Vodcast

I found a great "Vodcast" to supplement my social studies curriculum on Ancient China. It provides a great overview of culture and daily life. Unfortunately a link wasn't available so below please follow the steps to get there.

go to: www.voicethread.com
in the browse bar type: ancient china
click: the first box on the left (it is untitled)

I plan to use this in my social studies lesson this week!

Class Website

I created a class website as my final project. It was surprisingly very easy! I went to freewebs.com and signed up (for the basic free version). I was able to post my weekly announcements, mcas dates, spelling, vocabulary, and school wide reminders. I haven't attempted the video portion yet. However, the option of uploading a video to the site is a possibility. I created a video of field trip pics in Windows Movie Maker and I am going to attempt to post it on the site and/or teachertube videos to supplement our social studies/science curriculum. An issue that I did have was when I was attempted to update the website over the weekend on my home computer, it would now allow the changes to be saved. However, when I went to school Monday morning and used my work laptop it was updated in a matter of minutes.

Check it out at: www.fourthgradewithmrsk.webs.com

Link to Delicioushttp://www.delicious.com/skinsley

Delicious URL

http://delicious.com/skinsley

There are a few great resources that I've found!

Social Bookmarking

I used Delicious as my social bookmarking website for this assignment. I found it extremely easy to use. The biggest challenge I faced was finding sites to link to Delicious! I would really be interested in looking at other teachers sites that they're using. The idea of having all bookmarks in one place is a great idea. I'm not sure that I would use this with my students, as they're fourth graders and have limited internet access,however with fellow teachers I could definitely see the benefit. We could gather together sites that we access to gather materials, teaching tools, videos,etc. A second way, I could use Delicious is with parents. For example, right now we are working on an invention social studies/writing project. I could bookmark sites that they could access at home to help with the project. Realistically, it will take me some time to get used to. It sounds like a great idea, however I'm not sure if I will be able to break away from my typical bookmarking (using "favorites"). But I will certainly try!

Author Study with Google Docs

I am attempting to use Google Docs with three of my students to create an author study. They are in the same guided reading group and have been reading different titles by Kate DiCamillo. I created an outline that they will add to. My questions is...do I have to create a mock google doc account for each of them to use and/or email address? If anyone knows or has tried this could you let me know? Thanks!

Document Sharing with Google Docs

Using Google Docs is a really neat way to get students excited about writing collaboratively! I think I would break my students into group of 2-4 to work on an assignment. Working with fourth graders, I would have to be very specific with my instructions. I would maybe create a checklist of things that would need to be included to be sure that I receive quality work from the students. For example, if I have a group of four who's assignment is to write a research paper about one famous woman in history in support of women's history month. I could assign one student accomplishments, another student childhood, etc.

One drawback that I see to using this program with my students is first and foremost my limited access to computers for all students to use in school. A second drawback I see is keeping all of my students on task. I want to be sure this doesn't turn into them wasting time and writing silly things back and forth.

This is a link to my photostory on Animoto...

http://animoto.com/play/EtP95nS7lEmgJ1qf1hxHLw

Movie Maker

If anyone is thinking about using Windows Movie Maker, I would definitely recommend watching Beryl's video that Carla posted on our class blog. It was very helpful and walks you step by step through the photostory making process. It really is easy to use!

Photostory Sharing

After looking through the different sites on Carla's delicious webpage I chose to go with Animoto.So I downloaded pictures onto my computer from our latest class field trip and created a photostory to music from our class field trip to the Lowell Mills. However, since the free Animoto option is for a 30 second video...the 65 pictures I downloaded obviously didn't make the cut. So I decided to also try Windows Movie Maker. I will post both of the photostories. Animoto was very easy and quick to use. However Windows Movie Maker was a lot more involved. It took quite a bit longer but I was able to include as many photos as I chose. I think this is a great way to share pictures taken of kids at field trips or during activities in the classroom not only to show the kids and/or to share with parents. However, I'm not sure this is something that I would use regularly in my lesson planning, at this point.