Summative Reflection

I thought I would sum up my thoughts on this whole blogging experience. If you are someone who likes to write, I think this is a terrific outlet for you. I, on the other hand, would much rather spend my time having face-to-face interactions with family and friends; therefore, I probably won't spend much time on this site in the future.
I have learned a lot about social networking, RSS feeds, Wikis, podcasting, and twittering. I have also had an opportunity to reflect on the many issues that surround these topics. I also discovered that I prefer to attend class instead of taking it online.
Classroom application for me is limited. Most of what I have learned will assist with parent/community communication. As far as my kindergarten students, the projects we could create would be a tremendous amount of work for me, and I don't really see a huge benefit for them other than it would be "cool" to see it on the computer. Parents would probably appreciate seeing the projects too. I have really enjoyed playing around with Voice Thread. Voice Thread is a neat interactive tool, but again, more of a tool for me, not my kindergartners. It has been amazing to see all of the projects that are out there, and what other educators have created around the world.
I am glad I have had the opportunity to explore all of the aspects of online learning. I probably wouldn't have done this on my own!

ABC Notebook

I did a Voice Thread with my kindergarten classroom as we do our ABC notebook with Visual Phonics.

ABC Notebook

Voice Thread

Well, I think I finally have my topic for my presentation. I'm going to demonstrate Voice Threads. I actually found a little research on the topic. Anyway, I posted a video/slidshow regarding Voice Threads. At least I have a start...

Voice Thread For Education

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Voice Thread For Education

View more presentations from ccassinelli.

Disrupting Class

I finished reading Disrupting Class. I actually found it interesting to read. Of course I was interested in Chapter 6: The Impact of the Earliest Years on Students' Success. As most of you know, I am a strong proponent for funding quality preschool programs. It was interesting to read Christensen's take on this topic. He suggests teaching children how to be parents before they become parents. I definitely can't argue with that. I've always stated that people should have to be licensed before they can become parents.
The chapter ended abruptly though. I wish he would have delved deeper into the dynamics of how this program would be implemented. I was left to wonder how technology was going to assist in the development of this course.
Christensen also discussed the importance of "language dancing" (face to face interactions between parent and child) and how it is an integral component to reading success. This is a prime example of why we need to get parents off of the computers, so they can spend some quality time interacting with their children. My greatest fear in all of this social networking (facebook, myspace...) is that we are going to spend so much time writing about our lives and less time living it with the people that mean the most to us, our families!

Week 4 Reflection

Again, I started off with the work of reading the articles, replying to strands, and making a few replies to other peoples' comments. Then, I updated my website with a new newsletter and homework piece for the week. I seem to have trouble downloading an Excel document into my school website, but I think I have it figured out now. I played around with Voice Threads again, because for some reason, I am intrigued with why so many educators on the Classroom 2.0 website find it so valuable. I would like to use this tool to create a book using the kindergartners voices as they say the letter name and sound as well as the name of the object on their ABC page. I used my digital camera's video recording and recorded my dogs. Then I loaded it into the Voice Thread program, and it worked. I then embedded it into my blog site. It took me a few tries because I didn't realize that I needed to set it to allow others to view it, but it worked, and you can hear my voice pretty clearly. Because I don't want to have my kindergartners photos on the web, I am planning on recording their book page along with a voice recording...we'll see how that goes!

Then, I saw that Lisa had some fun with the Voki site, and I just had to try it. It was a lot of fun! I played around with the creation of the character and set up a voice recording, and then I embedded it into my blog site as you can see!
I also read Disrupting Class by Christensen. I actually enjoyed reading it and found some very interesting insights.

Let me know if you can view and hear this video. I messed up the other one, so I thought I'd try it again. I want to try to use Voice Threads for a project with my students, so this is a test!
Thanks!

My dogs

I have been playing around with Voice Threads, and I did a little video of my two dogs.

My dogs

Week 3 Reflection

Because I like to get the "work" out of the way first, before I can "play," I read the articles listed and responded on our Concordia site to each thread. It was interesting to read each person's responses to each component within the thread. It is difficult to follow once it becomes 4 or 5 pages long, but still very insightful.
I checked out the sites listed and also added more items to my iGoogle account. I finally added a few songs to this blog spot as well. I also spent a lot of time exploring everyones' blogs.
I spent some time viewing pictures of relatives on face book and seeing what they were up to.
I explored Voice Threads again because I have read so much about this website on Classroom 2.0. I haven't created anything yet, but I spent a lot of time listening to the how to videos, so when I'm ready, I know what I am doing.
I would have to say that I have spent the majority of my time searching Classroom 2.0 for topics related to kindergarten. I have discovered many kindergarten websites that will be useful in planning lessons. I also came across a few picture rubrics for writing in kindergarten that I have saved to use this quarter as we get into more writing projects. I watched a kindergarten math lesson demonstrating how a smart board was used in a kindergarten classroom. It was fun to see other kindergarten classrooms with the same amount of energy as mine!
I could spend an endless amount of time on You Tube watching various lessons being taught by other teachers. It's like observing in many classrooms all over the place without leaving your classroom. It is fun to see the numerous teaching strategies in action.
I tried to watch the archived pod casts on Classroom 2.0, but I, too, had difficulty getting it to download and the audio wasn't working.
I also spent some time playing around with my classroom website and checking out other teacher websites to get more ideas. As I have said before, I want to make the website more interactive...I just need to have a plan!
I have found that searching other teacher websites has given me many interesting ideas, and I have saved a lot of reproducibles from these sites. These are things that will benefit my kids the most.