Monday, February 7, 2011
Sunday, May 23, 2010
What a Year!
I completely agree with Betsy. It's difficult to stop and reflect on our use of technology in the past year since we're wrapped up in the craziness of the end of the year. Also, I think we're all hard on ourselves since we have such high hopes and expectations. Then again, when I look back on all that my students have accomplished in the past year, particularly the projects that involved technology, I am so proud of them!
The Power to Learn grant served over 100 of my 7th grade students, including both my language arts students and our newspaper students. Plus, this grant served all 8th grade students. I can't wait to see how my 7th grade students who used the technology all year will thrive next year in 8th grade. I imagine (or at least I hope) that the students will continue to shine as they benefit from the easy access to ipods, netbooks, and flip cameras.
My students just recently created book trailers. Throughout the year, we have used different video formats, so by now, the students are familiar with several different programs including iMovie, GoAnimate.com, XtraNormal.com, Animoto.com, and the flip cameras. After choosing their favorite book that they read this year, students planned out a book trailer for their book. They watched several examples of other book trailers on the ipods. Much like movie trailers, we discussed how a book trailer should "sell" people on the book. The trailers should encourage people to read the book. And, therefore, students wrote scripts highlighting their favorite parts of the books without giving away the ending. After planning their book trailer and writing a script, students chose a video format for their trailer. It was pretty cool to see some groups combine more than one program for their book trailers. In general, I think students seemed to like iMovie, Animoto, and the flip cameras the best...and several groups combined a few of these programs. So cool! Now we have a huge collection of book trailers on the ipods, so students can browse these trailers when they are looking for a good book to read.
Honestly, I can't wait for next year. I think that as successful as this year was, next year will be so much better! We can use the technology right from the start of the year, and by next year, I really think it will be seamless. I have gotten much better about integrating technology into my lessons, and that really took some time to get used to thinking differently. It was exciting to offer my students so many awesome opportunities and different ways of learning that would not be possible without this technology in my room. Next year, I want to use this technology from day one. And I can only imagine how much more successful next year will be. Teaching with access to so much technology has allowed me to be more creative...and our students' use of this technology has definitely helped them!
The Power to Learn grant served over 100 of my 7th grade students, including both my language arts students and our newspaper students. Plus, this grant served all 8th grade students. I can't wait to see how my 7th grade students who used the technology all year will thrive next year in 8th grade. I imagine (or at least I hope) that the students will continue to shine as they benefit from the easy access to ipods, netbooks, and flip cameras.
My students just recently created book trailers. Throughout the year, we have used different video formats, so by now, the students are familiar with several different programs including iMovie, GoAnimate.com, XtraNormal.com, Animoto.com, and the flip cameras. After choosing their favorite book that they read this year, students planned out a book trailer for their book. They watched several examples of other book trailers on the ipods. Much like movie trailers, we discussed how a book trailer should "sell" people on the book. The trailers should encourage people to read the book. And, therefore, students wrote scripts highlighting their favorite parts of the books without giving away the ending. After planning their book trailer and writing a script, students chose a video format for their trailer. It was pretty cool to see some groups combine more than one program for their book trailers. In general, I think students seemed to like iMovie, Animoto, and the flip cameras the best...and several groups combined a few of these programs. So cool! Now we have a huge collection of book trailers on the ipods, so students can browse these trailers when they are looking for a good book to read.
Honestly, I can't wait for next year. I think that as successful as this year was, next year will be so much better! We can use the technology right from the start of the year, and by next year, I really think it will be seamless. I have gotten much better about integrating technology into my lessons, and that really took some time to get used to thinking differently. It was exciting to offer my students so many awesome opportunities and different ways of learning that would not be possible without this technology in my room. Next year, I want to use this technology from day one. And I can only imagine how much more successful next year will be. Teaching with access to so much technology has allowed me to be more creative...and our students' use of this technology has definitely helped them!
The End is in Sight
Well, it's the end of May. We only have a few more days until finals and everything is crazy right now. I've got students using iPods to assist them as they finish reading Daniel's Story or Night. Students are using computers to finish typing essays, paragraphs, poems, and to conduct research. We've had some printing problems which have delayed getting some work printed for portfolios, and I'm still not sure how all of that is going to be resolved.
Overall, it's a little hard to reflect when I'm still in the middle of all the craziness. However, I know that is what I'm supposed to do right now, so I'm going to try. I think this year has had some great successes. I don't know if we exactly "lived the dream" as far as technology goes, but we definitely made some great progress. The problem with evaluating this year is that our expectations for ourselves are so high. Every time we try something, we always look at what we have done and say, "How can we do this better next time?" That means it's hard to look back on this year without looking at the areas for improvement.
I do know that my 8th grade team agrees that using the technology has been a great motivator for the kids, and for us, as well. We are so happy that we applied for this grant and cannot imagine teaching without it now. Our successes have been in working together to troubleshoot and to come up with ideas for great lessons. I know our kids really enjoyed using the iPods to view videos that connected to our curriculum, talking about what they read on Ning, and designing their own heroes online on HeroMachine. They also enjoyed just being able to access info on a computer or to be able to type up their writing whenever they needed to do so. The challenges have been finding the time to seamlessly fit the technology into our lessons. We've had a million great ideas, but we don't always have the time to carry them out or to fit them into the curriculum.
I think we've learned so much, and we're excited to actually start next year with the technology and everything we have learned this year. I know starting from Day 1 with all of our expertise will make next year run much more smoothly. We're ready for a break and some time for reflection, but we'll be excited when it comes time to get started next year!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Technology Update
I don't know where the year has gone. It is just flying by, and I just realized it had been way too long since I had posted anything on our blog. My students have definitely been using technology. One lesson they particularly enjoyed was one we did using VoiceThread. We were studying persuasive appeals and techniques, so I found commercials that I thought showed certain techniques and appeals my students had studied. I posted them on VoiceThread and then students viewed them there and pointed out the appeals used in each commercial. I had a written part to the assignment, as well, but of course, the part they got the most out of was getting to type in or record their answers on the VoiceThread. After that lesson, students then had to choose a cause and plan their own Public Service Announcement using persuasive appeals and techniques. They used the Dell minis to research and some used Flip cameras to record people to include in the PSA. All but one group created their PSA on iMovie. Some also used Garage Band to create their own music. Most chose music from Freeplaymusic.com. We are still trying to finish these PSAs right now. I already have eleven groups' PSAs posted on the T3 Grant's SBwiki. I plan on posting more. I just tried to load one here, but it didn't work. I never have any luck getting my videos here. I'll try again if I have time. Overall, I'd have to say that the students really did a great job with this project. Their PSAs were very emotional and persuasive, and I think the students completely enjoyed working on the project. I'm excited to use the Macs for another project!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Book Clubs
My academic students finished reading Mississippi Trial, 1955 and my pre-AP students finished their book clubs. Each of these books was related to slavery and/or the Civil Rights Movement.
Students responded to blogs and led discussions on our class Ning and in the Ning book club groups.
Throughout our class discussions and the book club group discussions, students learned from the novels and from each other. Because the students seemed to have a growing fascination with this period of history, each group chose a topic that they wanted to research. After researching on the internet, students created Animoto videos to present their information to the rest of the class.
I was so proud to see my students going above and beyond my expectations. The students were so thrilled to create videos, and they went out of their way to learn new things.
Students responded to blogs and led discussions on our class Ning and in the Ning book club groups.
Throughout our class discussions and the book club group discussions, students learned from the novels and from each other. Because the students seemed to have a growing fascination with this period of history, each group chose a topic that they wanted to research. After researching on the internet, students created Animoto videos to present their information to the rest of the class.
I was so proud to see my students going above and beyond my expectations. The students were so thrilled to create videos, and they went out of their way to learn new things.
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