Interactive White Boards and Clickers

I've often been asked why our school doesn't have Interactive Whiteboards (IWB). I feel for the price of them there are much better ways to use our technology budget and I quite frankly am not convinced that they make teaching that much more innovative. I was so excited to read The Innovative Educator's blog post today on the same topic. It really solidified my thinking!

Read, Write, Think

I love the Read, Write, Think website. They have great literacy activities or ways to help kids write. I ran across their Flip Book maker and it's no exception. You are able to make up to ten pages with labels at the bottom. Then you get to add text titles, information, and pictures. You can have any combination of the three in your book.

I created one with four pages showing a plant growing. I attempted to attach it to the blog, but my blog doesn't like PDF files. As with any Read, Write, Thing project there is no way to save your progress so students have to work from there all at once.
Enjoy!

Free sound effects!

FreeSFX provides free sound effects for use in projects. According to the FAQ on the website, "All the sound effects available for download on freeSFX are uploaded by the owners of the sounds who have granted permission for them to be downloaded and used." This means it's a perfect place for teachers to send students who want a particular sound effect because it's easy to search. Next time you need a sound effect, try FreeSFX!

What to read?

I finally finished my reading from the Iowa Teen Award list and I'm looking for something new. Since this is a story based blog I thought I'd ask for some assistance in choosing what to read next. These are three options I received from my classmates. I'm really enjoying Young Adult Literature but I'm willing to read just about anything from any genre. Have any other good ideas? Share them in the comments section!

Stories for Kids

As an educator, it can be hard to find appropriate videos for your students. Our state allows us access to Discovery Education but it can be hard for younger students to navigate. I ran across Kideos - Videos for Kids which provides a safe online environment where students can watch appropriate videos. All of the videos are screened by an advisory board before they're placed on the site. There is a navigation bar which allows you to choose the age level that the video is appropriate for. It starts at 0-2, however, studies have shown children under 2 shouldn't be watching TV because it can have negative developmental effects, and I would think watching videos on the computer would do the same. It is up to each parent to make the decision for their own child, but that's my 2 cents.

When I was browsing the site I found a variety of videos. I found 'Just Me and My Dad' by Mercer Mayer (in the 5-6 section) as well as 'Baby Dancing to Beyonce - All the Single Babies' (also in the 5-6 section) so there is quite a variety of videos and most are from YouTube. The thing I like best is that students aren't able to get into inappropriate videos, like they sometimes can in other video sites. Check it out and if you use this site already, leave a comment and let me know what you do with it!

Wordle

I love Wordle and as I was thinking about the site today, I thought even Wordle can be used to tell a story! I actually encouraged my Language Arts teachers to have their students use it as a cover for one of their papers after writing it. They copied and pasted the text into a Wordle and created a cover. It was a neat way to display their stories and give the reader a preview of what was to come! I realized that you can create a Wordle through your blog posts and I was curious as to what story it would tell. See for yourself...

As you can see 'created', 'one' and 'slide' are a few of my major words. I think it's interesting what makes "the cut" in Wordle. Try it with your blog or with your students and see what you find!

Slide Six

I know I've talked about one of my favorite blogs Free Technology For Teachers but they've done it again. They showed me a great resource. The Slide Six is a way to upload your audio directly to your PowerPoint ONLINE! We had great problems with this in one of my summer classes and this would've been a PERFECT solution to uploading our projects and it's FREE! I tried it with a short presentation I made in PowerPoint and uploaded to Slide Six. One of the nice benefits is that they let you try it without getting an account! How nice is that!

Here is the premiere of my own trial of Slide Six. It worked GREAT!

Th1rteen R3asons Why

I created the following book trailer for a class I'm taking at UNI. I took all of the video with a Flip camera and did all of the editing in iMovie. Enjoy!

Collage Stories

I've always enjoyed creating collages. This is one I created in college and it says so much about me at that time. It shows what was important to me and the things I spent my time on. The most interesting thing is that some have changed but not all. I still love to read both magazines and books and I love to keep in touch with my friends. However, I don't use AIM anymore and I don't have a Xanga account anymore. What a great snapshot of one part of my life.

I think students would love to create a collage. It would be neat to do at the beginning of the year and see if anything has changed even at the end of the year.