More Google Sites!?

This week in class we worked on another Google sites assignment. In a previous reflection I told the world how I felt about Google Sites. All of the things we have to do for this assignment can be done on my UEN and I think UEN lookes nicer and is already organized well for this purpose. So maybe I will want a classroom website on Google sites if I'm unfortunate enough not to have access to UEN. Like, if I end up teaching at a privare school. I don't know if you have to teach at a public school to use my UEN?

On a HAPPY note, our digital story is finished. I'm getting ready to burn it to a CD, but it is also published here for all to see.

Our Digital Story

Photo Story

I love this program. It does have a few limitations, like not letting you animate titles and not letting you overlap imported sound files. Overall you get a great looking project with a lot of ease. I can see my 5th or 6th graders using this program easily. I'm looking forward to seeing how easy it is to upload it to my blogg. I would like to create a personal movie for my familly blogg. Can't wait for you to see how great our digital story is.

More about digital stories

In Class this week we learned a little about Audacity. I'm excited about this software. For some time I've wondered how Students could record themselves at a station in the class room. I think having them answer assessment questions orally would be a good way to asses content knowledge. But an oral quiz given individually by the teacher is time consuming. If they could record themselves during a station this could give the teacher added insight into thier understanding. This could be a good pre-writing tool. Students could record themselves telling the story or giving free association ideas about a subject. This would be helpful because many children find it cumbersome to write all of their thoughts or to keep up with their thoughts with pencil and paper. The draw back to this idea is transcribing their recording. Maybe a parent volunteer. A CD of students stories in their own voice, poem recitations and songs would be a fabulous addition to their portfolio.

Our digital story is coming along nicely. We just need to record our narration and find some music we like then we are ready to plug it all in. I can't wait to get started on photo story.

Digital Story

This week in class we went learned more about digital stories. I partnered with Brittany. We are excited about our topic: Child labor in late 1800's early 1900's. We found some great photo's and quotes. So far I think what we've worked on influences and touches. I'm going to be extra aware to make sure it informs. This seems tricky right now because we want to avoid describing or narrating the images. I'm looking forward to learning the new software, photo story. I'm most excited to learn how to pan across an image.

What Our Snowmen are Doing

In class yesterday our teacher, Mary Sowder, was modeling cooperative learning. She read us a story about snowmen and in groups we made our own.

Reflection

This week in class we made our own web site on Google. I'm not super excited about this tool. I think my blog and my UEN site are better for my needs so far, but I really like that we are getting a good survey of online tools. Who knows maybe a Google site is something I will want to use later and be so glad I was introduced to that tool. I'm amazed at how many things Google offers that I've never explored before.
I'm really looking forward to the digital story. A project like this is daunting at first; choosing a topic, writing a script, manipulating many variables to work smoothly together... So, like many things in my life I'm looking forward to the finished product, to the pride I'll feel when it's done and the growth I will have experienced.

Wow!

This week we did a lot that I was already familiar with and several things that are new to me. I already use gmail and love how it tracks conversations and displays my contacts on each screen.

I love Google Docs. To think that I've been looking at that link on my email page for ever and didn't know what I was missing. This is a great tool for collaboration in our classes now but could also be useful later when we want to collaborate with our team teachers.

I've been keeping a family blog since this summer and am excited about the idea of a classroom blog. I'm wondering about issues of privacy with a classroom blog. I wonder if a lot of parents will object to class pictures on a private blog.

I already have a my space account so at first I thought a face book account would be superfluous, but there were a lot of people in my contacts list who are on face book who are not on my space. I haven't found where you can blog on face book an that is something I like about my space. However, my space doesn't offer chat and I think this is a great way to make yourself available to parents. I think parents will hesitate to call or not find time. But if they are your face book friend and they are at the computer anyway they may be more likely to send a message or chat with you and that could be a big asset.