Animations in Computer Class

Go on over to my School Vault Blog and see more animations done by classes of Kindergarten, First Grade and Second Grade. We worked together to learn how to make the animations and hopefully soon we will have small groups working on their own.
Here's a sample:

Camelmation

Here's a snowy day miniproject...just playing this morning...
All I have to work with is a digital camera, my MacBook and a small pad of notepaper from the motel, hence the torn paper effect in "Camelmation".


And here is "Gingerbread Man Running!" A bit jumpy, but I don't have much of a setup here...no colored paper, scissors, tripod...but you get the picture.

Wireless Dates and Voicethread

Here's a place close by for taking your laptop and having a snack. And when you look up from your surfing on the free wireless...the view is great! This Voicethread has pictures taken at The Frontier in Fort Andros in Brunswick. Try out the Voicethread. Leave a comment!
My husband and I go here some Saturdays for our weekly wireless date. You can see more wireless date places on my other blog at Wireless in the Wilderness.

What Would You Do With $200 for Technology in Your Classroom?

How about a 20" LCD screen for the classroom computer? It's screen is large enough for a class to see easily. $195.95





Or how about a digital camera? It even takes short video clips in .mpeg4. $173.99




And you could even have enough $ left over to buy a 1gb SD memory card for the camera.

A microphone headset for podcasting is another option. You can spend as little or as much as you like on one of those.

$5.99 - $93.98

A FABLE?

One time the animals had a school. The curriculum consisted of running, climbing, flying and swimming, and all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was good in swimming, better than his instructor, and he made passing grades in flying, but was practically hopeless in running. He was made to stay after school and drop his swimming class in order to practice running. He kept this up until he was only average in swimming. But, average is acceptable, so nobody worried about that but the duck.

The eagle was considered a problem pupil and was disciplined severely. He beat all the others to the top of the tree in the climbing class, but he had used his own way of getting there.

The rabbit started out at the top of his class in running, but had a nervous breakdown and had to drop out of school on account of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel led the climbing class, but his flying teacher made him start his flying lessons from the ground instead of the top of the tree, and he developed charley horses from overexertion at the takeoff and began getting C's in climbing and D's in running.

The practical prairie dogs apprenticed their offsprings to a badger when the school authorities refused to add digging to the curriculum.

At the end of the year, an eel that could swim well, run, climb, and fly a little was made valedictorian.

--printed in The Instructor, April. 1968

Podcasts and Wikis and Blogs, Oh, My!

Clicking on the title above will open the Powerpoint presentation as a web page, for those who took the class on August 6 and 9. It should open for you just fine, but if it doesn't let me know, and I'll see in what other form I could provide it.

Google's Educator Search

Make your own search engine. Put the web sites you want your students to be able to see and search. The google search page won't have ads, as they do on the regular Google search engine. You can select the text and background colors on the results page, and others may contribute web sites to your search engine, with your permission or you may make them a contributor, requiring no approval before sites are added.
Click on the post title to go to the page to get started on your own search engine.

Resources from Podcasts, Wikis and Blogs

Find a good podcast:
EPN Web - Education Podcast Network
Dan's Math
Shiny Side Up
Mayo Clinic Weightloss
Just in Time
Free Software Downloads to make a Podcast:
Get Audacity
Get LAME
gCast
Blogs for you:
Wireless in the Wilderness
Talk n Tech
Some Places to Make a Blog:
Blogsome
Blogger
Wordpress
Weeblyweb
Imbee: secure student/teacher social page
More coming shortly, including the slideshow.

Podcasts and Wikis and Blogs, Oh, My!

Pickin' Up Pictures, Put 'Em in Yer Blogger

Pickles, the Green Moose from Maine, is waiting for school to start.

• The photo was uploaded to ofoto.com from my computer.
  
• Then I right-clicked to "Copy Image Location".

• In my blog then I clicked on the "Add Image" icon , and in the window that opens,
  

• I pasted in the "Add Image from the Web" URL box. When you did the step of "Copy Image Location" you were putting the url to the picture on your clipboard, so you just have to "paste" for the url to go in the box.
  

• I would probably pick "None" for layout, just because you can do that once it is on the page by clicking on the picture and choosing the position. But if you are sure where you want it to go, select the placement here.

• Select the image size. If you find it isn't good when you get it on the page, you can drag the corner to resize slightly, or just delete and do this step over with a different size selected.

• Just click upload when you see the text appear, and it goes into the blog for you. Easy-peasy. You can do it, too.

Podcasts and Wikis and Blogs, Oh, My!

On August 6 and 9, we'll be messing about with podcasting, wikis and blogs. Hope to have lots of good information and plenty of time to play around with making some.

Meg the Dog is Bored with Christmas

New video. Not really a video podcast yet, as there is no feed. But a video nonetheless, hosted on Google Video. Ah, the Christmas seagulls!!

Polls on a Page

And now there is a new poll on Talk n Tech. Be sure to vote. I'd like to see how this works out. What is your favorite kind of technology?

Flock Browser

I have just downloaded the Social Browser, Flock, which has a quick blog tool in it that is compatible with Blogger. I am using their blog tool to type my text and upload it to Talk n Tech today. Just because I want to see what it does, I'm going to upload a picture from a file also....let's see....what to get....I dragged a picture in here. Did Pickles, the green moose, make the trip to the blog page?

Flock browser works on Windows and Mac platforms. Get it at: http://www.flock.com/

Blogged with Flock

Blogger's Navigation Bar Workaround

Before you start using Blogger in your school as a web page, you are going to have to deal with the Navigation Bar at the top of the page. Unless you host the page with your own provider, Blogger has this navigation bar to help you surf the blogs. The unfortunate thing is that some sites are not for kids, so you don't want them randomly searching the 'net by clicking on "Next Blog". The easiest thing is to have your Network Admin block the url http://www.blogger.com/next-blog?navBar=truee

At http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/2006/10/navbar-in-beta-blogger.html there is a way to remove the bar totally using CSS, but it removes all reference to Blogger and removes your tool bar with your sign in and help stuff. So not only will Blogger not like that, but neither will you. It also irritates others who are surfing by clickin on "Next Blog" because there is no button on your page, meaning they will have to use the arrow key back to their page and go again. Not too bad, but they do get irritated.

So, keep these things in mind before you use Blogger as a school tool. We want to keep kids safe, administrators happy and parents assured that we are mindful of the dangers out there and are doing our very best as responsible educators!

Glitzify

So how about some glittery text on your site? Go to http://www.familylobby.com/create-glitter-text-graphics.asp and create the animated text for your website. It creates the html for you to insert in your web page. My "Talk n Tech" image is an example of what you can get. It's easy and it's free!

Posting Podcasts

As you can see on the sidebar, I have posted my class' Friday Funcast two ways. The top one is what I finally accomplished by going to the Add a Page Element and clicking on Configuring HTML/JavaScript and entering the html content provided by GCast. The one under that was made by clicking on Feed in the Add a Page Element section. However there, I could only add the html that linked directly to the feeds and not to the javascript, as I was limited to fewer than 500 characters. I may play around with that a bit, but since the first one was so easy, I guess there is no need.
On Aug. 6 and 9 I will help you make a page like this one, with a podcast link, too! Hope to see you there.

Tech Thoughts

These are by no means definites, but a jotting down of ideas and possiblities. Look them over and see if there is something you would like to integrate with your curriculum. None of these is done in isolation for the sake of technology, but as a means to a goal in the curriculum.

Thoughts on Technology for 2007-2008

K:
use of mouse
turning on and off machine
Pages of safe sites for teachers and students to facilitate mouse use
Language arts pages: letters, numeracy sites
Publish stories on website.
Use of camera
Publish a picture and sentence
Use of drawing program
Audio taping
Kindergarten yearbook
Project: Gingerbread Man (Flat Stanley spin-off)

Grade 1:
Continued use of mouse
Drawing, copy, paste
Highlighting text, changing font, color, size
Publish stories on website
Puppets for LA
Audio taping
Project: Moose on the Loose, Fifth grade buddies

Grade 2:
Publish stories on website
Highlighting text, changing font, color, size
Drawing, copy, paste, transform
Videotaping of experiments, math etc. for students
Slideshow
Language connection – School in France
Project: Owney, Moose on the Loose, Third grade buddies at FM?

Grade 3:
Fourth grade buddies at FMS
Spanish connection – Schools in Spain, Peru, Argentina and/or Mexico
Digital cameras
Publish writing
Slideshow


Grade 4:
Third grade buddies at DNS
Videoconferencing: towns in Maine, France
Industry in Maine: connect with Forestry, Maine Potato Growers, Maine Guides - Vicky M., Lobstering/Fishing
Digital cameras
Publish writing
Slideshow

Grade 5
Connect with schools in Spain, Peru, Argentina and/or Mexico
Videoconferencing with Owney schools around USA
Yearbook committee
Digital cameras
Publish writing
Slideshow

Schoolwide:
Project per grade level
Updates to grade level web pages
LULU publish collection of stories/poems.
Podcasts of children telling student created math problems, stories, news of school
Establish del.icio.us sites for teachers
Wiki
Weekly email to teachers with new websites related to their current studies
Email list of parents: groups to send news of school, and web pages of interest, notification of updates
Videotaping of special events, lessons for absent students and parents, steps in a process, etc.
Viewer in hallway of recent pictures taken by students, or pictures of staff, welcome message in hall...

Possible programs to incorporate:
Letterboxing, Lulu, Portaportal or Del.icio.us, Gcast, Scholastic, Blogger, Wiki
Podcasting team
Videotaping team
Lulu publication of student writings
Music: GarageBand

Talk n Tech

So here goes!
What do you want to Talk about Technology-wise in the schools?
What do you hope to accomplish this coming year?
What do you already do that involves technology?
What do you know your kids know when they come to you?
What technology skills would you like them to have when they leave you?
How important do you feel it is to be able to do what they are doing?
What would YOU like to learn to do this year?

Okay?

Now this does not mean that I don't have any ideas meandering through my brain, but it does mean that I know that I am not the only one with thoughts on this subject. And I'd like to know what your thoughts are. I may be able to steal, or use, them.

So when you get a moment, please jot down a word or two and post here. Your posts will be public, but only by those who know this URL...every other staff member at FMS and DNS.