Ideas for using technology in the classroom

First week in the practicum....ahhh! Ok, not, it has been great, and I was shocked that our teacher has a document viewer in her classroom (and a projector) but she had to pay for a lot of these things out of pocket as well. But the classroom is definitely not in the "dark ages". I'm looking forward to working in this class, and I've already seen the teacher put technology to use with things like teaching cursive writing on the document viewer, etc.

Here are some ideas we discussed in IP&T class this week for teaching with technology:

Shared writing

Teacher and student share ideas, collaborate and negotiate writing, the teacher writes. Depending on the purpose this is a small or whole class depending on the lesson.

Ideas for using technology: Document viewer, projector, Microsoft word, smart board (to write what they tell you to), search the internet for details about topic or shared writing idea, watch a video clip as a class, have them write about it.

Shared reading

Text needs to be shared (be able to see the words), teacher reads first, students follow along.

Ideas for using technology: Elmo, digital storytelling could introduce the book and you can replay it again and again, PowerPoint’s, promethium board,

Reading Aloud

Book that is on a higher level than kids would read on their own, teaches fluency and motivates them to enjoy literature and aid in comprehension.

Ideas for using technology: Google earth tour of where the author is from, websites that talk about books, storyboard for the author or concept you’re teaching, digital recording of them reading (let students guess which emotions are being evoked)

Interactive Writing

Student and teacher write together.

Ideas for using technology: Smart board

Guided reading

Everyone has a copy of text, do a picture walk, make predictions, mumble read

Ideas for using technology: Power point with highlighted phonemes etc. or what the focus for that day is,

Reader’s workshop

To increase fluency and prosily, increase understanding of a text, improves self-efficacy in reading.

Make a video of their final performance, use video clip to shows examples of actors performing, or displaying different emotions.

Writer’s workshop

Use a blog for journal entries by different students.

Google Earth Tours

This week in my Technology class was probably my favorite thus far. Last week we learned about some of the cool features of google earth (yes, you can do more than find your house!). This week we created a virtual tour using google earth. I decided to use a state core standards which related to cultures and their customs,currency, etc. so I created a tour which takes you to Washington D.C. to represent the U.S., China, France, and Australia. At each of the stops there is also an activity for students. I watched some of the other tours created by other students in my technology class. Each of their tours gave me a new idea. One of them took you to locations for places where they have different types of dance, another gave you an inside (literally!) look at volcanoes all over the world, and the other I watched was a tour of castles. The possibilities really are endless with this program. I was terrified when I heard we had to use html tonight, a completely foreign thing to me, but now I want to know more than just the basics. Like I said, this has definitely been my favorite assignment thus far. Quite time consuming, but I feel like I learned so much this week.

Google Earth

This week we researched google earth and found out about some of its cool features. Before this I had only done the basic "type in your address and see your house", but this went far beyond this. I had never thought about using google earth to take my students on a field trip. Dr. Graham pointed out that we will not have the ability or funds to take our students on very many field trips where we leave the classroom. But if you use google earth, you don't have to! You can see the Sphinx in Egypt, or go to the coast of the Pacific Ocean in California where sea turtles lay their eggs, or see the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The possibilities really are endless because you can locate places all over the world using google earth. One girl even found a site where she located cloud formations with google earth.

At this site below it has lots of kmz files, ones which you open with google earth, everything from history to art. I found a really cool project someone did with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Before I found this file I had thought about doing a project with google earth on the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World site

I would use this video in my class to take my students on a time travel "vacation" around the world. At each place we visited, we could imagine what is was like at the time that structure was built (like what were the conditions when the Sphinx was constructed in Egypt?)

Once again, an amazing feature of technology I can use in my classroom!

What I learned from digital storybooks...

This week’s project was a really good learning experience for me. Creating a digital storybook was not daunting at all, except initially when I wasn’t aware of how uncomplicated it would be. I watched a few other projects of my peers as well that retold stories and poems in a digital storybook format. They used pictures of themselves and narration to tell the stories, and one group used clay to create their pictures. The other storybook I watched had illustrations done by its creator. How cool! I think creating a digital storybook allows for so many different approaches. It doesn’t have to be used just for a story, it could be a poem, a science experiment, documenting a class talent show with clips of each performer. I see so many applications for my classroom with this digital medium. Students could write and perform their own stories to be turned into movies, or could be burned onto cd’s to present to their families as gifts at the end of the school year. They could also draw their own pictures and collaborate together to form a class storybook to be published onto a class website. Children in younger grades could “sculpt” clay creations to be assembled into a storybook. The possibilities really are endless! Thank you Dr. Graham for showing us this great classroom tool! This is one bit of technology I definitely am no longer afraid to try on my own again and will be using in the near future in my own classroom.

My first digital storybook!

This is the digital storybook Stacy and I created using the poem Battle Hymn of the Repulsive by Michael Bowman. Enjoy!

Digital Storytelling

This week I had my first encounter with digital storytelling. I don’t think I even knew of the “genre” of technology. We watched some really cool examples of other people’s digital storybooks, and one was of a 3rd grade student. So I thought to myself, if he can do this, then surely I can. We didn’t complete our storybooks this week, but we started the initial work for them. We’re doing an awesome poem and we’re going to put it altogether next week. Scary part—singing on our storybook! Ah! I think this would be awesome to use with my class, and it doesn’t seem extremely daunting, so I think it would be very good to use with students, even in the younger grades you could find ways to allow them to participate in the process. Digital storybooks get an A+ in my book!

Mine and Stacy's storybook template......more to come next week!