We are officially in "testing season" right now and both Annie and I have been using the netbooks and iPod Touches as stations in math. Students are going to Odyssey using the netbooks and we have been having the students use any of our math apps on the iTouches. We have download 2 brain apps (Brain Trainer and Luminosity). Luminosity requires students to sign up and because it keeps track of your progress. It is fun though-- I have played it on my own at home and I hope it's helping my memory!
Our school recently purchased First in Math for our after school program. As soon as we receive usernames & passwords for our students they will be using this web based program on the netbooks. I am hoping in the near future they come out with an app on this.
Free rice is a great website my students love going to and they are donating rice. This would be another great app! Students have been accessing this through Safari on the iTouches.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Technology and TAKS
Return to Glogster
We have been studying colonization to Texas. As a way of trying to help students remember the famous people and vocabulary students made a Glogster. The technical difficulties we had at the beginning of the year have been resolved. Every now and then something weird happens when using Glogster. One student dragged an image onto his wall and for some reason he had an abundant supply of arrows. It was almost like the drag a copy action in Inspire. Students did ask if they could make an Animoto instead.... I told them for our next project they can make an Animoto.
Students will be researching a famous Texan who fought in the Texas Revolution or was one of the famous Old Three Hundred. Students will then create an Animoto--they are excited to get an opportunity to use Animoto again. One thing I really like about Animoto is that it can be done so quickly Glogster are more time intensive and take several days to complete depending upon how fancy the Glog is. I find it interesting that students prefer Animoto over Glogster-- it must be the music video feel to it.
Friday, January 15, 2010
All about Garbage
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Welcome to the Wiki World and other updates
Today my class began using the netbooks during problem solving. Students posted their answers in the comment section of my class blog. Students did not have any problems posting, just following my directions. During science students made predictions on how long different types of trash (banana peel, plastic jug, brown bag,etc) took to decompose. Students then went to two different websites to see how long it actually took these items to decompose. Students were shocked to see how that glass bottles never decompose and a plastic milk jug takes 1 million years! As one student said, "Wow we go through like 3 gallons a week!" Throughout our study of conservation the past 2 weeks (thanks to our science curriculum) students have really had a lot of "ah ha" moments!
Beginning this Friday students will begin making their posters to encourage other students to recycle and take care of the environment. Last week I found our about the environmental awareness contest the district participates in. I told my students everyone would be participating this year because we will be working on this in class. Students will have the opportunity to create an ad or write a news article. My plan is to have students make 2 copies of their ad - 1 to submit and 1 to post around school. Too bad they can't submit a glog.
My class wiki is FINALLY up and running. Today I spent a few minutes explaining how we are going to be using the wiki. Tomorrow will be their first day using the wiki. One of the things I really like about the wiki is that students can type their comments right onto the page...as opposed to the blog where they need to go to the comments section and no one may ever see it. I stressed the importance of NOT deleting other people's comments. We'll see how this goes tomorrow. Eventually, I would like my students to have discussions about reading group books on our wiki.
Quick update--the wiki didn't go as well as I expected. We ended up posting comments on our class blog. Comments were being deleted, so we'll try the wiki again with another project.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Tour of Trash
We have spent the past 2 weeks studying conservation in depth in science, which coincides nicely with out grant. Today we took at tour of Terrace to write down observations. We were not able to see all of the lunch trash, however, we did get some footage of what is typically thrown away. Students weren't surprised to see food, styrofoam trays, and milk cartons. We were able to talk to our custodian, Maria, and she said each grade level uses about 3 bags of trash during lunch. Students calculated that to be 18 bags of trash during lunch each day! They couldn't believe it. Check back for a video shot by one of my students.
