Mapping (no, not the curriculum kind)

I've been using Diigo since Sandy introduced it to us and promising myself that I will be okay. The way I used to bookmark was so familiar and easy to rely on...and I'm afraid I will want to find all of my bookmarks for a particular topic and not be able to find them.

I recently stumbled upon some interesting mapping applications that could easily fit with some of our social studies projects, and as the diligent bookmarker, I got to work. Then I started to panic. What if I can't remember the tags???? What if I file it in a weird place? What if I bookmark it and then completely forget I ever found such a great resource?!"

Then I thought I could just post the sites here, label the post, then be drawn back. Maybe I'm making more work for myself.

Anyhow, I found some Google Map applications that were pretty amazing.

Planet In Action has a few 3D programs that are incredibly detailed. This one is a link to "places", which allows you to tour Mount St. Helens or the Grand Canyon as if you were actually zooming over the landscape.

360 Cities allows you to have a panoramic view of many locations worldwide. I thought it would be worthwhile to search the USA map for our purposes and choose from the many locations provided. I thought, if we are brave enough, the students could create blogs on their particular state, National Park, etc. complete with articles and embedded applications like this. However, I might be thinking far above what I can actually teach the children to do. Photostory was hard enough!

You can "see" through the 360 Cities lens on Google Earth as well, which was pretty outstanding. You can search for an area on Google Earth (Eiffel Tower, for example), then Google Earth flies to your location, indicating where the 360 panoramic views are available. It's like a virtual field trip. In fact, the more I get into Google Earth, the more I realize I need training on this! It has SO much. I used the Water Surface view and was able to navigate below the water, but I'm still a little shaky. I would love to be able to find good visuals of trenches, abyssal plains, seamounts, etc. I think it'll take time for me to figure that out.

I was pretty impressed with selecting the BBC Earth layer while touring the oceans. It allowed me to "view" numerous deep sea creatures, hopping from one ocean destination to another. YouTube videos popped up from the BBC as well, making it an exciting tour, to say the very least!

We utilized Google Maps for a project at the end of the year, and though we found a few glitches along the way, it was a great idea! I found that Google Maps is displayed through a variety of mapping programs. Perhaps one of these would be easier to navigate and save for our students.

Scribble Maps and Quick Maps were just two of the mapping applications I found that utilize Google Maps. Scribble Maps was very intuitive, but I still fumbled a bit with including pictures (they covered the map almost entirely). Though I enjoyed the options with Quick Maps, I couldn't consistently drag an icon onto the map, nor could I upload a picture. I'll have to keep exploring.

And just to mix things up a little, here is another take on how we could utilize the National Parks study (if we decide to alter it). It would be very cool if we (as teachers) could figure out how to use this tool from Google Earth as well (it's SO cool!), not only with land features and cities, but with the ocean depths. Look what's coming in a couple of months on PBS, though it is probably not geared toward children.

I'm looking forward to learning more about Google tools and how they work. There's no end to what's out there! Have you tried searching Google through Wonder Wheel? Check it out!

BeFunky

While looking through a blog or two, I found BeFunky.com. You may have already been to this site, but it was my first time editing/enhancing photos this way. I thought it was super cool!
BeFunky Magnet from Zazzle.com

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You can save the pictures to your laptop or order them on a myriad of products.

Task 10

I spent more time this summer getting to know other teachers through their blogs than I thought I would....and I loved it! I never took the time to do this before because I wasn't sure how to find the right kind of teachers to follow. I wasn't sure where to begin and wanted to make the most use of my time. Through Sandy's class, I've found a few blogs, mostly technology based, that have given me some quick pieces of information I can utilize in my classroom immediately. I'm thrilled there are so many teachers out there willing to share.

I looked around Discovery Education, but struggled with playing the videos. For awhile, my laptop kept saying I didn't have the latest version of something or another in order to view the videos. After figuring it out, I was so exhausted, I didn't even watch the video I'd selected. I like that the videos are easy to categorize and am anxious to see if any might fit our studies. I also want to see what else the site has to offer teachers. There was so much on there, I was a bit overwhelmed. I feel as if I need a tutorial on how to best navigate the site to find exactly what I need. I spent about 45 minutes on it yesterday and didn't find what I'd hoped to.

I love the idea at Itunes! I'm worried that since much of what I've seen it from universities across the country, the content might be more appropriate for older children. I tried to watch a video a moment ago, and I think because Itunes was downloading new pieces and parts, I couldn't play the video. An error popped up...I'll have to restart the computer to try it out.

Having these videos at our fingertips would be incredibly helpful. All too often, if we order a video on a scientific topic we run into a few of problems: it could be geared to older children, boring, or the information out of date. Being able to access these videos/clips for free and having immediate access to them is so much better!

I'm going to go back and check it out...but someone very small who's ready for story time is calling me!

Slideshare

You know, I keep having these moments where I think to myself, Wow! I'm so behind the times! There have been many occasions when the students have used Power Point, but I've not been able to forward on their work to parents easily. Emailing 20 separate files has never been fun, so I don't often do it. However, through Slideshare, that problem disappears.

I also like the idea of posting my own Power Point lessons on Slideshare so that when children are sick or if they need a review of a concept, they can check the slides at home.

When I thought about my bank of Power Points, I was reluctant to add one here. Every year, they are naturally modified, so I was nervous to post something that wasn't necessarily ready for publication, so to speak. I compromised by choosing a slide show I share at Parent Night. I modified it a bit to suit this year's class, left off information that I don't know yet (dates for field trips, our evolving Buccaneer Book program), and thought it would be okay to post.

Parent Night 2009

View more presentations from nealkel.

I enjoyed running through 280 Slides a lot. I have mixed feelings about it at the moment. On one hand, the limited format does allow the students to focus on the content instead of the glitz. I also like that it's immediately viewable online. On the other hand, the children LOVE adding clipart (and I limit their options), transitions, and animations. They are so motivated by it.

I wonder if it might be a good idea to have the children start with 280 Slides (options are limited, can focus on content and simple layout) then progress to Power Point. I'm still on the fence about that idea because I imagined that when using 280 Slides, the students would need access to photos for their slides since clip art is limited to shapes. And teaching how to save/retrieve photos may not be what I want to teach first off.

I have so many ideas spinning around in my head now! Where to begin??!!!

Glogging is COOL!

Wow. What was I thinking, having my students use poster board the last five years?!?! This is fabulous!!! I love it! Other than the fact that I spent a good 45 minutes designing and redesigning the thing. I could get very carried away with getting it just the way I want. However, within that experience I learned a lot about making decisions and planning. Knowing what information I want on the blog would have been a good place to start. From there, I could have eliminated the constant searching through graphics. I started out with a background that ended up looking extremely silly with the UT pictures and I couldn't live with it. I had to go through the process to learn, though! :) I would bet that once the children got the hang of this and I provided the structure and guidance on how to design a glog, they would be able to share their work with a lot of pizazz!



I had a few pictures of our field trip to the University of Tampa on hand, so I used those to create a quick sample glog. I could see my students using this format to demonstrate knowledge on many different topics. Last year, my students were big fans of Power Point, so I designed or adjusted projects to be placed in that format. They used it to demonstrate their understanding of the different types of volcanoes and the different states of matter, but putting that information into a glog would be just as fun and easy.

My only concern at the moment is the options for graphics. There isn't an overwhelming amount to choose from (thankfully) but oh, the interactive kissers will drive them all crazy once they find it. We'd have to get the giggles out. But as with Power Point, I would have to discuss the proper ways to design a project for school and how to avoid...overdoing it, for lack of a better word.

At first, I was certain my hyperlink did not work, but as soon as I "previewed" the glog, the hyperlink was OBVIOUS. Duh. I just had to delete a long paragraph in this blog where I posed the question, "Where's the hyperlink?" Mystery solved.

One of the things I enjoyed about glogging (aside from the cool designs) is that the size of the glog is limited. The students would have a limited format within which to work, causing them to think critically about the graphics they might choose in order to ensure they have enough room for the information that's most important to present.

I'm interested in hearing how other teachers have used this! I'm excited to look and learn! My only question so far is...should the students create a glog for each new topic or do they simple erase the slate on the old one to create a new one?

Online Collaboration

I thought the idea behind WallWisher and Writeboard was AWESOME! Well, if I taught children with laptops. I love the idea of an "exit" form for the kids to post their thoughts on a lesson or topic. Way cool! It would be an amazing way to get a quick snippet of what the children thought or absorbed from a lesson. Of course, it would need to be monitored....but I see it as an amazing tool.

I'd like to explore ways to use blogs or wikis (or glogs, I suppose) for the children to post stories they've written. A place where their work could be published and fellow students could leave comments. And I'd be up for hearing about how these tools could be useful in other areas as well. Must go looking...

Skype...I'm not so sure of. I don't know how I would set up any meaningful lesson with it. Who would we speak to? What would we ask? How would I keep the children on task? Would there be one camera for all of us to "talk" to? I have seen skyping in limited forms...and it looks like it has great potential with older children. I'm not so sure I feel comfortable using it yet. Perhaps if I could see examples from teachers of students the same age as mine. That would help.

Tomorrow, I'll check out Etherpad...but for now, dinner calls!

KerPOOF!

Instead of trying to think of ways I could use Kerpoof myself, I decided the smart thing to do would be to look through their suggested lesson plans and ideas. I found SO many fun things to do with Kerpoof.

One of my favorites was having the students diagram angle rotation. My students had a ball playing games with angles last year. One of their favorites was Angle Kung Fu, so I'm certain they would be thrilled to demonstrate their knowledge through an animation on Kerpoof.

In writing, often my students base a story on a format of a well written picture book that we have read together to illustrate a particular writing trait. I haven't used a set of story starters in recent years, and I think I've forgotten how fun they are.

The Mysteries of Harirs Burdick by Chris VanAllsburg is one of the most amazing books to use for this type of inspired writing (it is a collection of very interesting sketches that instantly make you want to write), but Kerpoof could be used the same way.

Kerpoof could also be used for the Literature Circle job of Artful Artist. Every year, I struggle with how to help the kids understand the point of the job. Most often, the children sketch like their pencil caught fire. Very few children actually have taken the time to illustrate a scene from a selected novel that honestly depicts what they might have envisioned while reading. I do think if I offer them the chance to use Kerpoof, those who really don't like to illustrate by hand might excel. I'm up for it!

So, you've realized that since I struggle with originality, what makes me a good teacher is that I'm a good thief!

Animoto Attempt

I was hoping that I could go to Flickr, find pictures that might suit something in our curriculum (social studies or science, but honestly I keep defaulting on the state report we have), and place them into an Animoto film. I ran into a couple of problems...I wonder how I could have avoided them.

I had tried to select appropriate "state" photos from Compfight by identifying each them as one of my "faves" rather than by downloading each individual photo (trying to save time). Next, I attempted to use the "get pictures from your Flickr account" option on Animoto, hoping it would let me select which photos from my account to send to Animoto. It didn't. It brought ALL of my Flickr photos over (but not the ones I had selected as "faves" from other Flickr users).

Once I saw my photos on Animoto, I obviously had to change the theme of my film. Goodbye state report, hello Father's Day tribute. I also had to individually delete photo after photo on Animoto (I didn't need all 39 of my pictures at once for one project!). I wonder if Animoto would have snagged all of my photos if I had originally organized them into folders.

I haven't loaded many pictures to my Flickr account...just enough to try out some of these applications. I had some uploaded of my friend Andrea's trip to our house last month. Here's my short Animoto video of the boys. (But I see that there are so many pictures included, they zip by rather quickly. I would have to change format to a longer video or reduce the number of pictures in the video.)



So I suppose that my students would have to locate pictures for a project on Compfight, save them to their individual folders, then upload them onto Animoto that way. Totally do-able.

However, one of the things I forgot about Animoto is that when you attempt to show them to the class, enlarging the video reduces the quality of the photo, regardless of how many pixels the photo had. I distinctly remember that being a huge drawback for me. I'll have to ask Jaclyn how she avoided that in her class.

Digital Storytelling

So, I've been perusing the sites Sandy posted for us and as I look at examples of what middle school kids have done, I'm blown away. To create the script and develop such sophisticated editing skills...wow!

Check out these kids: Mabry Film Fesitval 2007

Kerpoof is a website I remember Gail letting the students work with this past year. I do know they absolutely LOVE the idea of animating their own stories/movies. Even in their spare time, the children were flocking to one of the downloaded programs on my desktops (I can't remember the name of it) over and over again. Although they created nothing specific, they loved playing around with it. Kerpoof is far "cuter" in my opinion and very intuitive. I'm almost ready to say goodbye to Kidpix after playing around with it.

In fact, while I'm talking about animation, this site cracked me up: Build Yourself Wild. I had a lot of fun goofing off with that. I also loved Saatchi, This is Sand, and Snowflake Maker.

Back to Kerpoof. Soooo, while I love the technological aspect of the program, I remind myself that I work with young children. The novelty of such a fun program is exciting, but it requires "work" to master...and time. I realize the children LOVE them, but I struggle with how to make something THAT fun as academic as I'd like. It's the same argument I posted yesterday: the thrill of these programs would frequently prove to inhibit their progress, rather than develop it.

Working with such young children should not exempt them from exploring such exciting programs, but when instructing such young children, I can't ignore that learning how to work through a new program has to take place before I can expect them to use it as a tool for learning. Even the silly marker boards can prove to be a distraction in that sense! I have to let them "play" for 5-10 minutes now and then so that the "fun" wears off (so-to-speak) and they can focus on the math problem at hand.

To my benefit, Gail Driscoll is a wonderful resource because she often lets the students "play" with a new program before I ask them to use it in a project for assessment. So, let me get with her about kerpoof...I'm sure we can work out something fun for them!

I used Animoto with my son this past spring to make an "at home" surprise project. Every child in his class was allowed to take the class stuffed animal, Piggy, home for a week. I was looking into Animoto at the time and decided to try it out. I've tried to post it here, but it's not working. Maybe it's because the video is so old.

I wasn't sure how to use Animoto with my class, as I hadn't figured out how to record onto the program, but it definitely has potential. It looks so professional when completed. Because the animations are not really up to the students to design, it makes putting the finished project together rather easy.

I also visited XtraNormal, even though it is definitely meant for an older audience. There are such clever people out there! And by the way...I didn't create this clip! I just borrowed it!

I'm Your Worst Nightmare!

I'm Your Worst Nightmare!, originally uploaded by nolecat95.

Well, this has nothing to do with our assignments, but with all that text I just typed, I figured all of you deserved a good chuckle from my favorite Superhero!!!!

Storywriting Online

Okay, I admit...I'm not the biggest fan of online story writing. I'm trying very hard to discover ways to use these amazing programs with my class productively! But, then I start thinking about potential pitfalls. Maybe one of you could convince me I'm just being pessimistic. Here are a few of my thoughts:

I loved the options for creating a book at Big Universe. I had a great time looking through the options, creating the background, adding the clip art and story...however...

*The clip art is distracting. I could easily spend six hours designing the pictures for each page of a book. There are so many menus and options to choose from, it's overwhelming. I could see many of my children getting distracted by those options...and never finish their stories.

*I realize now that it would be best if the story was already written, edited, and broken into assigned pages before students ventured to this site. I was trying to create the story while I was simultaneously creating the artwork and just couldn't write that well. My mind was not focused and therefore the quality of my writing suffered greatly. I'm positive that would happen with my third graders as well.

*The limitations of the available clip art was challenging. I couldn't find clip art of children that fit the story line and spent a lot of time searching. I found one piece of clip art I liked, but then that "boy" I wanted to continue using in my story was not featured in many other clip art designs.

*I did like that pictures could be uploaded and the text would be so much easier to manipulate than Tikatok. I used Tikatok on a class project last year and found the formatting to be a huge challenge. Long story short, I spent a great deal of time on each page with formatting issues alone.

*Okay, now I've spent a good 45 minutes trying to create two measly pages of a book I can't share in this blog. I can only share it online...at a cost. Phooey. So how am I to prove to Sandy I actually created something? :(

I also took a tour of the Comic Creators. I particularly liked the one available at Read, Write, Think because of its simplicity. I have observed that too many choices can wire kids like a liter of Dr. Pepper, so I appreciated the limitations of this site. However, the question then becomes: How can children create a comic to fit their creative stories with such limited clip art? Or, if I allow them to create the art first, how will that limit their creative writing (as it did me)?

Pixton was like comics on steroids! I couldn't believe all the options available here. If I were to create a comic, this is the site I personally would use. You can design the art to fit exactly the storyline you have written, eliminating the need to create a story on the spot to fit the limited available clip art. So, for all intents and purposes, it was my favorite...but with options being so vast, I'm afraid my students would never be able to hunker down and make the best use of their "design time".

I suppose a good compromise is Make Belief Comics. It has lots of options, but not too many and is very user friendly.

I could get a link to my very boring, self made comic through that site...so here goes.

However, I'm still not sold on this type of writing for third graders. They are just becoming proficient with technology, so when the goal is to improve their writing, the method through which they write shouldn't detract them from achieving that goal. I have a hard enough time getting them used to the bells and whistles on power point so that they might concentrate on the end product. I would anticipate that the thrill of these programs would prove to inhibit their progress, rather than develop it...at first, perhaps.

Okay, enough grumbling. I did really enjoy this site Sandy sent us: Fairy Tales. In fact, Rhonda and I plan to use it with the SOE kids during the writing week. I like that it is interactive, but somewhat limited in options. Okay, I realize how that sounds. I'm not THAT controlling. Maybe. I guess if I had to sum it up in one sentence: I want the technology to engage, enrich, and develop my students' knowledge...not send them on a wild, incessant clicking parade.

The Scrapbook interfaces were fantastic to me personally. I could definitely see using these programs for my own use (Holiday cards, invitations, photo albums). I am pondering how I can revamp our study of the Timucua to be less intense and time consuming. Perhaps the scrapbook is the way to go. With the somewhat limited text options on each page, however, I don't know if it would be a good fit for that particular unit. It might be more advantageous to use Scrapblog or Mixbook for science experiments.

Okay...enough of my rambling! :)

Goofing off Online

Last month, one of my former students emailed me a story she had begun writing during the last week of school. It was a clever story with lots of excitement and wonderful word choice. She asked me to edit her story and give suggestions. She considered my ideas and earlier this week she sent me a revised copy of her work. I thought it might be interesting for me to paste her story into Wordle, looking to see what words she used over and over. I expected to see said as an overused word, but I was wrong. Her characters' names are the ones she repeats most often, clearly, but if you look you can easily tell which words she might want to consider editing:

I'm also working at school with the Summer of Excellence bunch, reading Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. I was inspired to use Big Huge Labs with the children, hoping to develop an interesting way for them to present a cinquain based on a character of their choice.

In an effort to make the process easier, I selected pictures of plausible book characters using Compfight, saved them to the H drive for the students to pick from, and made a template for the cinquain for the children to complete out before filling in the appropriate cells online. Here's my example...haven't yet tried it with the students, but we'll see how it goes!

Flickr tools

My brother is an avid contributor to Flickr. He's totally gotten over the need for printed photographs and therefore has every picture he takes put on Flickr instead. My family loves this, of course, because we get to "see" him and his family regularly. I swiped this picture of his daughter, Dahlia, off his Flickr site, knowing he wouldn't mind me sharing his gorgeous little girl with all of you. (Isn't she perfect?!)

As far as using photos from the Flickr database in my classroom, I hadn't really given much thought to uses outside of our state project in third grade. However, after looking at many of the suggested ideas, I have a lot of new thoughts!

~Review cards for wordly wise (pictures to match definitions have helped me teach new vocabulary a LOT)
~Getting to know you activities (two truths and a fib, student interests, student strengths, or an adaptation of the 8 Kinds of Smart activity I normally use)
~Research "trading cards" for our National Parks Project

Okay, now I've gotten side tracked by the "motivational poster" maker and just had to make one of Anthony. He and I were on our way to see my parents in Phoenix earlier this summer and after I told the flight attendant about Anthony's dream of becoming a pilot, she let him meet the captain. He was able to go into the cockpit, meet the pilots, and (much to Anthony's excitement) push a button!!! Little does he know that the "button" he was allowed to push was one of the red Staples "Easy" buttons.

I've been looking through some of the Flickr applications. Many of them allow you to share photos in new and creative ways. Although most of these applications do not allow children to add a caption, which we have done before, I could definitely see us using this as an alternative for presentations for both individual and group projects.

I'm looking specifically at the "photo stack" and "flashapi" applications. Both would allow the students to present photos to their peers in interesting ways. My concern at the moment is that some of these application appear to need you (as in me) to have an account with a large collection of pictures to draw from, rather than allowing you (ahem, me) to select various photos from Creative Commons...I'll have to keep looking around.

So, in an effort to work efficiently, I will again borrow my brother's Flickr account , which has several thousand photos on it, to make a slideshow. (Click the link...it's cool!) And if you have a minute, you really should look at his pictures, because the captions are HILARIOUS!

Now that I have access to utilitzing these amazing web 2.0 programs, it will allow me as a teacher to develop creative tasks for my class. However, as I have mentioned before, it will be very important for me to focus on what it is I want my students to learn...and not simply allow the end project to be a fun way to do something ordinary.

Mind Mapping for Dummies

Yay, Sandy! I love BUBBLES! It is very intuitive and easy to use. So, it's not as pretty as MindMeister, but at the end of the day, I'd like to keep all my hair, thank you very much. And for those of us who like larger font...just zoom in and EVERYTHING gets bigger.

Voice Threads

So, voice threads are completely new to me. I hadn't even heard of them before Sandy's class. Time for me to get out of my little bubble, huh? Awhile ago, my students were using photostory to develop their state reports and I realized when all was said and done they cringed when I shared their finished products. Two weeks later they used Google Maps to complete a presentation on state parks and they loved coming to the front of the room to share what they'd learned. When I asked them what made them hide under their desks with photostory, they said, "I don't like hearing my voice!"

Now I know how they feel. But I think we can all get over that.

I viewed quite a few voice threads and was amazed at how differently people use them. I saw a teenager's timeline of his dad's accomplishments in the military, a teacher's example on how to have students prepare a lab report for a science project, and book reviews by students, among others. I think the novelty of changing how children present material can be used to my advantage, but coming up with meaningful ways to demonstrate learning is where things get sticky.

I've been thinking about our third grade state reports and how hard it is for us, as teachers, to manage 20 different research projects going on at once. We do an awful lot of "read and regurgitate" in third grade...time to beef things up. I have an idea brewing and am interested in trying a new technological aspect of presenting. What I like about voice thread that is not available on photostory, is the ability of students to leave feedback.

Jaclyn told me that she was putting a handful of anonymous student stories online for her class to read online...with the ability to leave comments. Okay, now I might be getting that wrong. Maybe she explained it differently, but it gave me the idea to allow students to leave comments. Regardless, she was able to highly motivate her students to write interesting stories so that theirs might be published online for their peers to read. A former student of mine whom I was tutoring also told me that his biggest writing goal was to write a story that, when read aloud to his peers, received raucous rounds of applause and ridiculously loud cheers.

I'll have to get back to Jaclyn on that one.

Back to the state report....if I can develop a project where students work in teams to create a state "report" of sorts, (must get the idea solidified before sharing it just yet) then allow peers to evaluate and leave comments...it might be more motivational than just creating a presentation to be shown in class.

I'm so glad we have the time to think about all of this over the summer. Trying to learn new things while developing lesson plans and teaching all day would be impossible for me! :)