Postingan

Voki and Poetry at the Middle School

Often times the art of writing poetry does not come easily for a sixth grader.  Writing poems may not be the "coolest" thing to do for some but with the help of "Voki" students were immediately engaged and eager to write their poems knowing that they could publish their work in an unconventional manner.   Voki offered a way to make their poems come to life by having the students create a custom character that recites their writing piece. Mrs. Wlazlo taught her writing lesson as usual and decided she needed a tangible outcome product for her poetry lesson.  It was then, that she though integrating technology to this lesson would help her with that product. Not only did the students have fun creating their characters but they also practiced, without even noticing, their writing skills and their fluency.  Students wrote their poems and then typed them onto the text to speech feature of Voki.  Their characters then read their poems for them. ...

iPads in 1st grade?

Gambar
So we thought of having some more technology integration in the classroom...this time 1st graders were our target.  We wanted to use the technology our district has- more specifically the iPads- but we thought "how can the little ones learn how to use the device?"  many teachers said: "I don't think they will do well, they won't know what to do!" Despite the doubts Mrs. Barney-Sischo and myself embarked on the journey of teaching her first graders how to use the ipads.  Oh and yes, we were a bit more ambitious - we wanted them to use the iPads to create a presentation that included video.  So we went from seeing the iPad as a recreational tool to a productivity tool.  The  learning unit: Social Studies- "Journey through time" more specifically "Transportation through time" Students learned everything they needed to know about transportation through time.  The teacher taught the unit as she normally does - lots of books, reading, sharing, ...