Technology Integration

Two Tech tools I used and how they went:

I began using Ipads and Educreations with my students a couple weeks ago.  First, I incorporated 2nd grade vocabulary from the basal into an Educreation activity that was described in detail on my previous blog.  This past week the students used the Ipad camera and Educreations to modify a story from their basal called, "Helping Out".  They took pictures that showed "helping out" around ORE. Next they organized the pictures and wrote a sentence for each page.  They had to incorporate the weekly vocab. words within the sentences as well.  Lastly, they practiced and recorded their voices reading the story.  The project took much longer than I had anticipated but the end product was really well done.  I emailed them to their classroom teachers and they loved them.  Some showed them to the whole class while others posted them on their schoology page.  These activities are engaged the students and providing higher level technology integration into my groups.  Overall, I am engaged and happy with how I am accomplishing my goal so far and so are the kids.

The next Tech activity I did was with the 3rd and 4th graders who attend Adventure Reading, our new after school program.  The lead teachers and I had the students read a book and then use the app, Animoto, to share the elements of the story.  The students would take a picture of the page in the book that the setting was found on. Then the students would add a text frame telling what the setting was.  From there they would move to the Title, characters, problem, and solution.  Once finished, they would put the slides in order and add a sound track and video design.  What a fun activity.  The kids loved it and wanted to make more than the one that was planned for the day.  The only problem was that the app was not a full version so the kids had to pick four pictures to use instead of adding all the elements.  As a result, the story review was only half done.  It seems to happen often with technology...what is planned is sometimes difficult to make happen because of glitches that get in the way.

Blogging Community January Strategy

Keeping in line with trying out new technology tools, the past couple of weeks I have been using ITalk to record my student's reading.  First we talked about what makes a good reader:  rate, accuracy, and expression.  Then I had them practicing reading a story working on the three areas.  When they were ready, they recorded themselves reading the story.  When they finished they got to play the recording back.  I asked them if they had ever heard themselves reading and all said no.  They were very interested in how they sounded.  I had them talk about their rate, accuracy, and expression along with what they did well and where they could improve.  I monitored their progress before we started and will again right before winter break.  I am looking forward to seeing if will help them grow faster toward the grade level benchmarks.