Ideas-Videos in the Classroom

Grade Level: K-5th Subject: Social Studies Topic: Historical Figures TeacherTube, YouTube, Vimeo and other video-sharing sites have made the possibility of learning information from someone else or in another place that much more accessible. As an elementary teacher, I have been able to incorporate video on a daily basis in my lesson planning. The great thing about these video-sharing sites is that one can find a plethora of different types of videos, ranging from music, home-videos, and educational. As far as the educational videos, I have most frequently found videos for my science and social studies lessons. For science I have found videos from Bill Nye the Science Guy and my students are always fully engaged with the music and video. In a way I find that they grasp the concept better. Video is great for students who are visual and auditory learners. The way I have used videos in my classroom is as an introduction to the lesson I will be teaching. The videos give the students a background knowledge they may not have had before. As far as for a social studies research lesson, I would have my have a collection of videos ready for my students to watch independently when we go to computer lab. Here they can take notes and pause the video at their own convenience. Another great way to use videos is having the students make their own videos using sites such as Animoto, Windows-movie maker or iMovie. Students can make a video as a reading project. After students read a novel, they can with pictures or actors recreate the story including setting, characters, and the plot. Although making an actual video themselves requires time and effort any grade level from 3rd and up can easily do this. This could be an activity that can be using for a unit in reading, where more time is given to the students to complete quality work.

Benjamin Franklin-Video

Flickr Slideshow

Social Bookmarking and Education

Social bookmarking is being able to save your favorite websites in an organized way. With social bookmarking, one can access one’s bookmarks from any computer at any place and any time. Social bookmarking is the ability to also access other people’s bookmarks from around the world with similar interests as one owns. Social bookmarking is important to education. It is important for educators to collaborate and exchange ideas. I have not really used Delicious as much, but I have used Pinterest in the summer and I always looked at the Education category. I have been able to gather so many ideas in a matter of seconds. One idea lead to another and another. Aside from teachers using social bookmarking, I can see students using these tools as well. When it comes to doing research, students can start compiling a lists of links that can be shared year after year. Teachers can also have bookmarks for specific subjects that students can access when they are required to do research on a specific topic. Social bookmarking is great for students who have difficulty using the internet to research. Many times students want to access any site they Google. Social bookmarking is a start for those beginner students who need that extra help when researching ideas.

Lesson Design: Twitter, Glogster, Video Conferencing

A lot of the Web 2.0 tools we have discussed in this class so far, I was already familiar with. Twitter is something I have been using for about two years now. However, I never thought I could actually incorporate it in the classroom. Learning how to integrate Twitter in the classroom got me thinking of ways I can use it on my technology-integration lesson. I have a few ideas on what I would want my technology-integration lesson to be on.

The Web 2.0 tools I will incorporate in my lesson are:

1.    Twitter,

2.    Video Conferencing, and

3.    Glogster.

The grade level for this lesson will be:

 3^rd grade, social studies, and focusing on historical figures

The reason I want to focus on this lesson is that I find it very difficult for me as a teacher to teach social studies, let alone make it fun. I personally have never really enjoyed social studies, but I feel that incorporating technology lets social studies take on a new meaning. I have already incorporated these type of lessons in my classes so far and I have seen the students very much engaged.

Lesson:

Each student will be assigned a specific historical figure (Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Banneker). After we have read facts about these individuals and students have taken notes they will be required to create a Glogster for their assigned historical figure. This assignment will be a collaboration with another 3^rd grade class in Texas that is studying the same content. The students will be connected with the other students from another school via Twitter. Each student will create a Twitter account for their historical figure. They will compose tweets that give facts about their individual to help them gather more information on their figure. This will guide the students with their online interactive poster, Glog.The students will be given a rubric of the requirements (include 1 video, 1 audio, 3 content appropriate graphics, and 4 texts).  At the end of their project the students will connect with each other via Video Conference. They will present their Glog to the other classroom and provide questions and feedback. This is a great opportunity to collaborate with others across the country!

Twitter in the Classroom!

One of the things I learned from the people I follow is that there are many resources out there at our fingertips. On Scholastic Teachers (@ScholasticTeach) it gave a lesson plan idea on what is happening with Sandy and it's effects of it. These tweets are current and help us teachers provide current events to students, so that they know about what is going on in the world around them. I have been following tweets from local media, educational organizations, and educators. Personally, twitter for me is a great QUICK resource to use to be up to date on what is going on in the world around us. One can easily attach a link to their twitter and it includes only 140 characters so reading the tweets is not overwhelming as other social networking might be to some.

At first I have never thought of using twitter in the classroom, but after reading some of the articles it included many great ideas that I could start using in my classroom as of Monday. I will mention my top 3 favorite ideas I read from Steve Wheeler that seem doable in any classroom.

1. ‘Summing Up’: Ask students to read an article or chapter and then post their brief summary or précis of the key point(s). 

I would love to use this in my classroom to teach summary. Many times my students have a difficult time with it comes to having to summarize books they have read. They like to include too many details that are irrelevant. But, their task would be to only include information that happened in the beginning, middle, and end.

2. ‘Time Tweet’: Choose a famous person from the past and create a twitter account for them – choose an image which represents the historical figure and over a period of time write regular tweets in the role of that character, in a style and using the vocabulary you think they would have used (e.g. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar). 

I feel that most teachers in elementary have a hard time incorporating social studies into their curriculum that many times it gets left behind. But, with incorporating Twitter and Social Studies the students will have a lot of fun and more of it can be done in the classroom. I like the idea of assigning the students to take the role of a historical figure and pretend that they are them and twitting ideas and facts about that individual. This will really allow the teacher to see what the student has learned about that person.

3. ‘Twitter Pals’ Encourage students to find a Twitter ‘penpal’ and regularly converse with them over a period of time to find out about their culture, hobbies, friends, family etc. Ideal for learning about people from other cultures. 

Having twitter palls will give the students an opportunity to build a community with other students in the same grade level, school, community, or state. Depending how the teacher wants to do it. 

Wheeler, S. Teaching With Twitter. Retrieved November 3, 2012, from http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/01/teaching-with-twitter.html.

Week 9

When I was first introduced to Podcasts, the first thing I thought of was having my student's actually create their own Podcasts. Although last week we did our own personal searches for Podcasts to be used in the classroom, I still feel that students creating Podcasts of their own would be more beneficial to them.  After creating my own Podcast using Audacity in my other EDT class, I quickly started thinking of how I could implement this into my own classroom. In third grade, poetry is a key factor in a child's success when passing the STAAR exam at the end of the year. Because we are covering poetry on a daily basis, I thought an engaging activity for my students could be to have them recite their own poems on a Podcast. This is a great strategy to get my students practicing their fluency because it is not easy to read with expression. I would have my students recite different forms of poetry such as humorous, narrative, and lyrical. Having them recite the poem with expression will help them understand the tone of the poem. Students could also practice pausing after line breaks and stanzas. Once the Podcast was created the Podcast could then be shared with teachers, parents, and other students.  Most teachers in my district have their own personal website for students and parents to access. With this tool, the student's work could be posted on the website for them to listen to and for their parents to hear, as well.

            Another way to use Podcasts in the classroom would be as a listening center in the classroom. I would save different genres of Podcasts, depending on the content being covered that week. The students would then choose which Podcast to listen to during a math or reading center. One podcast they could listen to would be a collection of past students' recited poems.