Teaching with Technology » Ideas

Interesting Ways to Use your Pocket Video Camera

Tina Coffey — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:21:10 +0000

I’m getting ready to attend a Teacher Training Institute where teachers will received their own pocket Flip Video Camera. I thought it might be nice to share some of the great ways they can use it. Tom Barrett’s collection of ideas might be a great start! If you have any other ideas, please comment below or send the to Tom….or better yet…do both! :)

Projects, Projects, Projects

Tina Coffey — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:21:48 +0000

This article is a follow up to yesterday’s inservice at Clearbrook. We discussed Global Projects, Using Skype, Wiki Ideas, and Geocaching and Geobugs. Wow, that was a lot of stuff!

Shelia Terry from Virginia Beach was able to skype with us and talk a little about her use with Skype with her students there. She gave us some great information about skype, and send us a link to more Skype info on her wiki!

We also talked a lot about some existing global projects you can join. One of the project places I highlighted was the site by Jen Wagner. I love her projects!!

The other project I mentioned by name was the skype project called Mission 00 Rain about Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I remember that a few of you were interested in it as well. It’s for grades 1-3, but you need to register by Oct. 10!

Finally, we did some geocaching and talked about geobugs. In case you all are interested in geocaching for fun, the geocaching site is www.geocaching.com. You can create an account for free, and download the locations of caches to many types of gps units. The newer ones for cars will even let you do this. It’s tons of fun, and they are EVERYWHERE…so it’s also great for family trips or vacations.

If you and your class want to track the Big Lick Geobug, here’s it’s story.
http://tcoffey.edublogs.org/2009/06/03/geobugs/

Finally, an Oliver K. Woodman Geobug will be leaving Roanoke in the next few weeks. He’s heading to Redcrest, California. If you’ve read the book, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman, you’ll know why! Let me know if you want me to come to your class, show a geobug, and get your started following him too. :)

Publishing Writing Ideas

Tina Coffey — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:14:30 +0000

Jacqui Sharp from ICT Teaching and Learning posted this great slideshow of different ways to publish writing. It’s great!! It goes from the easiest ways to the more elaborate…but lots of fun things are included. Take a look! Can you think of any other ways?

Publishing Writing Ideas 2

View more presentations from Jacqui Sharp.

Welcome Back with Wordle!

Tina Coffey — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:42:48 +0000

Want an easy back to school activity that will help you begin to know your students? Try Wordle! Here’s an example of an About Me activity using it. Please remember to use only first names if you do this with your students.

The instructional ideas for this resource are endless. You can find some of these ideas in this post, Wordle Word Clouds. I also suggest taking a look at the ideas Tom Barrett has collected from many other educators below:

Finally, you may want to check out Jen Wagner’s Guess the Wordle Wiki. There she posts different Wordles throughout the week, and students are encouraged to guess their subject using the words in the Wordle (Monday is an easy wordle, Wednesday is a little harder, Friday is the hardest). She will also be adding a Thursday Wordle that will be about a book (librarians, this might appeal to you)!

If you have your students create Wordles, make sure you direct them to this exact URL (http://www.wordle.net/create) so they bypass the gallery of other Wordles. While most of the examples in the gallery are usually okay, from time to time inappropriate words do appear there. By going straight to the “Create” area, you lessen the chance that students run across inappropriate words. :)

If you have never used Wordle before and would like some help as you explore it with your students, please contact me!

Teachers Using Glogster

Tina Coffey — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:14:40 +0000

Have you seen the Nicoles’ new Carver library webpage? Or Victoria Salvat’s Kindergarten page? If not, check them out! You will notice they are using a really cool service called Glogster. Glogster allows you to make interactive poster-like creatives that include links, pictures, and videos all with a really slick looking design. You can allow these posters to stand alone as wepbages, or embed them in webpage, wiki, or blog. It works especially well for the homepage of a website. This is what Victoria and Nicole did to add that extra touch to their websites. Pam and I also used this for the Trek2India wiki!

So, want to make interactive posters with your kids? Here’s a tutorial that shows you how!

Always remember to stay on the educational gloster site (http://www.glogster.com/edu) with your students. Otherwise, they may access inappropriate material on the regular Glogster site.