Video Assignment (You Tube)

I found this silly video in my quest to teach my students the concept of slides, flips, and turns. It is so silly, but it might just, because it is so silly, really work to, not teach the kids the concept, but give them a fun way to remember it. (GLE: Math Geometric and Spatial Relationships 3.A.)

Video Assignment (Teacher Tube)

I really liked this video that I found on Teacher Tube to use in my classroom as an overview of the Underground Railroad. There is a lot of great information, the visuals are good, and the creator even used the music of the times in the video. (GLE: Missouri, United States, and World History 3.a.I )

Tagroll from Delicious

Some of My Favorite Blogs Explained

So I am sitting here in Panera after church enjoying a quick breakfast before facing this day (PT Conf. start tomorrow!) and I thought that I need to explain the sidebar on this page that lists some of my favorite blogs. This is just a small, but representative, list of some of my favorites.
The first blog on the list belongs to my son who is studying in Madrid, Spain this semester. Matthew is a sophomore at St. Louis University. He is using this blog as a way to keep in touch with all the friends and family who were emailing him and wanting to know what he's been up to (besides studying) while he is in Spain. My students love following this blog (though I do have to be creative with how they get to see it since it is blocked from use in our district). You can tell that Matthew is having a good time in Spain and traveling around Europe and Africa. Some entries of note: his trip to Morocco to visit a high school friend and going to the Madrid Real basketball game (he is a huge college hoops fan).
The next blog that I love to visit often is the Teachers Love SmartBoards site. Oh, my goodness! There is so much here. If you have a SmartBoard, you have to add this to your RSS feed! As a classroom teacher and a SmartBoard trainer, this site has provided me with so many ideas and websites that I can use. If you don't have a SmartBoard, Jim Hollis has links to games that you can use with or without a SmartBoard. Many of his ideas can work with all types of interactive whiteboards. Check it out...but make sure you have time on your hands because you will be there for awhile!
I have enjoyed Kathy Schrock's websites for a long time now. If you are new to the area of integrating technology in the classroom, you need to visit all of her sites and sign up for her weekly email, Sites of the School Days, from her Discovery Education page. She has so many ideas. I discovered her blog after attending a conference in the fall. I enjoy reading it because it's informative, but it is kind of like sitting down with an old friend and just discussing things that relate to our profession: education.
I had visited Will Richardson's Webblog Ed blog several times before, but it was after I saw him speak at a conference in January that I revisited the site. He is a wonderful speaker, but his ideas about technology in education were in-line with the way that my thinking has evolved over the past couple of years. So of course...when I got back home, I added him to my Google Reader.
Scrap Girls is something that I stumbled upon recently. I have recently become interested in digital scrapbooking when I was looking for information about how to use Adobe Photoshop (one of the least intuitive programs I have ever encountered). I found some great sites, lots of freebies, and this blog, which I just enjoy reading. With all the work (and school) and family activities and responsibilities sometimes we forget that we just need to take time for something ourselves. This one of those things that I will turn to when I need some "me time".

I Can't Resist Sharing One More...

I just have to share one of my favorite classroom blogs (it wasn't on the list of blogs to review for our assignment). Actually, it is a school library blog and I think that it is clever. I just love it!
The site is called Children's Choice Chats. This librarian has taken the books that are nominated for their state's (Washington) award this year and creates a post about each of the nominees. As students or classes read the books, they can leave a comment about the book. It is a great example of using a blog to encourage the children to read and reflect. The format she uses makes very little work for the librarian. I would like to try this next year as I loop back down to 3rd grade. I could follow Mrs. Berthelson's model and set up a blog for the Mark Twain Award nominees and as my students read those books, they could then comment on the blog. I could also invite our Kindergarten buddy class to comment as a class on books that were read to them in their classroom. Mrs. Berthelson actually has another blog for older students' and their books called the Young Reader's Choice Reviews. It works pretty much the same way as the Children's Choice Chats. It's just for older readers. She also has a blog called Blogging with Mrs. Berthelson that I thought was also clever. Here the students comments were actually recommendations for books they read in different genres. Again, the format of the page was very simple. Unfortunately, this blog seems to be no longer active (the posts are old). I do a lot with genres in my class. I bet I could create something similar to this. Hmmm.....

Check out Mrs. Berthelson's blogs:
http://schools.shorelineschools.org/briarcrest/blogs/berthelson_cc/
http://schools.shorelineschools.org/briarcrest/blogs/berthelson_yrc/
http://schools.shorelineschools.org/briarcrest/blogs/berthelson/
http://schools.shorelineschools.org/briarcrest/blogs/berthelson_ss/ (Another inactive blog similar to the Young Reader's Choice Reviews.)

One Crazy Teacher to Another

I went to the page that our instructor, Rebecca Lopanec, suggested that we view: 50 Must-Read Up and Coming Blogs by Teachers. I viewed several until I got down to #36: One Crazy Teacher to Another . First of all, you just have to love the name for this blog. As I say to my students...if you want somebody to read what you've written you have to have an introduction that is going to grab your reader! Well, Joseph Alvarado (a.k.a., UltimateTeacher) has done that! Once inside the blog, you realize that it's not just a good title. He reflects on many different aspects of teaching (and even throws in a joke to bring levity to our lives). He uses videos and images on his blogs and even has links to blogs that he reads. I think that everyone's blog should have that. I have found so many cool blogs (and websites) in this way. I'll visit a blog, enjoy it, and then see what that author is reading. I never would have found them just perusing the internet! I have so many blogs that I read now all I have to say is thank heavens for Google Reader and my iGoogle page! I would NEVER be able to keep up with it all!
I think that everyone should have a blog site like this in their blog library. He talks about the teaching profession, parents in the classroom, cool tools or websites that he's found on the internet that he is excited about, and other reflections. I like these kinds of sites because I learn things from them and, through commenting, have even shared ideas with the blogger and his/her followers. These kinds of sites are kind of like a newsletter for teachers. My favorite part of these sites are reading the comments that other leave. It's interesting and thought-provoking. Joseph didn't have a whole lot of comments on his blog so I am assuming that he doesn't have a huge following...yet. I plan on continuing to read this blog because I am interested in what this blogger has to say.

Visit Joseph Alvarado's One Crazy Teacher to Another here: http://onecrazyteachertoanother.blogspot.com/

8th Grade English (Christy Dalton)

Okay, so Christy Dalton is a fellow techie friend of mine who had this blog on Blogmeister for her 8th grade English classes. The emphasis here is on had... We were told that our district would use Edublogs (they wanted some consistency across the district in what we used and the ones in charge chose Edublogs) so Christy had to change her blog to Edublogs. Christy has been blogging with her junior high English students for a couple of years now. She gets these students to write reflections on literature they are reading in class. Student who would have refused to write a paragraph on a piece of paper were using this medium to make some pretty amazing reflections. The one thing that I didn't like about Christy's blog is that the student's writing has too many "errors". Some of the students are writing as if they were texting. I realize that this is how students write when they are communicating with their friends, but for an English class, I think that proper conventions should be required. I do not think that the students' writing needs to be perfect, but I think that the expectations could be a bit higher.
I enjoyed the Blogmeister version of Christy's blog better than her Edublogs version (and I know for a fact that Christy does too). Blogmeister is more user-friendly for setting up student blogs so that each student has their own page (remember that this is what Kathy Cassidy used as her blog tool). I really liked how Christy would give the students a topic to reflect on...many were about the books they were reading in class. The students would write their reflections and they could even add an image if they wanted. I would like to try this on my blog with my students. We read Number the Stars by Lois Lowry at the end of 4th grade so perhaps that would be my opportunity to use my blog in this fashion.
One thing I like about Christy's Edublogs version is that she has also used it as a way for her students to communicate with her as they researched and prepared their National History Day projects. It provided them with a forum to ask for assistance. I thought that was a good idea.

View Christy Dalton's old blog here: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=20495
View Christy's Edublogs blog here: http://cdalton209.edublogs.org/

Kathy Cassidy's Classroom Blog

I have been a fan of Kathy Cassidy's 1st grade blog for awhile now. As I said in my first entry, I tend to gravitate towards the blogs that show student work. One concern I have with student blogs (especially students this young) is the issue of safety and not having the students identified online. I really like how Kathy addressed this by having the students use Build Your Wild Self to create a creature that represents each particular student....a first grade avatar, if you will. Her blog is very creative. The students can comment on a topic she chooses or they can blog whatever is on their minds. The students use their own spelling conventions when they write. One of the most powerful features of this blog is that others can (and do) comment on the students' blogs. These students are getting communications from classes and people from all over the world. How powerful is that! Their world is not limited by where they live. They also get to see first hand the power of the internet and this type of communication. Their writing can be viewed by people world-wide and they can communicate with people outside of their own community. Their "world" is not limited to those that they know and see every day. Kathy also uses photos and videos a lot on her blog. This also makes it inviting for children (those in her physical classroom as well as her "world wide" classroom) to use. I started a blog with my students (4th graders) this semester. Like this blog, I wanted it to be more about my students' writing than mine. The kids are really thrilled because people from outside our classroom are starting to add comments. They feel as if they are "published authors". The thing that thrills them the most is that their friend in China (a former classmate) or anyone from anywhere in the world can view our blog. I think that Kathy Cassidy's Classroom Blog is an amazing blog and that Kathy's students are lucky to have her as a teacher. They are using a writing tool that many middle school teachers would feel that their students are too young to use effectively.

Visit Kathy Cassidy's blog here: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337&l=1143592742

Blogging in the Classroom

I am creating this blog as a requirement for a Master's class at Fontbonne University. I hope to be continuing it past the time that this class is completed.
I think that blogging has a place in the classroom. Many of the educational blogs that I have read are where the teacher is using the blog as a classroom newsletter (some are daily and some are weekly). The educational blogs that I like are the ones where the teachers uses it for the students to display their thoughts. This is the most powerful use of a blog in the classroom. It is how I have wanted to set up my classroom blog. It took me awhile to work out exactly how I wanted to implement blogging with my students. I decided to not try to add something new to my classroom, but just modify something that we already do. My students write in their journal every morning. I am choosing one student journal every morning and having that student then go over and type their journal entry into our blog. We have only been doing this a couple of weeks, but it has really made an impact on the students in my classroom. They are more enthusiastic about writing and the quality of their writing has improved. It has motivated even the most relunctant learner in my class. You can read my student's writings on my class blog at http://msruder212.edublogs.org .