Proud of their iphoto library!

When third grade got their first iphoto pictures , they were so excited. I took pics of all class members in Halloween costume and later took pics of them in front of the American flag, with election day activities in mind. During parent teacher conferences, one of the things the students were most proud of was their new iphoto library! I took the pics and downloaded into my iphoto, filed them in album in iphoto and downloaded the file to my thumb drive. All pics were transferred to students laptops with the thumb drive. Magic!

Survey results Fall 2008

This survey was made using google forms. The survey was sent to random teachers in Buhler USD 313. Initial responses were for the question...How many Web 2.0 tools have you used. The next survey I do will be directed toward what Web 2.0 tools have the students used.

Voicethread stories

For our class voicethread, each pair of students chose their favorite Carlsbad cavern picture to write a mystery about. This is what we started with and then ADDED VOICES!

Tammy's class blog/ Fifth Grade

Tammy Gilley has made a class blog for book discussions! A great way to brainstorm about literature as well as check comprehension.

Kitzu kits for Comic Life, Keynote, etc.

Check out Kitzu.com for media "kits" that can be used in Comic Life, Keynote etc. Standards are included!

Comic Life with speech bubbles! Tell a comic style story!

Comic Life gets it name from these story "bubbles" found in the well of the comic life production page. Lots of creative text can make it a real comic!

Comic Life story starters

Comic Life can be used as covers for creative stories on their favorite topics combining real pictures with creative fiction stories.

Comic Life Nonfiction Uses

Comic Life: Nonfiction Uses are endless!

NIngs

Becky Mullins has created a great ning to be used by teachers of fourth grade to communicate with the Kansas Farm Bureau and farmers for support in teaching about farming in Kansas. Nings are Great! You can upload pictures and a sequential story in pictures is seen in a slide show. See the Young Kansas Farmers Ning to see my I apicture story about the Brome grass field across the street from my home. It takes place in Inman, Kansas in late summer as the grass is cut by a swather, baled by a baler and picked up by a tractor with a fork lift and onto various kinds of trailers! One trailer is a converted school bus! Looks so interesting! I want to add more to the ning to document by tomato experience this summer via pictures. Here is the ning:
http://youngkansasfarmers.ning.com/
Enjoy and contribute! I am only a backyard farmer but love this ning!

Venn diagrams

One of my favorite literary activities in my former library classes was to compare various versions of books such as Cinderella stories from around the world and Little Red Riding Hood. Did you know there are over 700 versions of Cinderella in the world? Fifth grade at Obee used Kidspiration venn diagrams to compare and contrast two main characters in the book Blood on the River, being read together as a class! A great assessment and good review of character traits not to mention the state standard of compare and contrast skills in reading!

Kidspiration for review of a chapter book

Want to have a visual image of a book? Use Kidspiration or Inspiration! Sequencing of the story, elements of plot, characters in the story and so on can be illustrated.

Postcards from the past!

Make a postcard as a comprehension activity for a book your class is reading! Blood on the River is a great book about colonial days with John Smith and a young boy who is trained to be a translator for John Smith. The experiences make for great discussions and gives us the feeling of what living was like in those times. We made postcards in Pages and searched yahoo images for old looking postage stamps and pictures to go along with our text and the time in history! This is one I made when observing Tammy Gilley teaching this skill as an assessment of their reading! Print them on parchment looking paper and they look really good! Connie

Check out Wordle to reflect on Memories!

Use Wordle to reflect on memories such as what you remember about your grandparents both past and present! These posters were made for Obee's Grandparents day with fond memories on a "word picture"! Connie

Girls are campaigning too!

We did not leave out women in our Presidential candidates posters! The girls in our class had some great character traits, real concerns, and campaigned vigorously! One of my students chose to run for govenor because she said it made her dizzy to think of running the whole country. I could identify with that thought!!

Maybe Someday: Character Traits study for Election Day 2008!

MAYBE SOMEDAY: A project for election day in third grade! We read a book called "My teacher for President" and discussed good traits of leaders such as teachers and presidents have! We also talked about the character traits in our Character counts programs. Each student chose his or her best character trait and made a VOTE FOR ME poster from Pages ( we used a poster template called Gallery Poster Small). The students inserted pictures of themselves from their iphoto! Good character trait study and election connection! Connie

Using Web 2.0 tools in a Grade one classroom

Mrs. Cassidy is a 21st century teacher!! She has a classroom blog for grades one and two. In her presentation she talked about the whys of using this tool for communication with students, their families and friends. She created her class blog through Class Blogmeister. Her page is protected as no entries can be posted unless approved by the teacher. All responses go to her email first. She told how she had blogging buddies from New Zealand, how to post photos and hand drawn pics from Kid Pix onto the blog. She also told how you can link a podcast on the page. Each child has their own page in the blog! They are colorful and very interesting! She talked about how to get a virtual book or slide show onto the blog via bubbleshare and other tools. Her class has also begun to use wikis both fiction and nonfiction. She has been quoted saying nothing else has MOTIVATED her students like blogs, wikis and podcasts!!

Never too young teaser: Three tools for the youngest!

This teaser was just a very short podcast about beginning to use Web 2.0 tools with young children in the classroom. The three ideas mentioned are Voicethread, Timeliner and Blogging! We have begun to use voicethread at Obee. Mrs. Yocam's class got their first taste by doing a classroom voicethread with me. We learned a lot doing this one project. Since that time Buhler district has purchased the educational version of voicethread so teachers can set up classes and each student has access to their own voice thread account on their very own laptop! They choose share at the end of their production and then the teacher is able to view every students' voicethread from her class!
Please see my other blog entry on what value is voicethread for an educators' evaluation of our first use of voice thread in a third grade classroom!
Connie

Connecting Classrooms across continents

I am so glad I FINALLY did my class assignment on K-12 Online Conference 2008! There were several I listened to after I got started. Since November 19, 2008 is our Obee TRC PD day on global connections, I took a good look at the presention called Kicking it up a notch: Connecting Classrooms across continents: Planning and Implementing Globally Collaborative Projects. The Presentation is presented in 3 parts:Getting started, Implementation and What's next. I liked all of the ideas for organization but really loved hearing exactly what Web 2.0 tools they used. They have a website to share and brainstorm about books read on thereadingconnection.wikispaces.com. It is something to explore for our global connection for Grades 3-6 at Obee! The presenters also have a wiki of resources that includes all the items they talked about and it is found here: globallyconnectedproj.wikispaces.com.
I have a lot of ideas for our November 19 beginnings and the possibilities are limited only by our time and creativity at this point.
Let you all know how we GET STARTED on November 19!
Connie

Is there a connection between election day and farming?

A Cavern FOR SALE!

FO

Here is our first "class" voice thread.

Here is the URL for our first "class" voice thread.
http://voicethread.com/share/220231

Title: The Mysteries in the Cavern

Created by Mrs. Yocam's third grade class in Fall 2008 as a curriculum connection to a science unit on rocks and minerals. See other posts on this for a curriculum connection summary.

We also found some interesting news yesterday on Yahoo! Someone is selling a cavern in Little Rock, Arkansas on ebay! We want to buy it!

The value of using VoiceThread

After using voice threads , on my laptop, with entire class of third
grade on a science exploration of caverns, these are some of the
student responses while working on the recording.

1. "It doesn't sound like me." I reminded them that no one thinks
it sounds like them. We hear ourselves differently. A science lesson on sound?

2. " I want to do it over. I want to add words!" Usually they
wanted to add descriptors to their story! Improves writing, use of
vocabulary words, adjectives etc.!

3. " I want to make me sound better when I read." Self evaluation
of fluency??? Improves fluency!

4. " I can't read my writing. I need to write better." We did a
rough draft on paper and then practiced reading it. When they came
back for the final recording, they realized how important their own
handwriting is! "
Altogether a successful academic journey!
Connie