random thing

Thanks again to Mr Byrne at www.freetech4teachers.com! I have found yet another fun tool at dumpr.net

This site allows you to take a photo and change it in a variety of ways. You can see below how I played with a picture from several years ago of a student who was dressed up as the pope for our medieval banquet. It looks like his image is now hanging in a famous museum.

There are a lot of other options, like turning a photo into a sketch. I thought Travis and I might be able to use this for our wedding. We could take some fun photos of us and our families and turn them into a sketch. These sketches could then be printed off and turned into a coloring book for my young nieces and nephews. How fun would it be for a kid to color their own family?!

There's a lot of fun potential at this site.

dumpr.net

Art Museum by dumpr.net

Powerpoint Help

I know many of us have had to sit through painful powerpoint presentations, delivered both my adults and by students. The ones where someone just reads the slides to the audience....you know what I mean.

Mr. Byrne at free technology for teachers refers to a great website on his blog. Slidemagnet.com gives suggestions on how to do better presentations. I found the Deck of the Day to be a helpful slide presentation on how to create effective slide presentations. I would certainly share ideas from this site with my students before a powerpoint project. It's also tempting to send this to some "higher ups" that I've seen present...but that might not go over to well :)

Thing 10: Digital Storytelling

Shawn's post inspired me to look at Thing 10! Shows the power of an RSS feed and reading other people's blogs!

I would say that history day is a time when many of my students engage in digital storytelling. The documentaries that they create show in-depth analysis of their topic. I've always wanted to assign a documentary project at the beginning of the year so that ALL kids are exposed to this medium. However, it is way beyond my comfort zone and so I have not yet taken the plunge. I know that my wonderful media specialist and my tech coordinator would be willing to help. I just haven't taken that step yet.

I thought that a couple of the sites mentioned in the directions for thing 10 sounded very promising. Awesomestories.com is a really interesting site for primary documents. They have different categories of stories including biographies, disasters, and history. I took a brief look at the story of Joan of Arc. These digital stories includes primary sources, so when it says that "Joan of Arc was put on trial" a person can click on "trial" and read the court transcripts. I put a tag on this site in my delicious account. Very promising for a history teacher!

I also could see myself using ourstory.com in the future. I would love for each of my advisees to create a story about themselves in the form of a timeline. they could include what they have already experienced as well as what they hope for the future in regards to their education and career. This will be a nice compliment to the new advisory curriculum that we will have next year. These timelines would be a great thing to share at student-led conferences.

Helpful History Website

Today I was looking at some websites during conferences. I came across the landmark project and discovered they had some good resources for History. I was reminded of the power of the British Museum and I also discovered a great source of biographies. I wish I had remembered these sources for History Day!

The landmark website is nice because it has selected websites with descriptions and suggested uses in the classroom.

Some of the sites were dead links, but overall I thought it was a good site. It went beyond History, but I just focused on that part.

Thing 11: online notetaking

I could see Awesome Highlighter having some real uses in my classroom during various research projects. It's another option for those kids who like to print off stuff from the internet and highlight it. A way to go paperless...and they won't be able to lose what they printed and hightlighted in their locker, back pack, house, bus, etc...

Earlier this school year, Travis shared a notetaking template with me that he has used . I modified it for several projects, including history day, and it worked quite well. It doesn't end plagarism, but it does force students to interact more with their sources. They need to decide WHY they are writing something down. In the case of history day, kids needed to decide if that piece of information is background information, important events, or impact that their individual made on society. I have found in the past that kids will write down anything and everything they see. These cards helped them focus on key areas.
--------------------------------------------------------------
History Day Notes

Title of Source: _______________________________

Circle one: background actions legacies

Note(s):











Page Number:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I still struggle with kids who plagarize. As I reflect on why this is an issue, I am worried that I haven't taught them enough about it. I certainly tell them "don't plagarize" but I haven't given them the tools.

Thing 12: Online Publishing

This afternoon finds me at school with students during a History Day work session. When not answering student questions, I have been playing around with slideshare.net

While I did not find a powerpoint presentation to use with my middle schoolers, I did find some examples of poorly executed presentations and others that were well-designed. I could see myself showing these examples before assigning the students a PPT project.

I would have liked to find some presentations directly tied to my world history content. However, what I did find was very dry and not well-suited to middle school students.

I did find an interesting presentation about web 3.0...and I'm still trying to figure out web 2.0!

Thing 19: screencasting

Diving into the world of screencasting...

I have seen screencasting before when our tech coordinator sends out links to show us how to use our gradebook. But I have never attempted one before.

I thought the introductory article was very helpful. As soon as I started reading, I thought about using screencasting with e-portfolios. The first time kids set up their portfolios is a real nightmare sometimes. Showing them where to find the template in the shared folder and how to save it in their individual user folder can be a real challenge. I have a set of written directions, but I think a screencast of the process would help those kids who need to see it done first.

The interesing thing is that the article also mentioned e-portfolios! The article's idea was to have kids create screencasts to put into their portfolio. I was inspired by the idea. I could see my students doing a narration of a powerpoint or other project they saved on the computer. What a fun way for them to demonstrate their learning.

I played around with "jing". I did capture a very basic video. There is not much to it since I don't have a mic on my computer. After some intial set-up and reading the how-to's I was able to use the product with relative ease. I could see that it would get easier and easier...

here's my lame video :)

my second attempt: I was more selective with the area that I captured. I think it looks better than capturing the whole screen. Still lame with no sound:)

RPC rocks!

I have yet to use the research project calculator with my students as a way for them to organize research. However, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the support materials. I was creating a lesson for my kids who are doing documentaries for History Day. I remembered that there were materials for making a video, and I found a storyboard and video script/shot list worksheet that I will be handing out tomorrow. I can't wait to see how these planning tools help to create more organized documentaries.

We are in the middle of History Day right now and I need all the help I can get! Thank you RPC!

History Day Blog

As some of you already know, I created a History Day blog for my students last year. I deleted all of the old comments and started fresh this year. My students got the information on how to blog yesterday. I already have 10+ posts from kids. There is one that I wanted to share with the group to show the power of blogging...

Here's the original post from a student: How do we write a para. about why the topic fits the year theme if we have a person, wouldn't we just say "they had a great impact and legacy"?

Here's the response from one of his peers: For the paragraph you do write about their impact and legacies. To dig deeper you write about what impact they had. What did your person do to change history? Also, you write about what legacies they had and how they got them. Just ask yourself questions as to what did your person do in his or her lifetime to influence the people around them.

Kids teaching/coaching other kids! Yippee!

Thing 18: Online Thought Organizers

Several times a year I have my students create mind maps for different topics that we study. I was intrigued by the idea of online thought organizers. So, I played around with FreeMind.

I don't think that I will ever have kids create Mind Maps using this tool, because I would have to do so much instruction on how the tool works. I think that would take away from my main purpose of using a mind map to teach or review content.

However, I could see some uses for this tool in my classroom. I could create one and then project it in the front of the room to fill out as a whole class activity. Or, I could print them out as a worksheet for individuals/groups to fill out. There are some fun features (blinking fonts) that would be lost by printing them off.

I created a "thought organizer" for Ancient Rome. I have had a student teacher for most of the Rome unit and he has been creating and delivering the lessons. I will be finishing the unit up after Christmas, once we have done some work with History Day. So, this unit is getting very spread out. To bring things back together, I think I will use the Ancient Rome organizer that I created.

Take a look at the Rome Review Chart under "assignments/worksheets" on my web page.

MMSA conference

Metronet was well represented at the Minnesota Middle School Association Conference on Dec 4th and 5th. Jeanne, Kelly, and I presented the work we have done with technology during 2 break-out sessions. I was pleased to focus in on some of my technology "loves": igoogle, blogging, and delicious. We also covered Wikis, podcasting, videography, wordle, google docs, etc... It was a great opportunity to show what we had done so far. I know that we gave them A LOT of information. But it's just like metronet: tons of info that people need to sort through and find the 2-3 things that work best for their classes and with their personality. I think it is so cool that our MILI experience is spreading throughout the state. Even more teachers and students will now benefit from the cool stuff we have learned. Thanks Metronet!!!!

cool web sitr

The November issue of the NMSA Middle School Journal had a brief blurb about a site that sounded very interesting to me. The author writes: "In my opinion Marco Polo is probably the most comprehensive and sophisticated Web site on the Internet." How could I NOT check this out?!

I spent some time on this site playing around with the educator tools. I did some searches for "lesson plans, interactives, and more". I really like how this site has various drop down menus. A person can enter their usual search term. (I tried Ancient Rome, for example). But then you can limit to subject area, grade level, resource type, and content partners.

The resource types include: lessons, interactives, primary sources, worksheets, reference materials, media, and assessments.

Some of the content partners are: readwritethink, the smithsonian's history explorer, xpedition...

This site has a lot of potential. I can't wait to explore it more. I already added it to my delicious under "teacher tools".

http://marcopolo-education.org/

Thing 16: e-portfolios

Several years ago...ok...maybe it was MANY years ago...a colleague and I wrote a grant focused on the meaningful integration of technology into the classroom. She was a tech teacher and I teach history....so it was a match made in grant heaven. We got the necessary funding and support to develop e-portfolios for our middle school. Initially, many teachers were using them. But I think I am the only one still holding on to this idea. I think it is so beneficial for kids to have a record of how their year went, from beginning to end. We also use the e-portfolios at student led conferences in the fall and the spring. In the age of online grades, parents enjoy seeing samples of their kid's work. They also enjoy reading their child's reflections about their work.

We actually use powerpoint to create the portfolios. We designed a template that the kids can personalize with the information. We did check out other tools (such as e-folio MN) but found that PPT was the best for middle schoolers. They love the flexibility and creativity! Plus, they already know how to use PPT. I could see how maybe high schoolers and college students could use the e-folios. I do think it's cool that they are provided for free. It is a great idea.

However, when it comes to e-folios I think I am going to stick with "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Since powerpoint has been working well so far, I'll stick with it.

I do love portfolios and think that teachers should use them...whatever the format!

Metronet History Day Training

I am VERY excited to go to the History Day workshop that will be put on by Metronet. I am eager to hear ideas of how I can work with my public library to make History Day an even richer experience for the kids. Another social studies teacher and I have already tossed around the idea of having a History Day work day some Saturday at the Chanhassen library. The librarians and teachers would be there to support the kids in using their public library. I think this would be a very cool collaboration!

The workshop is tomorrow and I can't wait to reflect on what I learned!

Blogging Rubric

While going through my RSS feeder, I found another great tool from Free Technology for Teachers. It is a rubric for grading students participation on a blog. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=df8b89sj_324h7b58tgq

I appreciate that the rubric encourages students to be critical readers and thinkers as well as creative thinkers. Additionally, students are held to a high expectation for the quality of their entry. While these might be typical areas on the rubrics that many of us have been using forever, the area "community of practice" is specific to the world of blogging. As someone who has not created a rubric for blogging before and would not have known where to start, this rubric is a lifesaver.

I could certainly see myself "tweaking" this for my History Day blog this year.

Extra Thing C: Tools for Readers

Librarything.com



What an interesting website! When I read the introductory information on this site, I wasn't too sure about it. Why would I need to catalog the books in my home library? I certainly don't have that many books. I tend to borrow books from friends, family, and the public library. I have even started borrowing books from students so that I can read the Twilight series! So a catalog isn't something I would necessarily pursue.



But then I read about the social networking aspect of the site. I could find readers who have similar book lists. I can read their reviews/feedback to get ideas for my next great read. As cool as that sounds, I usually get my book suggestions from friends and family.



So...how can I use this site? The "local" tab is AWESOME! I entered in my zip code and searched a 25 mile radius of my home. In one column, venues were listed. They ranged from public libraries, to UM libraries, to unique speciality book spots like "Once Upon a Crime". There is a second column that lists upcoming events. In this list I discovered Common Good Books. That store has a TON of readings and other events. It is a book store in St Paul owned by Garrison Keiler. Definitely something that I want to check out because it seems to specialize in local authors. VERY COOL! commongoodbooks.com

Thing 6: Online Collaboration Tools

I have discovered that conferences are a great time to work on "things" for MILI! The article "Marking work in Google Docs" gave me some ideas.

I tried google docs as a tool with the other teachers on my team without much success. There were a lot of problems with the "invitations" that I tried to send out. This was very disheartening to me because I wanted to collaborate with my team in creating meeting agendas. I had pretty much given up on google docs.

This article gave me hope. I would like to give google docs another try with history day. I don't think I will involve ALL students, but I would like to make this option available for the students who are highly motivated and driven. That is what I have learned about history day: there are some tools that I need to make available for ALL students and other tools need to be saved for those students that really connect with the project. With google docs, I could involve other teachers in the review process. Groups could work on their projects and then share them with me, Jeanne, our gifted and talented coordinator, language arts teacher, etc...it would allow them to receive lots of valuable feedback. Something worth piloting this year! We'll see how it goes:)

Thing 4: Online Productivity Tools

When looking at thing 4 I decided to focus in on the first Blog Prompt:
Which customizable homepage did you choose? Why did that one appeal to you? Will you make it your permanent home page?

I strongly believe that I-google is the way to go in the world of customized home pages. It has made my life so much easier and I get done with routine tasks (like checking email and blogs) so much faster. It truly is a productivity tool. I started one in MILI last year and I can honestly say I use it every day!

I played around with some of the other tools mentioned in the directions for this "thing" but I feel the google products work very well for me. I am a big fan of google calendar and use that as my assignment calendar on my teacher web page. One tool that I thought was interesting was tinyurl.com There are certainly times that a web site has an unbearably long url and this tool helps to shorten it up. Might be nice for when I send websites to colleagues that I think might be of interest. However, I know myself well enough to realize I will probably forget all about this site...

One thing that I NEVER forget is my Igoogle page. MILI participants will hear about hundreds of tools/strategies/sites. I would strongly suggest that a customized home page is something everyone tries and sticks with for future use!

Thing 3: RPC and Dribbling Lessons

I remember being very overwhelmed with the RPC and Dribbling Lessons last year. This year when planning my first research project of the year I focused in on what was most important in achieving my objectives. I decided to focus on the gathering step. I wish I would have remembered the Condensed Version because it had some really great suggestions for speeding up the research process. I ended up condensing things on my own, but it would have been nice to have the guidance of the Condensed Version.

I am always looking for new resources that can be used both by me and my students in studying a unit or in doing research. factmonster.com has some potential in teachig about world religion. I was thinking it might provide some good introductory/anicipatory set material and/or it might also be good for providing closure at the end of the unit. Factmonster has a GREAT area about famous people. I will definitely show students this site when it is time to chose history day topics since the theme this year is The Individual in History. I especially like the "women of influence" subcategory. Looks promising...

Teaching research has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I know where I want the kids to go, but I don't always know how to get them there. Tools like the Big 6 and the RPC have helped give the structure that I need to guide my students in their research. I always struggle in finding powerful resources for my students, especially when looking for sources about Ancient History. Jeanne has always been great about helping me track down what I am looking for. I often go to Language Arts teachers for their help in planning research, too. I think one of my strengths in planning research projects is that I know I can't plan it all myself. I use collaboration to fill in some of the areas where I am weak.

Collaboration was KEY to me this week as I was out from school on Mon and Tues. Jeanne was able to pick up where I left off because we actually planned this unit together! What a relief for me. Of course, now I owe her bags and bags of chocolate!