Time of Thanksgiving

I've been humored in recent weeks seeing all the Christmas decor and signs of the holiday season starting to pop up around school and local shops. It seems so early! I'm usually able to tune all of the Christmas-y things out until at least after Thanksgiving, and even though Thanksgiving is not necessarily celebrated in Italy, I wanted to talk about the holiday with a few classes. So, with two 3rd grade classes and one Kindergarten class, we talked about what we were thankful for this Thanksgiving. On my Showing Off Our Work page, you can see the results of their work. Precious!

In a lot of these projects, I have been recording with the various kids, whether it is through Power Point or Audacity. In Power Point, there is a recording feature which allows you to record on each slide separately. Audacity is a free download that allows you to create audio files and export them as mp3 files. Instead of typing out directions for how to use Audacity, I found a video that does a nice job explaining what Audacity is and how you can use it. This video even taught me a few new tricks!

This year, I'm thankful for the opportunity to work with such a terrific group of enthusiastic and willing teachers and for the experiences that living in Italy is providing me.

Tech, Tech, Tech

So, here we are already in November...I always wonder where the time goes?!?!? Now that the school year is well under way, I'd like you to ask yourself if you've changed anything about how you are teaching this year. Are you doing something different because of the group of students you have? Have you tried a new strategy or idea? Are you able to incorporate your Interactive Whiteboard into your lessons? As teachers we know that no year is ever the same as the previous ones, even if we do some of the same things. So, I hope you'll consider some new technology ideas as the year progresses.

Here are two possibilities:
StoryJumper- Right now Ms. Julie's 4th grade class is learning how to use StoryJumper. You can build and write stories on this site without needing email addresses to log in your students. It is different from StoryBird in that the students create the backgrounds and illustrations just as they would if they created a book on paper. We're still getting to know the website at this point, but if you'd like to try it out, just let me know.
Little Bird Tales- This site is another story creating site. Just this week, the second graders are beginning to work on stories about day and night, their current unit. In this site, you can upload pictures or images of your own to add as backgrounds, and it has a recording feature. We are starting our stories by drawing and writing about things we do during the day and at night. Then the images will be scanned and we'll record our voices for each slide. Finally, I hope to have the students create an individual story on the site as well.
Lastly, I want to share the link to my website again. The link takes you directly to the Showing Off Our Work page, where I have been adding files of some of our digital accomplishments. You can listen to Kindergarten singing their song of the week and see a Power Point put together with second grade writing and illustrations. I've also got a cute video to share of the Kindergarten students programming the BeeBot. I'll add it to that page as soon as it's ready!