Comeeko!

An interesting site I found was comeeko.com. It is a cool and fun site where you can make a comic book strip of whatever you like. The example given is of Martin Luther King Jr. This site can be used to make a mini comic strip of any history event that happened from the Civil Rights Movements to how to pass a bill!

http://www.comeeko.com/

Listing!

Technology Projects to Enhance Classrooms

1. Powerpoint Projects: Easy, formal for various kinds of presentation
2. Movie Projects: For an English project? Act out the stories they read
3. Photos Project: Take pictures of different living things in nature for Science
4. SmartBoard: They can create their own lessons for peers
5. Game making websites: They can have fun creating crosswords and learn at the same time!
6. Make their own website/blog: Make it like a journal every week, enhance writing skills

10 Projects Ideas Throughout School year

1. September: Mixbook - Introducing themselves to their peers using Mixbook
2. October: Blogger - Start a blog to type journal every week.
3. November: Glogster - Create a poster on history of Thanksgiving.
4. December: SmartBoard - Create a math lesson out with the topic of Christmas
5. January: Google Earth - Geography lessons and projects
6. February: Photo Story - About the people they love
7. March: Yola.com - Create a website about a state
8. April: Puzzlemaker - Make a puzzle on any subjects they like, and give out to peers
9. May: Quizlet - Create a quiz that they can test each other on, either spelling or math
10. June: Fotobabble: Reflecting on their school year

500 Word Essay

How do we inspire others to change? Should we? Does the way that we teach need changing? Are students the same or are they changing? What do we want for ourselves and our own children? How are you going to use technology in the classroom? (Be specific.)

We inspire others to change by showing them the positive outcomes the changes bring. If someone allows us to let them to be inspired, we should make it a full effort to help them out. Change is not something that can be forced, but suggested. Everyone goes through life with their own style and background and that should be respected. However, in a classroom, I don not feel that the idea is to change the students, but enlighten them. Enhance knowledge and impart wisdom, but not tell someone how they need to be. I feel that the only way to do this is through more personal interaction than technology. Technology is fun to use for project and is a necessity these days to learn, but it is not the best way to give inspiration. If you want to be inspirational, you need to do something that is worth being praised for. That type appraisal is not usually found through technology but personal experiences that caused life changes.

The changing style in teaching leads to the change of students. These days, students have a different style of researching and take the easy way out versus putting a little bit of elbow grease into their work. It is exceptional to technology as tools especially with the advancements these days, but there are limitations. However, it is only natural for students to change as our society evolves and changes. There is no way to avoid it, but we can keep sanity and tradition. What is important is to not forget the essentials to teach and while new history develops; do not forget past history to teach. Every aspect as to how we have developed as a city, state, country, continent is every bit as important as the current events found in the news. Even with the change in what are accepted behaviors in society, there is nothing wrong with revisiting old styles of teaching to keep it alive. It can also inspire new thoughts and ideas to students in seeing how much times have changed and what style they prefer in themselves.

What we want is for the students to be successful and for us to be strong leaders for them. What makes us strong leaders is having us keep our heads held high and staying positive. We need to be able to admit to mistakes and try new things. In order to be inspiring we must not fear or steer away from inspiration itself. To make our students successful, we must believe in them and push them to do what they are fully capable of doing.

I will use technology in the classroom as a tool for researching and constructing projects. I feel that the best way to teach is by doing, and having more hands on experiences. Technology can shelter children from this growth and gives them only a computer to rely on. I hope to teach the children how to be technical native but not feel that they need to depend on it. Technology ultimately makes life easier in the long run, but it shelters us from being able to succeed in something with our own capability.

Wiki!

Wiki is a place where you can set up your own website. I feel like this site is very useful to making your own website about your classroom.

I would suggest this site because it was easy to figure out and very clear to read.

I made a wiki called Brittany's Classroom. I am able to post pictures and add links to what is important for my class.

Podcasting

We created podcasts to see how we could use them in the classroom. It was a fun way to record our voice to an image or alone for the kids to listen to and recite with. This could be a good way for a teacher to speak to the students without speaking to them, so they have some free time to get a project ready for the children. However, I do not feel that podcasting is all that necessary for children. I feel that is more beneficial for students to have a verbal interaction with their students. It gains a more understand and trust and builds on the student/teacher relationship more.

Newsletter

We wrote newsletters explaining to our class what to expect for the year. After writing it, we were to use youpublisher to publish our newsletter. However, while I tried to publish my newsletter, failed. I could not find a way to make it work. I feel that the youpublisher is unnecessary and instead of publishing an announcement, it can just as easily be sent out by email or a printed out newsletter for the children to take home. Here is what I said in my newsletter...

Hello Class!

I am excited to start the 2010-2011 school year! I hope you are all just as excited as I am! We will be looking at history of World War II and learn about the 3 Branches of the United States of America, studying algebra and different forms of energy. We will be exploring the solar system and several different parts of the world.

I hope you are all ready for an adventure and be sure to always bring your thinking caps to school! See you in class!

-Ms. Walter

Glogster

I had a hard time understanding Glogster. It is like another blogging site. The set up was confusing and how to work around the site was hard to follow. I would not suggest this website as a blogging tool. If someone could figure it out then I would say for them, it would be a good site to keep parents updated on classroom homework and activities. It can also be helpful in setting up field trips with parents.

Prof Game

African Safari word search game » free word search

A fun and interesting site that I went to was proprofs.com. Here you have the choice to make several different word games such as word searches and crossword puzzles. These are fun games that can help with spelling and identification of certain aspects in learning. I enjoyed making this game and had fun playing it too!

Voice Threads

Today we made voice threads on http://voicethread.com and comment on what each other said. My questions asked if there can be too much technology in a classroom? Should there be more hand ons and teacher student interaction than working mainly with computers?

My PLN members agreed that there can be too much technology.

Here is the site to my post.

http://voicethread.com/?#q+too+much+tech.b939668.i5008928

I feel like voice thread would be most beneficial in presentations. It can either be used to present or help students hear how they sound and what they need to improve on before giving a presentation in the classroom.

Jigsaw Puzzle

A fun site for kids is the jigsaw puzzle site. They can create their own puzzle by uploading an image or play an already existing one. This would be fun to help kids exercise their minds and can somehow corporate the puzzles with whatever lesson they are learning.

Big Huge Lab!

Big Huge Lab is a website that has many different mini projects for you to try out. For example, the image to the left is a Pop Art Poster where I picked a picture and it did the trendy pop art style poster with that image.

This site can be used for artistic values and expression. There are many other mini projects involving using pictures but with different styles.

This is my collage I made with the glog website. I didn't really enjoy this website because it was too limited. It did not leave much room for the imagination.

I also did not feel that the tools or the way it was set up was very nice either.

This could be used in a classroom to make collages things that are similar, or it could just be a fun art project.

Online Books

I had trouble figuring out the online picture books. Fortunately, my macbook has a similar system I can use to make picture books. I enjoy this tool and it is fun and easy to put together. Above is the cover page and the first two pages. These pictures are of my friends and I getting dressed up to enjoy a fun Valentines weekend.

Google Earth

On Google Earth, I did a tour of my hometown Edmonds, WA. The picture to the left is my neighborhood and my house.

I had some trouble navigating and figuring out the tools but it was fun to explore and see my home from a satellite view.

I then did a tour of Paris, France and then around Egypt. It was interesting to see all the different patterns of structures between the three different places.

This could be used in the classroom to give a more visual idea as to what different places look like around the world and where they are in relevance to another place. Lastly, I looked at Sydney, Australia which I had found the most interesting. Children could play with this tool to gain a better understanding to the different landmarks around the world.

Today we started out by using scriblink which is like an online white board that multiple people can use at one time. We discussed how it can be used to discuss ideas, opinions, thoughts, problem solving, scratch paper and more. It was fun, however, the website was slow and didn't work well with my computer.

The second task was using thinklinkr. It is confusing and I do not like it. We used it to talk about what "differentiation" means. We came up with teaching with all lesson styles in mind and teaching in a way that benefits all children who learn differently.

Teacher Interview Continued...

Here's the response from Aunt's friend...

"I currently teach second grade for the Clark County School District out here in Henderson. My undergrad is in Elementary Education and I have a Masters in Technology in Education."--Julie Jones

(1) What tools are your favorite tech and web tools to use in the classroom?

The most used is the computer and now the internet. In our district students are enrolled in at least two different web based programs, EnVision math and Ticket to Read. The math one supports our current math program and Ticket to Read is a reading program that only allows students to advance as they pass the previous level. So, it is usually working on a skill they are in need of. I also use a wireless system which allows me to display my monitor onto my classroom TV

(2) What are your biggest frustrations with technology in the classroom?
One of the biggest frustrations is the lack of money spent in the area of technology, both in purchasing items and training teachers on how to use it. There are also discrepancies between what one school has compared to another. This varies because of each schools focus. We all get the same per pupil money but how it is spent varies widely. Some schools also do wonderful jobs at obtaining grants.

(3) What is the biggest misconception about using technology in the classroom?
That it will fix everything. Most of what we do is not technology driven at this point. Also, that it reduces paper consumption. Many still print off e-mails, memos, etc...

(4) What are the biggest hurdles that you face as an educator using technology in the classroom?
Having it available for my students to use. Many of the machines that we have are outdated and sometimes cannot support what we would like to do. There also does not seem to be enough computers available. I am in a pod with six other classrooms. Of those six, I would say at least four of us use the computers pretty consistently. That puts about 100 students trying to use 20 computers throughout the day. Sometimes I simply cannot get on them when I want to.

(5) What has been your biggest success with technology integration in the classroom?
I feel that I am a teacher that does integrate it into my lessons whenever possible. I am not scared to use it. It is nice to be able to not know the answer to something and be able to look it up right on the spot. That is a great example for my students that I am still always learning.

(6) Who/What has been your biggest inspiration in helping you to use technology in the classroom?
My biggest inspiration is my students. I really do want to prepare them for their future. They will probably be using technology in their everyday life when they get older more than I can even imagine.

(7) Where do you see technology integration heading in the future?

This is a difficult question to answer. I would hope it would be more prevalent than it is right now, but with the current economic situation I just don't see how that can happen. Our particular district is looking as to where they can cut funding. I cannot see them spending more money on technology when they are looking at increasing class sizes and waiting to adopt new text books.

Teacher Interview

I interviewed my Aunt Carol, who use to be a kindergarten teacher about technology. Since she has not taught for awhile now, her experience with technology is different from what a teacher would say now. I found it interesting to see the difference in technology over the years. Here is her response:

(1) What tools are your favorite tech and web tools to use in the classroom?

(2) What are your biggest frustrations with technology in the classroom?

(3) What is the biggest misconception about using technology in the classroom? It’s too advanced for children.

(4) What are the biggest hurdles that you face as an educator using technology in the classroom? Dependability on the equipment, budget cuts causing tech people to share time between schools so problems are not fixed in a timely manner, Not enough computers to go around so time with computers has to be scheduled and limited,

(5) What has been your biggest success with technology integration in the classroom?

(6) Who/What has been your biggest inspiration in helping you to use technology in the classroom?

(7) Where do you see technology integration heading in the future? Students with laptops instead of books, more virtual schools for high school especially, less emphasis put on spelling and punctuation, paperless schools,

I am waiting to hear from one more teacher to compare and get answers to the questions my Aunt could not answer.

Singing Gorilla

This is my storybird.com story. It is about a Gorilla that sings and when the gorilla sings, monkey's dance.

Critiquing Blogs

My PLN group and I made a list of what we think should be including in a quality blog...

--Inviting tone

--Interesting topic

--Your opinion

--Needs to be spell checked and no use of "text lingo"

--Use proper grammar

--Pictures

Class 2

On our 2nd class day we played around with several other websites to help us figure out visually stimulating ways to present information and projects. Once again, all of the different sites were overwhelming and hard to follow, however, after sitting down and taking in each assignment at my own paste, I found the sites to be interesting. For example, there was a word site where you type in a phrase, saying or just a list of words and then it would be set up in new fonts, styles and positioning to show an artistic poster. It put more meaning behind the words and was visually pleasing.

I am still having trouble figuring some of the assignments out (especially on how to post them on my blog) but I am slowly understanding how to use them all separately and expanding on how to incorporate them within a classroom.

Digital Story Telling

1. What is Digital Story Telling?

-Digital Story Telling is a home made movie constructed of your own photos. These movies can be made to explain any story. All you need to do is add captions and music and it becomes visually stimulating. It also can be used to make a project for the students to present.

2. How would you use it in a classroom?

-You can either use it to explain a new subject in class (ie history) or put together an end of the year video to show the parents what their children have done the whole year.

3. How would you need to scaffold this activity for the classroom?

-I would make sure the videos are short and clear enough to understand.

4. What are the challenges of using this technology in a classroom setting with different age groups?

-What makes someone more technology savvy is experience with technology. The younger the student, the less experience they will have making it harder for them to be able to work with.

Tech 221 First day of class

On our first day of Tech 221, we joined a blog and surfed different sites. The process was a little overwhelming but after taking it one by one at our own pace the assignments seemed to go at ease.

My past technology use has been researching with the internet, putting together powerpoint slide shows, typing up essays, graphs and charts using word, along with social uses such as facebook, email and for school, blackboard. Unfortunately, even with these experiences, I till struggled with our assignments. I am still having problems understanding what to do with each site, but after going through it once, I have been able to figure out how to navigate myself online.