I was reading through the 100 inspiring blogs for teachers to read and besides the free tech for teachers - that I absolute love - because it is straight forward and provides teachers with great technological opportunities for teachers to utilize in their classrooms, I also found a blog called Edublogger.
"This blog contains ideas for using web 2.0 and educational blogs. It helps teachers learn how to have students do things like set up widgets, create blogs, and have students give other students surveys. It is an easy to read blog that provides teachers with quick concise information that allows them to gain a better understand of easily incorporating technology on a regular basis.
http://theedublogger.com/
Monday, May 21, 2012
My TIS journey so far has really helped me discover a lot of new technology that I can share with others and use in my own classroom. I believe that the things that we have been prompted to discover are all those need to know items that a TIS should have under their belt to help others in their buildings. I am really glad that I approached my county about doing this certification because I believe I will have take a lot from it and will use the knowledge in the future.
Collba
Collba would be a fantastic tool for teachers to use when their students are working on group projects. Students can discuss their project and teachers can be part of the chat and discuss their progress without interrupting the thought process of others. They can also use this tool to share files, links as they are working. You can do advanced searches as well.
http://www.go2web20.net/app/?a=collba
http://www.go2web20.net/app/?a=collba
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Learn from a video - The Civil War in Four Minutes
On Teachertube, I watched a video called The Civil War in Four Minutes. It showed the changing boundaries of the North and South as the Civil War progressed and also kept a running tally of the casualties throughout the war. So within four minutes you had seen the entire Civil War run its course and watch as the South lost ground over time. This would be fantastic for my WV Studies students as they could see how over time the South was forced out of western Virginia (West Virginia - only state formed during the Civil War) as well as get that mental image of the South's deterioration. It could cover both a 8th grade geography standard that discusses forming mental maps as this video enhances those mental images as well as a history standard that focuses on constructing a sequence of events in the surrounding areas that had an impact on the state. It was a brief video but one that I definitely think would have an impact.
The Nutrition Diva - Do Herbal Supplements Work?
I listened to a podcast on nutrition and whether herbal supplements work. She discussed how people need to be careful in choosing herbal supplements because sometimes the natural solution is not always the best solution and sometimes medicine or drugs do a better job at curing or helping the problem. I found it interesting on how she talked about needing to research herbal supplements and make sure that research it supported by reliable studies. She talked about how some herbal supplements can have side effects and to make sure to be aware of those before taking. Her overall thoughts were to make sure you explore all your options and make the decision based on sound research and investigation.
http://www.podcast.com/Health/Fitness-and-Nutrition/I-2371.htm
As for using podcasting in the classroom - I think this would be a wonderful that all teachers could use and find interesting and insightful podcasts that would go along with their content areas. I think it just takes some exploration and time put forth to find the topics that would best fit their needs. Many just need help sometimes finding those resources - sometimes knowing where to begin and finding that support to help you get started is the hardest part.
http://www.podcast.com/Health/Fitness-and-Nutrition/I-2371.htm
As for using podcasting in the classroom - I think this would be a wonderful that all teachers could use and find interesting and insightful podcasts that would go along with their content areas. I think it just takes some exploration and time put forth to find the topics that would best fit their needs. Many just need help sometimes finding those resources - sometimes knowing where to begin and finding that support to help you get started is the hardest part.
Special effects used on photos
YouTube prezi tutorial
When teaching my students how to use prezi in school, several of the tutorials on the website were blocked because they were YouTube videos. I sent a request to WVDE and had it unblocked so that my students could work together and learn as partners how to use prezi.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Tech steps Tech steps Tech steps.... post 8
April has been another exciting and challenging month. A large focus of April for myself and one of my colleagues has been tech steps. We have worked together to complete the 7th grade RLA tech steps on creating comments on a document as well as an image project. I must say that I am still surprised that this project is being completed in 7th grade as I did not obtain these skills til college. However, having the students working with partners has made the activity easier and they learned from one another. The 8th graders have been even busier with 2 tech steps projects. The first one we completed was issue to action. This project had students research a problem that we are facing currently either globally, nationally or locally and then come up with an action plan on something that they could do to help benefit the cause. I did feel that the research emphasis in this project was very beneficial to the students as it helped me teach them where to find reliable and accurate sources, however having them actually attempt to complete the project in my mind was unrealistic. I only have 30 some students and I can't imagine trying to monitor their progress let alone if I had a larger group. The concept of the project is a fantastic idea but we have all learned just because it looks good on paper doesn't necessarily mean that it will actually work the way you want it to.
Another exciting project that has been in the works and I should be able to share with you soon is my blended delivery project so stay tuned as I will be sharing soon on the overall design and outcome!
Another exciting project that has been in the works and I should be able to share with you soon is my blended delivery project so stay tuned as I will be sharing soon on the overall design and outcome!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
The Loch Ness Monster - in a new light Post 7
This month my geography students have been learning about the United Kingdom - and we paused briefly to focus on the Scotland. The as we were discussing the lay of the land my students got hooked on the lochs particularly Loch Ness and the Loch Ness monsters. We then took a short time out and investigated the Loch Ness monster and compared it to America's Loch Ness monster "champ" by creating prezis to show their similarities and differences. To learn how to create prezis the 7th graders went to prezi.com and for the first time independently watched tutorials that taught them how to create prezis. (My purpose of this project was not just to have them learn the new skills, explain the region of Scotland, but to also feel out how to teach themselves a new technological skill by using tutorials. As they were learning we discussed how the majority of things that they would like to do or learn that they can probably find a tutorial online for it! I discussed how my brother learned a program for an online class through a tutorial, my sister learned how to create a website through a tutorial and my boyfriend had even learned how to tie a tie through a youtube tutorial. The students are actually presenting their prezis in class tomorrow so hopefully after they are finished I can post a few links so they can be seen.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
February exploration Post 6
This month has been another busy month! I did have some time to explore readwritethink.org - one of my colleagues encouraged me to take a deeper look. I had my students do a little exploration of their own to see what they liked as well. The majority of them were drawn to their comic creator - they liked making their own mini stories and creating characters that fit into those stories. Another activity they liked was the pamphlet creator. They really liked how it was easy to do and that they could play around and figure it out on their own. I will continue to explore and definitely use this site in the future. Another upcoming event that I am looking forward to is an ARCGIS training that I am going to in March. I have some basic training on this program but am looking forward to learning more and feeling more comfortable with it.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Catching up ! Post 3,4,5
These last few months have flew by and it has been crazy. So let me recap on some new technology endeavors that I have encountered or conquered in some instances.
November:
I attended a RESA VII training which has allowed a small group of technology integration specialists or those with a deeper interest in technology to get together and share ideas, learn new things that are available to them and their colleagues. I really enjoyed a training session with Mark Moore from the WVDE. He went over Thinkfinity community - which I had seen before - however gained more insight to how I could be using it to benefit myself and others in my building. He also shared with us TED talks which I had heard of but never actually explored. It gave me some great ideas on how I could use it for writing prompts in my reading classroom. He also discussed the 21st century Thinkfinity technology contest -which got me thinking on how I could do some cool thinks in my classroom and maybe win some money for our school. He also showed us some various ways that we could use wvde webtop - which again gave me some more ideas on how I could incorporate it into my classroom if my students had them as well. Overall, I think it was a worthwhile learning experience and look forward to attending another training session in the spring.
December:
I began by wondering what I could do in my classroom to both create an excellent learning opportunity for my students as well as figure out a way that we could be creative enough to enter my students in the WVDE/Thinkfinity technology contest. I sat down and discussed the idea with our Language Arts teacher Mrs. Dean to see if maybe we could collaborate and come up with a fantastic project that we could submit to the state department. Well in my 8th grade Social Studies classroom we were talking about the American Revolution and I mentioned to Mrs. Dean how Mark Moore had discussed this really cool interactive game "For Crown or Colony" that we could incorporate in both our classes and then branch off in different directions from there. She liked the idea so for the next 3-4 days, depending on the group, the students played the game in our classes and then discussed the American Revolution more in depth in my Social Studies class. After we were finished the game, my students had to pick a topic or an individual to focus on and create either a news broadcast or an interview with a person that had an impact on the revolutionary war. I then grouped the students into groups of 4-5 and they created a news broadcast with a news anchor a news station name and a news segment that allowed the stories to transition smoothly from one story to the next. The students then dressed up and filmed in front of a group screen their news broadcasts. I then edited them and added pictures in the background that set the students in their particular location. They did a good job for this being our first year attempting this project, but as always there are things that I learned would make the project better in the future. (Mrs. Dean's group created a newspaper on Microsoft publisher.)
January: A new year!!! We came back to school and it has been a slow start - however - we just found out that all our hard work paid off and our students did win the Thinkfinity Technology Contest!!! We did win $2,000 for our school to use toward new technology. My next job is going to be to explore and see what the best purchase would be for Fairview Middle. I really am leaning toward ipads, however they are expensive so I have to do a little more exploration. I am very excited to have helped the students win money for our school. Check out our videos and other video winners at:
November:
I attended a RESA VII training which has allowed a small group of technology integration specialists or those with a deeper interest in technology to get together and share ideas, learn new things that are available to them and their colleagues. I really enjoyed a training session with Mark Moore from the WVDE. He went over Thinkfinity community - which I had seen before - however gained more insight to how I could be using it to benefit myself and others in my building. He also shared with us TED talks which I had heard of but never actually explored. It gave me some great ideas on how I could use it for writing prompts in my reading classroom. He also discussed the 21st century Thinkfinity technology contest -which got me thinking on how I could do some cool thinks in my classroom and maybe win some money for our school. He also showed us some various ways that we could use wvde webtop - which again gave me some more ideas on how I could incorporate it into my classroom if my students had them as well. Overall, I think it was a worthwhile learning experience and look forward to attending another training session in the spring.
December:
I began by wondering what I could do in my classroom to both create an excellent learning opportunity for my students as well as figure out a way that we could be creative enough to enter my students in the WVDE/Thinkfinity technology contest. I sat down and discussed the idea with our Language Arts teacher Mrs. Dean to see if maybe we could collaborate and come up with a fantastic project that we could submit to the state department. Well in my 8th grade Social Studies classroom we were talking about the American Revolution and I mentioned to Mrs. Dean how Mark Moore had discussed this really cool interactive game "For Crown or Colony" that we could incorporate in both our classes and then branch off in different directions from there. She liked the idea so for the next 3-4 days, depending on the group, the students played the game in our classes and then discussed the American Revolution more in depth in my Social Studies class. After we were finished the game, my students had to pick a topic or an individual to focus on and create either a news broadcast or an interview with a person that had an impact on the revolutionary war. I then grouped the students into groups of 4-5 and they created a news broadcast with a news anchor a news station name and a news segment that allowed the stories to transition smoothly from one story to the next. The students then dressed up and filmed in front of a group screen their news broadcasts. I then edited them and added pictures in the background that set the students in their particular location. They did a good job for this being our first year attempting this project, but as always there are things that I learned would make the project better in the future. (Mrs. Dean's group created a newspaper on Microsoft publisher.)
January: A new year!!! We came back to school and it has been a slow start - however - we just found out that all our hard work paid off and our students did win the Thinkfinity Technology Contest!!! We did win $2,000 for our school to use toward new technology. My next job is going to be to explore and see what the best purchase would be for Fairview Middle. I really am leaning toward ipads, however they are expensive so I have to do a little more exploration. I am very excited to have helped the students win money for our school. Check out our videos and other video winners at:
Any suggestions for how to spend the money - let me know!!!!
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