Podcast

This is my podcast that I created on Action Verbs for 3rd grade. I created it using audacity. This lesson meets a reading language arts standards and two technology standards. This would be something that could be used if a sub were needed for a day. Also, this would be great for auditory learners in the classroom as the teacher demonstrates the assignment on the overhead projector using the program paint. I used Jack Hartmann's song "Action Verbs" from the album "Cool Beats that Teach"
Here is the rubric for your viewing

Action Verb Rubric

Here is a copy of my script

Action Verb Template

Assessment Forms

I love this!!!!! This is really helpful I wish I would have known about it last fall when I was teaching social studies to fifth and sixth graders. I will def. use this during the fall for my students. I am teaching younger students so I'm not sure how the online thing will go. This would be something different for them to break up the monotony by getting on the computer (they loved the computer). Also, this was so easy and saved time having a form already for you, and you get to choose from different types of questions to assess different levels of learning. I did my quiz on "The Gold Rush" this was something we studied last fall in fifth grade. I like to give quizzes before test to help students review and remember things that we studied from the chapter.

The Gold Rush

Moving Pictures Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker My slide show was on PECS picture exchange communication system. This is a system that is used that allows students who have trouble communicating, learn to communicate functionally by going from simple words to phrases and eventually to complex sentences. In the classroom I could use this many ways. For one by using it for my nonverbal learners; by just using pictures and a few words if they understand PECS they would be able to understand my slide show. (not this one in particular) I liked movie maker it was really fun. It was easy once I got it up and running. I choose "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus 1-because my students this year loved it and 2-I felt it goes good with the theme I'm trying to get across, which is give non verbal learners or learners with developmental disabilities a chance and an outlet like we have. They need to be able to express their feelings and speak up like all of us. Also, it wont be easy at first, but if you keep on trying I guarantee they will! Some things I would change in the future: the speed at which it is moving I would slow it down so everything can be read. Another thing is I might change the song if I had a longer time to look for one that might better suit this. You could also let students summarize a story by using pictures only and using this software. Using this to present classroom rules or safety instructions would be very affective and you could use classroom pics to make it more of a real life experience.

Assessment-Rubric

I created a rubric for a 5th grade social studies assignment, since that is the subject I taught last year. This assignment is for students to create a poster on an invention and inventor in the Industrial Revolution and explain what it does and why the inventor invented it. Poster's are flashy and some are detailed and meant to be seen; and this is how I will start explaining it to my students. I think a rubric is a great way to assess my students on a project like this. This gives them a range and helps them see before working on the project what the teacher is expecting of them. That's one of my favorite things about a rubric, is that it lets students know what is expected and lets them know what they need to work towards. Like setting a goal for them. One thing I didn't like about Rubistar is that I noticed there wasn't a column for the total at the end. Some rubrics have a column for the total points and it helps you keep track when you are grading.

I also want to add that rubistar is very easy to use and I will probably use it in the future. I will say that in the past I haven't used a rubric much considering it is time consuming to type up, but this program makes it much easier and a lot faster. I'm really glad I've been introduced to this and feel this will help me out in the future. Students love to do projects and sometimes teacher's shy away from projects because of the grading process. Hands on experience is a way for students to really jump in and learn.
5th grade Inventions and Inventors of the Industrial Revolution

Pecha Kucha

I did my presentation on PECS a picture exchange communication system. This is usually used for students or adults with Autism or other developmental disabilities. I'm getting my masters in Special Edu. and this year I will be working as a Sped teacher. This presentation shows what PECS can do for someone, how it is done, and how it is beneficial.
I like this activity because I felt it helped teach me how to summarize things down and get to the point. I have trouble sometimes explaining things in short sentences or a shorter version. This assignment forced me to do that. Something like this would be beneficial for my students because with little words and more pictures it would hold their interest better and they would not get bored as easily; at the same time I would be getting my point across. This is a good way to practice giving information to students via PowerPoint. There have been many times where I've witnessed a PowerPoint in the elementary grades and students don't bother to read it and therefore are not even sure what you want them to learn. Why would they read it when they were expecting something to watch? Why not have them watch instead of read when you know for sure that they will understand. Not every elementary class has perfect readers, we all know that!!!! It's easy to see how something like this can be used.
Hope you learn something






Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Pecs Picture Exchange Communication System

View more documents from guest224f148.

PhotoStory

This is my photo story about some of the people and things that I love. I really liked this assignment. So many different things come to mind when I think about a classroom and this type of technology that is made available for free. I played around with all the features including red eye, motion, music, and many more. I am a little disappointed that I couldn't convert my itunes songs into mp3 (did not know how to) I would have liked to use my own music to tell my story a little better. Also, I could not get my microphone to work. However, I may get one and update it later on...

PS. A few words are in Italian, but I wrote what they mean
My nanny is from San Giovanni in Fiore Italy

Here are some ways I believe this kind of technology can be Incorporated into the elementary classroom:

*You could use this for journaling purposes of school year, home life, beginning of school year for students to tell all about themselves.

*This is also simple to use so actually having students create their own story is a plus. Giving them hands on experience with the technology.

*You could use it for science or social studies; students could do a safari (walk) take pictures of things that pertain to either science or social studies and explain what they are and how they are significant.

social studies- pictures from a field trip of historical events and places

science- Parts of a flower, they could take pictures of each part and then explain and label what each part is and the job it does.

*Language arts would be a great content to use this in. Have students make up their own stories fiction or non fiction and then have them take pictures or bring them in on a jump drive and create words or phrases to go with them. The students could tell their story using the microphone feature.

Hope you enjoyed mine...

PowerPoint

I did my Power Point presentation on War in the West Conflict on the Plains when the US Government was trying to take over the land that belonged to the plains Indians and this led into the battle at Little Big Horn.
This is taught in fifth grade US History. Students need to understand why the Indians felt the way they did and the view point of the US Government. At the end of the Power Point presentation there is directions for a word web. Students were to create a word web using the topic that was giving on this particular situation. This helps students to sum up what they learned.

Another idea would be to have students create their own PowerPoint about how the Indians felt vs the US Government. There are many other topics that could go along with this lesson that students could create a PowerPoint presentation on. This would be a great way to incorporate technology into the lesson at the same time.

Trouble on the Plains

Photoshop Express

This photo was taken at the Bahamas and it is in the album Bahamas that was in my last post.

Before





I put a boarder around it, fixed the red eye, and made it look like a drawing.
This is my cousin Kara and me.


Cousins

This is the album it came from

Bahamas 08



You could have students used these functions for many ideas with language arts when talking about stories. You could use it for students to make up their stories and to put a picture with it. Students my need to express their feelings and emotions about the story by editing the picture. Adding a border etc...

Web Album

This is my web album that I choose to show. This is of the Bahamas last summer with some of my cousins. I spend a lot of time here in the summer because my aunt has a house and being a teacher I have my summers off! Freeport Bahamas is not a very commercial place, but still has lots to do.


I created this album with photo shop. I recently signed up for photo shop and saw where we will be using it in class so I thought this would be the best program to put my album in. It is important that students know how to edit and upload pictures onto a computer. You could have students writing reports and uploading pictures that go with their reports. In social studies a significant place or event would be a great picture to go along with a report or maybe an old artifact that they have, but can't bring it into school.

Freeport Bahamas '08

Self Portrait

Here you will find a Picasso portrait that I have created. I did my best to get it to look as close to me as possible. Some issues that I encountered were: There were not many face templates to choose from, not many hair templates to choose from, it also took me awhile to realize I could color anything or feature. Solutions was: played around with it for awhile until I found things that resembled me best:O) My aunt has a bunch of Picasso paintings in her house and I was trying to think of all of them while I was doing this lol.
This is the site I used to create my portrait Mr. Picasso Head

My self portrait take a look

Pollock

This is a random art picture I drew. It is beautiful lol. Some things that I encountered was that I was not able to change colors or stop drawing when my mouse was moving. Also I could not control the shapes of the objects very much. The thing I had the most trouble with was finding out how to save it. Solutions: used the same color orange the whole time, kept drawing and connected everything together, drew a bunch of blobs, circles and lines, Dr. Pierce filled me in with the prnt scrn option that I should have remembered .Questions: Can you change your color? Can you draw different shapes?
Here is the site I used to create my original piece of art

Jackson Pollock


My original piece of art

Kids Zone

When reviewing the 4th grade reading averages for dates 2003, 2005, & 2007 I feel it is safe to say that WV is more often below national average when it comes to state reading scores. A point I would make would be in 2003 when we were above national average make note that is was only 3points above. Ever since 2003 we seem to have gone down hill. Our down hill slide has been 4points below what we had in 2003. It would be only reasonable to put some kind of action in place, for instance asking for more funding for statewide reading programs. This could only benefit not hinder WV reading programs. Take a look for yourself
4th grade Chart 1

After reviewing the 8th grade reading averages for all three dates 2003, 5, & 7 as a parent I would have the right to question what the funding is being spent on in the reading programs due to the fact that in all three years we are below national average. 2003 we were only below by one point, however both years after, we were below five and six points. I think it would be necessary to pull apart the areas in reading and examine where our low scores are coming from, and maybe put forth more effort into using more funding in specific areas to re do or re create those programs. You will see where I'm coming from if you take a look at my chart
8th grade Chart 2

I created my graph at Kid's Zone
I obtained my information from NAEP website

Crappy Graphics!

I used a Venn Diagram. My discipline is Social studies so I choose to compare and contrast Angel island and Ellis island. Both are immigration offices. We study this in fifth grade US History. It's important for student's to know the difference between the two. When doing this you might want students to include more information than what I included. I was just giving an example of how you would go about doing it.

Angel Island & Ellis Island

Image Capture

The program I used was paint to put my image in. I retrieved the image from Life Magazine Archive under graphic objectives. The type of file that I created is a jpeg image. The size is 118 KB. I acquired my graphic by pulling up the image and pressing alt+print scrn button and then pulling up paint and pressing ctrl+v button. To improve student learning in my classroom I would incorporate this when I'm doing US History for fifth grade. We study how and why the Panama Canal was built. There was much debate over this. The United States wanted the canal for faster trading and traveling, and military purposes. It was finally created with Panama declared independence. We map out the two routes this would be a great image to show the routes and help the students remember why it was put in. The route before is labeled rt. b and the route after is labeled rt. a.
The Kissing of the two oceans

Desktop Graphic

I choose to create a diagram that can be used with my content social studies. This graphic will help students understand the power, job, and people ahead of each branch of government. This will also make it easier to understand how it is a system of checks and balances. I created this in Microsoft word. I think it would be even more effective to have students create the diagram. This was the only program I knew of, but I also considered Inspiration. I choose this instead because it was only able to be opened in Inspiration and I couldn't put it on my page for everyone to see. The good part is that I am familiar with word and it wasn't hard for me to do. Issues were that there was no template that would fit like Inspiration has and doing it in word is a lot harder than Inspiration. I didn't have many questions as I was working because I use this program a lot. However, I kept asking myself how would I have done this with Inspiration for this assignment and made it viewable? What other programs are out there like Inspiration that I don't know about? The file type is Microsoft Word Document, and size is 26.5 KB. I believe the program it will open in when double clicked is Microsoft Word,Word Pad, & Internet Explorer. I acquired my graphic by creating it myself in Word. I can incorporate this diagram in the classroom to improve student learning in a number of ways. This could be used as a study tool, it could be a graphic the students are able to use on a test. They can refer back to it when we discuss the government and how a bill becomes a law. It will also help students understand the jobs and duties of the 3 branches.
View my diagram here
3 branches of government

TPACK

TPACK ASSIGNMENT Click the link to view
comments welcome...

Resume

Take a peak at my resume
Although in all my job interviews for teaching I have never had to use it. However, maybe one day if I get out of teaching and do something else with this degree it might come in handy.

*Resume*

Introductory Post

Hi everyone this is my introductory post. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. I will be as soon as school is out!!! This is my first time blogging besides yesterday. I have one more semester left in the grad program I'm very excited. I am currently teaching at East Park Elementary school 5th and 6th grade social studies. This is my first year teaching and I'm hoping I find a job next year. I plan on spending my summer out by my pool and in the Bahamas!!! Good luck everyone...

Getting Started

Hi everyone!!!!!!!

I am very new to this
Andrea