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?

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?

No, not that season! This is May, after all. This is the season for those all important standardized tests, and both teachers and students are busy preparing for them. In our case, this preparation has included our very first experiences with online testing. So, in addition to reviewing an entire year’s worth of material, and in some cases, more than one year’s worth, teachers have had to make sure their students were familiar with the online testing formats.

We begin next week, and I feel very confident that everyone involved is ready…maybe a bit anxious, but definitely well prepared and competent. So, to help alleviate some of that anxiety, I have compiled a list of fun sites on the internet to take your minds off of testing for a few minutes.

I found a stress test on the internet, so please begin here to assess how stressed you may be. If, after taking this very scientific test, you determine that you are moderately stressed, check out some of the following links and have fun!

Virtual Bubble Wrap
Go pop some bubbles. You know you want to!

Cute Overload
cute pictures and videos of a variety of animals

JigZone
If you love jigsaw puzzles, this it the site for you

Virtual Paintball
Whack some smilies in this office, or just “decorate” with the paint

The Red Square
Move the red square so it doesn’t touch any of the blue rectangles

Blobs
Think Chinese Checkers with frogs

Free Rice
Practice your vocabulary skills

Net Disaster
Select a web site and then throw cream pies at it…and other goodies

OK, those links should get you started. I’m sure that you have your own favorite sites that you visit once in a while just for fun. Please share them in the comments so all of us can enjoy them!

Many of you have recorded podcasts, and a few of you have mentioned that it would be nice to be able to add pictures. Well, now there is an easy and *free* online tool that lets you do just that. You can also skip around, so you can go straight to the student/picture that you are interested in. The web site is Voicethread.com.

Here’s a example of a voicethread we did with Melanie Smith’s first grades at West Salem after they created their own robots and wrote stories about them:

To set up your own account, go to voicethread.com and register for a new account. Then click on the Go Pro button, then click the K-12 Educators click here link. Complete the form and be sure to use your school email address so you can get a *free* Pro account.

After you have activated your account, let me know and I’ll help you get started with your first voicethread. I like to set the “Share” settings as public with comments, comment moderation ON, and Listed on Browse NO. This way, I can embed the voicethread on a blog or website, I can send the link to someone, but it will not be visible to someone just browsing through the site.

How can you use this great tool? How about book reviews, field trip pictures, digital stories, or even SOL reviews? Here are a few links to help give your more ideas:

VoiceThreads in the Classroom

VoiceThreads Examples

Second Grade Book Reviews (great project for any grade!)

Create Your Own Ending Story

Earlier this week, I attended the annual VSTE (Virginia Society for Technology in Education) conference at Hotel Roanoke. Some of you occasionally ask me how I stay up-to-date on emerging technologies for classroom use.  Conferences such as this provide staff development for me and other ITRTs throughout the state.I attended 5 sessions presented by Tammy Worcester, an education technologist from Kansas who specializes in activities that are simple to use in the classroom while teaching vital computer skills to young children. I will be sharing her numerous ideas with you as time allows, but if you’d like to go ahead and check out her website, you’ll find a wealth of resources already posted and ready to adapt into your curriculum.

Another favorite of mine was a presentation showing how to incorporate Marzano’s strategies from Classroom Instruction That Works using Kidspiration, PowerPoint, and other readily available software in our schools. Here is a link to lots of templates that are ready for you to use. Many thanks to Sherri Miller with Gloucester County Schools!

We’ve talked quite a bit recently about internet safety, and I would like to remind you to discuss with your students the importance of not sharing personal information online. In one of the sessions I attended, the ITRTs from Hanover County generously shared several activities that they had created for elementary students. Check them out!

There were numerous other wonderful sessions. You can click here if you’re interested in exploring more of what folks are saying about the VSTE conference this year.

Several of you have created podcasts with your classes over the past couple of years, and I hope that you’re thinking about more ways you can use this exciting and relatively new technology. If you’ve never created a podcast, it’s much simpler than you may think. All you need to do is prepare the students by having them practice reading their scripts aloud. Then let me know when you’re ready to record. I’ll take care of all of the technical details for you! However, I’ll be happy to teach you how to edit using Audacity if you’d like to learn to do the editing yourself.

Why not have your students create “Did you know?” podcasts using facts from any of their SOL related units? Mr. Barbour had his third graders record several factual podcasts from their SOL units. For an example of this, click below to listen to Mr. Barbour’s third graders as they share facts they learned about Ancient Rome.

Download Ancient Rome Facts

Mrs. Routt’s third graders enjoy creating their own newscasts at the end of each school year in which they review almost everything they have covered during the year. When students have the opportunity to listen to themselves or to their classmates, they are more eager to listen to the podcasts as they review for their SOL tests.

Download Third Grade SOL Review

Podcasting is also an excellent way for students to share their original stories and poems. Mrs. Buchholz had her third graders write stories about the adventures of their class pet who escaped.

Download Oreo’s Big Day Out

It’s great to use readers theaters for podcasts as it helps students who may have difficulty with oral reading skills and fluency. The more fluent readers can practice speaking with expression and using creative voices. Mrs. Bowles had her fourth graders read several tall tales, and the children appeared to really enjoy using the imaginary voices of their characters.

Download Pecos Bill

Here are a few more ideas for podcasts that you might want to consider for your own students:

1. Interviews – Have students write questions and interview another person in the school, either adults or other students. You could also use interviews to have students answer questions as if they are a famous American or a character from a favorite story.
2. Announcements – Let students practice their broadcast skills as they present announcements for your class, your grade level, or for the entire school. Here is an example. Download
3. Riddles – Have students create “Who am I?” or “What am I?” riddles to review people from social studies units, book characters, famous places, or vocabulary words.
4. Songs – Make up new lyrics to familiar melodies, such as multiplication facts.
5. Book Commercials – Instead of written book reports, why not let students talk about their favorite books? Have them share a little about the book and why they recommend it.
6. For the Little Ones – Let them talk about something special in their classroom or something new that they have learned if they’re too young to read or to write their script.

So, give some thought into creating your own podcast this year, and let me know when you’re ready to record! To listen to more podcasts from your school, click on one of the following links:

South Salem Podcasts

West Salem Podcasts

Happy New Year! Like most folks, I am thinking about setting new goals for the coming year, or at least for the remainder of this school year. First and foremost, I plan to post articles here more regularly. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was filled with exciting things happening in classrooms at both schools, and I just didn’t have any extra time! However, I promise to do better. So, here are a few goals I have set for myself:

1. Post an article here at least once each week, hopefully even more often.
2. Create a database of activities that will assist classroom teachers in planning lessons using the laptops and the computer lab with the software that we have available in both schools.
3. Strive to ensure that every student has the opportunity to use the laptops in their classroom at least once before the end of the school year. (This includes kindergarten!)

So, what are your goals for using technology in 2008? I’ll list a few suggestions to help you get started:

1. Bring the laptop cart into your classroom. Invite me in to assist you and the students the first time or two, until you are comfortable with them. You will be amazed at how quickly the students learn to use the touchpad!
2. Learn to use a piece of software in the computer lab that you haven’t used before, such as TimeLiner, Scholastic Keys, or Kidspiration. I have handouts for most the the programs we own, and I’ll be happy to send one your way.
3. Have your students create something of their very own on the computers and save their projects to the K drive. That way, we can plan a way to combine and share their projects on the school web site.
4. Be adventurous! Begin your own blog, or set up student blogs using ClassBlogmeister.
5. Take lots of digital pictures. Upload them to a photo sharing site, and send the site address to folks with whom you would like to share the pictures. You can also share your pictures through a class website or blog.
6. Have students write their own newscasts and record them to use as podcasts.

I hope you see something here that is of interest to you! Please let me know how I can help you use technology as we work together to prepare the children for their future.