Wow… what a summer! As I read over all of my posts, I’m amazed at how much I learned in this short time period. I am so excited about integrating Web 2.0 into my classroom. I feel very fortunate that my partner teacher, sure.hoppy, took this course along with me. We have been sharing ideas all summer and now have plans to begin construction on our classroom Wiki next week!
I teach 4th grade language arts, so I looked at each tool and thought of ways to use them to encourage and better my students’ reading and writing skills. My Delicious account is overflowing with ideas. I am careful not to become overwhelmed and remember the advice of an ISTE conference speaker who said that taking on three new tools a year is a reasonable goal.
Besides having a classroom Wiki, I hope to include podcasting as a way for students to share their writing or book reviews. This tool seems non-threatening for all students, even those that are shy or do not enjoy a live audience. I think parents will enjoy experiencing a part of their child’s school day via the internet. If my goal of purchasing the Flip Video Cameras is achieved, parents will be able to see their children actively invloved in learing throughout the school day, and not just their final products posted on the web or in the hallways.
The “23 Things” Wiki has been such a great learning resource. I will return to it throughout the coming year as I start my Web 2.0 journey with 4th graders. Wish me luck!
No doubt one can get lost in the world of social networking! I’ve been “wandering around” for the past three hours and only visited the tip of the iceberg!
I was surprised to find that our task was to visit Classroom 2.0. I actually referred to this site in my Thing 7C: Google Reader post. I did not realize that it was a social networking site for educators. When I revisited, I was impressed with the variety of questions and answers. There is a wealth of information here! It has been added to my bookmarks (or should I say, my Delicious account)!
I found the The Education Technology Blog. It is full of resources for educators who are looking for new and unique ways to use technology in the classroom. On the first page, I found links to: splice YouTube videos together, virtual field trips, and 5 minute tutorials on technology usage.
I visited sites related mostly to technology in the classroom: The use of document cameras and clickers in the classroom. I also visited sites for librarians, again hoping to find some help with developing activities for the bluebonnet books. Sadly, my search resulted in a “dead end”.
The “Forum” of Classroom 2.0 is very user friendly. I enjoyed the insight from educators from all over the world and grade levels. There were middle-school teachers excited about using ideas presented by elementary teachers. They were sharing ways to “upgrade” ideas. As an elementary teacher, it is great to see upper level teachers wanting to use hands-on ideas with their students… realizing that students never outgrow the need to be involved in the learning process!
I joined Facebook about a year ago, mainly to keep in touch with my brother and his family. About two months ago, I was hoping to join a group to discuss the Bluebonnet Books, but when I “searched” for it, I found that it is under construction. I left my name, but have not heard back.
I did not join Classroom 2.0, but will definately return to ”lurk” around for ideas that will allow my students to experience Web 2.0 this year!
This week I was excited to read a post titled “Teaching Nonfiction Text Features” on the Reading Rockets blog. Two ideas were shared.
The first idea came from Teaching Comprehensionand is called an Interactive Text Feature Wall. Students are encouraged to find features of non-fiction reading and post them on a bulletin board divided according the the various components.
The second idea comes from Classroom 2.0, and is called “text-mapping” using the “scroll” technique. Any non-fiction text can be copied and presented as one long text (scroll) instead of book form. Students are able to view the entire text at one time, working in small groups to identify features of non-fiction texts and color-coding them. The picture below shows the final product as displayed in a school hallway. The teacher included photos of the students as they worked throught the process of “mapping” the text. I love the idea of including pictures of the students “in action”! I was thinking that the same photos could be included on the class Wiki for those parents unable to visit the school and see the hallway display.
To better understand this concept, be sure to take a look at the text mapping project. Creator, Dave Middlebrook , takes you step by step through the process of preparing a text and mapping it. Just click “next” at the bottom of each page to go through the complete process.
This is a great idea for language arts, as well as all content-areas.
Pageflakes is a great concept! I signed up and had fun adding my own interests into the boxes. It is so much better than opening up my browser and having MSN.com decide what is on my homepage. I like the idea of signing in to my e-mail account, Facebook, and seeing the local weather and news in one glance.
I looked at some of the Pageflakes made by educators. I especially liked the one filled with voicethreads. My favorite was the voice thread: 3rd Grade Tall Tales. It included student summaries and hand-drawn picture of Pecos Bill. What a great way to compare/contrast summaries… identifying those that were brief, yet covered the main idea of the story. Students’ personalities came out in their use of vocabulary, the parts of the story they stressed,and their personal illustrations:)
Even if I do not use Pageflakes in the classroom, I may use it personally. I will definately return to the educational Pageflakes and preview other ways of using Web 2.0 tools.
Google Documents is very user-friendly! I found it easy to upload a word document, as well. I like the way the document shows the history of edits with a small orange line with the editor’s name. I can see this being very useful among teachers as they work on committees. I thought of instances where it would have been useful in the past… making a flyer for a field trip, organizing jobs on a committee. My co-teacher and I are currently using the Google documents to work on a proposal to purchase Flip Video Cameras for our classrooms – wish us luck!
I also played with the spreadsheets. I could embed one in a wiki; asking parents to sign up to bring items for a class party. I can also keep track of students’ Bluebonnet book reading.
This is a tool I will definately be using this school year!
YouTube and Teacher Tube are fun places to visit on the web. I could spend hours watching a favorite comedian or watching my nephew and niece. My brother is an avid video producer. I even found out that I was going to be an aunt via YouTube last fall!
I found the following video on Teacher Tube. I think it is a good example of student-made videos. I can envision my 4th graders making a similar video, but on a different level. Each student could act out a literal and figurative meaning of a metaphor or simile.
I also found videos of students giving book talks… yet another tool for student to use when doing a “book report”. Now, if only I could purchase a Flip Video Camcorder.
I have created my bare-bones voice recording and saved it into MP3 format. Making the voice recording was easy. I found instructions on the web for importing “MP3 Encoder” into iTunes. (I just Googled, and this was the first site that came up. The instructions were simple!) Since I am such a visual learner, I like the idea of including a video, or at least a picture to go along with the audio. I am posting pictures that will help explain my podcast.
Students used Q-tips dipped in paint to add their bluebonnets to the map.
As the year went on, bluebonnets continued to bloom across Texas.
I think using a podcast to explain pictures posted on a class Wiki as I did here, would be helpful for parents/community to understand the activities in the photos. This would also give students practice in summarizing as they develop the podcasts.
I found a “Meet the Author” podcast collection on iTunes. I viewed several videos of some of my favorite authors. I then noticed the Reading Rockets website embedded in the description of each podcast. When I visited the site, I looked for the RSS feed button. As I scrolled down the site, I found that the site invited their readers to spread the word of their site by simply downloading their graphic and embedding their site as a link. I’ve linked this to the teacher site, but there is a lot of information for parents, principals, and librarians too.
I think the author videos would be good to show students. Many of the authors share stories of notebooks they carry to write down ideas anytime, anywhere. I attended an author talk of Andrew Clements last year. I took notes to share with my students.. actually wished they could have attended as well. This is a great way to share authors with students without the cost of inviting an author to the school or worrying about travel expenses:)
I think my new favorite podcasts are from Grammar Girl! I’ve linked this to the podcast about using voice and tone in writing. She explains that using voice is like Simon Cowell of American Idol, telling the contestants that they should choose a song that they can make their own. I think 4th graders would easily understand that analogy. I’ve listened to several of her podcasts and learned new ways to explain grammar to my students. I can’t wait to incorporate some of her terminology into my teaching this year!
I subscribed to HGTV’s Design Star Vlog… David posts podcasts on his blog. He critiques the contestant’s’ work and the judges’ decisions. Thank you, Julia.. I’m enjoying this new season of Design Star:)
I think I would like to use podcasts as a way for students to present their book reviews. I am looking for several different ways to allow students to write and reflect on their reading this coming school year. I will add this to my “toolbox” of ideas:)
On a side note: I found this great Web 2.0 list for teachers, and thought I’d share. Several of the tools we have used are listed along with MANY other ideas. For those of you who are looking for ideas beyond this class… enjoy!
I liked the book reviews in LibraryThing. I reviewed a book my son is required to read this summer. I now want to read the book myself.
I tried out the book suggestion tool. I think students would like this feature. Although, the site pretty much recommends books by the same author.
I enjoyed looking at the pictures in Flickr that were submitted for a contest on this site. My favorite picture is copyrighted, so I cannot share it on my blog:( It would be a perfect addition to my school wiki. I may have to try to recreate the idea so I can have my own picture:)
I registered for my deliecious account and immediately started searching the names of novels I teach. I like the fact that you get fewer sites recommended than when you just “Google” them, and that most of them were relevant since they were tagged by other educators. I found new ideas for novels that I have been teaching for seven years!
I also found a site called WordSift. The user types in a word, and several graphics are produced that represent the text. What a great tool for teaching vocabulary! I also found a video that showed how to capture a computer screen shot, save it to “Paint” in accessories and then post on a blog…. However, my “Wordle” will not upload:( Will keep trying! Til then.. here is the link to my Delicious account: http://delicious.com/dede0017
