Virtual Class Meeting

The virtual class have been very useful. I have had to find solutions to my problems and not wait for others to bail me out. I had to try various programs that I knew nothing about and try to use them and also why I was thinking this would be great to use in the classroom, if I can figure out how to use it. Technology has changed so much over the years and I can't imagine how much more it is going to change. I am always helping my mom and dad out (they know less about technology than I do) with their technology issues. As educators it is so essentaial that we put away our fears of technology and apply it to our classroom. My students have enjoyed learning more about technology and they are learning it through me. If I want to make sure that my students are prepared for the future I need to continue to educate myself as well. These virtal classes have taught me to take risk and not wait around on others to help me through the problems that I might encounter. I think that is why many people don't use technology.

voki

I think that voki was so much fun. I have students that hate to write and I could see voki being a motivation tool for them. I couldn't stop playing around with it myself. I tried the different sound effects and characters. I believe that it could be a problem for some you would need to set some boundries. This is the first time I have every made a voki I had seen them before, but didn't know what they were called. This class has taught me so much. I hate that we are at the end.



Get a Voki now!

Overcoming!!!

While checking my projects Dr. Koppenhaver found that my link to my web quest was not good. I had already fixed it previously. I kept thinking did I need to upload to badongo. I kept checking others links and noticed that everyone had this number at the end of theirs and mine just said account. I just knew that I missed something. So I looked for information about what the letters and numbers meant at the end of the link. So I decided to try find my web quest without logging in and post the link that way. I noticed that when I found my link I had numbers at the end of it, so I link my post and what do you know it worked. I feel like I have overcome my fears of technology. I have tried out things that I never knew were out there. I have found that if I don't get it their first time that I am usually able to find it the second time, or I can find out how to do it on the Internet. I feel very proud of all of my accomplishments this semester. I know that I will continue to use the technologies that I have learned and will also grow in my knowledge of technology now that I feel more knowlegeable of how to use it in my classroom.

Podcast

The podcast that my students created turned out great. Reading the articles helped me get a better understanding of how to use them. Gabcast was very simple to use it was very user friendly. I was actually surprised how easy it was, I guess I was expecting to download something to get it to work, but I didn't. Gabcast allowed me to listen to the podcast, before I saved on in my folder. The other program seemed a little more difficult to use. My students recited a poem about matter for our podcast. Using podcast would be great to let parents know what is happening at schhool. My students and I are planning to do additional podcast on stories that we have written.

Matter #1

Updates on Technology

This class has made me try so many new kinds of technology that I didn't even know existed. When this class began we had to do certain projects that I was a little unsure about and was also unsure how to incorporate into my classroom. The digital text that we made was somehting very easy to do using power point. My students have also made power points of what they want to do when they grow up. I really enjoyed doing the webquest about frogs. My students are getting ready to learn about lifecycles and this is a good way to incorporate that into my lesson. I have done webquest in the past with my students and I knwo that they enjoy working on them. My students also created a wiki ( which they thought were very cool) on matter. This was a great way for me to assess my students knowledge in a fun and exciting way. I see myself using wiki's again in the future, I believe that this is a great assessment tool. Podcast was also exciting for my kids to create. I thik that podcast could be very useful to inform parents of upcoming events in the school or in the classroom. The thing that I feel that has been most useful to me is the social bookmarking. I have a lot of my websites in my favorites that I am unable to access at school, now I am able to find them at school when I need them. This technology class has taught me so much and I feel that my students have learned more about Technology through me. Using technology has shown me other way to assess students learning.

Delightful Delicious

Social bookmarking is something that is very new to me. I had never heard of delicious or any of the other social bookmarking sites before. Delicious allows me to save the websites that I use often and lets me view them from any computer. Since learning about delicious I have been using it at school. One teacher asked how to find the DPI math site (it is sometimes hard to locate)which we use a lot. I told her I have it marked on my delicious site. She was very curious as to what it was and how to use it. I was very excited to explain to her what it was and how to use it. I thought that marking things in your favorites was a great thing to do, but using delicious is so much better. Delicious allows you to view others post as well. While viiewing others posts I have found many additional sites that I have found very benefical. One such site allows you to type a letter in English and it will translate it into Spanish. This is very helpful for me, because I have several non-english speaking parents that I need to communicate with and this tool allows me to do so, since I am not fluent at Spanish.

Wonderful Wiki

I really enjoyed doing the wiki in class on Monday. It was very easy to do and I think that my children would love to do these. Using wiki's would be a great way to assess students understanding. I think I am going to start a wiki with my literature circle group. I will let you know how things go.
Wiki Update
My class has been learning about matter. I wanted a different way to assess their understanding, so I decided to let them do a wiki. I am still learning exactly how to use them, but I was happy with our first product. Our wiki is still a work in progress, but I was able to see how much my students had learned. Even the students who are normally quiet were involved. I am still planning on doing a wiki with my literature circle group. We have been reading Flat Stanley and are going to do research on different community helpers.

Tutorial

I know that this is going to surprise everyone, but I had trouble with Jing. I know me having trouble with something is a little unusual, but it's true. So I decide that I would do the tutorial using the print screen function. I started it Monday night at school. As I was going through taking the pictures of my screen I noticed that the version of power point at school and at home were very different. I think that this will make it difficult for some to follow my tutorial, because I used different version of power point to explain how to make a digital book. As I was doing this tutorial I thought that my kids could do this as writing project. They could tell others how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or how to solve a math problem. This would be something fun for them. I am going to try it in the up coming weeks to see how they do. I am not sure if this will work, but I want to try it.

I had orginal wanted to try to do a tutorial as a how to project. After reading Dr. Koppenhaver's post I believe that may not be as good as I once thought. I think that I could tie this tutorial in with my lessons though. I could allow my students to use the tutorial on how to solve certain math problems. I could see this being benefical, because the students would become the teacher and I think that recipricol teaching is a great way for students to learn.

Digital Book

I have finally finished my digital book. I ran into a couple of issuse when doing my book. Powerpoint is not on my computer which made it very hard for me to work at home. My computer at school would not record sound and so therfore it was a little hard for me to do everything I needed to do for my book. My fear now is that when someone goes to view it, they want get to see it. Well now the good, the kids in my class had fun. They liked recording the sound and the fact they got to hear their own voices made it even better. Earlier this school year my class made a book and we turned our book into a power point. My students found their own templates, add text, clipart pictures and are now waiting to present their power points. I was afraid that my students would have a hard time with this. I guess my real fear was that I wouldn't know how to help them. I think I was a little afraid of technology. I have learned that you need to try things if you want to learn how they are going to work in your class you have to be willing to take risk. My students did very well with this project. I am hoping to use power point again in the future with my students.

Webquest worries

OK I have been working on my webquest for about 2 weeks now. I have probably changed it about 5 times. I have really enjoyed finding the sites that I want to put in my webquest, but I feel like I should have had more of a plan of what I was wanting to do. I have to write everything down, I think that my webquest would have gone more smoothly if I had done this. I am almost happy with what I have done and I am very excited to see my finished product. I have had the same issues with my digital book.

Webquest complete

I am very happy to say that my webquest on frog's lifecycle is complete. I choose to do lifecycles, because my students are getting ready to learn about them. I have done webquest in the past and feel very comfortable doing them with my students. After completeing my webquest I found lots of other resources that I could use with my lifecycle unit.

Webcam experience

I am very proud of myself and my use of technology. I was able to use my webcam and microphone with one of my children the other day. We had previously talked in class (the back row) about how using the webcam and microphone would be a good way to help with fluency. I have a little boy that I tutor in the afternoon that I used it with. He was very excited about it and I was too. After he read the story I played it back to him. It was amazing to see his expression as I played it back to him. He made the comment that he could read that better and wanted to try again. When I played the second reading back to him he told me that he read better the second way.

KWL using inspiration

Springdoo

I liked using the springdoo. I have had a very hard time sending my video, but it was a lot of fun to see all of the other videos. I was wondering though if their would be any issues about using springdoo with our kids. I know to take their pictures you have to have permission. I would assume that the same be true for springdoo. This week I worked with my kids to create a powerpoint project and they were very excited about this. I was a little nervous about doing this with 17 2nd graders, but they picked up on how to do it very quickly.

Try something New

I like to do different things with my kids. Well this week I am going to attempt to have my kids do a powerpoint presentation about a classbook that we had written. The book that we made is like the bare books I think that what they are called except the book that we made was publised with all of the kids writing in one hard bound book. When we finish our powerpoint we are going to present them to our parents.