that I have learned far more than I expected when I first started this course. I've been exposed to so many helpful resources that will help me feel better prepared once I begin my internship. I know that I will be referencing my website, wiki, and this very blog in the future when I'm building course content and lesson plans. Furthermore, I actually know how to use these tools now. They are no longer just great ideas -- I can put them in action. There have certainly been some challenges in learning some of the programs. Active inspire and imovie were among the most challenging yet rewarding projects I've learned this summer.

Google Sites

I am so thankful to have learned about google sites this year! I have used websites before, but had no idea that google sites was available and free to use. This is a very practical and economic tool to use in the classroom. Over all it is very easy to use, although there are a few quirks here and there that you have to figure out. Practice is key. The more you use it, the more comfortable you get with it.

Blogging...

Blogging is such a useful and fun tool. I am really looking forward to keeping it up and developing a blog of my own for my future classroom. I will use it to share with parents what we are learning and celebrate successes. It will also be a fun tool to use to share ideas with other teachers. I have ran across several really helpful blogs that other classrooms have. What I love about blogging is that they allow you to be creative and share with others.

Here are some blogs I like:

http://talesofathirdgrade.blogspot.com/

http://learningismessy.com/blog/

http://www.schoolgirlstyle.com/

Resource Wiki

This is a project I will be bookmarking and will be certainly coming back to one day! It was great to collaborate with others in different classes and share helpful websites and web quests. There were some terrific ideas and sites that I have never heard of before that are incredible resources. Here is a link to the resource wiki I was able to be a part of.

http://486sum12ele2.pbworks.com/w/page/54593953/FrontPage

Digital Storytelling!

Digital Storytelling is the art of telling a story through digital media. I have created a "how to" video on teaching children how to grow their own food.  School gardens are a great way to teach children about where their food comes from while promoting healthy food choices. Most school gardens are created in raised beds, since soil quality may be an issue on your school grounds. This video shows you how to construct a raised bed for use in a school garden. 


Working with iMovie was a lot of fun! It was a bit frustrating at times however - as it can be a bit quirky. I am unhappy with the quality of the video however,  once I uploaded it to youtube. I followed the directions on the rubric but converting it to VGA made it difficult to view the text I included to help tell the story. This was a little disappointing because it looks so crisp and clear with high resolution on my computer. :(  Hopefully, this video sill conveys my digital story and gives you an idea of how to create a classroom garden! 

ActivInspire Project

What a fun project! This was by far my favorite project we've worked on in this class.  That said, it was also the most challenging! Figuring out how to navigate the program took some time -- and patience! I chose to do this assignment on exploring animal habitats.  I was able to utilize the resource library to check out a 2nd grade science textbook to reference. I had a great time putting this project together. I can really see this being useful in a classroom because it allows the kids to interact with the material.

Inspiration Project

For this project, we used the program Inspiration to help create a diagram to be used in the classroom.  There are multiple different ways that you could use this program to enhance a classroom lesson.  Because the resolution on this program is so large, you could even print out your diagram and hang it on the wall. For this example, I chose the topic "animal populations". The program allows you to connect your topic with multiple different subtopics, and so on. I will certainly want to utilize this program in the future. It would be a great way to make worksheets, leaving them blank for the students to fill in, as well. 

TimeToast

Timetoast is a great program that allows you to build your very own timelines! This is a wonderful tool that would get a lot of use in a classroom. This tool would be appropriate for younger grades through college. It would even be fun to use for personal use, sharing your family history, genealogy, or even celebrating a wedding anniversary. For my purposes in the elementary classroom I would choose to use this tool to time map a story, allowing the kids to understand parts of a story or help them put events in order. Here is an example of timetoast:

Pixler!

Pixler is a great photo-editing tool that allows to to make creative effects with your photos. This is an application I had not heard of before.  This is a fun tool to use. As far as usefulness in the classroom, I could see this being a fun tool to introduce kids to editing software and just getting them use to navigating the computer in general.  This program would allow them to edit their photos to be used in projects or for a classroom blog. 

Wordle!

Wordle is a great web 2.0 tool! Before this class, I would have thought this was just a made up word! Now that we've had  a chance to learn more about wordle in class I can definitely see it being useful in the classroom! It's a fun and interesting way to display words. You could use this on a bulletin board as a focal point representing a subject.

Here is a cool example of a wordle...

Resume time!

Ahhh...building a resume. I have to admit, this is not one of my FAVORITE activities. However, we all know it's a practical one and..well..you just have to have it! Luckily, we were given some really great tools to help us along the resume journey! The template provided for us to use in this class was very helpful and made the task not so daunting.

Digital Scavenger Hunt!

The assignment:

Digital Camera Scavenger Hunt - Science

Directions: Students are divided into teams or 2 or more by the instructor. Students should be sure to use a camera or a phone that will “talk” to the computer. Move outside and complete the scavenger hunt to locate items that are good examples of science in the real world.

You only need 10 pictures for this project.

Items:
 Something that opens and closes
 Something that changes shape
 Something that rolls
 Something that has the school name on it
 Something other than a room that the entire team will fit into
 Something that flashes
 Something wet other than water
 Something round that water will go through
 Something that is only red and orange
 Something soft and round
 Something hard and green
 Something with gears


This would be a great exercise to integrate into the classroom! There are so many things you can do with it! This would work in all grades, even in college courses. It's a fun way to get kids involved with the activity and get them thinking. At the same time, it also allows them to learn more about digital cameras and the uploading, editing, and presenting process!

Biggest "ah-ha" moment!

I have been pleasantly surprised by how this class is going! At first I was concerned I wouldn't learn many new tools to use but that is certainly not the case! I would say the best thing I have learned so far is how to use wikis and google docs. I had experimented with google docs before but I never really thought about how useful it could be in the classroom. This class has really got me in the mind set of how these tools, that i've had access to all along, can be used in the classroom. I am so excited about the idea of a classroom blog. It will be a great way to teach kids about how to use the internet and help them get comfortable with navigation. It will also be a great way to communicate with parents and help keep them feel involved. With wikis, if you are having a party, field trip, or event at school, you could use a wiki to get all of your ideas together and assign "who's doing what" or "who's bringing what" and be able to edit it until you have a clear, collaborative, picture.

Wikis

Wiki's have been very interesting to learn about.  Prior to this class I did not have any experience with a wiki. Actually, I had never even heard of them! Of course, I have heard of wikipedia but didn't realize that this was something that I could actually create and utilize on my own! Now that I have had some practice using wikis I can certainly see how they would be beneficial as a teacher. You could use them to communicate with other teachers by sharing documents or ideas. Or, you could use them to communicate with parents and event planning.  It's certainly a much better way to communicate on a larger scale than forwarding emails would be, which can be confusing and excessive.

IBA activity

I really enjoyed this activity! It was a lot of fun researching all of the different websites related to my topic. I was able to use what we learned though the website evaluation process to help me pick and choose which sites I felt were good resources for the students to use. Finding websites that were up to date on the topic proved the most difficult.  Once I knew what I was looking for I was able to weed through a lot of websites that I didn't feel would pass an evaluation. Doing the research and choosing the resources I would want the students to use was the most time consuming part. Google Docs is so easy to use. I certainly will be utilizing this more in the future. It's a great way to share documents with others and being able to access the "cloud" and download your documents anywhere you have internet connection is so practical and useful. For my topic, I chose to research hurricanes. I was able to integrate pictures into the worksheet so that the students can identify the "eye" of the hurricane.  One of the most challenging parts I ran into was making sure that the questions and websites you referred them to are on grade level.  Some of the more scientific websites I found would have been difficult for the younger grades to interpret. With guidance however, and kid- friendly videos on the subject I think I was able to create something that would go over well in a classroom.

Webquests

I had actually never heard of a webquest until this class!  Now that I have though, I am certain I will be using them a lot in my future! Webquests are great because they offer all of the information you would need when trying to learn about a subject without having to send your student all over the internet searching for information. What I like best about Webquests are that they are deliberately designed to make the best of the learner's time.

Since I am interested in teaching the younger grades, Webquests will be particularly useful to reinforce content. It's a fun and interactive way to teach students how to use the internet as a tool in their research while also being productive and learning a lot about a subject along the way!

Web 2.0 Tools - Picasa

For this project I teamed up with Jason to learn about the program Picasa! Picasa is great tool that allows you to edit, organize, and share your photos.  For use in the classroom, you can organize photos of your class and special events, or make each of your students a photo CD to take home. You can also create Web Albums for students to access from home, and integrate photography into your courses by having kids take lesson-related photos, post them to their Web Albums and use during presentations. Students can keep all photos for their research projects in one location, so they're easy to see and find. 


Perhaps one of my favorite uses for this program is how creative it allows you to be! You can take a simple photo and use Picasa's multiple artistic edits to transform your photo. You can add text, borders, and enhance or change colors of a photo, and upload to your blog! Here is an example of how I was able to take a photo and turn it into something I would want to post on a classroom blog...

Before:

After:

I really learned a lot from this project. Most importantly, it helped me start thinking of how these web 2.0 tools can really function in a classroom.  I can't wait to use and integrate this into my own classroom one day!

Website Evaluation

When it comes to choosing appropriate websites for use in a K-12 classroom, I initially felt that I had all of the tools to make wise decisions. Going through the process of evaluating websites for reliability and usability was such a useful process.  This really helped me take a closer look at what information is imperative for classroom use. Most importantly, it helped me see how this can impact students when this crucial information is lacking.

Up until this exercise, I hadn't put much thought into checking when the information was published or updated. In such a fast moving and quickly changing age it is extremely important that we are exposing students to the most up to date information available. In addition to this, another aspect I find easy to overlook, as it is often hidden or hard to put together, is the potential bias of the material. Checking the publishing body of the site or funding will help you get an idea if the material is objective or not.

Now that I've had this experience of really analyzing and thinking about the information I'm given on the web I feel much more prepared when it comes to choosing websites for use in the classroom.  In the future, when I'm encouraging a child to use the web as a resource I will know what to recommend, or look for ahead of time.

Course Expectations

I am very excited to be part of this course! This is my first course I've taken after being accepted into the teacher licensure program. I am eager to learn about new technology and how that fits into my future classroom.  Although I am comfortable with using different resources such as blogging and website editing, my hope is to push those boundaries and learn even more.  I also hope to build my own library of resources to use as a "go-to" when I begin my teaching career.

In the second class we were introduced to Wiki's. I had never heard of them before. I have already started thinking of different ways this could be useful.  I particularly enjoyed the Plain English videos we watched in class and will be taking note of them to use in the future! 

I'm looking forward to learning more!

by the way....

Welcome to my blog!!!!!