Literacy Project - Kidblog

I used Kidblog for my literacy project.  My students are blogging with another second grade class in West Hartford.  I found Kidblog to be an easy program to use.  It was easy to set up my class and then link with my former colleagues class.  The students are able to navigate around the blog easily and they can't really do any harm while they are on there.  I have found a couple of posts that they deleted by mistake, but since everything they do is moderated (posts, comments, trash) I was able to retrieve the posts. Some of the students have really gotten excited about blogging and comment from home too. I also am posting "questions of the day" from me based on something that we learned in class.  They have an opportunity to answer the question at home or the next morning on the computers in our classroom.  This is a great way to check in quickly with them to see if they understood what we learned in class.

For my literacy project both classes read and compared Cinderella and Yeh Shen (Chinese version of Cinderella).  The students had to write a post about the stories and state one thing that was the same, one thing that was different, and tell which story they liked best.  Comparing to version of a story is part of the Common Core for second grade (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures).  We are waiting to hear back from our blog buddies about what they found to be the same and different when they compared the two stories.

Click on the picture below for a link to our class blog (kidblog.org/mrsmckenziesbloggers/)

Blogging in the computer lab

Digital Story - Polygons

We worked on a unit in math on polygons.  The students need to identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons by the number of sides and angles each shape has.  This unit covers Common Core Standard 2.G.A.1 Reasoning with Shapes and Their Attripbutes. The main focus of the unit is for the students to be able to sort the shapes by their attributes. The Digital Story shows pictures from the artist Rob Gonsalves. The students needed to identify a polygon from the picture and explain how they knew it was that shape.  The students worked off of scripts that they filled out the day before and practice.  I used iMovie to add music and labels to video I took with my phone.

Web 2.0 - Class Reflection

 

I was brave and added my own voice to my Voki!  I don't really like how I sound, but it was very easy to do.  I know my students are going to enjoy hearing me (or themselves) in future Vokis.

I can't believe this class is over already!  I am so proud of all of us for how much we have learned.  Before this class I had never heard of Animotos or digital stories, and I didn't know how to begin using a blog and Wiki.  Now I am happy to report that I am addicted to blogging and my students are too! These are all great tools to use in our teaching to enhance students' literacies and promote collaborative thinking.

Diigo

Here is the link to my Diigo library.  I have to admit that at first I wasn't too excited about Diigo.  After spending time trying it out I have changed my mind!  I wish that I had know about it sooner.  I have been using Pinterest for a while and will continue to do so, but with Diigo I feel that it is easier and quicker to locate things.  I am finding that the more I use Pinterest, that the more crowded my boards are becoming which makes it hard to go back and find what I am looking for.  Diigo's tags and lists features make it easier to see what you have saved.  I do like that Pinterest shows you the picture of the idea.

At first I did not use the list feature, but when I went back to create lists I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to add previously saved items to the new lists.  Each time I save something new to my library, it is just one click to easily add that item to the appropriate list.

I also saw the "play as webslide" feature on the lists page.  It shows the web pages from the library in a slide show.  This can be helpful to help you remember what was on the page that you wanted to save instead of looking at multiple pages on the same topic.

Digital Story Telling

Here is my first attempt at my digital story project.  I hope that this is OK because it isn't in a story format as far as having characters, setting, plot, etc.  We are studying polygons in math so I had the students apply what they are learning about the different number of sides and angles that polygons have.  I found an optical illusion calendar with the artwork of Rob Gonsalves and had my students choose a picture they liked.  They had to find a polygon and then explain how they knew it was a polygon.  This was also a great activity to promote speaking.  Some of them had a hard time speaking loud enough in the microphone, but most of them were relaxed enough and enjoyed it.

Story Kit app

Check out this post on one of the Manchester cohort's blogs.  It is about a free app called Story Kit (I think for the iPad).  Kids can draw pictures for a story, type words, and record themselves reading the story.  I think some of my reluctant writers would love it.  The teacher who posted it also uses it to create her own mentor text for writing.

More Digital Storytelling Tools

This site has a lot of digital story telling tools to try out!  I don't know which one to use for my project.

Web 2.0 Tools - Voki

Maybe I'll use a Voki for when I'm out and I want to remind my class of my expectations when a sub is there.

Technology in the elementary classroom

Before taking this class I didn't think that technology (beside the SmartBoard) could be used successfully in the lower elementary classrooms.  Wow, was I wrong.  After seeing all the examples of blogs, wikis, digital stories, etc, it is obvious that these young children can use technology and do it well!  It is important for educators to keep up with the technology world that our students live in.  Here is a site, edutopia, that talks about how to incorporate technology into the elementary classrooms.

Math Games

I stumbled on this site with great math games.  The site is organized by grade level and looks like it covers a lot of relevant topics.

What to do, what to do????

I am narrowing down my ideas for my digital story project.  We are still working on identifying shapes in math so I think I am going to go with that since it is something that is relevant.  I found a calendar of optical illusions made up different polygons where the pictures play tricks on your eyes because things end and start where you don't expect them to.  Maybe I'll record the kids talking about the shapes they see in the picture and describe how they know the shapes by their attributes.  What do you think?

This is the cover of the calendar:

Digital Story Telling

I came across this video on YouTube about digital story telling.  It is another one of those tutorials "in plain English".  It helped to clarify what exactly digital story telling is all about.

woo hoo - I created a class blog!

I can't believe how excited I am over my new class blog, The Latest and Greatest from Room 15! I worked on it this weekend and can't wait to get the word out tomorrow.  What is the best way to get people aware of the blog?  I have the emails for the parents in my class.  Should I sign them up with their email to get notices from the blog? (there is a gadget for that).

The more that I think about using a blog to communicate with parents, I realize that it can be a tool to communicate with the support staff that work with children in your room.  The special ed, speech, OT/PT, etc. can get important information about what the children they service are doing.

Animoto Project

We start a new unit on shapes in math this week.  The students need to identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons by the number of sides and angles each shape has.  This unit covers Common Core Standard 2.G.A.1 Reasoning with Shapes and Their Attripbutes. The main focus of the unit is for the students to be able to sort the shapes by their attributes. The Animoto shows the shape in isolation with a definition of how many sides and angles it has, and then there are pictures of the shape in the real world.  This will be used to start off the unit in order to introduce the vocabulary and different types of shapes.

Animation Wiki

I found a wiki that has a bunch of different sites on animation.

I've Been Social Bookmarking and Didn't Know It!

I didn't know that my addiction to Pinterest was really social bookmarking.  I love the ease of finding things quickly on a certain topic.  It is also interesting to share ideas with your friends who follow you.  I think that Diigo is more powerful, however, when it comes to research and organizing information for school and work.  It could be that I feel that way because I am using Pinterest for crafts, recipes, and lesson ideas.  I don't usually find articles or more "formal" information that I have in my Diigo bookmarks.

Here are some books I found on Pinterest for Ground Hog Day coming up this Saturday.

Source: apples4theteacher.com via Karen on Pinterest

Richardson, Chapter 5

I was still a little fuzzy about RSS until I read chapter 5.  Richardson does a nice job explaining how powerful a tool this is.  I plan on setting up a blog project with another teacher from my old school where the kids discuss books that they have read. I like the idea of using an aggregator to collect all of their work.  It really is a different way of thinking - I am use to going out to research and find information, while when using RSS it is like the information finds you.
Check out the following link with a description of RSS and a list of sites who offer RSS feeds.

Digital Story Telling

I wasn't clear about what digital story telling is all about and how I could use it in my classroom.  This post using VoiceThread has great examples for different age groups.  I like how digital story telling supports the speaking standards of the Common Core Standards.  The link below inspired me for my second-grade class.  We are starting our unit on shapes in math, and I was thinking that they could take pictures (maybe from calendars) and look for the different shapes in a similar I Spy format.


object width="480" height="360">

Book Review Blog

Grace and Coach sleeping under the table while I am
busy learning how to blog.

I just checked out some of the blogs listed in Blogs and Blogging in our session two notes.  Miss Byrnes' Class blog showed a great way to use blogs for summaries or book reports.

Richardson Chapters 3 and 4

I have to admit that for the first time taking these grad classes, that I read ahead in the book!  I usually barely manage to get the required reading done on time, but this time I wanted to learn more about blogs!  I read chapter 3 last week to get more ideas of how to use blogs in my classroom.  I am excited to get one started to communicate back and forth with parents.  I also think that a blog would work well in the book clubs that we are doing in Readers' Workshop to promote discussion among the members. I had a fun time talking with a former colleague about her blog, Mrs. Glidden's 2nd Grade - News from Room 11, and got some great ideas from her too.

Richardson Reading - Chapters 1 and 2

I didn't realize the technology available to educators until I started this class.  I agree with Richardson that it is important for teachers to incorporate these technologies into their teaching and classrooms. The world is changing around us yet education has been slow to react to incorporating technology.  I hadn't thought about the different way that students communicate outside of school (using technology) compared to how we expect them to communicate their learning in the classroom.  Since I teach second grade, I didn't put much thought into how the world for my students is a lot different outside the classroom. Teachers need to give students the skills to analyze and manage the technology that they will encounter in the real world outside of school.  The act of blogging can go a long way toward teaching skills such as research, organization, and the synthesis of ideas. (Richardson 2010)

I am excited to try a classroom blog to communicate with the families of my students.  I looked at the Meriwether-Lewis Elementary School site and liked how each teachers had a link to a blog with some quick updates of what happened in the class that day.  As a parent, I know I would be interested in seeing a quick blurb about my children.  As a teacher, it seems that once you get the hang of it, that it is not very time consuming to maintain.  I can also see how using a blog to promote discourse and critical thinking among book clubs would be beneficial to students.  We are working on book clubs in Readers' Workshop and students could share their ideas by blogging.  Readers' Workshop is new for our district this year.  A wiki would be useful for all the teachers of the same grade in the district to share materials and teaching ideas on each of our new units.  I am curious to see how the parents in my classroom respond to a blog.  Are they clueless about blogs like I was before this class or are they blog savy and will respond and participate?  I am predicting that the students will be commenting more than the parents!

One area that I think is important to cover with the students when using technology is safety.  They need to be taught what information is appropriate to share.  I also have to find out about my district's policy about blogs and what information I can post.  I am curious how other teachers handle this.  Is there a permission slip that parents need to fill out about the students before I can include them on the blog?

New Literacies

I had never heard the term "new literacies" until this course.  After reading and looking at the posted pages, it is my understanding that new literacies are not just the new technology available today (blogs, wikis, social networking, animotos, etc.), but how it is used in the classroom.  New literacies should promote communication and collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making and other 21st century skills mentioned in NETS for Students. Literacy is always changing and it is important for teachers to have the knowledge of how to use these new technologies to promote profession growth, digital citizenship, students learning and other standards mentioned in NETS for Teachers.  According to Dr. Donald J. Leu's video, Integration of New Literacies, the new technologies do not replace teachers they support us, but they require news skills on our part. We need to be comfortable using these technologies ourselves before we try to use them in our classrooms.

Reference:
Leu, D. Dr. Donald J. Leu, at the University of Connecticut discusses New Literacies more detailed information is available in the book Teaching with the Internet. Retrieved from http://ctell.uconn.edu/canter/canter_video.cfm?movie=1b_integration.mov


Does anyone know where/how do you cite a reference (APA format) in a blog? 

Aniwhato?

I had no idea what an Animoto was.  It was fun looking through my pictures and picking some of my favorites.

Grace and Jake

First Try

This is my first try at a blog!! I am excited to get to use this in my classroom to communicate with parents.

Here are my boys finally getting along.  Ben and Coach :)

Loves of my life.  Having fun camping at Lake George.