Update

Hello! Sorry I have not updated lately. Let me fill you in on some of the things I have been doing. The school I am at is very limited in the area of technology. I do have four computers that are reliable some of the time. So just recently in science, my class went across the hall to the room that has a smartboard in it. The class was at special so I though it a good opportunity to maybe incorporate some technology. I took the students on a virtual field trip to visit Thomas Edison. I used a website called Meet Me at the Corner. This website has many virtual field trips that are free for multiple subject areas. I also am looking into doing another voicethread. There may be an opportunity presenting itself here soon. I am trying to think of ways to incorporate technology into my classroom but without proper equipment it is very hard.

Social Studies

This passed week I taught social studies during my time at Willyard. I am covering a unit on 2nd grade economics. So far we have covered wants, needs, goods, services, producers, and consumers. The kids really seem to be enjoying it. My favorite lesson so far was on producer and consumer. We read Lemonade For Sale, then we made a chart and determined who in the story was a producer or a consumer and what good or service they were providing/selling. Tuesday we will be continuing with the book and introducing our new vocabulary word, assembly line. We will recap the story and then create our own assembly line while making lemonade. The students will be split up into the groups, and each students will have a different job for making lemonade within the group. It should be fun!

Student Teaching

Well, a new chapter of my education has begun, student teaching! I am hoping to gain and grow a lot from this experience. I am very nervous but very excited at the same time. The children are wonderful! It also seems that I am going to gain a lot from my cooperating teacher. I hope to put my creativity to use, and find unique ways to integrate technology, even though technology is limited at this school I am currently teaching at. Hopefully my nerves will calm by Monday, because that is when teaching officially begins! I plan on updating the blog every week or so with lessons I have done and things that I have noticed in the classroom.

New York City

I just recently took a trip to New York City over my term break. It was a surprise trip from my husband. Anyway, the teacher in me took over while I was there and I thought back to the skype call I had conducted earlier in the semester. We talked about rural and suburban communities, but niether of us was an urban community. New York City deifinitely is! So, I took a lot of pictures while I was there and made a short video for the classes who participated in the skype call. That way they can actually visualize what an urban community looks like.

New York City from AllysonBrode on Vimeo.

THANK YOU AURORA!

Today, is my last day here at Aurora. I just wanted to say thank you to all of the staff who helped make my stay here at Aurora wonderful. YOu are all very knowledgable and I learned much from you! My eyes have been opened to the world of technology and that it is forever changing! Thank you so much for this oppourtunity, it was truly a worthwhile experience.

**OH! And please still check out my blog every now and then! ;)**

Final Slideshow

Screen Cast on Using Voicethread (Using Jing)

This is a screencast on how to use voicethread. I composed this screencast using the tool Jing. This i my first screencast ever, so if it is a little shaky I apologize. If you have any questions or comments please feel free post them on my blog. If you wish to make the screencast bigger, right click on the screencast and click zoom in.

Jing and other tools

Sorry that I have not posted recently. Things have been pretty busy seeing as it is reaching the end of the semester. However, I am working on a couple items. I have been playing around with my twitter and tweetdeck accounts. Michelle showed how they can be used to build my PLN (Personal Learning Network). It is so neat to know that there are so many people in the world that our willing to help out one other, and gain so much knowledge from each other. I am really learning that technology is such a valuable thing.

Also, recently I have been taking pictures of my students doing work during school and such, and at the end of my time here, hopefully I will be able to compose a slideshow of my experience, and post it on here.

Lastly, I have discovered a new free tool called Jing. It is ver cool. As far as I know (I have to play with it a little more), it is used to capture screen shots and to produce screencasts. After I become more comfortable with it, I will hopefully post my own screencast of some sort so you can see how I have used it.

Skype Call with Crestwood 2nd Graders

This was an awesome experience for me! The kids were so excited to participate in this activity.

The two second grade classes were communicating via skype while comparing and contrasting communities. Crestwood was more of a rural community and my class is more of a suburban community compared to Crestwood. The skype initially started with Crestwood's teacher asking if we knew what rural and urban meant. My class raised their hands and said they knew, but we expained that we were more of a suburban community rather than urban. She then went on to show us many pictures of their rural community. Their pictures were awesome! They showed us pictures of trees, bioswales, footprints, an ANIMAL HEAD, insects, and pictures of deer from their tracker that is placed in the woods outside their school. They then went live to show us the actual animal head and we had to guess what it was,(thank goodness we didnt have smell-o-vision Crestwood said). The head was actually turned inside out. It was inside out because another animal was eating all the meat from the inside (interesting fact). They then showed us their pet woolybear caterpillars and then gave us a few fun facts abou them. (Awesome Job Crestwood!)

My class then presented on our community. We had went outside and taken pictures of what was around our schoolyard. We took pictures of the housing around the school, a pepsi truck, a baseball field and footprints we found on it (geese and deer), a spa, and street signs. A different student explained each picture and answered questions asked by the other students. Then we were cut short because of time and our skype connection. Towards the end we kept disconnecting with the other class. Despite the bad connection, this was still a great experience!

This was my very first time doing a skype call, so I was not sure what to expect. There are many things I will do differently next time. I will not put my pictures in smart. I will just pu them in a slideshow. Also maybe not have specific presenters for each pictures, draw names instead. That way everyone has a chance. I was also thinking that I should have prepared questions for the other class to answer, to make it more interactive. Also, we may have wanted to touch more on urban communities, since the standard covers this too. Maybe we could have looked up pictures off the internet of total urban communities. I would like to do this again. That way I can improve what I need to improve on. If not with this class, with another. Great Job to all students!

Sorry I do not have video :(. . . We tryed to record, but it wasn't until the end that we realized we could not save it. Next time, I will use a video recorder, instead of smart recorder.

Skype Call

This passed Wednesday, I got a chance to extend my personal learning network. I have been trying to find a way to integrate the tool Skype into the classroom. I found a teacher and her class who would be willing to collaborate with the class I am working with. I emailed her and asked her if we could talk about what our two classes could collaborate on via skype, instead of an original phone call. This way, Michelle, Crystal, and myself could all three talk to her and express our ideas. We did the skype call Wednesday morning, and got everything squared away. Next Friday, the class I am working with, and this other class will be working together on Skype. We will be comparing and contrasting our communities and wildlife through pictures each class has taken. We will also be creating a T-chart for the compare and contrast component.

I will be video recording this Skype call, and then posting it on my blog, so make sure to check it out!! It should be a great experience for all.