This episode was developed totally to sparking kids creativity! The podcasts is dedicated to different tools kids could use.
The first website is made by Peter Reynolds. It is an inspirational story of how a teacher helped them dream big! Every teacher needs to try to aid students in making their own realistic dreams come true. You can find this story at The Stellar Cafe: The Power of One Word. Please share it with other teachers and students. It's a great way to get motivated.
Aviary is a cheap option for students to use. It is free! It will help students edit images,audio, color and vector. This site gives students examples to learn from. It would be a great way for students to do projects in class while not making it expensive for parents to buy.
Our Courts is a site to help kids learn about civics and the law system. This explains students citizenship role in the community by a former supreme court judge O'Connor. It has a variety of games like Argument Wars, Do I Have a Right, Supreme Decision, eLections, Pick 12, ReDistricting, and There Should Be a Law. The teacher can have the class play this together as a team or individually. It would be neat as a closure or opening activity for talking about government,FFA leadership or debating.
The last one I found that would be great for students to take place in is StoryJumper. This is a site that will help kids organize, create, and review stories. This is a free site ,but you can order hard backs for $24.95. It gives very simple ways to do the books with a basic start up information area. I believe it would generate curiosity and inspire students to think outside the box.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Reflection 7: Tech Chicks #73
This episode goes over tons of links that are available on your computer. I picked out a few that really interested me to share with you!
The first one is a demo of google docx. With this demo you and all of your students do not have to have a google account to see it. This would be a great thing to use for a class day project. A person can do the activity on this site and then copy it and put it on a word or picture program. Your class can do a spreadsheet , document, or a drawing with this ap. Look it up on http://docs.google.com/demo.
The next one that could be neat to put into place in your classroom is the Recordists. This site has a variety of sound effects you can use in the classroom. The sounds include things like planes, mudslides, and thunder. They have ones you will have to pay for and ones that are free!So, this could be great to incorporate into projects for yourself and students. Find it at http://www.therecordist.com/pages/downloads.html.
Also, Zooburst is a augmented reality site that does storybooks. These are similar to pop up books. A person can create their own or look at their examples. To make the books you must have a webcam. You can find this at http://www.zooburst.com. Using this site you can get children more interested in lessons or use it as a review. Teachers can add words on page or verbal words.
The last ap is for your i phone or i pad Zentomino at http://www.littlewhitebearstudios.com/zentomino.html. This is a puzzle game that is very popular right now. It would be a great way to get kids minds working in the morning by having them do puzzle games. What makes this even better is the fact that it is FREE!
The first one is a demo of google docx. With this demo you and all of your students do not have to have a google account to see it. This would be a great thing to use for a class day project. A person can do the activity on this site and then copy it and put it on a word or picture program. Your class can do a spreadsheet , document, or a drawing with this ap. Look it up on http://docs.google.com/demo.
The next one that could be neat to put into place in your classroom is the Recordists. This site has a variety of sound effects you can use in the classroom. The sounds include things like planes, mudslides, and thunder. They have ones you will have to pay for and ones that are free!So, this could be great to incorporate into projects for yourself and students. Find it at http://www.therecordist.com/pages/downloads.html.
Also, Zooburst is a augmented reality site that does storybooks. These are similar to pop up books. A person can create their own or look at their examples. To make the books you must have a webcam. You can find this at http://www.zooburst.com. Using this site you can get children more interested in lessons or use it as a review. Teachers can add words on page or verbal words.
The last ap is for your i phone or i pad Zentomino at http://www.littlewhitebearstudios.com/zentomino.html. This is a puzzle game that is very popular right now. It would be a great way to get kids minds working in the morning by having them do puzzle games. What makes this even better is the fact that it is FREE!
Reflection 6:Tech Chicks # 76
This episode goes over new tips for the beginning of the year. Every year can be a new stressful event because the different kids you will have in your classroom. A teacher will have to memorize the new names, find how they like to learn, and a new group to be apart of clubs and organizations. The tech chicks go over new applications for teachers an students.
The first one I thought would be useful in my classroom was the iphone microscope. This is an ap you can put on your phone. This would be very useful in y ag classroom. I would like to use it especially when going over my entomology section in class. It would be fun to go explore outside and be able to take pictures of different bugs. After doing this, we could bring it in and put the pictures on ipads and talk about the differences in the bugs. It is a very neat ap and is less than $15! Check it out at
http://crabfuartworks.blogspot.com/2010/09/crabfu-5-iphone-microscope-mod.html .
The next Internet site I would find useful is Developing Critical Thinking through Web Research Skills
http://www.microsoft.com/education/teachers/guides/critical_thinking.aspx?WT.mc_id=criticalthinking_redu_site . This site is dedicated t help students lean how to search the web with accuracy and purpose. It will help children develop critical thinking skills while browsing on the web.
Finally, the one I was excited about was them talking about Wordle! I have used Wordle before in my technology class, but I am always looking for new ways to incorporate into my classroom.This site gives 50 ways to use wordle. Some of the ones I enjoyed were using it as a setup for a quiz, to show grading criteria, and how to show key characters and ideas in a reading. Look at this site for more information at https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_157dpbsg9c5.
The first one I thought would be useful in my classroom was the iphone microscope. This is an ap you can put on your phone. This would be very useful in y ag classroom. I would like to use it especially when going over my entomology section in class. It would be fun to go explore outside and be able to take pictures of different bugs. After doing this, we could bring it in and put the pictures on ipads and talk about the differences in the bugs. It is a very neat ap and is less than $15! Check it out at
http://crabfuartworks.blogspot.com/2010/09/crabfu-5-iphone-microscope-mod.html .
The next Internet site I would find useful is Developing Critical Thinking through Web Research Skills
http://www.microsoft.com/education/teachers/guides/critical_thinking.aspx?WT.mc_id=criticalthinking_redu_site . This site is dedicated t help students lean how to search the web with accuracy and purpose. It will help children develop critical thinking skills while browsing on the web.
Finally, the one I was excited about was them talking about Wordle! I have used Wordle before in my technology class, but I am always looking for new ways to incorporate into my classroom.This site gives 50 ways to use wordle. Some of the ones I enjoyed were using it as a setup for a quiz, to show grading criteria, and how to show key characters and ideas in a reading. Look at this site for more information at https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_157dpbsg9c5.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Reflection 5: Tech Chicks Cyber Monday!
The tech chicks strike again! This episode talks about the tech chicks new facebook page. This page will announce the new pod casts and if they are at a convention. People like me can be friends or like the facebook page. With this facebook page, we can send them messages and have a personal email address for them. This page will be dedicated to facilitating discussions and answering question. The end of the episode , they talked about Gamez4Touch.com. They gave many codes for different classroom games. After you put in the code, the game belongs to you and you can get the free downloads. I codes included things like touch physics 1 and touch physics 2 for the ipad or iphone, and play with your peeves ( physics), and musical lights. If you would like to get the other codes, check out the pod cast at http://techchicktips.net/. This would be a great way for kids to develop problem solving skills and be a great break from the everyday classroom lesson.
Reflection 4: Tech. Chicks Lesson 80
Tech chicks prve themselves very useful once again! The Tech Chicks on this round provided useful information for teachers. They started with saving teachers money. Teachers money is a valuable commodity that is being decreased amoung many districts. They give a small way to save money by using free calandar and planner site found at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/20-free-printable-calendars-planners-2011/. This site has every kind of calanar needed including ones for sports, activities, and others. THe one I found extermly interesting was the video school site called http://vimeo.com/videoschool. This site has a bunch of how tos on how to many seccsessful videos. It gives clues to do video tricks and a person dose not have to log on to see the videos. So, this knowledge can be free in a sense. The other part I found a must have for a future teacher was Top 10 Sites for Images and Clipart at
http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/35376 and 11 Free Resources to Learn About Creativity at
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/11-creativity-resources/. I love putting visuals in my powerpoints and having new clip art and gif sites to go to would be great to enhance my graphics on them. This would help students visualize what we are talking about better. Also, I am always looking for more creative ways to discuss topics and display my ideas. This could be useful for myself and my students. For more information check out http://techchicktips.net/.
http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/35376 and 11 Free Resources to Learn About Creativity at
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/11-creativity-resources/. I love putting visuals in my powerpoints and having new clip art and gif sites to go to would be great to enhance my graphics on them. This would help students visualize what we are talking about better. Also, I am always looking for more creative ways to discuss topics and display my ideas. This could be useful for myself and my students. For more information check out http://techchicktips.net/.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Classroom 2.0
Networking is a key component to succeeding in the world. I have been told many times that it is good to know a lot , but it is even better to know a lot of people. Knowing a broad spectrum of people can open up many doors to chances to educate yourself. As a teacher, it is not only important for me to educate myself by learning from others , but also vital that I learn to help my students with knowledge and experiences of others. Classroom 2.0 could really help me out on this. Since I am not a member I could not post anything. However, I went ahead and looked at the other opportunities on this site. The first thing I noticed was the initial wanting to help on this site. They had a group of hosts that could answer any questions you could have about the site and how to use it. Also, it had a member list, videos, and links to learn knowledge about the site like proper forum conversation, exc. The discussion forum was my favorite part. This is an area where a teacher could post a question and other teachers could answer back with ideas over the topic. One topic that caught my eye was Vocab in the Classroom. This is one area I am working on improving in myself and I would love to enhance it for my future students. Some of the ideas included a visual thesaurus and spelling city. This would be a great way for starting teachers to get their feet wet and get ideas from older more experienced teacher who have been in the same situations. Look at the site at http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/vocabulary-in-the-classroom.
Edu Teacher
When exploring the Edu Teacher website, I found 3 resources that stood out to me. One was the TV option. This has a variety of pod casts that go over different sites. They were very fast and fairly exciting. I watched a few videos including Imgur, blipsnips, and poll code. The Imgur was very enlightening. It broke down links and html and what they do and how to use them on different sites. It even explained what embedding means which helped me understand what I do on my own personal website. The next resource I liked was the conference page. This page went over the upcoming education opportunities for teachers to work with other teachers. Examples of these included the Web 2.0 in Denver and the discovery channel education conference. I believe it is very important to correspond with other people to learn from them and what works for them in different situations. The last really useful resource I found was the 1 cent area. It went over what we could do for the community. I know that getting students involved in something they care about or see in everyday life is a great way to connect. The topic right now that just ended was for the Just Make a Wish Foundation. Every time a person clicked on this site a penny went to the cause. There was many other resources available. Please check it out at http://edutecher.net/change/.
Kan-ed Reflection
While on the Kan-ed website, I found many professional development activities, education techniques, classroom teaching ideas, and websites to receive information from. My favorite part of this site was the online resource tools. This area had sites like Kids info bits (http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/KidsInfoBits;jsessionid=A5CCAA936A39FC42289B4255B32CCEF1?locID=klnb_lrnstation), Gale group (http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/start.do?prodId=STOJ&userGroupName=klnb_lrnstation), and World Book (http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/home?null&gr=Welcome+Kansas+Education). Kids info bits was very neat. It was useful the way they had it broke down into separate section like plants, animals, people, technology, health, and many more. When exploring the tabs, I found that going through the process and choosing a section would take you to more breakdowns of types and then supply you with a variety of resources and works cited. This was so easy that it would be even useful for my students to use when doing a research project. The other part I liked was the section where students could get on and use this site also. The backpack was where students could save their information they are working on in class. I know this would have been very useful for myself in high school because I lost zip drives and discs very easily. As a teacher, I feel this would be a great site to incorporate into my classroom. It would aid me in organizing my teaching and my students as well. I encourage all teachers to check it out at https://coeksu.learningstation.com/portal/.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Podcast Reflection 3: Tech Chicks #79
Wow! Tech chicks are amazing. The information they gave was extremely useful. This episode the talked about Tech Forum which focused on using cell phones in the classroom and promoted educators working together to form new ways to use technology. The tech forum is a place were the videos and discussions were all videoed. The jargon generator was the first place to start. This site is http://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html.html . It goes over different adverbs, adjectives, nouns, and others. It helps you learn new words and make you sound more educated when discussing information with other educators and with students. Also, it gave a new science site called http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/lawrencehallofscience.org. This is a science site that will help a person use science in a fun way. . This is a very usable site for teachers to incorporate into classrooms. It gives how to videos and offers a variety of professional development and resources for teachers to use. Also, they gave a bunch of FireFox add ons teachers can put in place in their classrooms. One of these was a word center. Here it would accurately pronounce the word. This could help students learn new words and say the correctly. At the end of the podcast, it went over Black Friday deals. This was very beneficial fr myself as a teacher and needing to save money. It would go over the different ads going to be on Black Friday. This would give teachers the leg up on the different deals going on. This site is located at (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/black-friday-by-bradsdeals/id399280347?mt=8). The best part about this application is that it is a free source! Overall, the tech chicks gave me a lot of new resources to use as a teacher. I can't wait to listen to the next episode to learn even more!
Animoto in my Classroom
After working with the animoto website, I discovered how easy it is to jazz up pictures and make a short video to catch students attention. I believe www.animoto.com would be a great way to not only introduce or summarize a topic, but also a great way to let them use there creative minds to form their own videos about a topic. This would be a great eye catcher to show at the beginning of a unit. It could have pictures of the main ideas of the subject matter with key vocab words to go along with it. Also, I think this would be a way to incorporate a short review that the students can watch at home. This could be as little as putting all the leading important points into a slide and have short definitions or pictures that explain them. This would not only help students when studying , but also aid them if they miss a class period from sickness, games, or other events. The last point I would like to bring up is how the students could make these themselves. I think it would be a good project to do at the beginning of the school year. The students could make a short video about themselves to help me learn more about them. After they learn how to master this site they can make reviews for each other as a fun way to study.
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