My Animoto Video

My Animoto Video

My First Animoto

Well I must say, after I stared at the screen for some time trying to figure out what to use as my first Animoto topic it was the most basic idea that took flight for this project. When I was student teaching, I introduced Robust Vocabulary to my second graders. I used PowerPoint to make a type of game show...but what if I just wanted to introduce the words to them, or give them a quick preview that would put an image in their heads?  Without a classroom of my own now, it is hard to pick a topic that I will use in the future, and I no longer have permission from past students to post their pictures online so I opted to introduce the robust vocabulary words in a new way. 

Here is a link to my first Animoto!
http://animoto.com/play/A3Re0ePEE1dcVN5N5TaWdw

This was not at all a difficult project and I can see myself using it for the classroom as well as just for fun on my own. The ability to upload was great as you could do so not only from your documents but from any online programs you keep. The music selection was also helpful, although with the free version, I'm sure it was a limited collection. The same goes for the themes. I wish there had been a greater number of themes or preloaded images to pick from. This is easy enough to have students using independently to create a great visual for any project, book report or center activity!

Digital Storytelling

As I am sitting here on a sick day, suffering through the school system's illness of the week, I have been considering how to best use digital storytelling in a classroom. When I was student teaching in a grade 2 classroom, my students were working on Reptile and Amphibian Reports during writers workshop. The fisihed product was a class book and the idea to make them into a digital story. By the time I left in December, this had not been done. Too many other things had gotten in the way such as testing and other curriculum goals that needed to be met. I wonder for those who struggled with the writing process, if the end result was a "movie book" if this would have motivated them more. And how great it would be for children whose parents are divoced to be able to bring home 2 DVD copies of the class book to share with both parents? While not on Amphibians or Reptiles, I found a short story on Spiders that would be a great example if each student just wanted to record their report rather than a whole class report.

From YouTube

Digital storytelling in the classroom would be a great motivator for students to publish their work in a way that is relevant to their world. It is also a great way to introduce new content, set up prior knowledge and hook students into a lesson. With technology being such a huge part of students lives today, we can't keep it out of the classrooms. When we ask parents what motivates their child and they say videogames, we can't just sigh and ask if there is anything else...If technology motivates them use it!

A Whole New World of Classrooms

Reading Articles about how classrooms CAN change are exciting and often trigger that passion for teaching that I felt the day I got my certification in the mail. There are countless possibilities when teachers add technology to the classrooms, even more when we add that technology component to the homes where are students reside. To bring the classroom into the homes of students has 2 sides, as a teacher, I realize there may be a decreased need when it comes to teacher employment or that the role of teacher will drastically change. The other aspect is the ability to create a global classroom some day down the road. Students could be taking courses and collaborating with students across the road or across the world. What an amazing opportunity to learn about the world than to share your learning experiences with a variety of cultures? Or what could we do if there was an epidemic..H1N1 anyone? Could instruction still happen from living-rooms across the town?
There are so many directions we could go, and are beginning to go including digital texts. The explosion of the Kindle and Nook devices were evident this past holiday season, as everyone I know, including myself got an e-reader of some variety. What shocked me was that I could not find a single required text available on my Kindle! How great would college be if I could use my handy e-reader to highlight and take notes that were all contained to my one device? Thinking of these devices in elementary or high school classes has me considering the tablets that include internet, students could research, blog, view media and read their texts on a device that can go from home to school and year to year. What baffles me is the fact that we have the technology and are not using it to it's greatest potential in our classrooms.

Tech Savvy Classrooms? Or Not Yet?

After reading the first few chapters of Empowering Students with technology, I felt like someone actually "got it". November touched on the struggles, frustrations and amazing moments that can be brought about by technology in the classroom. As teachers, we did not necessarily have computer instruction throughout our school career. I personally remember typing class once or twice a week where we learned where our fingers should go and our words per minute report at the end of the year. I did not need to know the difference between .com and .org or understand the credibility of a web site...web site? What is a web site? I remember dial up and not being able to sneak online at night because of the obnoxious sound pattern that would wake the dead. And I'm only 26, part of the "new generation" of teachers that are bringing technology into the classrooms. But even as the new teacher, I didn't grow up with what these students are familiar with. This raises an issue of students being more in touch with making a website than their teacher which was pointed out by November. When my smartboard malfunctions I turn to my students rather than the teacher next door. This new generation brings new challenges, we as teachers need to teach students how to understand the internet, to weed out the accurate information from the information posted by Joe Shmoe. Critical thinking needs to include online information. When I saw the site www.archive.org described in the text, I made a huge star in my book which I hate to do! You can look up the history of a site? You can see the progression of information that you thought was lost in the vastness of the internet black hole? This is great!
As teachers, we face the new issue of how to balance the need to teach and utilize technology and the district policies. Of course it would be amazing to have a classroom blog, a class website and assignments that require online research or presentations, but we are not there on a unanimous level. If we are going to expect students to enter a world where they MUST understand the internet and connect with people through social networking sites, we need to start when they are young so that it is natural for them. In a world where the internet is the number one technology for children, it amazes me how little is is used in classrooms and how many schools have no technology--not even a smartboard.

It makes so much sense to use what we have available to provide students with more authentic learning, why not skype with experts in the field in which your class is studying? A class in China when studying China in grade two, or Mexico in Kindergarten. Why can't students watch a web cam of a live fiesta?

Google Images

These experiences are things we can do now! I am baffled that technology is not being pushed harder, especially after attening the I Citizen event and reading modern readings on the issues.  The following video depicts two classes, one being in Hawaii utilizing skype as a technological "pen pal" program.

As a last note, how much sense would it make to offer video conferencing to parents that struggle to make it into the school? Or if a student is sick, to be able to send them homework or even a virtual lesson to watch at home? There is so much potential in technology that we as teachers are not utilizing yet. The town hall meeting pointed out that we should see leaps in the next ten years, but in the next ten years imagine how much technology will evolve!

I-Citizen: A panal discussion

Google Images

After sitting through the "town hall" style panel discussion on what it means to be an "I Citizen" and how this fits into our classrooms I left with some interesting thoughts to ponder. While the panel was diverse, I was suprised there were no classroom teachers. Aren't these professionals the ones that will be initializing these new technology based ideas? While I liked the live skype with a high school classroom, their definition of an "I Citizen" was vastly different from the conversations going on with the panel. I was more interested in the TN classrooms communication with a freshman seminar. That being said, I can appreciate the panel member who had been involved in this program and would have enjoyed hearing more about this process. The second panel member who I would have liked to hear more from was Nick. He had some very interesting points that were backed up by personal experience. He was by far the most passionate panel member and I don't feel like he was given enough time to speak, nor were several of his points discussed after his turn was up. Grossman and JoAnn were by far the "stars" of the show, fielding the majority of questions but not really addressing what I thought the discussion was to be about. Yes use technology in the classrooms, but be careful to make sure you accomodate the BOE guidelines...yes we all know that! Budgets and policy were mentioned but they did not discuss how teachers are using technology or where they think it is going in the future.

 Jordan made a good point that this "online communication" is a life or death issue after the school shootings. I agree that bullying is easier done online when a face is not attached to a comment. We do need to stop this by instilling a strong moral compass in our students and that needs to start at home. There needs to be a zero tolerance approach when it comes to negative school climates and we need to realize that school climate is created out of the school walls as well. It is created on facebook, through emails and other networking sites online.
Overall, I felt that the meeting, while well intentioned was scattered and lacked focus and equality surrounding the panalists responses.

Digital Storytelling

 

http://karinebaghdasaryan.edublogs.org/



Digital Story Telling was first introduced to me at the end of my student teaching experience. My cooperating teacher was the most technologically savvy teacher in the building and thus passed on bits and pieces of this know how to me. Throughout my time there, students had been working on recording their Reptile Reports and syncing their voices with illustrations. What better way to make writers workshop meaningful? The students were writing for a purpose, and to them, this was better than being "published" in the traditional sense where their work is laminated and compiles into one classroom book. At the end of my time there, the class made me a digital story, with photographs of each child, accompanied by there voices giving a farewell message. These final products can be put on disk and copied for each child.

I loved the following youtube video depicting the process in a third grade classroon. The teacher narrates the "how to" video with pictures of her students and explains her process in terms that are very understandbale.



I have also been playing around with animoto and inserting my own pictures from trips or events. I have done this before in MovieMaker and played music along with the "movie" as I saw you could do in Animoto, but I am still wondering how I am going to record a voice without the use of a microphone. Students without these tools in their classroom would still be able to see their movie but I feel it would decrease the overall experience if their voices were not a part of the project.

 

Viewing the World from your Classrooms

There are so many resources out there for teachers, students and parents that will offer more authentic experiences in the classrooms and at home. While I do not yet have my own classroom, as a substitute,  I get to experience a multitude of teaching techniques every week. What has surprised me is the lack of technology use. Looking at these resources, I would love to use the EarthCam tool and let my students see different areas of the planet streaming live into the classroom. It would be amazing to have students travel to the African Safari and see streaming footage of a watering hole all day while they work! This also allows you to view local cameras to check weather, traffic and historical places, a tool I would use when studying weather or use in a morning meeting.
What I also found amazing was that there is sound accompanying the webcams. I specifically like one of the African Web Cams, watching it at night also allows you to HEAR the activity even if no animals are in sight, you can hear crickets and frogs etc...maybe some birds or monkeys in there too.

http://www.mysound.uconn.edu/

Because I am intrigued by the idea of real time viewing experiences, I saw the Long Island Sound Web Cam and remembered my numerous field trips to the sound throughout the years. To prepare these trips, how amazing would it have been to prepare for this trip by checking in daily and gaining an understanding of tides, conditions, sights and sounds of the Sound? You gain prior knowledge that you can take on the trip as a class and make this an even more meaningful trip where students can delve deeper into the content because they already know the basics. I find that I am drawn to these types of web sources, although I love the content based sites as well, these experiences offer an opportunity to view sites that they may never see in person.

Exploring the Technologies:
After exploring the numerous sites and blogs surrounding Digital Story telling and Animotos, I can see the value of using these tools in the classroom. With computer based skills being a constantly growing need that must be addressed in classrooms, teachers must adjust to these demands. What I like about Digital Story Telling is that you can still use students authentic and non computer based work and embed it into a technology based program. Students can combine computer based and non computer based tasks and skills into a final product. Not only do these tools allow students to learn the technologies but they can be used as teaching tools by the teacher to deliver information. A slide show of historic documents, habitats or new countries beings in the aspect of multiple intelligences and learning styles. Visuals are a must. If you can incorporate sounds, narration or music that is bringing in a whole new learning aspect. These online How To resources are a valuable addition to a teachers toolbox.

Technology and Literacy Readings: Changing Times

This week’s readings focused on the change in classrooms based on the increase in technology. In the article Expanding the New Literacy’s Conversation they make the point that “The most profound influence on life in the 20^th century may turn out to be the internet”. I agree that the internet itself, as a huge resource of information has changed the ability of people to access articles, opinions etc. What has changed even more in the past 15 or twenty years is the accessibility of students to this resource. Many homes have computers and the internet, classrooms usually have one or more computers and now, cell phones contain this technology for you to use on the go. What I fear we don’t consider is those homes that do not have the interne, or the schools that lack funding. I do not believe we are to the point yet where we can assume students have access to the internet and therefore make online work a requirement out of school. This concern is shared in the reading, stating, “Thus students in the poorest schools become doubly disadvantaged: They have less access to the Internet at home, and schools do not always prepare them for the new literacies of online reading comprehension at school”

This article, as well as C’s of Change Intervene point out that when incorporating such a huge part of youth culture into the classrooms new policies will accompany the new technologies.  It is not far-fetched to assume that new policies are in the future for teachers, with the restructuring of the education standards, standards looking at technology will make their way into classrooms. The article points out that “New policies for teachers that include an internet aspect and integration and communication”.  Teachers may be required to communicate online with students through blogs or digital submissions; they may have to meet requirements for amount of work being done online in the classroom and balance written work with digital work on projects, class work and homework.

I found it interesting that this week’s reading pointed out that “No state writing assessment in the United States measures students’ ability to compose effective e-mail messages”. For technology to be playing such a large part in society, educators need to grow to incorporate modern issues such as email, social networking and data searches. We  are still asking students to perform tasks that will not be as useful to their future as if we asked them to use the internet. The article supports this concern, stating “First and foremost, the Internet must become a dominant instructional text within today's classroom. Students cannot build 21st Century Literacies in classrooms that revolve around textbooks”.