AE and JH

EB and MM

JB and JA

JM and KF

JO and LA

JC and AD

Tool #11

My favorite tools from this summer are Google Docs and Poll Everywhere. These tools can allow my students to collaborate with each other and other classes in writing and graphing, as well as other things. Google Docs will make it easier for students to do peer conferencing in writing because they can leave notes right on the document. Students can then make changes without having to rewrite the whole document. Poll Everywhere will make graphing more fun for my students. I hope to use Google Spreadsheet to do some graphing using data from other classes in my grade level.
I am a little scared about taking my students to the level of using Google Docs to collaborate with other classes, but I am willing to give it a try and see what they can do with it.
So far I haven't seen any unexpected outcomes. When I start using some of these things I may find some.

Tool #10

Three things I want my students to understand about being a good digital citizen
1. Nothing is private!
2. Be positive in comments and postings
3. Not to violate copyright
One resource that I plan to use is Brain Pop. I did not know that it had a video about this. Students love Brain Pop and it has a quiz to assess their understanding.
I would teach the idea of digital citizenship along with teaching them about the different communities they are a citizen of. This is just one more community to add.
I would share the idea of digital citizenship with my parents along the same lines as I would teach the students: it is just one more community that they belong to. I would share some of the precautions that should be taken to make sure that their child is safe in this community. This is still a new community for parents, especially at our school, and they may have plenty of questions and reservations about their child’s involvement.

Tool #9

It is important to tie the technology to the objective so that it is an extension of learning, not just play time. Students need to be held accountable for stations they visit to make sure they are not just playing around. The purpose of stations/centers is to enhance learning and to make sure that learning is taking place; the students need to show that they learned something or that they practiced what is being taught.
I downloaded ArithmeTick and Coins Genius to my iPod. In ArithmeTick the students race against time to answer basic math facts. In Coins Genius the students count up the coins that are displayed and select the correct amount. For accountability the student will record, in their journal, the score they received and write about what they had difficulty with.
We also have Tales2Go on our iPods for reading. The students will write, in their reading response journals, the book they listened to and give a short summary of the book.

Tool #8

I learned how to take webcam photos and videos. However, when I looked at the netbook that I have for the summer, the software is not loaded on it for the webcam.

I also learned that I have to do some lead in lessons on the use and care of the devices before letting the students loose on them. I will also have to come up with some classroom procedures for using them and make sure that the students understand the procedures.

I think I will create a classroom job for putting out the netbooks in the morning and putting them up in the afternoons. I also will have a spreadsheet to keep track of who is using the devices so that all students get a fair chance with them. Posted rules for use would also be a good idea so that students are constantly reminded of the proper use and of the consequences for not using them properly.

Tool #7

Objective: Students will use Google Docs to create a bar graph of the colors of M&Ms in a package.
Implementation: September
Tools: Google Docs Spreadsheet
Description: The students will predict the color they think will have the most candies in the package and which color they think will have the least. They will then open the packages and use Google Docs Spreadsheet to create a bar graph showing how many of each color there actually are. Discussion of results will follow the creation of the graph. The other second grade classes will then be invited to add data to the spreadsheet. After the results of the other classes has been entered, the students will compare the spreadsheet of their class to the spreadsheet of the whole grade level.

Tool #6

I used both Diigo and Awesome Highlighter in my technology class. Diigo was OK, but for elementary school students I like the Awesome Highlighter better. Diigo allows you to make comments on the page. Awesome Highlighter does not. I don't think the students on our level will make any comments, they are just after the information right now. This will be a great tool for students when they are doing their research on line. I want to play around with it more to really get a feel for it, but I think the students will love the ability to highlight right on the website.

Tool #6

Try this audience polling system at Poll Everywhere

This is a poll I had to create for my technology class at UHCL. Counts for tool 6?

I can see using the cell phone option in secondary schools, but in elementary they will have to log on to a computer to answer. More than one classroom can take the same poll for more variety of answers.

Tool 5 1/2

Woo Hoo! Tool #5 done. I am halfway finished.

Wordle: WTW Sort 11" style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221);">Wordel using words from Words Their Way sort 11 for Within Word Pattern Spellers. You could use this for reviewing spelling words. Think of all the fun the students will have creating these and comparing them with the rest of the class.

Alter Summer Ego

http://www.ipadsandipodsjm.blogspot.com

My alter ego for the summer of technology. I had to create this blog for my college technology class. At the bottom of the page is a PowerPoint presentation I had to create and upload to SlideShare to embed it in the blog. Second part of Thing #5? Maybe?

Hope everyone is having a great summer!!

FilterKeys_001

I don't know if this qualifies for Tool #5, but here is a video I had to make for my technology class this summer. It was a very frustrating process the first time, but with practice it would become easier. This particular one is not one that I would use with my students. I am still trying to figure out how I would use Jing for instruction, but I am sure there's a way. So far all the ways that I can think of can be done by having the projector on while I do things on the computer. I'll mull on it a while and I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Tool #4

Tool #4 was not so hard. I have used Google Docs before, but not in a long time. I think that if I am going to use it for collaboration with my team it would be better to get a Google account with my school e-mail. The form that I created didn’t show up the same when I opened it the first time, but when I clicked on the link in my e-mail it showed up just fine. It’s a computer; it has a mind of its own.

For collaboration with team: we could share ideas for lessons and share forms that we created to help us get organized. Sometimes this past year one of us would have something that the others would ask for. With Google Docs shared, we could do that easier.

For classroom use: I could us it for peer editing during writing. I could use it for my editing of papers. If we could get a computer per student I could use it for creating tests. I would have to work on this for a little while to figure out the best way to handle it so students didn’t accidentally (on purpose sometimes) erase each other’s work.

Tool #3

I like using Dicovery Education for finding videos. I feel more confident that I am not breaking any copyright laws with that site.

Copyright and Fair Use are still a little fuzzy for me, but from what I understand, if you are using it for face to face instruction and in a secured environment, you are safe. I should have added a slide to my Animoto that credited Flickr for the pictures in it, but I forgot to do that until now.

I couldn't find the remix in Picasa. Does making a video in Animoto count for remixing the pictures I found and put in Picasa?

Animoto

A short, very short, animoto clip I made with some pictures from Flickr. You can have slides with text on them and have students use it for a report.

Students love The Magic School Bus. I am not quite clear on if I am in violation of copyright laws here or not. Am I in violation because I downloaded the full video and technically anyone on the Internet can find it and view it? I know that if I put it on a flipchart to be shown just to my class that it is OK because it is not on a public site. Let me know quick so I can delete it if it's a violation. Don't want the video police to come knocking at my door.

Lazy Day

Doesn't he look comfortable? I downloaded this picture from Flickr. It took a little while to remember how I did this. Those videos are nice, but I prefer a set of printed instructions that I can follow as I do it. 23 Things to the rescue again: I pulled out my notebook from 23 Things and looked up the instructions. See, I am still using what I learned 3 years ago in 23 Things.

School Tube

http://www.schooltube.com/video/92c118dac9ca2ac33092/Amelia-Earhart-Final-Flight

This film explores several different theories on what happened to Amelia Earhart. When we did our American Heroes in Social Studies the students were very interested in what happened to her. I think they would enjoy this short film and it could be a lead in to a writing assignment on what they think happened.

Commenting

Well, after many hours and some help from Guusje, I was finally able to leave a comment on a blog. It wasn't that hard the first time I did this, but the computer kept telling me that I wasn't logged on.

I must admit that I am a lurker. I don't comment very often but I like to look around and get ideas. I don't like leaving my personal thoughts for just anyone to see. I have a Facebook account and I don't leave statuses on there very often either. I love getting on to see what everyone is doing, but my life is pretty boring so I don't put a status on very often. Or I don't because there are people who I am friends with that I don't want to see the status.

The iPod situation still is not resolved. We think it may be a Tech Services problem.

Rough start

So far technology is not my friend. Either that or I am still so shellshocked from my first year of teaching that the brain has not started working again yet. It had better start working soon (the brain that is) because I start classes next week.

Updates

Updated Avatar, Voki, and LibraryThing. Wish I looked like my avatar or voki. I did look a lot like my avatar once upon a time, many, many moons ago. Oh well, life goes on.

Are we having fun yet?

Thing #1

The hardest part of creating this blog for the 11 things was remembering my password to sign on. I had to create this blog about 3 years ago for 23 things so I just resurrected it for 11 things. Have a great summer everyone! Onward and upward!