Betty’s Instructional Technology Blog

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:

http://sketchcast.com/swf/player.swf?id=ir80cNI

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:

They will get to their blogs using the following web site: www.gtps.k12.nj.us/technology/litcircles5th .

Directions on how to create posts, comments, and embed Voicethreads are included.

This morning is our first attempt. I’ll describe more as the project unfolds…

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:

The following are two free sites that can be used to convert video files:

www.zamzar.com (upload your file, they send you a link in an email – converts audio & video files)

http://www.nchsoftware.com/prism/index.html (download their free software)