Finished Products

 Last week I mentioned that we would be creating an iMovie in TPTE.  This week we worked on it and completed it.  You can watch my finished product above, A Field Trip to Mexico!  It is a great movie to use with children to help them in either geography or learning about different cultures.  I had never used iMovie before, so sometimes I did not know how to do something.  Having to do this project helped me learn how to use this great tool.

As our class is coming to an end, I will be completing my class website.  We have worked on it throughout the semester, but I still have quite a few things to finalize.  I cannot wait to show you my completed website!  It will be such a great tool for my classroom one day.  Before this class, I never knew how to create my own website.  Now I know about Google sites and can say that I am an author of a website!

iMovie

Happy Thanksgiving!! Due to the holiday, we only had one class for TPTE this week.  During class, I completed my storyboard for our digital storytelling project.  We will be using iMovie to create this.  I have never used iMovie before, but I am hoping that since I have my storyboard completed that it will not be too difficult!  I am doing a field trip to Mexico and using pictures that I took when I went to Mexico for a week in high school.  We visited Mexico City, Taxco, and Acapulco.  The picture above is the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, Mexico.  I took this picture before we climbed it.  It was a long trek up!  This trip was amazing and I hope my story will be enjoyable to children that probably will not visit Mexico until possibly when they are older.  I can't wait to show you all my final product!  Stay tuned and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Digital Diagrams

This week in TPTE, we learned how to make a digital diagram.  We used a great software program called Inspiration (there is also a Kidspiration software for elementary teachers to use).  The software allowed us to create a diagram that connected ideas and concepts.

I decided to do my diagram for a 5th grade science class, and I chose to do it on the parts of an atom.  As you can see in the picture of my diagram, the arrows connect the parts of the atom.  You see the electrons on the right, and then the protons and neutrons extending out of the nucleus, so it is clear that these are all parts of the atom.  We had to include notes as well, so if you need to include longer amounts of text you can add them without creating a large circle with lots of words in it.  You just can't see them in the screenshot.  There's also a hyperlink, so if the students click on the word "Atoms" it will take them to a website with more information.

Inspiration is a great program for creating this.  These can be really helpful in a classroom to connect ideas for students.  It wasn't very time consuming to make it, so it is definitely a tool I will utilize in my classroom when I begin teaching.  For students old enough, it would be a great way for them to learn the connection between ideas and concepts in many subjects of the classroom!

Web 2.0 Tool

It seems like a long time ago, but probably about a month ago we were divided into teams.  Each team received a Web 2.0 tool to explore, create an artifact, and then teach the class how to use it.  I've written previously that my team got Storybird which is a neat website where you can write stories by using artwork found on their website.  On Thursday, it was finally our turn to teach.  I think we did very well with our presentation!  Selden gave a great overview, Tyler walked them through making a Storybird with excellent instructions, and I discussed the strengths, witnesses, and uses in the classroom.

One of my favorite things about Storybird is that as a teacher you can create a story to share with your students, or they can help you with it (depending on age), and you can have the book published in a hard copy for your classroom!  It is also a great tool for independent reading for your students.  This is not something that I would sit down and do a lot, because there is just not time to create stories all the time for my students, but I would definitely introduce this tool to my students and maybe work on one together, and then allow them to read Storybirds in their own time.

Feel free to explore my Storybird to see an example of this great tool!

Interactive White Boards

This week in TPTE, we were introduced to interactive white boards.  We are using the ActivInspire software from Promethean Planet.  The flipchart that we did in class was a great example.  We got started on creating our flipchart yesterday in class.  I will be doing mine on the inner planets of the Solar System for a fifth grade classroom.  Right now, I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  It is such a big project, but I know it will be easier once I just start making it by using the software.  I can't wait to see my finished product!  I also can't wait to be able to use this tool, because it is such an important tool to know how to incorporate into my classroom in the future.

We also learned about animoto this week which is a website that lets you make 30 second videos.  It looks like a great tool as well, and I think I would use it for virtual field trips (although it can be used for other things in the classroom).  The other tool we learned about was Google forms, which is located in Google drive.  I think this will be a good tool for formative assessment but also can be useful for getting parents input.  Once again, it was a week filled with learning many great tools for my future classroom.