The End of the Journey

Wow! What a fantastic class! I never would have been able to learn so much about so many different tools without your guidance, Sandy. Thank you!! I think the most valuable part of this class has been to see all of the things teachers are doing out there. It appeals to my competetive nature, but it mostly just makes me want to ensure that our students are getting the best education available.
I find it immensely helpful that we completed all of our work on a blog. I have definitely forgotten about the brainstorming I did back in June. I love the fact that I have it documented and easily accessible. The liklihood of me actually implementing these tools has increased dramatically. :)
This was also a great way to create a new network of colleagues. I had access to the ideas of teachers and administrators from different divisions. The more frequently that happens, the better it is for our school.
As far as the tools mentioned for this last post, I have always loved Discovery's site. I used their video streaming quite a bit this year for our social studies units and to provide some background for novels we were reading. I've had great fun with their puzzle makers and other reproducibles.
As far as iTunesU is concerned, I'm very interested. My father-in-law was just telling us about the lectures he's been listening to during his commute. I just downloaded the software, but I haven't had a chance to explore.
I am surprised to see that I haven't made good use out of the PLN's yet. I think it's because I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off all summer. But I like that I have some blogs already flagged, as well as Nings. It's fun to have those resources at my fingertips.
This class was inspiring. It has definitely caused me to take a look at what I'm doing and reassess the value of it. I'm looking forward to integrating some of these tools this year.

Web 2.0 Tools That Enhance Learning

Sandy encouraged me to participate in the professional development classes this summer. I led a class on Web 2.0 Tools and showed the group the wonders of Slideshare. Seriously, how great is it?! I uploaded the slideshow that I created, so they would be able to access it at any time. Every tool I shared with the class has already been introduced to you by Sandy, but feel free to take a look!

Web 2.0 Tools That Enhance Learning

View more presentations from schmijac.

After looking through 280slides, I don't really see using the tool very much. PowerPoint does have a bunch of distractions, but the kids get excited to use it. They like bells and whistles and are challenged to find legitimate ways to integrate them. When my students have their very own version of PowerPoint on their own laptops it just makes sense to stick with that.

We have our students share their Water Cycle PowerPoints with the class. It is a royal pain in the neck to have them save it to their flash drive, bring it up to my laptop, find it in the correct window (which is still challenging for them since this is our first PPT project) and then get moving. I love the idea of having them upload it to slideshare and just accessing it from my laptop that way. Plus, Slideshare can be a very valuable tool for them in the future. What a great way to see a lesson from another viewpoint or to get caught up on the lesson that they missed.

Great Student Glog

For some reason, I couldn't find the share button on this glog. So, I can only include the link. It's such a great example of how to make the most out of this tool. Elsa really took it and ran with it. Leslie never gave her a list of EXACTLY what needed to be on the page.

Cool Glog

Glogster

Glogster

Again, thanks to Sandy I have had some experience with this tool. We had our fourth grade students create a glog devoted to one of the causes of the Revolutionary War. We kind of dove into the project, and, of course, now realize how we could have made it better. The thing is, we didn't really get what made the tool so special. I think the inclusion of the varied types of media are what really make this tool stand-out. When Leslie's kids chose to create a glog about the Oregon Trail, some of them produced truly remarkable work.

I would love to use this tool again and put more emphasis on using video and sound instead of simply images and text. It can be used in many, many ways. I think it's an excellent presentation tool for science, novels, social studies. You name it! They could create a glog about Maniac Magee and have a video of them re-enacting their favorite scene. Another part can be devoted to a mini character sketch of their favorite character. Yet another textbox could include a plot summary. They could even post answers to some discussion questions. I think the students would be much more interested in this tool when they realize all of the things it can include.

EtherPad

Ahhhh... EtherPad... I can't decide how I feel about this tool. I did try using it with my kids this past year. I clearly had not prepared them to use it effectively because it did not go very smoothly. I just remember a lot of arguing. It makes sense when you think about it. It would be frustrating to have someone cut in on my screen right this moment and start typing away. I would be so distracted and possibly lose my train of thought. That being said, I don't want to discount a tool simply because I did a poor job introducing it to them. We do a lot of group writing in our classrooms in fourth grade, so I think it could definitely come in handy. It may help to have each child engaged with their own screen and keyboard instead of just milling around behind the one person who is typing.

I started up an EtherPad just for fun. It's just a blanket statement about my conference in Houston (which was FANTASTIC) by the way. I think this link will take you there...

My EtherPad

A note about messaging with this tool... I had a group of boys use it outside of school as a messaging tool. They never seemed to be able to catch each other at the same time, but they did regularly check it and post new messages. As far as I know, it wasn't used during class, but it easily could be. There are so many ways to be able to message during class now, I can't imagine nixing a tool just because of that.

Come to think of it, this would be a great tool for PLC's. It would be easy to have our progress in a particular area posted on an Etherpad and have people jump on and comment. Just a thought...

On-Line Collaboration

Collaboration truly is an essential skill in the 21st century. We do many group projects in our room that force the children to work together and figure out ways to solve problems on their own. I am very interested in learning more about Wiggio. My first thought was that it would be handy for the divisions at BPS. I love the idea of a shared on-line calendar. With all of the things going on, it would be so helpful to have a place to go on-line and find out when report cards are due, if convo is on for the day or when play rehearsals begin. Sue R might have a more peaceful existence!

It sounds like the kids would have a central place to work together and would be able to continue their work at home. That is a very nice feature. And I like that we'd be able to track everyone's progress and have an idea of how much each student is contributing.

WallWisher was pretty cool, too. I love the idea of using it for exit slips. I was really inspired by the Differentiation conference I attended in Houston and hope to make use of exit slips to better group my students. This would be a very convenient way to do it. I sometimes worry about posting work for all to see, though. I don't want students to feel stupid in front of their peers if they are WAY off base. Hmmmm... I could see using this tool for students to create a mindmap for a piece of writing they would have to do as a group. Kind of stuck on this one...

I'm a big fan of Skype. I used it to connect with the Shoshone children in Wyoming when we were studying their tribe. I learned a lot from that experience about how to make it better. Number one - less questions! Number two - students should be our own age (instead of 2 years younger). Number three - must have more time for follow-up chats. One video conference was not enough. It generated a ton of new questions. We could use Skype to connect with kids across the country about weather or settings in our novels or places mentioned in Lewis and Clarks' travels. The more we can expose our students to other realities the better.

Animoto.com

Animoto.com

Thanks to Sandy, I have had some experience with this tool. My students loved it! I can't believe how easy it is to use. We downloaded Audacity and had the kids create their own narration to go with their Colonial Fair pictures.
I loved how the kids had to plan out their storyboard and collaborate for an appropriate narration. The main problem we faced was that we couldn't exactly control the length of the video, so their narration would get cut off at the end. Eventually we just dealt with it and were satisfied even if it faded out a little bit at the end.

Now that I know how easy the tool is to use, I would like to use it in a more beneficial way. We had the kids recount their experiences at the Colonial Fair, but that doesn't really show much of what they learned. Although it was a nice piece to share with parents since they were not invited to spend the day with us, I'd rather have them create a brief movie about the difficulties of the time period or the role of the family members.

We could use this for books as well - even create a montage of images (could get them from Flickr) about our novel with narration or music that connects to the plot. Wonder if that would work...

Kerpoof!

I was investigating the Kerpoof site, and I found a lot of cool things. After looking at the tweets I saw that you needed Koins to be able to use some of the tools. I foolishly thought you could earn Koins without creating an account. So, I tried my hand at some of the different options. The card was cute, but it is more of a flyer than a card since there didn't seem to be a cover and then an opening.

That being said, it was still fun to do. And looking at my picture I see that I still had the Thank You bubble selected! haha! I also began writing a story. The backgrounds are cute, and they do have a lot of choices for the images to put it. I tried to attempt creating a movie, but I never did earn enough (in fact, I didn't earn anything despite the icons that popped up saying +1, +5, etc.), and I didn't have my notebook with me. However, I did check out some of their previews.

Under Construction

I'm very interested to see what is out there for movie production tools. Leslie had a GREAT idea about having the kids create their own movie trailer for one of our Jerry Spinelli books. I thought that would be so much fun for the kids! And I will saw that Kerpoof is very, very easy to use. The kids could really fall in love with this program. My only concern is that it might be a little too young for them in terms of the characters they are able to use. Regardless, it would be a more engaging way to display what they took from the book. It's a more fun version of summarizing!

The Other On-line Writing Tools

Tikatook and Big Universe were very interesting. Again, I am faced with the same dilemma about how appropriate it would be to use technology that wasn't present during a particular time period a project might be devoted to. I honestly don't know how much that truly matters if the kids are completely engaged in what they are doing. However, it is already so difficult to try to get them to imagine how things were before all of our present day technology. That being said, I don't know if having them draw a picture with colored pencils conveys the message any clearer than having them create the scene digitally. Clearly, I am ready to be convinced that it is worth it! And, again, I like that each child would have their own copy. I do wish there was a way to create an audience to view these outside of our classroom. Just knowing that a few people in this class read what I write changes the way I approach it. It makes me strive for a higher standard of quality. After all, I don't want to look like a fool in front of my colleagues and friends!

The ReadWriteThink tool would be fun for dialouge or even to create a story map before writing. It didn't have a very wide variety of images to use, and there was very little to offer in terms of controlling the view of them. But I think that makes it more valuable in a way. The focus can remain on the writing skill as opposed to the design.

The other tools all looked fantastic. I think they could be used in a variety of ways from writing instruction to an assessment tool. Having the kids create a comic to reflect a scenario or event from a particular time period makes them tranfer their knowledge in a different way than it was presented to them. That would make me feel more comfortable about assessing how much they actually got out of the unit.

I look forward to using these!

Mixbook - so COOL!

We'll see if this works...

View Sample Photo Books Create your own Photo Book

Okay, I'm really proud of myself for figuring out how to post this. And it makes me even more excited to use this tool in the classroom because the kids could so easily view each other's work. Mixbook is pretty amazing! :)

Mixbook - love it!

This could be such a fun tool to use. It could be used to review Wordly Wise words by having a picture on the front page and turning the page for a definition. It could be used for a variety of ways in Social Studies. We currently create a family album for our colonial times unit. I don't know if this would be the perfect choice, though, since there weren't really photographs at that time. BUT it would be great to use for Civil War. And I believe there were some rare photographs in the Westward Expansion time period.



I loved that example Sandy showed us from the Revolutionary War project. It was so clever to create a haiku riddle for historical figures from that time period. That could be beautifully translated into any time period. It would also be a great assessment tool. Fun!



Mixbook definitely needs to make an appearance this year. I love the fact that the parents will have the ability to view the book and also the choice to purchase it if they wish.

Digital Storytelling... Hits and Misses

Well, I have only looked through the first 4 links so far. I thought that fairy tale site was cute, but I don't know how valuable I would be able to make it. I'm teaching 2nd grade for SOE right now, and I do feel like it would be a blast for them. I can't see making it work in 4th because I think the kids would cheat the exact same way that I did. I simply scrolled down after reading the very first section and answered the question in the prompt. I genuinely have no idea what my story said. The only catch about using it with younger kids is that the text the insert is pretty lengthy. It was definitely neat, but don't see myself using it.

The Historic Tale comic strip thing was pretty cool. I actually spent a good 30 minutes creating an original about a Greedy King (that was, in fact, the title). I sent it to the gallery and that was the end of it. I am so annoyed at myself for not emailing it to my account first. I have tried to view the gallery on the page, but it just loads forever and never displays anything. Grrrrrrr.... Very annoying... Anyway, it was fun, BUT it is definitely limited to a particular time period (obviously the medieval times). Therefore, I can see myself showing this to my student for them to utilize for fun and inspiration, but I don't know how I would integrate it into our curriculum.

The Digital Storytelling site was very moving. It gave me chills to watch and see what an impact it has on people of all ages when they have an opportunity to share their stories. I think that we could use that tool for some of the things I have mentioned before (acting out family histories or dicey moments along the Oregon Trail), but I almost feel bad not utilizing it for its true purpose! I think the kids would be incredibly engaged, and I like how they help to organize it with specific roles. Definitely has potential, but not one I'd be ready to toss in next year.

The Myths & Legends site was my favorite! I fooled around with it a tiny, tiny bit but kept getting the sign-in pop-up. Plus, it is packed with an incredibly wide variety of choices. I knew I would have spent many, many hours on it. And, if using this in the classroom, the students would, too. Again, I believe we could use this tool to retell the story of their colonial family's journey to the new world or a moment along the Trail. BUT I also think that this one lends itself to creative writing in general. We do a Pumpkin Pal story in October. The kids decorate a little pumpkin and write a story about their new addition to the world. Typically, the pumpkins are on a very wild adventure. It would be a lot of fun to use this format to retell it. Plus, giving them the constructs of a myth or legend may help them organize their tale better. I also thought the site had WONDERFUL resources for teaching. I liked the suggestion about tying in the witch trials for colonial times. And I like the graphic organizer for planning out the storyboard.

So far, so good. I'm looking forward to investigating the scrap booking tools!

Okay... Last One!

I just think this one is neat...

Tag Galaxy

It brings out my inner-scientist. :)

Seriously, Sandy! Help Me Stop Playing!

I don't know why these things are so addicting. I just always want to click it one more time and see what I'm missing. Flickr is fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bubblr! A VERY Stupid strip...

Don't say I didn't warn you! :) I just wanted to try it out. I think this tool has a ton of potential. I will list the challenges below.



The most challenging part to creating this was figuring out how to find the pictures I wanted. I had an idea in my mind that was inspired by the first picture, but I had a lot of difficulty finding the pictures that I wanted to use. So, it is quite jumpy and barely makes sense because I didn't want to spend 3 hours on it (that would be VERY easy to do by the way). While discovering the best way to search for pictures in Flickr would be helpful, the difficulty required a great deal of critical thinking. I went back and changed my captions and choice of pictures several times since I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. Talk about HOTS! :)

This has great potential. We could always brainstorm as a class about what pictures we would need. I have already created a Flickr account, and Bubblr did offer the option of searching by tag AND user. If we create a photo script of sorts, then the kids could take the pictures and we could upload them to my Flickr account. This could be a great tool for reenacting the story of how their colonial family came to the new world. Or, they could retell a brush with death along the Oregon Trail! Ooohhh! I like that one! What a great culminating activity to help them identify the perils of the time period. Fun!

Just realized that you can't actually read my entertaining bubbles in this format. I know, I know... you are a glutton for punishment. If you are just dying to find out what I wrote, then just click on the link below.

The Beach by JD