Wiki comes through

We did our first day of News Team layout yesterday for our March/April issue. With MSA causing a 3-week delay in publishing, it gave the kids time to get all of the missing articles posted and all were there except Chris's 4th grade, which Elizabeth did for him. I would like to the reporters to control the font name and size on the wiki so the layout kids wouldn't have to adjust each article when placed in MS Word.

Tammy Time!

I have added a lot of new websites to my wikispace. I have gotten most of the websites from books that I bought from Tammy Worcester.  I added a link.  I just bought her new Google Book.

Voicethreads

I have decided to do one of my voicethreads on space.  I think I will have the students create their own constellations and then have them write a story about it.  I will take pictures of the students and then have the students respond about each one.  

Doll up Images

I found a fun website for making cool banners and animated pictures. It is called Image Chef.  You can embed images into your wikispace.  Check it out!

In the middle of MSA

MSA Reading has been given except for make-ups, and I'm getting ready for MSA Math. The 5 6th graders who took the Mod MSA online seemed to get along quite well, although it was certainly helpful to them to have one-on-one accommodators, online or not. As school test coordinator I'm really swamped with MSA right now and have had to cancel our News Team meeting this week. I encouraged the reporters to edit each other's articles carefully -- I sure hope they are. I haven't had time to check.

Voicethreads

I really enjoyed this session on voicethreads. It was something entirely new for me. It was interesting to view some examples of how other teachers were using voicethreads in their teaching. I think I am going to try and motivate book discussions with my ESOL families by utilizing the voicethread. Many of my parents are not participating in our oral presentations. I think they are not comfortable speaking in a large group setting. Allowing them to use a voicethread to discuss/comment on the books they are reading might be a more comfortable setting for them.

Voicethreads

Well, last weeks session helped some what to come up with an idea.  I know now I want to keep it all together with science related stuff.  This has been one area I have struggled with in fitting in to our schedule.  We are having an upcoming unit on space so maybe I will do some of my voicethreading on that.

The hair trial didn't work out....I have to go back tomorrow because the stylist had to purchase some more stuff for my hair.

Uh oh!

WI just checked the history section of some key pages of our News Team wiki and found that students have deleted each articles and/or made erroneous changes to them. Knowing which students did this tells me that it was accidental. However, a student told me yesterday that her article had disappeared from the wiki, and sure enough, it did! I'll track this down, talk to the offender on Monday, and discuss it with the whole team as soon as I can.

Will It Sink or Float

I completed my first podcast using VoiceThread.  I posted questions and had the students discuss the answers in small groups.  Then, I had one person from each group record their answers to the questions.  Next, we completed an experiment on density.  I took photographs and then added them to my VoiceThread Project.  Finally, I had students respond to the remainder of the questions.  I was able to figure out what concepts they understood and what concepts needed more work.

Learning about Podcasting

We just learned about podcasting today.  I am really excited about using this in my classroom.  It was not what I thought it would be.  We learned about a website called VoiceThread.  I want to do a science-related podcast.  I have to do an assignment for a educational class so I will try to kill two birds with one stone.  Wish me luck!

Podcasting session

Podcasting was interesting today. I can see how it could be a very useful tool in a regular classroom for lots of content areas. It will be a challenge to work it into my News Team project, but since this is the only group of students I can call "mine," other than the keyboarders, I'm sure something will come to mind. It was funny how self-conscious the BES STEP teachers were -- we pretty much chose to type our responses, rather than speaking them. I noticed that teachers from other schools were more vocal -- I recognized good ole Robert Beaumier's enthusiastic voice. He's always upbeat.

Welcome to Beltsville's STEP Team Blog!

Hey Beltsville Bulldogs!

This is our STEP team blog. We are going to use this one blog to jointly communicate our experiences from this year's program. This is also where you can add/repost your previously written blogs (remember to put labels on them so they can be sorted). I look forward to communicating with you. Go Bulldogs!

Busy

What a busy week.  Not sure if I am going to get on to post later this week so I figured I better do it now.  I had my dress fitting on Saturday.....the seamstress I to cut my dress down 4 1/2 inches....yay!  At least they didn't have to add fabric!  Tomorrow is our STEP meeting.  I believe someone is coming to show us more about wikispaces and about our voicethreads.  I sure hope to get some ideas from there I am really at a loss of what to do with my 2nd graders.  Then, Thursday I have a hair trial for the wedding.  My hair is so difficult I have been dreading this!

Adding New Items

I have been adding and changing things in my classroom wiki almost on a daily basis.  I needed a way to let students know what I added or what is new.  I decided to add a new button to home page.  After I found a good image, I added a caption telling the name of the new item that I added.  I then link the new button to the page.  It has been a big hit with my class.

Birthday!

Happy Birthday Melissa! Perhaps your kids could wish you a happy birthday on your classroom wiki! Hehe. Have a fantastic day! 

On a STEP related note...I have on my calendar that we are meeting on Tuesday. I know Tia must miss us.

Anyone having more trouble with kids messaging the entire group on the wikis? I think the one girl of mine that did it really had no clue what she had done. I need to remember to talk about that with the kids next year or time I start a new wiki. I will add it to the ever growing list.

Another Happy Birthday!

Hey Steph, happy birthday to you too!  It cracks me up that every year we get the same comments.  Yes, our birthdays are the same day and we were born at the same hospital.  I was just a few years ahead of you.  ;)  I'm sure craving a cupcake.....we need to go again soon.  

On another note I'm going for my first fitting for my wedding gown on Saturday!!  Yay!!  I'm soooo excited!!

Still not much done on my wiki.

STEP meeting next week - working on wiki

Working on my STEP wiki, creating the page to link to the News Team wiki. Including summaries, technology standards, banners, etc. Lots of work but it's good for me to be learning new things and using them often enough to remember them.