I entered phase 2 of my classroom blog yesterday. I found a great video on Teacher tube in which a class of 6 and 7 year olds from New Zealand describe how they use their blog. Yesterday, I showed my class this video and each child came to the computer and dictated his/her sentence about something learned in our latest unit. They thought it was very cool that anyone who has internet could see our pictures, videos and writing. I will continue to integrate this into our weekly goals to share learning, have the children do more of the hands on work.
This past week, C. Picha and I co-taught our integrated lesson to her fourth graders. The topic was anti-bullying and the project created at the end of the lesson was a poster relating to one of the four OLWEUS rules. The students were excited about creating a poster that was going to be displayed somewhere in the school, but when we explained that they would also be sharing their posters on voicethread, the enthusiasm was clearly visible on their faces and comments. Not only were they extremely motivated to get to started, they all created high quality posters and enjoyed writing scripts explaining their poster. This experience reaffirms why it is so important for educators to continue to find ways to integrate the use of technology into their daily lessons and activities.
Ok, I just completed my Learning/Technology Fair Project. I chose to begin a classroom blog as another way to share information about what we are doing in first grade with the rest of the world. I decided to record my students reading their constellation stories with my Flip video recorder. It is very easy to use. I then uploaded the videos with the Flip software. In order to load the videos to teachertube, I had to first save them to a file on my desktop. If I uploaded to youtube, I could have done it directly. So, teachertube had one extra step which was fine once I figured it out. Then I loaded the videos from teachertube to my blog by the html. It was a little time consuming, but now that I know how to do it it should be much faster next time. It was definitely a great learning experience and feel that I am just touching the surface of how a blog can become an integral part of classroom communication and learning tool. If you would like to see my blog it is wcmlyons.edublogs.org
Is it just me, or does it look like the dates we are publishing our comments is off. I just posted one today (March 10, 2009), and it looks like I posted it in October.
I have been struggling with how to use an activity I have been doing with my students. As a reading teacher, I would never want to showcase my students as children who struggle with reading, and suddenly realized that that was what I was accomplishing with my original idea. It occurred to me a few days ago, however, that perhaps I can showcase the activity and get my students’ thoughts on it — Using VoiceThread. I hope it works.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6640443.html
Someone in my PLN posted this link to an interesting article. It got me thinking about our buget concerns and how we can use free resources on the web to supplement what we are able to buy. I know that Jamie has shown us some cool open source tools and we are experimenting with virtualization. It’s nice to know that we are still on the cutting edge of technology.
This is podcast has been added to, and edited. I made use of the simple yet efficient sound recorder (which I have students use in class to capture audio that is not able to be download-able). I edited it with the crude audio editor on movie maker and converted it using the basic version of Itunes. All of this technology is available on our computers at Pal-Mac and easily accessible. While no means is this top of the line audio mixing, it is sufficient.
I will concur the geographic divide is annoying, the digital divide can be just as menacing. Somehow (by a mistake most likely by my own inadvertent actions) my group members emails were being deposited in my outlook “junk mail folder”. Sorry ladies, I didn’t realize this until this morning. My bad. It is interesting how a little thing such as that can inhibit ”connecting”.
And without further ado here is our podcast…
With the geographic divide of two school districts, it is not easy to get together….so I improvised! I listened to the podcast of my group, as posted on the 8th of February. I then rambled a bit into Audacity, downloaded the LAME plugin, exported to MP3, and uploaded to Gcast (I didn’t use my phone). I went to post my podcast in the comments but got some nasty errror messages, so here is my cast….
Okay, so I was able to upload my podcast but I know that it could have been done differently. I tried to use GCast but found out that I could not upload a wav file - it had to be an MP3. So I will have to investigate further regarding this situation. I also tried to use archive.org but was unable to do so there as well.
Despite my challenges faced with uploading the podcast I have some long term goals for podcasting in the classroom which I may be able to begin as I think about the learning fair coming up. I worked a bit on MathCasts for last year’s learning fair and found it cumbersome to create. I suppose I need more time to practice with it or a more efficient way to use the SmartBoard and voice recording…. I am definitely up for learning. I would really like to use podcasting or MathCasting to create review for certain topics and/or vocabulary concepts that relate to Integrated Algebra. My mind is always trying to come up with new things and new ways to do things but I find myself looking at the clock in my classroom at 7:00 at night. Aren’t I supposed to be at home?
The following is a podcast about: Teachers Roles in Education are Changing
RMason, DWilkins, CFerland
Quite a few of the tech integration specialists in my personal learning network are being told their positions are either being eliminated or reduced due to budget cuts. I’m wondering why - does this mean technology integration is considered a luxury if it is one of the first things put on the chopping block? I think not.
We have been told that our job is to prepare students for the 21st century. Technology is and will continue to be in their personal and professional lives. As educators, it is our responsibility to be sure students are prepared to effectively use that technology and it is the integration specialists who are helping us accomplish this goal. They are staying current with the latest technology, providing necessary training and supporting the classroom teacher with the implementation of technology to enhance the students’ learning. The learning curve for teachers is greatly reduced with this support - I recently read an article that said without professional development, it takes about seven years to implement a new technology and with support, about two and a half years. Without the integration specialists, technology integration will surely slow or take a few steps backwards.
It is my hope that administrators throughout the country will rethink their decisions to reduce or eliminate tech integration specialists. Our students need their expertise if they are going to be “tech literate” upon graduation.
