Molly is Eleni's Godchild, she loves Nike!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Ship Channel Cay
My happy place is the Ship Channel Cay on Exuma Island in the Bahamas. I picture it any time I am feeling stressed and always feel better.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Google Maps and A Smile
There are many ways to use Google Earth and Google Maps in our classrooms. I am enjoying reading the methods Christina Germano writes about using with her students. She uses the internet in order to facilitate real life experiances interacting with maps. Another blog of her's that I recommend reading is "You Know You Are Teacher When...", it is sure to put a smile on each of your face.
A Teacher's Blog
It is common for teachers to get frustrated with their career choices through their busy and challenging careers. This teacher blogs about the challenges that we experiance every day and helps by making suggestions to help. I enjoyed reading about internet safety for teenagers. Teachers are learners and learners are teachers contains many blogs relevant to our teaching everyday.
Technology In Classrooms
Teachers can always use ideas to help enrich their technology use in the classroom. I really like the Groundhog Day posting that the author put up which incorporates the holiday with math skills. There is also a wonderful post about an interactive game from TV, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?
Safer Internet Use for Classrooms
Nik Peachy has a passion for using technology in classrooms. One aspect that many people often over look is the advertising features or inappropriateness of popular websites. Recently, I used YouTube to show clips of President Obama's Inauguration Speech. While trying to make the video full screen size and advertisement came up on the side for Victoria's Secret bras. This sent my fifth grade boys into a frenzy that I am not sure if they have calmed down from yet. Teacher tube is a new website designed for classrooms. Many of the videos are made in schools. Unitedstreaming is an excellent source for many full length educational films but for short video clips of current events, I encourage teachers to use the Victoria's Secret ad-free Teacher Tube.
Write a Book!!!
This a website that literally allows your students to write their own book online. They chose from many topics including holidays, summer vacation, etc., and page by page they create a book. After choosing their cover, they give it a title and develop characters. There are thousands of pictures to chose from to personalize the story or you can upload your own. I love the idea of writing a class story together and then having each child write their own. The stories can be shared for free online using a projector but it does cost between $12 and $20 to buy the books in print.
Literacy Skills Game Website
One of the centers in my classroom is to have 2-3 students on the computer during small group instruction. I have provided the students with a list of websites they are allowed to go on, however they keep ending up on a game called "Puke the Pirate". While I do not know the object of this game, I do know that it is not educational. The Bitesize Game Website can be played individually or as a whole class to review actual literacy and math skills. Each skill has a game associated with it such as "help Max cross the river by choosing the rhyming word." The website reads the question and the answer to the student which is an important auditory piece of learning. I am going to try having this website already up on the computers during my next small group rotation. That way the students can chose a game from this website only and I know it is education while they are having fun! This game website should come with a warning is noisy and would require headphones for independent computer time.
Free Power Points!!!
This is an exciting website that provides teachers with free PowerPoint presentations. There are presentations for every content area and most age groups. I really enjoyed looking at the presentations for Black History Month as they is coming up in February. This is a great way to use technology in a whole group teaching format but eliminates the time it takes to make your own presentation. There are also many free PowerPoint templates available to make your presentations more exciting for our students.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
It's Wiki Time!!!
As new technologies become available to us as people and as educators it is important to try and embrace these changes rather than be scared of them. Using wikis is an intimidating concept to the technology-challenged but with instructional websites it becomes easier. The How to Manual That You Can Edit gives very simple, step-by-step instructions for creating wikis. The website refers to wikis as "a collaborative writing project" and that is certainly a concept we can use in our classrooms.
Read and Write with Web 2.0
The world wide web is used today for many different reasons. The old version of the web was a read only type of Internet that allowed people to look up information but not to to interact with it. The current Web 2.0 allows people to not only read information but also to write information. One of the websites I often use is Facebook because I can reach different groups of people, including coworkers, family, friends, and now graduate school colleagues. I really like that posts can be made both public or private. You can create events and only the people included in the event can send messages to the group . In our school system, the Facebook website is not allowed (most likely because of the photos that people post on their profile page). I wish they could create a Facebook for classrooms that is appropriate for students and would allow them to share information or work together on projects.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Blogging with Literacy Circles
There are many great avenues to take when thinking about blogging with your students. As I read this article I began thinking about literacy circles. One of the biggest challenges I have during literacy circles/book clubs is getting the students to talk and discuss with each other. They prefer for me to pose a discussion topic, raise their hands, and answer my question. I have spent weeks attempting to model how to think of your own "I wonder" questions and discussing amongst themselves. So far there has been little progress. I am going to begin a blog about our book and have them post their thoughts about the current chapter. Blogs may be the answer to getting students to feel comfortable discussing literature without raising their hands and answering a teacher posed question.
20 Reasons To Blog With Students
The author provides a list of twenty reasons teachers should use blogs as a teaching mechanism in the classroom. Of the twenty, I think that reason #15 is the strongest: "work is permanently stored, easily accessed and valuable comparisons can be made over time for assessment and evaluation purposes." Recently I noticed that the way our county sets up student login accounts allows them to save files to "My Documents" and they can continue to view their work from year to year. My fifth graders are very eager to show me their work from fourth grade. Using blogs would allow students to access their work from any computer from year to year. I also agree that parents would enjoy being able to read their child's blogs.
Pencils Should Be Banned
In the article, "A Proposal For Banning Pencils", the author argues that when we use the same logic to ban pencils as we do to ban certain technologies, it sounds ridiculous. He argues that pencils might break or get stolen the same way that a computer might not work or could get stolen. He makes many good points about why many technologies, such as an iPod, may positively impact student learning. The author does not identify any strengths of pencil and paper work. The article appears to either be written for humor purposes rather than to create a real argument. I wish he had included lesson ideas for using the technologies that he argues should be used after we ban pencils.
Shift Happens
Did you know is an eye-opening view of the impact technology has had on the 21st century and the generation of students we teach. While our classrooms are engaging students in higher order thinking concepts at a younger age, many teachers are still using a blackboard and chalk to instruct their students. Teachers should watch this video to realize the multitude of technologies that are available to help instruct our students in a universal language that they have grown up with.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Computer Access at Greenbelt Elementary
I feel very fortunate that I have 4 desktop computers and 1 laptop in my classroom. The laptop is used for "teacher" activities such as being hooked up an LCD projector or document camera. We also have a very nice computer lab that the students go to twice a month. They play math games such as First In Math as well as create presentations. The technology coordinator is very flexible and will let classes come more often if they are working on a project or math competition. In addition to having the luxury access to computers, it is important to add that my enthusiasm is heightened by the fact that they all are in working condition (as of today).
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