Creating Primary Digital Portfolios

Have you ever thought of why it would be beneficial for each student to create a blog?  One great reason would be for the students to use this as a digital portfolio of his/her best work that they would like to share with others.   This webinar entitled "Primary Digital Portfolios " by Kathy Cassidy shows how her students have used digital portfolios in the classroom.  This webinar was presented at the k12 Online Conference on October 12, 2010.
     My favorite part about this webinar is that the students are presenting how they use the portfolios and why they like doing them in the classroom.  One of the students mentioned that if she just showed her work on paper, only the class would see it.  However, allowing it to be posted online provides the opportunity for so many others to view and comment on her work. Another student mentioned how he loved to see how his writing has progressed since the beginning of the year.  Everyone could see how much growth he has made!
         Vocaroo is one of the tools that they use on their blog to show how they are reading in class.  It allows people to hear them read and the progress that has been made from the previous post.   Sketchcast  is another tool that allows them to draw and record for up to twenty minutes.   What a great tool for parents to see what their child has been doing in the classroom. 
         Kathy Cassidy has also set up a wiki that discusses these tools, along with many others to help you create digital portfolios in the classroom .  She provides addtional  professional resources to find out more on creating a digital portfolios. You can access this information at primary.portfolios.wikispaces.com

Christmas Fun

Want to have some Christmas Fun in the Computer Lab?

Take a look at these links!

Christmas Around the World Scavenger Hunt

http://www.noradsanta.org/

http://www.northpole.com/ 

Winter Holidays 

The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators

What a great resource for Educators! Take a look at this post from Free Technology for Teachers by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)
The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators: "There are many teachers who want to start using technology in their classrooms, but just aren't sure where to start. That's why I got together ten prominent ed tech bloggers, teachers, and school administrators to create The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators. In this book there introductions to more than six dozen web tools for K-12 teachers. Additionally, you will find sections devoted to using Skype with students, ESL/ELL, blogging in elementary schools, social media for educators, teaching online, and using technology in alternative education settings.



Here's the list of contributors to The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators:

George Couros, Patrick Larkin, Kelly Tenkely, Adam Bellow, Silvia Tolisano, Steven Anderson, Cory Plough, Beth Still, Larry Ferlazzo, Lee Kolbert, and Richard Byrne. If you like what you read, please visit the contributors' blogs and let them know.

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The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators -

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QR codes in the Classroom

from Teaching News by Mark Warner...
QR codes in the Classroom: "
Many teachers are beginning to see the benefits of using QR codes in the classroom. If you’re not familiar with QR codes, they are black and white pictures (similar to the barcodes that appear on items of food etc.). When you scan the QR code with a special application (many of which are free and available for computers / smart phones / mobile devices), special messages can be revealed, contact details can be shared and (sometimes long and complicated) web addresses can be visited easily.

If you would like to find out more, here’s a video which gives more information about QR codes. It was made by a follower of Teaching Ideas on Facebook, Jonathan White:

Here are some other examples of how teachers are using QR codes with their pupils:

• Tom Barrett has used QR codes in his classroom and has shared a number of useful suggestions for using them to help children to access a range of digital resources. He has also started an ‘Interesting Ways’ presentation, which currently has 26 suggestions for using QR codes in education. You can view the presentation here and on Ideas to Inspire.
• The pupils in David Mitchell’s class have stuck them into their Literacy books, as a way of encouraging those looking at the books to visit a copy of their work online and read the comments that had been added there!
• Kerry Turner has used QR codes in a number of ways. I was particularly impressed with the idea of printing them on sticky labels and using them to share useful sites / important information with students.
• James Michie has written a detailed account of the use of QR codes in education, which contains a number of ideas and lots of links to explore.
• Dughall has also written an interesting review of QR codes, which includes some ideas for using a related tool called Stickybits.

I have recently created QR codes for all of my Teaching Websites, along with all of the Teaching Themes. You can download a poster which shows all of these, should you wish to use the codes to visit the sites. Download the poster here.

If you’re planning to use my Internet tutorial, Welcome to the Web, it might be useful to print the relevant code for children to enable them to access the site more easily.

Have you used QR codes in the classroom?




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Lit2Go: a massive collection of free, downloadable audiobooks and more

from Free Technology for Teachers by noreply@blogger.com (Mr. Byrne)......
Lit2Go: a massive collection of free, downloadable audiobooks and more: "

Good morning all,

Came across this terrific resource at Kristen Swanson’s session at EdCamp NYC this weekend, and since it was new to me, I thought you might not know about it either!

Quoting from their website:

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can:

• Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
• Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
• View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
• Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.

Here’s the listing for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

As you can see, this classic is available in multiple formats (though the .PDF link is broken). The entire Lit2Go library is available directly on iTunes, making it even easier for those with iPods to enjoy this content.

Mary Beth Hertz also mentioned the Belkin Rockstar, an inexpensive (under $30 at Amazon) device that lets up to five people share a single audio connection:

Add one of these to an iPod and BAM! You’ve got a listening center for up to five students. Awesome!

Hope this helps!

-kj-
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Preparing Students for Commenting with Wall Blogging

Preparing Students for Commenting with Wall Blogging: "

All of our classroom teachers are working hard on their classroom blogs. They are using the blog as a platform to allow parents to have a peek into the classroom. It is a communication tool between school and home. It has been a steep learning curve for some to write, post, embed and upload in this new media until it is becoming a daily routine.

I wrote about this learning curve and process of teacher blogging before. My vision includes a step ladder approach as teachers are moving from a purely informational, static, one-way-communication site to a global communication center.

Step Ladder of Blogging

I am proud of how our classroom teachers are continuing to work hard and move forward in the blogging process.

A few weeks ago, our second graders created a video tutorial to teach their parents how to navigate their classroom blog. They are excited and self-motivated to check their classroom blog from home to see if their teachers posted something new. Both teachers and students are now ready to take the next step with the ultimate goal of making a global learning community out of their blog. These 7 & 8 year olds are ready to start commenting!

Taking the idea from the “paper blogging“activity, which originated from the No Matter, There blog, the second grade teachers and I decided to prepare students for commenting with “wall blogging”.

In class, teachers had read two books about pilgrims to the children. Outside of the classroom, teachers prepared a wall as a designated “wall blog”. They used push pins to “post” a handwritten piece of paper about their reading and added a few questions at the end. They also wrote a poster with “commenting guidelines” in addition to two images and books and a Venn Diagram poster (to compare and contrast the two stories).

Blogging Wall

Blog Post

As a class, we read the post and went over the commenting guidelines.

Commenting Guidelines

The teachers had also prepared some pre-made comments and students had to decide if they were appropriate comments following the guidelines or not. If they were not, they helped re-write the comments to make them appropriate to be pinned to the wall blog.

Comments

Then it was time for the students to comment. Each one of them received a colorful sentence strip and was instructed to then answer one of the questions from the original (paper) blog post or to comment on one of the comments that were already pinned to the wall.

Adding Comments to our Blog Wall

Writing Comments

There was a lively buzz going around. The students wrote great comments and it was amazing to see how their minds worked as they were trying to figure out the “best” spot to place their comments. We wanted to make sure that comments who answered the same questions were placed in close proximity to one another. We also talked about the “nested” aspect of comments.

Wall Blogging

We talked about the difference between writing on a piece of paper and writing online. What does it mean when you underline a word on a piece of paper and what does it mean when a word is underlined online?

The wall blogging exercise did not involve ANY TECHNOLOGY! It was all about reading comprehension, writing, categorizing, comparing, contrasting, reflecting, documenting and collaboratively working towards exploring a text. The students will now be able to transfer these skills to a new medium.

A new medium that allows them to practice the skills mentioned above in addition to:

• be able to do this from home


• learning how to read and write in an online environment


• connect and share with a worldwide audience (not just the people who physically can stand in front of our wall blog)

How are your preparing your students to comment? Please share your ideas.

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