Sites that allow teachers to make their own educational games!

The approaching holidays are difficult for many of my students.  I notice that their attention wanders, their behavior unravels, and their capacity for learning new material decreased dramatically.  So, when I found this site, which will allow me to make educational games, I was very excited!  My kids used Sheppard Software earlier this year to learn their states, capitals and Canadian Provinces, and StudyStack.com to study for their recent Social Studies test.  Now, if they can play while learning their spelling, vocabulary, homonyms, heat and energy, ancient civilizations, or ecology, won't that be more fun!?

I'll let you know how it goes and post links on my portaportal.  If you try any sites, let me know too!

Happy holidays!

Podcasting

 I was glad to learn about podcasting, because I think it will be especially beneficial for my students who have difficulty reading.  My sixth-grade language arts students are finishing a cooperative book, and they will create a podcast to accompany the slideshow of the book.  They are very excited about being able to share their work with their friends and family online... suddenly a class project takes on a new, much more exciting dimension, and we will save paper by not making a copy of the 20 page book for each student to bring home.

I love to read aloud, and my selection of books on tape for this group is limited.  I am trying to find ways to help them read independently, and many of the texts I use (we have a subscription to Reading A-Z.com, which has great levelled non-fiction texts) do not have an audio component.  I think I will try creating a podcast for the kids to listen to as they read along.  I have noticed in the past that students who follow along in a book as it is read to them improve their own fluency and vocabulary.

Other resources I have found are also very exciting.  You've already seen my first Prezi, and I created a second one for my sixth graders on the difference between "there, their and they're."  This came together very quickly (my first attempt took 5 hours!), when I realized that the simplest way to create it was to type all the words I wanted in a list format (each line in a separate text box), then find a bunch of pictures (click and drag to desktop, then to the prezi).  Only when I had all the items on the Prezi did I start to organize them.  MUCH quicker!  The kids were fascinated, and read it aloud to themselves as they watched it.  Instead of autoplay, I let them click when they were ready to move to the next "slide."

Ted.com is a great resource for anyone who is interested in learning more about technology, science, design, and many other subjects.  Perhaps because I watched Flubber this weekend with my daughter, I found this lecture about the invention of new toys especially intriguing.  Although these lectures are fairly high-level, and probably more complex than I would use with my students this year, I imagine 8th grade - High School level teachers would find some of them very useful.

More soon!

M.

Presentations

This week I explored different sites that either host collections of presentations or teach you how to make one.  I found a lot of amateur presentations, some very wordy ones, and a few I would show to my students.  One of the other teachers recommended Pete's Power Point Station, which has quite a large collection of education slide shows, and that was quite helpful.

And then I played with my favorite by far: Prezi.  I watched several tutorials, read some tips, and then jumped in!  I spent a while last night and tonight creating a presentation for class tomorrow.  It's still rough, but I enjoy the ability to move around the page, include visuals, be a little bit playful while presenting useful information.  I think I would have to be careful not to throw too much at my students in this format, though.  I had to tone mine down a bit because I was afraid the audience would get motion sickness, but what I ended up with is a decent mix of fact and fun, I think.  Certainly more interesting (for me, anyway, not necessarily for a left-brain thinker) than reading black words on a white page...

Now I want to get a drawing tablet so I can do my own drawings instead of depending on the images online.  And I want to learn how to do flash animation! And a document camera!

Will it never end??

And speaking of presentations, here is my favorite presentation of the week:  the South Portland Marching Band, featuring their drum major Joey Hendricks, in a custom made sequinned, bejeweled and glittered jacket, created by yours truly and my daughter Gracie.  They won 5 stars in all categories and brought home a gold medal.  Now THAT's a presentation!

The famous Pat Metheny glitter guitar jacket!

The amazing South Portland Marching Band -- what an incredible bunch of kids!

Marvel, Novelist & Wiki Progress

Since I can't log into the moodle site tonight, I'm winging my post, but here's a recap of my progress in the past week or so:

I have added more information to my Study Skills Wiki.  I now have 7 pages and a google calendar widget, as well as a chart for my students to complete after they visit the Multiple Intelligence Quiz links I provided.  I found an article tonight (NPR) that talks about how traditional methods of studying have been proven to be less effective than studying in shorter bursts, varied locations, etc.  Interesting! 

I spent a while on Marvel last week.  Frankly, I had no idea that there was such a rich resource of scholarly material available in one location.  Did everyone else know this?  Or were they like me, thinking that if it was "out there" you could find it on google?  In any case, I feel much more comfortable navigating on that site and I will certainly encourage students to use it.  I will recommend they access it directly through the Mahoney page to avoid overwhelming them with resource choices on the main Marvel page.  I remember many of our conversations at the start of this course, when we were concerned about the quality of the information our students were finding.  The Marvel sites certainly limit students' searches to more "respectable" sites, which should reassure teachers.  I do think that Marvel could spend some time re-designing the site to make it more user friendly, as I have heard several kids say they don't use it because it's confusing, and frankly, I found it confusing as well.

My other discovery was Novelist.  I found a list of about 20 authors I "need" to read for myself (I love historical fiction and British mysteries) and compiled a list of books to help me with my Halloween/ghost story unit.  I found the site to be easy to use, very informative, and well explained by the tutorials.

Have a great week!

And now for something completely different...

I realized yesterday morning that I had been dreaming about creating websites.  Hmm.  Too much time on the computer, perhaps?


I find, as a result of this course, that I am looking at many tasks, both educational and personal. differently.  I'm thinking of ways to work "smarter," not "harder"; to improve communication with friends, family, students, parents, and co-workers; to use technology to improve my teaching methods at school and in my private calligraphy practice (I'm the president of the Casco Bay Scribes, and often teach workshops); and to organize myself more effectively.

It's quite exciting!

I read this article on Edutopia today, which introduced yet another technique that was new to me -- Prezi's.

Take a look and see what you think -- very visual, with movement and the "webbing" connection.
Here's a tutorial.

Consider the possibilities!

M.

Congratulations... it's a Wiki!

This week brought another new challenge, and despite my initial trepidation, I started a Wiki -- you can take a look at it here. Since I often work with students who need ideas and strategies to help them have a successful school year, this is what I decided to focus on as my "test drive."  My primary concern was about security, but once I discovered that I could modify the security settings, I felt much happier.  At the moment, I have locked some pages so they cannot be changed (so my students don't add interesting information to my biography!) and the entire site is open by invitation for editing, although anyone can view it.

I do find that the wikispaces formatting is a bit awkward at times.  If you want to go back and change the size of the lettering, for instance, you are right back at square one -- and you must also change the font and color from the default.  Trying to center things is also occasionally awkward, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.  I have been able to add pictures and make links to new pages and external sources quite easily.  I even added a widget!  The result is fairly professional looking, if simple.

This week, if all goes well, I will have some of my students take a Learning Style Quiz and post some of their results on the wiki.  I'll keep you posted!

Trying to add a video

Let's see if this works.  I'd like to be able to add videos to the classroom blog...

School House Rock -- Adjectives