BP8_Links to Comments

Follow this link to my comments on Irving's RILS project. His life just got a little easier!

Follow this link to my comments on Cynthia's RILS project. This is a nifty app!

BP7_Final Project

To blog or not to blog, that was the question. Fourth grade is known as "the writing year" in Texas because it is the first year that the state requires standardized testing in writing. It can be overwhelming to many students who have not yet become proficient, much less prolific writers. From the beginning of this EMDT graduate program, I have had a dream to incorporate blogging into my everyday classroom environment. Finally, after several failed attempts to find the right platform and a lot of help from a friend, I found the answer to my original question. 'Tis nobler in the mind...to blog! This is my relevant and innovative learning scenario.

Target Audience:  A class of 21 4th grade students.

Materials:  We will need access to:

•    Computers

•    Internet

•    Teacher created classroom website

•    Blogging Platform

Objectives:  At the conclusion of the lesson, students will be able to:

•    Investigate a topic of their choice (books, Web 2.0 applications, sports, video game, etc.)

•    Compose a blog post describing their chosen topic

•    Design a grading rubric for blog posts

•    Evaluate and score fellow classmates blogposts

Procedure:

Prior to students beginning the blogging lesson an account on kidblog.com was created for classroom blogging. Instructor added each student and created a unique password for each user. The direct link to the kidblog classroom login page wascopied and added to the classroom webpage hosted by teacherweb.com.

 1. Students will be asked to brainstorming ideas of interest and decide on one topic.

 2. Students will present their topic to the teacher for approval.

 3. Upon teacher approval students will be provided directions on how to access to their blog pages.

 4. Students will be given access to kidblog.com through the classroom website created on teacherweb.com

 5. Students will login to kidblog.com and locate his/her pre-created blog page.

 6. Student will then create their first blog post.

 7. After students have posted the teacher will be notified that there is a new blog post to review and approve.

 8. Students will be provided directions and examples on how to create a rubric which will be used to evaluate fellow classmates blogs.

 9. Students will create a rubric.

10.          Students will be randomly assigned to read fellow classmates blogs.

11.          Students will comment to assigned blogs.

12.          Students will evaluate assigned blogs with student created rubric.

Web 2.0 Tool: A classroom website was created on teacherweb.com. Teacherweb allows teachers to quickly create classroom websites to share information with parents and students. The teacher website provides pertinent information about the classroom along with multiple student links. One of the links will redirect students to kidblog.com a site for designed especially for elementary classroom blogs. Kidblog is a site created by teachers that is safe and secure, allowing teachers to monitor and control all classroom blogs.

Social Learning/Collaboration: Learners will be asked to share ideas for blogging and help each other come up with topics that are interesting to them and their reader audience. Students will be required to post comments on fellow classmates blogs and engage in a discussion (via the web). Students will also be assigned specific topics to blog and comment on. Kidblogs enables the instructor and students to engage in discussion in a fun and interactive way. By allowing student to write blog posts and replies to the blogs, there will be sharing of ideas and feedback from peers.

Making Connections: Previous knowledge varies greatly among our target audience. The one thing they all have in common is text messaging. From mini messages to much bigger messages,  blogging is an extension of that previous knowledge. Interacting with peers is extremely important to our audience. The fact that blogging allows for an exchange of thoughts and opinions makes blogging inherently relevant. As students blog, and comment on blogs they will be sharing with their classroom community as well as a guest blogger from another state to demonstrate the endless possibilities of a broader blogging audience.  

1. Create/Produce – Students will create a personal blog post, compose comments, produce a rubric.

2. Assessment -

                10 points for creation of initial blog post by deadline.

10 points for comments to assigned classmates’ blogs.

10 points for collaboration on student created rubric.

10 points for grading assigned classmates’ blogs using student created rubric.

10 points for using appropriate and respectful language.

Student created rubric:

3. Reflection

a.  Students will evaluate their own blog posting and reflect on what they did well and what they would do better next time. Students will also evaluate and give constructive feedback to their classmates through the use of a student created rubric.  After the students have completed the blogging assignment the teacher will engage the students in a discussion about their blogging experience and what they each learned from the assignment and the comments from their fellow classmates.

b.         During the open discussion with students the teacher will ask students about their experience and likes/dislikes with blogging. Through monitoring of student work the educator will take notes on the ease of access to the blogging platform and the ease of directions. As a final reflection the educator will blog about the overall experience and any difficulties that were observed. The instructor will look back at the process of this scenario and evaluate what went well, what could be improved if the lesson were repeated, and think about what new components they might add to this scenario next time.

  

PE5_teacherweb

I have high expectations for a classroom web site. I want it all…and I want it for free! As it turns out, in the world of web sites you get what you pay for. That is not to say that you have to pay a lot but the free sites are limiting. While a free site may be a great starter to see what a class site has to offer, I wanted something more and I found it at teacherweb.com. Teacherweb is reasonably priced with an annual fee and they do offer a free trial. Having used a free site for a while though, I knew I was ready to invest. Teacherweb had everything I was looking for. It is easy to interact with and has lots of templates & designs to choose from. It’s very easy to upload large files, which was a big problem with the free site. I love that teacherweb helps me to create a classroom community that extends beyond the classroom. It is so easy to send out class updates to parents and students and share what we are learning about in class. The site templates look very clean and fun, yet professional. They have graphic selections for elementary, middle school and high school teachers but you can choose as you like. You can also change the look of your site as often as you like. If I want to change the look of my site throughout the year, those changes are just a click away. Lot’s of choices and great functionality make teacherweb.com a top contender among classroom website platforms.     

PE4_kidblog

In a way I began thinking about this blog in August. When school started I wanted to have a blogging platform in place. I wanted to introduce my ideas for student blogging during the first days of school and for meet the teacher events. I teach 4^th grade and in Texas that is the first year that learners are tested in writing. The testing is rigorous and the students are often ill prepared. I felt strongly that blogging had the potential to diminish the dread of “the writing year”. I was convinced that the interactive nature of blogging could benefit every learner. I did actually introduce a platform but it turned out that the former application could not be used to support blogs for an entire class. We managed to post a few great blogs but the previous platform required lots of parent involvement and while they were fun for the kids, we weren’t reaping the benefits I had intended. After lots of trials and attempts with other platforms I finally found kidblog.com. We used kidblog for the first time this week. Now all my students have their own blogs linked to my class website and they are lovin’ it! Yesterday we had 19 blogs posted and 97 comments were received class wide! Kidblog is attractive, super easy to use and has all the basic word processing tools. Some of my students do not have a computer at home and have had little to no experience keyboarding but that obviously did not get in their way. One of the blog replies read, “This is a good book!” I’m excited about the potential of kidblog.com. This is the blogging tool I’ve been looking for. 

BP6_media[by]design

Check out my friend Kat's blog, media[by]design. She's all about wordle.com this week and has produced a very cool wordle tutorial using imovie! http://mediabydesign.blogspot.com/

BP5_Initializing Sync

Follow this link to my friend Rebecca's blog. She has reviewed some great Web 2.0 applications and created a thrilling imovie. I truly believe she has a future in marketing!
http://edutechmind.blogspot.com/2011/10/pe1imovie.html

BP4_kerpoof

In my last exploration of web 2.0 applications, I visited storybird.com. I let my students create books in class and many went home and created their own accounts. A few days later, one of my students told me about a site that she found. She began asking to show me the web site in the morning then the day got busy and we never had time. Later after the kids were gone, I found a note on my desk with the web address…now that’s initiative. The site that she was so excited about was kerpoof.com and it really is worth a fuss! 

Not only can you create, print and share books but you can also make movies and produce original artwork. Within the domain of creative writing there are endless choices of colorful, fun characters, settings, themes, fonts and gadgets galore.

 This site allows much more than collaborative storytelling, it allows collaborative creativity. Not only is kerpoof.com fantastically kid-friendly but it is also wonderfully teacher-friendly. The site allows me to create lesson plans, track progress across content areas and give virtual awards for progress. Beyond those features, there are teacher tutorials available that will help me to maximize my use of the application. And if all of that weren’t enough, kerpoof.com allows me to specify the teaching standards on national and state levels and will organize activities based on those specific standards for my grade level! Kerpoof allows multimedia sharing worldwide. I can expand student connectivity to my own classroom or to other classrooms around the world. The possibilities are endless.  This promotional add has been brought to you by the insistence of one 4^th grade student in Austin, Texas and me.

PE3_imovie

With this final installment of imovie blog posts I wanted to play around with some elements within imovie that would be fun and useful for future productions. The imovie feature that I chose to use was the blue screen effect. I grabbed some blue butcher paper and created a very rough blue background in my classroom. I left some defects in the background to see how they would show up. Initially, my plan was to film with the blue screen background and then find another location to film based on what I came up with at school. Well...you'll see what I came up with at school and understand why I ended up choosing a still shot to lay my blue screen over! This was also a learning experience because I had to figure out how to extend the length of a still. Once again, imovie made that super easy. Just as the instructor mentions on the lynda.com tutorial, the blue/green screen effect can be choppy and difficult to edit. You will see evidence of that for sure but I was still impressed. The other feature that I had never experimented with before was laying down music. In this case, I had to search the itunes store for just the right music. Once I had that, it was all click and drag from there. At one point, I did try to edit the music in garage band to get the perfect fit, but I got a little lost at that point so I just used what I had in imovie. I also was able to minimize the background noise from the classroom footage to a minimal distraction (there were 19 excited, wanna-be directors on set). Enjoy!

PE2_imovie

I have completed my imovie ’11 essential training! The 3+ hour tutorial required a focused commitment. It was difficult to process the massive amount of information so I tried to chunk up the viewing and really take in as much as I could. There are many, many features about imovie that I will begin to explore now that I have a cursory understanding of them. The overwhelming realization that I received from watching the tutorial from start to finish was this, imovie is intuitive. As I was reaching for a pencil today the thought occurred to me, “how clever the concept of click and drag”.  I think it’s brilliant that Apple developed a movie production medium that allows you to reach out, grab and move things around with ease. Imovie is a rich, human-friendly software. It is a commonly available technology that brings amazing artistic expression within reach and enriches everyday life. I also appreciate the logic of imovie. While there are layers and layers of possibilities within the program, there is also a simplicity that just makes sense. I love that I can click and drag all kinds of things from so many sources and try them out, see how they feel, with no big risk. While making a professional looking video may still be a few attempts away, hey, it’s just a few attempts away! 

PE1_imovie

lynda.com imovie tutorial

It’s hard to believe that it was less than four months ago that I made my first ever imovie. I used my built in camera and made at least 10 versions of my bio film because I had no idea how to edit. Who am I kidding…I did that thing over at least 20 times…point is, I now know how to edit! I discovered the Lynda.com imovie tutorials about a month ago and what a relief that was. While those tutorials helped me to survive months 2 & 3 of the program, I have never taken the complete course in a systematic viewing. It’s hard to retain so much information but I am learning some very cool things. Today I learned how to use blue & green screen. I’m going to grab some colored butcher paper at school tomorrow and do some blue screen filming with my kids. They will love seeing themselves on screen on other locations! This is going to be fun. 

BP3_storybird

Web 2.0 applications are kind of like a massive box of chocolates waiting to be tasted. I nibbled quite a few before I chose one to blog about and brag about. I am in love with storybird.com and I’m not the only one! Storybird allows teachers, students, and writers of all ages to access amazing illustrations for free. The concept behind Storybird is to allow the illustrations to inspire your imagination and get your story wheel turning. There are so many sites that help kids get excited about reading yet so few that inspire authors. This is a real treasure. The site is so easy to use, all you really have to do is log on and create. Once you are logged on, you can write a book and share it with you friends or you can write a few pages and send it to a friend that you would like to collaborate with. You can collaborate with as many or as few authors as you like and the end product is amazing. Teachers have free, unlimited access to Storybird. The designers have made it extremely easy for you to add your students and create class lists. You can easily use the application to track writing projects as a classroom tool. Today, I piloted the application in my classroom. Many of my students who do not enjoy the writing process were chomping at the bit to get their turn to collaborate. Some of the illustrations might be scary or slightly mature for a younger audience but you can set your preferences to your favorite illustrators and avoid that issue.  My students were very proud of their creations and were chirping away at the wonders of Storybird. 

BP2_igoogle PLE

This blog post is dedicated the concept of creating a personal learning environment (PLE). As we move farther away from hard copy anything (though I'll never give up real post-its!), the world of digital binders seems to be a necessity. I am a beginner in the world of technology. The more I travel in this virtual world, the more I realize the vastness of the information and tools available to me. A grounding platform is essential. My current Full Sail graduate course, Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture, truly speaks to the necessity of a new language of collaboration. For me, this is a new way of thinking and a new way of sustaining a presence in a previously unknown environment. When I compare my PLE to others, it looks unsophisticated, and so it should. As I grow personally in this environment, the scenery will change. I'll find more useful gadgets that suit my personal needs and more efficient means for organizing my digital binder. This is definitely a work in progress!