Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Class Blogmeister

Well I started my students on Class Blogmeister and so far so good. They are writing a couple of stories: "The Worst Day of School Ever!" and "The Best Day of School Ever!" When they say, "I'm out of ideas." I reply, "How could this get worse/better?"

So far so good. They seem to really enjoy it, and they are using their word wall words. If this goes well I want to try VoiceThread next.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Computer Accounts

(rant)
I don't know why I even bother sometimes. One of my students accounts disappeared so they "fixed" it by giving her a new one. Now all her projects that we have been working on are gone. ME NO HAPPY!
(/rant)

Monday, October 29, 2007

Word Wall

I started using a "Word Wall" with my class. And we were trying to do some creative writing in the computer lab and the students started asking for their word wall words. So, I decided to make a word wall blog that they could use either in the lab or at home when doing assignments.

So far, so good.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Working With Words

I have started the four blocks program for reading with my students.  I am trying to implement the working with words block right now.  One of the activities is called "Guess the Hidden Word" and I made a Keynote (Mac version of PowerPoint) for my class.  The students were very interested and even my most reluctant students participated at a very high level.

I have tried to imbed a flash version of the presentation using a website called SkyAlbum.  Not sure if it is working.


Presentation

Monday, October 22, 2007

Breaking My Own Rules

I am going to break one of my own rules: Never run more than one major tech assignment at once.  Its a good rule and I have always followed it but I have another problem;  my students are ready to fall asleep the second I say it is time for social studies.  We are learning about pioneers and the unit is very dry so I am going to have them make a PowerPoint about a topic and then post them.  I will make a set of questions for the students to complete about each presentation.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Making Movies

During ELA we are going to try and make short documentaries about knights and castles.  The students have been split into seven different groups with seven different topics.  They will research their topic with books and websites that I provide for them.  They will then make a model to go with their research and write a script explaining what they learned.  We will put the model and script together into a movie to share on the class website.  I will then make a webquest for the students to learn about the other projects.

I've got my fingers crossed.  :)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Animal Classification Movie

The students and I have been trying to make a movie about Animal Classification in science class but the computer system has been so unstable that four or five random students begin the class by starting their project over again.  On the positive side the constant repetition has reinforced some basic skills using Windows Movie Maker and when the system settles down we can try again with a similar project.

Getting Started

Blogging is weird.  Publishing random thoughts and deep musings for public consumption is not something I am comfortable doing.  But I ask my students to do it daily.  So, here I go.
This blog is about sharing my thoughts, great successes, and catastrophic failures dealing with technology and kids.  As we get started hurdles present themselves daily but if it was easy everyone would do it.  :)