1. Select one of the web based strategies discussed in these articles or another you are familiar with and integrate it into one of your lessons. Report how the lesson went.
2. Search YouTube and post the video's address on our blog that you could use in an elementary classroom.
While I haven't been able to integrate any web based strategy yet in my classroom, I am in love with the idea of recording students' voices on an iPod while they read to practice their fluency. Our classroom has an hour of silent reading every day and I've used it to read one-on-one with students who struggle in reading. It is obvious to me which students love to read and don't want their independent reading time interrupted. I leave those students alone usually but work with others who aren't as keen on reading. It is amazing to me how excited they are to read with me, even though they are not as good at it. I think this shows they like the attention despite the fact it draws attention to something they need to work on. Using an iPod, then, would be even MORE exciting to these students and hopefully would encourage them to critique their own intonation and speed while also providing the most genuine concrete proof that, in fact, they need to (and can!) become better readers.
ReplyDeleteAs far as YouTube goes, I just found a video I want to use in one of my poetry lessons coming up next week. It is by Ralph Fletcher, who apparently writes a lot of good books to help students become better writers (from poetry to everything else).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx1-ZPNoLBM&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL12097CDFADF12C95
The idea he has is that "the bigger the issue, the smaller you write." A lot of students want to write about war, or love, or the infiniteness of space, for instance. But while it is always entertaining to hear any kid's thoughts on these big topics, I think for them to learn how to become better writers, esp in poetry, they need to learn how to find "small ways to get at those big issues." I think this is right in line with teaching kids to show, not tell in their writing. Show the details, show the small things and trust that the reader can infer (another term they grapple with, I've learned, in 4th grade) the meaning, or bigger issue.
I've seen one classroom where the teacher was given a laptop for the room in addition to her own laptop from home and the classroom I'm currently in just has one desktop computer (which my teacher doesn't like students using... =( No matter the circumstances when I finally teach, I don't see why I can't bring in my own laptop to show for things like this. There have been SO many times I've wanted to show a kid something online that really gets at what I'm trying to tell him/her and it really takes the wind out of your sails when you have to give them a lackluster example or explanation simply because you don't have the best technological resources in the room.
-Lauren
It will be interesting to see if your kids get the belt loop metaphor. It's pretty sophisticated for 4th graders, but it's a nice short video. You might ask the class for other examples like the belt loop one, for any subject.
ReplyDeleteNancy
I'm not in the second-grade class at anymore, but before I left we did a persuasive writing unit on reviews, and to cap off the unit we recorded their best reviews on iMovie. The kids were so excited about making "commercials" that everyone could watch, but as soon as we hit the "record" button, they got so nervous and often forgot all of the information in their written reviews. I think it might have been helpful for them to watch a video of someone their age reviewing a restaurant or book before they made their own recordings. I found this video on youtube of a kid reviewing a restaurant:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGhG8UOEAPE
I wish I had been able to share this with my students before we filmed their reviews! It might have been helpful to see how important it is to speak loudly and clearly, and use descriptive words. (I also found some awful YouTube videos of kids doing restaurant reviews, that might have also been useful in showing examples of what not to do).
Also, we were working on a Biographies unit when I left, and some of the kids were having trouble navigating the Internet to gather information about the people they were writing about. I would definitely use YouTube in the future as a tool to find informative, educational clips about historical figures that students could use to augment their book/Internet research.
The YouTube video is adorable. It would have been great to show it to the class and then discuss what they liked and didn't and plan theirs accordingly.
ReplyDeleteNancy
In honor of Earth Day, I used an idea from pintrest.com to make a large earth with children’s hand prints - http://bulletinboardideas.org/1215/we-promise-earth-day-display/ I accompanied the Earth collage painting with an “EARTH DAY” acrostic poem and made a bulletin board. There are so many great resources online such as teacher blogs and websites – they are invaluable resources!
ReplyDeleteLastly, since I am a huge advocate of the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching, here is a link that explains how important to build positive relationships with your students starting on day 1 and how starting the day off with a positive morning meeting can impact the learning of the students for the entire day. Here is the youtube link http://www.youtube.com/user/responsiveclassroom?ob=0&feature=results_main
Great site to learn about responsive classrooms!
DeleteNancy
About a month ago, my first graders had a publication party for finishing their nonfiction animal books. To kick off the party, we had made a video of each student sharing a few sentences about the process of thinking of an animal, finding facts, writing facts down, and illustrating the book. We used the Photo Booth application on our computers to record the students, and then assembled the different sections together. The kids and the parents all loved the finished video, and it was a great way of introducing technology that was kid-friendly! I wish that our video was on YouTube so that i could post a link, but the closest thing i could find was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cib4gHLzkPU . it's still very different, but we definitely could have used it as a way to introduce the concept of recording the presentation to the students. The boy in this presentation is often talking to his pictures, but then does look back at his audience to include them. We could have discussed the various ways in which the boy had a good presentation, and ways in which he could have improved the presentation.
ReplyDeleteDuring reader's workshop, my class also has "computers" as a center. When they are on the computers, they visit the site www.readingeggs.com and play literacy computer games. All of the kids enjoy it--for the more advanced readers, they use www.readingeggspress.com where they are given more difficult challenges. I definitely recommend that site as a tool for learning!
Very interesting sites. They both charge. Does your school pay for the classroom to use it?
DeleteIt would be great to see the video your class made. Can you bring it to our class and show it to us?
Nancy
Something interesting that I just learned about in terms of using technology to benefit the classroom is donors choose. A teacher across the hall from my classroom started using it last year to help get some greatly needed science supplies (we have none). She was greatly successful and was able to get some materials for experiments. The teacher I'm student teaching for recently made an account and we plan to ask for some science materials as well. I think its such an excellent way for teachers to get the things that they need from people and companies that are willing/able to help.
ReplyDeleteI'm always interested in morning meeting, since that has been my area that I have taken over from the moment I came into this classroom. The you tube video on responsive classroom and playing the sparkle game (counting out syllables) is a great tool that I would like to introduce at meeting in the future.
Donors Choice (www.donorschoose.org/)is a great site. Do you think the people tend to fund science related things over others? You all should try it!
DeleteNancy
Like many of you, my students have used iMovie for pretty much every subject this year. Partnered up with someone from class, they made iMovies that detailed part of the medieval times. Also in social studies, we employed the use of a green screen so that the students could make travel videos that looked as though the students were actually where the video was taking place.
ReplyDeleteThrough the use of technology, like iMovie or Final Cut, students are given the opportunity to expand their technological horizons and supplement what they have already learned with a flashy project that looks amazing. Although I cannot post the videos on here or youtube, I would be happy to show you some of the videos that we have made next time we meet for discussion.
Love to see them if you can bring them to class!
DeleteNancy
Before vacation, my students were doing a writing unit on feature and opinion pieces. For one of my lessons, I took a clip from the Phantom Gourmet on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0YdnrTJAfA&feature=plcp&context=C492033aVDvjVQa1PpcFMS_5Lf4ZccqD9eU7JEPEB60Tnr3FtsVqM%3D
ReplyDeleteBefore showing the video, I asked the students to reflect on what they thought might make a feature or opinion piece more believable and stronger. While watching the video, the students were to observe what the TV show did to make the audience want to go to "Mr. Macs". As a class, we shared our ideas and generated a list of things they could put in their writing, such as use descriptive language and strong quotes from other sources. The students then went to their seats and worked on adding one of those features to their article. The students were very enthusiastic about the video, and visually seeing a feature/opinion piece on screen really aided their understanding on strong, believable pieces.
I try to incorporate the internet and technology into my lesson as much as possible. There are so many neat things out there, and these articles opened my eyes to a few new things. I am really anxious to try internet pen pals and Skype when I have a classroom of my own.