I would get so excited after I left class each week with everything that I had learned that I would be brainstorming in the car on the drive home and trying to prioritize about what I could do in my classroom. It sounds really kind of silly, but I am telling the truth! It is not very often as a teacher that I would get a whole class or continous sessions of Professional Development over something that I could use so readily in my classroom.
So the first mess up I did was my sudden anxiety strucken sickness when I realized that I had not put my digital story on a dvd/cd. I really did about get sick. I had worked so hard to make sure it was on my flashdrive and ready to go. The next time I realized I really messed up was when I showed up to class last week and realized that I had not downloaded to the Wiki spaces my 2.0 web tool. I am still working on getting that done between now and Wednesday. We just got one of our computers back late yesterday afternoon so that has been somewhat helpful. The final came when Dr. Schmidt last week told us don't forget the two research articles for the blog and the innovative way to use blogging in the classroom. I knew all of that, but had totally let it slip my mind. I really need to use the computer and calendar/alarm so I can mark asignments and when they are due. I will continue to learn more applications and work to make the best of what I have learned. I have really enjoyed being able to share with each of you in our weekly blogs.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Blogging in my classroom. An innovative approach
This class has allowed me plenty of thinking of opportunities to be creative in thinking on how I could use blogging in my classroom. After one class I came straight back to the district and told them I was ready to activate the Blog to my classroom. We all have a link to blog from our classroom. I opened up the site and was disappointed when it was nothing like Blog spot. So I am working on the site to develop the creativeness that can go with it. The students take turns helping me and then on Fridays beginning this week we are using the last 20 minutes of the day and our Quomo (projector) system in our classroom and interactively designing the page by working on my computer. Since it is projected to the front we all work together and add to and take away. So our goal as a class is to have the blog ready to go January 4th when we come back after break. We are making postcards with information and letting the parents know that premiering will be the Blog. We will include on the Blog: bi-weekly newsletter (4 students will work on this every two weeks), STAR writings (I pick people who have written above and beyond what was asked), Special recognition, and daily/weekly announcements. The art teacher and I are working on sharing art projects on the site too.
The other way I am considering using blogging is to connect to the education department at Simpson College and have pen pals for writing and book blogging next year. We would have an introduction, write and exchange and reflect throughout and then at the end of the year we can meet and do a picnic in the park. The students from my class can use the students to critique, edit and share their work with. I love how you let us interact with some of your friends classrooms and share.
I am very excited to get this project all planned out. If you have any thoughts or ideas feel free to share.
The other way I am considering using blogging is to connect to the education department at Simpson College and have pen pals for writing and book blogging next year. We would have an introduction, write and exchange and reflect throughout and then at the end of the year we can meet and do a picnic in the park. The students from my class can use the students to critique, edit and share their work with. I love how you let us interact with some of your friends classrooms and share.
I am very excited to get this project all planned out. If you have any thoughts or ideas feel free to share.
My 2nd Article for Blogging. (WIKI)
This resarch was very interesting to me. This was narrowed down to writing poetry on the Wiki Pages. The Wiki site was developed to share knowledge about poetry among a group of pre-service English teachers.
This study was set up to get teachers to write, because if teachers can not model expectations for students and have poems, papers and etc. that need edited and edited again then students don't see that it is Ok for them to have to do and redo. Then comes the problem of students/adults don't just write unless they have the perfect paper.
The study helped teachers to introduce poetry to their students. The creativeness, options of what to write on, how to share it, but most of all take constructive feedback and use it.
the Wiki was great because this was set up to be a collaborative effort and a place where people could openly share and have projects edited and commented on.
It was important that later it was mentioned that digitally is not the only way to go with teaching, but it is becoming more widely used. The study went on for an academic year. There were 56 pre-service English teachers and Language arts. These people were based at Higher Education Institutions in the UK and Canada and preparing to the enter the teaching profession. Only four of these people had any experience with Wiki. Some had never even heard of Wiki. I started to really be able to relate to this study when I rememebered how I felt the first night when I walked into 556 and had no idea of anything. Some of the things they thought the Wiki would offer would be reflections of others, their own tastes in poetry, first experiences of teaching poetry, teaching resources, and drafts and edits of each others' poetry writing on-line.
They started out by having the participants define poetry and already there were red flags everywhere because they were quite anxious with what was being asked to do.
Wiki was very supportive to the creativeness that was shared by the pre-service teachers using Wiki. It was amazing how much better writers they became with poetry. What was really amazing was they were using technology that was digitally accessible. They loved the part of the Wiki poetry that allowed them to be creative, but most of all share and work collaboratively.
When it was considered little or no experience on the Wiki pages when the study started and now the use was booming the positive experiences far outweigh lack of use or negative.
This article as I stated earlier really hits home with me because of where I was the first night of class and where I am now. I feel if nothing else I can explore and use options with technology with my class. That is definitely not where I would have been today without this class. Am I the technology wizard of the century? No, but I am further along today because of the class and all of the activities that are and have been presented. This would be a great study to do with a group of teachers in a district strictly on the use of technology products and or programs.
Dymoke, S., Hughes, J., (2009). Using a poetry wiki. English Teaching :Practice and Critique December, Volume 8, Number 3, 91-106.
http://education.kaiato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/files/2009v8n3art6.pdf
This study was set up to get teachers to write, because if teachers can not model expectations for students and have poems, papers and etc. that need edited and edited again then students don't see that it is Ok for them to have to do and redo. Then comes the problem of students/adults don't just write unless they have the perfect paper.
The study helped teachers to introduce poetry to their students. The creativeness, options of what to write on, how to share it, but most of all take constructive feedback and use it.
the Wiki was great because this was set up to be a collaborative effort and a place where people could openly share and have projects edited and commented on.
It was important that later it was mentioned that digitally is not the only way to go with teaching, but it is becoming more widely used. The study went on for an academic year. There were 56 pre-service English teachers and Language arts. These people were based at Higher Education Institutions in the UK and Canada and preparing to the enter the teaching profession. Only four of these people had any experience with Wiki. Some had never even heard of Wiki. I started to really be able to relate to this study when I rememebered how I felt the first night when I walked into 556 and had no idea of anything. Some of the things they thought the Wiki would offer would be reflections of others, their own tastes in poetry, first experiences of teaching poetry, teaching resources, and drafts and edits of each others' poetry writing on-line.
They started out by having the participants define poetry and already there were red flags everywhere because they were quite anxious with what was being asked to do.
Wiki was very supportive to the creativeness that was shared by the pre-service teachers using Wiki. It was amazing how much better writers they became with poetry. What was really amazing was they were using technology that was digitally accessible. They loved the part of the Wiki poetry that allowed them to be creative, but most of all share and work collaboratively.
When it was considered little or no experience on the Wiki pages when the study started and now the use was booming the positive experiences far outweigh lack of use or negative.
This article as I stated earlier really hits home with me because of where I was the first night of class and where I am now. I feel if nothing else I can explore and use options with technology with my class. That is definitely not where I would have been today without this class. Am I the technology wizard of the century? No, but I am further along today because of the class and all of the activities that are and have been presented. This would be a great study to do with a group of teachers in a district strictly on the use of technology products and or programs.
Dymoke, S., Hughes, J., (2009). Using a poetry wiki. English Teaching :Practice and Critique December, Volume 8, Number 3, 91-106.
http://education.kaiato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/files/2009v8n3art6.pdf
Blogging Article #1 Motivating Third Grade Students
This particular research project took place in Quakertown, PA. Not only did this particular research use Blog, it also incorporated Wiki pages. They wanted the third grade students to be able to respond meaningfully to guided reading texts.
First they had students write responses on index cards and respond to guided reading texts for one month. The responses were scored based on a rubric. While doing this students rated their motivation on a Likert Scale. Then after the first part was collected they began introducing blogging from a Wiki page. The students then began posting their responses as blogs and being able to respond to other peers posts. Then after 6 weeks of doing this they again rated their motivation on The Likert Scale.
It was very interesting to me that the students were somewhat reluctant with their responses using the Blog because they were unsure of exactly who would be reading them. However once they started getting responses and doing some of their own the excitement started to show some.
Wikis and Blogs are a great interactive source in allowing children to share their thoughts, responses and writing ideas publically. It was really interesting to see that the more this was used the more the creative and fun it began to be for the students. Wiki and Blogs also are very good at promoting social inteactions.
My favorite part of the Blog is that students seem to be more aware of their writing, word choice, creativeness, and efforts that go into making a paper great! Motivation scores went up while choosing to use Blogs and Wiki. As I stated before the children seemed to really work harder and were more aware of what they were doing when they knew it would be posted.
The point of typing/keyboarding was brought up in this article and it really didn't seem to be any big deal at all. The students worked at their own pace and did what they needed however they needed to. I have noticed with a class that uses keyboarding often for projects this is really not an issue what so ever.
I thought a while after reading this research and thought about how useful this could really be to my classroom and myself. I wish I could be more creative with the use of I-Pods, or game systems because as I am typing this summary I just had two students who had their games systems taken away here at school. I will continue to think and work on incorporating ALL Kinds of technology into my classroom.
References:
Legutko, R.S., Swanson, K.N., (2008). The Effect of Book Bloggingon the Motivation of 3rd Grade Students.
First they had students write responses on index cards and respond to guided reading texts for one month. The responses were scored based on a rubric. While doing this students rated their motivation on a Likert Scale. Then after the first part was collected they began introducing blogging from a Wiki page. The students then began posting their responses as blogs and being able to respond to other peers posts. Then after 6 weeks of doing this they again rated their motivation on The Likert Scale.
It was very interesting to me that the students were somewhat reluctant with their responses using the Blog because they were unsure of exactly who would be reading them. However once they started getting responses and doing some of their own the excitement started to show some.
Wikis and Blogs are a great interactive source in allowing children to share their thoughts, responses and writing ideas publically. It was really interesting to see that the more this was used the more the creative and fun it began to be for the students. Wiki and Blogs also are very good at promoting social inteactions.
My favorite part of the Blog is that students seem to be more aware of their writing, word choice, creativeness, and efforts that go into making a paper great! Motivation scores went up while choosing to use Blogs and Wiki. As I stated before the children seemed to really work harder and were more aware of what they were doing when they knew it would be posted.
The point of typing/keyboarding was brought up in this article and it really didn't seem to be any big deal at all. The students worked at their own pace and did what they needed however they needed to. I have noticed with a class that uses keyboarding often for projects this is really not an issue what so ever.
I thought a while after reading this research and thought about how useful this could really be to my classroom and myself. I wish I could be more creative with the use of I-Pods, or game systems because as I am typing this summary I just had two students who had their games systems taken away here at school. I will continue to think and work on incorporating ALL Kinds of technology into my classroom.
References:
Legutko, R.S., Swanson, K.N., (2008). The Effect of Book Bloggingon the Motivation of 3rd Grade Students.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Where does the time go?
While I have been working on the lesson plan assignment for the class I have been thinking about all that I have learned and not only have I had the benefit from taking this class, but how useful and fun it has been for my class to get to try different things. I will say that my student teacher is great with technology ideas and usage so he has provided many opportunities for the class as well as myself and we all appreciate that too.
The most amazing part to me is with one piece of equipment and about 45 minutes a story can be developed. I look back to the book each group created about ISU and the creativeness that went on in a very small amount of time. Then I start to compare it to projects students get to do at school and how well the time would be used if we were able to put in the technology piece more often and not back away because of being so unsure. I let my class make an advertisement/example of PBIS for the school and they only had about 20 minutes to do so because something happened and the adults could not finish the video. My class in 20 minutes made the adult part that we spent a day on look so amateur. It was amazing for me to see how natural this kind of stuff comes to children and how skiddish the adults are.
As I have stated before I know that my class will have use to at least one Flip Video Camera after the holidays and hopefully two. I am so excited to allow them to create and share at least every other week!
I just know that I will be the one who continues to grow and learn from their experiences and us being able to share them.
The best part is not only am I asking for the Flip Video, but I think that an I-Pad is in my future too!
It really is just like Christmas.
The most amazing part to me is with one piece of equipment and about 45 minutes a story can be developed. I look back to the book each group created about ISU and the creativeness that went on in a very small amount of time. Then I start to compare it to projects students get to do at school and how well the time would be used if we were able to put in the technology piece more often and not back away because of being so unsure. I let my class make an advertisement/example of PBIS for the school and they only had about 20 minutes to do so because something happened and the adults could not finish the video. My class in 20 minutes made the adult part that we spent a day on look so amateur. It was amazing for me to see how natural this kind of stuff comes to children and how skiddish the adults are.
As I have stated before I know that my class will have use to at least one Flip Video Camera after the holidays and hopefully two. I am so excited to allow them to create and share at least every other week!
I just know that I will be the one who continues to grow and learn from their experiences and us being able to share them.
The best part is not only am I asking for the Flip Video, but I think that an I-Pad is in my future too!
It really is just like Christmas.
I FORGOT! November 22nd for the week of November 15th.
I was so caught up in the excitement of getting the Digital Story finished that I totally forgot with NO class last week to BLOG! Sorry.
I will have to say that my computer usage became limited when my laptop was in for repairs and now seems it can't be repaired. So that was the start to my break. Then last week we had to take our PC to the place to have it fixed, so Thank God for my job and now I am back from break and I will BLOG for the upcoming week too.
My class is so excited because they know I have been taking the class at ISU and that is working with technology ideas so they are constantly searching for ideas we can try now. Last week they performed a readers theater for Thanksgiving and then they were deciding what else they could do and all on their own they came around basically to the idea of a digital story. Our goal is that we will do this for the Winter Season.
My hope is that at the Holiday time I will get a Flip Video Camera. We'll see.
I hop you had a Great Holiday!
I will have to say that my computer usage became limited when my laptop was in for repairs and now seems it can't be repaired. So that was the start to my break. Then last week we had to take our PC to the place to have it fixed, so Thank God for my job and now I am back from break and I will BLOG for the upcoming week too.
My class is so excited because they know I have been taking the class at ISU and that is working with technology ideas so they are constantly searching for ideas we can try now. Last week they performed a readers theater for Thanksgiving and then they were deciding what else they could do and all on their own they came around basically to the idea of a digital story. Our goal is that we will do this for the Winter Season.
My hope is that at the Holiday time I will get a Flip Video Camera. We'll see.
I hop you had a Great Holiday!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Amazing When Something is Not Second Nature
Wow, this week I have been on technology overload. I had my story all recorded and now I have been editing and doing the final touches. This just helps me realize how not technology minded I am. Sometimes I have the challenge being that I serve on ten committees and am gone at least once every three weeks to training or a meeting, trying to keep caught up in my classroom and make sure I am where I should be for this class in Ames. I think I have worked through my digital story and learned by writing a description for how I would use a digital project in my classroom. I can't wait to do the project with my class next year! Out of this whole class I have decided I think I'm going to have to invest in a Flip Video Camera and I keep telling my family that an I-Pad would be great for Christmas. I can tell you right now my husband is thrilled I took this class because at least now I will go to Best Buy and the Apple Store with him. I am doing a pilot on a new reading series and the technology piece is unbelievable. With our great projector systems in our classroom it will make our reading time Heavenly and fitting for all students! Then of course I challenged myself to go above and beyond what is given to us technolgy wise and think from what I have learned from this class and how I could use them with the new reading/language arts series.
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