My Digital Story

Here is my iMovie project. This digital story will take you through our solar system as you learn about the sun, our 8 planets, and the dwarf planet Pluto. I hope you enjoy!

TPTE Reflections

Coming into this course, I had very little knowledge of technology tools. I barely even know what a blog or a wiki was. Because of my scarce technological knowledge, I expected this course to be a bit of a struggle. However, I knew the importance of learning from this course. My future students are growing up in a technologically advanced world and I need to be able to keep up with them and keep them engaged. Using technology in my classroom is a great way to keep my students engaged. I feel like I know so much more about technological tools now. I can create a website, a wiki, a blog (obviously), and a Google presentation. I can also use iMovie, ActivInspire, Picasa, TimeToast, and so much more. I even have a resume ready for a future employer. Not only do I know how to use these tools, but I know how to incorporate them into my future classroom in an effective manner. I may have had a few struggles figuring some things out, but my instructor and peers were there to help me find my way through the problem. I expected to gain a lot of technological knowledge out of this course and that is exactly what I did. Rather than reading through a textbook to gain information, this course allowed me to actually DO the activities and learn by doing. I value what I have learned in this course and plan to use many of these tools in my future classroom.

Websites

I think learning how to create a website is one of the most useful pieces of information I have learned throughout this course. I think it is very helpful when teachers have websites that their students and/or parents can go to and find all sorts of information they might need. Before this class, I had no idea how to create a website. Now I can create one, add many pages, and make it organized and easy to navigate. My website is full of resources and artifacts. I also included a list of some of my favorite children's book that I would like to recommend to my students and their parents. I think a website is a great tool for communication and information gathering. I am very glad I know how to create a website and I plan on having one for my future classroom.

iMovie

The iMovie application allows you to create your own movies. You can add pictures, text, and music. Between each picture you can add different transitions. The iMovie application would be great for teachers to use. Teachers can use this to present information to their students and engage them. This application allows students to learn while watching a movie! I made an iMovie (or Digital Story) and our solar system. My students can watch the iMovie and learn about all 8 planets, the sun, and the dwarf planet Pluto. Although it can be a bit time consuming, iMovie is a fun way to engage students in learning and would be very practical to use in a classroom.

Blogging

I think blogging has been helpful in this class. It has been an opportunity to reflect on what we have done in this class. If I forget what a Web 2.0 tool is or what we did a certain day, I can refer to my blog and be quickly reminded. I love journaling, and blogging is an online form of journaling. I think I could use blogging in my future classroom to include parents in what their children are learning each day at school. I could inform my students' parents what we have learned and activities we are doing. The parents can get on my blog and see what their child is working on and I could include suggestions for parents to do at home with their child.

Storybird

Storybird is a Web 2.0 tool that can be used to create your own stories. You can create a story by theme or by artist. You choose images and add your own text to them to create a story. This would be a great tool to use in an elementary classroom. I could use this tool to encourage my students to be creative and come up with their own stories. This would be a fun way to get your students excited about writing. I would have my students hand write their story before typing it and use it as a creative writing tool. This is a tool I would like to use in my classroom. You can even get your book published!

Animoto

Animoto is a web 2.0 tool that allows you to make videos. You can add music, photos, video clips, and text to your video. The website www.animoto.com emails you your video after it is complete. This web 2.0 tool seems like it might take some time to get used to and figure it out, but I think it could be helpful to use in a classroom. Students could use this tool for video book reports or to tell stories. This tool could also be used for instruction or beginning of a lesson to engage the students. It is a really neat way to create a video. This web 2.0 tool may require some creativity, but it could have many uses in the classroom.

Inspiration Diagram

Here is an image of my Inspiration project. The main topic of this project is "cloud types." I broke it up into four different categories. The four categories are lower level, middle level, higher level, and varied levels. The lower, middle, and higher levels each have three different types of clouds. The varied levels category has only one type of cloud, but I also included a note about this type of cloud. There is also a note under the nimbostratus type of cloud regarding nimbus clouds. I also included the 3rd grade science state standard and NETS-T standard this project aligns with. There is also a link to a kid-friendly website about cloud types. I think used diagrams is a great way for students to see connections and relationships.

Google Forms

Google Forms is a tool that I am familiar with. We used this tool to make sign up sheets, take shirt sizes, and many other things in an organization that I am a member of. Using this tool was very helpful in that situation and I could see many uses for this in my future classroom. If my students' parents have access to the internet then I will definitely use this tool in my classroom. It is a great way to communicate and document. I love this tool and hope to be able to use it in many ways in my future classrooms.

Wordle

I really like the Web 2.0 tool Wordle. I think it is fun and interesting to look out. I think it would take a creative person to figure out effective uses for it in the classroom though. Also, my computer here in the lab would not let me access wordle and I couldn't figure out why. I like it and think it is fun, but I'm not sure it is something I would find useful in my future classroom.

ActivInspire

I think ActivInspire will be a great tool to use in my future classroom. The students will enjoy the interactive whiteboard and be engaged in their learning. This tool allows the students to erase, move, and match objects on the computer or whiteboard. Students can play while they learn! I plan to teach primary grades and I think the students will really appreciate the interaction during learning. I will definitely be using ActivInspire in my first grade class this year!

Resume

I am very glad we made a resume in this course. I did not a have a resume before this course. I was unsure of the format and all that needed to be included in a professional resume. The template provided was very helpful for me. A resume is something that we will all need after we graduate and is a very important thing to have. My resume may not be completely ready for me to hand to a potential employer just yet, but it is almost there!

Resource Wiki

The Resource Wiki has been one of my favorite things we have done in this class so far. I'm glad we waited to do this project after we were already comfortable with using wikis. Since I knew how wiki worked, it was much easier for me to complete this task. I had to find some informational websites that could be used in an early childhood education class, then I had to evaluate the site to make sure it was appropriate. The best thing about the resource wiki is that not only do I have the sites I found on there, but classmates and people from other TPTE classes have also put websites on there. This will be a great tool for me to use in preparing my lessons for my own classroom.

IBA Activity

The inquiry-based activity was a good way to introduce us to the idea of using WebQuests. I think it was a good way to start off the lesson and get us more comfortable with WebQuests. Although it was not a full WebQuest and used only one site, it was a good starting point for us to know what we were looking for.

WebQuests

I never knew WebQuests existed until this class, but I am very glad I know now. This is such a great resource for all teachers. Using the WebQuest garden is a good way to search for related WebQuests and find activities. Some of the WebQuests I found I think my future students would really enjoy doing. It is also a great way to incorporate technology into your lesson. This will be a very helpful and useful tool in my classroom!

Wikis

I really like using the Wiki. I think it is a great tool to use and collaborate with your peers. I wish I could've known about this Web 2.0 tool sooner. This would be really helpful to use during group projects. Sometimes it is hard for all group members to meet up at the same time, so this tool would allow each member to work separately at their own time, yet still be able to collaborate with each other. This is definitely a tool I will be using in my future classroom.

Color Scavenger Hunt

That Aha! Moment

I think my Aha! moment in this class was while I was learning about WebQuests. Everything I have learned so far in this class seems like it will be very helpful for me to know in my future years as an educator. However, I think WebQuest will be one of my favorite tools I take away from this class. It seems like such a great resource for teachers to use and find great ideas that their students will really enjoy doing. Really, I sort of have an Aha! moment with every new tool I learn how to use in this class. It is exciting to realize all of the different ways I can use these resources in a classroom. I hope the Aha! moments keep on coming!

Happy Thursday!

TimeToast

Hi bloggers!

Brett and I used TimeToast as our Web 2.0 tool. I think TimeToast is a really cool tool to use in the classroom. This tool allows you to make timelines and share them with others. People can comment on your timeline as well. You can view the timeline in regular timeline format or in text view. You can add as many events to your timeline as you went. It is really neat and a great way to organize important dates and give descriptions with each event. I really enjoyed learning about and using this tool. I think it would be a great tool to use in the classroom and make learning events in history much more interesting for the students. If you haven't checked out TimeToast, you definitely should!

Happy blogging!

Website Evaluations

Hi bloggers!

Today we learned about evaluating websites. I never really thought of this as being an important topic until today. We all know everything you read isn't true. But when I research something on the internet I always just assume I am receiving reliable information. And boy was I wrong! Anyone can have a website and post any sort of information they want. This is why it is important to evaluate the websites you are using, especially in a classroom. As an educator, it is vital that I give my students accurate information. If I use a website with my students that is not reliable, then I am giving them inaccurate information. Not only is it important for me as an educator to use reliable websites during research and with my students, but I should also teach them how to evaluate websites as they do research. If they, like me, assume all information they research on the internet is accurate and reliable then they may come into class trying to save the tree octopuses! Evaluating websites is much more important than I had imagined or even thought of. Moral of the story: Don't forget to evaluate your websites before you use them!

Happy Tuesday!

TPTE Expectations

Welcome to my blog! From my experience in the past two classes, I expect to learn a lot in this course! I am new to the wiki and blogging world. I didn't even really know what they were until today and I now have both of them! I am not very technologically advanced so this class may be a bit of a struggle for me. I hope to learn a lot about how to use technology in my future classrooms. My future students are growing up in a world where technology is everything, so I'm sure they expect it to be a large part of their education. I hope to be able to keep up with them, so I expect to learn the basics of technological uses in the classroom throughout this course. Wish me luck!

-Madison