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.