Reflection for weeks 1 & 2

I have spent countless hours exploring websites, reading articles, blogging, and just playing with the technology tools. I set up a blog and opened a facebook account. As my blog indicates, I have embedded videos from YouTube, created a book using mixbook.com, and learned how to add gadgets into my blog site. I have also spent time reading blogs created in Classroom 2.0 regarding issues related to kindergarten. I also spent a lot of time updating my classroom website. I have found this inclass session to be invaluable as I was able to learn a lot from my peers. I can now add a playlist to my blog as well as utilize the igoogle to organize everything into one site! One of my goals this week is to explore more sites and create a short video for parents to see how students "word stretch," and then, embed this into my website!

Here's an article about how Medford parents are utilizing social networking to voice their opinion on a school bussing issue.

Kindergarten Journal

I was playing around with mixbook.com, and I had taken pictures of some of the kindergartners' journal writing. I figured out how to post it to my blog and here it is! What a fun way to display their work! Takes time though...

kindergarten journal

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Playlist

More on Classroom 2.0

I am learning a lot through Classroom 2.0. I searched blogs regarding kindergarten, and I came across a few sites that could assist me in integrating web 2.0 in my classroom. One person suggested creating digital interactive books on a wiki using this website.

They also listed another website for creating a video, and yet another website called Voice Threads was listed as a tool to use to build oral language and fluency in speaking. One person recommended that the students draw a picture of a character from a story that is digitally reproduced, and then talk about the character's traits using descriptive words. You could even embed it in a website or blog so parents could view it.

Yet another suggestion was to take pictures of things around your school that have the letter sounds you are studying, and then kids add their voices to narrate the photos.

Now, I just need to make time to play with it and become familiar with it. There are so many great ideas that it's easy to get caught up in it all!

Brown Bear

I have been playing around with YouTube and wanted to upload a video, so I chose one of my favorite books that I read to my kindergartners at the beginning of the year as they learn their color words...just doing a little exploring!

My Classroom Website

After thinking about how I can fulfill the requirements for the MA259 technology integration class, while making it applicable to my kindergarten classroom, I have decided to apply what I am learning and upgrade my classroom website to make it a little more interactive and add more photographs, videos and audios. Feel free to check it out, and any advice you could give me would be beneficial!

Math Intervention and DIBELS

I read an interesting article on math intervention and DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills). Teachers can utilize a handheld computer to administer a one-on-one assessment in Math as well as DIBELS with K-3 students, and then, the information can be transferred to a website and teachers can inform their instruction. Currently, we assess students on a hard copy and input the information to the website. This tool would be very beneficial, but as always the cost would be the issue.

Classroom 2.0

After searching for a few blogs on kindergarten assessments in Classroom 2.0, I came across a link to a software program that is available to assess students on the computer. It looks promising. It always takes forever to individually assess each kindergarten student maybe this would help.
http://www1.esgisoftware.com/ESGI/Public/index.aspx
Check it out.

Blogging test