GeoGreeting

Just heard about this website that sends greetings to your family and friends with pictures taken all over the world. It is called GeoGreeting. Here is a testing out greeting I created. Click the link below and try it out.
http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?yDBIsxqUyEDUqoyqBooDsxqa

Not sure how I would use this with students in the library but it may be a fun geography lesson.

Looking at the Earth and Stars in a New Way...

Adam Mann a Wired Science contributor added this time lapse video to the Wired Science blog yesterday. It is just too beautiful not to share! My students are learning about famous American women in the library and this week we are reading an e-book biography about Sally Ride. I am also sharing this video which offers a glimpse of the earth in a way few every get to see. This video actually gives you the feeling of the Earth being a big ball out in space with stars all around. It is a way of looking at Earth in space that I have never seen before. I hope my students are as impressed with this video as I am! Thanks to my Plurk buddy Ken for sharing the video on Plurk and if you are not part of Plurk please consider joining us! My Plurk PLN Rocks!

WonderSay

I tried out a new (to me) web tool today. It is called WonderSay and what is created is called a WonderSaid. Below is what I WonderSaid:


made on Wondersay - Animate text with style
Not sure how to use this tool with students yet but it is fun.

Don't Be This Person...

Do you have autistic students in your school?  More and more special area teachers are providing differentiated instruction for special needs students with autism.  Notice, I did not use the new term flying around education today for library, art, gym, health, and music classes... encore. I do not like the term encore. Encore teachers in my mind are dispensable, because they are after all encore. And you can have a concert or run a school without an encore. But I digress.
I came across this video while exploring my new obsession, Pinterest. It led me to a little closer look at my bias toward my autistic students and I do not want to be like the person in the video below. I am continually examining my pedagogy and my content to make sure I am not over stimulating my autistic students. This video makes me wonder what else I can do to make a difference.

Don't be that person.

Personal vs. Differentiated Instruction

My friend Ken Young on Plurk sent me this link to view a wonderful blog post and chart from another Plurk buddy Barbara Bray. In her Blog Re-Thinking Learning she wrote a post about the differences between differentiation and individualization. It stirred so much controversy that she decided to do more research the result of her research became this chart.

Personalized Learning Chart

View more documents from Barbara Bray

So now the question is should we be personalizing, differentiating, or individualizing our instruction?

Cost of NCLB

Here is a picture I found by way of my Plurk buddy Dean Mantz that shows the cost of NCLB. He got the link via Kelly Tenkley of ilearntechnology.com and ipadcurriculum.com.   

Snowflake Bentley

Next week I am reading Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin to my kindergarten students. The only problem is that they can not see any of his wonderful photographs. The three pictures in the book are so tiny that the beauty in the snowflakes is lost.  I am planning to include the video below so they can see how beautiful snowflakes can be. Enjoy!

Dr. Seuss Relief!

I just could not resist this lovely picture that I found on Pinterest.  Pinterest is new to me, I don't even have an account! But I will be looking into it more to see if it could be used at the elementary level. For now enjoy this great photo!

Source: vandalog.tumblr.com via Kelly on Pinterest

BubCap 2

Found this video of a toddler trying to press the home key on an iPad after a BubCap has been installed. While an adult can still press the button, a child is not strong enough to press it once the BupCap is installed. Where was this when I was trying to use the iPad with my special education kindergarten class? Can't wait to get it and try it with my special ed population. I know my first and second grade students are stronger than this toddler but I got the extra strength ones so I am hoping they will work and the students will be able to use the iPad with the educational games I select for them!

BubCaps

Are you like me? Do you share your iPad or iPhone with a toddler? Or do you share your iPad with a special education class? Then you may be just as amazed as I was to find this wonderfully simple product called BupCap. Check out this CNet video:


 I just ordered a set and I will let you know how I like them.

Happy Holidays from Our School District Offices

In my e-mail today I was sent a link to a holiday card created by my school district's administrative offices.  Click the link below and see how tech savy our administrators are getting. I am very excited about this and I hope for big technology happenings in the future!  My favorite part is right before the picture of the tech department... it says "Back it up." Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday. http://animoto.com/play/4OMkKIfElWq1jHhtRuQZiw?utm_content=main_link

My Principal... My Glogster Hero!

Last year I had my 4^th graders do state reports on EDUGlogster and they did a super job.  This year I was planning on having the current 4^th grade do a country report since their teachers wanted to do the state report project later this school year.  I figure they can cut their teeth on the country report and be all set to do the state report for their teachers. So, I went to my old Glogster accounts and low and behold it was going to cost me 99 dollars to do the same project I did for free last year.  I didn’t want to give up my 4^th grade Glogster report! Enter my new principal, my knight in shining armor who is almost as much of a technology geek as I am! I go to him hat in hand and he says sure what do you need! My hero! My principal was kind enough to pay for 200 student licenses for me to share around the school. That is enough for not only the 4^th grade but for at least another grade level to all do Glogster reports this year. I am very happy and excited to get started.  But I must say I am getting frustrated by the bating and switching that is going on with educational web applications. Bate and switch is the only way I can describe it, educational websites get you hooked on their free product and promise it will always be free and then a year or so later you have to pay for the same services you were getting for free. Glogster  is not the only website that has done this, JayCut went away all together... poof... gone, and it is frustrating. Now that I know I have to pay for Glogster, I will plan my budget accordingly next year. But what if Glogster is gone next year?  This year was bad enough, it threw me for a loop! Luckily, when I went hat-in-hand to my principal and begged he gave me the money for the licenses. But what happens in those school districts that do not have an extra 99 dollars hanging around? How can we fund these sites that we all use in education to keep them free? There’s got to be a way if we all put our heads together.  

Blabber a Book

I just created this on Blabberize as a sample to show my students. We may be creating these after Thanksgiving if I can gather enough working microphones. It took me just 5 minutes to create but two of those were spent looking for a usable microphone. I think it will be a fun project for the students, talking about a book they have read recently in a new way may get some other students interested in reading the books as well.
 

Tundra Connections Webcast - Polar Bears International

All of our third grade classes and our afternoon kindergarten class took part in this webinar this afternoon... check it out. Tundra Connections Webcast - Polar Bears International

We the People Music Video- Constitution Day Library Project

The first time I attended a DEN event I shared a wiki I created that highlights Discovery Education videos that go along with pictures my library was awarded through the Picturing America Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Because of that little bit of sharing I was chosen to attend a workshop with Dr. Lodge McCammon that changed the way I approach teaching and the use of technology. Dr. Lodge shared various techniques for using Flip video cameras in the classroom through a project called FIZZ.

I had avoided using video because of the amount of time it took. I only see each class of students in the library for 50 minutes a week. Video was too time consuming. Dr. Lodge’s methods changed my thinking and the result was learning and the learning was fun! Fun for me, and fun for my students, they actually said, “that was fun.” Imagine having fun in library class! I downloaded Lodge McCammon’s song, “We the People,” from Discovery Streaming, it is also available on his website along with the lyrics. I made copies of the lyrics and handed them out to my students.

I was a lot worried because the song says it is recommended for grades 6-12 and I was handing it out to 4th graders. I felt a little better looking at the Discovery Education Teacher's guide because it recommended it for grades 5 to 12 but I was still a little concerned. After a little tweaking of the assessment provided in the teacher’s guide, I brought the students into the library and showed the students the video on Dr. Lodge's song page.  And I explained what they were going to do. I told them in order for this to work they had to work together while listen to the song over and over again. Practice a lot and read the lyrics over and over to better understand what they were doing. I had a table full of props and told them they could use whatever they wanted and create whatever was not there that they needed.

I know it worked with the adults in my DEN group but would these 4th graders be able to handle it? You be the judge here is one of the videos my 4th grade students created for Constitution Day. Perhaps the best part of the whole adventure took place the following week when the students got to see their video and then take the tweaked assessment. The entire class did exceptionally well on the assessment! So not only did we have fun… it was even educational! Oh, and make sure you notice that Patriot Pete took part in the chorus!