Six Kingdoms to Comic Life!

Comic books
Originally uploaded by Stinus

I'm working with the 7th grade Science classes next week using the software program Comic Life to create posters on The 6 Kingdoms. I went over the details of our project with one of the Science teachers today and did a refresher with her on Comic Life. We took a class last year together on the program and I learned how to not only make comics, but also change the boxes around to use it as a way to present information. The plan is for students to do research on the kingdoms and find 2 facts per kingdom, plus pictures to show examples of each.

I've started to suggest Comic Life to teachers as a substitute for Glogster, which seems to be blocked at my school right now. Here's the example we did today to show students next week what we're looking for:

I'll give you an update on how it goes next week!

Invention Commercials

Inventions & Inspirations: The History of Recorded Sound
Originally uploaded by Second Story

Last week I had the chance to work with our sixth grade history students on creating commercial recordings. They were doing research on 20th century inventions such as airplanes, washer machines, bubble gum and even kool aid! Their teacher had already designed a lesson where the students research their invention and create a poster with the research information included. She mentioned to me that she wanted to "jazz up" the lesson a bit and the first thing I thought of was a podcast. We decided to have the students work in pairs instead and then in addition to the poster, have them record a commercial persuading others to buy the invention and which would showcase their poster.

While completing research the students filled out a worksheet with the following elements:
- Name of the invention
- Name of the inventor
- Date invention was created
- Impact invention had on society
- Any other important information

The teacher and I quickly created a sample commercial for the kids on the Transcontinental Railroad. We had to substitute a train's horn for a ship's fog horn, but we explained to the students that they may also have to think creatively with their sounds effects. You could see them start to think about they could supercharge their recordings.

After two days in the library and using computers for research and to print out pictures of their inventions, the students started on their commercial scripts, which also had to include the above information. Once the script was approved, students were allowed to begin recording their commercials. We used the program Garageband on our macbooks and set up an enhanced audio podcast and the students learned how to record voices, which tracks to record on, and how to add music and sound effects. We allowed the students about 20-30 minutes for this process. Luckily, we had the additional help of another TRT to help us. As students were recording, others were working on their posters. After the students finished recording, we added pictures of their posters to the podcast track as featured album art. By creating the enhanced podcast, this allowed us to show their posters and hear their commercial at the same time. On the afternoon of their second day of recording, we took the commercials, turned them into m4a files and then created a website on iweb for all three classes commercials.

Did I mention this was my first time using Garageband? I'm thrilled with the results and the sound quality of the recordings. I will be using Garageband again soon!

What do think of our commercials? Have any ideas for how you could use Garageband in your classroom?

How Many Ways Can You Blog?

Today, I worked with our Librarian to present information to teachers about our website program, Schoolfusion. This past summer, the site was updated with some new tools (blog, wiki, podcast/video/photo slide show upload) and we discussed how these tools could be implemented effectively into their class pages and lessons.

Let's talk about blogs first. We went over how to add posts or entries to the blogs in Schoolfusion. There were lots of great ideas discussed. Two of our PE teachers talked about using the blog as a way to discuss important health topics with students. One of them asked me to look over her first entry and see if it was a good start. She started with an entry on her fitness routine and asked what students do to get in shape. For a first timer, I think she's on a roll!

The other PE teacher asked about including pictures in entries. Last year, she and I did a trackstar "WebQuest" on different health topics and one of these was anorexia. One of the sites student's visited showed pictures of people suffering from the disease. She asked if she could find a copyright free image and use this in an entry and have a discussion online about it. Another great idea!

Another teacher at our school created a parent blog as a way to communicate with parents especially when they have questions about homework or classwork their students are doing.

We also showed the teachers our blogs outside of Schoolfusion. I showed off My Technication and how I use this as a way to spread information about Instructional Technology ideas and tools. I also talked about added features that Blogger has such as adding widgets (my voki avatar), the blog roll, and my STAR DEN badge. Our librarian showed her blog, http://ashbyreads.blogspot.com, and how she uses this as a online card catalog of books and a discussion forum for students. She pointed out the tag feature that Schoolfusion doesn't have and how students can use this to look up other books in a specific genre.

If you have a blog, how do you use it? Have any great ideas to share for those just starting? Add a comment for this post and I'll compile the best ideas and put them back in another post. Have an idea, but not sure if it will work? Try it out on us first!

It's My 100th Post!

10 Year Handover Celebration Fireworks...
Originally uploaded by jazzpic

Holy cow, I can't believe I finally have 100 posts! Funny, as it would be, I sat down a few nights ago and just for kicks counted up how many blog posts I have. The number on the calculator = 99! So here I am blogging about it!

For those curious, here are some stats over the last 100 posts:
- I started My Technication on January 24, 2008 as part of my graduate program.
- I received a comment from Will Richardson (the father of blogging) on January 31, 2008.
- I had a total of 44 blog posts in 2008
- So far this year, I've had a total of 82! What a difference a year makes! :)

Now, you may be looking at these last two numbers and think I don't know how to work a calculator. I do! A few months ago, I discovered Diigo, a social bookmarking site, when Furl folded. I also discovered that any websites I bookmarked on Diigo could be sent straight to My Technication. Because these are just a listing of sites, I have chosen not to include these posts in my 100th post count. If I did, then I would have a total of 126 posts. That's a lot of blogging!

Hooray for 100 posts! How do you think I've been doing so far? Any ideas for future blog posts?

It's Raining Books!

it's raining books!
Originally uploaded by overthemoon

One of the things I love as much as (maybe more so) than technology is books! I can't get enough of them and I've been addicted since second grade when my teacher Miss Lister got me hooked on Charlotte's Web. I think I've read it about six times.

My friend Becky over at her blog, Love Everyday Life, joined the 2009 Busy Bookworm Challenge, which got me thinking I could do it too. Hey, I'm already in two book clubs!!

Right now, my life has been crazy insane, so I'm not putting a bunch of books on my list.
So here's goes:
Challenge List (to be read by December 31, 2009)
1. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
2. The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
3. Belong to Me by Marisa De Los Santos
4. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
5. Magyk by Septimus Heap
6. Garageband for Dummies
7. The Giver by Lois Lowry

Books Read in 2009 (to the best of my recollection)
1. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
2. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
3. Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
4. Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
5. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (twice)
6. Rattled by Christine Coppa
7. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
8. Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
9. Specials by Scott Westerfeld
10. Extras by Scott Westerfeld
11. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collilns
12. Schooled by Gordon Korman
13. Unwind by Neal Shusterman
14. The Girls from Ames by Jeffery Zaslow
15. To Kill a Mockingbird by
16. The Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins
17. Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor
18. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

It Was One of THOSE Days...

IMG_0163
Originally uploaded by ded_guy

The thought of the computer and the sledgehammer together actually crossed my mind today. Luckily, I had a colleague talk me out of it. Here's hoping tomorrow is a better technology day. :)

Gotta See This...

Go visit Tekkieteacher's blog for a great laugh! Hilarity at it's best!

http://tekkieteacher.edublogs.org/