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.