Getting Ready to Start Up Again

We continue to find ways to weave technology into our lives... including the teaching and learning process. I enjoy exploring and sharing some of that technology. It is time to share again.

I have missed blogging on a regular basis and am looking forward to starting again! You can find me at http://teachinginadigitalworld.blogspot.com where I now blog.

a friendly helper when I'm working at my computer

Tips for Teaching with Media

Edutopia has published a very good resource, Ten Top Tips for Teaching with New Media. The technology suggestions are good, but what makes the publication most helpful are the specific suggestions for using the technology with your students.

Use VoiceThread to establish the idea of collaborative, productive activities early in the school year. Teach students how to use a start page such as iGoogle that they can access anywhere there is Internet accessibility and that will enable them to have their productivity tools available. Show students how to use Wordle to analyze their own writing. (The image posted in this blog is a Wordle of the blog's text.)

The suggestions continue. Download this PDF and see which ideas will work well in your classroom.

Photography Resolution Amended

St. Francis of Assisi is considered by some to be the patron saint of animals. His special day in the church calendar is October 4. In our church we have a special blessing of our pets on that day. This friendly bunny was one of the pets blessed in our service this past Sunday (October 4).

Photography Resolution Amended

No... I'm not confused about what season it is. I was at a museum that displays many of their items to sell... regardless of the season!

Be Creative with Your Photos

I found an interesting way of telling a story... or illustrating a story... or several other fun ways to share information with text and photos. It's called scrapblog (http://www.scrapblog.com/). Their blog describes the product well...

Scrapblog is a free, web-based service for creating and sharing digital scrapbooks.

There are templates to help you start with simple contextual sets of instructions as you go through the building process. You can watch videos, too.

You get to play with photos, stickers, backgrounds, text and balloons, shapes, video, and frames. I used only the free ones, but some of the others were certainly tempting. After making choices of photos or stickers or shapes or whatever you can change your mind and revise your scrapbook. You are not locked into your choices.

I found many articles about the company and the product on the web... and they all seem to be positive.

An online scrapbook would be an interesting way to summarize and then publicize a field trip or a school year. A digital scrapbook would be a great way to invite parents to an open house or a school play. Whether you and your students are into scrapbooking or digital storytelling or just having fun with photos and video and audio, this application is worth investigating.

Photography Resolution Amended

My daily photo resolution has turned into a weekly photo resolution. Maybe I'll do the daily photo next year. :) This photo shows a restaurant which has played an important role in the history of its town.

Access Music and Sound Clips for Multimedia Projects

I have checked several options for finding sound files to legally use with multimedia projects... without much success. SoundSnap (http://www.soundsnap.com/) looks like it might be the answer. It has 100,000 sound effects and music loops... and was visited by more than 3,000,000 people last year.

I like the fact that SoundSnap is an online platform, so I don't have to download an application. If you consider using SoundSnap, be sure to check the terms of use with respect to age. This is an application for teachers and students 18 or older.

You must create an account to use SoundSnap. With the free account you can download up to five clips each month. There is a charge to download more; however, special rates are available for educators.

The sound files are organized in categories: animals, comic and film, exteriors, house, human, industry and machines, interiors, multimedia, music loops, music samples, nature, science fiction, sound art, sports, transport, and unreal ambiances. You can also find sounds you want to use through a search feature.

As I've tried other sources of sounds and music, I've found it challenging to find sounds and music that I like. Maybe it's my taste! But, it's been frustrating. I like what I'm finding at SoundSnap.

Check this music: click here!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankarmenon/ / CC BY 2.0

Finding New Web 2.0 Websites

I love shopping in office supplies stores. It's fun to find colorful, useful tools to use when working. Nowadays we often do our shopping online... and some of my new "tools" are web 2.0 websites. I have favorites (and I may list them in a future post), but I always enjoy checking out new sites.

If you, too, enjoy looking for new tools, you may find Web 2.0 Tools and Applications a fun... and useful... place to explore.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/toofarnorth/ / CC BY 2.0

Photography Resolution Amended

I couldn't resist taking a photo of these two horses who were enjoying a Sunday afternoon as we were on a Sunday drive. They stood as still as statues except when you saw a tail swing at some insects!

Prepare for Constitution Day

Constitution Day is celebrated in the USA on September 17. If you're looking for useful materials about the Constitution, you will be pleased to know that TeachersFirst has reviewed a very good site which provides Constitution resources for educators. You'll find lesson plans and activities in the links for teachers and students of all grade levels.

This site was created by the National Constitution Center, so it should be accurate and filled with good ideas! You'll find realtime and virtual activities, free materials and others that you can buy, games, lesson plans, and podcasts.

Check out this site at http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=10246

Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fl/ / CC BY 2.0

Fields Still Amaze Me

I grew up in the city. So, large fields that seem to stretch on and on still amaze me. I haven't figured out yet what this particular crop is. It seems to have lots of little white blossoms. I didn't do anything to adjust the photo. It was just a bright sunny day and great for taking pictures.

One thing I've noticed as I've started taking photos again... I'm not going to be taking photos everyday for the remainder of the year as I started back in January. That was fun, but I have too many other projects going on to do that at the moment. So, for now, it's once a week.

Returning...

Hello! I've been looking forward to returning to writing, sharing, and taking pictures. The time away has been busy with teaching workshops and working on a variety of projects.

Fall semester started today and I met with my first class. We're beginning the semester by learning how to use Inspiration in the classroom. It's a great product... and one that's useful for just about any grade level and any subject.

After class Phil and I drove around the area looking for interesting subjects to capture with a camera. We both took turns with the camera. He took some great shots of red barns. My favorite of the photos I took was this tree. I think you can see how the sunlight made it sparkle!

Where in the World is...

Just a short note to my friends...

I'm in the midst of a six-month hiatus and will return before the end of August. I will be back with more ideas for using technology to help our students learn!

Jo

Classroom Management and Project-Based Learning

A very useful article about classroom project management at Edutopia.org led me to an exciting fourth-grade web site. Terry Smith is the teacher of a class at Eugene Field Elementary in Hannibal, Missouri USA.

The classroom management article is well worth reading. The focus is on how you manage all the activity of both the students and you, the teacher, using techniques from industry, so that you can accomplish your goals. The techniques discussed do work. I can testify to that based on our use of them in the school district where I used to work. We used these ideas for everything from the classroom to the cafeteria, teachers to technology.

The article links to a Learning With Projects web page for Terry Smith’s class. This page links to projects pasts and present. Projects include class blogs, wiki pages, Taiwan, video conferences, Internet chess, world problems, using the XO – OLPC, Landmark project, monsters on the net, Monarch butterflies, coral reef project, an international writing project, and many more. Global friends that the students have made while working on these projects live in Taiwan, UK, Japan, Pakistan, Canada, South Africa, and the State of Washington. The home page for the class this year can be found at http://www.smithclass.org/index.html. You must explore this page to truly see these students’ projects.

“Kids use their thinking skills and communicate, plan, problem solve, create, and evaluate.”

If you want your students to learn and to think on a higher level, look at these ideas. If you want to integrate technology in the curriculum that you teach, start here. But, don’t think that these ideas are limited to the fourth-grade. Similar ideas can be used at any grade level.

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/gaelic-arts/234996346/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Photo Resolution... Day 46

Pathway into the woods.

Journaling + Reflections + Technology = Thinking about Teaching

An online resource for language arts describes several different ways to use journaling in the classroom.

• Metacognitive Journal
• Double Entry Journal
• Reflective Journal
• Dialectical Journal
• Journal Activities
• Response Journal
• Learning Log
• Synthesis Journal
• Speculation About Effects Journal

The site provides ideas from which we can choose appropriate strategies for our own classrooms. As I examined the various descriptions, I saw ideas close to what I do in my classroom.

I ask my students to write reflections about various topics that we discuss. Our reflections have three parts: (1) description of the topic, (2) how the student will use it in his/her classroom as a teacher, and (3) the pros and cons the student sees in using the described topic.

In past semesters, these reflections were standalone assignments. Now, however, I ask the students to write these assignments in their blogs. If I were teaching high school students, I might ask them to post their reflections in comments to a blog that I maintained.

Julie Reed and Christopher Koliba in Facilitating Reflection: A Manual for Leaders and Educators state that

Journals are a written form of reflection in which students consider their service experience in light of specific issues, such as those contained in course content. Students can examine their thoughts and experiences through journals, and further the learning they have done in relation to the service.

I’m asking my students to reflect before they use these ideas in the classroom. And, of course, I hope they also reflect afterwards!

Before instructing students to complete journals, one must consider the learning objective that the journal is intended to meet.

I hope that my students discuss the ideas they learn in class with others in addition to thinking about the ideas themselves. By posting their initial reflections in their blogs, they are opening a door for communication and discussion with other educators (and pre-educators) throughout the world. They are also learning to be transparent. And, hopefully, this experience will set the stage for their involvement in collaboration with other educators.

Melissa Kelly, in an article about journaling for About.com, lists benefits of journaling, including

• Sort out experiences, solve problems and consider varying perspectives.
• Examine relationships with others and the world.
• Reflect on personal values, goals, and ideals.
• Summarize ideas, experience and opinions before and after instruction.
• Witness his academic and personal growth by reading past entries.

I think that by writing the types of reflections that my students do in their blogs, they are learning about the topics, thinking about them before use, and doing so in an open manner that invites others to discuss the topics with them.

This method of journaling is not confidential. However, it is a good start for students to learn how to think through ideas before trying them in the classroom. And being able to comment on their blogs allows others and myself to discuss these ideas with them. I like the extra benefits that technology adds to the journaling/reflections assignments.

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/chrstphre/3141019947/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Photo Resolution... Day 45

Corn crib.

Photo Resolution... Day 44

Tree-lined drive. As a photo this should be lighter. As a study in colors and patterns I like the darkness.

Photo Resolution... Day 43

Late night stop at Starbuck's

Photo Resolution... Day 42

An evening ride on the new drive on campus