Final Thoughts...

Technology is the KEY to Motivation!

As the course comes to an end I am amazed by the amount of new knowledge I have gained. Many courses so far have built upon undergrad work or professional develop. However, I can came to this class with very little background knowledge. I had heard of blogging, twitter, and skype but never used any of them.

I am leaving this class with a new bag of tricks overflowing with technology options to use with my students. It was exciting to see the reaction from my students when I introduced the projects and "tip of the technology iceberg" into the classroom. It is obvious that students are extremely motivated by working with technology. Using web based tools for students to share or show their learning is much more captivating that a paper and pencil. I also learned the importance educating my students about digital citizenship and incorporating NETS for both myself and students within lessons.

It was without a doubt overwhelming at times but going from Google to Storybird, Wiki, Diigo, VoiceThread, and Voki in 8 weeks will do that to person! As Meghan said to me after the first week, "Diigo, Wikispaces, and Voki...Oh My!" ;)

(I created this Tagxedo using my blog as the webpage, awesome!!)

Literacy Project

Below is the Literacy Project I created with my students. Using VoiceThread, we created a digital book using alliteration. Students loved using the technology and began reflecting on themselves reading their page. Students would comment, "too quiet" or "too fast". It started critical thinking and great conversations about fluency and reading for an audience. This was an aspect I did not even envision when I began the project. Students also loved viewing the video. We were able to share it with families on "Bring Your Parents to School Day" and many families wanted the link to share with more family and friends. I will definitely continue to use VoiceThread with my students this year and in the future. Enjoy!



To view it within VoiceThread, click here.

Ta-Da! The Final Version of Our Digital Story!

Below is Meghan and my Digital Story! We created a digital story about the Plant Life Cycle. Meghan and I worked together by using Google Docs. Sitting at home, miles apart, we were both able to add to the template, very cool! We used PhotoStory 3 to create the video and worked through many images, text, and music choices before coming to this final version. We are proud of what we accomplished, especially since we did not know how to create a digital story 2 months ago!

Within the classroom, I plan to use the digital story to introduce students to the Plant Unit. Knowing we wanted to use the video in this way, Meghan and I knew vocabulary would be an important part of our digital story. We also wanted to introduce students to the learning experiences they would take part in, what they would learn and be able to do by the end of the unit. At the end of the unit, we wanted to use the digital story again to review what students learned. I am very excited to use this digital story to "hook" my students as we begin a new science unit! This a video I will be able to use year after year with my students! Enjoy!



Here is the link to see the video in YouTube.

CT Core Science Framework:

• The life cycles of flowering plants include seed germination, growth, flowering, pollination and seed dispersal.

NETS for Teachers #1, 2, 3, 4

• 2.2 - Plants change their forms as part of their life cycles.

Digital Citizenship

(created in Wordle, click here to see original created by Camille Maydonik)

Just as we teach children about "stranger danger" in the real world we need to educate them about being safe and making good choices online. As any young child is naive about the dangers of our world they are also naive about the dangers of online. As educated we need to teach children how to think critically and evaluate information they find online as well as making informed decision about what do while surfing the world wide web.

As we have heard from numerous sources, we can not simply "block" anything and everything that may be inappropriate for children. We need to allow them to make their own choices about how to handle such situations once they have need educated on digital citizenship.

So here comes the question, How??? Below are three websites I particularly liked about doing exactly that...

Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum for Grades K-5 - resources with complete units planned to introduce students to thinking critially and making informed decisions when working on the interent.

Educate Parents About Cyberbullying and Online Relationships - We can educate children in school but they need support at home too! This website provides handouts for parents so they can learn how to educate their children at home.

Digital Citizenship Wiki - created by iste (where we get NETS) with resources for different grade levels to introduce digital citizenship to students in appropriate ways for their age.

NETS for Teachers #4
NETS for Students #5

Barnes Nature Center Field Trip

My class traveled to the Barnes Nature Center in Bristol, CT last week. We had a great time exploring and examining soil samples from different areas of the forest and living animals from the pond.

Enjoy the digital story!

Meghan said she couldn't view it, so I added the YouTube link here...

Digital Story Draft

Click here to see the digital story Meghan and I created together. We are still playing with music options. (Because we created it on her computer, she sent the video to me and I did not have the embed code to upload it directly.)

Any suggestions?

Early Childhood Literary and Digital Storytelling Resources

Starfall is a website I have used with my students in the past. It is a great website to support below level readers who need reteaching with short and long vowel sounds and word families. The website is also great to support students who are working on fluency. Students can listen to story being read to them and track the print across the screen.

The Literacy Web from UConn has great resources! I especially like the Children's Literacy tab. This tab provides authors and books for primary students. Many link to the authors' website and other interactive online resources to support an author study or literacy circle.

ReadWriteThink is great website to support online writing. I found many "student interactives" for writing poetry under the classroom resources tab. This will be very valuable in the coming weeks when we begin a poetry writing unit. Students follow step by step directions to create different types of poems. Students can then print their poems to share and/or add to a poetry collection.

 Scholastic is another website that I have used with my students. There are seasonal activities that are available for students to explore throughout the year. For example, in October students have explore the ships that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic to come to the "New World", in November students explore a Pilgrim village and learned about the first Thanksgiving, and in December students learn about different winter holidays including Kwanzaa, Christmas, and Hanukkah. There are also articles and activities describing relevant news and other holidays in appropriate language for young children. Topics range from insects, famous people, weather, to the Underground Railroad.