Web Quest using digital books

My students were taught different types of poetry using the webquest I created. The students used the powerpoint application to create their poetry digital book. Now the class has become "digital book" experts and are going to work with other classes in our school to teach them how to create their own digital book. I shared the web quest and taught them how to make the digital books and find web sites that help with teaching poetry. The students enjoy this tremedously.
http://www.badongo.com/file/9099116 Caleb's poetry book

http://www.badongo.com/file/9099145 Meredith's poetry book

movie maker

I finally finished making a movie of "A Day at the Beach" using pictures from a family vacation. This was fun to do while my computer worked like it should. I plan on making movies the last 2 weeks of school with my class and another class for enrichment. I have to come up with a plan on enriching students and keeping them active the weeks after EOG. I want to have the students make their own movie. I will be using storybook 3 I believe. My tech person wanted to do something other than movie maker. It doesn't matter which one we use just as long as I can expose my students to another form of tech that they can do and enjoy.


On second thought I jus tried uploading my video and there is a problem. I will be back with an answer.
I used badango to upload the video from movie maker.
http://www.badongo.com/file/9098861

Virtual class

Selfishly I spoke up for having the last two classes be virtual but I was speaking for the class since everyone stated that is what they wanted. I will say I have enjoyed not having to pay for a babysitter or for gas @$3.61/gal; however, I think I would have liked to had class tonight, our last class. I am having problems with getting my video made. My computer is having technically difficulty with audio. I also would have liked to share the skype experience with the class. It was extremely cool to do for me and for my students. It was as if we stepped into the future and made it our present. This was something we, as a class, had only seen on tv but not experienced in person. I also think that the virtual class would have been better to try when we were using skype for the first time and then try it again later.

This class has been a wonderful experience. At first I was leary of how it could be incorporated with literacy, but now I have used it for poetry webquest, podcast with book report, and digital books of student stories. I want to begin gaggle, podcasts, and blogging at the beginning on next school year. There has been so much to learn. I worried I wouldn't be able to keep abreast of the newest and latest but Dave reassured me that I could first his website to see what is going on in technology that is related to literacy.

Using Skype with Students

On Thursday, I called Dave using Skype. I called in my classroom. At first I had technical difficulty. The averkey would not hook up to the lap top, then when I just try to connect to skype, my computer would not connect to the internet. Finally after working for 15 minutes, trying to keep kids quiet while I thought??!!, I was able to reach day.
Prior to this day, I had to get a new web cam on Tuesday due to not being able to use the hardware on the school. On Wednesday, Dave could not hear me so I ran to BestBuy again to get a new microphone.
When I connected with Dave on Thursday, the sound was poor on Dave's end. Luckily, my class and I heard him well while he read a book. My students loved hearing the story. I showed the pictures while Dave read. My sound was still not the best so I had to either talk for my students or have then yell their answers or questions.
After our conversation and story with Dave, I had the students think about how we communicate with people at our homes, cars or school. We compared how technology is ever changing. Many students were so excited. They kept on saying, I have seen this on tv but didn't know it could be done in the classroom.
I have a dad calling this week or next using skype. He is calling from Iraq. He is going to give us information about what it is like in Iraq. Then I will have to remove Skype from the school laptop. It requires a lot of memory. This is the problem the school has with skype. I don't think the powers that be consider it dangerous for students just dangerous for the memory and bandwidth.
I would love to use this next year. Lindsey and I talked about trying to be skype buddies and calling each other 1-2 times a month. I also have friends who teach in other parts of the country. I would like to try to contact them as well.

Gabcast and odeo for podcast

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=19528

MP3:
http://odeo.com/show/18765223/3077143/download/BookReportByWilsonAllen.mp3

My son has to write a book report and complete a diarama. I had him give me the report orally after he had read the book. I used his report for a podcast.

The first link is our second try. I had a problem with gabcast last week but it worked great this week. I think this would be wonderful to use in school to showcase what children are doing in each class.
The second link is odeo. It is not working yet. I am still working on getting sound. When I tested it, it worked but then later it didn't.
I can see using gabcast next school year but I am not so sure about odeo.

podcast

I wasn't able to get started on my podcast tonight. I went to Gabcast and signed up to get confirmation to get started but I never received my confirmation. The odeo studio to download it; however, I kept on getting kicked off the internet. Odeo studio was very slow and not allowing me to go the the site. I will try again tomorrow.

I understand the problem with Skype

I now understand why my school system had a problem with Skype. It takes a lot of memory. I had to take skype off of my own personal computer as well as Jing. It was making my computer crash and not allowing me to save the smallest amount of memory. I was very frustrated yesterday. I was writing a final exam for another class. I was 4 pages into the final and went save and my computer was rejecting it. Luckily I had my flash drive to save. I had to remove skype and jing. However, I do have permission to have skype at school now and I have down loaded it and I can use it in the classroom.

Skype at school

I am so frustrated with my school system. I went to download Skype today so I could have Dave call my class to read to them; however, the download was not allowed. This has been blocked by Gaston for some unknown reason. I am encouraged, though, my principal is excited about the use of knew tech at her school that she immediately emailed and called asking around to see who could rectify this situation. I am hopeful that the ability to download Skype will be soon.

Wikis

http://zeno.ced.appstate.edu/wikis/RE5532/index.php/Mary_Allen
http://zeno.ced.appstate.edu/wikis/RE5532/index.php/Main_Page

This is the link for the class wiki. I find it easier to use but I still not seeing the benefit of it. I suppose for other classes in the future it will allow them to see what previous students have completed for class. I don't see using this with students. I think that it would be too confusing for 3rd grades to use. Possibly it could be easy enough for middle and high school. I could see dividing up topics in various subjects so the class could have experts to refer to about different topics.
I thought about Wiki's for a while. I think it could be useful to possibly use to have the kids create what they know about a subject in science or social studies. I still find it to be more difficult to use than other ways to do this.

Jing

http://www.screencast.com/users/mhallen/folders/Jing/media/8c7a919d-0d79-419b-af0c-953daa2e2558

I really enjoyed this program. At first I found it a little awkward and hard to use, but then after playing with it a few minutes, it became easier. I was able to do a tutorial on making a digital book. It is neat to hear me giving the directions and having my mouse go over the powerpoint page to give step by step instructions. I would highly recommend using this program to create a tutorial to introduce activities using technology or non technology. Saving and retrieving so I could post the link took longer than I realized but with patience, it is not bad. The downside is downloading Jing and saving the program to use the link because it is time comsuming.

I will use this program to introduce digital books to another class at the end of the year. I plan on having my students be the "experts" to help while the other class in the lab but I will begin with the tutorial I made with Jing. Also the tech asst. wants to use Jing to create tutorials this summer to help with teaching how to use different programs that our school has available.

My student's first digital books

http://www.badongo.com/file/8431358
This is Caleb's digital book.
http://www.badongo.com/file/8431190
This is Noah's digital book.
http://www.badongo.com/file/8431213
This is Christian's digital book.
http://www.badongo.com/file/8431250
This is Alsey's digital book.
http://www.badongo.com/file/8431294
This is Garren's digital book.
http://www.badongo.com/file/8431416
This is Kalei's digital book.

They had a great time putting these books together. It took about 5 weeks of working on it. We only had 1 day each week to work, but I used 90 minute blocks, usually with the help of 1-2 parents, an assistant, and a one-on-one. I plan on doing this one more time this year and complete my web quest on poetry. Now that the students have an understanding of powerpoint, downloading pictures, and resizing pictures, I think it will not take as long. Also the computer lab assistant said she can help me so that would give my students 1 more hour a week to work on the project.

Why social network??!!

I have had an account with facebook with for about a year. Until tonight I really didn't take the time to explore it. As I was watching some of my younger classmates explore, I realized that this is more for people 35 and younger for now. I think as time goes on people older than 35 will start discovering it. It is really neat to be able to find old friends. I have discovered old students who are now in high school and college. It is neat to see them at this age. I haven't really
discovered how this is better than emailing, but I will continue to look through and play with the site to see what it can open up to me. Dave suggested it would be a good way to chat with parents without having to check email and opening.

KWL

I thought I knew quite a bit about technology. I still am somewhat literate, however, I realized that there is so much I need to learn. I have definitely learned that technology is something that needs to be updated often. Just as I think I know how to do something and up on the latest, technology begins to change again. I have begun to learn that I need to keep abreast of the information available.
I have my kwl chart in microsoft word. I have had a hard time posting it and maintaining it in the chart format. I have uploaded it to badango to link it to this post.

badango post of kwl chart
http://www.badongo.com/file/8302765

Zunal

I just finished using Zunal.com to complete my webquest. I did not find zunal to be the easiest or the most fluid site to use. I am aware to save often but with just the wrong button pressed, zunal would take you me out of the update page and put me on the regular page and I would lose everything I had just written. I think it would have been easier to use a different site or to put the webquest in powerpoint. Zunal was good to use as a guideline.

Badongo

I tried to use Badongo in class but it took forever to upload my digital book so I could post it on my blog. I think it was the timing. I felt like more people would be trying to use Badongo at 7 pm. I know that several people in class were using it. At first I was very frustrated and would not have recommended using this site. Now I would. I decided to try once again at home. This time I tried around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I figured less people trying upload while they were at work. I was able to upload in less than 2-3 minutes and post to my blog. It was an easy experience. I think that many times some people especially me, want instant gradification with high speed internet and forget that it is very similar to an interstate. It is a great way to travel during the off hours but can be quite frustrating and annoying during rushhour. I know I need to remember that patience is a virtue.

I love using badango. It is so easy. I use it all the time when I can't get something to upload to the blog the way I want it to. It is very quick if you are not trying to use it all the same time as the rest of your class. I have used it to post my movie maker video, digital text, and webquests.

My students using digital cameras to create a digital book.

I had my students take out digital cameras during recess a few weeks ago (yes, we have recess daily); P. They took pictures themselves and their friends playing and goofing around. Afterwards I uploaded the pictures as well as field trip pictures to a file on our computer system at school. I taught the kids how to use powerpoint making buttons, transitions, and sounds. They each made 5 pages. They inserted pictures from the file and them wrote text to tell about the pictures that were chosen. At first the kids did not write in completed sentences instead would write "me and my bff". When I started seeing the text, I had a mini lesson on complete sentences using capital letters, punctuation, and having a completed thought. We are not quite finished with them yet, but when I have a few early finishers, I will post them here.

digital book

I created a digital book using the pictures I took from our class field trip to Bank of America stadium in October. Our curriculum in social studies is communities. The students learned how it took the entire community to get the stadium in Charlotte, to work the game days as well as the off days, and to have pride to continue having the team support. I linked the book. This link would not work so I reposted below with a link that is working. I had to reload it at Badango and put it in a different location. It is with my springdoo video.

http://www.badongo.com/file/7992969

Delicous social bookmarking

I really enjoy looking at the delicious lists and finding other sites that I have interest in. It is easier than doing a google search and more than likely the sites have be weeded out to make sure it is the exact or similiar topic that you are for. I shared this with my husband. At first he didn't see the purpose of social bookmarking. He thought it was more to get in touch with others like you such as myspace. After I explained that it would allow him to find sites that other people find useful in smoking meats, barbequing, Steely Dan music, etc., he understood has his own list on delicious. This has come in handy for teaching guided math. We have to use the computer to help with math word problems. I am able to find various sites that I can use.

Springdoo

I have been trying to get Springdoo to work for me so I can post it on my blog but have been very unsuccessful after 5 attempts. I am either have sound or video freezing problems. I will continue to try to get it to work but I may need to stop for a while so I don't throw the cam and computer into the pool where we are staying this weekend.

Skype

I was able to connect with skype last week with Kelly and we were able to get the video call going after 20 minutes of downloading and 10 minutes of getting our webcam going. Today, Dave and Lindsey called me in class. It was pretty neat to be able to connect with both people having a video. I am anxious to use it with my students. We need to find someone to call and have a video chat.

What I know about technology

I know that technology is constantly changing. It is a wonderful tool as well as frustrating. Technology allows me to communicate with numerous people through email. I am able to connect to information quickly with the touch of my computer and high speed internet. (Who knew how fast internet would be 10 years ago when dial up was around). Technology is innovative and allows the world to keep in touch with one another. Scientist are able to share information to help create new and improved medicines, tools, etc.