TechBlogging for Teachers

As we begin to incorporate student blogging into our classroom dynamic, we must make sure we are teaching elementary students “how” to blog. Below are a few guidelines that students should follow as they enter the blogosphere:

Only post things that you would want everyone to know.

Do not share personal information.

Think before you post.

Know who you’re communicating with.

Consider your audience and that you are representing your school.

Know how to give constructive feedback.

Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

Use appropriate language and proper grammar and spelling.

Only post information that you can verify is true (no gossiping).

Anytime you use media from another source, be sure to properly cite the creator of the original work.

Source:  Cofino, K. (2009, October). Student blogging guidelines. Tech & Learning, 12.

The new Flip video cameras are appearing on the scene and they are great for classroom use for two major reasons: they are REALLY easy to use and it’s REALLY easy to upload your video footage. In our recent training on Digital Storytelling, the featured device was the 2 GB Flip Mino available for $150 and we worked within the FlipShare software itself as well as MS MovieMaker.

Digital Storytelling is using computer-based tools to tell a story. In our case it was going to be video footage, but you could also use still images, digital audio, recorded voice narration, etc. The three main types of Digital Storytelling are personal narrative (character stories, events in our lives, about what we do), examination of a theme or event (explore, research, organization), and informational/instructional.

As we know, technology can be used in the classroom either by the teacher as a teaching tool or by the students as a productivity tool. I always recommend that teachers use the technology first, become more comfortable with it by using it in their instruction and then when it’s time for the kids to use it, they won’t feel as intimidated by the technology. Teachers can use Digital Storytelling as a lesson hook, an easy way to integrate multimedia into the curriculum, to facilitate classroom discussion, and to tap into the visual literacy of students while learning new material. When students engage in Digital Storytelling, they call upon their research, organization, writing, technology, presentation, and problem-solving skills. All of this put together gives us a big “Why wouldn’t we use this in our classrooms?”

In addition to Digital Storytelling, here are some other ideas of how the Flip Video Camera can be used in your classroom:

1. Video blog
2. Record Science lab experiments and post online
3. Capture the moment
4. Narrated Field Trips
5. Interview students, staff or community members
6. Recording student presentations
7. Reading assessments (record student’s oral reading, use to evaluate progress)
8. Record a Lit circle (or any group interaction) to use as a sample of expectations
9. Create or represent metaphors
10. Create or represent analogies
11. Record key elements of a lesson and make that available to students via webpage
12. Cause and effect
13. Time sequence patterns
14. Facilitate group reflection
15. Science Fair projects
16. Distance collaboration—email or blog with other classrooms
17. Retell a story they have read
18. Reader’s Theater productions
19. Question of the Day / BrainPop Quiz on Broadcast
20. Tours or Orientations
21. Reading response
22. Fractions/Geometric Shapes in our environment
23. A Day in the Life Of…
24. How-Tos
25. End of unit assessment, rather than a written assessment

 Please share with us how you’ve used your FlipCam in the classroom!

Excellent Resource:  The University of Houston’s Educational Uses of Digital Story Telling Site

Please ADD your ideas and experiences to this list… It’s just the beginning!

Modeling Writing model correct paper organization, handwriting, etc.

Math problem solving Use the document camera to take a photo of a problem and a student’s solution. Put it in your teacher blog and have students individually respond to ”How might the writer have arrived at this solution?” 

Dictionary Skills Teachers and students can easily model dictionary usage, layout, etc. by placing an actual dictionary under the camera.

Student Work  Students complete the assignment under the document camera or share published work with class.

Whiteboard Lines Project a blank piece of lined paper onto your white board. Write directly on the whiteboard and keep the writing straight and neat.

Manipulatives can be placed under the camera for all to see clearly such as a ruler and protractor as well as base 10 blocks, clock, etc. Build them in trays so they are portable to the document camera station.

Shared Reading Every book is a big book when you have a document camera! All students can all see the text that’s being read aloud. Students read along mentally. Discuss text features, comprehension strategies, spelling rules, and new vocabulary.

Display Worksheets, Forms, Text Books

Giant Timer Use the document camera to project a countdown timer.

Maps Display maps from any source, not just the pull down maps attached to the wall.

Demonstrations  Point the document camera at the materials for all to see (ex. Science & Art)

Labeling activities Project on a whiteboard and label images.

Creating letters and Handwriting technique.

Storyboarding

Reviewing Tests

Real life objects like leaves, worms, cactus placed under the document camera  prompt scientific inquiry

Teach how to use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words

Snapshots Take advantage of the camera function so you can take snapshots. This will be great for recording stages in a process or change over time or creating differentiated learning materials.

I just stumbled up this cool new widget creator for your blog. The ShowYourselfWidget allows you to combine all of your profiles on the web (ex. Flickr, del.icio.us, Twitter, etc.)  into one attractive widget that you can put on your blog—sweet! Just uncheck the web 2.0s that you’re not using, enter the info for the ones you are, and it generates the html code to embed in your blog page! Now we’re connected!

websites courtesy of TechEdge Summer 2009

Spelling City
www.spellingcity.com
What a great way to practice spelling words! Students can enter their spelling words and then choose to play a game, take a test, or have the computer help them learn how to spell the word. This site would be a great addition to a homework sheet so students could have an alternative way of practicing their words. The only drawback is if the student types the word incorrectly, the website will not catch the error.

Reading Rockets
www.readingrockets.org
There is a wide range of resources available on this site. Anything from author/illustrator interviews, themed booklists, and literacy calendars to information about classroom strategies, helping the struggling reader, and reading research. The site is also organized so that you can customize your content for parents, teachers, principals, librarians, and other school professionals. What a great wealth of information at your fingertips!

World Builder
www.scienceyear.com/planet10/solar_preload.html
And that’s world as in science not word builder. This interactive website allows students to visit the planets in our solar system with some sort of control as they have the option to adjust the zoom, orbit, and viewpoint as well as read through short facts about each planet. Students can then attempt to build their own planet, the 10th planet if you will, launching it into the solar system to see if it will survive. This would be a great writing opportunity as students try to problem solve their planet’s success or failure over multiple attempts.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/

Scientific American offers 60 second podcasts that are updated weekly and focus on three main topics: science, earth, and psychology. You can either visit the site to listen live, subscribe through your iTunes podcast library, or add it to your RSS reader of choice. Either way, you’re getting real world science as long as you’ve got a minute!

We all know Bloom’s Taxonomy—developed in the 1950s (out of the University of Chicago by the way), it’s design illustrates the thinking process and helps us strive for higher order thinking in the learning process. More recently, we have a new edition of Bloom’s Taxonomy updated by Andrew Churches, Curriculum Manager of Computer Studies and ICT PD Cluster co-director at Kristin School, in Albany, Auckland. It’s been labeled Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and it’s expansion integrates information and communication technologies that are ever present in our world today.

In an effort to understand it myself, I’ve broken it down for you highlighting the digital additions for each level of the the process. The 1990 revision of the original Bloom’s begins with Remembering as the lowest order of thinking skills and then progressively moves to a higher order by way of Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. The digital additions are as follows:

Remembering: highlighting digital text, bullet pointing, bookmarking websites, social networking, social bookmarking, and searching or “Googleing”

Understanding: advanced searching, blog journaling, twittering, categorizing files/digital content, commenting/annotating, and subscribing

Applying: running and operating a program or hardware, playing games, uploading & sharing, hacking, and editing

Analyzing: mashing data, linking to documents and websites, reverse-engineering, cracking a system, validating information sources, and tagging

Evaluating: blog commenting & reflecting, good posting to blogs or discussion boards, moderating, collaborating, networking, and testing alpha/beta applications

Creating: programming, filming, animating, videocasting, podcasting, video mixing, directing & producing, and publishing

To continue learning more about this new Digital Taxonomoy, please visit:

Andrew Churches’ wiki
Andrew Churches’ blog
Bloom’s Elluminate Presentation 2009

The Gurian Institute has just released a new book for educators that follows along with their brain research and gender studies philosophies, Strategies for Teaching Boys and Girls — Elementary Level: A Workbook for Educators. Each Strategies workbook is filled with proven strategies for use with any curriculum, across all content areas. Also included are dozens of ideas for brain-breaks, helping improve performance and engagement for both boys and girls! Check it out! Perhaps the next book study at your school?

Let’s compare the two major players in the web 2.o world:  wikis vs. blogs. Here are some key points:

 WIKIS

• Wikis provide unique collaborative opportunities for education
• Wikis are being rapidly adopted as an innovative way of constructing knowledge
• The characteristic that has most strikingly set wikis apart from other web based forums and discussions is that of multiple contributors
• Unlike a blog, for example, which has one main identifiable author, a wiki web page may be authored and edited by a number of people
• Continued dialog and collaborative problem solving among students
• A wiki is continuously “under revision.” It is a living collaboration whose purpose is the sharing of the creative process and product by many.

Wiki Resources

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/wikis/index.htm

http://coe.ilstu.edu/etip/activities/usingwikis.shtml

This years IL Technology Conference for Educators was a thought provoking experience that stimulated conversation for days on end. We were amongst some of the best in the biz including Vicki Davis, Steve Dembo, Mitch Resnick, and the like. I was honored to present this year with some of my tech-forward colleagues, including sessions on Facilitating the Transition from Labs to Laptops, Are You As Responsible As A Fifth Grader, and ACTIVate Your Classroom.