I enjoyed the majority of the activities, some of them just weren't up my alley, but that is fine. I tried several things that I would never have tried before.

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I love Wordle, it will be a must in my class this year! Skye was really fun to learn how to use. I am now able to talk with my brother based at Camp Pendleton, CA face to face, so exciting! I look forward to using my new found knowledge of skype to use this year with my librarian!

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I don't know that it has change drastically changed my learning goals, but it has enhanced them. I have many more online tools now to add to my classroom especially when it comes to projects. There are so many ways to approach projects using the web and having fantastic outcomes.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I think all the posting about the different aps for the iTouches is a definite take-away. You can spend way too much time playing at the Aps store, so now I read others postings and get some more ideas of good aps for class. I know once I play with slideshare some more and get the hang of it, I it will be great. I wasn't able to get the hang of it when I posted, but I am working on it!

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I am not sure I have any ideas. I really like the format and the concepts it teaches. I give it 2 thumbs up!

11.5 Things #11

I think out of all of the 11.5 Things, #11 is of most importance and applicable at any age when using the internet/computer.Here is my list of 5 things I would discuss with my students as we start off the year in the library using the itouches and computers:

1.Safety- Stressing the importance of safety when using the web! Teaching and instilling in them that they should NEVER give out personal information to any website or person on the web. Do not get into talk with anyone you don't know either. My students of course are 5th graders, so this is of high importance for me to share with them.

2. Good resources- Helping them to identify what would be considered good resources. I would most likely give them a list of kid appropriate websites at the beginning of the year and we could add to the list as the year progressed. As they better with understanding what a good resource is, I would allow them to start looking for other resources to help their research or topic of study.

3. Etiquette- So many times and email or posting can come across the wrong way even though it was not meant to be ugly. Teaching students proper web etiquette will help them to be polite and not get into a situation where something posted hurt another students feelings. I think this would be the easiest to teach and share. No body wants their feelings hurt.

4.Proper citing- This is a must! I always stress to my students if you use something from a website then you must give proper credit to the source. I always have a sheet for them to look at in order to properly cite the source when we start to do research.

5. Cyber Bullying- This topic was discussed in our library, but also we pulled in our DARE Officer to address the issue. As we saw this past year on the news this has become a major problem for kids. So we stress to them to tell an adult immediately, don't let it get out of hand. If you feel you are being being bullied online then let an adult handle it. There is no reason for bullying online or in person.

As for my lesson, I would have the librarian co-teach it with me. Based on these five things, It would take about 5 weeks t complete. We would address each of the topics above using an online computer cartoon guy. I can't remember the website our librarian used, by the lessons were good. After each lesson we could have the students go and practice proper computer usage.

11.5 Things #10

Ok, the whole Second Life thing is creepy to me. I don't have any reason, except this class to have a second life. I found it very confusing. I lost my iris' for a minute and looked as though I was possessed, then I couldn't change my clothes. I really didn't care for the outfit I had on. I am not a fan of this particular activity. I find it very strange that you can become some one else. Why, does one enjoy this? I know people do it escape the real world, but I am particularly fond of my life in the real world and have no need to be someone I am not. Thumbs down to this one. It has no reason for being in the classroom. I didn't think it was easy to understand the directions and trying to figure out how I got to China where I didn't even speak Chinese was really weird. I have experienced it for a short time span and will not go back. However, I did like my name.. Scarlet Turquoise!

11.5 Things #9

This was fun to navigate through and watch some of the videos. I know that I can use it i my classroom as a resource for many of the subjects. It is always nice to not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to ppt. I am not sure that my students could do this at the elementary level, but this would really be good for the upper grades in middle and high school. I was watching some different ppt when this one appeared. I will admit brought tears to my eyes, and made me think about the up and coming year the difference I will hopefully make in my students. I related to this video b/c I had a Teddy in my class last year. His family dynamics were not like Teddy in the video, but no one had believed in him before this past year and he had the best year he has ever had in elementary school. So off the subject of the topic, but relevant to our jobs.

A Teacher Who Changed A Child's Life

View more videos from iin hermiyanto.

11.5 Things #8

I will admit I am not a fan of this particle thing. I am not exactly sure how I would use this with my class. Maybe this is a middle or high school activity. I did a really bad screencast. It was short and had no relevance b/c I am not sure of it's use.


Not a fan of this activity. Maybe I need screencasting for dummies to understand it better. I read the different links, but they just didn't make sense to me. Now it isn't showing up in my post, not sure why b/c I copied and pasted the correct code. if there is one thing I can do is embed and file!

11.5 Things #7

I love the PBS site. I have used it before in my class for social studies. I just discovered the under the sea videos. These are great when we are teaching environments and habitats. There is a killer whale video that is fabulous. It encompasses so many life science concepts.

Watch the full episode. See more Ocean Adventures.

I found another really good one for science- Kilauea, on Hawaii's Big Island, is the world's most active volcano. It would not let me embed it, but it was under the topic Exploring Science. Volcano videos are great for teaching land formations, constructions and destruction of land, along with the rock cycle. I am very excited about watching this video with my students. I know they will love it!

11.5 Things #6

I have an iphone, my husband has one, and my 8 yr old saved her money to buy an itouch. Needless to say I have spent way too much time playing with APs. My lists consists of APs we already had on my phone and some others that I searched. You can spend an unlimited amount of time searching so I limited my time to 20 minutes.
Here are some of the APs I found:
Math Drills Lite- flash cards

Alphabet Tracing for pre-k kiddo to practice his letter formation

K12 Timed Reading Practice- Help kids with their reading fluency using short passages that are timed

Shake'em Capital and States- a fun way to practice learning capitals and states by shaking it up on your iphone or itouch

Finger Physics- My 8 yr old daughter loves this game. You have to use strategy to figure out how to make the egg fall into the basket with out breaking. Each level gradually gets harder. Fun and strategy based.

We have itouches in our library, but haven't found the educational wow factor of using them. We really don't have time to play during the day, so we haven't used them. I don't think they are appropriate or doing research b/c the screen really is too small for multiple students to use much less one student be able to read the info on such a little screen.
If time wasn't an issue, I could see using them for math drills, working together like on the finger physics to try and get the egg in the basket, there are some board games that are math related that more than one student could play.

11.5 Things #5

I personally enjoy using Facebook. It has been a wonderful way for me to keep in touch with friends from high school and college, however I don't believe it belongs in the classroom. I think the same for Twitter and backchanneling.
Computer chat cannot take the place of actual classroom participation. If the discussion needs to extend beyond the classroom then these options are definitely a good tool because the teacher can monitor and watch the discussion. People skills are very important, and businesses are still interviewing in person not through twitter or computer based chatting.
I don't think these things are bad, and can be of good use socially and to extend the class discussions outside the classroom, but I am against it being used in class.

11.5 Things #4

Well, I had some trouble uploading a video to youtube b/c it was an mp4, and after watching the updated video, according to it youtube doesn't accept mp4. So I had to add the extension .mpv. I just took a shot at using this extension and hoped the video would play after I added it, and yeah it did. Now I am waiting for it to upload, with fingers crossed it will work.





What would be some advantages of having teaching/learning videos available on online at sites like these?
I like to use the Discovery videos to help reinforce or to give my students a good visual of concepts being taught. I have used youtube a time or two. I find that my students can really grasp harder concepts much easier when they have a visual. Students learn in a variety of ways so maybe having another person or video explain the concept might help students not really getting it understand better. It can also generate ideas for students to come up with their work to be published at home or at school.

What about student created work -- would there be advantages to having it uploaded?

Students generally work harder when they know their work is going to be published or there will be an audience for them to share it with. This would be a great way for them to share their learning through videos they. For all students the possibilities are unlimited, but GT students, this could be a way for them to share their knowledge and put forth some great videos.

11.5 Thing #3

This one is exciting because the librarian at my school and I were just talking about using Skype next year to talk with students in another country. I reading the book Three Cups of Tea ( about one man building schools in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan). This book sparked our conversation about possibly skyping next year. My church just rebuilt schools in southern India to replace the ones destroyed by the after math of the Tsunami a couple of years ago. The government schools that were destroyed were in the slums of India so the gov't wouldn't replace them, so my church went into India and built 3 private schools for the poor children living down in the slums. So I thought I would find out more info on those schools and see if they had Skype capability. Skype brings ona whole new meaning to pen pal. I myself had never used Skype and so I downloaded it at the beginning of the summer. Now I use it to talk to my brother at Del Mar Marine base. I think this would be a wonderful way our students to learn about another country and how they learn. So looking forward to this next year!

11.5 Thing#2

I really enjoyed wordle. The fact that it enlarges words that frequently appear in order to help you figure out what the main idea might be is great. I think that this would be great for kids to use for science or even social studies, i.e.- Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address. I chose to use William B. Travis last letter written from the Alamo. What a great way for kids to understand text that might be hard to understand by pasting it into wordle and allowing it to help them find the main idea. It is visually fun!
">

VoiceThread: I think this is a really cool way for kids to learn or teach others. They could use it for social studies. They could choose a picture from history and make up a story based on what they have learned from the time period. They could become one of the people from the picture and tell the story from that perspective. It would be a good use for younger students and struggling older children in the area of writing. It can help with story mapping, fluency and flow of story writing. if they tell the story orally then they could write it and embellish as needed. Some children are better story teller orally. Children could choose a math problem to solve, science they could take turns teaching about a concept- Photosynthesis.

Animoto: This is one of my favorite tools for the classroom when the SBISD network is functioning quickly! I use this every year for my students to make an endangered species video based on the research they did for their research papers. The kiddos love it! The finished products are fabulous and I make them a cd of the animotos to take home as a memory of 5th grade.

Bookr: I have always thought Bookr was great, but every time I wanted to use it, my activity wouldn't work with it. After looking at the archives I got some great ideas. I saw a matter book, which we make one using PPT and then print it using handouts and they make a mini book of matter. I know that the younger grades use it a lot. We also make poetry books during poetry month, so they could publish their poetry and illustrations. We could scan their illustrations for each piece of poetry. At the end of the year we sum up math by making a rhyming math alphabet math book using math vocabulary for each letter of the alphabet. This would be a fun way to do this project instead of me making bound books.

11.5 more things:Thing #1

I think the student probably became very proficient on using all the internet has to offer, and probably learned more than he ever thought he would. I got my Master Degree from SHSU through their online reading specialist program. So I had to learn this way to a degree. All my lectures from professors around the education world were posted by my professors at SHSU so I didn't have to search the web for them like this student did. I did worry for the student b/c it seemed like he wasn't getting any support from his teacher.
Teacher role: The teacher support as I found out at the end of the video was much more than I thought the student was getting. As long as the teacher is modeling and helping the students with their learning it worked for me. I am a big believer that kids need a warm body and heart to facilitate their learning, not a hard box with that can entertain them. I think that a librarian can certainly play the role that this teacher did. Right now our school libraries are equipped to handle a handful of kids doing research and using the librarian to facilitate this learning.
The video was entertaining and was really well made.