Blog Progress

I was finally able to create a blog with my students through gaggle. I am the author and the students go in and type their responses and post their names at the end. Although it is not what I hoped for, my students are having a fantastic time using the blog. For many, this is their first time actually using a computer for an activity such as this. I highly recommend using a blog with students in the upper grades.

Also, my class has adopted a WEBKINZ as our class pet. It is fantastic!!!!! I highly recommend that idea to any grade level.

Blog Problems

I decided last night to create a blog for my classroom. After creating a beautiful blog, I was told today that I cannot use it at my school. The administration does not like the idea of students having access to e-mail accounts. So, does anyone have any suggestions for how I could use the blog without my students having to have e-mail to make comments. I think it would be okay if they didn't have to have e-mail. Anyway, Just wondering?

Where do I go from here?

As I stated in previous blogs, I hope to implement many of the new technologies in my classroom. Each technology introduced can be integrated into all aspects of the classroom.

I will definitely use a Blog in my classroom this year. I hope to create a blog that both my parents and students will be able to use. I would like to have a blog where I could update my parents about things that are occurring in the classroom. Parents might also want to use the blog to contact me if they are having difficulty understanding a topic/subject. I would like my students to possibly blog about books they are reading and maybe even to post their writing. I guess I am now wondering if I would need to create two separate blogs in order to carry this out.

The technology I am most excited to use is digital text and video. As I made my e-book I constantly thought about what a great motivator it would be for writing. My 4th graders get very bogged down in the formula writing that we are told to use in the 4th grade. Creating an E-book would allow my students to work on writing, reading, speaking, and technology skills. I hope to partner with a 1st grade teacher that my students could create books for. I also hope to use E-Books to create a digital yearbook for my classroom. Students could easily take pictures of important class events and incorporate them into a digital text/movie.

Moreover, I am also excited about using the gaggle e-mail site. Over the past few years I have been told that my students cannot have e-mail addresses. After viewing gaggle and its features, I do believe that my principal/central office will allow my students to have e-mail. The ability of the teacher to have access to all mail sent and received will be wonderful.
Finally, I had a lot of fun using Yak Pak, Skype, and Gabcast in our class. Although it was fun, I do not foresee using this technology as much in my own classroom. Much explanation would need to be given before implementing any of these technologies. If I have time I may use Skype as a way to conference with students about books.

In conclusion, I have gained a lot of knowledge from this class. I came into this class thinking that I was pretty competent with computers and technology. I left knowing a ton more than I started with. Super Class!

Movie Maker

Bonnie and I created a movie about my dog Rusty's trip to the vet. Bonnie will use the movie to show her Kindergartners the steps a dog must go through on a vet visit. I will show the movie to my 4th graders to prove to them that you can take ordinary events and create a movie from them. I can definitely see using this type of technology in my classroom. I feel that my students are old enough that they could actually make movies on their own. It would be fun to allow older students to create movie books for younger students. The biggest problem would be obtaining all of the resources you would need in order to complete the project: video cameras, software, cables, etc.
Creating the movie was a great experience.

PowerPoint Books

PowerPoint created books are absolutely amazing! I had so much fun using my own pictures in order to create a story. I actually decided to use pictures of my dog to create my book. I did this because I wanted my students to see that we can take an everyday activity and create a story out of it. Now that I know how to create an E-Book, I will definitely use them with my students. I would love the opportunity to allow my students to make their own E-Books. This would be great for improving writing, reading, and technology skills. This is definitely one technology that I will use in the future.
One day later I am now adding to this post again because their is a down-side when creating e-books. Due to the fact I used all "good quality" photographs for my book, it made my file so big that it is difficult to upload and download. Thanks to Dave's help I now realize that I must change the resolution of my photos before completing this kind of activity. This would also be very important to remember when doing this type of activity with kids.

WebQuests

I have used several WebQuests in my classroom over the past few years. My students have always loved the process of going through each step and coming to a solution or final product. Although I've used many, I have never actually created one myself. I found the process of creating the WebQuest to be fairly easy. The most difficult part is coming up with "Good" websites to use for the activity. I am excited that I now know how to create a WebQuest. I actually never realized that you could make one through PowerPoint. I will definitely use webquests as a teaching tool this year. I would like to create several about North Carolina. Students could easily explore NC's three regions, history, and historical places through webquests. One could also use webquests to explore science topics such as electricity, food/nutrition, and rocks/minerals. WebQuests will be a wonderful asset to my 4th grade classroom.

Kymes Article

The article "Teaching On-line Comprehension Using Think-Alouds" was very eye opening. This article focuses on the fact that students do not always comprehend what they are reading on the internet. Our students have become very good at "scanning" to find information. I like the idea of teaching our students how to read internet information. I use think alouds all the time in my classroom for reading. I think I will try "Think-Alouds" using the web this coming fall. We need to teach our students to value "all" text!