Wordle and the Presidents

What is a Wordle? My elementary technology students are learning to create and format lots of them. For our purposes, a Wordle is a word cloud that shows main ideas and details of your selected text. We chose inauguration speeches for a hallway display titled Guess the President.

It is becoming a big hit - especially after Mrs. L Smith, a 4th grade teacher, who correctly guessed one of Lilli's (her student) Wordle as Abraham Lincoln's speech. She explained the clues that she used to make her great guess! Her students were delighted that she joined in the fun in their technology class and came up with more ways to use Wordle to improve their writing. Other teachers are also brainstorming ways to use Wordle in their classes.

Today - unexpected music to my ears from a new student who asked, "Can I do this at home too?"

The Wordle above is not from Abraham Lincoln's speech. Can you make a good guess? What are some more ways to use Wordle in your classroom?

Inauguration Watch

Keep up with inauguration news ! Do you know of any more resources for our classes? We are looking for more for elementary students.
If the widget below is not visible (blocked at your location), go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Setting Goals for Technology

Goal setting is the topic of the new year. In response to a blog in elementarytechteachers I came up with mine, so I need to document them here in my web log.

Before I do I have to mention a refreshing new blog I read today. Penny's take on the SEVEN THINGS meme was to include what I will call simply images with captions. We teach students how to understand more information by reading captions. What a better idea for our goal setting writing assignments she has inspired. Search for images that reflect your goals and write captions. Many web tools are available to learn and apply here. Just pick one...or two.

Last year was the year of wikis, blogs, podcasts, and voicethread to name a few. Twitter got a third try from me over the holiday and I have now realized the value in its use. I even unblocked messages on this blog - I can handle that now. I have tip-toed around Google docs and played with Google Earth. It is time to move on now.

So here are my technology goals for 2009:

1.Google Docs - For collaborating- I need to find those who know and encourage others to go along with me too.
2. Google Earth - I want to build and use more meaningful lessons. Right now I am working it in on two projects.
3. Collaborative Projects - I love to join other classes whether down the street or across the globe. Now it is time to MAKE them happen too. Working on that and crossing my fingers.
4. Maintain & Repair - Take tools and projects that I started, finished or dropped last year to their next level.
5. SMART Board - Build spectacular :) lessons with every tool for every subject and every level for every teacher... (You all get that way too - don't you?)

There they are. How about you?

Have You been Tagged by the SEVEN THINGS Meme?

Have you been tagged?

I was just tagged by Vicky S in the meme going around the education blog circles called “Seven Things”.

Here are the rules:

* Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.

* Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.

* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

* Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter and/or Plurk.

1. My blogger friends probably do not know that I am the middle child of five children. I have an older brother and sister and a younger brother and sister. The things that you have heard about a middle child are probably all true.
2. I have a delightful 26-year old daughter and a wonderful 18-year old son. Time marches on….I miss following them around for sports and their other childhood events.
3. My daughter and I love to cook and experiment with ideas in the kitchen. She lives in a few hours away, but we stay in close touch. We love to talk about dishes that we have tried at home or dining out at different restaurants. Must have gotten the loves-to-cook gene from my mother. She is still cookin' at 80-years old.
4. Photography has been a secret thing that I want to pursue – some day. Thankfully my son has taken an interest in it, so I hope to learn from him. He has taken beautiful shots from the first day. Although I take lots of pictures - I do not have the artist's touch.
   
5. Giraffes….for some reason I started collecting them many years ago. Maybe because they are tall, graceful, just a bit unusual, and have very kind eyes. I have them on all desks, shelves and at each computer at school. My students get attached to the one at their station. Digiraffe (short for Digital-giraffe) is our classroom mascot.
   
6. I took a few years of piano lessons as a child and wish that I listened to my parents about practicing more. I still play sometimes when no one is at home. We purchased a digital piano – it has a volume control and I can plug up a head set.
7. Love to sing and dance. I leave singing in public to others (my sisters). Another thing I do when no one is at home is crank up the music to sing and dance like I did when my children were small…and thought it was great fun.

Now...who to tag? Apologies in advance if you have already received this. I am behind in my blog readings, so here goes.
I would like to read the blogs and know more about:
Maddy Shapiro
Kevin Jarrett
Noel Forte
SusanT
Adina Sullivan
AnnemarieS

Great Finds for Microscope Minds

FREE access to a scanning electron microscope!! What former-science-teacher-now-technology-specialist could resist? While looking for more ideas for our Digital Blue microscopes I found a fabulous website called Bugscope. The "project provides free interactive access to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) so that students anywhere in the world can explore the microscopic world of insects. This educational outreach program from the Beckman Institute's Imaging Technology Group at the University of Illinois supports K-16 classrooms worldwide."

Students mail insects to them, teachers schedule a time for viewing your specimens online, and you all get to have an online chat with members of their team. They provide tutorials and more resources for teachers, so go take a look! By the time classes are ready for insect lessons in the spring, we will have plans and schedules in place. We can't wait to compare the pictures from the different microscopes - and hopefully tiny critters from different regions. Plan ahead and collaborate with us at elementarytechteachers .

Don't forget - microscope projects work great on interactive whiteboards too.

Another great find for microscopes - check these awesome activities, resources, time lines and much more at
http://www.microscopy.fsu.edu/optics/activities/students/index.html

See more reviews and prices for the microscope.

Winter Wonderland Project

Integrating technology changes with interests, needs and available technology. A great group of educators have come together and designed winter projects for elementary computer labs using Web 2.0 tools. Their ideas are so flexible that computer lab and classroom teachers can take advantage of their site. It is well organized with instructions, descriptions and links to a variety of tools. Web tools provide limitless ways to collaborate, differentiate, integrate, and many other educational best practices that you can throw its way.
Check it out at http://winterwonderland.wikispaces.com/
Hope to see you there!

A BIG Thank YOU to Amber, Nedra and Vicky from Elementary Tech Teachers for this project!!


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Trade- a-Trick With Technology Teachers

Elementary Technology Teachers teach various hardware, software, and interactive devices and integrate technologies. We spend time teaching how to use technology so that students can apply these skills in other areas. ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) are designed for students, teachers and administrators. With these standards as guides for educators, tech teachers support all of these groups in their efforts to use and integrate technologies in their own lessons, classes and schools.

In our school we have found it beneficial for students in the lab to learn about and interact with the SMARTBoard, Airliner Tablet/wireless mouse, Senteo (student voters) and the document camera. Other devices are used in the lab too – cameras, probes, video camera, and computer microscopes. Students learn how to use interactive devices and apply tech skills in their classroom without the "regular teacher" spending as much time teaching tech skills. With the different tech skill levels of teachers and students, both groups have enjoyed teaching each other.

Fortunately, SmartBoard and Promethean lessons for curriculum topics are springing up everyday. In our quest of encouraging everyone to integrate technologies, we find that we do not have many of the tech How-To... lessons for interactive whiteboards. We technology teachers are joining together to create and share lessons in support of our schools’ technology needs.

I have have invited elementary tech teachers in my district to old fashioned face-to-face-make-and-take sessions to create and share Technology How-To... lessons with the new SMART Notebook version 10 tools and the interactive toolkit. Kind of like a Treat-Trade at holiday time - we will Trade-some-Tricks for our technology classes.

We would like some more input and share ideas with you too. Consider the Elementary Technology Teachers ning and join a conversation. Hope to see you there - or share your comments here!