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.

1st grade Voicethread

I created this project with a 1st grade class. Their teacher let them choose an animal and research facts about it for homework. I helped each of them find a picture of their animal on google images and they each constructed sentences about their image/animal. We then went into voicethread, uploaded their pictures and recorded their sentences with their picture. This is the final result! Enjoy!

Wallwisher.com

Wallwisher is a site where people can post questions and anybody can answer what you are asking. This could be a good resource for teachers all over to share resources or ideas with eachother. You could maybe even use this in your class. Your students could make individual accounts, and ask questions to their classmates. Their classmates can post their ideas on comments about their question. You may want students to research the question, and then give an answer on the wall.

Here is an example of a wall I made:

Voice Thread

While at my last visit, I had the opportunity to work with the tool called voicethread. It is similar to a Photostory, but a lot more can be done with it. There is a first grade class that is doing an animal report using voice thread. They each will find a photo of an animal of their choice, and along with that photo, will record facts about the animal with their voice. After all the children have done this, each student's video will become part of one collaborated project.

On Monday of last week, I helped all the children find pictures of their animals using google images and we saved them to the teacher's zip drive. Hopefully this Monday, I will get to help the children read their written facts as we record them with the program Voicethread.

This tool is free online. All you have to do is create an account. With the free version, you can only record three voicethread projects. So, this collaborated animal report will count as one voicethread.

Check it out!
http://voicethread.com/

PODCASTING!!

I used a tool called podcasting today! It is a very neat tool! I got to experiment with it during the time I was with my second grade class. I chose a couple students from the poetry center during center time. Below is an example of a student using podcasting. I had them read it through while being recorded (Student Reading-1. You can tell she was a little shaky during this reading. I played back the recording for them and had them critique their own reading with my help (were they reading too fast/slow, did they read with expression, how was their fluency?). After we analyzed the first recording, I had them read it a second time while being recorded. We listened to that one too. And each student sounded better the second time.

Below is an example of one student reading her poem called "Nature's Creatures."

You could also use podcasting to read a story or a poem how you would want it read and share it with your class. You could also create a seperate center where the children could create their own podcast presentation. As you can see, podacsting could be a very useful tool.

Glog Poster

This is the poster I created on the online tool Glogster Edu. You may add students to your account on glogster and they may create posters like this one.

Glogster

Star of the Week!

This is the Star of the Week.  Almost every week there will be a different Star of the Week. They create a poster of things they would like to share with the class. They may include places they have been, things that interest them, family, friends, etc. When they are the Star of the Week, they get a certificate, a picture of themselves, and first selection for a seat at SSR.  This picture is also posted on the class blog so parents can see all of the children as Star of the Week. It is a very neat activity!

Flipcam

Today's new tool was the flipcam. A Flipcam is like mini video camera that has an attached USB port. That way you may download the videos onto your computer and attch them to your blog so parents can see what is going on in the classroom. For example, today I videotaped the class's morning work on the smartboard. A little bit later today I will upload that to my computer.(I need to learn how first) You could also video tape a reader's theatre. This way children can here the inflection in their voice and also see their facial expressions. You could videotape group work to show the students how they work together. There are many things that the flipcam could be used for in the classroom.

Glogster

Today, I explored www.glogster.com/edu.  It is a site that helps you and your students create glogs.  Glogs are online multimedia posters.  Though this website, students can create posters that have text, photos, videos, graphics, and sounds.  I think this site could give students a look into a new window of creativity, rather than just doing an assignment with pen and paper.

Glogster could be used for many things.  Students can create many glogs on a variety of subjects. I am going to focus in on some subjects for second grade.  Students could create a simple autobiography poster.  For science, students could construct a poster about what animals (and people) need in order to survive or what type of animals live in the rain forest.  In language arts, students could create a poster about their favorite book and why it is their favorite.

There are many other ways glogster can be used.  These were just a couple ideas I had thought of on my own.  Hopefully, I can use this tool in the classroom sometime soon and post some of the students glogs on my blog.

The Journey Begins!

This is my first entry on blogger.  I am new to the blog so you may have to bare with me as I share my progress with you over the course of twelve weeks.

I met with Michelle today.  She will be teaching me a lot about technology and how to incorporate it into the classroom.  A lot was thrown at me today, but I am up for the challenge.  She mentioned a few things such as Glogster, Photostory 3, and Podcasting. I am not familiar with any of these, but I am here to learn so I will be doing a little bit of exploring before August 30. 

I felt a little worried going into today's meeting, but after meeting Michelle and others, my mind was put at ease.  Everybody was so welcoming and it seems like a very positive environment to work in.  I am ready to begin this task and I hope to show how much I have learned over time.