Katie's Audio Boo #3

listen to ‘Audio Boo #3’ on Audioboo

Katie's Audio Boo #2

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Katie's Audio Boo #1

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Katie's Animoto Project - A Day in the Life of Jessica

Copy of A Day in the Life of Jessica

Module 5 Blog Assignment Lessons and Web 2.0 Tools

Lesson #1 and Web 2.0 Tool

Katie's Glogster Production

I have been anxious to dabble with Glogster since I learned of it several weeks ago in Technology class.  Since then, I  asked others for feedback regarding their experiences with this application. They said it was "fun". They said it was "addictive". They said it was "engaging". Well, I agree on all accounts!  Before I was able to dive into Glogster, I was required to create an account and enter my email address. It was easy and free, two good things!  As with most software, there is a version that contains more capabilities which can be purchased, but I didn't need that added functionality. As you can see from my mini production, the free version allowed me enough features to adequately evaluate this application for my fictional elementary school students.

I think Glogster offers a user-friendly and familiar interface for kids who are used to manipulating text and graphics. Anyone who can drag-copy can use this application. It is easy to copy, throw things in the trash and move things around. It is engaging, but not overwhelming for those in elementary school or even preschoolers. This application doesn't get too complicated due to it's finite nature, which I think is a huge feature for educational software. If there are too many choices, kids won't use it. It'll leave them frustrated.

This application allows the user to share with others as well as edit their friend's or classmates' glogster pages. It supports multi-media, including video, music, text, data and images. The user can even take his own picture or record his own voice to further personalize his scrapbook.  I liken it to interactive scrap booking. But, there are educational applications, as well. I can see teachers using it for interactive lessons or posting homework assignments. I can see students posting relevant videos or comments. Kids love to share a little or a lot of themselves with others and this is a great way to accomplish this!

My only negative feedback is that I found entering and modifying text to be a bit cumbersome. Perhaps, it's more intuitive to kids. I liked that there was a super easy tutorial and that it was developed in my favorite city, Boston!

Lesson Plan I would adapt to this tool:

From Read, Write, Think

Kodak was Issued a Film Patent on October 14, 1884

Explore photography and digital imaging to discover new ways of combining visual and textual composition to enhance every area of the curriculum. Create a scrapbook that includes photographs, video clips, audio clips, and student work. First, choose a format based on your available resources. Examples include PowerPoint presentations, websites, videotapes, or booklets. Keep a camera/video equipment handy, and include some of these in your project:

• Students' favorite pieces of writing or artwork, including descriptive captions or commentary
• Videotapes of songs or skits
• Students' descriptions of what they are learning, via a video or audio interview or in writing
• Photomontages of units studied

Work on your scrapbook throughout the year, and then present it to parents at an end-of-year party!

I would use Glogster in this lesson plan as a means to post photographs, video clips, artwork, texts, ideas, music, etc. Because Glogster supports multi-media projects, this would be a perfect application for this project. Because Glogster scrapbooks can be changed "on the fly" and continuously modified by classroom collaborators, the final project can be a work in progress throughout the lesson which may span a term or even a school year. The final project can be enlarged on a projector for parents and guests to admire.

The two Net Standards I am applying to this applications are:

1.	Creativity and Innovation
	Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students:
	a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression. c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. d. identify trends and forecast possibilities.
2.	Communication and Collaboration
	Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
	a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems. Lesson #2 and Web 2.0 Tool Katie's Storybird Story and Poem I love everything about Storybird! I think it's a wonderful application for Elementary school kids, as well as Kindergarten and even preschoolers.  It is just right on so many levels. First, the simplicity is inviting, one can either Create or Explore.  Storybird invites new readers and writers to create simple stories and poems. A student can create a story just by selecting a theme and clicking on a selected picture. Then he can add text to go along with the picture. The beauty of this is that he doesn't even have to be a reader or be able to write. He can simply string along a series of pictures and make a storybook without words. How great is that for a pre-reader? I also believe creative teenagers would find this application engaging. The art is broad and sophisticated enough to encourage a mature approach to writing and expressing feelings. If the user chooses to create a poem, he simply selects a picture and then is offered a large number of words in which to select to help him make a poem. If he doesn't like the word options given, he can do a remix and get a whole new group of words.  This feature puts an end to writer's block! The buttons in which to select graphics are large and the options as to what to do with the work of art are few, leaving lots of room for creativity. Delving into a long list of help topics would make creating a masterpiece a chore!  Because this is collaborative software, the student can publish his work and share with others through linking, email, twitter, etc... He can invite others to collaborate with him by sending a fellow student, friend, or relative an invitation to do so. My absolute favorite thing about Storybird is that it introduces children to many different kinds of art, everything from watercolors to black and whites, simple cartoons to more elaborate paintings. These are all contributed from real artists across the globe. If the student wishes to learn more about the artist, he can view their profile and find out more about his or her artwork and the and the real person behind the painting. This gives the student a connection to the art and to people. Love it! The two Net Standards I am applying to this applications are: 1. Creativity and Innovation Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students: a. apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. b. create original works as a means of personal or group expression. c. use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. d. identify trends and forecast possibilities. 2. Communication and Collaboration Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students: a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media. b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats. c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures. d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems. Lesson Plan I would adapt to this tool: From Read, Write, Think Help a Child Write a Poem Children recognize the power of poetry—its ability to inspire emotions and the special pleasure you can get from memorizing a favorite poem or reading it again and again. But children may not know where to start in writing their own poems. And they may not realize that poems come in a wide variety of flavors—from succinct haikus, to ones that follow conventions of word choice and line length, to the-sky-is-the-limit free verse. Help a child recognize the elements of a poem and explore different ways of writing one, and you’ll also enable the child to become more familiar with the meaning of words and sentences, sentence structure, rhymes, and vocabulary. Plus, in writing poetry, a child will discover a new, limitless world of expression that’s just as fun to share with others as it is to create. The way I would use Storybird with this lesson is to have a student select an a topic of interest, such as animals or pirates. Then I would have him look at all the pictures in that genre and find his favorite. Once, he has identified his favorite, I would have him select the "Poem" option. This will display a bunch of words for him to pick from and get started.  The options are limitless. The teacher can offer the student examples of different kinds of poems and he can then write poems within that framework. Sometimes, the hardest part of writing a poem is coming up with an idea and then finding the words to use. This application helps him do both. It's a good launching pad for beginner poets.