My class has been studying biographies of famous Americans. Just recently we finished reading about Helen Keller using our reading anthology as well as some grade level appropriate books. The kids were very interested in learning more about her and her life. For my final project I made a presentation on Helen Keller. The presentation that I prepared is something that I feel would be doable with my some of my students. I would be a great way to include reading, writing, speaking and research skills while at the same time working on their digital literacy skills.

I used the Powerpoint program to develop my slideshow. One of the questions that came up for me is whether it is possible to have the bulleted points come up one at a time during the presentation without having to created separate slides for each one. I wasn't able to figure out a way so perhaps someone with more knowledge can help me with that. I would  like to add some historical pictures of Helen Keller and possibly a timeline or other graphics to aid in the visual appeal of the presentation. To find what I am looking for is just going to take me some more time to research and put it together. I am confident that with time I will be able to accomplish what I am envisioning.

The OETS that this addresses are: 1(a,c); 2(b,c,); 3(a,b,c,d); 4(a,b); 5(b)

I tried creating an online survey using the tool Survey Monkey. For my example, I created a lunch menu survey that kids could complete about the hot lunches provided at school. I was able to write my own questions for the survey, but they also had menus of already created questions that you could choose from. I think that this tool would be helpful for kids to get practice in writing questions, conducting research and analyzing results from their survey. At the end, it looks like you can generate a report with graphs that show the results of your survey. I am still working on how to link my survey to my blog so that I could send it to all of my web tech classmates. It would be fun to see what the different possibilities are for looking at data.

There are multiple OETS that this would help meet. Some of the most prominent are: 2 (a,b,c); 3 (a,b,c,d), and 4 (a,b,c,d)


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZLXYYXJ

One of my personal goals for this class has been to learn about technology and to find ways that I could apply the technology in a classroom setting with my second graders. As I read through the chapter on social networking tools, I thought that it would be fun to create an avatar using Voki. I'm sure that there are many ways that people have found to use avatars, but one of the ways that I thought I could apply avatars with my students is by letting them create characters for stories that they've written in class. Once the avatars are created, then the students can type their stories into the computer. They can choose to record their voice as they read their stories or they can choose to have one of the computerized voices read the text for you. I could see how this format would be beneficial to students because they'd be able to playback their story as many times as they needed. They could hear what they've typed and then go back to make corrections as needed. I think that my second graders would be less resistant to editing their work if they were able to use this tool to help them. I think the kids would also find the avatars highly engaging and not threatening. When I tried this with my daughter she was having such a good time that she was motivated to keep on writing so that she'd be able to see her avatar talk even more!

The standards that this tool addresses are: 1(a,c); 2(a,b,d); 3(a,b,c,d); 5(a,b,c)

For my second tool this week, I used Microsoft Powerpoint to create a slide show. This tool allows you to create your slide show using pictures, writing, and if desired voice narration. Some benefits to using narrated slide shows are that you can accommodate multiple learning styles by presenting information in several modalities such as written, pictorial, and auditory.
There are several ways to use a slide show program in 2nd grade. Some ideas that I thought of are specific to the start of our school year when we are working on building our community of learners through multiple "get to know" you activities. One specific activity that I do is called our summer memory picture. By using a narrated slide show, there would be another layer of personal connections being made among students. Another way that I envision using this tool would be during our personal narrative writing unit. It is an engaging way to get kids excited and involved in writing and telling stories about their lives.
For my project I wanted to create a sample of a slide show that I could do with my second graders at the beginning of the year. I used my first grade daughter as my guinea pig, and together we worked on creating a sample project. We selected photos that we had taken on our first family trip to Disneyland. We had fun going through the photos and reliving our vacation. By adding the text to go with each picture, my daughter was able to practice using sequencing skills as well.
The OEST standards that this would help to meet are many including: 1(A,B), 2(B,D), 3(A,B,C,D), 4 (B,C), 5(A,B,C) and 6(A,B)

For my second project, I decided that I would like to experiment with using a wiki because I was curious to learn more about a tool that could be used for collaborative work among students and professionals. In the section of our book titled, "Tools to Communicate and Collaborate" it states that wikis help to address the instructional problems of collaborative writing. Each member of the group is allowed to contribute and edit within an ever growing document.

I chose to use the Google Docs tool for my project. I found that it was easy to use and I liked that I could choose by invitation who had access to the wiki. A nice feature was the chat bar on the side of the document that allowed for communication with the group members about ideas for our project before someone changed something unexpectedly. I'm sure this would be very helpful when working on a "real"project especially if there were many other group members.


Google Docs is well respected. It requires only a basic level of expertise to use. It can be accessed through the web, is generally accessible with keyboard shortcuts and is compatible with screen readers.

The OEST standards that this would help meet are: 1(b), 2(a,b,d), 3 (a,b,c,d), 4(b), 5(b)

I chose the Google calendar tool for my project this week. I chose this tool because I wanted to be able to create a visual calendar of school events that I could share with my students and their families. The monthly layout of the calendar helps families to see important dates of assignments and events that are occurring during the upcoming month. I would like to learn how to share this calendar with my families so that they would be able to have an electronic calendar of classroom events. Since I have several families that don't have a computer with internet access I also like that there is a print feature that I can use so that I can keep those families informed as well. I ran into a problem however in that the amount of space allowed for me to enter info was limited for some items and I had to modify the text to fit in the date space. Also, I couldn't get info to repeat multiple times within the month without having to enter it each week (library every Tuesday).

I liked that the tool was fairly easy to use although what I have used it for seems pretty simplistic. I'd be interested in learning other ways to use the calendar tool that are specifically applicable to early elementary teachers.

 OETS 6D Use technology as a tool to access, research, manage, integrate, and communicate ideas and information. 
2B. Effectively communicate and publish to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.

I thought that chapter 1 was intense reading as there was so much information that I didn't know about before. I had to read it several times before I was able to make more sense of the content. As a primary teacher, it was a good lesson for me to learn that in addition to the academic areas of instruction that I am responsible for teaching my students, there is also a need/ obligation to introduce them to technology tools. "The advantage of introducing these tools in onground classrooms, even preK through grade 12, is that you and your students will be better equipped to handle the learning curve when teaching or taking more tool-driven courses." (pg. 4 The Technology Toolbelt for Teaching) Our society is utilizing more and more technologies and it is important for us to arm our students (and ourselves) with the skills and tools that they are going to need to be effective learners in this digital age. While I agree that there are many advantages to using technology in the classroom,  I can't help but wonder how this is suppose to take place in schools where we have outdated equipment, little in terms of funding resources, and teachers aren't given the time to investigate technology that would help in the delivery of the curriculum. I am thankful that this class is going to at least bring to light some of the tools that are available and that I'll have an opportunity to dabble in them a bit.

Yahoo! Here is post #2. Look out world here I come!

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