Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Thing #23- Final Reflection


The 23 Things module took me a while to complete, but it was mostly worth it. I had used Google, Blooger, and Webtop before so those were nothing new. I had not used tools like Wordle (which has now changed names), Twitter, Skype, or RSS before. I do not like using Twitter as I do not think it is well organized and I do not need to know what everyone is doing all the time. It may have use in the classroom though.

I do have a better understanding of ISTE standards now. I could use the 23 Things to show teachers how useful some of these tools could be.  I did not really like some projects because it felt like I had to make an account and then realize I may never use it again. Maybe that is just the nature of the beast. A suggestion for next time would be to make some of the 23 Things can have options in them, say choose one site to use.

Thing 8b - Create a Video Tutorial.

I have created a video tutorial on how to collaborate a SMARTBoard using Microsoft Movie Maker.


Sunday, April 28, 2013

Thing #16-The Backchannel

I have told my greatest challenges as a teacher:

I asked the question "What are your greatest hopes for next year?" and had replies from students:

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Thing #17- Twitter in the Classroom

Twitter could be used in the classroom as part of a PBL or a blended learning activity. I know while reading novels in Reading/Language Arts, the students could tweet their journal entries to the teacher. They could also tweet notes about the novel to the entire class. The teacher could answer questions by tweeting. The use of Twitter could encourage more reserved students to blossom through the use of this social media tool. The use would have to be closely monitored. It could also be used to create tweets from deceased famous people to try and recreate past events and understand them from a different point of view.

Thing #7-Play with Images

I took a photo and used Paint to change it. I added words in text boxes, arrows with the eraser and sprayed words with the spray paint. Students could take a picture and make it into a comic.

Thing #6 Webtop/YouTube Videos

I requested a movie clip from the 1981 film Tuck Everlasting to be unblocked. From the information I can gather, the video has yet to be unblocked. I requested it to be unblocked in Dec. 2012 as it correlated with the novel we were reading of the same name. The video would enhance student understanding because we were preforming a comparison and contrast between the novel and this 1981 film version. After viewing the 1981 version, we moved on to view the 2001 verison. We then compared and contrasted the two film versions.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Thing # 20 Share, Remix, and Reuse - LEGALLY!

This photo that I took in January 2013 is free for public use and has a CC license as shown below. This photo would go well with a lesson on winter weather precipitation. The photo could help illustrate what freezing rain looks like after the rain has touched elevated surfaces such as trees. The photo a discussion would be a part of a large classroom lesson on winter weather precipitation using this booklet from the National Weather Service.



Creative Commons License
Tree Ice by RWLokay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Booklet Link: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/winter/resources/Winter_Storms2008.pdf