Final Project

For my final project, I'm am completing the second option and creating a lesson that uses Storybird. This was one of my favorite web tools that I explored through this class. As everyone probably knows, teaching the same classes each year and having the same projects can sometimes put you in a rut. So for me, I think the best part about these tools is that they allow me to add a new component to a lesson without having to completely reinvent it. So here is the idea for my final project...

Each year I have the students in French III create their own children's story to practice using the different past tenses in French. They usually enjoy this and things go pretty well. One thing that is often difficult is that there usually ends up being only 1 artist per group. So this student would end up having to complete all of the illustrations. In the past, I've told them to focus more on the story and writing than the illustrations so no one is punished for lack of artistic skills. Using Storybird this year will solve this problem. I'm going to have them complete this same assignment through this website. All of the requirements will be the same. They will be graded on their content, grammar, etc. Since our school has class sets of laptops that can be reserved, I am fortunate enough to have the equipment for the students to work on this during class as well. I think this is a perfect way to revamp an existing project. The best part is that they can all add their stories to the Storybird library for our class. They can view each other’s and I will have great examples to show the next class!  

Cell Phones in the Classroom

I came across two interesting videos on You Tube the other day pertaining to how cell phones can be incorporated into lessons. It got me thinking about the cell phone ban schools have and if it is a bit outdated. Of course there are the cons, such as constant texting, taking/sending photos, and accessing social networks all day long. But most students do not leave their phones in their lockers and do these things throughout the day already. When cell phones first became widely used and only functioned for phone calls and texting, it made sense that students did not need them during school hours. But now with all of the programs and web tools out there, they can strengthen a lesson. For example, I mentioned before that I had students use their phones to record a graded voice thread. In the videos I posted below, you can see how teachers are using them in other ways.

So I guess the question is, if we take away the "taboo" associated with them, will we have fewer problems? If we are worried about them being a distraction, we all know that students will turn anything into a distraction if they really want to. I worry about students using them to send mean texts to one another, or even taking a picture of me without my knowledge and posting it somewhere. So I definitely believe that if we allow them in class, there should be rules and consequences that accompany any misuse. But have we reached the point where the pros of occasionally using them in class now outweigh the cons? Check out the links below and let me know what you think.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzPket7eSTE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=161m3TtUaJg&feature=related

I'm not telling stories...these are seriously some cool tools!

I don’t know about everyone else, but when I look for a web site or tool that I can use for a lesson, I consider the following:

1.      Is it free?

2.      Is it easy to navigate?

3.      Will I be able to remember and explain how to use this to students?

4.      Will learning how to use this tool not take up the entire lesson, leaving no time for the actual content?

If something does not meet these standards, I know I will not use it. So after exploring a bit this week I thought I’d write about some of the tools I did find that are exactly what I look for.  

First there is Storybird. I saw other people blogged about this one too, so it seems to be a popular choice. I liked that it was free (some tools were not). I also liked that it provided images and artwork. I always worry about copying and pasting images from the internet for copyright purposes. So I would feel a lot better having students use a site where I know they have permission to use the images. This tool also makes the process of creating a story pretty fast and easy. I thought this was good because often teachers avoid projects like this thinking they will take up too much class time. The student created stories can be saved into a library for your class.

For voice threads, I thought that Yodio was a pretty cool site. You can make a recording and add it to a slide show, online photo album, picture, etc. If you cannot record from your computer, you can use your cell phone! I actually used this in class last year. With the help of our school computer tech., the students brought their cell phones to class (yes, they were allowed to have their phones that day), and recorded an introduction about themselves in French. They liked it because they could basically set up camp anywhere in the classroom and did not have to present in front of the entire class. I liked it because I was not under the pressure of having to grade right there on the spot. I  could change the volume or hit replay if necessary. Having students record instead of presenting during class also freed up class time. Instead of taking 2-3 days for presentations, it took about 20 minutes to make the recordings.

I have also used Glogster before. Glogster is like making an online poster. You can add headings, text, and choose the theme and background. Similar to other tools, you can add images and videos onto the page. This is something I think could be used for an assignment in basically any content area.

Finally for making something more along the movie line, the site Animasher is also cool. Again, you can choose the images to add, make them do different movements and actions, and add text and music.

So that sums up some of the tools that I enjoyed playing around with this week. Storybird and Yodio are under the Web 2.0: Cool Tools for Schools and Glogster is under our class content on D2L. I will put the link for Animasher below because I think I found that through another site.

http://www.animasher.com/

Collaborative Tools

For our digital story telling assignment, our group used Prezi which I think is a great collaborative tool. So often when you are creating a presentation in a group, you have to physically be together in order for everyone to have control over it. Instead of sending a PowerPoint back and forth as an attachment, all of our group members were able to go onto the Prezi site and edit it. I think this is definitely a great tool to use for class projects. I also liked the layout of Prezi because it visually maps out big ideas and smaller concepts. It eliminates the worrying of whether or not everyone has been sent and received the final project. As for some of the other tools such as Pirate Pad and Tiny Chat, I can see the many benefits they would have for businesses. In terms of the classroom, I'm not sure how necessary they would be. Since my students see each other on a regular basis, I don't think I would need to have them collaborate through a chat room. I probably would not use these to collaborate with colleagues either for the simple fact that I am able to talk to them in person every day, e-mail, or text them. It is great knowing these tools are out there. But other than Prezi, I can't see myself implementing them any time soon. Has anyone used any collaborative tools for lessons? If you have any ideas or experiences with some, please share.   

Virtual Field Trips and Virtual Field Tricks

I spent some time this week playing around with different virtual field trip sites. I have discovered a few things. I will discuss the negative part first. I thought that some of the sites were no different than simply having a webpage with facts, pictures, and links. For example, I took this one trip to learn about dinosaurs. There were links for different types of dinosaurs, and when I clicked on one it just took me to another page with photos and facts. To me, this is not much different than reading about it in a book or watching a teacher's presentation. I felt like I had a more enthusiastic trip when I watched Jurassic Park for the first time. Another day I was packed, ready (meaning I brought my coffee with me to my computer desk) and excited to learn about Shakespeare. This was very similar to the dinosaur site. It had categorized information with questions to answer as you read. Again, I don't see how this is much different from reading and filling out a worksheet. On the up side, these sites do save a lot of time in planning. If you wanted to use them in a lesson, there is definitely a lot of information. I just wouldn't present them to the students as "field trips". These would be the "field tricks" I refer to in my title.

As for the positives, I found out that using an interactive site makes the trip much better! There were many sites that offered tours with 360 views. Just like when you are using Google Maps Street View, I think it adds some authenticity. You do feel as if you are really there. I took a virtual tour of the Great Wall of China. As I went through, I could choose which direction I wanted to go or click to see the view from a particular window. It was pretty awesome. I also found great sites for French trips that I will use in class this year. One website offered numerous tours of monuments, museums, castles, and even cafés. Students can choose where they want to go in the places and also learn facts about them. For my content area, I think viewing these places through a 360 webcam is very effective. Sometimes when you take students to a museum or on a tour, the tour guides just lecture and not allow for a lot of exploration and hands on learning. So in some instances, these interactive virtual field trips could be better.

I will post the websites I found interesting below in case anyone wants to try them out.

Great Wall of China http://www.thebeijingguide.com/great_wall_of_china/index.html
Places in Paris http://paris.arounder.com/

OpenOffice, Zoho, etc.

Just last year I had purchased the newest edition of Microsoft Office because I was sick of not being able to read files I started at work on my home computer. Yes, I was still working with the 2003 home version! I wish I would have known about Open Office and these other options then...it would have saved me some money! Once I started using Word 2010, I realized that people who had older versions of it could not view my attachments. I often had to copy and paste text into an e-mail and resend things. What a pain! I now know how this problem can be fixed...by using Open Office. These programs are great for class and students as well. With assignments that may require Excel or PowerPoint, we know that as long as students have internet access they can complete them. Some of the other productivity tools like Zoho had cool planning and organization tools. I thought this would be great for long term projects, or even if a teacher wanted to keep a visible calendar throughout the year. Students (or even parents) could reference it to see what was coming up or when something was due. Even though technology is constantly changing, students will probably be using tools similar to these in the work force. Even if it is just a few times throughout the year, I definitely think it is beneficial to incorporate them into lessons/projects. If anyone has used some of these with their students and would like to share their experiences, please do! : )   

Flabbergoogled!

After last night’s class, I am stunned at all of the educational things that can be done with Google other than searching. What is most surprising to me is that this stuff has been around for quite some time. I have often heard people talk about Google docs and Google maps, but I never connected how they could be used in class. Google Maps was a little bit frustrating at first, but overall it is amazing that students can see street views or routes to basically anywhere. The second thing I enjoyed was Google Presentation. Not everyone has a PowerPoint program on their home computer, so this could make projects and assignments easier for students to work on at home. I also like that the presentation can be interactive. Instead of using Clickers, you could put some questions on slides throughout the PowerPoint and have students respond. However, they would each need a computer or device to answer (That’s the tricky part). Sadly, I don’t even know if our students would be able to sign in to Google from school being that personal e-mail accounts are blocked. Has anyone used any of these Google tools with classes before? What do you find works well, or not so well? Comments are welcome : ).  


While looking for ideas with Google Apps, I found two useful sites. I'll post the links below in case anyone else in interested.
http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/googledocs.htm

http://digitalexplorer.com/2010/01/12/40-ideas-on-using-google-earth-and-maps-in-the-classroom/

Something I like

I have been teaching French for four years now. Unfortunately, it wasn't until my second year that I came to love the expression "Beg, Borrow, and Steal". I remember thinking during my first year that I should create everything myself. I soon realized that there are already a lot of great activities and ideas out there for lessons I am planning. I titled my blog "Beg, Borrow, and Blog" because I figured that during this course we would be sharing a lot of ideas about what we found worked well or what didn't work well concerning technology in the classroom. So feel free to comment on anything!

 For my first blog, I thought I'd talk about something that I absolutely love...Moodle! For anyone that is not familiar with it, it is similar to D2L. Our high school has a Moodle page, and students use their student id and password to log on from school or home. Our computer tech sets up a page for each of my classes (French I, II, etc.) On each page, I can upload my notes for the day or post assignments. This is great for when students are absent, or when a learning support teacher would like copies of class notes. I can post links to online practice activities for the students. I can even create my own quizzes or tests that the students can take on Moodle. Another thing that I like is that I can tier the activities. I will often post a selection ranging in difficulty so that the students can start where they feel comfortable and work their way up. Sometimes when parents want to know what their child can do for extra practice, I will tell them about the Moodle page and the activities that are posted. The best part is that I do not have to create all of the activities myself. I search sites like Quia and find games that were already created by other teachers. Students also like that the notes and activities are there throughout the year. So if they lose a notebook or want to review for finals, everything is accessible. Overall, I have found that it is one thing that makes my job a little bit easier.  

Here is the link to Quia in case anyone wants to check it out for online activities. They have them for every content area. http://www.quia.com/shared/