Friday, September 28, 2012

A Digital Way of Doing Safety!

Mr.  Blevins' classes decided to tackle lab safety this year by writing up words and phrases and holding them while he video taped the kids using flipcams.  Mr. Blevins imported all of the videos into animoto, and animoto added borders, music and transitions automatically.  He added a couple of text slides, and his videos were done!  

Here's an example of one of the videos!

Repeating Yourself? Use Voki Instead!

Mr. Dempsey, 6th grade teacher has been using Voki's, online avatars in his classroom to introduce topics to his World Culture classes.  He says, "it's a great way to say the things I would normally have to say over and over again for every class, and the kids love it."  When I walked into his room today, he had one of Borat up on his computer.  

Voki is a great way to communicate with students because it allows the presenter to become a character.  In order to use Voki, you can type in text and your Voki will have an automated tone to it, you can call in, use a microphone to record what you want your Voki to say, or you can upload a prerecorded file. 



World Cultures Pops with Great Ideas!

Mrs. Pazos' World Cultures Classes, recently diverted from making a flip book to creating graphic organizers using Popplet.  Popplet is an online Web 2.0 tool that allows students to create a graphic organizer not only using words, but also using videos, images, and Google Maps.  Students remain engaged while organizing their content.  Students and teachers can also collaborate on a Popplet by inviting other Popplet users to work on their project.  

Students had to explore Citizenship, Government, and Economy. They had to define, explain the rights and duties of citizens, give information on the three branches of government, and show how Market Economy, Traditional Economy, and Command Economy are different. Students were allowed to use images found from online by using the "free to use or share" setting in Google Images Advanced Search settings, and appropriate YouTube videos to complete their assignment.  Here is an example of work that one of Ms. Pazos' students created using Popplet.




Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Checking for Understanding with Today's Meet

Mrs. Pazos' World Cultures Classes recently used Today's Meet, a free back channel website, to demonstrate understanding of longitude and latitude.  Mrs. Pazos would give the students latitude and longitude coordinates and the students would have to look on their map and put what continent was located on those coordinates.  Mrs. Pazos said, "I like that I can see if a student is getting the answer wrong and then I can check in with him/her.  Polleverywhere does not show a name.  They feel like they are getting to do something super fun on the computer...but really they are learning latitude and longitude!"  What a great way to quickly check for understanding.