Frog's Life Cycle Video

  

Hello everyone, I've included this video as part of my service project.  I found it to be an excellent video that described very well a frog's natural life cycle.  Swetha and Cassandra seemed to enjoy it very much! Hope you do as well.

Service Project Final Day!

Hello again! So today was the last time I meet with Swetha, and Ms. Garcia with Cassandra, and oh what a day it was!  I received Swetha's results of the survey we had sent out with them, and began to develop a spreadsheet with all the information.  They already had a good concept of what a graph was, so they were surprised that they could create a graph on the computer.  It is a simple graph that is not too complex, that way Swetha and Cassandra could be able to read and understand it.

We got down to business with the VoiceThread and had them interact with each other's short productions.  Since they are young students, I created most of the VoiceThread myself and just had Swetha watch and participate in it.  She did help me out in deciding what could be good questions to ask in each slide.  Her eyes would always light up whenever it was her turn to talk.  Then we had each of our students participate in the other one's VoiceThread- so if you hear a second little girl's voice it is Cassandra's.  We did come across bumps in the road... especially when my Internet failed to connect and I had to use Ms. Garcia's computer, but all in all we were able to accomplish this task!

I must say this whole service project really opened up my eyes.  I realized with Swetha and Cassandra that children are always excited to learn new things, and technology should never be considered a barrier!  Swetha picked on pretty fast on all the assignments I would give her.  I hope you have enjoyed reading this journey I- as well as Ms. Garcia- embarked on with these two little girls!

Here is the Frog's Life Cycle on VoiceThread... Enjoy!

Service Project Day 2

I am so thrilled to share with you today's events!  I meet with Swetha once again to continue our journey into the technology world, and I felt so motivated at the end of our session!  Let me first explain what we did... Today we focused on looking up internet resources that could help us learn more about the life cycle of frogs, whether it is in websites, videos, or pictures.  Together, Swetha and I created a GoogleDoc page with our discoveries.  I told Swetha that the internet is an excellent place to find information in different forms. 

After that, Ms. Garcia and I gave our students an assignment- to survey their close friends about life cycles.  We mentioned that with the survey we could create a spreadsheet to better organize our ideas.  In their survey, Swetha and Cassandra are to ask 'What animal would you most like to learn about the life cycle of?'  They felt so excited to get their assignment done and I can't wait for them to come back with the results and create a graph with them!  As Ms. Garcia and I were about to leave, they eagerly asked if we would be going the next day... that just motivated me and showed me that technology is fun and anyone is capable of doing it. That is all for today!

Service Project Day 1

Hello everyone! So today I meet with young Swetha, a kindergartener at a local school.  Swetha is my new "adopted" student, with who I will be working with the next few days.  All my prior posts have been over VoiceThread, internet resources, spreadsheets, and so on.  So what I will be doing with Swetha is teaching her how she can use all this technology to learn new things.  I will also be working with Ms. Garcia who is working with Cassandra, one of Swetha's classmates.  They both are learning about the life cycles, so we decided to relate all of our findings to a frog's life cycle, which Swetha and I are working on, and a chicken's cycle, which Ms. Garcia and Cassandra are working with.  We started them off by creating a blog for them, and Swetha was very excited about her blog.  Afterward, we had Swetha and Cassandra fill out a K-W-L Chart and with that we challenged them to think of some essential questions that could apply to what we're focusing on.  Today was more of an introductory session, and next time we will get down to business!! Until then!

Spreadsheets

I've always known that spreadsheets were available, but me I just wasn't sure if I would ever come across to using them.  Sure I was introduced to spreadsheets back when I was in school, and I have used them a couple of times at previous work places, but other than that I just didn't find a use for them.  Well I was wrong!  I began searching various websites and found out that in fact, you do need spreadsheets for many things.  While I was searching I even found a neat site that helps you create a graph- it is designed more for young children.

I began to create a "test" spreadsheet, and quickly discovered I had forgotten most of the basics of the tools offered.  Once I got the feel for it, I made my spreadsheet over an estimated wedding budget.  Yes it is a random spreadsheet, but hey I had to start somewhere!

Then I referred back to my unit plan and decided to create a spreadsheet that would reflect a mini survey I constructed.  The survey was directed to my class and I just wanted to know what their favorite season was- simple.  After calculating the information I ended up with a pretty neat looking graph!  Ah the love of spreadsheets has struck me.

Camera, Set, Action!

This week I have been finalizing my movie product, and I must say it has been an adventure!  After I had my storyboard set, I began shooting my video- with the help of some friends.  Of course, I did not have a continuous final movie product in my camera at the end, so I had to get some help from movie making tools.  I happened to use the pre-installed Movie Maker on my PC and it worked mighty fine!  There are many options out there, but thankfully computers nowadays already have a program set up- especially for people who don't create movies on a daily basis!

Movie Maker has so many tools that you can play around with.  You can add videos or pictures from your computer, outside memory, or even your webcam!  There are many options to creating a movie on there; the setup is very similar to power point, and you can most definitely create a movie with those options.  As for me, I just uploaded the short clips and pictures that I would be using.  What I also found neat, was that you can use animations to transition the clips from one to the next, or use the visual effects tab to change the image around.  Yet the tool that I most used was the cropping tool!  It really does come in handy, because sometimes there is unwanted space at the beginning or end (sometimes even in the middle) of your shots.  So you do want to take advantage of that tool!  Movie Maker was a great help to me and I know that by exploring you will enjoy it as much as I did!

7 Elements of Digital Storytelling

So I began my most recent project- creating a short movie that ties into my activity plan.  I wanted to find a way to incorporate movie making into the holidays.  I first created my storyboard then I came up with this movie that explains a little of why I choose to focus on Valentine's Day, the history of it, and why it is important to me.  This is similar to what I would like my students to create, yet on the holiday of their choice.

I had to rely on something to create this movie and it was the 7 elements of digital storytelling:
point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, the gift of your voice, the power of the soundtrack, economy, and pacing.

In my movie in general, I'd say I covered pretty well my point of view on Valentine's Day.  As far as my dramatic question is concerned, it was the question of why it is important to me.  The emotional content I decided to add, what the part where I mention that my dad always gives my sister and me a flower.  It was a personal touch I wanted to add.  The gift of my voice? Well I think you got to hear my voice throughout the whole video!  Although, I would have to say I didn't include the 'power of the soundtrack' it is an important element that can add to your movie as a whole!  The last two- economy and pacing- are very similar and they are just about not overwhelming the audience and keeping a steady pace throughout the video.  These can be difficult to deal with, because at times I wanted to add more information, but I was able to cut it down to a point where it was enough information that you needed to know!

In the end, the movie making process can involve a good amount of your time, but the end result will be worth it!

Digital Storytelling

                                                                                                                                                                                                    
Digital storytelling is a way that people can use technology to tell their stories- whether it be about their own life or something educational.  For teachers, the latter seems to be the most beneficial, because there are endless opportunities that we can incorporate this tool to teach a lesson or have students create their projects.  Digital storytelling is typically based upon a theme or overall message, and this is one way that we as teachers can use this in our lessons.   Digital Stories help an educator explain different concepts, ease some lessons that may be difficult for the students, introduce vocabulary, and ask an array of questions to promote students thinking skills. As an educator, we should always be looking for different ways that one can incorporate technology to education.  So I suggest you do consider using some form of digital storytelling.


One of the different forms of digital storytelling that I would like to share with you today is VoiceThread.  This form of technology allows a teacher to use anything from pictures, audio, video or text and they vary in length of times.  VoiceThreads allow the students to interact with each other and develop higher levels of thinking skills and technology awareness.  Students can use the many tools it has such as doodling, where they can use the pen to point to certain areas that they are talking about. You can design a VoiceThread to model a lesson you are teaching, for example my lesson on the months of the year that I have mentioned in my past posts.


After much brainstorming of how I could possibly use this technology into my unit plan, I created my activity plan and decided to focus on the seasons of the year and teaching them through the VoiceThread I have created.  As you can see, each slide is focusing on one season, and asking the students some HOTS questions that allows them to interact with each other.  That is one good thing to keep in mind- don't use one answer questions when creating a voice thread, make sure the students have some sort of thinking they must go through in order to answer the questions. One thing I like from the VoiceThread is that students can respond in different ways.  They can comment, input their voice, or draw on the pictures to answer the questions. 


I definitely will be incorporating this new found technology into my future lesson plans.  It is such a great way to introduce a lesson and even use it as a follow up activity for when students are finished with their work.  It's a great source and it is available for everyone to use... so why not use it?
  

Internet Resources

Hello again! I hope you all are having a wonderful day!  So today I would like to share with you some information over internet resources that I came across.  Nowadays things are so advanced that you can really find anything you need online or with some sort of technology!  That just makes learning that much more fun and interesting-especially for the young ones.

I know I can totally incorporate many of these new found resources into my most recent unit plan over the months of the year.  I found a lot of great blogs out there of other kindergarten teachers who are willing to share their activities to everyone.  There are so many different activities online that students can do that teach them about the different months of the year.  I think one of the new found discoveries I loved what the ability to create surveys online, and using them in order to test what the students know before and after each lesson. 

These online resources are not only for this current lesson, but also for future lessons!  I can already see myself using Meebo to interact with students from other places around the nation or even the world!  Or just finding other informational websites with online templates of different lesson plans.  The possibilities are endless!  Also a big thanks to all these bloggers who offer their ideas and projects for others to use.   Here I have included my internet resources I was able to put together for my unit plan, enjoy!

Blogs in the Classroom

Recently I have been exposed to the wonderful world of blogs, and believe me it is wonderful.  I have so many visions of using blogs in my classroom.  In David Warlick's 2c Worth blog, he uses his blog to communicate to others about various events that happen in his daily life that have some sort of meaning or influence on him.  I would like to use my blog to inform parents of the students about the daily activities we are doing in the classroom.  Many times, parents want to know everything, and it may be hard as a teacher to go over every lesson in 5 min.  So why not just create a daily blog, that way the parents can also voice their concerns or questions they may be having.


Another great idea for using the blog is to allow the students to log in and work on some activities on my blog.  I can design it to be kid-friendly and that way they can access the links that I have provided so they can get their projects done, and as an added bonus they are working with technology!  There are so many gadgets out there that can serve as learning tools! 


As an educator, I know it is great help when I can get advice from other educators who are in the same position I am.  Blogging can help me accomplish that! I found some awesome blogs out there such as KinderPlans where there are various posts of new activities that can be used in the classroom.  Another neat blog I found was Michelle Sommerville's 3 R's blog.  She has awesome activities with pictures for any occasion.  I also loved that she has random contest where she will give out prizes to other teachers.  If this was not enough I also found Just Another Day in K! This blogger has links all over her blog, that relate to different writing activities.  So this is my goal, to share with other educators my activities and projects I do with my classroom, in hopes of helping someone out there like me!

IBL/PBL

Hello everyone, today I would like to talk about some fantastic new information that I have encountered, that will definitely help out in my classroom as well as yours! I have recently been working on a new Unit Plan for my kindergartners which focuses on the various months of the year, and I found Inquiry and Project Based Learning to be very helpful in this whole process.

Inquiry-Based Learning is the way children learn through the process of involvement.  I believe this is true because the best way that anyone can learn something is by hands-on activities that allows you to better understand the meaning and remember it as time passes by.  This is also where the art of questioning comes into play, Why? What?... etc.  These types of questions motivate the students to want to learn more about the certain topic at hand.  


Project-Based Learning is having the students placed in the middle of the learning process and them interacting with their surroundings in order to learn more.  This type of learning, personally, I think is great because what better way to motivate students than placing them in the middle of the situation?  It is known that we will remember 90% of what we do verses the 10% we do remember of what we hear.  


Students need to be exposed to this types of learning processes, and I feel that Inquiry and Project based learning definitely helps out in my unit plan.  I can expose the students to real life situations of why December is cold and June is hot.  The possibilities are endless, and every teacher should include some sort of these learning processes into their daily lessons!

(Check out my collaborative paper!)