BP15_2009123_OneMinuteMessage2

BP14_2009123_PeerReviewWestern

beckyward said...

Wow Joan, this sounds great. As part of one of the classes I teach, we make children's books for elementary aged children and what they should be doing now to prepare for junior high school. This is a freshman level class and we spend time reflecting about the junior high school experience and come up with ideas that we can share with them on preparing for junior high. This is the first time I've taught this class and we just made corny paper books out of construction paper, but I will have to try using this tool as I think the students can get more creative and the elementary aged students will enjoy these books more.

December 13, 2009 10:27 AM

BP13_2009123_PeerReviewCaruso

It is as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich....
pbwiki.com is a place where you can create your own wiki for classroom use. For educators, there is a choice that allows for classroom use, removing banners and advertisements from the sidebar of your screen. There are many options for using pbwiki in the classroom. PB wiki can be used as a storage place for students to store their best work as an electronic portfolio, and family, friends, and peers can leave comments on their work.

I have used pbwiki in my classroom in the past and was very pleased to see it made the list of web 2.0 tools I discovered. Let me share with you how I used it:

Similar to The FLat Stanley Project that many elementary educators are familiar with, students created a gingerbread man and mailed it to another state to a family or friend. Students would write a friendly letter asking the receiver to take care of their gingerbread man, document the visit in words or with pictures, and report back to the creator (the student). Instead of just receiving mail via the United States Postal Service, we gave hosts the option to communicate what the gingerbread friends did on our wiki. I created a page for each student's gingerbread man that the student could upload images and sentences to, telling about their gingerbread friend. Those hosting a gingerbread man could post comments on what city and state the gingerbread man was in, what they did, and where they are sending them off to next. It was a great project. We also had a page for each student to post and share their individual work. The students loved this because Gramma, Grandpa, and moms and dads and split families could go online to see their student's work. They could post comments of praise and encouragement. Students would rush home to read their comments, and post comments on their friends' pages. It have them a real reason to use phonetic spelling in their young emergent reader lives to communicate with their peers and family members. From this project and the integration of technology into Social Studies with kindergarten and first grade students, I was awarded Outstanding Teacher of The Year from the FLorida Council for Social Studies. It was a great experience. The project was a success, and I would have repeated it if our school decided to not allow us to use outside servers and providers for school related projects. Now we must use iWeb, and they are beginning to branch into Moodle - a personal learning community that is growing within our district.

BP12_2009123_Tool#4(CIS)

Most of you have probably already heard of CIS, but it is new to me. CIS stands for Career Information System. This tool allows students to pretty much line of their life and career. There are several links and information available in this tool. The user starts by creating a portfolio and customizing it to their likings. From there, the user will spend endless hours adding information to their portfolio that they will be able to keep for a lifetime.

I started off in the scholarships section. I was specifically looking for any additional scholarships that I could apply for to help pay for this program. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any because most scholarships are for undergraduate programs. I then began to research schools that offer programs in education technology and was able to learn a little more about Full Sail University and the Education Media Design and Technology program.

The next thing I began working on was my resume. There isn't really anything fancy about the resumes, but the program will help you recall all of your work history, duties and services so you can always have them available when you are in need of completing a resume. I know that when I go to create a new resume, I often forget many of the jobs and duties that I completed that future employers would appreciate. With this tool, the user puts that information in their profile and then continues to build it and they don't have to try to recall things years and years down the road.

I can go on and on about how wonderful this tool is, but I only attended an hour session. I will definitely be going back for the full day training in the fall.

BP11_2009122_OneMinuteMessage1

BP10_2009122_PeerReviewJoanLourenco

BP8_2009122_Tool#3PhotoPeach

Featuring the Florida Teens Read 2009 Nominations on PhotoPeach




I selected to research PhotoPeach for my third Web 2.0. PhotoPeach is an online slideshow. There are other fancier slideshow Web 2.0 presentations such as animoto, however, after considering my audience, the computers, bandwidth, and the networking system my students and teachers have access to each day, I selected PhotoPeach as the Web 2.0 of choice for my teaching/learning environment. PhotoPeach presentations allows teachers and students to create projects and quiz shows, teach about creating effective presentations, provide a mechanism for students to work collaboratively, provide an alternative for assignments, demonstrate new technology tools and can promote new information and can promote critical thinking skills.

I selected to create a presentation showcasing the books nominated for the 2010 Florida Teens Read since I am in charge of getting a team together for the Battle of the Books competition in April. I am not a techy by any means yet I was able to put a slideshow together on PhotoPeach with ease. This was a plus, to be able to share a multimedia tool that is easy to learn and use.

Creating the online slideshow can be completed with three simple steps. The user has the option of importing photos from a file, Flickr, or the Internet. I was able to import photos in just minutes. I added the captions to each slide and then selected the music from the five sound effects/options offered. I soon had an attractive presentation with music and had options for embedding my presentation into a blog, a MySpace or Facebook account.

One really cool feature of PhotoPeach is the ability to create a quiz with your presentation. The quiz option appears once you are finished editing. To use this tool, first upload your photos or import them from Flickr, or the Internet. You can arrange your photos the way you want them to appear. The next step asks for the quiz title, description, and musical accompaniment. Click finish and your story/slideshow will begin playing. If you need to edit, simply click on the edit wrench in the upper right portion of the presentation.

If you wish to export the story/slideshow, the “public” feature must be selected under owner options. To see a sample and directions for a PhotoPeach Quiz, follow this link:http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2009/09/27/photopeach.quiz .

The slideshow I put together is located on the PhotoPeach website and is named Featuring the Florida Teens Read 2009 Nominations.

References

Hamilton, P. (2009). PhotoPeach Quiz / Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner. Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner. Retrieved December 3, 2009, from http://paulhami.edublogs.org/2009/09/27/photopeach-quiz

Lardinois, F. (2009). PhotoPeach: Easy to Use, No Frills Photo Slideshow. ReadWriteWeb - Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking and Social Media. Retrieved December 3, 2009, from http://readwriteweb.com

PhotoPeach - Fresh slideshows to go!. (2007). PhotoPeach - Fresh slideshows to go!. Retrieved December 3, 2009, from http://photopeach.com

BP9_2009122_FlickrLesson

Upon researching how other teachers have used Flickr in their lesson plans, I came across a teacher that had students research images for a soviet propaganda project. In this assignment, students used the images to analyze how the propagandists used color and slogans to get their message across. I thought of a way to use Flickr that is similar to this. In my freshman cornerstone class, I have my students write a mission statement and they start by creating a collage about themselves. I bring in magazines and the students thumb through them to find things that define them. Instead of using magazines, we can use Flickr and have students surf the Web for photos. This will give them a lot more access to their individual interests.