Tech 4 Learning

                                                                                                     (Tech 4 Learning Logo)

 

Does your school or county currently own the Tech 4 Learning software?  If not I highly recommend it.  Although I have not used Image Blender much, I have dappled with Frames, and use Pixie extensively.  In Frames I had students create book reviews of picture books to encourage younger students to read.  Pixie has been used for a variety of purposes including: oral and written digital story telling, math flash cards, internet safety posters, diversity quilts, mini content specific books, and vocabulary flash cards to name a few.  It is also very helpful when creating a word wall for the students as their image library is quite extensive.  Pics 4 learning, a free image search by Tech 4 Learning, has been helpful when teaching students about the importance of using royalty free images for their projects.  There is definitely no "is it worth it?" question when it comes to this software.  They have lesson ideas and tips on Recipes 4 Learning.  My school does not have a subscription to this.  Have you used this site?  Would you recommend looking into a subscription?

Digital Video

This week our focus was on Digital Video.  To practice the skills of digital video my group did a Jeopardy take.  We came up with a treatment that laid out our purpose, audience, time length for the video, and the style (game show, public service announcement, etc).  It also includes a detailed paragraph that includes an overview of the video.
Once the treatment was finished we laid out step by step how we would shoot the video using a storyboard.  This included the shots that would be taken, what would be said, and what effects would be added (paning, zooming, music, sound effects).
After all shots had been taken and sound clips had been laid out we used Windows movie maker to edit the videos.  This included cropping and splicing scences, adding pictures, adding effects, and adding all auditory such as music and sound.  Unfortunately we forgot a crucial step, finalizing the video to put it in a playable format.

As far as use in the classroom I am asking myself the Is it Worth it Factor?  I can see digital video editing being very useful in a high school marketing class, but am unsure about using it with elementary school students.  Going through the treatment, storyboard, videoing, and editing process certainly teaches sequence, promotes writing skills, and results in students having to carefully plan and design.  I could see it being used for how-to videos, storytelling, famous people interviews, ancient civilizations, or regions. However this also will be very time consuming.  Then again the emotional connection students would have from researching and designing such a project would certainly make it memorable.  So memorable, but time consuming.  So, is it worth it?

You Tube

So this post is more of a questioning post than an informative one.  My county has just recently unblocked www.youtube.com for teachers to use in their lessons and students to use for research and projects.  Although we have filters set by our county, I have noticed that viewing the full video is still VERY important.  A week ago I was trying to find some material for teaching children double negatives  (there isn't much out there).  I found this great skit acted out by a few pre-teens...until about three and a half minutes into it.  Nothing awful, but name calling that I'd rather not expose fourth graders to. 

I haven't setup a YouTube channel yet, but found this tutorial helpful for when I do get around to it.

Have you used YouTube in your classroom?  How do you find it helpful?

Three Handy Tools

I was introduced to these sites at ISTE this past summer and they have been very helpful on more than one occasion for management and time saving purposes.

The first is fur.ly.  This site allows you to link multiple pages to one page.  So if your students are doing a research project and there are five different sites that you are allowing them to gather information from, this allows you to give them one web address for them to type in rather than five.  It can also be useful during center time.  I used it at the beginning of the year in the computer lab to set up websites for all six grade levels at once, rather than having to reset all the computers in the very limited time I had between classes.

The second site is tinyurl.com.  This is unbelievably useful!  When giving students a website, rather than having them copy addresses that are many many characters long, often with weird symbols that makes it easy for them to mistype, tinyurl will shorten the website address to tinyurl.com/#### (they usually give four to five characters in their randomly assigned web addresses).  You can also customize the name if you would like.  For example, rather than typing in http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/curriculum/literacy/lit_site/html/fiction/fairytale2/goldilocks/goldicontents/goldicontentspage.htm to thirty computers for one of my classes I made a shortcut address: tinyurl.com/gl3bear.  Not only did this save a LOT of time, but the address was easy for me to remember as I went from one computer to the next.

The third site is www.sqworl.com.  This site is a bookmarking tool that portrays an image of the bookmarked sites.  I find it useful when allowing students choice for an activity or when sharing resources with the teachers I work with.  Here are some sqworl categories I have set up:

•      Reading and Language Arts    http://sqworl.com/3lhpuo
•      Read Aloud Stories                http://sqworl.com/eb3xbk
•      Math Activities                       http://sqworl.com/o4xsas
•      3rd Grade SOL review          http://sqworl.com/xgl0d6

Each bookmark portrays a thumbnail view of the site.  You can go back to edit your list at any time.  DO you have any other management or time saving sites that you like to use often?

From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

So...this week's focus is on changing a lesson that was originally made using Web 1.0 , or internet activity based on hyperlinks to using Web 2.0, focusing on collaboration and information sharing.

The point of the lesson is to get students more involved and excited about reading.  The original lesson was as follows:

Project Title: Read Me, I'll Read to You!
Category and type: Interpersonal Exchange--Question and Answer Activity
Appropriate Grade Levels: K-5
Brief Description:
At the beginning of March (Read Across America Month) each grade level will choose one children's author to focus on during the month from a set list of authors (This is important as prior approval/permission will be needed).  Throughout the month they will read and discuss a variety of books by that author in read-alouds, small group instruction, and independent reading times. They will also study the author himself (herself).  They will keep track of the books they have read and what they liked/disliked about each one.  At the end of the month the students in each grade level will vote on their favorite book and describe why it was their favorite.  As a culminating activity the author chosen  by each grade level will Skype in to an assembly with all the students in that grade.  He (she) will read an exerpt from the childrens' favorite book and tell them about life as an author.  He (she) will then answer questions children had about the book and about the person.  The students will then write a biography on that author, which will be e-mailed to the author.


To make it more of a web 2.0 project, the school would create a wiki of favorite authors.  Each class would choose a favorite author and do an author study on that person throughout the month of March.  In their wiki students could include biographical information about the author, summaries of the books read, small video clips advertising the books to others (using software such as Frames), character posters (using software such as Pixie), and reading excerpts by creating podcasts of their favorite sections of the books.   Such a project would be an invaluable resource to the school.  It would also really engage students and draw them into the world of reading.