Wiki

We are working on the Wiki right now. I can imagine using this with students; they collaborate to create a story over the course of a week. Students could also create a document that combines what they have learned about a certain topic in social studies, for example. I can try to create my own Wiki at this site for educators: https://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers. To access a wiki, each student needed an individual username and password to identify the author. This will help me assess and also catch criminal users. :-)

Gabcast

Gabcast! Catlett ELL #1

We have arrived

But where are we? I have stayed above water this week, but I have so much to learn. I am most happy about using Photo story and epals. Epals has already set up my blog and a teacher in Italy contacted me about getting our classes in contact! I am now spending more time on my laptop at night than my husband!

Podcasting is something I had been exposed to in an elective class. We came up with some great ideas for using podcasts in grades 6-12. I think I might start with audio content that I can link to on my blog or web page. Then the students would be able to access it, even though someone across the world could not. One idea I definitely will try is recording a radio show or current event update. I am interested in how writing and fluency will improve as a result of these recordings!

I linked to a podcast in today's entry via Gabcast...see above!! I can link this to my blog.

MM and RSS

Movie Maker has been frustrating. I don't feel confident at all using it, but I did make a 43 second video with title and credits. Judging from the comments around me, others are having difficulty as well. Simultaneous video and audio is not automatic. Movies would be great for filming skits and interviews in class. Irrelevant or lengthy video could be cut out.

Pageflakes site is down so I can not yet experiment with RSS. I did watch the Common Craft video about RSS and thought I understood. Then when I went to the NPR site and my iGoogle site, I was clueless. I find this happens a lot!! The Common Craft video compared RSS to Netflix and that makes total sense. I look forward to having an RSSS to all my favorite sites. On my pageflake that is public, I could subscribe to certain sites for class use!

We also explored Webspiration this morning. I am able to use Inspiration at school so the tools are the same. When we get our epals set up we could possibly do some brainstorming with kids across the ocean using Webspiration. I spent some time looking at epals.com last night and they offer great tools that I cannot wait to use.

Kindle and Badongo are not curse words

I just read two articles about Amazon's Kindle. Don't think I want one. It is light weight and portable and is improved over the original. However, like one of the authors said, there is just something about holding that book in your hand. And it is not helpful for research and working in multiple texts at one time. It does seem that the future for Kindle looks bright if it could be made cheap and durable enough for students to use. Time will tell.

Badongo is a free place to store and share files. I am not having success with this so I am going to try Zshare later.

We read about visual media this morning. I really enjoyed the article I read about doing a photo project that brought the family in on the learning. This focused on what families value and teach their kids. I see possibilities for my classroom, as my students are all Latino. Their parents trust the school and respect the teacher as the authority. I have always struggled with parent involvement and this might be a way to encourage that. Just an idea. The challenge is to find ways that learning can draw from real life.

Page Flake

I now have a page flake as my web page/homepage. Others can access it to see my flakes. One of those is a mini blog that I can use to touch base with parents and post important announcements in Spanish and in English. Right now it announces the beginning of school. I also have a calendar where events can be posted.

When I get it all figured out, websites can be added and storage space is provided. I could use that flake as a place for student slide shows or videos to be posted.

With the ability to make more than one page, I could make a separate page that could be more personal just for me. It could focus on adoption and current events, almost like a blog but with more elements. Friends and family could follow sites that I follow. (similar to the "links" or "blogs I follow" that appear on the side of a blog.)

A separate page could serve my school needs and a separate one could be for my daughter. She would be able to easily navigate to her favorite site...disney princesses.

Digital Success

I spent hours yesterday and last night and now today, and I finally made an Animoto and a Voice Thread. I understand how to do it and would be able to teach my students how to use these programs. Voice Thread is best used with photos or power points that are already saved on your hard drive or jump drive. Comments can be made with text, voice and even a pen that you can use to draw on the slide during the "show." The kids will absolutely love this! They are already familiar with power points so they could quickly learn how to upload them into Voice Thread.

These things combined with epals.com could potentially change my ELL classroom this year!!!!

On to Photostory...I love it!!!! Much faster and easier to use than the online apps we have used. I will definitely be able to use this in my personal and professional life. I can see using it as a lead in to a new unit. The kids could watch my photo story or slide show to activate their background knowledge and to really pique their interest. At the end of the year I could have a good bye slide show for my 8th graders. The kids could create their own show using images from the Internet or photos they took for a science project.

Readability

In other news, we read about multimedia and digital documents today. We saw how to determine the readability of a text after discussing the fact that online texts are often way above our students' readability levels. As teachers, we really have to teach and guide students in reading and viewing multimedia documents. Just like us, they get distracted and off track when they follow hyperlinks and never get back to the original text. We can suggest to students that they read or skim the entire text before they explore any of the hyperlinks. Teachers can also instruct students in note taking an

Publish Post

d tracking in the online environment.

Mutimedia

I am so so so excited about epals.com. Not only can I get a pal for myself, I can get my whole class their own pals. The site also offers blogging and other projects. I looked at the human rights project to see art and poems that kids have created to share. There seems to be mini-lessons but I need some more time to explore. We could create stories and poems and read them and share them using Voice Thread (see below).

Slide.com offered me the chance to make a slide show and it was easy!!! Students would love this. The only disadvantage is that the captions are limited to very few words. I played around at Tarheel Reader and wish I had known about the site last school year. I had a student who could not read in any language and he was already 14. He had many issues, but I think the books there would have been valuable for him.

VoiceThread was a bit more involved, as you can add your own voice to the pages along with captions. I loved the book the ASU students made. I made a shoddy one just to see if I could. This would be excellent for sharing books with ELL kids at the elementary school!! (and anywhere else in the world!!)

I played with CaptionTube but was not able to successfully save/export the captions. I can see more uses with VoiceThread, like reading a poem or a short story. It appears that I need the tutorial videos at CaptionTube. :-)

Power of Community

Yesterday Dr. D. talked about the power of community when using social bookmarks. I started thinking about this. At first I hated face book and thought all those people were so petty and dumb for announcing their every trip to the restroom and what they were watching on tv. Then I hijacked my husband's account and had fun looking at people I had not seen in years. When Miles kicked me off his account I had to set up my own. Now I am on there twice a day. The benefit for me has been the social networking that could not have taken place otherwise.

I now am part of a community of adoptive parents in NC and one in the Triad. I can connect with these people so easily via the Internet. I can touch base with people when I want with no pressure to make a phone call. I have 6-8 blogs that I follow of people who have already adopted African children. I only know 2 of them personally but I can learn from all of them by reading about their experience.

I really don't know how we lived before the internet. We pay our bills online, email instead of call, look up forms we need from USCIS and connect with our new and old friends. I am really excited about all the possibilities!!

Social Butterfly

We have been reading and talking about social bookmarking all morning...and I mean ALL morning. I now have a delicious site and know how to use it. I can see how this would be useful for my class. I can preview sites ahead of time that I want kids to use. Then I can tag them in one group so the kids can easily access them without having to waste time and keystrokes. Previously I had to ask the media specialist to post websites on our school site so the kids could get to them. Now I am able to do this on my own!

Diigo seems a little more user friendly, but now I have already immersed myself in delicious.

As I use and explore web quests, I can see that the social bookmarking would be very helpful in creating a web quest. That would save me time in searching for websites that someone else has already found. Students are more engaged with activities like web quests and they learn a lot about how to apply their knowledge to a problem.

I would love to do epals with my students and set up a video conference using Skype and my school's new videoconferencing hardware. I think the kids would love this and it would get them writing for a real purpose. We have tried Skype to talk with my sister-in-law in MS. The delay with the video is a little annoying but the hardest thing is getting all our kids to be still at the same time so we can all talk and see one another. I didn't realize until today that you can IM in Skype. I talked to my friend who does Virtual Public Schools for DPI using the IM feature of Skype. She told me how she has to convince principals that Skype can be useful in the classroom. :-)

Wow, I have a lot of ideas to explore and implement!

Threaded Discussion

My eyes hurt from discussing threaded discussions!!!! Yes, you read that correctly. We are discussing the articles we read. I really like the format and can think of a couple of applications for my ELL class:
1-post a question of the week/day
2-use a thread to discuss a short story
3-literature circles

I like the idea of having a discussion going that all grades (6-8) could participate in throughout the day or week. We could even open it up to kids at the high school or kids in other content classes at our school. There are free sites that will host our discussions!

More ideas to come!

Twitter

Evidently Twitter is very busy and needs some new employees. Their site does say they are hiring! Only about a fourth of us can get on. Now I am so behind with the instructions from Dr. D.

I don't think I will use Twitter, as it seems even more invasive and purposeless than FaceBook. When I finally sign on, I will update this blog!

OK I am on!! I still don't think it would be helpful for my personal life but I read about the ways you could use it with students. Send review questions, mention a website, allow students to privately ask for money for a field trip, etc.

Tweet tweet tweet

Been thinking about uses of Twitter. My brother-in-law is a campus minister and he uses it to put deep thoughts out there about texts he is reading or preaching on. Another friend is a youth minister who uses Twitter to let his youth and parents know where he is and for what event. Somehow he attaches a map! Teachers could use it in similar ways. I really see this working in an AP class or higher level English class. The teacher could Twitter thoughts and discussion points to get students thinking.

My students are low socioeconomic class and middle school level. I am not sure enough of them have a cell phone or Internet for this concept to work, but it is something to think about.

Tweet tweet tweet.

Blogging

I have tried blogs with my 8th graders through gaggle.net. After today's discussion, I think I will do more! I know that the students would like to write to each other and feel like real published authors. A former colleague used blogging as a center for her 5th graders. I could use a class blog as a reward for students who have finished their other work. Students could also have their own blogs to use as journals, which I could grade from time to time.

We suggested this morning using blogs as a form of parent communication. Instead of papers that don't make it home and emails that might get spammed, parents could access the blog on their own time. Access to a computer with Internet access would be possible challenge with my ELL population. I think about half of them have Internet at home.

I think I will set up a blog and see if there are any readers after a few months. If my students and their parents are not reading, I will know it is a waste of time. On a personal note, I think I will need a blog for those who want to follow our adoption. Another project for the fall!!

New Literacies

Today we have been reading and discussing literacy, new literacy and technology. To me, technology consists of the tools available to make learning and life easier. Students can learn the old-fashioned way or they can learn using the tools that are now available - cameras, wikis, blogs, slide show software, and more!

A literate person can read and write, according to basic definitions. In an article by Smolin and Lawless (2003), four new literacies are explained. I consider these skills or competencies and not really literacies or genres. The four are: technological literacy, visual literacy, information literacy and intertextuality.

As a teacher, I want to make learning more student centered and more interactive. I feel that I have a responsibility to share new technological tools with my students. I hope this course helps me do that!

Already in my classroom, I teach listening, speaking, reading and writing. I focused on writing last year and plan to do that this year. In the past I have used digital photography, power point, word processing, web quests and gaggle.net blogs as tools for learning. I also tried recording chapters of novels onto CDs for my students to listen to at home, and it was a hit! I think my students' literacy in English will improve as I integrate more technological tools into my lessons. One of my major goals this year is to teach the kids how to do more efficient research using the Internet.