Service Project with Sable

I worked with a student named sable who is in middle school. She was going out of town this week, therefore, my service project was limited to on day which was sunday. She worked very diligently the entire time without losing interest. She chose to research goats since she is in the program 4-h. Her original project was going to be on track, but decided it would be a little too difficult to research.

We started off by making a KWL chart to figure out what she knew already, and what she wanted to learn. Based on the chart, we were able to determine an essential question which was how do you keep goats healthy. This seems more of a unit question, but thats okay. I then allowed her to create a blog account. She then wrote her first blog entry that showed the kwl chart.

After that I showed her some student-friendly research tools instead of going on google to search for the topic. We were able to find many different sites such as yahooligans. She was able to find pictures, and articles about goats and keeping goats healthy. She wrote a blog entry on the tools we used.

I then gave her the option of creating a slideshare, voicethread, or a movie from movie maker. Our computer resources were limited in that powerpoint was not downloaded, so she decided to use the pictures she found to make a movie.

I taught her how to create a folder to put all the pictures she found in. From there she added the pictures from the internet to the folder. We opened movie maker, and I showed her first how to import one picture, and she then took over and imported the rest. We figured out what she wanted to write on each picture, and i showed her how to do that. We then uploaded her movie into her blog.

This was a really easy project considering she was in middle school. I think for the younger students they would need more assistance searching the web, and creating the video. I really enjoyed doing the service project.

Here is her blog check it out!

Excel Spreadsheets in the Classroom

Microsoft Excel is a program designed to input a collection of data together in an organized manner. The program was originally designed for large business for organization, now spreadsheets are used in business, in the classroom, and even by regular people like you and me. In the classroom this is excellent for math, science or even social studies.

There are three main topics that I found can be useful for using spreadsheets which are related to my unit theme.

1. Calculate the amount of rainfall within the month for (insert city name here)./ calculate the probability of rainfall expected within a month.
2. Create a timeline of the advances in aviation.
3. Show the results from a water experiment in a bar graph using the graphing tool in Excel.

I have included a sample of the tools you are able to use in Excel such ass collecting data, and using that to easisly formulate sums, as well as create bar graphs, line graphs, and pie graphs. Also based on the above sample, I created a bar graph to coincide with the information.

Movie Maker with Audacity and FreePlay Music

Movie Maker is a way to create movies using videos, music, and pictures. It is limited when it comes to combining music with a voice over it, therefore it is helpful to use an additional program called audacity. It is a quick download and you are able to upload the sounds you want and you are able to manipulate which ever one you choose and export it back into movie maker. Then once you have uploaded and arranged all the photos, videos, and music, you are able to add transitions and edit the length of each element. Below is my movie maker movie on the water cycle. I am using it as if I were a student.

Digital Storytelling extended to video

In order to understand digital storytelling in a video format, you must first examine the 7 main elements.

Point of View- What is the perspective of the author?
- My point of view is to inform the audience of the water cycle.
A Dramatic Question- a question that will be answered by the end of the story.
- How is the weather in your favorite location.
Emotional Content- serious issues that speak to us.
- The personalization of the projects is the emotional content.
The Gift of your Voice- a way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context.
- Included
The Power of the Soundtrack- music or other sounds that support the storyline.
- Include the water cycle song, and sounds of water.
Economy- enough content to tell the story without including too much information.
- The water cycle.
Pacing- how slowly or quickly the story progresses.
- At a medium pace throughout the video.

These elements create an affective and powerful story. Through the use of these elements I have created my own digital story. This type of digital storytelling is quite different from that of the previous blog because it includes but is not limited to video clips. I plan on incorporating not only my unit in this video storytelling, but as well as Kimberly Davis’s unit plan. This would create a new type of unit How is the weather in your favorite location? This will allow for individual personalization of students projects in which they are able to express themselves. This could also become a research type project, where each student would be assigned a different country in which they are able to explore the weather in these areas.

Check out my unit plan section for this video story as well as my storyboard.

Digital Storytelling.. Storytelling of the future

Digital storytelling is a new way in which material can be presented. Instead of the traditional sense where a student approaches the classroom and either reads of a paper, or reads of a powerpoint, digital storytelling allows for more intruiging ways of presenting the material. We have all had our share of boring lectures in which slide after slide is bulleted text after bulleted text. This is a revolutionary idea which can recreate the way we view presentations.

Today I'm focusing on three parts of digital storytelling which are slideshare, slidecast, and voice threads. A voice thread is a website designed to allow for feedback on a multiple of pictures through text, talk, and even drawing. Slideshare is basically a powerpoint presentation that has been enhanced.

I found an interesting website that took digital storytelling a step further. Brenda Dyck created another way of telling stories through the use of places. She uses additional tools such as google earth and community walk to have a sky view of a certain neighborhood. Then she demonstrated how the students could take pictures of some of their favorite childhood memories and make a digital story out of the images and locations. I did not get a chance to explore the website completely, but one discouragement I may have about this is for the students who move around a lot, if these websites are able to show a variety of states, towns, and countries, that would be excellent for those students who do not stay in one location all their lives. Other than that this seems like such a clever idea to incorporate other tools in the classroom to enhance learning.

In order to "enhance" my unit plan, I am going to include these technologies to further engage my students learning. Slideshare can be used when I myself present the material needed to my class, instead of saying "take 20 minutes to read paragraphs 1-10", I could say "lets review our material using this method". The new method will help maintain interest in the topic, and allow the information to be further processed and saved in their brains. Then once they have learned the material, now its their turn to go out, find information using the internet resources provided in the previous blog, and create their own unique presentations.

Check out my story telling below. First I have included my unit question and topic TEKS, and learning outcomes for my SlideShare presentation.

The Water Cycle, A SlideShare Technology-Integrated Plan

The Water Cycle

View more OpenOffice presentations from stewartk_1204.

Internet Resources

The internet has a variety of resources by which not only teachers, students or business officialss can view, but material viewable by the whole world! I got a chance to explore a few of the tools useful for communication and finding information on the world wide web.

Considering my previous essential question for my unit plan, I choose to look up topics related to this question while searching these resources. There were several useful cites and tools such as blogs, student-friendly search engines, and image and sound resourcess. To culiminate everything I created a works cited page to allow easy access to all the websites I found useful. I was able to find information about a cloud-creating experiment from both blogs and student-friend search engines, a biography on Amelia Earhart, and how the Water Cycle works. There were also some interesting blogs about cloud formation which would allow a lesson on the different types of clouds.

Here's a list of the specific web resources I found and ways in which it would be useful to incorporate these in a classroom:

• Blogs- Blogs allow students to communicate thoughts and ideas freely. It seems as though this type of communication, although not verbal, can help. I would allow the students to create blogs about research papers, project ideas and include websites they found interesting information from.
• Student-friendly search engines- These are extreme useful to students when researching almost any topic. These pages link the students to websites that they are able to understand and learn new information. I would allow the students to use these search engines any chance they get. Whether it be the formula to a math problem, a dictionary, links to research projects, or experiments.
• VoIP- I would probably use VoIP in a lesson on multicultural events. Perhaps as a class we would be able to find a class in another country, and each student could have a "penpal", but instead of writing to eachother they could actually see eachother face to face and create a few simple questions to ask about the other ones culture.
• Image, Sound, and Video resources- Theses would probably be used to enhance a powerpoint presentation. Whether its a lecture type powerpoint, or a project type powerpoint, including images, sounds, and videos will allow whichever audience to remain engaged and interested in the presentations.

I have also included a Incorporating the Internet form, which is basically a works cited page but with more deals, and a more organized fashion.

Classrooms of the Future- Blogs Included

In attempts to helps students learn to express themselves through the use of written thoughts and uploaded images, blogs have been created. We as teachers are at the frontline for teaching our students how to use such blogs, in attempts to create an enduring lifelong experience. Students can use blogs not just outside of school, but within the classroom as well. They are able to respond to other blog posts, which allows for outside input to be added for perhaps a written paper, project ideas, or websites they found in order to help solve math problems.

Teachers have a variety of labels they are called and one such label is "helper". Blogs allow educators to "help" other educators to think of creative ideas in which they had successful use of in their classrooms. Another label is "informer", in which the teacher informs others of websites with clever activities, also to "inform" others of crafts, activites, and technology that was unsuccessful in their classroom, in order for others to avoid. David Warlick's blog discusses some new advances in technology in which educators would be greatful to gain further knowledge on. These types of blogs allow for creative ideas to move throughout the world.

Inquiry-Based Learning and Project-Based Learning is Essential!

Inquiry-based learning and project based is an essential part of a unit plan. The need for these types learning styles within a unit plan is due to the fact that it allows for vital knowledge to be gained and captured first hand by the students. Within a unit plan there are questions that allow the students mind to create inspired ideas and thoughts. Two types of these questions are essential questions and unit questions.

I am creating a unit plan on the sky and all its components. This unit plan will incorporate inquiry-based learning and project-based learning to ensure quality and lifelong knowledge of this topic for my students. My essential question is: Why is the sky the way it is? This question allows for a variety of thoughtful answers by my students to actually inquire about this topic. This question also allows for several unit questions to incorporate this topic. These questions are:

• Can you capture a cloud, if so how?
• How do the different components of the sky interact and work together?
• How as an explorer do you get to the sky, and what are their experiences?

Thank you and let me know what you think!