Thing 17-Twitter in the Classroom

I did my search on twitter and actually found instances of twitter in the primary classroom. The teacher had a range of activities from students responding to a question or to them responding to a picture. I think twitter would be good to use in the classroom, but I also feel that it opens students up to circumstances that are inappropriate. The teacher did say that he had rules that they had to follow. They could not mention thier name or another classmates name in a tweet. I am willing to try to use twitter but I personally don't like twitter and it is going to be hard for me to promote something that I don't like to use.

An activity that I think could be used in the classroom would be a sentence prompt. Students could respond to a sentence starter. I would make sure that students knew it had to be a 7UP and a 5 Star sentence and use at least one of our weekly or previous vocabulary words. We could then bring the posts up on the whiteboard and discuss how each sentence rates on our rubric. This would be used as a writing lesson.

Thing 15-RSS

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a family of web feed formats that are updated frequently. I actually subscribed to the blog that I wrote about in Thing 14.

Thing 14-Blogs

The blog I decided to visit was titled "Creative Teaching". This site had tons of resources for teachers, students and parents. The teacher who composed this blog discusses holidays and covers all the academic subjects with resources. The resources consist of Internet sites, worksheets and lesson plans. The site did not jump out and grab my attention. It had advertisements and blog posts. No fancy stuff to clutter the site. I have bookmarked this site in my favorites and plan to spend time going through the links and all the posts.

http://www.fascinate-educate.com

Thing 13-Mid-Module Reflection

WOW! I am halfway finished with this module. I have learned many new things in completing the different parts of this module. I didn't, however, realize that this module was so time consuming. I guess it seems time consuming because I don't really know some of the tasks that need to be completed. I am learning as I go along. I guess I should've started on this a long time ago. I am excited about implementing what I have learned with the teachers and students at my two schools.

Thing 12-Find Something New 2.0

I found Game Classroom on the Web 2.0 tools. This site offers educational games, homework help, videos and worksheets for grades K-6. I haven't shared this site yet, but I am planning on providing staff development to teachers on internet sites and I am definatley going to present this site to them. I am also going to use this site as a mom to help my kindergarten son with reading and math skills.

http://www.gamesclassroom.com

Thing 11-Video

I chose a video from schooltube on the metamorphosis of a caterpillar changing into a chrysalis. When I taught first grade, we would do an insect unit every spring. I would always order caterpillars and we would watch the lifecycle of a butterfly transpire in fornt of us. The only bad part was that most of the changes happened when we weren't at school. This video will help students understand the lifecycle better because they actually get to see it happen. The WV CSO's would be under science:describe changes in life cycle of living organisms.

http://www.schooltube.com/video/7adc199b6ffddb87901c/Caterpillar-Metamorphosis

Thing 10-Digital Age Assessments

I liked using rubrics in my first grade classroom. I had my students to do several projects and present them to the class and I assessed them according to a very generic rubric. For instance, I had the students to do reports on spiders. I would assess them according to generic guidelines and the assessment was all mine. However, now I would let the students help me create the rubric. Then I would let the students self assess themselves after the presentation. I would then conference with each student and compare thier rubric score to the score that I gave them. We would discuss how we came to the conclusion that we each did on our rubrics. This way I am making the students more accountable for their assessment and in turn for their learning.

Thing 9-Podcasts

I went on itunes and researched podcasts that involves sight words and grammar activities. I didn't realize that so many cool educational podcasts existed. I found a really cool on silent e. This podcasts can be used in any elementary classroom. I plan on showing the teachers at my schools the podcast resources that are out there. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to discover such a great resource.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-electric-company-podcast/id373179129

dumpr.net

Dumpr - Photo Fun

Thing 7-Images

I thought the image activity was really neat. I decided to use dumpr because I wanted to make my kids' images into a rubics cube. It turned out really cute. I am definately going to play around with this site more. My kids thought this was super that mommy made them into a rubics cube.

Thing 5-Wordle

My son and I created a Wordle for the sight words he has been learning in Kindergarten. He thought that it was really neat to see his words in a picture. Again, I have played around with wordle but have never used it in my classroom. I am going to show our wordle that we made to the teachers at my schools and hopefully they will see a use for it in the classroom.

title="Wordle: Zach's Sight Words"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/2735384/Zach%27s_Sight_Words"
alt="Wordle: Zach's Sight Words"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

What are you thankful for? by Sonja

What are you thankful for? by Sonja

Thing 4-Wallwisher

I made a Wallwisher to use this week about Thanksgiving. I had never created my own wallwisher before but I have posted on others wallwishers. I have also scheduled to use wallwisher with some of my classes this week. I hope the teachers like what they see and continue to use it in thier classrooms on a daily or weekly basis.

What are you thankful for? by Sonja

Thing 3-Twitter

I did a search for whiteboard lessons. I found some really cool lessons. Lakeshore even had lessons posted for math and science. I haven't been on Twitter since our sessions in Charleston this past August, but I see myself using it more now that I undstand more about how to use it.

Thing 2-Create a Blog and Post of Choice

I have created a blog that I use with my teachers at my two schools. I think that blogging is a good tool to use in the classroom. I am going to suggest that my 4th grade teachers use blogging with thier students since all the 4th grade students just got their own laptops. This would be a great weekly or biweekly assignment for students to do.