Clovis 23 things Thing #23

1. The online and digital story telling, because they applied most to Kindergarten and I really feel that I can use them in my classroom. The feel the kids will enjoy them.
2. I have found myself using the webtools much more than I have before. The activities gave me a format to go and explore, where before I wouldn't have known where to start.
3. The Gen Y was very interesting to me personally, due to the fact that I work with an age group in my co-curricular duties that fall in this category. Also, after seeing that information, I will be more aware as I raise my own son in the technology world.
4. The activities seemed long at times. Many of them were very helpful, but there were quite a few that as a Kindergarten teacher I will not use in my class. But maybe in my personal work. I spent more time with this class getting 2 units, than I did in my other 3 or 4 unit classes.
5. Technological Journey!!!

Clovis 23 things Thing #22

Ok, I enjoyed this. But again I found myself getting distracted with all the video!! The Disney youtube was fun to watch. It grabbed my attention. I have a love for Disney, so I was interested. If I was interested, then students would definitely be interested!! Or at least I think they would be. The comic was also one that was pretty good. You could share these sites with students who are doing projects that they need to be careful about copyrights, but for my grade level Kindergarten we don't really deal with this. We discuss the author and how different authors may write the same book, but they use their own words and change their ideas. But we don't really get into having to deal with copyrights for our kids. We use the story "Hey Little Ant" to teach ethics and good decision making by reading the story and having students write a response or we talk about it as a class in their own words, by discussing what the boy should do with the ant.

Clovis 23 things Thing #21

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/MathBrain/MathBrain.html addition
http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/fm.cgi?A1=s&A2=8&A35=9&INSTRUCTS=1
dinosaur matching
http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/fm.cgi?A1=s&A2=8&A35=7&INSTRUCTS=1
colors
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/
word search game
http://www.mathplayground.com/flashcards_timed.html
timed math flash cards
All of these could be played in the classroom or shared with parents at home as enrichment activities

Clovis 23 things Thing #20

http://www.bradleydicken.blogspot.com/
Polar Express

http://bridgerblogs.blogspot.com/2007/11/digital-storytelling-with-kindergarten.htmlice.wikispaces.com/Digital_Storytelling Story Retell

http://www.mtlsd.org/Foster_Elementary/Grade2.asp Jan Brett

http://www.mesquiteisd.org/imovie/monarchbutterfly.htm Butterfly
I enjoyed searching through different digital stories. I found a few that would be really fun to share with my class. The first site showed a class doing that made different digital stories on things that they have learned. The second one was a class activity where the students each retell the same story individually. I think this could be a fun activity to do with my students for open house. Like a book report on video. Then I found a animoto slide show digital story that a class created after a field trip. This is something that I would love to start doing after class events or field trips and use for a parent gift for the end of the year. The last site I mentioned was a really interesting video on the life cycle of a butterfly. This is something we do in our class and the students would really be able to relate to this video.

Clovis 23 things Thing#19

I found Animoto to be the easiest for me to use. I went ahead and used their pictures to create a short 30 second video, because it was fast and easy to use. I did create an account and I really think this is one that I will use. I can create short slide shows for the kiddos and parents to show on Fun Friday. I could create slide shows of our past field trips and class parties or even fun activities we have done in class such as our reptile unit!!! Students could then follow up about what they liked best about our trip or activity.

Clovis 23 things Thing #18

We found a few podcasts that we could relate to. We listened to some podcasts that were created by a Kindergarten teacher: Polar Express, Everything I need to know I learned in Kindergarten and Days of the week. They were all from the following site:
http://www.bradleydicken.blogspot.com
This site had many great ideas that we could relate to and use in our Kindergarten class. We thought that this podcast could be created using Digital Storytelling by uploading pictures and texts and adding voice. Students could watch this in the classroom to learn the days of the week or they could even create their own.

Clovis 23 Things Thing #17

Not sure if this was positive or negative for me! I found two videos to be I guess interesting is the word.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363a2Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR90
The first video really made you stop and think about how much is going on out there. And the second video showed how involved technology is in students today. I felt that this video didn't show technology as a positive, but as a very negative. It really opened your eyes to how much a distraction technology is to kids and how easy one is able to get off task so quick for so long. I know that there are many thing that technology can do for us in a positive way, but how to monitor the distraction is where the question is. Even for myself as I am sitting here completing each "thing", I find myself getting of task and before I know it, I have been sitting in front of the computer half the day and I am still have not completed all the "things" that I need to have finished!! As far as what I did find positive, was the refseek site. Holly and I thought that this was a great link for teacher with the TeacherTube and the 5min. This could be helpful when trying to get an answer in a quick manner.

Clovis 23 things Thing #16

I enjoyed Google Earth. It was interesting to browse through all the videos. I checked out the Strange things on earth. Who would ever have know!!! The Lit Trips were interesting, Holly and I feel that that is something we would like to share with our other K teachers. When I got to the sketch, it was very complicated. I watch the video on how to make the sketch and move it to a location, but without have the directions right in front of me when I tried to do it, I was unsuccessful. After spending over 1 hour on just that one task, I decided that I would be here all day trying to accomplish that. So I created a Happy Face to be placed on Maui, Hawaii. I was unable to get it copied to my blog. It was hard enough and way to time consuming to place it on Google Earth to then try and figure out how to get it on my blog!!!

Clovis 23 things Thing #15

We looked at all the free sites and agreed that this is not something we would use as a kindergarten teacher. Much of this seems to be for higher grades...but we did create a dabbleboard and looked around. The chat part online was not working for us so we looked through the library and copied and commented on others work.

Clovis 23 things Thing#14

We createrd a delicious account and played with that for a bit. Time goes fast when you are having fun! We looked at different sites in thing 14 and found Thinkfinity which we liked the best, because it was easy to follow. We found that it was more up our alley for Kindergarten. Curriki wasn't at all at our level for K along with FREE the gov site. We found it interesting, but it was more for older kids. Discovery Ed was interesting, we liked the puzzle maker and the professional development opportunities.

Clovis 23 things Thing #12

I am excited to set up a Delicious account. I think it is going to be very helpful, in the sense that I am on more than one computer depending on if I am at home or at school. To have my favorites organized by "tags" will be nice. I think that being able to share and collaborate the best information and strategies with other professionals is something that we can definitely use as well.

Clovis 23 things, Thing #11

There are many children today that are considered Gen Y. I coach cheer at the Jr high level and I can say that many of the statements made I see in my girls. It is very easy to agree with the statement that everyone has to win, they can't take no for an answer. In teaching Kindergarten and in coaching, I have come across this situation more than once. We read the article Making Learning Work, it stated that the goal is to make new and more effective strategies. Using the computer you have much more immediate gratification than if you have to wait and go to the library for information. The interview with Jason Dorsey was interesting. I couldn't agree more about the statement about freinds and lifestyles being most imoportant. I can relate to this in many ways with my team and even students.

Thing #13 Online content to explore...

Loved the storyline online with actors reading. This would really be useful in a kindergarten setting. Read alouds are a huge part of our everyday, and it is great for children to hear other people reading with different voices. We also talk about what a good reader sounds like and what a way to incorporate new voices to our read alouds. Another one I liked was story nory. This has so many language options that would be great with our EL kids.

Thing #10 Wikis

This would be a good tool for group projects. I can see high school students using this. Many times students who work on group projects can't get together, and this would be a way that they could work together, without actually meeting. I don't think I would use this tool. However, when I was in Hawaii, I remember using the work Wiki!! I had forgotten about it until now. Love that word. That will be my new word for hurry when I am working with my Kindergartners!!!

Thing #9 Web 2.0 application exploration

Wow!! I think I could really use these tools. I knew that you could search anything, but I didn't realize how quick and easy it could be until now. These tools really help to simplify searching the web. I really liked del.icio.us-this site shares the best info that others have found. Then it shows other websites that have common information. urbanspoon- was very cool. I could see using this. We enjoy eating out and what a way to find resturants in the area with menus and reviews along with maps. comiqs-build comics with your own pictures.This would be a fun way to make greeting cards, or even story boards with students.

Thing #8 Free Technology Tools Blogs

We looked at several sites including Google Earth and The interactive Science Simulations. However, we didn't find much for Kindergarten. We did think we may be able to use Google Earth. This may be able fun for our 4 and 5 year olds when teaching about neighborhoods and communities. Students can browse around to find their house, favorite restaurant, etc.

Thing #7 RSS Feeds and Blog Readers

This was a very interesting "Thing" and I learned some new ways to get information quickly. The RSS feeds save time and frustration by not having to browse through all your frequently visited sites, now you can have them sent to you by subscribing to RSS. I didn't realize that when I created my IGoogle, and chose all the links that I wanted on my home page that RSS is how I receive all my updates. While working on Thing #8 I realized that Google Lit Trips has an RSS feed to subscribe to. I will look for them now, on sites that I am interested in. This will help to save me time in the future.

Thing #6 Image Generators

This was a lot of fun!!The Image Generators can be used in many ways in the classroom. This would be a fun way to incorporate pictures and captions to different writing activities in the classroom. You could create posters, comic strips about story retells or do book reports using pictures and captions.

Thing #5 Flickr and Image Genrators

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tk_five_0/3635569312/in/photostream/
I have never used flickr nor have I heard of it. But what an interesting site. There were so mnay pictures that I found myself brosing through. I am a big fan of the ocean, so I search some ocean pictures and the one I posted was just amazing to me. The details that you can see in this picture are just beautiful.

Clovis 23 things Thing #4 Searching the Web

Holly and I working together and we were amazed of how many different search engines are available. We didn't realize how many different search engines sponsor and/or promote different organizations. We discovered many different sites that we would be able to use for our children in our classroom, and Holly found a site that high school students can use for research for colleges and SAT information that I know will be helpful for her boys. There is so much information and different ways to search that you could spend hours just sitting in front of the computer.

Thing 3, iGoogle Suite

Google has so many tools such as IGoogle. IGoogle has so many exterior tools at your fingertips outside of CUSD restraints. By organizing all your "gadgets" you are able to access and prioritize on one home page. Documents and blogging could work in education at the secondary level. Students could access a teachers IGoogle page and get assignments, read documents and share blogs about assignments and questions.
There are a few points that I agree with in the "paradigm flip" such as downloading books in stead of checking them out. I also like the idea of changing the "onesize fits all internet access networks for teachers and students". I agree that "user controlled/responsibility connected access to networks and information" is important.

Thing #1 & Thing #2

http://clovis23things.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/register/

Blogging is new to me. Just coming up with a name took longer than it should have. I am anticipating how it will be putting this whole thing together and customizing my blog. Looking forward to learning all the new things.