TRC Project

Sometimes I get ideas in my head that I should be shot for having...I thought it would be great fun to make a fact/opinion game with the students.  Fact/opinion is one area that the students struggle with on the state test so why not use some of the technology available and do something fun while reinforcing the concept of fact/opinion?  One of my teaching partners is doing this with me...so her class is involved, too.  We used a template of a gameboard found on the internet using PowerPoint.  The students loved rearranging the boxes, changing the color (shades of gray, no color printer) and adding pictures of animals to their boards.  Each child chose a animal as a theme for the board and for their fact/opinion statement game cards.  We went to copyright friendly web sites for pictures and I created a search engine using Google for them.  The search engine only searched specific sites I selected.  I let each of my students create a game, my teaching partner buddied her kids up.  It was a LOT of work on the students' part and mine.  The games are done, now we need some time to play them.  Was it worth all of the time?  Well, I'll wait to comment until after we play the games and after the state test.  The kids are proud of the games so I'm leaning towards it was worth the time.

Splat Multiplication

My students love to use Splat 100s board for marking multiples. 

My teaching partner used Splat to play a multiplication game.  Students were partnered up.  Each pair needs one computer with Splat.  Each child chooses a color to represent him/her on the board.  Each pair needs a pair of 10 sided dice.  Students roll the dice and multiply the two numbers.  The product is marked on the board in the appropriate color.  Students have to decide if whoever marks a color first gets to keep the color if it can be "bumped" into another color if another child rolls that product.  The first child who gets 3 in a row wins.  (or 5 in a row)   See what discoveries can be made about numbers after children have played the game.  (Thanks Amy for the great idea!)

Read Write Think

We've used ReadWriteThink to practice vocabulary words.  We used a one box cartoon to illustrate a word, the speaking bubble should have context clues or another way to define the word.  The caption contained the word with a dictionary type definition.  We also used ReadWriteThink's venn diagrams to compare the multiples of 2s, 3s, and 5s. 

Frustrated

I'm frustrated with myself as I intended to use this blog as a journal of our adventures with technology in the classroom.  I've always used technology, but I've never had so much available to me in my room before this year.  I've fallen behind on documenting what we are doing and any problems.  I'm going to try to do better.

Publisher

I decided to try Publisher with the students and tried to do too much.  They became very frustrated, I became frustrated so we used another program for whatever we were doing.  I found out that experience soured them on Publisher.  I left Publisher alone for a week or so.  Then I made a main idea detail chart from one of the stories in our reading series.  I used the information from the teacher's manual to create boxes.  I put the main idea boxes on one side of the Publisher document, the detail boxes were on the other side and out of order.  The students had to grab a detail box and move it flush with the correct main idea box.  They loved manipulating the boxes.  It gave us a chance to talk about what to do if they change the size of the box or delete a box.  By the time we were done they were no longer were afraid of Publisher.  We didn't do much, but they were successful and that changed their minds about the software.  Now we have used Publisher a few more times and each time I add a few more new things.  I love using this program and they are starting to love it, too.

Wordle

(The beginning of this post is at the end of the post below...hope you figure it out!)

Open the wordle in its own window.  Expand the screen.  Press control and Print screen button on your keyboard.  (For you print screen newbies, when you press this NOTHING HAPPENS!  Don't panic.)  Open PowerPoint.  On a blank screen, right click and click paste.  Your wordle should show up.  Adjust the size and go to picture editing.  I can't give you specific details because I'm on an old computer at the moment and don't have access to the newest version of PowerPoint.  You need to find the picture tool bar.  Find the crop tool.  This crops different than any photo software I've ever used, but it works.  Grab the black lines around the picture.  Move them to where you want to "cut" the picture.  Cool stuff!  Then stretch the wordle to fit the frame.  Print if you like.  (We change the background to white to save on ink.)

Time to Reflect

The intentions behind this blog was to document the year with all of the new technology in my classroom.  I've been so busy that I've failed so far.  This post will be an attempt to start to record what has been accomplished so far.

First, we established expectations when using the computers and returning the computers to the cart.  These are posted on the cart.  The students have done a fabulous job of following expectations.

Our first "project" was a wordle.  Students typed their name in five times (the more times the word appears, the larger it is in the wordle) or so and then typed words that described them.  The word list was created the night before as a homework assignment.  The words were typed into a word document.  Using Word helped with spelling and spacing of words.  Once the words were typed, students copied and pasted the words into the wordle web sight.  The reaction of the students was GREAT when they saw their wordles. 

Sharing

My ISTE teammates are sharing their notes with me so I'm posting the websites from their favorite sessions as they give them to me.

The I Keep Bookmarks link is from a lady who sat next to me at a session on Monday. She discovered I attended a session she wanted to go to, I told her I would email my notes to her and after I emailed the notes she emailed me the bookmark link. She told me I could share it. You meet the nicest people sometimes. (And then there are those who cut in line...)

ISTE Tuesday

Where do I begin? The sessions weren't quite as good, it seemed like information was repeating. That could be because of the sessions I picked to attend. One session went into an entirely different direction than I expected and was geared towards districts setting up online classes. I left shortly after that one started. One session that I really wanted to go to was full. My favorite session was one called Enhancing Active Learning with Technology. They have a wiki with their information. Look for it off to the side under links. I didn't know there are online whiteboards. The wiki gives information about three. It was explained that these three were chosen because of the lack of advertisements and use for younger students. The third one listed (I can't remember the name of it yet) is for a student to do independently. I don't know if I'll get the links from the wiki listed individually so make sure you check it.

We have all enjoyed everything we have learned so much that we want to go again next year. We'll even present if that helps. Anybody have any ideas on funding the trip?

Rest of Monday

I don't have time to write about each individual session so I'll just say that I learned about more websites that I think can be helpful. Watch for those to show up in the links. One presenter could be Steve Martin's brother. Not only was he a hoot with Steve Martin type humor, he was very informative.

We have another full day ahead of us. Hopefully the sessions will be as productive as the others. (I've only hit one dud so far.)

Oh, for my friends reading this...here is something you'll enjoy. I got lost in the exhibits. I wondered around for a long time before I figured out which door I wanted to go through. That made me miss the last session I had scheduled. Lucky for me the others went to that session so I have the notes available to me.

Laurie, make sure you check out the Florida site. They have worked hard to compile a list of copyright free items for kids to use. They even have their own itunes.

First session on Monday

The presenter is a 5th grade teacher. Her session was about a digital platform for identifying and analyzing literary elements. After teaching the skills with picture books the teacher moved the students into a novel. She chose novels at different levels so her high readers had something challenging to read and her low readers were not overwhelmed. She uses learning.com to give students their instructions and within this program students/teachers can send messages back and forth. Learning.com is a subscription program…sounded expensive. She loves it. I think I can do the same thing using the sync program and other available free sites. She had a list of four projects for the students to complete after reading their novel. (It appeared to me that the reading of the novel and the project was independent based.)
The students created a web about the main character’s traits using readwritethink.org. This website doesn’t save responses so students will need to complete the activity and print.
Then the students used character trait words to describe their character using wordle.net. It would be fun to print in color if a color printer was available. Lauracandler.com has a list of character traits students can use.
The third project was a three panel comic strip using a paid site showing their favorite part of the story. I think the same thing can be accomplished using publisher or possibly readwritethink.org.
The final project was a book cover using readwritethink.org. She had to watch kids to keep them from going on the internet and looking for the actual book cover and copying and pasting. She wanted them to design a book cover that showed what they got out of the book.
She used a rubric to assess the finished projects. The students were given the rubric before the project started so they knew what was expected of them. Loved the reminder about readwritethink.org and the addresses for the other websites along with the ideas. I want to get a copy of her rubric. Great session.

ISTE - Denver

The teachers who are with me at the conference met this evening to line out sessions to attend. We are going to be brain dead by the time we are done. Tomorrow I have sessions like: Digital Platform: Identifying and Analyzing Literacy Elements, ABCs of Digital Content for the Classroom, Power (and Ease!) of Digital Video and more. I hope I'm able to get in to all of my sessions. It should be an informative and productive day. More later!

Links

The links are ones I've been told about and not only appear to be interesting, but I'm looking forward to figuring out how best to integrate them into my classroom. Let me know how you use them. If you have other links that you use and don't mind sharing, please post your links and how you use them.

Thousands of things to do...

And I'm not just talking about technology and teaching. First, it makes me nervous to have a blog but I'm going to try it anyway. So....creating this blog is one thing to accomplish and I'm nearly done with it for today. I have been gathering and packing as I get ready to attend the ISTE conference in Denver. I recently attended a SMART Conference (is that what it was called?) in Wichita, Kansas. I learned lots of good things there that I'd like to share. I'm trying to add a place on this blog for links to try. If you see it, then I was successful. :)