Pass the Past App-- Virginia Studies SOLs

I learned about this wonderful app Pass the Past from another blog!  This app is amazing for practicing for any history SOL!  My students used the Virginia Studies section.  It has 40 questions on it and it is scored for them. My students were to answer the questions and then if they scored 80% or better they could play a logic game app of choice.  They were to try to not use the hints and see it they could still score 80%. The app is just the right length of my fourth graders and the motivation of playing a logic app when meeting the 80% goal motivated them!
Try it for any history SOL!

Why the Blog? EDET 650

Why the Blog?

During this spring semester at Radford University, I have taken the class EDET 650, Web 2.0. During this class I had the assignment of creating a blog to share some educational ideas- thus the birth of this blog.  The most difficult part of creating the blog was getting followers and increasing traffic to the blog.  Thanks to all of my followers and people that have viewed my blog.  IT WILL CONTINUE even though my class will be over!  

Strategies to Increase Blog Traffic:

1- Throughout the past several weeks, I have tried increasing traffic by continuing to share my new posts through twitter and facebook.  The twitter updates have increased my traffic a lot recently.  I have chosen this strategy because as I have increased the people that I am following, it seems to have increased my hits! It is exciting to see this strategy working.

2- The most successful strategy though has been when I changed my blog URL so that my name was not included and then my blog was linked to the iLearn site in conjunction with the 4th grade videos taken in my classroom.. Most of my hits have recently come through that posting! (Thanks Dr. Dunleavy for working out that linking!) I chose this strategy because if other educators are like me, the more links that are closely tied together, the easier for me to look at them and find information. (This is why I get easily sidetracked when blogging and reading blogs.)

650 Reflection:

This blog has been an extremely powerful tool for my professional development!  Many of the educators that I know are using blogs in their classrooms and I always thought, "I don't have time for that, I don't see the benefits."  Now- I cannot wait to set up a blog for my classroom next year! 

This has also increased my awareness of the benefits of having an extensive PLN. I like conversing with other teachers and reading their blogs, lesson plans, ideas, strategies... Having a connected PLN makes that easier and it is really beneficial to my professional development.  It helps me continue to learn what others are doing and how I can utilize those ideas to the fullest extent!  

Watch for my new classroom blog next year and please stay tuned to future postings about how iPod touches are changing my classroom daily!

iLearn Videos from 4th Grade Classroom- Using iPods in the Classroom

Check out the videos from iLearn about using iPods in my classroom.  These are really helpful and very practical!  Leave comments here so I get an idea of what you learned!

Pocket Zoo- Free App for Earth Day

On this special Earth Day, April 22, 2011, the Pocket Zoo app is free for the iPod touch!  It is so great!  It allows students to learn information about various zoo animals as well as it has video and some live web cam.  It would be a wonderful app for multiple ages and can be used in a variety of ways including Science, writing, reading... Get it before it costs again!

Word Bubble App- Useful for Vocabulary and Spelling

My classroom has been buzzing with SOL review, SOL review, SOL review!!!! While I have been working with individuals and small groups for review during our Language Arts/ Reading time, my students have been working through some literacy rotations.  One rotation is to use the Word Bubble app. This app is appropriate for various ages of students. It has 3 levels: easy, medium and hard.  The students try to pop bubbles in the correct order to spell words.  They are timed and given a score based on speed and accuracy. My students, being late fourth graders, are being encouraged to use the medium level and see how many words they can remember after they play the game.  The words they remember are to be written on paper and then later they will use some of those in sentences or define the ones that are not familiar to them.  This is a fun way to build vocabulary and improve spelling using phonemic patterns. Try it for             
                                      your students and yourself!  It is addictive!

EDET 650 Presentation

The following is a presentation about my project for EDET 650. Enjoy reading!

" What Kids Say Is the Biggest Obstacle to Technology at School"

The following article is interesting to read: Read, Write, Web. It highlights some of the things kids say about technology obstacles.  When I asked this question to my students, they responded with comments like:
"Apps not working"
"Videos not syncing"
"Not enough time to complete the task"
"Don't like it when the game doesn't work"
"Clicking on the iPod screen and things move around or I click the wrong thing"
"At home my computer is really slow!"
"At home my computer freezes"
"At home I have slow downloads"
"When I shake the iPod it sometimes turns to something different"
"At home I get a virus when I go to google"

How would your students answer this question?

Difficult Technology Day- It Happens!

Days like today can discourage the use of technology.  Here's the saga:
This weekend I spent almost 6 hours creating a video for a Geometry review.  This one I created on my Mac and recorded it on my Mac in Smart notebook.  I also tried converting it using Handbrake.  It seemed like everything had worked well and I was pleased with the outcome, so I arrive at school VERY early today (7:15) excited to sync my new video to the iPods.
The first discouraging moment was when I realized that the form Handbrake converted it into was not successfully syncing to the iPods, so I quickly sent it to Format Factory on my PC, reformatted it, sent it back to the Mac, and then we had a successful sync!
So- I thought things were great and we were over the first bump of the day, but NO- when the children were watching the video, my voice and the pictures were NOT in sync.  It was frustrating for them and for me. At that point in the lesson there was nothing to do, so I had the children complete their review as best as they could and I went to work on recording the video again on the actual Smart board this time!
The video is now recorded for the second time and reformatted ready for syncing in the morning. Hopefully, it will be better this time.
All of this to say-- be careful when making the videos in Smart Recorder.  It definitely needs to be made on the Smart board not the Mac and so far Handbrake is not working for this task.
Oh well- hopefully tomorrow will be more successful with technology!

On the bright side-- Look at my wonderful students in the pictures below as they are working and learning so hard using the "messed up" video. I love their efforts as much as they love mine!

These are some of my precious, hard-working students!