slm508deo

http://voicethread.com/share/2144806/

To be honest, when I first began working with Voicethread a couple days ago I called it ‘Voicedread’ because it was the first educational technology site that I really struggled with. For some reason, my experience with Voicethread was complicated and I didn’t find the resources on their site to be helpful. As I was working on my Voicethread I just felt like navigating the site was tricky. One of the oddest parts to me is that the site doesn’t offer a whole project ‘save’ button and instead you just save after comments. When I first started working I went to exit and couldn’t find a ‘save’ and this left me feeling nervous. However, when I logged-in the next day my work was still complete. After completing my assignment on social and collaborative media I do recognize that Voicethread was a great website to share this project because it focuses on communication and sharing of thoughts. As mentioned in my Voicethread, students spend countless hours outside of the classroom using social networking sites so it is valuable for teachers to use them in the classroom. Social networking sites offer numerous benefits to teachers, students, and education professionals. In my Voicethread, I focus on Twitter, Google Forms, and DIIGO. Similar to the idea of Voicethread, these three social networking sites allow anyone to create an account, share their learning, and communicate.

While I was completing my Voicethread I kept thinking about how Voicethread has tons of opportunities for communication and collaboration. Students and teachers can communicate through comments, audio, and scribbling on the page. As a side note, I call it ‘scribbling’ because when I tried to use this feature my writing was extremely messy. Using Voicethread in the classroom would benefit students because they would become involved in cooperative learning, which would give them the opportunity to be exposed to multiple opinions and knowledge. Students will learn how to respect the work of others and improve it by adding comments and constructive ideas. Voicethread would be a valuable tool for group projects and would also be good for students to share their learning. Mentioned in the Voicethread are ways that the site meets the Standards for 21^st Century Learner. Additionally, students will be meeting the NETS Standards for Students, under standard 2. ‘Communication and Collaboration.’ Working with social networking sites, students are meeting NETS Standard 2.A “interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.”

Overall, Voicethread was a struggle for me for reasons that I can’t exactly pinpoint. I assume it is because the layout of the website was unfamiliar to my previous experience with other collaboration sites. I’m not going to lie; I definitely became frustrated with Voicethread while I was working with it. However, like with learning anything new I look back now and see ways in which I could improve my work. I don’t particularly feel that my Voicethread is the best in quality but it was a learning experience for me. I walked away from the project knowing that I have added a new tool to my toolbox and I feel that I could use Voicethread in the future with fewer complications.

Goodreads- Australia Unit

G’Day Goodreads!

When I started on my Goodreads journey I decided to focus, again, on how I could have improved a lesson I did in my second grade placement on Australia. In the lesson, I taught students about the seven territories of Australia, and to engage students in learning about Australia I read the story Alexander and Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. Although this story wasn’t based in Australia the main character, Alexander, wants to escape from his surroundings and be in Australia. Although this text didn’t offer students facts or pictures of Australia, it started making them think about Australia and why the main character would want to escape to Australia. After I finished reading the text, I asked students “Why do you think Alexander wanted to be in Australia?” To my astonishment, their answers were so well thought out and they really put themselves in the character’s shoes. After completing this read aloud the students were engaged in learning about Australia and I learned the value of text.

With this in mind, when I registered for Goodreads I searched for books about Australia. One of the best features about Goodreads was once I found one text; it offered me a list of books that were similar in topic and age group. This made searching for more text on Australia simple! After reading excerpts and searching through multiple texts I finally have a list of good reads titled Australia-Unit that includes fiction and nonfiction. My Australia-Unit list was created to be used as a place to organize the text that I would want to use throughout the unit. After researching these books, I could make a list and check them out from my library. I would want my students to have access to the texts so that they could read during their free time, and so that they could use them for daily writing.

When I first read about Goodreads I wondered how the site would work, and what good it was to list books that I have read or want to read. After spending some time on the site I now understand the potential value for teachers in using Goodreads. How often do teachers run around the library and ask librarians for a text that would support their lesson? Goodreads allows teachers to search text, review them, and search similar texts. Going into my student teaching semester, Goodreads can help because texts are commented on and recommended by other teachers that have wisdom and experience. Also, I can join a discussion group and ask questions about text. Teachers could use Goodreads in the instructional setting to categorize books, for instance by genre, unit, etc, and students could then have access to the teachers site. As a future classroom teacher, I would probably use Goodreads to selects books for read alouds that focus on different comprehension skills. I could categorize the lists by questioning, inferring, etc. This way I always have a running list of books that I personally know are great for different comprehension skills. For students, Goodreads could help them keep track of the texts that they read and their review. Students can keep lists and communicate with one another to review different texts.

Goodreads engages teachers in professional growth and has them reflect on what they know about reading. Additionally, Goodreads meets the NETS Standards for teachers. One particular NETS Standard that Goodreads meets is number five, “teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources.” Under the Nets Standards 5.a “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.” Lastly, Goodreads meets 5.c “evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning. Goodreads meets these NETS Standards for teachers because teachers are constantly reflecting on their instruction with their text choice, and Goodreads provides an abundance of text choice through a social catalogue site. When teachers are reflecting on text in Goodreads they are sharing with a global community of teachers that want to choose text that supports their lessons.

Overall, Goodreads is a great tool for both the teacher and students. While students use it to keep track of what they are learning, teachers can use it to organize everything from lessons to favorite books. As stated in the beginning of this log, I learned a valuable lesson about the value of a good read aloud in engaging students. That said, I think the best part about Goodreads is that it creates an enjoyment for reading and lifelong learning.

Sidenote- I could not for the life of me embedd the shelf, and Goodreads had a note that WordPress.com did not work with it  so I just added the link before the post.

Natural Resources Movie by Daphne O’Donnell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://slm508deo.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/83/.

My digital story supports the Maryland Science Curriculum for 2nd grade standard 6.1 Natural Resources and Human Needs, ‘Recognize and explain how Earth’s natural resources from the natural environment are used to meet human needs.’ In an instructional setting, I would use this video to start a unit on natural resources in order to get students thinking about what natural resources are and how they need natural resources. Before sharing this video with students I would share with them that I was the photographer, and that I wanted to share natural resources that I found in order to make that  personal connection. Since this is for a 2nd grade class I would take questions from them at the end to extend what they learned, and I would  have them share where they can find natural resources or how they use them.

I’m sad to say that it is 2011 and this is my first blog ever. I guess I’m a little behind in the world of technology. After a few hours of messing with my blog and trying to figure out the site I think, but I’m not completely confident, that I’m finally ready to make this first post. Blogging so far has been a roller coaster ride for me, one second I understand the site and the next I have to walk away from the computer before I toss it. Wow! I guess this is the world of blogging that I have been hearing all about. I have to say that I have mixed emotions about blogging, but I’m excited to give it a try. Oh my…where to start? I feel like I have really stepped outside of my box with blogging but I’m excited because I have accomplished something new. I’m eager to continue on this journey of learning new technologies and I look forward to getting to know my classmates better through blogging. Look at me…I’m a blogger!