ComicLife Sample

I kept playing with my ComicLife sample because of its length and used Picasa and created a movie out of it.

Blog Entry #5 - Presenting VoiceThread to My Staff

At our last faculty meeting, my principal asked the four teachers that are pursuing their Instructional Technology degree to present something we have learned in our classes so far. Since we had just completed our VoiceThread examples we started with this information. No one in the room had ever heard of the program. I got the impression that a few liked it, but many seemed overwhelmed by it. We are very limited with technology in our building so many teachers still believe that if they touch the computer that they will break it. Our brief description and presentation was enough to stir interest, but no one has yet to ask if more information would be presented later. I feel to implement more programs of this type that we are going to need to hone in on the few teachers that seemed interested and properly train them. Then maybe the enthusiasm for programs like this one will grow.

ComicLife Article Summary

When looking for an article for ComicLife, I found that there are very few articles that discuss this topic. However, the one that I found seems to be appropriate for the workshop plan that our group is putting together. The article is a good introduction of what exactly ComicLife is and the situations that it can be applied to. It can be included with a handout or as introduction of what to expect from the workshop. Even though the articles were limited, I think this will fit in our plan.
Kenny (2006) lists many examples of ComicLife being used across the curriculum. Kenny has seen it in use in science, reading, writing, social studies, foreign languages, and technology. He states that it promotes creativity in children by sending them out with a digital camera and take those pictures to create their own story. He also seems to briefly describe the instructions and how simple it is to create a comic. However, at the time this article was written this was Mac only software. It now can be downloaded to a PC.

Kenny, J. (2006, June 2). Stories for the visual generation. The Times Educational Supplement , p. T29.

My Comic Life Experience

I have loved experimenting with Comic Life. The flyer I created for our group is next to this posting. My team decided to use a graphic organizer in Comic Life. I decided to teach my kindergarten students how to write a story. First, I will tell them about what makes a good story. I will explain that a good story has a good beginning, middle, and end. I will then show them my gold mining example and we will discuss how it started, what made the middle, and what made the end of the story. Then I have included two examples that I could dictate their responses and add speech bubbles based on those responses. I can't wait to use it. The hardest part was uploading it to the blog, but once a friend talked me through it I felt like an expert.

Blog Entry 4: Emerging Technology that Supports Communication and Collaboration

There are many ways to send and receive information today. Boss and Krauss (2007) suggest that teachers should be faciliators and model the technolorgy for their students. Egbert (2009)offered a lot of ways that children could collaborate and use email. However, as a kindergarten teacher, I feel that my responsibility is to model and supervise their use to make sure that they are using the technology properly. I feel like children will be more successful if they learn how to use programs and equipment properly. I can see that future use of www.kidmail.net with my more accelerated students could enhance their communication skills.

Boss, S., & Krauss, J. (2007). Reinvesting project-based learning. Eugene, OR: International
Society for Technology in Education.
Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Blog Entry 3 - Kindergarten Children Using Technology

This week in our lesson plans we decided to try to incorporate more technology in our classrooms. How many times has a child asked a parent, or basically anyone with a camera if they could take a picture? Well, we are providing our students that opportunity this week. Our standards state that children need to be able to identify and name basic shapes. So, we decided to draw shape names out of a hat. The teacher that drew circles took her class out today to take pictures of all the circles that they could find around the school building. She said that they had a "blast". They found circles that she had never noticed before. Not only did she help them learn about circles, but she connected them to "real life" by showing how shapes make up the world we live in.

VoiceThread Reflection

Before I started this project I had no knowledge that a tool like VoiceThread was available for teachers to use. After becoming the project leader, I really got to researching and playing with the program. I decided to use my kindergarten students to create my example for VoiceThread because we are required to document many standards for GKIDS. I felt this program was the perfect fit for this documentation process. The Georgia standard for kindergarten is retelling a story in their own words. I had previously read the story Brown Bear Brown Bear and decided to use this story for the project. In the past, we just marked a sheet if they were able to do this or not. Now, with this tool I can record my students and even play it back for parents. This is good documentation for GKIDS. Also, the kids enjoyed doing this and could not wait to hear themselves played back on the computer. I definitely plan to use this tool again.

Example of VoiceThread

I used Voicethread to document how well my students were able to retell a story according to the Georgia standards. http://voicethread.com/#u468891.b602522.i3213816

Brown Bear Brown Bear by Eric Carle

Chapter 2 - Egbert Reactions

I found it very interesting that the book stated that there should be on computer to every 3 to 4 children. You do not find this in a typical classroom. Also, I never knew anything such as Flotillas exsisted. After reading this chapter and some of the postings of my fellow classmates I found out that they are more prevalent than I thought. However, I believe that they are misused by most school systems.

VoiceThread Article

VoiceThread the article is more or less advertising the use of Voicethread. However, the links listed in the article were very informative. The URL link http://digitallyspeaking.pbwiki.com/Voicethread provides a tutorial of how and why to use Voicethread. Bill Ferriter teaches 6th grade language arts and gives an example of how he uses Voicethread on his blog http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2007/11/using-voicethre.html. These are two wonderful websites to check out.

Article Summary on Electronic Books

This article went into great detail about the use of electronic books to support readers with disabilities. It discussed how young children as well as children with disabilities could use the electronic books. It listed benefits such as sequencing, tracking print, and listening skills. An overwhelming benefit is the retelling of stories. Students use their own language and pictures to retell stories. By using traditional stories and retelling them through multimedia resources, the child’s understanding of the content is demonstrated. The article states that students with disabilities often feel more successful when using technology. They are able to control the learning environment to meet their needs.
The article provided step by step instructions on how to create an electronic book. There are many e-books out on the market today, but if a teacher has Microsoft PowerPoint then the cost can be reduced. It gave an example of how a second grade teacher used it to reach the modalities in her classroom. The e-book is a strategy that enables all learners to be successful in the classroom.