Love My Animoto!

I have to admit I had so much fun creating my animoto.  This week I administered a district writing prompt with my third graders on Pablo Picasso.  For the past few weeks we have been reading a variety of biographies and Picasso happen to be one of them.  I decided to create a review on the life of Pablo to assist my students with thier writing.  They loved it!  and I have to say I think it really helped.  I noticed the students included some of the vocabulary used in the text and mentioned the various painting styles that was present in the video and mentioned in the book.  I will definitely continue to use animoto to help my students!

Digital Storytelling

I love the idea of engaging my students in a digital story.  While searching for some ideas I came across this website Make a Storybook tool.  The characters look like powerpuff girls and I know my third graders will love that! Using this tool students can create thier own stories and watch them come to life!

RSS...wow!

Where has RSS been all my teaching career!  Chapter 5 in Richardson's book shined light on a tool I did not existed.  RSS allow for great information to be delivered to you around the clock. While reading my news feed I found many great articles, websites, and lesson plans.   Here is where I found Smart tutor education programs. It's a great website with different reading games for students and free resources for teachers.  You should definetly check it out!

Richardson chapter 3 and 4

After reading more about blogging, I'm almost ready to get started. I like the idea of students using blogging as a place to reflect, critically analyze, and respond to various literature.  I was thinking of the many ways I could use this with my students.  Richardson mentioned how students like to read responds to their post, it would be interesting to see third graders within the same district, but different schools, reading the same books and responding to one another.  I think students would be more willing to write thier responses to their reading.  As I researched and read other blogs, I can across Ms. Byrnes Blog.  She had her students include the pages read and a quick summary.  This allows students who have read the same book to respond.  What a great way to have book talks!!  http://kidblog.org/MissByrnesClass/

In chapter 3 Richardson begins by saying if we want our students to learn from blogs, then we have experience that learning firsthand.  I thought about this comment as I read chapter 4.  Before this class I had never heard or seen a wiki page.  I have used wikipedia, but I was not familiar with this new way of responding to the outside world.  Therefore, before I can think about how to use I needed to start exploring for my own personal use.  As I began researching, once again I am amazed at the many different ways my students could benefit from this.  Tinyurl.com/90rxf has an incredible amount of information about planets.  The wiki pages seem very helpful and should definitely be a part of the classroom.

"Online Collaborative Inquiries.."

I found this article very interesting.  I can understand, and even appreciate the many ways that intergrating blogging within the classroom can improve instruction.  As I think of my own students, I can only imagine how much more interested they would be to respond to literature online rather than thier notebooks.  However, what concerns me most is how fast technology is moving and how slowly schools are moving to make these tools accessible for the students.  It would be a great to think that all our students have computers within thier homes, but realistically they do not.  If the research shows that integrating technology within the curriculum can improve the quality of education, then why don't all of our students have access to computers, ipads,and smartboards?  This is frustrating, especially for us, educators, who really want our kids to have these experiences, knowledge, and creative opportunities.

Blogs and Blogging

Exploring these blogs has been really interesting and exciting for me.  I have gotten so many fun ideas from all of them.  I especially appreciated the "think share teach" blog.  What a great idea!! I love learning from my co-workers.  This is a great way to share with other teachers the great resources, books, and ideas out there to help us be better teachers!
http://thinkshareteach.blogspot.com/

Animoto

I like the idea of using Animoto to introduce vocabulary.  Every month my class has focused on a different biography with lots of vocabulary terms.  This will be a great way to spice it up a bit!
http://tainiedu584.blogspot.com/2012/04/frog-and-toad-vocabulary-animoto.html

However, I am thinking of using Animoto to somehow reflect on all the biographies we have read since September.  The students have focused on each person character traits that helped them become successful.  My idea is to ask the students to chose one person and one character trait and use animoto to put it together.  What do you think??  Any other ideas?? 

Will Richardson chapter 1 and 2 gave me great insight into the world of blogging for both teachers and students.  The internet has always been a scary place for me when I think about allowing my students to participate in it.  However, keeping them safe is the key to opening myself and my class to new literacies.  Richardson mentioned ways to keep children safe while they interact through technology.  I couldnt agree with him more when he said teaching them how to be responsible and appropriate should happen first.  It is envitable with facebook that students will run into inappropriate comments and information, however, they need to know what do to in those situations. Once teachers have discussed safety then I think we can begin introducing our students to blogging, wiki sites, and twitter.  I like the ideas Richardson gave of ways students can use the blogging. Journal writing, reflections, and questions were just a few. These ideas are inspiring to me as a teacher.  I think my students would much rather log in and write with their peers, than write in thier notebooks.  We are always looking for new ways to keep kids interested in reading and writing.  The examples of teachers blogging with thier students has made me very excited to someday begin my own.  One in particular is Mr. C's blog.  I can appreciate the different ways he uses technology with his class. I loved watching video of his students reflecting on thier learning and commenting as thier learning takes place within the classroom.  Learning how to participate in a blog like Mr. C's would be great for me as an educator and for my students. http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/.

NETS

New literacies in my own words is reading in the 20th century! and the NETS are our standards.  I think the NETS can be used in any classroom that has some access to computers, smartboards, ipads, etc.  Students are already expected to collaborate within the classroom, using technology would be a great way to get them excited about learning from eachother.  All the example of  learning activities given on  the NETS website are great suggestion. I could see myself using them and my students really having fun learning!http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-s-2007-student-profiles-en.pdf?sfvrsn=4

First Class of the Year

I'm really excited to become more tech savy!  Here goes another productive, crazy, overwhelmed, tired, interesting, and most definetly fun 8 weeks...