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.


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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.