Thing #2 Voki

Here is my Voki Avatar. If I received a Voki in an e-mail, I would be highly likely to read it since it is eye-catching. The voice module is great for conveying messages. If you use your own voices, intonation and tone can help prevent misunderstandings that may occur is someone writes an e-mail in plain text. I know, on occasion, I have not been 100 percent sure of someone's meaning in an e-mail where hearing his/her voice would have been highly beneficial.

Get a Voki now!

Thing #2 Animoto

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

This is the animoto slideshow I created from my family camping trip. Animoto does a nice job with adapting the pace of the slideshow with the music. I feel it is limited compared to other slideshow programs. I have not figured out how to perform a voiceover on each picture. The music compilation is limited and the maximum time allowed for free is 30 seconds. In my opinion, most teachers have limited funding available for these types of programs and rely heavily on free technology applications. Students can use this program to focus on visual imagery as a means of demonstrating understanding of the curriculum. For example, if a student was doing a project about the plant life cycle, they could take photographs outside their school, download them and use them in a animoto video slideshow. It can be useful, I just believe there are better slideshow programs that allow students a greater range of creative production.

Thing #2 Voice Thread

I think voice thread is going to be a great tool for science and social studies project which use visual imagery along with voice threads. I love the way the site is set up to protect the safety of our students limiting use but still letting them know that their work is worthy of publishing. I am always concerned about outside sources impacting the safety of our students. This website puts my concerns at ease by emphasizing that only educators, administrators and those invited may comment.

Thing #2 Glogster

Here is the link to my Glogster:

http://nygator22.edu.glogster.com/Mr. Allen/

This will be really useful for students that learn best through artistic/technology skills. I like this program because it combines photos, videos, text and format skills.

Thing #2 Wordsift

birth brought civil come conceived created dead dedicate

dedicated detract devotion that died endure field final fought freedom and full gave god government great hallow increased larger liberty life little

living long man measure nation new

nobly person place portion proper remaining remember resolve score seven

take task unfinished us that war world

This is my Wordsift that I created by pasting the Gettysburg Address into the program. Similar to the Wordle, this program would be great for identifying main ideas of compositions as well as being useful for summarizing passages. I think I may use this at the beginning of the year to have students tell about themselves (ex. Mr. Allen teacher father husband, etc.).

Thing #2 Wordle

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2173123/World_Series_Champions_of_the_last_20_years

I created a wordle of the last 20 World Series Champions. A wordle is a great way for students to identify the main idea of a passage by listing important words used. The more often a word is used, the larger the font gets, so it is pretty obvious what the repeated terms are. In my example, the Yankees (my favorite team by the way - my parents are New Yorkers) are the largest font because they have won the most titles in that time span. I also think a wordle could be used to create an outline for students to make a summary from.

Thing #1 Comments

What are my thoughts about the student, the video and the teacher and her role? Can a Librarian play the role depicted in the video?

the student - Much of the preliminary actions the student takes for his project involve knowledge of the tools found on the internet. To make such actions possible, a teacher would need to ascertain the technology skills his/her students come to the classroom with. This student does a great job of setting the groundwork before actually doing the research, to make his research more fruitful/effective. The student makes a very important distinction between facts and opinions when he researches blogs.

the video - I love the way this video presenter explains things. I remember this style of video from 23 things and much of what it taught me stayed with me so I am excited to have more of these types of videos to learn from. I love the idea of connections being made, the challenge I encounter and is not mentioned yet in this video, is how to protect younger students (such as my third graders) from inappropriate material. I am sure 99 percent of all connectors have good intentions, but the risk of that one percent gives me great trepidation in giving them the freedom to connect.

the teacher - The teacher, in this example, acts as a facilitator (which to me seems consistent with this idea of connectivism) and allows the student to take charge of his learning. With the teacher taking a secondary role, this student does a great job of getting connected through blogs, research, websites, etc. thereby performing in the way the teacher wants him to without the teacher lecturing or doing it for him. I would like this year for my students to use mp3's for research and learning games. My third grade class has created projects that they post on a website I created for which they each have their own web page. I hope to allow them increased time to do this. However, we have COWs (computers on wheels) and are only able to get laptops once a week. I am hoping we can increase our use of technology in the classroom. This year, we got activboards and that has been a blessing as the students are able to use the board to demonstrate mastery of all different subjects as well as participate in learning games. The teacher in this example, plays a vital role in steering the student in the right direction when he gets stuck, models effective techniques and shows him how to differentiate between what is fact and what information may have a slant to it. Most importantly, she helps him love learning which he can take with him wherever he goes.

A librarian can and should play a vital role in this learning as they are responsible for important research materials, and, at our school, much of the technology used for learning is found in our library. The librarian can also help students to find different ways to demonstrate their understanding of the curriculum thereby encouraging differentiated learning.