It's been a busy week! It started with our Differentiation Day on Monday, where our librarian and myself helped teachers learn how to use Schoolfusion more effectively. We even had time to talk about some web 2.0 tools that could be embedded, such as Blabberize, Voki's, My Studyio, and Glogster (if it's not blocked). Everyone seemed impressed with Blabberize especially. I've received great feedback! Some discussions from the day however, led me to realize that I may need to provide some workshop time on basic tools with Office products, especially Word and PowerPoint. Our librarian was willing to help me with those sessions and I would love the chance to collaborate more with her.
On Tuesday, I worked with our art teacher to start documenting samples of student work for an e-portfolio project our CTE and art classes will be piloting this year. I worked with both the eighth grade classes and soon we will be using PhotoShop Elements to crop pictures and do another project where the students will add filters and manipulate digital photos.
Wednesday was quieter as I was in a TRT meeting in the morning and finished up preparing for the Study Island training session for Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, I worked with the Science teachers to prepare for the Comic Life project and prepared for the Airliner Training on practice writing for Friday.
Which leads me to today, where I worked on the Study Island Training Video and stopped by some classrooms to see what everyone was up to. I saw a great lesson on discounts in a 7th grade classroom. They reviewed percentages and discounts in their warm-up activity and then "went" to the Ice Cream Parlor and had $25 each to buy as much ice cream as they wanted. BUT, they had to remember that the $25 included a 5% tax and 15% tip. Then they had to calculate how much money they had left over. It was very interesting to see the students helping each other and then get frustrated when they figured up their order and had to take something off because they didn't have enough money left over for the tip! I thought this would be a great smart activity, as well. 8th grade was also doing discounts and I saw one 8th grade teacher using the Smartboard and had a graph with Sales price, discount price, and total price and the students had to figure out the total price and write it on the Smartboard.
Like I said, busy week! How was yours?
Showing posts with label voki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voki. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
NECC Day 4 - Wednesday sessions
My first session of the day on Wednesday was Differentiating NETS*T: Moving Teachers Toward Transformative Technology with Kurt Kohls, Amy Crowley-Gonsoulin, and Aron Sterling from Fairfax County. This was a great presentation and helped me to see some avenues I can use when explaining and implementing the NETS*T with teachers.
The first thing they did was to introduce themselves via a voki avatar. Then they gave us the website they created where we could find more information after the presentation at http://conferenceconnection2009.edublogs.org In the NETS*T there are initially 5 different categories which are further broken down into 4 indicators, those being beginning, developing, proficient, and transformative indicators. They are going to walk us through the stages showing examples for how to implement technology with each category/indicator.
The first category they chose was, "teachers must use their knowledge with use of technology to promote student creativity and learning". The indicator was moving from a beginning stage to a developing stage and the technology tool they chose is one called Blabberize. This website is very easy to use as you select images and animate them in such a way as to make the image talk. The hardest part of this webiste is define where mouth should be. Then record your voice, make sure mouth is moving the way you want, save, and you can create an account to save all of your characters, and then you can share it!
The next category they chose was "Digital Age Learning Experience and Assessment- Creating learning experience for students who is going to be using digital age tools". Indicator level is developing stage to proficient stage. Technology tools to use is combining Blabberize characters into a blog, wiki, (even schoolfusion page) etc. The blogging page they use is Edublogs. This is also a great way to differentiate with different learning styles. They way to incorporate the two is by using the embed code from Blabberize and copy/pasting it into blog, schoolfusion page, etc. Their number one hint: Don’t be scared of the embed code!!!
The next category is addressing diverse needs of students and the indicator is developing stage to proficient stage and the technology tool is a voki, where you can put in pictures of your own for backgrounds and use phone, mic, or text to type to make voices. Here's a great way to use this with Social Studies: Could take picture of politician, president and use it that way!
Later on in the session they continued to share these great tools and ideas for the NETS*T. I definitely enjoyed this session and found it to be very helpful.
The next session I went to was Caravans Around the World with Google Earth which was a model lesson session and I got to play around with Google Earth and create a tour of Spain. It was a great session, because I got to learn more about Google Earth and meet some nice people from Canada and help them out a little as we were all learning. I'll have more on this session later as Google Earth is one of my summer goals to work on.
The last session I attended on Wednesday wasCool Google Tools with Tammy Worcester. Another great session! I am an avid user of all things Google and did already know much about what Worcester presented, but I did learn some new moves too! The first thing I learned is that I can use Email or a mobile phone to send posts to my blog. I kinda of already knew that, but Worcester made is sound so easy! I could also set up an sms service and send text messages from my phone to my blog. Worcester also showed us Google Docs, and in the forms section I got a brillant idea. We could use Google Docs to get information from parents. At the beginning of the year, I could work with teachers/team leaders to create a form and put on their schoolfusion pages and then during back to school night, during a schoolfusion training session, parents put info, and teachers get their information already put into a spreadsheet-with no typing on their behalf!!
Another thing I really liked was Google Alerts, which Wwill email you when something new is indexed on internet and it sends you an email. This is a great idea for parents who want to know if something new is on the internet, most especially your kids name!!
Just put in search terms and how often you want it to be sent to you and you don’t have to have google account to do this!
Wednesday was a great day as far as session went and I thought this was my most productive day at the conference.
The first thing they did was to introduce themselves via a voki avatar. Then they gave us the website they created where we could find more information after the presentation at http://conferenceconnection2009.edublogs.org In the NETS*T there are initially 5 different categories which are further broken down into 4 indicators, those being beginning, developing, proficient, and transformative indicators. They are going to walk us through the stages showing examples for how to implement technology with each category/indicator.
The first category they chose was, "teachers must use their knowledge with use of technology to promote student creativity and learning". The indicator was moving from a beginning stage to a developing stage and the technology tool they chose is one called Blabberize. This website is very easy to use as you select images and animate them in such a way as to make the image talk. The hardest part of this webiste is define where mouth should be. Then record your voice, make sure mouth is moving the way you want, save, and you can create an account to save all of your characters, and then you can share it!
The next category they chose was "Digital Age Learning Experience and Assessment- Creating learning experience for students who is going to be using digital age tools". Indicator level is developing stage to proficient stage. Technology tools to use is combining Blabberize characters into a blog, wiki, (even schoolfusion page) etc. The blogging page they use is Edublogs. This is also a great way to differentiate with different learning styles. They way to incorporate the two is by using the embed code from Blabberize and copy/pasting it into blog, schoolfusion page, etc. Their number one hint: Don’t be scared of the embed code!!!
The next category is addressing diverse needs of students and the indicator is developing stage to proficient stage and the technology tool is a voki, where you can put in pictures of your own for backgrounds and use phone, mic, or text to type to make voices. Here's a great way to use this with Social Studies: Could take picture of politician, president and use it that way!
Later on in the session they continued to share these great tools and ideas for the NETS*T. I definitely enjoyed this session and found it to be very helpful.
The next session I went to was Caravans Around the World with Google Earth which was a model lesson session and I got to play around with Google Earth and create a tour of Spain. It was a great session, because I got to learn more about Google Earth and meet some nice people from Canada and help them out a little as we were all learning. I'll have more on this session later as Google Earth is one of my summer goals to work on.
The last session I attended on Wednesday wasCool Google Tools with Tammy Worcester. Another great session! I am an avid user of all things Google and did already know much about what Worcester presented, but I did learn some new moves too! The first thing I learned is that I can use Email or a mobile phone to send posts to my blog. I kinda of already knew that, but Worcester made is sound so easy! I could also set up an sms service and send text messages from my phone to my blog. Worcester also showed us Google Docs, and in the forms section I got a brillant idea. We could use Google Docs to get information from parents. At the beginning of the year, I could work with teachers/team leaders to create a form and put on their schoolfusion pages and then during back to school night, during a schoolfusion training session, parents put info, and teachers get their information already put into a spreadsheet-with no typing on their behalf!!
Another thing I really liked was Google Alerts, which Wwill email you when something new is indexed on internet and it sends you an email. This is a great idea for parents who want to know if something new is on the internet, most especially your kids name!!
Just put in search terms and how often you want it to be sent to you and you don’t have to have google account to do this!
Wednesday was a great day as far as session went and I thought this was my most productive day at the conference.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
So Much to Learn
It's been virtual conference week! I've been learning a lot, what with both the FETC Virtual Conference and the DEN Virtual Conference within two days of each other, and a DEN webinar three days later. The first one occurred last Thursday and boy, what an amazing interface! However, I do have one criticism on the FETC Virtual Day; there was hardly any information about it before hand. I received email after email to register for it, and knew it would be 11-7, but that was it. No mention of the sessions or anything until about a week before hand. This seemed to also discourage some teachers from registering too. But was I amazed when I got in! It looked like the Orange County Convention Center on the Internet! You could move from "room" to "room", listen to speakers, chat with friends and vendors, even have your virtual badge swiped for prizes. It was all very impressive.
One of the discussions I got in on, was an educator describing how their district does online trainings and webinars. This year they've done 12 webinars using Adobe Connect Pro, each training is about 20 minutes, with 4 sessions for each webinar that correspond to teacher prep times in the buildings, and focuses on informational or how-to educational topics. Teachers are able to tune in "live" if it fits their schedules or can view the webinars on-demand at their convenience. So far, they've had very good feedback. They prepare each presentation with live links, files to share, and broadast a video feed with integrated VoIP all within the web browser, no application installations needed. Each webinar is archived and made available their district Intranet for viewing later (here is an example of one on WebQuest refreshers https://admin.acrobat.com/_a853141003/p45253355 This particular educator also uses Adobe Connect Pro for in-house video podcasts on their podcast network called TWIRT (This Week in Rockwood Technology). Here's another example where they interviewed Bernie Dodge, inventor of the WebQuest, http://connectpro21991761.acrobat.com/p75077836
I also saw 2 other things mentioned in chats that interested me:
- Try using Talkshoe, yodeo, or podlinz might be good websites to check out for
phonecasting. Not sure what phonecasting is? It's a way to record someone
over the phone for a podcast.
- www.kuglin.com has files and downloads,
for Google Earth and also tech movies
I had a hard time getting much more out of the FETC Virtual Conference, as I kept losing my connection at school. It got a little bit better when I went home that night to finish up with the evening sessions, but I still got kicked out a lot. Luckily, the sessions presented during the conference are archived until July, so I can go back and check out what I missed.
The DEN Virtual Conference was held on Saturday, which ended up being a busy day for me, as my book club was also meeting that day. So again, I get to go back and look at some archived sessions :)
The keynote, called the Benjamin Button Effect by Lance Rougeaux was very interesting and immediately grabbed my attention. The Benjamin Button effect here that Lance was talking about, is if he could go back and change something he taught several years ago, what tool would he use now? For example, he described a field trip they took his class on to Valley Forge. What he do differently now, if they still took that trip? Use Google Earth to give the kids an up close view of the park before going and help deepen their experience and understanding.
Two other examples he gave was a school project where they needed to advertise for a fundraiser and looking at documents (maybe this could be a primary resource). For the first one, Lance would now use www.glogster.com, the digital poster website to advertise for that fundraiser, because he could include pictures, videos, and links. For the second one, he actually took the description of the DEN virtual conference listed on the DEN site and put it into www.wordle.net by pasting into their text box and creating a word cloud to see the description in a new light and get a different understanding of the text. It was incredible to see and very enlightening on how this could be used in other ways.
I also learned about a great resource for those who are new to glogster. An educator, Traci Blazosky, has put together a tutorial for glogster using glogster on their wiki. Check out www.ktitraci.wikispaces.com. I also go to see one of the great class lesson that this educator did with her elementary students on tree frogs. She created a tour in Google Earth where all different kinds of tree frogs can be found on the earth and then linked the placemarks to glogs where she had put information together on each of these frogs the kids were learning about. It was truly creative and made me think that would be a perfect idea for studying cultures in geography or biomes in life science. Traci, also showed how she created writing prompts for her students using the writing prompt builder in unitedstreaming and how she embedded a voki, a web 2.0 tool, into the prompt. This voki character explained to the students a little more about tree frogs and what they needed to do for their assignment. Great stuff here!
Then this past Wednesday, I got to join Matt Monjan, in his presentation on Break It, Bend It, and Bust It Loose, new ways to use the DE streaming tools during the Road Show webinar. He showed some great stuff on unitedstreaming (DE) tools, such as, embedding a video into PowerPoint that has controls. Never used the control toolbox before! He also explained how other teachers are using the images from unitedstreaming in their classrooms. One teacher is zooming in on pictures of things such as sharks and having them use this picture in math class. Another teacher uses the calendar function and images to get his students to class on time and improve their writing skills. You can find more of Matt's presentations on his blog, www.geekybird.com.
I've learned a lot of great stuff this week and really want to use these ideas soon!
One of the discussions I got in on, was an educator describing how their district does online trainings and webinars. This year they've done 12 webinars using Adobe Connect Pro, each training is about 20 minutes, with 4 sessions for each webinar that correspond to teacher prep times in the buildings, and focuses on informational or how-to educational topics. Teachers are able to tune in "live" if it fits their schedules or can view the webinars on-demand at their convenience. So far, they've had very good feedback. They prepare each presentation with live links, files to share, and broadast a video feed with integrated VoIP all within the web browser, no application installations needed. Each webinar is archived and made available their district Intranet for viewing later (here is an example of one on WebQuest refreshers https://admin.acrobat.com/_a853141003/p45253355 This particular educator also uses Adobe Connect Pro for in-house video podcasts on their podcast network called TWIRT (This Week in Rockwood Technology). Here's another example where they interviewed Bernie Dodge, inventor of the WebQuest, http://connectpro21991761.acrobat.com/p75077836
I also saw 2 other things mentioned in chats that interested me:
- Try using Talkshoe, yodeo, or podlinz might be good websites to check out for
phonecasting. Not sure what phonecasting is? It's a way to record someone
over the phone for a podcast.
- www.kuglin.com has files and downloads,
for Google Earth and also tech movies
I had a hard time getting much more out of the FETC Virtual Conference, as I kept losing my connection at school. It got a little bit better when I went home that night to finish up with the evening sessions, but I still got kicked out a lot. Luckily, the sessions presented during the conference are archived until July, so I can go back and check out what I missed.
The DEN Virtual Conference was held on Saturday, which ended up being a busy day for me, as my book club was also meeting that day. So again, I get to go back and look at some archived sessions :)
The keynote, called the Benjamin Button Effect by Lance Rougeaux was very interesting and immediately grabbed my attention. The Benjamin Button effect here that Lance was talking about, is if he could go back and change something he taught several years ago, what tool would he use now? For example, he described a field trip they took his class on to Valley Forge. What he do differently now, if they still took that trip? Use Google Earth to give the kids an up close view of the park before going and help deepen their experience and understanding.
Two other examples he gave was a school project where they needed to advertise for a fundraiser and looking at documents (maybe this could be a primary resource). For the first one, Lance would now use www.glogster.com, the digital poster website to advertise for that fundraiser, because he could include pictures, videos, and links. For the second one, he actually took the description of the DEN virtual conference listed on the DEN site and put it into www.wordle.net by pasting into their text box and creating a word cloud to see the description in a new light and get a different understanding of the text. It was incredible to see and very enlightening on how this could be used in other ways.
I also learned about a great resource for those who are new to glogster. An educator, Traci Blazosky, has put together a tutorial for glogster using glogster on their wiki. Check out www.ktitraci.wikispaces.com. I also go to see one of the great class lesson that this educator did with her elementary students on tree frogs. She created a tour in Google Earth where all different kinds of tree frogs can be found on the earth and then linked the placemarks to glogs where she had put information together on each of these frogs the kids were learning about. It was truly creative and made me think that would be a perfect idea for studying cultures in geography or biomes in life science. Traci, also showed how she created writing prompts for her students using the writing prompt builder in unitedstreaming and how she embedded a voki, a web 2.0 tool, into the prompt. This voki character explained to the students a little more about tree frogs and what they needed to do for their assignment. Great stuff here!
Then this past Wednesday, I got to join Matt Monjan, in his presentation on Break It, Bend It, and Bust It Loose, new ways to use the DE streaming tools during the Road Show webinar. He showed some great stuff on unitedstreaming (DE) tools, such as, embedding a video into PowerPoint that has controls. Never used the control toolbox before! He also explained how other teachers are using the images from unitedstreaming in their classrooms. One teacher is zooming in on pictures of things such as sharks and having them use this picture in math class. Another teacher uses the calendar function and images to get his students to class on time and improve their writing skills. You can find more of Matt's presentations on his blog, www.geekybird.com.
I've learned a lot of great stuff this week and really want to use these ideas soon!
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