Thing #19 Google Docs

I have actually been using Google Docs for a while now. I found it helpful when creating documents from home that I want to use at school, or somewhere else. I have flash drives, but I seem to lose them! Since I can't lose the internet, I upload my docs there. I like that I have that option, but if I want to do special fonts or formats, I usually save special formatting till I get to school, so I don't waste my time initially. While I use Google Docs often, I'm ashamed to say I just used it to upload files I create in Word, and I have not created any documents or presentations in Google Docs.
I'm really excited about the forms part of Google Docs! I thought this would be a great assessment tool!! I could make it short and sweet and to the point. It can be used as a collaborative tool because a team can create a presentation on a specific topic so each person adds more to it. That's the great thing about Google Docs. It can be updated from anywhere by whoever has permission! This helps save work from one person, to being a team effort to create an awesome presentation! You can also use the Google Docs Spreadsheet as a collaborative tool- it can be used to keep track of class data, student data or even field trip information.
In the classroom, we can use Google Docs to create a class presentation. The teacher can create the outline and the students can "fill in" the blanks. I thought in my class we can create a "Never Ending Story" using presentation, where the student can continue with a story, add pictures, drawing and more!

THing # 18 NING!

Before I started exploring these social networks, I already had a negative outlook. I just couldn't see social networking sites used in the classroom. However, I had NO idea there were so many other social networking sites! I just thought there was Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. But once on Ning I searched "First Grade", since that's what I am teaching this year, and found a whole site dedicated to first grade teacher with resources, forums, and more!! I requested to join, because I am excited to see what other First Grade teacher are doing and I am eager to try new things in my class!! I couldn't see much because my membership has to be approved first, but from the home page, and what I could see, I know this will be a great resource for me!

While checking out Classroom 2.0, I came across a great discussion post on what technologies we teachers are using in their classroom. I found several Web tools that I haven't heard about yet. It was fun checking them out and deciding which would be good for me and my team. I love how Classroom 2.0 has weekly shows. That way, if there is a topic that I am interested in, I can tune in! There are so many great resources out there for Social Networks. I feel bad that I was so against them in the beginning. I really can't wait for our next team meeting so I can share these resources with them. This should help make lesson planning easier, and finding new ideas more fun! I get bored with doing the same thing over and over, and instead of trying to reinvent the wheel each year, I can check out what others are doing, and share my ideas as well!!

Field Experience

1. Google Calendar Embed Training
2. I trained the first grade team on creating a Google Calendar and uploading it to their blogs
3. The TF standards: TF-V.a, TF-V.c, TF-V.d
4. Spring 2011
5. 3 hours, over two days after school
6. A description of the population involved:
• Race/Ethnicity: White and Black
• Subgroups: Teachers
• Role/Grade Level of Faculty/Staff: First Grade
7. Reflection (Answer the questions below):
• What did you learn about technology facilitation and leadership from completing this
field experience? I learned that not everyone will be receptive, and that's ok. I'm giving them the option to use Google Calendar, but that doesn't mean that they HAVE to use it.
• How did this learning relate to the knowledge (what you must know), skills (what
you must be able to do) and dispositions (attitudes, beliefs, enthusiasm) required of a
technology facilitator? Knowledge: I must know what I'm training on- Google Calendar, and what needs to be done so the calendar can be successfully embedded in our class blogs. Skills: I must be able to have access to the internet and Google Calendar. I have to be able to show the best way (meaning easiest) to use and showing them that they can do it! Disposition: I must be positive and enthusiastic! I love using Google Calendar on my blog, and I think that because of my love for Google Calendar i had a natural excitement for this training!
• Describe how this field experience impacted school improvement, faculty
development or student learning at your school. How can the impact be assessed? I think this field experience help eased some of the time the faculty spent on creating their own calendar and switched to using Google Calendars for their students and parents to use. This can be assessed by asking the teachers how stressed they are now when it comes to setting up and updating their classroom calendar.

Thing #17 YouTube and TeacherTube

So, I first starting looking for videos that I can use in my lessons. I'm all about killing two birds with one stone! Anyway, in YouTube I just searched first grade, and right away found several "Hooked on Phonics" videos. I watched a few, and they were actually pretty good! I thought they would be great for some of my struggling readers to watch on the classroom computers, just to help them more with their phonics! Here's one on -sh and -ch:

Since I found a video for language arts, I wanted to find one for Math. This was considerably more difficult, I found lots of songs or parts of songs, but I thought they were too cheesy for me. Then, I found this song for Skip Counting. I know that my first graders had a hard time counting by 2s at the beginning of the year this year, and it would have been great to have. It's a very catchy song counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s! Check it out!!

I have been trying to knit forever! I know the basics, but I haven't been able to start a project! So for my how to video, I found several videos showing how to knit!! I watched some show how to cast-on and knit and purl and cast off! Lots of great videos to choose from too! There were over 600 videos on knitting! I don't have the time for all of them, but it's great to know where to go when I get stuck! The last video I looked at in YouTube was my fun video! This year the teachers at my school are singing a song for the kids to get the pumped for the CRCT! So I looked up some songs other schools have done! I found a great one a school did to Lady Gaga's Poker Face! It's Test Taker Face, it's too good not to share!

I've heard of TeacherTube, I prefer SchoolTube, but they are both very similar. While at TeacherTube, I thought of searching for items that have to do with Folktales, which is what my WebQuest is about. I found a cute video where children make coffee portraits of Johnny Appleseed.I thought that my students can create their own portrait of Johnny Appleseed, and write what they have learned about Johnny Appleseed on his "hat". This is similar to what the young children did, except they will be required to show what they've learned! I even think that this would be a great project to share with our parents! I've made a few videos and posted them on my classroom blog. One of the last ones we did was when we were learning about Teddy Roosevelt. I have my students create a Teddy Bear and write 3 facts about his life on the belly of the bear. Then I took a picture of the bears and made a movie for our blog! The kids love seeing their work, and their parents love it even more! I'm glad I checked out TeacherTube, because I never thought of using it as a way to get ideas!

Thing #15 Podcasting

I checked out a few Podcasts on iTunes. I found one, that I didn't subscribe to because it had not been updated since 2008, but it was Why? The science show for kids. I liked this show because, Dr. Dave takes questions kids have about Science, like "why do we have five fingers", and answers it for them! Kids are so curious and I loved how Dr. Dave wasn't afraid to answer those tough questions. Many of the questions deal with weather, animals, and other science topics. This would be a fun podcast for the class to hear, or a small group of early finishers. Another Podcast I found was a video Podcast that would be perfect for Kindergarten and early readers. It's Super Why from PBS Kids. This I found from Learn Out Loud. It's great because it combines a great story (this particular one was the Three Little Pigs) and phonics skills like blending and decoding. Plus it's a cartoon video podcast which will be appealing to the younger kids! The only challenge with this, is that it's not available on iTunes, unless you want to purchase episodes of the TV show. I liked Learn Out Loud better than iTunes, I felt like I had to filter more with iTunes than I did with Learn Out Loud. Plus it had other great Podcasts that I am interested in! I've never used Podcasts before, but I'm looking forward to learning more ways to use Podcasts in my classroom!

Mulitmedia Project

I asked my team which topic they have to most difficulty finding and coming up ideas for, and they all decided that Folktales, Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett, John Henry and Annie Oakley. Folktales are at then end of the year, and we always struggle with finding something new for folktales. My idea for the Multimedia Project was to create a type of scavenger hunt with the folktales. It will take a couple days for the students to complete the scavenger hunt. I plan to use video and audio clues, as well as links to websites. Since this is going to be used for First Graders, I will design it with them in mind, to make the WebQuest more appealing to them. We have laptop carts that we can check out, and a great computer lab that we can use to access computers as a class. I'm designing this to be done in a whole group setting, since it is geared toward first graders, it's easier to manage the class when we're all doing the same thing in the computer lab or lap tops! Right now, it seems like a lot of work, but I know that once I start adding the pages it will start moving along... I hope!!

Thing #14 Delicious

I first heard about Delicious in a training session at my school. I wasn't too impressed during that training. I think it was because I didn't have the chance to really explore it. It took me a while to figure it out how to use it, but once I did, it was pretty cool! I used it this time to bookmark websites that will go along with my Multimedia Project for ITEC 7445. I was able to browse links and decide which ones would work best with the project. I can see Delicious being a great tool for bookmarking the links that we come across when researching a topic or looking up great sites to share with the kids. I like that with Delicious we can organize the bookmarks with tags, which makes it easier to find. I also like that I can search delicious and find sites that other educators have found. So it makes it easier to find good, quality sites instead of sifting through sites and spending the time just to find a few good sites. Delicious is also a great place for sharing! I can see using this with my team, so whenever we're out on the web, we can just "tag" a great site we've found and then our teammates can see what we've found. This is a great tool for collaboration and a great resource to turn to when looking for great sites!

Here's my Delicious URL: http://www.delicious.com/rachelrtree

Right now, I've just added sites that go along with my Multimedia project, but I plan on adding more!