The Next Step

After a professional development my first year of teaching, I turned to my mentor and made the comment that all the information we learned was so overwhelming. There was so much information that I wanted to apply to my teaching that I didn't know where to start. My mentor then told me something that I still try to apply today. She said, "After each professional development, I try to pick one thing that I will use in my classroom". As this class is coming to a close, I'm definitely going to need to apply that advice. I have learned so much in this class, coming back every Thursday with something new I want to try with my students. I've realized though that if I want to integrate technology into my classroom well, I can't do everything at once. I'm going to need to take baby steps. The one project I really want to take away from this class is my digital story idea. When we do our community unit in February, I hope to add the technology component to the unit. I'm really excited now that I learned how to add sound to Power Point because that might be easier for me to make a digital story with than Movie Maker with my class. This will be the first step I'll take in adding more technology to my classroom, but I'm glad we're getting CDs with all our projects so when I'm ready to take my next steps, I'll remember where to go!

Coincidence?!?

I was talking to my aunt this morning (we both had snow days!) and she asked me if I had gotten her email about joining her Wiki. I couldn't believe this coincidence that I had just blogged about confusion about Wikis and here was my aunt asking me to join hers! She told me she had decided to set up a blog about our Dekker family. She wanted it to be a place that we could update each other on our lives. I told her that I had just blogged about Wikis in class and we talked about Wikis in the classroom for awhile. My aunt teaches 8th grade and she said she probably wouldn't be up doing a Wiki with her class, but one thing she wants to try is setting up a Wiki for her Washington D.C. trip. Every summer she takes a group of her 8th grade students to Washington D.C. for a week and she said a Wiki would be nice to keep parents updated. I am now part of a Wiki so let the fun begin! =)

Wikis

I was reading an article in The Reading Teacher this week about Wikis. I read it because honestly I have no clue what Wikis are. From what I gathered from this article, it explained that Wikis are basically like blogs with the added feature of being able to change the content of the Wiki along with leaving comments. Just after reading the article, it seemed to me Wikis might be a bit more user friendly for younger kids because you can make corrections and changes so easily. I like blogging for myself, but I honestly think it would be difficult to use with first graders. Those of you more familiar with Wikis, what do you think? Do you have a preference for one program over the other? Where could I go to get more information on Wikis?

eSorts

As I was flipping through the May 2008 issue of The Reading Teacher, I found an article entitled "My eSorts and Digital Extensions of Word Study" by Tricia A. Zucker and Marcia Invernizzi. I was intrigued by the title because my first grade team had recently been working with our literacy coach at school to do more word sorting with our students. I started reading the article and was very impressed with the study. The article did a awesome job of summarizing the study so I'll try my best to summarize the summary. This team of researchers came up with a 5-day eSorting process with a first grade class. 9 students were paired with a one-on-one tutor. The first day the students dictated an experience story to their tutor and the tutor used power point to turn it into a digital story. On the second day they started the first draft of the student's personalized eSort. The third day they added words to the eSort from the digital story and other texts the student had read. On the fourth day they practiced the eSort and put the finishing touches on the digital story. The last day was spent sharing their digital stories and eSorts. I was really impressed with this student because this would be another mode for students to do word sorts. I also really liked the idea of having the students go through past stories to add words that fit into their eSorts. My cynical mind started wondering where I would ever find enough one-on-one help to attempt this project with my students. However, I think this activity was really rich in literacy and word work and something I would like to attempt someday.

Early Childhood Websites

I went to some of the websites mentioned in the Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom article. I frequently use Starfall during reading group time in my classroom. I like the website because it has great ways to practice reading skills and my students can independently use the website. Of the websites I checked out, the BBC Little Animals Activity Centre website seemed the most like Starfall. It has a variety of activities that my students could explore independently and not get bored with. It's definitely a British website...I was listening to one of the stories and it said "Bother!" and the narrator had a British accent. I liked it! =) The other website I liked was the Get Ready to Read one. The description in the article said it was appropriate for teachers which I totally agree with. I especially liked the activities on rhyming and pre-reading skills. They were activities I could print out and use with a small group or have a para do with a small group. This article had some great websites!

Digital Story

I feel I have had quite an adventure with my digital story. I have never made one of these before and honestly I was very nervous about this project. I have never worked with movie software before and didn't even know if I had access to some so I procrastinated on starting my movie. To my great delight when I sat down on Sunday to begin my digital story I found my computer had Windows Movie Maker. I had cleared hurdle number 1. I quickly found hurdle number two was finding a microphone so I could add audio to my movie. At school on Monday I talked to my media specialist and she provided me with a microphone! I went home after school excited to clear this hurdle when I discovered my voice wasn't recording. Discouraged, I called my brother to complain and hopefully get some help. He showed me I had the microphone plugged into the wrong place and once correctly hooked up I was able to record my voice. Another hurdle cleared! I continued on to finish my digital story and was very excited about my master piece. I went to save it to a CD to find out my computer wouldn't let me perform that task. Almost ready to abandon ship, I emailed my movie to school hoping I could download it there. The next day my media specialist said she would help me download it and opened my movie only to find red x's where my pictures had been and no audio. At this point, I was ready to give up on technology all together. I went home at lunch and read all the help buttons on Movie Maker to figure out my problem. And guess what! I did! I found the correct option I needed to select to download my movie and it worked! I was so excited I took it back to school and showed my students because I was so proud of my work and I wanted them to see their pictures in my movie. And that is my digital story adventure! I sure do love a happy ending!

Shocking Realization

I didn't think I would ever say this, but after reading the articles for last week and then working on a digital story in class, I miss teaching 5th grade! The thing I liked the most about 5th grade was teaching social studies because we had units and projects that the students were always working on. I realized I miss designing and planning projects for my students. I really want to plan a project for my students using one of these new technology ideas! I know I could plan something for my first graders, but it would be much easier for an upper elementary grade where they are more independent. I'm going to keep trying to find ways to get my first graders integrated with technology, but I guess I just wanted to write this entry to vent a little and admit I miss teaching upper elementary!