Voki Classroom

One of my first grad. school classes featured Vokis for classroom use. Now Voki has its own site especially geared to education (Voki Classroom). The educator's Voki site offers teachers the options to manage students, manage classes and lessons, review Vokis, or showcase student work.  I am going to extend the idea of Build Your Wild Self and have the children create their own Vokis.  I can create Vokis to explain computer lab tasks or maybe a video podcast.  The children can use their avatars to present their favorite library book, a vacation experience, record a letter to a friend, or even record themselves reading a short story.

Watch Know Learn [.org]

Watch Know Learn is an excellent source for educational videos that children and teacher can access from anywhere.  The age filter helps narrow down videso, but there is also a search by subject option.  It draws videos from You Tube (in a site-embedded player) like this one that was under Math>Number Sense>Counting to 100.


From the site:  WatchKnowLearn has indexed over 20,000 educational videos, placing them into a directory of over 3,000 categories. The videos are available without any registration or fees to teachers in the classroom and to students at home 24/7. Users can dive into our innovative directory or search for videos by subject and age level. Video titles, descriptions, age level information, and ratings are all edited for usefulness. Our Web site invites broad participation in a new kind of wiki system, guided by teachers. We have had a tremendously positive response from educators to the website. If we continue to work together, we can create an incredible, free, educational resource for students across the world.

What have you found?

QR Codes

What is that jumbled square picture popping up everywhere?  It's a QR code which stands for Quick Response. QR codes create a fast way to get information to your cell without typing. This is a simple technology that is easy and affordable for educators and students.  Use a free smart phone app like QR Reader for iPhone to take a picture of the code. 



Kaywa QR-Code is a free code generator that creates a permalink and embed code. Next year I am adding a QR code similar to this one as the first frame of my Back to School Prezi.  Parents can instantly access the presentation anytime they need it.  Try this one out--it will take you straight to my classroom blog!  How could you use QR codes to make information more quickly accessible?

iPads in the Classroom

Need more ways to use your iPad in the classroom?  Check out 58 Interesting Ways to Use an iPad in the Classroom by Tom Barrett (found on Kleinspiration--an awesome resource!).  I am looking into Story Buddy, Finger Count, and iTranslate TODAY!

10 Internet Technologies Educators Should Know About

Emerging Ed Tech published a great article this month by K. Walsh outlining 10 technologies educators need to know.  Each point has multiple Web 2.0 resources and ideas listed.  HERE is the article, and here are the 10 Internet technologies you need to know about.  What are you already using?  What do you want to learn?

1. Video and Podcasting Resources 
2. Digital Presentation Tools
3. Collaboration & Brainstorming Tools
4. Blogs & Blogging
5. Social Networking Tools
6. Lecture Capture
7. Student Response Systems & Poll/Survey Tools
8. Educational Gaming
9. Open Educational Resources
10. The iPad and other tablet devices

         

Wordle

I am starting my blog today. This is the very end of my third year teaching first grade, and I am currently in my second Master's in Technology class. Only 9 more to go! Hopefully this blog will help me keep up with some of the more interesting and noteworthy projects I create. Today I learned how to take a paragraph and create a word cloud out of it using Wordle. By typing my name three times at the start of the paragraph, I ensure that my name appears large in the cloud. If I want first grade to appear together, I enter it as first~grade.