Gilbertbm1's Blog

What is Literacy (continued from last week)?

gilbertbm1 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:37:40 +0000

After I went back and read the definition of literacy that I wrote last week I realized how much I have learned in this course. Last week I said that I care more about if my students are learning to read than how they learn to read. I think that in the last couple of days my view has changed. If I can use all of the things that I learned this week to help my students learn to read then I would not only be teaching them to read, but also teaching them to be technologically “literate”. I think that so many of the things that we learned this week like voicethread, podcasts, and threaded discussions would be fun for the students and therefore it would be important to them. I think that technology can help teach literacy because students will probably work harder and learn more if they know they are creating a product by using multimedia. By using technology to reach my students I am also helping them to take control of their learning and I am doing more facilitating and guiding then just giving them information. I am surprised how much my view of technology has changed since taking this class, and I am excited to use all the new skills I have in my classroom this year.

Digital Texts

gilbertbm1 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:16:14 +0000

Digital texts could be super helpful in my first grade class. This week, I used Caption Tube to add captions to a video from You Tube. It was not difficult to use, and could be used to add captions to student made videos. I could take a video of students reading leveled readers and then add the captions below. I could also video my students doing a reader’s theater performance and add the captions below. This would be a great resource for students to go back and read for fluency practice. This would be especially helpful for first graders because they could watch the videos for sight word practice and decoding practice. I could even add words to videos with their favorite songs or favorite TV characters. I think this will be very helpful in my first grade class.

Podcasting

gilbertbm1 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:07:55 +0000

I have heard of podcasting before, and I knew that I could get podcasts on my i-pod, but I wasn’t really sure what they were and how they worked. The common craft video helped to explain to me how podcasts work. I learned that basically, a podcast is like a tv or radio show that is saved as an audio file on the internet. You can capture shows on your ipod or computer to watch at a later time. All you need to receive a podcast is a connection between the website and computer, and a podcatcher. The podcatcher allows you to save shows to listen to later. I think that I could use podcasting in my first grade class, by having my students create their own podcast. This would help to improve their writing, because they would be writing for a “real” audience, and it would improve their reading fluency because they would need to practice rereading their stories before they recorded them onto a podcast. Not to mention that once again, technology helps to simplify parent and school connections. Parents can go online and listen to a class podcast or I can play the podcast at a parent night or open house for parents who do not have internet access at home. Using podcasts would also be a good tool for motivating students who do not like to read or write. This gives them a purpose for writing and they would probably put more effort into it if they knew it would be podcasted onto the . I am just hoping that my school allows podcasting and will support me in making class podcasts.

Pageflakes

gilbertbm1 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:12:14 +0000

I always wanted to make my own website, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. I have a class website that was set up for me by my school district, but it is very plain and VERY hard to manage. My school website takes a lot of time to update and usually leads to frustration. That being said, I do not update it as much as I probably could. Pageflakes was a wonderful way to create a homepage. At first, I thought that it was a great tool that I could use at home to check my facebook and Twitter. Then, I realized that I could create my own flakes for homework, annoucements, information about myself, and even a calendar. I realized that I could actually use pageflakes for my class website. I am planning on creating a class website using pageflakes this upcoming year. Pageflakes will be much easier to manage and much easier for my student’s parents to find on the web. My class website has a tremendously long url of random letters, numbers, and slashes. I don’t even have it memorized, so how can I expect my parents to remember it? Pageflakes is also very easy to update. Instead of spending 45 minutes trying to update my supply list, I can quickly do it in just a few minutes. It is also a great place to link favorite websites, and even a link to Twitter. That way parents can check their Twitter account to see classroom updates. I am looking forward to having a class website that I can control quickly and easily.

VoiceThread

gilbertbm1 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:42:43 +0000

Voicethread is my new favorite program! I can’t wait to use this one in my classroom. This week I created a voicethread of my niece that I was able to narrate by recording my voice on each slide. There are so many ways that I want to use this in my classroom. On idea is for me to take pictures of books and record my voice reading the text. This is a little more interactive than listening to a story on tape because the students can record or type their own comments and post them on each page.The kids will probably really enjoy hearing their teacher’s voice read the story also. I also think that I can use voicethread to improve reading fluency. By having students record their voice reading text from books, or text that they have written would be a great way for them to hear themselves reading and practice rereading to improve fluency. I am really looking forward to letting students record their own voices reading stories that they have written. I think it would be easy to scan their illustrations into a file so that they have their own digital book. Then parents could view their student’s voicethreads and make comments from home. I can’t wait to try this one in my classroom. It was super easy to use and it was also a lot of fun!

RSS

gilbertbm1 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:34:55 +0000

Okay, I finally understand RSS. For days I have been clicking on that little orange icon on my tool bar just waiting for it to do something amazing. (It didn’t). Then I watched the short video on RSS this afternoon and it was like my eyes were opened. Basically, RSS is like a subscription to your favorite news and blogging websites. Instead of having to go to the website to check for updates, the updates are automatically sent to you using RSS. All you have to do is go to the website and click on the little orange icon, which I found out is only orange in my toolbar when a website I am on can be subscribed to using RSS. That’s why just clicking on it on a whim did pretty much nothing for me. I can check my websites by going to my favorites and clicking on the feeds tab. I am not sure how I can use this in my classroom of first graders yet, but it will be great as a personal tool. I am sure that I can subscribe to feeds that will help me in my classroom in some way. For right now, I am just going to have to keep experimenting with this one until I understand more about what it can do.

Webquests

gilbertbm1 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:58:29 +0000

By taking this class, I was able to learn how to create my own webquest using Track Star. I couldn’t believe how easy it was for me to use this program! No more searching the internet for hours trying to find webquests that fit my specific student needs. Now, with a few websites and the tasks that I want my students to perform, I can easily create my own webquest that meets my student’s needs. I created a webquest about the needs of plants and animals for my first grade class, and I plan to use it this year. I also plan to create atleast one webquest for each science and social studies unit I teach this year. Then, I will have a file of webquests for the following year that I can add to. If I add one webquest to each unit each year, I will eventually have a whole file of webquests that are specific to the curriculum goals I have for my students.

Social Bookmarks

gilbertbm1 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:53:47 +0000

Social bookmarking is one of the best things I have learned about in this class. I am excited to use my own personal social bookmarks, but I am also excited to use them in my classroom. I plan to use the social bookmarking site ikeepbookmarks.com to set bookmarks of websites for my students to use in the classroom. Last year I taught 2nd grade, and I always had kids coming up to me asking “how do you spell funbrain.com?” and it drove me nuts! Now, I can create folders for math, reading, science, and social studies on ikeepbookmarks and my students only have to click on the folder and then click on the website. I can also use the folders to save websites that I want my students to use for special projects. With two clicks they are where they want to be, and they don’t even have to ask me how to spell anything! I am planning on setting ikeepbookmarks.com to my homepage for all of my school computers. I believe that it will save time for my students, and it will also save me a lot of frustration!

Threaded Discussion Boards

gilbertbm1 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:42:54 +0000

I have used a threaded discussion board in the past, and I find them very helpful. It is a great way as a teacher to see who is responding to who when students are having a discussion online. It is also less intimidating for a student who may be shy or not likely to speak in front of the class. This gives that child an opportunity to show the teacher what he or she knows by typing a response to a discussion or starting a discussion thread of their own. I will be teaching first grade next year and Iwas thinking that I could start a threaded discussion on different books that we read. Then, my first graders could respond to the book or each other’s comments about the book. This would certainly be “do-able” for first graders during center time with help from an assistant or parent volunteer. As a teacher, it would also give me data about each student without having to keep a stack of papers. I can also use responses in the threaded discussion to guide future instruction.

Twitter in the classroom

gilbertbm1 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:26:46 +0000

I think that Twitter could be used as a valuable resource in the classroom. I believe that parent teacher communication is important and should be documented in some way. For this reason, Twitter is like a gift from above. I have spent hours handwriting notes in folders, typing cute little weekly newsletters with clipart, and sending note after note trying to get Johnny or Susie to turn in their field trip permission form TOMORROW!!! I have played the phone tag game a million times. With Twitter, I can take two or three minutes and post an update that goes straight to my parent’s computers or blackberries. Not only can I remind them when important papers are due, I can give them insight into what we are learning in our classroom. Now when they ask their child what they did at school today, they can actually have a conversation about it. I am definitley planning on using Twitter for classroom updates this year. Does that mean I won’t have to send home notes or type up a newsletter? Probably not, but it will make my life easier because the parents who do have access to the internet don’t have to worry about lost papers or not knowing what is going on in the classroom. I feel that if this technology is available, not to mention FREE, why not take advantage of it.