Glogster Success

After emailing Glogster I was able to get the needed information to send to our tech department to unfilter Glogster. It was much faster loading Glogster and my students were able to finish their Explorer projects! They commented at how fast it was now. For this project we focused on using images and text. For our next glog I hope to have my students embed video clips.

Glogster

For our explorer project my students researched an explorer then created a Glog to share that information with students. Originally I planned on giving them just a week to find the information and put together their Glogs. Things did not go quite as planned because of the many loading issues we are experiencing with Glogster. Several students have lost their work because when trying to save it somehow the screen gets stuck and you just see it "loading" after 10 minutes I told them to just exit out of Internet Explorer. For some students this wasn't a big deal since they didn't have too much on their Glog, however, for one or two students they were almost done! One student had to start over 4 times and yesterday asked if he could do an alternative assignment not using Glogster. I told him we are going to try again Monday. Karen suggested I try using Glogster as a station and only have 4-5 students on it at a time... we still experienced the same issue. I have emailed Glogster and I am waiting for a respose. I have had 3 students finish their Glogs successfully.We were just hoping and crossing our fingers when it came time to save.

As we begin using more and more Web 2.0 tools we need to make sure our district servers and computers can handle it. I love Glogster, however, now I am more relunctant to use it again due to all of the problems. For the next project I need to have a plan A and a plan B in the event something goes wrong.

Math Multiplication Workstation

Lone Star Math Problem Solving

Students answered their Lone Star Problem Solving in their journal and posted the answer on our classroom blog using the netbooks. I have to say that the students have been on task for the first time all year. Hoooray!!
http://baskinginblonnets.blogspot.com/

Writing on a Blog

Today, the students went to our classroom blog to quick write about a memorable event with a loving pet. We are seeing if it is another way to write. The students are trying to see if they are more comfortable writing in a journal with a pencil or with a netbook online.

Working on Looking up Green Ideas II

Working on Looking up Green Ideas

Free Rice

Students this morning are doing their morning grammar lesson online. Students correct grammar sentence for correct spelling, puncutation, capitalication, and grammar while donating rice to 3rd world countries.

Discussing Nonfiction Magazine

Glogster

My students will be using Glogster for their Explorer project this year instead of doing it on regular posterboard. They needed to explore Glogster on before using it for their project, so their assignment was to create a glog all about themselves. Students loved Glogster and many continued working on their Glogs from home.

I'm glad we were able to explore beforehand because we found out that sometimes it will keep loading and loading and nothing happens. Students also found out the hard way sometimes it does not save. While saving it continued to load and load with no final message saying it was saved. I wasn't sure if this problem was a "Glogster problem" or a problem with our connection.

I told my students that when they start their Explorer glog they will need to save often!! It was a good learning experience for them. Keep checking back for their Explorer glogs.

Grant Project Homepage

We have discovered that we needed to create a webpage specifically devoted to our grant project. This will have all of the links students will be using throughout the year. It's so much easier than having students type in web addresses. I have created the page and linked it to our Terrace webpage. This will allow us to put all of the links for students in one spot.

iPod Touches + Reading + Notes = Success

My students began their new reading group books recently and instead of writing their thinking and questions on stickies I decided to let them use the Notes app on the iPod Touch. It allows them to save their thinking from each assignment and I can go in to make sure they are typing something and not using another app. This has really changed the look and feel of my reading time. I have noticed that my students are much more focused and on-task during reading time. They are asking some great questions in their books. They are also working on their typing skills! Students come down to reading group with their books and iPod Touches read to discuss their book.

Book Trailers

Animoto Fun

Annie and I attended Region IV's Technology Conference last week. Animoto and Wordle were the two most popular web 2.0 tools that it seems like everyone was talking about! While I have used Wordle before I didn't realize how much more you can do with it. My students used it at the beginning of the year to introduce themselves and they loved it. This is something we will continue to use throughout the year.

My students have never made an Animoto, however, they have seen an Animoto that I created to introduce the Texas Regions. While at the conference we attended a workshop on book trailers. I loved this idea! I adapted it to fit our time frame and a week later I had my first book trailer published! It worked out really well because my reading groups are in the process of finishing their books. Within each reading group students work with a partner to create a book trailer for their reading group book. I was able to find some book trailers for us to consume. We analyzed and critiqued them the new few days. By this time they could not wait to get started!
Students planned what images they would search for and what they would say. They were limited in what they could say so they had to learn to be concise.

The first group finished and they were even shocked at how quickly it took. It took all of 10 minutes to import the pictures, add text, and choose the music. I limited their music choices to classical only. There are some inappropriate lyrics under Hip Hop. As soon as they finished they asked when they could make another one. What a great way to demonstrate their understanding of the book and what they felt was important to share to the reader as well as images that were key to the book.

All of the book trailers will be posted on our classroom blog, but I'll post a few here as well.

Curriculum Uses for the iPod Touch

The iPod Touches and mini Dells are transforming my math station time. Prior to using the iPod Touches and mini Dells my math station time has been louder than I would like, which made working with my small group a challenge. My laptop station is using Odyssey to reinforce math skills and my iPod Touch station has become a math facts station. Browsing through the many Apple Apps is overwhleming at times, howeve, I downloaded Math Racer (99 cents), Math Dr. Lite (free), and Math Missing Numbers Attack (99 cents). Students love these games. They are engaged and reinforcing their math facts at the same time. My math station time is so quiet.

In science we have been tracking the weather and the Weather Channel and Weatherbug apps have been great. Students are able to see up to the minute radar and temperatures for locations all over the world. The first day using these Apps took longer than I anticipated to teach since I had to walk around to make sure everyone was in the right spot and pressing the correct buttons, but after that it was smooth sailing the rest of the week. I have started to search the Apple Store site for a cable to connect my iPod Touch to the projector--I have found a cable, but I'm now debating whether or not I should spend my money purchasing it.

I am pleased at how responsible my students are at getting and putting away the iPod Touches and mini Dells.

Our Classes Tracking Our Thinking

What a great day! Our classes got together for the first time today. We were able to encourage our kiddos to socially read a nonfiction article while tracking our thinking. We decided that next time to fish bowl the lesson to get a more rich response to the text.

Itouches and the Water Cycle

iTouches for Science

Eager Faces

When the large Net Book cart arrived in my class, the students' wide eyes were eager to see what the "Power-to-Learn-Grant Santa" brought us this fine September day. It sat in our room for 10 minutes as I tried to carry on with my lesson. However, the students' mind were all focused on looking and exploring with the devices inside. I too couldn't help the temptation of the cart so I gave in.
I took one out and the room was filled with ooohhh and ahhhh. However, we had no luck logging in with a student account or even a teacher account. You could almost hear the hearts breaking when they were not able to use them. Jeanette emailed the "Powers That Be" and the three gentlemen appeared to fix the log in problem.
Finally, the students were able to log in. Students navigated the Library Resources page to Discovery Education. Students viewed video segments of the Moon Phases and answered journal questions over the material. Every student was motivated to learn about the moon THAT day. Nice!

First Day of the Net books!

We can touch our iPod Touches!

Today my student's were able to finally use their iPod Touches. Students were beyond thrilled to finally get to touch the iPod Touch. I loaded Dictionary.com and Math Fact Lite  (both free apps) so students could learn how to type on it. I only had 3 iPod Touches not synced, but it was success.  One student said, "Wow, this is the BEST day of my life!" and many thanked me for "winning" all of the cool iPod Touches.

Students were able to access the time difference in LA compared to Houston. I picture an elapsed time lesson in the future using the clock feature! We compared the weather we were experiencing this morning to the weather in Los Angeles. This will definitely make my temperature lesson in science and math more engaging this year. 

My students will be familiarizing themselves with the Dells next week. 

Technology learning curve

I am quickly learning more and more about Macs and now Netbooks. Our iPod Touches arrived a few weeks ago and after a few late nights at school all of the devices have now been registered and synced. :)  Some of the challenges I faced were a weak wi-fi signal. It was taking over 15 minutes pages to load, so I shut down my computer and tried again. No luck I still had Internet connectivity issues, so I called it a night and went home. A few days later I was able to finish syncing the first 20 iPod Touches and went much smoother....I guess the planets were aligned just right so I was able to sync without problems. Yesterday I was determined to finish syncing the last 2 iPod Touches! iPod Touch #21 wasn't being recognized by my computer and the screen has frozen with the silver Apple trademark. I went to Apple.com and tried to search for some possible troubleshooting tips. I tried them without any luck. I submitted a Tech Ticket and today thanks to Karen Justl we were able to fix the iPod Touch. Yay! 

Our Dell netbooks arrived yesterday, unfortunately, no one could log in (students or teachers). I was very grateful for the computer techs coming out quickly to solve the problem!  

I think we are finally up and ready to go!

iMovie Magic

After my students filmed their tour of Terrace movie, I uploaded their project into iMovie and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to create. Their ready-made templates created a very polished, professional, and fun movie.  I did not add music because I wasn't able to hear some of my students speaking.

I synced the movies they made to some of my iPod Touches and had them available for students and parents to enjoy during Open House. Parents were very impressed and some of their siblings were very envious of these "cool" devices.  Parents couldn't believe all of the technology their child would be using this year...the Activboard, Activ Slate, Flip Video Camera, iPod Touch, and netbooks. 

I am still learning my way through the Apple world & iMovie, but  I was pleased our project did not take a lot of class time to film. Putting together the movie took all of about 10-15 minutes per group.

Getting to Know You!

It has been a busy start to the school year. I can't believe we have been in school for 4 weeks. We were thrilled when our sync cart arrived with our iPod Touches Sept. 10th. The Apple training the next day was had a lot of great information. Annie and I were on information overload by the end of the day. I definitely see why everyone loves Mac computers. It was so easy to create multimedia projects and podcasts.

This week my students were learning how to use the Flip Video Cameras. Students were divided into three groups. Each group would be creating a video tour of our school. Within each group students took turns being the filmer and the speaker. By Thursday we had 1 group's video shot. Due to benchmarking and students being absent we will have to finish filming Monday. My goal is to have it on during Open House on September 22nd.

I uploaded what they shot into iMovie and created their movie. I finished it yesterday after school and I am very pleased with how it turned out. I couldn't believe how easy and fast it was to use. I loved their templates and will be searching the internet for more options.

I really wish I could use my Macbook from home. Hopefully, we will be able to do so soon. My time afterschool is has been very busy with Activtrainings, faculty meetings, team meetings, and planning for the next day.

Annie and I be starting some combined class reading lessons next week. We also hear our laptops will be arriving on the 24th.