Week 4, Practical Experience part 3

OK.  I had hoped to have finished the Flash essential training by now and been able to brag about it and show off my certificate, but my weekend has been too full of other things for that to happen.  I did make it to the action script chapter, so I believe I made it through the basics.  Action script is, I think, more of an advanced feature of Flash, which requires more knowledge and focus.  Considering all that has been going on in my life this month, I feel I am doing well to get to this point.  No excuses, however, I will continue to learn Flash, and show off that knowledge in a later class.

Week 4 -Practical Experience part 2.

I think I have been through enough of this tutorial to comment on how it compares with trying to Flash from a book.  I really like the pacing and thorough explanations Todd Perkins employs in these videos.   That and watching the program being used dynamically instead of looking at static illustrations on a page brings the learning to life.  I notice the same thing in my classroom when I display the animated version of the math textbook on the smartboard rather than simply reading from the text.  Maybe I can learn Flash well enough to rewrite the textbooks we use that haven't gone digital.  That might just be my next action research project!

Week 4 -Practical Experience part 1.

I spent most of this past week learning how to be a better fourth grade teacher and didn't really spend much time on learning Flash since I fell asleep Sunday night while viewing the lynda.com tutorials.  I'm into chapter 5 now, and will spend a good deal of today sitting up with the tutorials.  For now, though, I need to go finish my video.

BP_12.2 Flash the second

So I spent some time on Lynda.com yesterday starting the lesson sequence on Flash Essentials.  So far, I have not gone beyond anything I started learning when I started with version 5, but I will keep plugging away until I get this certificate, and then I will continue with the advanced tutorials Lynda has to offer.

I want to be able to do something like this:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/animator

BP_11 OMM Kerpoof

Just a short video to show you some of the fun features of Kerpoof.  See my post BP #8 if you want to see an example of how Kerpoof can be used in the classroom.

BP_12.1 Practical Experience - My Choice, Flash

I have been trying to learn Flash since it was version 5. I know that doesn't make me sound too smart, but it hasn't been that I've been working on it and failing, but that I've been telling myself to work on it when I had no real purpose to do so. The desire was there, but not the motivation. Now that I have an up-to-date version of Flash, a subscription to Lynda.com, and a need to use Flash in an upcoming course, I dare say I will be learning Flash. I'll get to work on that today, as soon as I finish my current course work assignments, finish my lesson plans, update my website, go out for milk and cat food, and clean my house. On second thought, the house can stay dirty. I'd rather lern Flash.

BP_8 Kerpoof

Kerpoof Home Page

Kerpoof is a creative tool that might soon become my best friend.  The more I explore it, the more I like it.  You can choose from several options on the carousel on the homepage, including make a drawing or a picture, make a storybook, or make a movie.


With a free teacher account, you can set up accounts (also free) for all your students. The advantage for teachers is that Kerpoof even has a collection of lesson plans that you can use to fit into your own curriculum.  In my class we just finished reading "Grandfather's Journey" by Allen Say.  This story takes place in both the United States and Japan, a perfect introduction to a social studies lesson on Japanese culture that includes a Kepoof lesson plan on writing a Haiku.

After we get familiar with Japanese culture, analyze several Haiku poems included with the lesson plan, and write our own Haiku on the Haiku Information sheet, also provided with the lesson plan, we can go to the computer lab and choose Make a Picture from the item carousel on the Kerpoof home page.










The next step is to choose a scene.  For this assignment, we will use the Japanese scroll background, highlighted in orange in the screenshot on the left.








Here on the scene we can add as little or as much illustration as we want from the images beside the page.  There are also many tool options on the left.  The Haiku itself can be typed in with the text tool (see the letter A on the left of the page) or as a speech bubble from one of the images on the right.  I want to see somebody have the crane recite his or her Haiku.








And, finally, a sample of what a finished Haiku could look like when it is published.  These can be shared and evaluated by a star rating.  


This is definitely a tool I will use with my fourth graders.  I can already see the creativity flowing.

BP_#10 Comment to Karol Kinney

Please follow this link to my comment on Karl Kinney's blog describing wordle.

BP_#9

Follow this link to my comment on Mike Colletti's blog describing Wikispaces.

BP #7 A small video plug for Spelling City

BP #6

Follow this link to Alima's Eduhelper Blog to see my comments on, and learn about what she found out about StoryJumper.  Make sure you check out her StoryJumper video on her blog, also.

BP #5

Follow this link to my comments on Babs's Blog.  She has found an excellent Web 2.0 tool called History Pin.  I am definitely going to check it out.

BP_4 Spelling City

What do you think would be the most boring subject for an elementary school teacher to teach?  Would you guess spelling?  Just walk down the hallways past the open doors to hear teachers of all grade levels reciting words and sentences for the weekly spelling test.  Pre-test, worksheets, final test - what a yawn.  I admit, I administer the tests and use the worksheets for homework.  I know parents who expect their children to write spelling words five times every night, whether it is assigned or not.  Shouldn’t learning, even learning to spell, be more fun than that?  Spelling City offers games to play as you learn your spelling words.  

You can choose to use the site for free, or pay a subscription fee of $49.99 per year to gain access to additional features, including automated test grading and record keeping, and what they call the Premium Games.  I don’t know if I will do that.  For now I am content with figuring out all the free stuff.  

Once you register and sign in, you can create, edit, and save your lists so your students can access them and play (I mean, study).  You can also opt o use their lists, or steal (I mean, import) lists from other teachers.

Students do not need usernames and passwords to access your lists on Spelling City.  The can search for lists by teacher’s name.  I didn’t realize there were so many teachers named Toth out there!  Once they find the right list (or the wrong one, too, for that matter) there are three buttons under the list that they can choose from:  Teach Me, Test Me, or Play Games.  Being the seasoned professional that I am, I started with the games.

Teach me and Test me are what you would expect.  In teach me, the word is displayed and pronounced, then spelled as the letters are displayed, then a sentence is read and the word repeated, just like the teacher would do.  Spelling City even has its own bank of sentences so you don’t have to add your own (although you can if you want to).  Test me sounds just like a spelling test.  Click one button to hear the word, and click another to hear the sentence.  

Last week I used the Crossword game on the SmartBoard with the whole class participating.  Students took turns entering the letters and shouting out the spelling from their seats.  They were engaged, had fun, and practiced spelling.  Next week I plan to try Sentence Writing Practice and move into Paragraph Writing Practice after we get ;more writing instruction behind us.    The sentences will be saved as a PDF file that can be saved or printed.

I think my fourth grade students will enjoy using Spelling City to help them learn spelling and improve their writing skills.  I hope this has been helpful to all the elementary school teachers who have been kind enough to read my post.

BP2_iGoogle Screen Shots

my iGoogle Home Page

my iGoogle FSO page

my iGoogle Action Research page

my iGoogle ETC page

BP_Diigo Group

I think I'm really going to like using diigo.  Feel free to apply for membership in my group.
The more the merrier, it has been said. 

BP1_Google Reader

Greetings, friends in ETC.  I just thought I would take some time off from grading papers and playing Cafe World to complete my class assignment.  I signed up for Google Reader and searched for some feeds that I thought would be valuable to my Action Research Project, or just valuable to my teaching in general.

My first choice for taking education into the 21st century is Edutopia.  This site is full of advice and ideas for all grade levels.  I use so many things I first learned about on Edutopia, including the game I plan to use as the main focus in my Action Research: Lure of the Labyrinth.  (see labyrinth.thinkport.org)

The second site I linked to is TeacherTube.  Similar to YouTube, but not as general and public oriented, this site contains videos created by and for the use of teachers.  Topics are meant to fit into lesson plans within any curriculum area.

Thirdly, I picked Wired.  I subscribed to the print version of this magazine many years ago, and now love to visit the online version.  If you want to know what is cutting edge and upcoming in technology, Wired is the place to look.

Something I found, as a recommended feed by Google Reader,  that goes beyond TeacherTube is Free Technology for Teachers, which includes TeacherTube in its listing, but goes so far beyond, it has to be useful.  I have not explored it extensively, but plan to, and will offer reviews of what I find in later posts.

My next choice for a site to note is NPR (National Public Radio), not only because of the segment they air called All Tech Considered, but because they air news of importance, of interest, and of use in the classroom.  I wake to Morning Edition on NPR daily, and often hear a story that I relay to my students at some point during the day.

I was rather at a loss, dealing both with time and ideas, to come up with an appropriate fifth site suggestion, so I relied on the recommended items button.  I was given a list of the most inappropriate, unrelated items to my search than I could have imagined.  I have no idea what they might have based these results on, but it certainly was not based on my search requests, which I thought it would or should have been.

As a result of my searching I can conclude that this tool may be useful, but only if you are thoughtful and diligent about your search and do not simply accept as unquestionable the results that are returned to you.