In this workshop, we will cover the following topics:
Voicethread- Check out this wonderful resource from Colette Cassinelli. A special thanks to Wes Fryer’s blog for sharing this wiki (and tons of other great resources). I’d also like to thank the Langwitches blog for sharing digital storytelling directions for various Web 2.0 tools.
Kidspiration 3 – new great features for searching for graphics, built in dictionary & thesaurus, and math manipulatives
I came across a very comprehensive resource for all things Web 2.0. It contains information about everything from blogs to podcasts to wikis to digital storytelling to resources like Animoto and Jing and Photo Story and on and on… It also provides resources on digital citizenship issues like copyright and cybersafety. Another link that shows a creative way one district encouraged their staff to enter this Web 2.0 world can be found here. It contains a detailed plan including weekly tasks and incentives provided throughout the year.
I learned about it through listening to the Ed Tech Weekly podcast from Ed Tech Talk. It still amazes me how much information is out there and how great is it to be able to access it through listening to podcasts and reading blogs. The idea of these “digital subscriptions” coming right to my computer still blows me away.
Are you familiar with the Discovery Educator Network? Educators from across the country share wonderful resources through this network. Just this week I found two really great resources I can use.
The first was a podcast by Hall Davidson. He provides some down to earth, easy ways to use media in the classroom. The podcast is from back in December. I just came across it this week. Resources for it are posted on his blog entitled, ”Media Matters.” I listened to it from a different blog called “Bit by Bit.”
The second resource, I just found tonight. It contains some nice PowerPoint tutorials on various media resources including Photo story, Adobe Premiere Elements and Web 2.0 tools like Animoto, Del.icio.us, and Voicethread. The link to this resource is: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/matt.monjan/the-bird-house-your-source-for-geekybird-stuff/ Thanks to the author, Matt Monjan, for taking the time to create these resources and for sharing them with us. I am looking forward to sharing some of these links at workshops I’ll be giving this summer.
As I continue my quest to find web 2.o tools that enhance teaching and learning, I found Sketchcast, a site that allows you to create tutorials on any topic by simply using a mouse or a graphics tablet to draw as you speak. I thought this tool would be perfect for a blog project I am working on for my district involving creating math tutorials for students and parents. When we have it up and running, I’ll post a link. I hope to convince an upper grade teacher teach have his/her class create some content for us soon.
On the Sketchcast site I came across an example for lattice mutliplication, a topic that eludes most parents since they learned to solve multiplication problems much differently.
I decided to sign up for a free account at http://www.sketchcast.com/ and created my own. It was pretty easy to do. I played with it for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t figure out how to change colors, but I will continue to explore. My sample shows a corny example for solving a problem using the Pythagorean Theorem. The link appears below:
Check out this sample video I made using some pictures about recycling for a student project. It was created using a very cool free web 2.0 tool called Animoto. It has been posted on several “best of” blog posts as a great tool for students. I plan to use it with a group of students who are creating a blog about recycling. They have been doing a lot of research. I’ll be writing more about their project in an upcoming post.
I am going to attempt my first blogging project with students. I will be working with a wonderful 5th grade teacher. Our goal is to have the kids blog about the books they are reading. Each group will read a different book. As they read each chapter, students will assume different roles and respond accordingly. Two of the roles, the illustrator and the literary luminary will respond using Voicethread. The other two, the connector and the discussion director, will write a more traditional blog post. Students will change roles after each chapter.
The students will be rotated through the 5 computers in their room as follows:
In my Web 2.0 workshop, the participants moved through stations using various software/web sites. As part of the station, they posted their ideas on how to use the software in their classrooms. Their ideas on using Voicethread are listed below:
1. Providing examples for students to reference in order to perform mathematical operations. ex- converting fractions from mixed numbers to improper fractions
2. Paired with united streaming, this could be useful to match each video more closely with the curriculum.
3. Have students experiment to get comfortable with more advanced features.
4. Make a station and /or use as review
5. This could be used with our Young Authors Project. Students create short books that are illustarted. The students could read their work and show off their books. It could also be used as part of a poetry unit where students would write and illustrate poetry and read it to an audience.
6. Good for modeling how to proofread.
7. Good for modeling thought processes and logical thinking (Math/Problem Solving)
This is a sample of a Voicethread:
If you'd like to learn how to embed a Voicethread into edublogs, check out this You Tube Video:
In my Web 2.0 workshop, the participants moved through stations using various software/web sites. As part of the station, they posted their ideas on how to use the software in their classrooms. Their ideas on using Google Earth are listed below:
1) Google Earth would definitely be an excellent resource to use for our Social Studies curriculum. It’s a wonderful way to have students take tours through Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt!
2) This is a great resource to being students to historical sites, landmarks, or monuments.
3) Students can research travel distance from one designated point to another using math skills to convert to various units of measure. Students could further calculate time needed to travel by foot, lessons in longitude and latitude, and other map skills.
4) We also found this resource to be a great way to search for the well-known tourist sites, picture galleries, and transporation within each country, plus lots of other options!
5) Provide images of various biomes studied within the science unit Environments.
6) Calculating distances to illustrate relative measurements and sizes.
7) Find places of interest ( Golden Gate Bridge, Washington Monument, etc) or locate Regions of the United States to go along with the Social Studies Curriculum.
In my Web 2.0 workshop, the participants moved through stations using various software/web sites. As part of the station, they posted their ideas on how to use the software in their classrooms. Their ideas on using Movie Maker are listed below:
1. Students could create a finished product from their PhotoStory.
2. The Movie Maker program is an excellent resource and a little more advanced than Photostory. Like Photostory, presentations can be enhanced to address the student’s learning needs and students can also create presentations of their own.
3. Unitedstreaming video clips could be imported and muted and students could make their own voiceovers.
4. Students could use a video camera and tape themselves and edit the video demonstating a topic, pretending to be a historical figure, having a debate, etc.
In my Web 2.0 workshop, the participants moved through stations using various software/web sites. As part of the station, they posted their ideas on how to use the software in their classrooms. Their ideas on using Photostory are listed below:
1. I might have students come in at the end of this year and use Photostory to create a tour of the library to use for orientation next year.
2. Will be used for an immigration project, where students will narrate as characters immigrating to America and discuss their hardships.
3. Use with presidential candidates to present their views on different issues.
4. We could use this throughout our social studies curriculum of ancient civilizations. The students could create travel brochures for Egypt, Greece, or Rome. Our Egyptian Museum project could be easily modified to fit this format. Students select 5 artifacts from ancient Egypt that they would like to include in their museums. They would add audio describing the artifact and explaining its importance to the ancient Egyptians.
5. Students can present any report with pictures and sound.
6. The 5th graders can use this for Virtual History.
7. Photostory is an excellent program that can be used to address students individual learning needs. The combination of video with auditory features enhance the learning process. Students can also research topics and develop personal Photostory presentations.
8. Students can use this to present different reports. This is a very user friendly program.
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Staff Development, Web 2.0 | Tagged: del.icio.us, Kidspiration 3, training, voicethread | 
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Posted by napolib
