Wow that was fun. I think this will be a great way to review with my students. It did take a little time to create, but it was well worth the outcome. I can't wait to show it to my students.
http://matthewanaylor.glogster.com/invertebrates/
Friday, April 2, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Delicious!
http://delicious.com/lilteo12
This is a great way for me to link all my computers together. So often I find myself trying to find a bookmark that I have on my work computer on my home computer. I am going to have a great time bookmarking on here because I can now use any computer to find my favorite sites. I also love that I can share them with my family and friends.
This is a great way for me to link all my computers together. So often I find myself trying to find a bookmark that I have on my work computer on my home computer. I am going to have a great time bookmarking on here because I can now use any computer to find my favorite sites. I also love that I can share them with my family and friends.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Podcast Proposal
Purpose of your Podcast:
The purpose of this podcast is to review with my students about the grouping of vertebrates as well as other students in third grade. This project will also be a summative assessment for the students participating in the podcast.:
Podcast Description:
My intended audience will be third graders as well as their parents. I think it will be great to add to my class blog because I have many parents that are separated. Some live in other states and I feel it’s a great way for them to keep in touch with my class and up to date.
I will broadcast monthly. My goal is to have a podcast with every new unit of Science. Science seems to be a difficult subject for students to understand because of the way it is written. I feel that podcasting will help make learning fun and understandable to all of my students.
I am going to have my students fully host the productions. I will help write the scripts and practice with my students. The best part about podcasting is that it will also help with fluency and speeches. My goal is to make my show no longer than 15 minutes.
The format of my of my podcast will be a radio newscast on science. Each student involved will represent a specific animal group. The students and I will develop a script to practice together. We will have a radio talk-show host, a zookeeper, and a member from the zoo to represent each group of vertebrates. All of these characters will be fictitious, however the students will use their textbooks to help develop the script for each character. Since this is my first podcast, the students I select will be my high ability achievers. This will help with differentiation of instruction for science.
OBJECTIVE OF PODCAST:
The student knows the common and distinguishing characteristics of groups of vertebrate animals (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians).
District Objective:
Life Science Grade 3 Outcome 1
Students will identify how different animals live, grow, and change: list major types of ecosystems.
The purpose of this podcast is to review with my students about the grouping of vertebrates as well as other students in third grade. This project will also be a summative assessment for the students participating in the podcast.:
Podcast Description:
My intended audience will be third graders as well as their parents. I think it will be great to add to my class blog because I have many parents that are separated. Some live in other states and I feel it’s a great way for them to keep in touch with my class and up to date.
I will broadcast monthly. My goal is to have a podcast with every new unit of Science. Science seems to be a difficult subject for students to understand because of the way it is written. I feel that podcasting will help make learning fun and understandable to all of my students.
I am going to have my students fully host the productions. I will help write the scripts and practice with my students. The best part about podcasting is that it will also help with fluency and speeches. My goal is to make my show no longer than 15 minutes.
The format of my of my podcast will be a radio newscast on science. Each student involved will represent a specific animal group. The students and I will develop a script to practice together. We will have a radio talk-show host, a zookeeper, and a member from the zoo to represent each group of vertebrates. All of these characters will be fictitious, however the students will use their textbooks to help develop the script for each character. Since this is my first podcast, the students I select will be my high ability achievers. This will help with differentiation of instruction for science.
OBJECTIVE OF PODCAST:
The student knows the common and distinguishing characteristics of groups of vertebrate animals (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians).
District Objective:
Life Science Grade 3 Outcome 1
Students will identify how different animals live, grow, and change: list major types of ecosystems.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Animoto Video: Life Science Groups of Vertebrates
Animoto is a great tool to use as an anticipatory set, or an introduction, to a Science or Social Studies concept. I chose to do my video on grouping vertebrates because that is what we are covering next week in class. I thought it would be a great way to introduce the different groups.
As I introduced each group I edited a picture in Picnik. Each picture has an inserted text as well as a different frame. I repeated the same five pictures at the end of the video as a review for my students. I enjoyed using Picnik because it was quick and easy.
Freeplay music was a new thing for me to use as well. I did not know that this site was out there or I would have used it in my iMovie as well. Very helpful to use for future Animoto videos. I look forward to making more videos and hope you enjoy this one as well.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Article Review
For my Article review, I chose the article, “Social Media in the Classroom: For Kindergartners Through High Schoolers”, by author Renee Ramig. This article describes the increasing use of social media in our society and its’ impact on the students in our classroom. It does not discuss the controversy of social media in the classroom, but rather assumes that teachers and schools will and should make use of it the classroom. In fact, the author says that social networking is now the ‘norm’ and schools must reflect that ‘norm’ in their instruction.
The author then dedicates the rest of the article to giving advice and recommendations about how to best implement social media and networking into effective instruction for all students. For the first part of the article, she focuses on elementary students. According to the author, safety is the number one concern at this age. The younger grades should make use of these social networking sites for classroom discussions, whereas the older elementary grades can begin to allow students to have individual accounts.
By middle school and high school, a large majority of students will have used social networking sites, according to Ramig. Therefore, reinforcing the safety rules of social networking is very important at this stage. Also, teachers that make use of social networking at school should “start with a network that only students in your class have access to”, according to Ramig. This is also a great age level for these sites to be used as classroom discussion extenders. Similarly, students can and should post questions about homework and other classroom objectives on these sites.
After discussing the age appropriate assignments, Ramig then states five safety considerations to keep in mind. The first is to talk to the students about privacy and give examples about certain things that should not be shared with others. According Ramig, the second and third reasons are teacher related and focus on making sure teachers only use social networking as part of the education process, which will result in teachers becoming familiar with the technology. The fourth consideration is to understand the privacy laws for your state, as well as their implications. Finally, the last consideration is for teachers to have frequent discussions with the students about the use of these sites if problems do occur.
Reflection
After reading through this article, I found many of the information she presented to be very helpful. I especially liked her safety considerations, as well as the use of social networking for extending school and classroom discussions. I do think that this can be the future of classroom discussions and participation, especially for students that are reluctant to share information in person. However, I am not sure that these ideas and practices will change very much in my classroom. As a third grade teacher, I can state that my students are going to be very limited in what they do as far as social networking goes. For example, my students all access their school email accounts, but most of the messages are not of any relevance. In fact, it is used more as a fun way to talk to someone. Even when used for classroom purposes, students often take a great deal of time to type (since they aren’t great on the keyboard) and do not offer much in the way of written words.
I am a big fan of technology and I do like to integrate it into my room wherever possible. Ideally, I would like to make use of this in my room. However, I think that there are some huge issues with this kind of socializing at my grade level. I know many parents would have some serious concerns, as would some other teachers. If students could do some discussions and assignments through these sites, I can see the relevance, but the sites would have to be only accessible by students at the school. There is no way that we could make use of Facebook or MySpace at the elementary level without serious safety concerns. I can see schools implementing their own social networking sites, such as the School Fusion one that Millard has just put in. I am excited to try this with my class next year once I am trained on how to use it this summer.
The author then dedicates the rest of the article to giving advice and recommendations about how to best implement social media and networking into effective instruction for all students. For the first part of the article, she focuses on elementary students. According to the author, safety is the number one concern at this age. The younger grades should make use of these social networking sites for classroom discussions, whereas the older elementary grades can begin to allow students to have individual accounts.
By middle school and high school, a large majority of students will have used social networking sites, according to Ramig. Therefore, reinforcing the safety rules of social networking is very important at this stage. Also, teachers that make use of social networking at school should “start with a network that only students in your class have access to”, according to Ramig. This is also a great age level for these sites to be used as classroom discussion extenders. Similarly, students can and should post questions about homework and other classroom objectives on these sites.
After discussing the age appropriate assignments, Ramig then states five safety considerations to keep in mind. The first is to talk to the students about privacy and give examples about certain things that should not be shared with others. According Ramig, the second and third reasons are teacher related and focus on making sure teachers only use social networking as part of the education process, which will result in teachers becoming familiar with the technology. The fourth consideration is to understand the privacy laws for your state, as well as their implications. Finally, the last consideration is for teachers to have frequent discussions with the students about the use of these sites if problems do occur.
Reflection
After reading through this article, I found many of the information she presented to be very helpful. I especially liked her safety considerations, as well as the use of social networking for extending school and classroom discussions. I do think that this can be the future of classroom discussions and participation, especially for students that are reluctant to share information in person. However, I am not sure that these ideas and practices will change very much in my classroom. As a third grade teacher, I can state that my students are going to be very limited in what they do as far as social networking goes. For example, my students all access their school email accounts, but most of the messages are not of any relevance. In fact, it is used more as a fun way to talk to someone. Even when used for classroom purposes, students often take a great deal of time to type (since they aren’t great on the keyboard) and do not offer much in the way of written words.
I am a big fan of technology and I do like to integrate it into my room wherever possible. Ideally, I would like to make use of this in my room. However, I think that there are some huge issues with this kind of socializing at my grade level. I know many parents would have some serious concerns, as would some other teachers. If students could do some discussions and assignments through these sites, I can see the relevance, but the sites would have to be only accessible by students at the school. There is no way that we could make use of Facebook or MySpace at the elementary level without serious safety concerns. I can see schools implementing their own social networking sites, such as the School Fusion one that Millard has just put in. I am excited to try this with my class next year once I am trained on how to use it this summer.
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