Edublogs Challenge #5: Create a story in 5-10 images. Easy . . . or is it? The option I chose was to create a story with 5-10 images and no words.
"Easy" is what I said when I started this challenge. I quickly located some pictures that would work for this challenge and eagerly uploaded them into Animoto. I LOVE Animoto and soon I was on automatic pilot busily creating my first video. It had great captions/title slides that helped me tell my story.
I watched it and remembered that part of the challenge was to try not to use any words. Okay, no problem. Animoto has an easy remix button, so I removed all the text slides except for the first (introduction) and the last (conclusion). Surely they were necessary to tell my "visual" story. Or were they?
I re-read the challenge again and realized that my story had more than 15 slides. I would need to whittle my 18 slide story down to 10 (5 would be impossible) and AVOID words! Was this possible? Yes . . .I had to remove any slide that didn't contribute something important to my story. However, I wasn't able to give up the first and last text slide as I decided they were important to my story. My video went from 2:21 to 1:04 . . . I cut it in half! Here's my final draft.
What's the point? Economy. Economy is an important aspect of digitial storytelling. Too often students (and adults) want to include every little detail into their stories. More is better! Right?! Not exactly, I realized there's something to be said for simplifying story telling to just a few elements (5-10 images). I've never had my students create a "story" with no words. What a wonderful way to develop visual literacy and reinforce the learning styles of visual learners. I think that using wordless books like Tuesday by David Wiesner and The Red Book by Barbara Lehman would be great models for stories like this. Students could use Animoto, Photostory 3 or Movie Maker to create their stories.
The lesson I learned from this challenge is I don't always need to have so many words in my blog entries. I often include imagery in my blogs, but I don't use the principle of economy with my words.The longer a blog entry the better! I realize that more WORDS isn't always better, sometimes more PICTURES can tell the story better.
The Eyes of a Blog: Images
DI w/Tech in a NutShell:
Creating stories without words can help develop visual literacy skills of your students. Teachers can use create wordless digital books for their students to practice inferring skills, too.
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Avatars . . . Building Community in Your Classroom
Edublog's Teacher Blogging Challenge was all about avatars in Challenge #4. My avatar has always been a photograph of myself. I explored shrinkpictures first and was impressed with how quickly and easily I could shrink any photograph to avatar size.
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| faceyourmanga.com |
Building Community in a Differentiated Classroom:
An important component of a differentiated class is developing community. Avatars are a wonderful tool to help your students get to know each other. Avatar makers like FaceYourManga can be used to have students introduce themselves. Try this: Have students make an avatar that represents themselves and upload it onto their blog. Have your students share their avatars informally at morning meeting or more formally with presentations.
In a differentiated classroom, student choice plays a central role. Offering a variety of avatar makers ensures students will create an avatar that represents their personality and interests. Some students may like the Lego based avatars available on a site like Reasonably Clever, while others may prefer to modify a photograph using befunky. Build Your Wild Self, an avatar maker I discovered on My love/hate with packing lunches blog creates avatars that are part human/part animal. Imaginative children will find this avatar creator is perfect for them. Picassohead is a great avatar maker for students wanting to create a more abstract avatar. Voki's animal avatars talk and will definitely be just right for some of the children in your class. Offering more than one option may seem like a lot to manage, but not if you use your students as peer helpers! Many will have experience creating avatars and some are very tech saavy and more than happy to help!
DI w/Tech in a NutShell:
Avatar creators are a terrific technology tool to help you develop community in your classroom and get to know your students' interests. Offering several choices for avatar makers differentiates the product according to your students' interests and possibly readiness level (some sites are easier than others).
Life as a Blogger
I joined Edublog's Teacher Blogging Challenge to improve my blogging skills and kick start a new blog ... THIS BLOG! For the first challenge, I decided to write about my life as a blogger. Me, a blogger . . .
It's hard to believe that two or three years ago I didn't even know what a blog was. I have Katri O'Neill to thank for my transformation. She taught a graduate course at St. Michael's College on integrating technology. Until that summer, I used email to communicate with friends and colleagues, I surfed the net for lesson plans or information, and I shopped and paid my bills online. That was it. After this class my mind was spinning . . . web 2.0, podcasts, blogging, Photostory! So many new things to try.
About half way through the school year, I took the plunge and started blogging. I didn't know a lot about blogging, but I knew it had the potential to be a powerful tool for learning. We used 21 classes because it was a protected blogging community. My students loved having their own blog they could customize to show their personality. That first year we blogged, we tried, we failed, we succeeded and we learned!
A few months after my students started blogging, I revisited the blog I had created over the summer: Looking Glass. I blogged for a few months without telling anyone. Kid blogging was one thing, but teacher blogging was risky. What if I was a terrible writer? What if no one read my blog? What if, what if, what if . . . The truth is that once I started, I couldn't stop! That year, I became a blogger, not just a teacher offering blogging to her students.
Soon after, I began following blogs and checking out other classroom blogs. This gave me more insight and understanding of what it meant to be a blogger. Now when I introduce blogging to my students, the first thing I tell them is that bloggers blog about things they care about. It is for this reason that I start this blog. I am passionate about differentiating with technology. I care about meeting the needs of my students in the 21st Century.
Reading in the 21st Century
Cross Posted on my other blog: Looking Glass (aimeeb.edublogs.org):
Our reader’s workshop has gone digital! When I reflect on my own reading habits, it’s surprising how much internet content I read daily. Our children live in a very different world than we grew up in. Today’s children have grown up with internet access from multiple devices. Several students in our class got iPodTouches for Christmas. Emal brings his in everyday to read his ebooks. He takes notes on digital sticky-notes while he reads. Today, another student told me she was selling her Nintendo DS because she got an iPod Touch, and it can do a lot more than her DS. Another student shared his new DS with me today and was showing me he had Skype on it and could video conference when wifi was available. It’s easy to assume in this technological world we live in that our children will learn how to read and write (yes, write!) on the internet. However, like reading a book or writing a story, reading and writing on the internet needs to be taught and practiced.
So . . . during independent reading, each child has a “netbook” day. On their assigned day they have the choice to read online. I bookmarked several websites for students to locate and read interesting articles on the internet (check out ‘Online Reading Links’ on this blog). One very popular site is TweenTribune. This website is designed for 8-12 year olds (i.e. Tweens) and contains interesting, current internet articles in all subject areas. Students can comment after reading an article, but comments must be a minimum of 25 words. I approve all comments before they are posted. This connection between reading and writing helps develop active reading strategies (ex. connections, questions) and critical thinking skills.
I am also trying to weave digital content into guided reading too. Students participate in guided reading groups every other week. Recently, one group was reading about the Hindenburg disaster. I shared with them footage of the disaster in an effort to bring their nonfiction article to life. Students then researched one survivor from the Hindenburg to learn their story. We are now in the process of creating a Voicethread (ask your child to share with you) where they assume the role of their survivor and tell the story from the survivor’s point of view. Stay tuned for a blog post in the near future sharing this wonderful project. Think about the deep level of comprehension and understanding these students gained from this technology infused reading group!
On the writing side, we have also started blogging about our independent reading in lieu of a hand written letter in notebooks. When we blog about our reading and share our thinking, we are writing for a wider audience. Not only will students receive comments from me, but also their classmates! When I was growing up, there wasn’t an internet, let alone the ability to create internet content. Once the internet became popular, I never dreamed I’d one day be able to publish internet content, but look at me now . . . I write comments, articles, and post resources on a daily basis. This is the world we live in and it is the norm for our children. I believe my job is to prepare them for this new world. . . .a new world that is evolving even now as I write this blog post! Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with me!Attribution: Flickr by History In An Hour- Rupert Colley
My New Blog
I have always admired those teachers in my PLN that have both school and professional blogs! I have been toying around with writing my own professional blog. But what to write about? I always tell my students that bloggers write about things they care about. It’s funny how comfortable I am writing my school blog, yet I am very nervous about putting myself out there professionally. Deciding what I cared about and wanted to write about was challenging. Then edublogs had a teacher blogging challenge and I decided to take the plunge and start writing!
As a former special education teacher and current 4th grade teacher, differentiation has always been a passion of mine. I believe all children can learn with the right instruction. I cringe when I see children spend almost their entire day with a 1:1 aide OUTSIDE of the classroom. In my class children receive the majority of their services in the classroom with me in charge and special education staff providing support. My passion for differentiation began with students with special needs, but it evolved to include EVERY child.
The one thing I know about kids is they are all different!! After 15 years teaching, I realize no two children are alike. Each year is new and exciting as I get to know my new “techkids” and figure out what they need from me to grow and develop into responsible, respectful, independent learners. The key to achieving this is differentiation.
Differentiation is an approach, not a program. Technology is the future, not the past. Together differentiation and technology can help every child reach their potential! With this blog I will share ideas, reflect on my own journey toward differentiation, and connect it all to technology.
As a former special education teacher and current 4th grade teacher, differentiation has always been a passion of mine. I believe all children can learn with the right instruction. I cringe when I see children spend almost their entire day with a 1:1 aide OUTSIDE of the classroom. In my class children receive the majority of their services in the classroom with me in charge and special education staff providing support. My passion for differentiation began with students with special needs, but it evolved to include EVERY child.
The one thing I know about kids is they are all different!! After 15 years teaching, I realize no two children are alike. Each year is new and exciting as I get to know my new “techkids” and figure out what they need from me to grow and develop into responsible, respectful, independent learners. The key to achieving this is differentiation.
Differentiation is an approach, not a program. Technology is the future, not the past. Together differentiation and technology can help every child reach their potential! With this blog I will share ideas, reflect on my own journey toward differentiation, and connect it all to technology.
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