Friday, March 30, 2012

Curriculum Video

Here it is...The Systems of the Body! It's not perfect, but I learned a lot from creating it! There is music in the background, but it is not loud enough. I am not a fan of narration when you can not edit or pause it without starting over. I am constantly making mistakes! I loved making the movie, but definitely got frustrated at times!

Curriculum Video

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

A Reflection of My Professional Growth

This is a Voicethread that I created. It reflects much, but not all, of the things that I have learned in the EDUC 552 course that I am taking through Peru State College for my Masters in Education Program.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Twitter for Educators

I am excited to continue to learn about and use Twitter as a resource for an educator. I have been exposed to numerous links to articles, blogs, pictures, and ideas that can assist me in my classroom. I am one to take an idea and "give it a shot" the very next day if I'm excited enough about it! I love reading other educators blogs and finding out what they are doing! Such an amazing resource to be connected to educators all over the world! I'm still learning about Twitter and still get uneasy tweeting ideas wondering who is all reading this! I plan to continue using Twitter even after my course is finished. I hope to become more comfortable and confident. I think this is much more professional than I had ever imagined! I am amazed at the resources that are out there. I learned a lot from the people I followed. I read articles, looked at pictures, read blogs, found amazing websites, and even learned from my peers about some of the projects we had to complete for this course. As soon as someone tweeted their blog link, I usually checked it out to make sure I was on the right track. It is hard for me to choose just one person that I enjoy following. I recently just started following Richard Byrne and have to say that I am very excited to read his tweets. I love his blog and find myself browsing through it often. Twitter truly is a game changer and I'm glad to be a part of this online, instant feedback, and professional community.

Free Technology For Teachers --Richard Byrne

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
What a find!! This is an amazing site for educators because of the variety of resources that are contained in this blog! One of my favorites I found right away was an app called Three Ring. This is where you can take a picture of the student's work and organize it and comment on it without having to hold onto it. Notes can be added before and after the upload! Brilliant way to showcase student work for parents to see! I also loved the Most Popular Posts of the Year blog he wrote about.
A Cleaner Youtube is something I will definitely use in my classroom. I am always finding related video clips on the topics I teach, but some advertisements along the side can pop-up and as a teacher, this makes me nervous! A Cleaner Youtube allows you to show the video without any of the comments, advertisements, or related videos appearing.
I am excited to have my students do some comic writing using Witty Comics and The SuperHero Squad. I am finding success with my students' writing on the computer. This takes away the reluctance of getting started for a lot of my kids. Making comics is my next writing project I'm going to start this week with my kids. I also read about how comic writing can help students become better writers. I found all of this through this site!
I could go on and on about what I have found on this site! I will continue to follow Richard Byrne and spend more time reading through all of the great resources he has found for teachers!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

My students' first Animoto



A couple of my students were very eager to start an Animoto. I introduced them to it on Monday, and they presented it to the class on Wednesday. This was their first and now they want to add video to it, but I was proud of the way they dove in! They used this video as an introduction to a unit in science we are about to begin!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Using Animoto in the Classroom!

Completely impressed and absolutely love Animoto! Had so much fun creating a video to show this year's students featuring them! I plan to use this video when next year's upcoming fifth graders visit my classroom to see what 5th grade is all about! I plan to take more pictures in different subject areas to add to this. Students in my room will be using Animoto this year! I love the idea of my students developing a project based on what we are studying. I am going to start by having a few students be my "pilot" group. I will let them choose the subject area they are interested in. We will see how it goes! I will post their final projects!

My Animoto Movie!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Blogging in the Classroom!

I recently completed an article for a course I am taking in pursue of my Master's degree.  I created a Multimedia project about an article of my choosing.  I chose an interesting article on blogging in the classroom and it really inspired me to start this in my own classroom.  I am very excited to introduce this to my students in the upcoming week! Take a look at the project!