final blog post... for now :)

Hi Everyone! Here is my final blog post for the course. I am hoping this will not be the last time you see me on here-I have high hopes that I will continue to blog and I hope that you will continue to follow :) I created this short video on goanimate.com. Since I used a free account, I was limited in the amount of info that I could input (and I think it actually cut off my last line!) however I loved using the tool and could see this as being something that I use with my students. I think that they would love it too! 

literacy project

Hi Everyone! Lauren and I created the final project on voicethread (thanks to Mari Beth's recommendations!) and we loved using this program! Our students had been working on creating a class research book on sharks, to share with students at an upcoming Author's Breakfast. The students have been very excited to learn about sharks, and we thought that this would be a great opportunity for a literacy/technology project! Once the students had created their writing, we took photographs of their work and input them in voicethread. It was SO easy to use. After that, we showed the students the program and told them that we were going to record their voice reading their work, and make it into a real movie. They loved using the microphone, and one student even thought it was "magic." Given the fact that our students (even at 5 and 6 years old) are so tech-savvy, it was exciting to see them learn about a new piece of technology available to them. Many of them even said they were going to make their own videos at home, and we are planning on sharing the program (and video) with parents at parent/teacher conferences next week. I will definitely be using voicethread again in the future, and recommend that you try it as well! 

ta daaaaa!

Lauren and I worked together to create our digital story. Since we teach so many lessons around character education, we decided that this would be the focus for our digital story. We read The Peace Book by Todd Parr. As a class, we brainstormed different ideas of what peace means to us. Then, the students wrote and illustrated their ideas. After much frustration with iMovie, we were able to finish our digital story with student narration. What an experience this has been! We struggled with using iMovie on the iPad, as it does not allow for as many editing options as on a computer, and we were frustrated that the movie did not show the entire student work. However, we eventually decided that we liked it just the way that it was, and so here it is! Enjoy!

Tweeting Teachers Tap Technology

I came across this article- Tweeting Teachers Tap Technology article on the Hartford Courant website this afternoon, and thought I'd share. I have previously expressed reservations about using twitter, but am very interested in it. This article tells about a West Hartford kindergarten teacher using twitter in her classroom. It is very inspiring- and gives many reasons why this is a great tool to bridge the home-school connection!

my diigo

(image from google images)

Well...here it is! My diigo account. I have to admit- I was very resistant to using diigo at first.  It took me awhile to realize why it was necessary, and if I really needed it (couldn't I just use my favorites bar in internet explorer?!). However, as I got more familiar with it I realized that it is VERY helpful for organizing websites, and bookmarking places on the world wide web that I would like to return back to. I think that the tagging feature is very useful, as it allows you to view all of your bookmarks as they relate to a specific topic. As a TEAM mentor in my school, I am always looking for websites and articles that I can provide my mentees with. Now with diigo, I can organize those sites under the same TEAM tag for easy access during our TEAM meetings. 

I think that as I continue to push myself to use diigo, I will realize many more possibilities for it in the future. 

my animoto

Hi everyone! Here is my first animoto. I created this animoto for an upcoming Science unit that our Kindergarten and First Grade students will be beginning next week. I chose this particular unit because I feel as though it has a lot of vocabulary that can be difficult for students to understand. I thought that by using animoto, I will be able to show students photographs to  give them a visual representation of each vocabulary word. I did not use all of the vocabulary terms from the entire unit, as I thought it would be too much for them to handle at one time. I also chose to repeat the words and photographs twice, so that we will be able to watch once, and then the second time around I am planning on stopping the video to discuss the words and definitions with my students. I will be showing it to my students next week, so I will let you know how it goes! 

pep talk...

Thought this was cute and wanted to share- enjoy!