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CED 531, Class Four

Last week's class was not as relevant for my personal teaching situation as others; although it was still valuable information. Creating an assessment rubric for multimedia was an enjoyable experience. When four like-minded people get together and try to develop a rubric, it's amazing how fast we can develop an assessment or a technology-based project. I can't imagine being able to do the same with many of my colleagues. The rubric we developed was definitely designed for slightly older students. With my students, we would need to use pictures for the criteria. We would also need to spend significant time training them how to use a rubric. My students' tend to have an elevated self-confidence. Teaching them to be reflective and honest has proved to be a difficult task!
I have to admit that podcasting is one area of technology that I am not very knowledgeable about. In my classroom, it would probably be best used as a parent education tool. It's often challenging to get my students to stay on the same topic for more than a minute. With their many speech and language challenges, it would likely to difficult to get an intelligible piece recorded. Perhaps it would be a strategy for some of my higher functioning students. I've yet to be convinced.

CED 531, Class Three

The use of storytelling in education can be extremely powerful. Using sites like the Screen Actors' Guild and RAZ-kids.com has been a beneficial tool for engaging my students in learning. I could see using the Point of View element of storytelling as a valuable way to tell stories in our social skills lessons. For children with perceptual disabilities, understanding other students point of view in social situations is often very challenging and requires intensive instruction in reading emotions to help them understand other people's viewpoints. However, when information is portrayed through digital media, they are often more engaged and better able to understand perspective. Therefore, I could use peer models to model social situations and then utilize voice overs to provide greater insights into how their peers may be feeling. In addition to using the point of view element, it would also incorporate the gift of your voice element. Now, if I could only create a few more hours in the week to get this done . . .

CED 531, Class Two

I found this week's work on VoiceThread to be a great tool as well as a great frustration. Our frustrations were not born from VoiceThread's tools themselves but mainly from Internet connectivity issues. We were also disappointed that we were unable to upload music to VoiceThread. For the most part, I really liked VoiceThread for a few reasons and am strongly considering using it in my classroom. Primarily, I liked the ease with which photos could be uploaded and voice-overs recorded. When working with the population that I work with, the easier the better! Additionally, I like that the presentation is easily viewed by anyone you choose to share with. I did my first PhotoStory with my students this week. The process of copying and distributing the videos is much more time consuming than it is with VoiceThread. I could also see parents and co-workers contributing to VoiceThread from different locations making our project more interactive and enjoyable for the kids. I continue to be impressed with all of the resources available free to educators that are worth-while!

CED 531, Class One

I feel like this class is going to be interesting, and I will finally learn some new technological skills. Theory is great, but application is much better! I currently use PowerPoint to write modified versions of books we read in guided reading. About a month ago, I had our library media specialist give me a crash course in PhotoStory. Next week, I'm going to attempt using PhotoStory to write a version of "Banana Sometimes," one of my favorite readers, with my first graders. Since it's a small group and a smaller project, I thought it would be a good maiden voyage.
As a resource teacher, I don't have much time to do anything other than teach reading and math. I would like to find a way to incorporate more creative applications into our work. One idea I have would be to do a portfolio of student growth. Since I typically have students for three years, it would be enjoyable and a great reflection tool to see their growth across those three years. I would also be happy to support classroom teachers in using digital storytelling to recap field trips, the second grade mealworm project (yuck!), or any other project they have in mind. I'm looking forward to learning simple but effective methods to tell digital stories with primary age children.