Exploring Popplet: My Final Reflection

I decided to use Popplet to create my final course reflection. I like using graphic organizers with my students and I figured this visual representation would be a good way to highlight the things I've learned in this course.

My Popplet is a reflection of the different tools I learned about in this course (some of which I have already implemented into my own teaching: a class blog, voki). This will be a nice reminder for me to have as well. Once this class has come to a close, I'll have this nicely organized visual graphic of the different tools I'll be walking away with.

Of course, the tools themselves aren't the only thing I learned in this class. One important fact that I'll always remember is that technology should be implemented into our lessons, not the other way around. We have to use these technologies appropriately given the lesson we are teaching. I also will remember that one of the greatest factors of using technology in the classroom is to enhance student collaboration and interaction. I learned so much from my own peers in this class--I want my own students to do the same.

Voki in the Classroom

I figured out a great way to incorporate Voki with my ELL students. I tried it today, actually. As a beginning of the day activity, I'm going to play a Voki for my kids that is all in English. They are to listen and write what they hear. I think this will be an awesome way to get them to practice their listening, writing, and reading skills. Here's the one we did today. The message is simple enough for them to understand and attempt to write it correctly. 




Something else I plan to do is implement these Vokis into my class blog. This way, they can practice listening and typing what they hear. Should be fun!

Does anyone have other ideas as to how I might use this great tool with my ELL students? I'd love to hear suggestions. Thanks! 

Go Animate! A Practice Video

Dinner Math by Diana511 on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

I created this quick GoAnimate video just to fiddle around with the tool a bit--I even used my sister and friend's names for the characters, just for fun :)

GoAnimate was an easy tool to use. I can see great potential for it as far as using it with my students, since it can be used for many different concepts. It's a great tool to enforce using English with my ELL students. I could even use it to create stories in English so they could practice listening in English and work with vocabulary.

I'm excited to have this tool at my disposal to use with my students in the future. Now I just need to think of some neat ideas to implement it in my teaching. Any thoughts?



 

English Voki!

 VOKI!

After seeing some people create Vokis, I decided to experiment with the tool myself. I created this voki as an example of what I might create to use with my ELL students. 

I had a hard time recording my voice on the Voki itself, so I saved a file of a voice recording and then uploaded it onto the site.

For those of you who have created Vokis, did you run into the same problem? I'd love to know what I was doing wrong! 

Blogging: A Literacy Project

I implemented my literacy project with my third and fifth grade ELL students. I created a class blog through Kidblog and my students have been using it to practice their reading and writing in English. 

During a read-aloud, I read my students the book A Balloon for Isabel, a lovely story about a young porcupine who would do ANYTHING to receive a balloon for graduation. As I read the book, I encouraged students to dig deeper into the text by analyzing character emotions and choices of actions.

After reading, I asked students to reflect on different elements of the story. What was their favorite part, and why? What was the theme of the story? I also encouraged them to think of their own "why" questions about the story and its characters, then post these questions for their peers to answer them. 

I've been noticing how much my students like blogging. Although it's all in English, and most of them are beginners in English proficiency, their excitement for reading what others have posted to them does not go unnoticed. This blog is allowing them to respond to literature while also practicing their reading and writing in English. They are collaborating with each other and communicating through media. 

I'm excited to keep going with this blog in my class to see what other things they come up with to write about! 

For privacy purposes, I am not sharing our whole class blog in this blog post, but I would be happy to share it with everyone during our class! 

Here is the link to our blog so you can see the overview of it and how many comments they have been posting! 

Trip to Madrid: Video Complete!

My digital story is finished!

I created this video with my ELL students in mind. At the beginning of the year, we as teachers try to learn a little something about our students. They want to know about us, too. This video teaches a bit about my culture. I based my digital story on the country where my family is from, Spain. 

The friendly format of this video and the idea that it has personal images from one of our vacations back to Madrid, is sure to keep students engaged. They will be able to learn something about their teacher's culture. My digital story teaches about three important characteristics of Spanish culture: authentic foods, sights and attractions, and the World Cup.

The purpose of this digital story is to introduce a new (or different) culture to students as an introduction at the beginning of the school year. Then, students can share their cultures and backgrounds with the class.

The World of Writing Digitally

The World of Writing Digitally 

Troy Hicks (2009) really explains how the advances in technology can impact student writing in his text The Digital Writing Workshop. Audience is a big factor of how students will write using digital tools. When they blog, or add text to wikis, students must think about who will be reading their work, which will impact the way they write. 

A big strategy taught to students when writing is to "show not tell." This takes on a whole new meaning when students are not writing traditionally (pencil on paper). What if students are to create a video with narration to persuade an audience? Hicks explains that "showing" rather than "telling" "takes on new meaning in multimedia writing and gives us even more opportunities to discuss how written text, images, audio, and video can work together to create a more powerful composition" (p. 54). Students can use photos to get a point across, which may have a strong impression on viewers. It's a whole new level of persuading!

Assessing digital writing should focus primarily on the quality of information. Digital tools are just that: they are tools to enhance the quality of writing, but assessment should never focus in mainly on the tool itself. Forget counting the number of slides, the colors and fonts used, etc. What is it that the students are trying to state through their writing? Did the media add to the quality of their information? Did it help them express their thoughts in creative and effective ways? This is what is important to remember!