TIE #2 (post VT)

  It's over! The lesson of the semester had finally come and gone. The idea was to create a VoiceThread that students could interact with and be successful in teaching them the importance of using correct grammar. Correct grammar is a vital necessity for students of all grades. Writing is a skill that can take years to master. In today’s society writing is viewed as a talent more than as a means of communication. We view good writers as persons with higher intelligence and treat them accordingly. The vast growth of internet usage has greatly impacted the world’s view on writing. With so much information typed and posted over the internet, the value of words and the way in which people express themselves through writing has grown. It is crucial that as teachers we install the importance of correct grammar usage to our learners. .

    

 Teaching grammar as we can see is very important, but it can be challenging. In school I remember learning grammar rules by constant, boring repetition. My challenge for this lesson was to try my best to eliminate the boring repetition by incorporating activities that would get students motivated to learn and be engaged in their learning. I wanted students to feel more as though they were simply playing and not learning. In my efforts to think of ways to make learning contractions fun for my students and how to use VoiceThread, I finally was able to construct a lesson. Since I had not yet used this cool interactive site, I figured that using it with this grammar lesson would be an excellent way to grab my students attention. My third graders enjoy their time on the computer and so this idea seemed like a no brainer. Little did I know that this fabulous idea would come with much more than just a few headaches.

    Lesson Plans, I’m learning, never really go as planned. Though the initial statement has proven to be true time and time again, I am not in any way condoning the planning process of lessons. I believe that having a well written established set of plans for any lesson is key to student success. What I am also learning is that adding a quick run through over lessons, especially when using technology, is also a good post-planning adaptation. Knowing that this would be the first time my students would deal with VoiceThread, I took it upon myself to do a run through prior to initiating my lesson on contractions. Yet, even with the run through we encountered problems during the actual lesson. For practice I used one computer instead of five. Therefore I did not have any problems with getting kicked off of VoiceThread. During the actual lesson, many of my students kept getting logged out of the VoiceThread, even though I had them logged in under different emails. I figured that this was due to the high amount of PSTs conducting their VoiceThreads simultaneously. Due to this experience I have realized the substantiality of  not only running though a “practice lesson”, but replicating the practice lesson to the exact way I wish to conduct the actual lesson.Technology sometimes seems to have a mind of it’s own but using it not only increases the student’s skills, it increases their willingness to cooperate. Though some students were not able to use the record option because of no headsets, they were still very engaged. I realized that having headsets in my classroom will be something to consider in the future.

    Even though the plan didn’t go quite as planned, I still was able to enforce the Voicethread to my students on later dates. The students were all very eager to jump into the conversations online and show each other where they found contractions. I think that I did what I could with the situation. It taught me to remember the importance of remaining flexible. In teaching it is important to be able to think on your feet. Each teaching opportunity has tested me to do just this. I feel like the more I have to, the better ideas I am able to conspire. In the end, I believe that  all this practice will help not only myself but also my students, keep in mind that we are all only human.


The final project is below. I am welcoming any comments or constructive criticism.
Would you have done contractions differently? Ideas please!
Also, what different problems did you encounter that I did not come across?   

I have looked at the following classmates blogs. 
Mindy
Laura
Christina

TIE #1

The begging steps of Voice Tread....


All the fuss and all the russ, all the hours and all the power, yet I still have no real idea for this Voice Thread. I know that in order to make it easy for me I spoke to my CT and informed her that I wanted to do my VT on Language Arts. In my head you can tie Language Arts into any subject and any activity. Yet, I wonder if I have set myself up for a mistake. I want my VT to be interactive. I want my students to be "wowed" and for people who visit the VT to be impressed, but I've come to a pause. I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I'm at a lost and it feels like each example that I see I begin to only dig myself into a bigger rut. Here I thought, O this assignment will be a piece of cake.Cake, that has taken weeks to make! 


I think I have all the right ingredients, I mean I know what I am going to focus on... Language Arts. I also know that I want my students to work in groups and to have a few "professional VT assistants", who will aid the rest of the class in commenting on VT. I know how to use the tools in VT, but I am still a bit lost as to what material to cover and how.  My CT has not yet given me any direction as to what the students will be covering during my lesson so that has me at a pause as well. For the mean time I have constructed this lesson plan with this idea. I have included a MI table to help me along the way as well as some affordances. 


HOT questions and Bloom questions will be asked but I have not been able to try to construct any due to the fact that I have not yet been told what the students will be learning. In time I am sure that the whole thing will turn out quite fine. As for now, I am still awaiting further instruction. Once I have more, I will post via comments :)

A Little Inspiration

!!!!SYSTEM OVERLOAD!!!!

So, there are many times during this whole experience when stress seems to be mounting higher than I can climb. For all of you who may need a little encouragement from time to time, I know I need it a bit more since the beginning of this term, my team members and I have put together this small Voice Thread for a bit of inspiration. 

Group work played a key role in this particular small project. I quickly remembered how one statement can be said multiple ways in order for students to comprehend material presented.  Some of the obstacles we faced together took a lot of playing around, but in the end we were able to master the objective and in turn build on our skills. One of our obstacles was trying to embed the Voice Thread video into blogger. We noticed that although we tried to embed it through blogger an error post kept occurring. How did we get around this?

1. First we clicked "my voice"
2. then "edit" and 
3. then "embed".
4. We then copied the embedded code by selecting "copy",
5.  reopened our post and under the "HTML" tab we
6. pasted the code in the appropriate place.  

Another trick we came across was making the Voice Thread public so that you as blog readers were able to access the thread. So, how do you make the Voice Thread public and not make your readers have to create a Voice Thread account? Its as easy as 1,2,3!

1. follow steps 1 and 2 above.
2. Click publishing options and
3. chose how you want others to access your thread 

I can tell you that this whole adventure has been a bit of a roller coaster. Learning is like that though, the key is to keep on trying. The idea of the Voice Thread is to teach students that learning with technology can be an exciting experience. Children have a natural curiosity, this is why incorporating technology into the classroom works well. Children will want to click all over the screen, let them venture. Play is an important part of learning.

Technology Integration Experience (TIE) Thoughts

Technology integration throughout the field of education is by far one of the best uses of the world wide web. Not only has the Internet revolutionized how we communicate but it has also greatly impacted how we learn. Many sites have been created to engage our students in different levels and with different abilities.

Earlier this morning I was introduced to a very exciting site in which shows just how the Internet has yet again influenced the education system. The site is known as Voice Thread. Since the site is developed by educators who value the safety of students, the site's information can only be accessed by other members or via invitation. Within this site students and teachers are allowed to use technology to teach and learn about almost anything they want.

For example, information can be as simple as capturing what students are thankful for, as shown in Courtney Barrington's I Am Thankful thread; to much more complex information, like the influence of the divide of digital technology as found in Laurence Peter's Chile-A Case Study. Both the video threads provide information in which others are free to interact with the presenter to give input on the subject at hand. Video Threads therefore allow for a subject to become a center point for inspiring other knowledgeable information to be shared within the community of viewers. It is also a great way to inspire students to work with technology and enforce them to develop the appropriate skills needed to be able to produce quality products that can be shared with the world.

I really liked the way the I Am Thankful thread showed the students work and had the actual voice over from the student whose picture was displayed. The thread was very simple but it had character. The graphics in the Case Study thread were very useful, although the constant "uhh" and "umm"' usage did remind me to make sure that my voice over is presentable and well thought out before my recording.

In the future I am planning on using this technology in my Field base classroom. In order to do this I have put together a letter for my CT to review so that she can have just an introduction of the Voice Thread technology.