Podcasting in the Classroom

Yesterday, we discussed the many ways podcasts can be used to enhance students' learning. One idea I really like and will use in my classroom is using podcasts to evaluate students' writing. By evaluating students' work this way, the teacher is able to conference with students about their paper without taking time out of class to do so. I also like the idea of using podcasting to work on fluency and just to connect with experts around the world. I like the enhanced podcast because it includes pictures and the vodcast with video included in it. Regular podcasts, with only audio included, may lose the students attention more quickly than the other two.

I really enjoyed listening to Kate talk today! She seems like a wonderful teacher and has already had a lot of great experiences for being such a young teacher. I'm really interested in learning more about teaching in Korea. If I don't find a job right away teaching somewhere around here, it would b great way to get more teaching experience under my belt and start paying off my student loans!

Everyone's movies were so wonderful today!!!!=) We all seemed like professional movie makers, and we were all so nervous at first about choosing a story to use and making the movie. Now, I wouldn't mind making another one! I can't wait to finally get my first job and be able to utilize all the information and tools we received from this class!

Social Networking

I think social networking is a useful tool to use in the classroom. I really enjoyed the video we watched about how a teacher in Council Bluffs is using facebook to communicate to parents what their children are doing in the classroom through status updates. It is a great way to keep parents updated as well helping students learn how to synthesize information. Students are also learning editing skills. working on sentence structure and grammar. The students do not want to send out a status update with any mistakes in it! By using social networking with students at a young age, the students are learning appropriate uses for social networking.  Civil discourse should be taught as young as possible, so later on in life, students will not ruin their reputation by posting something inappropriate online. Another site that would work for this is Edmodo. Edmodo is similiar to what facebook has to offer, but is a lot more secure so no creepers can creep the class page. Edmodo also allows the teacher to post quizzes and polls! However, by using facebook in the classroom, as opposed to edmodo, parents are more apt to participate in the facebook page because it is one less thing to log onto. 

One thing I won't forget when I begin using any social networking site is to inform the school administrater! =)

I found my website from CI 201 finally today! Here is the link if you want to see it. I'm putting more on here so I won't lose it again!

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kristin/KristinSchmidt/About_Me.html

Have a nice day!

Keyboarding

I definitely think that keyboarding is something that needs to be taught to elementary students. It is an important life skill that they will need to learn and practice. In my last student placement, however, I saw students struggling and getting very discouraged with the type to learn program. The students who were good at typing and could pass levels rabidly and easily LOVED it, but that was only about two students in the class. By the end of the school year, 3rd graders were expected to be at level seven of the type to learn game. I was there about half-way through the year and there were students still on level one and very frustrated with the program. One student tried convincing me there something wrong with the program and that was why he couldn't pass level one. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and sat down to see if I could pass level one on the computer he was at. I ended up passing level one for him, because there ended up being nothing wrong with the program. He had tricked me, but was very thankful I finally passed that first level for him! For the children who did enjoy this typing program, it took them about twenty minutes just to log on the program and get started. I thought the games for this program looked like fun! But I wasn't under the pressure to pass all the levels.

In my future classroom, I know I will be teaching keyboarding. But I will figure out a better approach for instruction. I want students to feel comfortable when learning how to type and want to become better typists. I do not want it to be a stressful thing that they dread doing. 

Here is my Mad Lib!

A Visit From . . . .

'Twas the night before  Halloween  .

When all through Mcdonalds 

Not a  squirell   was stirring, not even a cat ;

The stockings were hung by the attic with care,

In hopes that Rob Dyrdek soon would be there;

The  kindergarteners were nestled all snug in their beds,

while visions of Mike and Ikes danced in their heads;

And, Momma in her   Mittens  , and I in my cap,

Had just settled our  bellybuttons   for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a   bing bang ,

I sprang from my   pencil   to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I   dive  like a flash,

Tore open the   nuts   and threw up the sash.

The moon, on the breast of the  bronze snow,

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear

But a miniature  Taurus  with eight tiny  chickens  ,

With a little old driver, so lively and glorious   ,

I knew in a moment it must be  Britney Spears.

                                    by : Kristin Schmidt

Constructivist Approach to Learning

                                                                Thompson =)

In class today we discussed the importance of putting students in charge of their own learning to make the learning more meaningful. When students are looking for the answers themselves, the information will stick a lot more than if they learned all the facts from a lecture. It also means the teacher is working with each student more individually. Rather than putting students in Lit Circle or Guided Reading groups, the students are reading a book perfect for their instructional level and the learning that goes along with it is catered for their specific needs.  The learning that occurs should be in the student's Zone of Proximal Development.

We saw examples of how to use anchored instruction and participated in an example as well. An example I think is great is the Literature Units to Foster Critical Thinking by Sunda. In this example, the students read a book and create the unit to go along with the book. They prepare the unit as if they were preparing questions, vocabulary words and end of the book projects for the next year's class to use. We also participated in  a activity where we had to gather facts to reveal the true identity of a tall tale character called Wandering Willie. (Shown above) We used clues given on a power point to find Willie's height, weight, color of shirt, color of socks and his real name, then we drew our findings using Kid Pix.

Below is a funny story my group and I wrote using Titan Pad. What a neat way to for students to collaborate their ideas!
        I decided to go for an evening stroll. I walked about three blocks when I felt ...peculiar. Someone was following me, so I started to run. It was a clown. A big scary clown. With face paint, and dumbo shoes. He also had a red squeaking nose. Once he realized I noticed he was following me, he started chasing after me and squirting me with his water gun.My grandma's house wasn't far down the road, so I began sprinting to her house and hoped that she would be home to help me. I think the clown had a gun. She wasn't home, so I ran and hid in the dog house. It smelled very disgusting and made me want to vomit, but I composed myself and waited for him to walk by. All of a sudden 5 more clowns came out of the shadows and chased me down.All of a sudden I remembered it was bring a weapon to school day and I had a knife in my book bag! I turned around and aimed at one of the clowns. It hit him in the leg and he fell to the ground. I took the rest of the clones down with some of my awesome ninja moves. I pulled off the clown mask to see it was my teacher screaming, "I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those dang kids!" It took me a moment to realize I was in a Scooby-Doo episode. Whoops, jokes on me.

Research Article About Cell Phones in the Classroom

I read the article Anywhere, Anytime: Using Mobile Phones for Learning by Thomas McNeal and Mark van t' Hooft. I chose this article because I'm interested in how to use cell phones in the classroom as a tool for learning. Even though this article is dated back to 2006, I thought it still had some interesting ideas for how to use cell phones in the classroom. I was hoping to find a more recent article, but did not find anything any more recent.

The article begins by discussing the implications teachers usually have with students having cell phones in the classroom. Students texting during class, phones ringing, cheating, or sending inappropriate pictures. Most schools would just rather students not have them at all.  But, cell phones are a piece of technology most people today have. They also are an excellent way to communicate, access, create, and share information, so it only makes sense to use them as a learning tool to engage young learners and make their learning more meaningful.

The article provides information about projects using cell phones schools have already done. In Amsterdam, using cell phones with GPS, students created a digital media project about the history of their city. At a primary school in Finland, students used cell phones to observe nature and communicate with the members of their group. The students then collected their collected and shared their findings with the class.  A project I thought was very neat was one done in Britain. This project has students collect objects from a cultural venue, learn about the objects they collect and publish their own gallery online.

A main thing this article wanted to be done was to use cell phones for digital video conferencing so  students would be able to connect with experts on a certain subject and be able to conference with them. With support from Verizon Wireless, the DVC Project began investigating ways to bring community resources into the classroom using video conferencing. The project ended up being very successful and provided video conferencing to schools that could not before. They also found by using this tool, learning became more relevant for the students by being able to connect with real people in their communities even when they were not able to actually visit them.

I think the DVC Project did a good job in 2006 of bringing digital video conferencing to the classroom. In today's classroom, Skype does a great job of that, and should be used for the same reason, to connect with people students wouldn't normally be able to when confined to a classroom. This article also provided me with a few good project ideas to use in the classroom with students.


McNeal, T. & van t' Hooft, M. (2006). Anywhere, Anytime: Using Mobile Phones for Learning. Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 2006,  24-31. Available: www.rcetj.org/index.php/rcetj/article/download/91/139

iMovie

Last night I checked out a MacBook Pro from the CTLT so I could try to familiarize myself with iMovie and prepare myself for creating my digital story this weekend. It took me a while to figure out in order to do anything with iMovie I needed to click create new project. After I figured that part out, I taught myself how to drag in photos and add audio with the picture. What I was confused about last night was whether I should put the pictures in first and then do the audio or record the audio first then add in the pictures. I talked to Dr. Crawford today about it and she said it would be easier to record the audio first.

We had an opportunity to play around a little with iMovie today when we created out book talks but I'm still nervous to create my own movie this weekend! Becca is very professional at iMovie and was trying to explain how to add music in and editing the movie. I'm hoping I will remember, but she may be getting a lot of calls from me this weekend!

We had a lot of fun creating our book talk today! Becca brought a lot of props for us to use and our video turned out very...interesting =).

Have a great weekend!

Digital Story Telling and Using Video in the Classroom

Today in class we some awesome examples of Digital Story Telling! The stories were funny, sad and very interesting to watch. I think I already have an idea for my personal narrative, but what I'm nervous for is creating my digital story in iMovie. It's been a while since CI 201 and I struggled creating the movie then too. I'm planning on checking out a Mac this weekend and will hopefully figure out the basics for what I need to do.

I really enjoyed discussing using video in the classroom today. I think video is great tool to use because if students are visual learners, they can take a lot more from seeing and hearing a certain concept, rather than simply listening to the teacher lecture. It was a great tool for me to use when teaching science in student teaching. It is also a good way to reinforce what the students may have just learned. Students also enjoy seeing themselves on video after presenting a project, doing reader's theater or doing any fun classroom activity. It is good for students to reflect back and see how they did presenting and speaking or just to remember the fun they had when they participated in a fun activity. Video is also an excellent way for teachers to reflect back on their teaching. In student teaching I was videotaped teaching a lesson and while it was painful to watch because I HATE seeing and hearing myself talk on camera, it gave me very good insight on how I would change my lesson to make it more effective and engaging for students.

Playing with the iPad

Last night I had a lot of fun playing around with the apps on the iPad! There are so many programs that would work wonderfully in a classroom and would allow students to really get creative and learn at the same time. One of the programs I really enjoyed playing around with was the sock puppet app. Using this app you can create a stage for your puppet, move the puppets around the stage and when you talk, the puppet you have it clicked on mouth opens to make it look like it's talking! You can record the show you create and the program changes the sound of your voice a little to make you sound more like a cartoon character. This would be a great program to get students writing short scripts and creating their own show.   Students would love it! 

I also found there was a couple of great programs to work on fluency and rate. On one application, the student reads through a short story, then at the end, the program tells you how many words per minute you read. I read through a couple stories to try and improve how many words I read per minute. Other programs, like Toy Story, have an option where you are able to record yourself reading along with the book. This would be an excellent way for the teacher to check on the fluency of the students in the class, by listening to the recordings from the program. 

One app I thought was not as good as the computer version of it was Comic Life. I love using Comic Life on the computer, but on the iPad I was a little confused by it and couldn't do all the cool things I know you can usually do on the computer. It might have been because I haven't played around with it enough yet to figure it out. I will try playing around with it more tonight on the iPad. 

Becca took a picture of a chipmunk today on our walk!! =) 

Blogging in the Classroom

I think blogging in the classroom is a great way for students to share feelings, opinions, give and receive feedback and is just a motivating way to get students to want to write. It's also a nice and easy way for teachers to check students' progress and really get to know their students.  In my future classroom I would have student use their blogs as journals, in book clubs and literature circles.  Blogging is also a great way for the teacher to share their lesson plans and ideas with other teachers and even find new and innovative ideas for their own classroom from other teachers blogs! Pinterest is great site to do this at.

Students using blogs as their journal would be a great way for students to communicate their ideas and feelings with the teacher and other classmates. The teacher may have the students journal about whatever they would like to for the day or give them a question or idea he/she would like them to respond to. Another neat idea would be to post a famous quote or poem for students to respond to. Students would also be encouraged to post questions for their fellow students at the end of each blog posting if they are looking for a specific kind of feedback.  Students would be required to respond to the blog postings of each of the members of their group, but the groups would change often so each student would get to know every member of their class a little better. They would also be encouraged to look at other students blogs that are not in their group.

Using blogs in book clubs would be an excellent way for students to share their thoughts and ideas about the certain book they are reading. A student may have a question about a certain part in the book and can find the answer from their classmate who is blogging about the same book. Students could also see if they interpreted any parts of the book differently from each other and discuss why they feel the way they do about the part in the book. For any students who may be interested in reading a book their classmates are blogging about, they can go to the blog about the book and see if it's something they would be interested in reading.

In literature circles, I think blogging would be very beneficial. Usually in literature circles, each student in the group is assigned a certain job. Whether it's questioner, illuminator, summarizer, etc., blogging would be a great way for students to post their findings on-line with their group. Then, the group can refer to the blog when they get into the discussion about their book. Students can bounce ideas off each other and if a group member is having trouble with their job, another group member might have a great idea to give them. For example, if the questioner was having trouble thinking of questions for the chapter they read and a different group member thought of a great question for the chapter. They would be able to give ideas and feedback to each other.

1st Day of Class!

May 7, 2012

    Today was the first day of CI 556! When I walked into the class this morning I was very nervous for what the class was going to be like. I'm not the best when it comes to technology but I do enjoy playing around with it. By the end of class, however, I am a little less nervous and am excited to learn about all the different tools I will be able to take with me to my first teaching job. I was talking to my friend, Rachel, before the class started and she said her friend that took this course and is a first year teacher, uses what she learned in the course all the time in her teaching.  The things we will be learning are very practical and just after this first day I already learned about some tools to bring into my first teaching job. There was an application called Chicktionary that would be a fun way for students to use their problem solving skills to create words using certain letters that are given to you. When all of us in the class began playing the game, it was dead silent for about five minutes because we were all concentrating thinking of words for the game. I think this application, with the right lesson and activity to work with it, would be a great tool for the classroom.