Slide Show

I added a slide show to my wikispace using SLIDE.  I thought it was really easy to use.  My students made animal habitats.  Then, they took pictures of their projects and I uploaded them in a slide show.  I decided not to add music because I really did not think there was a good selection.

Wiki Decision

Well, after a lot of thought on what to put on my wiki, I have decided to just put a video.  I have found a dinosaur video that does not have any words on it.  I will have the kids first give their opinions on it and hopefully later on have them wright a summary of the video.  Not only is it science but reading and writing also!  

FIRE!!!

I changed the headline of my front page to an animated banner.  I picked flaming text from ummm...Flaming Text.com.  The class loved the change and so did I.

This and that

Geography Bee last night went well. We had to put the program together quickly at the last minute and we weren't sure which adults would be available. No Patty Robeson -- it just didn't seem right, although we carried on OK anyway. Pete Odell made an excellent judge for the second year in a row.

Our practice MSA tests went OK. There's certainly a lot of work to setting all of them up with appropriate accommodations. It will be interesting to see how the students do on the real tests, particularly the online Mod MSA. Since it's presented by the same Pearson Access that the online science was last year, it should work dependably. However, how much science do the students really know?

It seems like a long time between STEP sessions. This year (#2 for the school, if not for me) doesn't seem nearly as heavy in participant requirements as last, although it's also not rich in hardware benefits. I'm sure we'll be glad we entered, although it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm with such long gaps between sessions.

Banners

Another site for making banners and logos is http://www.cooltext.com/ It also has a free graphics generator. Very similar to flaming text. 

Banner Decision

I really like the Flaming Text website. I decided to all my banners using this site. My favorite type of headlines are the animated ones. I used one of each on different pages of my wiki. I decided to embed the headlines/banners so I registered as a member of Flaming Text. I have been really happy with their product so far.

BEAT

Holy Smokes. I am beat. I think being in my friends wedding was worse than my own. I am exhausted. You would think with the long holiday weekend I would have recovered. Not so much. 

I had really hoped to get some work started for the kids using the wikispace more. Eh. Maybe next week. I really want to try and focus some ideas. I feel like I need a big idea board. Does Oprah have one of those? Maybe she calls it an inspiration board. I'm not sure. 

All I know is that I am tired and have about a million ideas running around in my head right now.

Holidays

It was sure nice having off Monday and Tuesday for Martin Luther King's birthday and for the Inauguration of Barak O Bama.  It was pretty neat to watch everything unfold on T.V. and to see all of those people on the mall.  I know a few of my fellow teachers went it said it was amazing.  I will take a 4 day weekend any day!

Inauguration Day

President Barak Obama. Who would ever have guessed?... What will that mean for technology? For education? For testing? For the economy? I guess time will tell.

WIKI Accounts

I created user accounts for all my parents participating in our audio lending library project. As most of them do not have e-mail accounts they were very pleased to be able to access the wikispace from any computer with their user account and password. They use the school computers as well as the public library. It has motivated families to visit their community library together. Each family has their own page which they can edit and upload videos to share with others in the program.

Release Me!

I have talked to all my parents about using their child's photo or voice online. I only have two parents that would not give permission for their child to participate in these activities. I have been very careful not to capture their images or voices on any project we do.

Google Earth for Geo Team

Since the Computer Lab windows are back in and the Geography Team can meet in our room instead of in the library, we had the students using Google Earth. After I demo-ed it, I had the kids, working in pairs, locating specific places around the world and taking screen shots of a list of places. Then they inserted one of their shots into a MS Word document and wrote a few sentences about that place. Not bad for 30 minutes! As you would expect, a few kids were very knowledgeable about Google Earth, while most had never used it. Good hands-on approach for continents, countries, landforms, landmarks, etc.

Wiki

Well, last night we set up our wikispace.  I'm still not really sure what it is i want to do with it.  At the moment I am thinking of doing something with science, but I'm not really sure.  I am having trouble trying to figure out how to use it with second graders.  I feel like it is going to be hard for them how to figure out what to do if I'm not there and obviously I can't be there with every child to show them how to do it on their own.  

What should I blog about?

I have nothing to say. The holidays are over and school is back in session. Big tests are coming so I'll be using technology for that, rather than for direct instruction of students. Bleak mid-winter...

Improving the Wiki

I signed up for a Wikispace to use in my classroom. I wanted to have a safe place for my students to go and do research on the web. I started out with home, reading, science, fun place and essay pages.

On the reading page, I featured information about the book The Mouse and The Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, including a quiz I found online.

On the science page, I added pictures of animals that linked to information. On the fun place and essay pages, I linked websites so that students could nagivate to approved websites more easily.

Next meeting

Well, it's a new year and I'm looking forward to our next meeting.  I'm excited to learn something new.  We are still having issues with blogging.  I sure hope there is no limit to the words we need to post in these blogs!  If there is I guess I'm in trouble!

Happy New Year

'Twas a lovely holiday season. I wonder what it will be like with a baby next year? I wonder what technology will be like by the time he's my age. Kinda scary!

I'm keeping these "postings" for when we can actually put them somewhere. Our initial STEP meeting was "interesting" at Ammendale but we need to meet again soon so as not to let the enthusiasm drop. Still, it was an honor to be chosen and we BES'ers need to have a good showing for our school.