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!

Ideas for the Classroom

I know I'm a little behind in the reading because I just finished the "See Jane Read...See Johnny Write" and "Writing the Book on Online Literature Circles", but I need to comment on them because I was really impressed with the teachers in those articles! I felt both articles had great examples of incorporating technology into already existing literacy activities. I thought making children's books through Power Point was an awesome project. After reading that article, it makes me want to go find a high school class and ask them to write books for my students! I was really impressed with the online literature circle study. There were two things that I really liked. First of all, I thought it was great how they used preservice teachers in the study. What a great way for those preservice teachers to get practice working with students, using technology, and asking students higher level thinking questions. Plus the middle school students got one-on-one attention which below level readers need. I found that to be the second thing I liked. I agreed with what one of the students involved in the study said when she explained how she liked having one person to comment with and really get into a good discussion with. Having just one person's blog or journal entry or response to respond to at a time might be a great way to ease students into discussion circles, online or in person.

Podcasts

Last week I had a roller coaster ride with technology. I was super excited about trying to make a podcast with my students. I decided to start with one reading group. I had each student in the group read two pages of the story we were working on and recorded their reading. I had downloaded Audacity to my computer so after I recorded my students I got them on to Audacity and I was so excited! I started to play it back to the students and was disappointed because all of the voices started talking at once instead of one after another like I wanted. During a break I played around with it and figured out how to cut and paste the recordings. It sounded like my kids were reading the book and I was so excited! I called my media specialist over to show off my work and we were both very excited. Then after school I invited my principal to come listen to it and I couldn't get the audio to work. I was so disappointed. I haven't been back at my computer for awhile now to work on it, but if anyone knows what I'm doing wrong I would appreciate suggestions! =)

New Idea

I get The Reading Teacher journal routed to me at school. I got the March 2008 issue this week and to my great delight one of the articles was entitled "Collaborate Literacy: Blogs and Internet Projects". I quickly found the article and began reading. The first part of the article was how a teacher used blogging in her classroom. The second part of the article was how a group of teachers worked together to create an Internet project for their classrooms. The whole article was very interesting, but I was especially captivated by the blogging idea. The teacher created a classroom blog hosted by Jefferson Bear. Jefferson Bear regularly posted questions for the kids in the class to respond to and provide feedback to their responses. I think this is a great idea. The questions that the kids respond to could be on a academic topic you are working on in class or a social issue that needs to be addressed. This kind of blogging wouldn't take much time out of the day because students would probably need to go to the computer lab about once a week or so to answer the question, plus they could work as partners if they wanted to. I also loved the fact that the classroom blog was hosted by "Jefferson Bear" and not the teacher. That reminded me of the teddy bear blogging that Deb and I responded to in an article earlier this semester. This idea seemed a little more practical for me and something I could actually see myself setting up in my classroom. 

Ubiquitous Computing

I learned a new word today and I was so excited about it that I wanted to put it in my title! =) I read the article on ubiquitous computing and was able to figure out through context what concept they were talking about. Then I read the learning while mobile article and ubiquitous was mentioned again so I thought I'd better look it up. Now that I understand better what people are talking about when they mention ubiquitous computing, I really like this concept. I hope we do have this technology because the access it would provide would be amazing. As the article pointed out, teachers could assign a project and know as long as their students have Internet access they could finish it anywhere. This technology would even be nice for our class because if we didn't finish something in class, Denise would know we could finish it at home or school. With the direction technology is heading I don't think it will be long before this is a possibility. Once it happens, we just need someone to tell us about it. I think that's the second thing I took away from our readings this week. Professional development is going to be huge for technology to be used more in the classroom. Teachers need to be aware of the technology out there, then they need training in how to use it, and time to create lessons and units to use the technology. There are so many other topics fighting for teachers' time and professional development that it's going to be hard to get the topic of technology on the agenda. All of the ideas talked about in the articles seemed wonderful, but until professional development is done on them, I don't seem them being used in very many classrooms.

Social Networking

I am baffled when it comes to figuring out how to using social networking in my first grade classroom. I'm discovering I really like blogging and I enjoy having it as part of this class. I'm still reflecting on the articles each week, it doesn't take me as long to write my response, and I can see what my other class members are thinking. I could definitely see myself using this as an alternative to journaling in a upper elementary, middle school, high school, or college setting. However I'm really struggling with finding a practical, natural use for social networking in my lower elementary class. The only thing I can think of so far would be to possibly find blogs of people who have connections to a story or unit we talk about during the year. For example, one story we read is about how kids all over the world are the same. I could try to find blogs with pictures from the countries in the book as another resource to make connections with other cultures. Besides my blog for this class, I have yet to do much with blogging so I don't know if that's a real possability or not. I'd be grateful for any suggestions or advice!

Keyboarding and Random Thoughts

I don't think I agree with everything in Baugh's article on keyboarding. I could not believe the expectations he had for kindergarteners in keyboarding skills! Maybe I'm just being a huge skeptic, but I think those expectations are unrealistic for such young kids. I am all for students learning keyboarding skills, but I don't think at kindergarten they are developmentally ready to. I know I didn't learn keyboarding until 5th grade and even though I had computer experience before that, it didn't take me long to abandon my hunt and peck strategy and start using home row keys. I know computers and typing are an even bigger part of our society now then when I was in elementary school and so it would make sense that keyboarding would be taught earlier than 5th grade. I talked to a friend of mine who is a teacher and she said the students in her grade start keyboarding in 3rd grade. To me that seems like a reasonable age to start teaching keyboarding. My belief that kindergarten is too young to teach keyboarding is completely unsupported by research; it's just my personal belief. I'm excited to get other's opinions on this topic and to talk more about it in class.
I also had a couple random thoughts this week. Two of the articles I recently finished reading gave me a couple great ideas for incorporating technology with writing. I forgot how easily Inspiration can tie in with reading. During the rainforest unit we teach in 1st grade, I have my students write a paragraph about a rainforest animal and I could use Inspiration to help my students organize their writing. I also thought of using our projector at school that is hooked up to our laptop to do shared writing with. The students could see our writing easier, plus I can type faster than I write to keep the pace going as my students are brainstorming. I'm sure lots of people are already using this for their shared writing, but it was a new idea for me!

Technology Standards

I took a look at the technology standards handout we received in class and it didn't take me long to start plugging the activities we did Wednesday night into the different standards. I started with the student standards and after reading the first one on Creativity and Innovation I really felt the I Spy activity aligned with that standard. What really sold me was part b that said "create original works as a means of personal or group expression". Students were required to work together as a group to create an original I Spy page. The second standard of communication and collaboration highlighted many of the outcomes of the digital camera activity. Students again had to work together in a group to produce a power point showing their understanding of position words. They also were able to use multiple medias by using both the digital camera and power point program.
After I took a look at the student standards, I flipped the paper over and read the teacher techonology standards. To me the digital camera activity matched up perfectly with standard 1c. That standard paraphrased says teachers promote student reflection to reveal students' understanding. As Denise pointed out in class, when a group is done with their power point, you would be able to tell exactly if they understood position words or not. This assessment was also a creative way for students to display their learning. Finally, I thought standard 2a aligned well with the Kidpix/Spilt Milk assignment. Again paraphrased this standard said teachers adapted relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools to promote student learning and creativity. Lower elementary students were able to do this project because the project had been modified and scafolded enough through providing the model and just having the students fill in the blanks. Just as Denise mentioned in class, students could have done this project on paper, but doing with Kidpix added a new level of creativity to the assignment.

First Post!

How exciting! This is my first blog post! I'm excited and nervous about this journey at the same time. I've always been a bit hesitant about new technology things. When Facebook first came out, I said I would never get it because I didn't understand it. Now I'm addicted and check it at least once a day. I hope the same thing happens with this blog. I'm really excited to learn more about blogging because as I was reading the articles for this week, I realized I definitely need to learn more about this before I can ever start using blogging in my classroom. I got really excited about blogging when I read the short article on the classrooms that used Teddy Bears with blogging in their second grade classroom. That idea sounded awesome and it gave me a real example of how I can use blogging in my first grade room. There would definitely have to be group work and teacher support, but it could be done. The articles also got me thinking about issues with blogging that I never realized such as computer/internet access and all the groundwork that needs to be laid before an assignment is given. All in all though these articles made me very excited to begin experimenting and learning more about blogging.