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!
Sunday, April 29, 2012
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!!!!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The school year continues with some fun with projects! Post 2
October has been a tech step focused month for me. I spent a little over 2 weeks with my 7th grade students working on fact and fiction (our Social Studies tech steps). I really worked on trying to take the time to truly incorporate the content with the project. In the past, I used a very generic concept that really didn't fit in to my content. I focused on the area of culture and used this tech step to teach it. This tech step helped me realize that the tech steps project overall can be used to enhance content and not just an something extra for us teachers to do.
Another fantastic project that I worked on this year that seemed to take flight was my scary movie project in my 7th grade Reading class. After the students learned about the basis elements of literature - conflict, suspense, foreshadowing, climax, the introduction and the resolution. Students were given the task to create a scary movie plot - but only the climax was to be filmed. The students (in small groups) had to create a written introduction that would be filmed wuith one character speaking - they were to incorporate an element of foreshadowing - as well as a written resolution which would be spoken at the end and would tie up loose ends. Then they had to write a script for their climax which built suspense and lasted 2-3 minutes long. This was a great way to examine whether students had understand the concepts that were introduced. We will actually be watching the films this week and my students are extremely excited and were excited throughout the entire process.
Another fantastic project that I worked on this year that seemed to take flight was my scary movie project in my 7th grade Reading class. After the students learned about the basis elements of literature - conflict, suspense, foreshadowing, climax, the introduction and the resolution. Students were given the task to create a scary movie plot - but only the climax was to be filmed. The students (in small groups) had to create a written introduction that would be filmed wuith one character speaking - they were to incorporate an element of foreshadowing - as well as a written resolution which would be spoken at the end and would tie up loose ends. Then they had to write a script for their climax which built suspense and lasted 2-3 minutes long. This was a great way to examine whether students had understand the concepts that were introduced. We will actually be watching the films this week and my students are extremely excited and were excited throughout the entire process.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Back to School and trying new things!!!! Post 1
Well we have been in school a few weeks now and I have decided that I am going to try to do at least a few new things with technology for myself or to help others. Since I am a classroom teacher and not a designated TIS in my school a lot of my technology focus will be within my own classroom. Right now I still feel technologically challenged but I feel that if I push myself to try new things it will definitely be to my benefit and the benefit of my colleagues in the future.
So some new things that I have accomplished so far this school year..........I have played around and created classroom websites on edline - to keep track of what we are working on in class as well as students being able to access QOTD's (Questions of the Day) which they are required to keep track of in their notebooks. Parents can also see news as well as a calendar of upcoming events and also some additional links that might prove to be useful throughout the school year. I have also tried working with responders in the classroom which I have never done before. I figured out how to export my roster from edline so that I could do tests and quizzes using responders as well as daily reviews. The kids seem to be enjoying using the responders so these are definitely something that I will continue to use. I have also had other teachers ask for questions in relation to responders and since I have some experience now I have been able to be more helpful. I have also started taking pictures of anything and everything with my new digital camera in hopes to be able to create a cool end of the year slideshow using the shots that I've been taking.
Well that's all for now in my slowly technologically-advancing world! I will keep you posted - any new classroom ideas feel free to share them!!!
So some new things that I have accomplished so far this school year..........I have played around and created classroom websites on edline - to keep track of what we are working on in class as well as students being able to access QOTD's (Questions of the Day) which they are required to keep track of in their notebooks. Parents can also see news as well as a calendar of upcoming events and also some additional links that might prove to be useful throughout the school year. I have also tried working with responders in the classroom which I have never done before. I figured out how to export my roster from edline so that I could do tests and quizzes using responders as well as daily reviews. The kids seem to be enjoying using the responders so these are definitely something that I will continue to use. I have also had other teachers ask for questions in relation to responders and since I have some experience now I have been able to be more helpful. I have also started taking pictures of anything and everything with my new digital camera in hopes to be able to create a cool end of the year slideshow using the shots that I've been taking.
Well that's all for now in my slowly technologically-advancing world! I will keep you posted - any new classroom ideas feel free to share them!!!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Twitter!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)