9-4 Our flat world

9-4 BLOG - Thoughts to Ponder This Week

·       Can making a connection locally help to establish a global connection?

·       How would you create a global connection that would relate to necessary curriculum standards?

·       How will connecting globally lead to authentic learning experiences?

Local connections can lead to establishing powerful global connections.  In the small town of Wolfeboro, my husband and I were fans of a local artist, Peter Ferber.  At a town gathering, we met Peter and his wife, Jeannie.  It turns out, Jeannie was developing an amazing program, Access to Ideas, bridging small town New Hampshire to some small villages in Russia.  Through shared interests and a desire to expose students to the world, Jeannie arranged for Nikolai Arzhannikov to meet with and speak with students in my husbands' grade 9 World Civilizations class.  

There are so many options for global connections related to curriculum standards today.  Communication is occurring across time zones and countries, using blogs, wikis, email, and other tools.  

I spent many years teaching at a boarding school, so my children were constantly meeting students from all over the world.  Often, we would have students live in our home during school vacations, rather than try to send them home all over the globe for less than a week.  When my daughter was in Kindergarten, we had a wonderful young man from Taichung, Taiwan staying with us.  My daughter (Abby) wanted to bring him (Kenith) to school for show and tell!  At first I laughed, then realized that in a small New Hampshire town, there were many students that may have never met someone from Asia. Kenith and I spoke about this, and he wanted to visit the Kindergarten class as much as Abby wanted to bring him.  He was very interested to see more levels of American schooling.  We made arrangements for Kenith to visit.  The class was so excited to meet him, and ask questions, that he returned for two more days to teach and learn from the class.  

Digital Storytelling

8-1 Animoto

Create a digital storytelling project tied to National Technology Standards as well as Common Core Standards using Animoto. Your project should be a minimum of two minutes in length. Include a link to your finished product in your blog.

*** Note - due to ever changing free trials - 30 second videos are now the the free trial limits on this site. 



Back in July of 2012, I created  my first ever animoto video, used to simply show how learning tools and technology have changed over time.  Click here to see this first adventure.  I was struck by the possibilities of using Animoto, or other digital story telling technology, to provide new opportunities in the classroom. 

During part of my EDU641 class, I was able to revisit Animoto for a combination storytelling presentation, comparing brick and mortar libraries to digital ones.  Click here to see the progression made, as my photos, narrative, and music where more carefully planned with the use of an organizational story board.  

If I were active in the classroom today, I would love to try to utilize digital story telling to actively try to engage my students in reading.  (This would most likely be used for grades 5-8, but could easily be adapted to older students too.)  Digital book trailers are an exciting way to teach students how to hook each other into a new reading adventure. 

In an interesting blog post, PR Notes: Book Trailer Software Demonstrated,  author Darcy Pattison shares a great link to The Book Trailer Manual, as well as her personal examples for The Wayfinder using various software.  In the examples, it is interesting to see just how different the creations can be using different tools.  The first video uses Animoto, the second uses You Tube.

Visit the pages of Teacher Librarian Michelle Harclerode, she shares a great infographic and links to plans that show how Digital Book Trailers are a great method for integrating Common Core Standards in the classroom. 

My own little attempt at a Book Trailer.

Google Apps

7-4 Blog: Google Apps

In your Blogger blog, reflect on the use of Google Apps in schools with students as well as professional development with other educators.

Visit my Google Glog

I remember sitting in a faculty meeting when our IT support asked for faculty volunteers to participate in using Gmail, and some other "interesting new ways of publishing" in the classroom.  I volunteered, and  began switching from a classroom using Microsoft Word to Google Docs.  Many of my peers laughed, stating that there was no possibility that a freeware publishing platform was going to bypass the gold standard of Word.  I laughed a few years later as the school switched over to Gmail for the entire school and started to prepare the faculty and staff of the the plan to phase out Office and introduce Google Apps and Moodle as the new classroom standards.  

One of the more effective developments I have seen for teachers and students using Google Apps is the development of ePortfolios.  Google Apps have allowed learners of all ages and levels to utilize ePortfolios as storage, workplace, and showcase in one simple and free platform.  

The options for collaboration using different Google Apps is amazing.  I have seen teachers and students share Docs with commenting and editing privileges to provide feedback with highly effective and timely feedback.  I have watched students collaborate on slide show presentations in the classroom together, and then working separately but in real time together at home, because of the almost universal access.  Creating quick classroom quizzes with Forms can help teachers stay alert to the pulse of the classroom.  

For some new users, the concept of sharing and collaborating online with these and other tools is exciting and inspiring.  My son, age 9, started writing stories and building drawings with his friends using Google Docs and Drawings this winter, just because they thought it would be cool to start working together online.  To me, that is a great reflection on the future of young students embracing technology.   

As Google continues to strengthen, develop, and offer more tools, I hope that many more educators and schools systems invest time into these resources.  These tools, or ones similar in nature, are used for many small businesses, and personal use; it only make good sense to prepare our students for using these too. 

FYI - A quick search will help anyone to see new and fun ways to include the Apps daily.  Ask the Gooru shared some great tips back in October:

http://www.googlegooru.com/26-tips-for-teaching-with-google-apps/