Another One Down...

I don't have too much to share after our final class, but am happy with the amount of new things that I was able to take away and apply to my classroom.  So far, this course was the most worthwhile and gave me things to use.  However, I did feel like it had quite a bit of redundant and busy work.

My class is currently in the third day of going through the webquest activity that I put together for our final project.  It is going really well so far and I love using this activity to help put more accountability and power into the hands of my students.

I felt a bit overwhelmed with this class and the work, but I think that has more to do with the coincidence that I was having my students work on digital stories and that required a lot of my attention and time outside of school, as well as some of the other school expectations that happened to come during this class block.

A WebQuest Adventure!

I am not sure yet if I bit off a little more than I can chew with the GoogleSites assignment, but we'll see.  I really wanted to make sure that since I am spending time making something that it be something that I can actually use with my students.  For my GoogleSite, I decided to take on the challenge of creating a Webquest.  We have a social studies unit on Native Americans, with a focus on three specific area groups (Northwest Coast, Great Plains, and Southwest).  The unit can get quite long because of the constraints on our classroom schedules and things that come up, so I thought this might be a nice way to slim down the unit a bit and still keep the main learning points as the focus.  I am using it similar to a "flipped" classroom style.  I will be having the students split up into small groups, but have teams within the group.  Group A will study a Native American group through the webquest, while the Group B uses the class text book or other supplemental readings or videos to learn the same material.  Then, the two groups will come together and compare findings of how the Native Americans from an area use natural resources to survive and what the main resources used are.  The groups will take turns working/learning via the webquest and text book/other material, and continue to meet, compare, take notes until all three Native American groups are covered.  The assessment will be a final project where the group complies and presents their findings (along with rubric).  Each group will have a choice on the format and style that they share and present (paper, digital story, poster, etc).  There will also be group and individual evaluations along the way.  Fingers crossed this works!

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.