BP14_GoogleSites

I have really been working on this website, and I feel like all the hard work that I've put into it is going to help manage the school year better than ever! I added new information this week, and I'm going to continue to do so. I've created an 'Important Information" page where I've uploaded my syllabus and schedule. I thought that parents might like to see the information. They should be able to download these documents by visiting the site.



Under the 'Important Information' page, I added a rubric for writing so that my students will have easy access to my expectations. I found a student friendly writing rubric on Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, and I modified it a bit so that my students might better understand it. I plan to teach the rubric to them so that I can answer any questions about vocabulary they don't already know.



And finally, I've decided to let the kids start a blog to display all of their work, much like what I'm doing right now. I want them to have a place to display their media projects where parents and also students that we may be connecting with through ePals will be able to see it. I am really looking forward to this year. I hope that my students benefit from all this work as much as I think they will.




Shrock, K. (2010) Discovery School's: Kathy Schrock's guide for educators. Retrieved August 29, 2010 from http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/assess.html

BP13_GoogleSites2

I had to change the cartoon because the animated character's skirt was too short to pass with my school's administration. So here's the new video.



AND here's a screen shot of my new homepage. This is only the top part of the page. I started to plan out how the assignments will develop over the year. Click here to see the site and check it out for yourself.



I've been busy this week writing my syllabus, and planning how this semester will unfold. I hope that my plans so far will fit into the AR plan, as I'm finding it challenging to keep everything straight. It's neat how creating the website that will steer my students through their assignments is helping me to organize my thoughts and plans. I think it helps to have had such a good example with Full Sails educational management through the online system. I hope that I've kept everything simple enough for my third and fourth graders.

I will have to make sure that the students in my program have email addresses on the Google Educational server that my school uses. They will only be able to log into the discussion boards with it. I used Google Groups to create the discussion boards for both third and fourth grade. Currently, I will be starting them with a simple question about how they feel about these changes. I also plan to create a Google Form to assess their learning interests and styles. When the student clicks the link on the home page to answer the question, he is redirected to Google groups where I have already prepped the board with a question. All they have to do is pick the question to answer, click reply, and type their answer.




I am really getting excited about all of this, and I hope that the students are motivated by it's novelty and technology.

BP12_Google Sites

I've finally found time to start my classroom website. Fortunately for me, our school uses Google to host our gmail. Although we don't have access to everything Google at work, we do have access to iGoogle, Google Docs, Google Mail, Google Sites and Google Groups. I chose to use Google Sites to create my classroom website that I'll be using with my AR project this year. Here's the home page of the website.




I embedded a youtube video that I created on www.xtranormal.com. Here's the video.



I had to put the burp in to make sure the kids were paying attention. :) I plan to change the animation with each assignment. Xtranormal's animation site is very easy to use, and I feel confident that my students will have a blast working on this project. I will have the first assignment outlined by next week. I anticipate that the students will need to spend 2 to 3 weeks on it. I'll post their assignments to the website to showcase their work.

So far this is what the assignment pages are looking like. They are subject to change, as this is a work in progress.



I initially thought that I'd have to link out to a discussion board hosted by another site until I started creating this website. As I built the pages, I thought that the students would be able to leave comments, but soon realized that this may only be a feature for the owner of the site. I still have some exploring to do, and I will post as I continue to create this site this week.

BP11_Xtranormal.Commercial

BP10_GoAnimate

Follow this link to my comment on Tamika's post about GoAnimate.

BP9_PodOmatic

Follow this link to my comment on Kevin's blog about Pod O'matic.

BP8_Xtranormal

I am so excited about finding Xtranormal as a web 2.0 tool. First of all, it satisfies my inner cartoon fanatic! Secondly, it allows me to use animation to present the same old boring content to my students. I tend to use a lot of phonics instruction as well as sight word memorization when teaching my remedial and special education reading classes. I am certain that using these animation tools will make the content much easier to enjoy for my little ones.

This is my first attempt to animate with xtranormal. It was so easy! All I had to do was register for an account. The buttons and tabs on the website are so easy to figure out without any training or tutorials. I picked out the 'actor' or animated character that I wanted to use from several free choices, and then I was directed to a page where I typed in my texted script. I was able to pick from several choices of voices and accents for my character. There is an opportunity to record your own voice over the video, but I didn't try that option. I was able to choose from two free backgrounds. There were also several musical background choices as well as ambient background noises like children playing and pigeons for example.

Besides using this tool to create content for my younger classes, I will try to use this with my older students. I am going to introduce it to them on the Promethean board, and then allow them to work on publishing their own scripts at the computer lab. I hope this will increase their motivation as well as reinforce their english grammar and literacy skills.

I did have to pay for points used to publish the video, but it is very affordable. The application has it's own type of currnecy to use within the program, much like the lindens used in Second Life. I probably wouldn't have paid anything, except that I truly do see myself playing with this application a lot in the future.