I must admit the last few weeks of work have been a little frustrating. The older grades have been doing a lot of testing, and I mean a LOT of testing (way too much if you ask me). As a result, my room is used for testing, as are all the laptop carts, which means I have had to get a little creative in teaching computer lab sans computers. I will share some of my go to sites today.
To start, I figured Spring is a good time to review some of our Internet Safety rules. NetSmartz.org is an excellent resource for this. They will send free training materials, and the presentations are quite engaging. The young kids are a BIG fan of Clicky and his friends. I also like to Faux Pas the Techo Cat to switch things up a little bit.
For the older kids I like to use Professor Garfield. By fourth and fifth grade they have seen the Netsmartz presentations multiple times, and professor Garfield addresses some older kid issues that Netsmartz doesn't delve into as much.
Once Internet safety has been reviewed I find some of the learning labs on Discovery Education Science very interesting. These have built in authentic problems and the students find them interesting. Although better in partners or small groups, they are do-able whole class. If your school has a license to Discovery Education, I highly suggest the add on package of Discovery Science. Not only are their videos great, but the labs and explorations are designed very well also.
Brainpop and Brainpopjr are also excellent tools and allow for great discussions. DON'T just play the videos through. Stop and discuss the vocabulary and concepts being introduced. One five minute clip can easily turn into a twenty minute lesson when you incorporate think-pair-share and class discussions. The quizzes at the end are a great way to assess student learning, and for when students do have individual computer access there are some worth while learning activities that go with each clip.
My new favorite website to use, especially for the last five to ten minutes if a lesson didn't go quite as long as I thought, is Interactive Sites for Education. Again this can be used on individual computers or whole class. The activities are numerous, engaging, and appropriate for a variety of grade levels.
And of course, there are the numerous game templates available on the Interactive Whiteboard sites (Promethean Planet or Smart Exchange for example) that can be customized to fit any unit the students are learning. I will be using Midwest Region Jeopardy with my fifth grade class tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Vocabulary Is the Key to Understanding
In a previous post I briefly mentioned Voki as a great tool to use with students to help them develop fluency when reading. Voki can also be a great tool for vocabulary development. Rather than having students write out definitions in a notebook, even an interactive notebook, have them create a digital avatar that will give the definition of the word. As the teacher, you can then group and organize individual student vokis so the class has access to them all. They can be linked in a project or uploaded on a webpage. I purchased Voki classroom for my fourth grade students and they have used it to define reading comprehension terms amoung other things. They are engaged, and it gives a quick spot check as to who thoroughly understands the terminology, versus who only has a surface understanding.
Spellingcity.com is a website that you can create customizable lists of students spelling words or vocabulary words. Students can then play matching and mulpile choice review games to go over the vocabulary. Part of the site is subscription, but a good portion of the site is free.
However, one of my favorite ways for vocabulary and concept development is to have students create word clouds. There are three applications I have used for word clouds in the past. The first is located in the letters section of grades 2-5 at www.abcya.com, and is simply entitled word clouds. The second Wordle, is very similar. However, I have occasionally had difficulties with Wordle not printing for students. The third, and my favorite is Tagxedo. This one will have the words take the form of a silhouette. You can use the examples they have, or do an image search for a silhouette of your choosing. I used Tagxedo for the graphic at the top of this post. The words I used most often show up in the image, the larger the word, the more it was used. I simply pasted the text of thus blog into the silhouette; a key because vocabulary holds the key to understanding. You can type directly into a word cloud, or paste a document as I did. Words that are used more frequently will appear larger. You can then customize the colors and layout.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tech 4 Learning
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?
Sunday, March 18, 2012
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?
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?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
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?
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:
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
Sunday, March 4, 2012
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.
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.
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