Digital Storytelling

I decided to use ZooBurst to write a short autobiography book that I could use to introduce myself to my classes at the beginning of the year. This is a pretty simple tool that allows you to use text and pictures together. I didn't pay for the additional features like drawing, and audio. The audio feature would be really cool to have. Allowing students to create a book, search or take pictures to use as illustrations, and then have recorded narration would be pretty awesome. I found setting up the different pages to be a little restrictive, but overall I this this would be a very easy and useful tool use with students. I was browsing through the gallery of public ZooBursts and found some really cool informative texts that it looked like students had written. I think I will probably use ZooBursts in my math and science classes, and use Storybird in language arts.

Having the illustrations pre-made in Storybird makes for some really fun creative writing opportunities. It would be a good challenge to pick the illustrations for them, and ask them to write a narrative or descriptive piece about the illustrations chosen. It also looked like it would be a good site for putting together poetry projects.


         

Pimp My Presentation

Here is a prezi that I made for a workshop that I teach the 8th graders at my church. It is called "Find Your Fit." The students walk through a series of activities that help them determine things like personality traits, passions, values, spiritual gifts and talents.



I really enjoy using prezi because of almost infinite space you have to work with. I find that the way you can sequence the different components of the presentation together allow for a very smooth engaging delivery.

I look forward to playing around with the other presentation tools to compare them to prezi, which is the only one that I have used.

I did some playing around with Popplet today. Below is a Popplet I put together in about 30 minutes that I could use with my reading groups to help them focus their discussion during novel study. Popplet was very simple and easy to use. It doesn't do a whole lot, and it does cost money if you are going to use it consistently, but it gets high ratings on ease of use.

Blog Bling

Below is a video that I use during the 5th grade human body unit. A 6th grade teacher named Mr. Parr has made an awesome series of songs that help explain each of the major human body systems. These videos are great because students can access them to review anytime they have access to the internet. They introduce material in a very fun and engaging way.

Personally, I can see using blogs to share passions, interests and knowledge with the world. I have thought this summer about keeping a blog about some of the spiritual/faith formation thoughts I have been wrestling with. A blog like that would be more for personal reasons, like a journal, but if someone wants to read it, why not. After all, this is the age of collective knowledge!

In the classroom I am really excited to use the "kidblog" that we set up at the end of this year. I have been really impressed with the ease of use of Kidblog.org thus far. It has some great options for the teacher maintaining control, while still allowing individual students to do the posting.

I hope that this will function as a great way for students to share their writing. Often is will serve as the new "final draft." Instead of typing something to print out and hand in, they will know if they have reached final copy quality if it is ready to be posted to the blog. We all know that reading what other writers write is a great way to develop your own skills. Posting student writing to a blog is just one more way for them to have access to each others work.

Kickoff Session Post

Every summer, there are a variety of ways in which a teacher can spend their time preparing to make the next year better than the last. This was my first year in 5th grade at Island Lake, so this summer I especially find myself overwhelmed with different options for preparing for next year. One of the things way at the top of that list is finding better ways to incorporate technology into everyday instruction, student product development, and communication/feedback. I am really excited to learn new ways to either more effectively use some of the tools I am already utilizing , or incorporate new web based tools into my classroom. 

I feel very comfortable using technology, but to be perfectly honest, it is all magic to me. So when it comes to trouble shooting, and solving tech issues, I feel very limited. 

I hope to take what I learn during this camp, and help my students learn in an environment that more closely resembles the world in which they will navigate for the rest of their lives. For better or worse, the use of technology is here to stay, and we as teachers need to adapt to help student learn and develop the skills and ways of thinking that will be required to thrive in a web-based world.