Technology Medley

Aren’t new beginnings wonderful? I think that one of the best things about the education field is the opportunity to begin fresh each year, leaving behind those things that didn’t quite work and improving on those that did.

This year, I would like to work with every classroom teacher at least once, and hopefully more than that, either in the computer lab or using the laptops. We have several terrific programs that the students can use to create their own projects on the computers. Let me help you develop some projects that will enhance your curriculum and increase student learning. I will be contacting you as the year progresses to set up times for us to collaborate, unless you contact me first!

As we begin this school year, please consider how you can increase your use of technology in your classroom. You all have wonderful ideas, but if you need something to get you started, here are a few suggestions:

1. Create a class blog in Classblogmeister. Even the very young children can manage this with a little assistance. Students enjoy writing for real world audiences, and they love to read and comment on each others’ blogs. You could assign topics, or let them use their blogs for journal writing during your lab time.
2. Create a VoiceThread. Take digital pictures (or let the children take pictures) and upload them to this site. Then have the children leave comments on the pictures, either explaining the picture or leaving a comment.
3. Create a digital story. Upload pictures into PhotoStory and let the students record the story as each picture is shown. PhotoStory is already on all of our computers. This would be an awesome follow-up to a field trip or other major event.
4. Have your students work in MaxShow or PowerPoint to create their own slideshows showing what they have learned during a particular unit. Then let them share their presentations with the class.

What other ideas do you have for this school year? How will you prepare your students for their lives in the 21st century?

Remember when we were kids and our first assignment each year was to write about our summer vacation? Well, this summer has gone all too quickly, as they all seem to have done these past few years. I had grand plans for house cleaning, organizing, reading, sewing, updating web pages, etc. However, summer is gone and little has been accomplished with any of those goals. It didn’t help any that I had repetitive motion injuries in both hands that had to be dealt with. Typing didn’t bother me, but sewing and playing the piano aggravated the injuries earlier in the summer, as did lifting heavy objects.

So, I spent a lot of time, along with Tina Coffey, training and working with our new student information system (TEMS)…trying to get everything ready for the beginning of the school year in our elementary schools. It was different for me to work quite a bit during the summer, but it was time well spent.

Those of you who know me well are aware that I enjoy traveling for a couple of weeks each summer too. In July, I went with a group from Grand European Tours to Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, and Budapest! Because of my music background, visiting the land of Mozart and Strauss and many other composers was very special. Highlights included a Mozart concert in the opera house in Vienna and an opera in the concert hall in Prague where Mozart himself conducted. Traveling through the land of my favorite movie, The Sound of Music, was another highlight.

Traveling through countries that were controlled by communism just a few years ago was very educational and made me appreciate even more the freedoms we have always had here in America.

So, what did you do for fun this summer? Did you spend special time with your children and grandchildren? Did you pursue a new hobby or enjoy an old one? Did you travel either locally or far away? Please leave comments below and share your fun times with others!

Wordle is a fun web site that will create a word cloud from any text that you insert. You can also enter a url from any site that has an rss feed and it will create a cloud from the text on that page. Then you have several options for changing the layout, fonts, and colors.

Here’s an example I created by entering my blog address:

The larger the word, the more times it was found in the text. So, I can quickly see that I’ve used the terms “teachers” and “training” quite a bit, which did not surprise me. However, the words “new” and “year” appeared frequently also, and I’m not sure why I’ve used those so often.

This might be a helpful visual when teaching about the overuse of common words in student writing. Either type in or paste in some text from student projects and let the students analyze the results.

You can also enter the username for anyone who uses Delicious for bookmarking and see what tags they are using. Here’s mine:

It’s simple to see that I have lots of sites tagged with Web 2.0! Enter anyone’s Delicious username and quickly see if they’re interested in sites that you might also be interested in exploring.

One final example: Use this cool tool to create colorful word clouds of student names at the beginning of the year. You can also designate that the words be displayed in “almost” alphabetical order. I created the following cloud using first names of the classroom teachers at my schools.

Classroom uses:

• Visualize overuse of common words in student writing
• Enter vocabulary words and let students practice reading them.
• Enter a passage from a story and see how often particular words are actually used.
• Enter text from a historical document and analyze the results.
• For younger students, use this to practice typing in spelling words. They don’t need an account to use the site, and they’ll love playing around with the results!

Update (8/22) Tina Coffey has a post with several terrific examples for using Wordle in the elementary classroom. Be sure to check it out!

What other ways can you think of for using Wordle in the K-5 setting?