My Continued Thoughts

For the last week, my students have been working on completing digital fairytales.  I came across a very kid-friendly site, Little Bird Tales, that I decided on having my students use.  I liked that I was able to set up an account that gave me "admin-like" privileges and create accounts for each of my students and have access to what they are working on.  It has been a bit more of a process than I had expected, mostly the art-work portion, but it is all working out as we continue on with the final days.  

I have continued to enjoy using Twitter to grow professionally.  I definitely retweet more than writing my own messages because of the great things that I have come across.  The RSS feeds aren't getting as much of my attention as I thought they might, due to it being a "one-stop-shop" for staying up current.  However,  right now it just seems like one more thing to add to the list. At some point, when things slow down (yeah, right) I may get more into checking my RSS feeds, but it is between Twitter and RSS, my vote is Twitter.

Filling Up on RSS Feeds

I wasn't a stranger to seeing the little orange icon located on many of the blogs and websites that I visit, but also, didn't pay much attention to looking into what it really meant.  There are so many technology tools that were created to make it easier, quicker and more efficient to use technology, with only slight tweaks and differences with how they work.  RSS feeds fall into that category for me.  A few courses ago, we set up some sort of filtering system that would inform us whenever a topic was written about on the web.  We also have set up social bookmarking which accomplishes a similar purpose of narrowing down and simplifying.  The RSS feed tool is one that I actually feel like I could use because I don't think that I would follow a site that I didn't want to stay updated on.  At this point (which could be basically due to feeling way overwhelmed with the exposure to so many new things out there), I don't keep up with using them after the course expectations expire.  This one I find to be potentially different. It is also funny because most of the feeds that I have subscribed to are due to finds from Tweeting, which I NEVER thought I would do!

Tweet…Tweet

Ok, let's just say that I was not too excited when I saw that we were going to be required to open a Twitter account for this course.  I don't care who broke up with who or what someone thinks about the cold weather.  I had absolutely no clue about how great it can be for professional learning.  I thought this was going to be a quick, effortless assignment for the week so I decided to cross it off the list late Saturday night (great social life, huh?).  A good hour later, I was still there.  Was it effortless…absolutely.  Was it quick…no way.  It was so easy to sign up and create my account, but that was the end of the "quick" part. Follow, unfollow, tweet, retweet…I was hooked, checking out all the great resources that others were sharing.  I already have found a great blog to follow because of it!  We will see if this new found excitement fades away as the weeks roll on.  But even if my interest dies, I can say that this was one assignment that I was happy to have had.

The Benefits of Blogging

This week I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the way to use my classroom blog.  Up until this point, I have encouraged students to share the site with their parents and family member and to share their thoughts about the content of the post.  Starting this week, I will be having two students write their own posts about the classroom happenings that they choose to share.  I really think this may get some of the students who haven't spent as much time navigating the blog getting a little more involved and interested in the process.  I am also going to be taking some class time to make sure that students understand just how they can interact with the blog.  They may not always be able to have a response to the question that I pose or feel comfortable responding to it, however may not realize that commenting on the thoughts of others can be just as empowering and fun.  Besides just having students write posts, I also want to link student work to the blog so that student's feel pride in sharing their work with their families in a different way.

Wrapping Things Up...

I am looking forward to putting the finishing touches on my Pecha Kucha.  I really liked using the student illustrations for the images of my presentation.  I think it will increase student interest and draw them in because of the bright colors, connection to the illustrator, and content of the picture.  If it ends up working the way that I would like will determine if I use VoiceThread for a future class project that I have in mind.  I like the idea of using VoiceThread because a link can be shared on our class blog for parents and other family members to view.  If VoiceThread doesn't work, I am not sure what presentation form I will use instead because I like the idea of sharing with parents, but it may not be possible with the other choices. 

Overall, I am glad that I got to do more work/projects that I can take back to my class and use.  It has gotten a little frustrating with all the activities that we have done so far in the program that have no connection to our classroom and have no potential use.  VoiceThread, Prezi, and the information from Presentation Zen have been some of the most useful new tools.

Developing the Pecha Kucha...

I am looking forward to getting more of the details worked out for my Pecha Kucha.  I am glad that we were given the "ok" to use voices other than our own.  I think that being able to use my students' to create the audio could be a great way to spark student interest.  I am actually considering having student artwork be the images that I use for many of my slides as well.  I have looked around for images of Pilgrims and related topics, but haven't found a collection of 20 that i would like to use, so that is where the idea of using  student artwork came from.

I also really liked taking the time to explore and learn more about Prezi.  I always liked the presentation format that it uses when we looked at presentations that other classmates put together using the software for other classes, but hadn't taken the time to learn a new tool until this class made it mandatory.  I can see myself using this often to create presentations for my students much more than some of the other ones due to the creative flare and interest level that it will create.

Excited But A Bit Confused...

I have really enjoyed the information that is coming from Presentation Zen.  Both the video clips and chapters have had some great concepts for making the best presentations that leave a mark.  My husband is a guidance counselor at a middle/high school and came home one night this week and during our nightly, "What happened at your school today…" conversation, he told me how his team was going to be giving presentations to the district administrators about what sort of programs they run and set up and what services they provide.  I started to share some of the information that we have been learning about in class and how it might be a stronger way to make an impact on the people who, in the end, will have a huge hand in deciding if their work is provides enough value to keep them around.  The main points that I shared with him were to reduce the amount of text on their slides so that the audience members listened to them and didn't get stuck reading the slides instead (one of the main points that Garr has been bringing up).

However, as much as I can see this being a really helpful thing for him to apply in his presentations, I am having a hard time seeing how to apply it to the types of "presentations" that I use in my room.  When I am making a flipchart to present and practice information, I am thinking about making it as interactive as possible (if that is applicable) and to get straight to the point.  It will be an interesting process going through some of my flipcharts to see how to apply some of the things we are learning, but also know that some of them will just have to stay as they are.