Tool #7- Reaching Outside Your Classroom

As part of our measurement unit, we take daily temperatures and graph them week by week. I can see using Google Docs with our penpals in Iowa to compare temperature trends throughout the year.
Our new iPads will have the option of FaceTime, which can connect us to anyone with an Apple product that supports FaceTime as well. Parents with compatible Apple products can use the FaceTime tool to get a glimpse of daily classroom life, as well as be classroom experts without having to leave home or work. We can possibly use FaceTime or Skype to talk with authors when doing an author study in book clubs--I would have to do some legwork to find out what authors are willing to meet online.

Tool #6 - Using the Cloud to Promote Discussion

I love the idea of TodaysMeet. I'd like to put up the page at back to school night, and have the parents join and put in questions as they think of them during the evening. Here is the link to my page. I wonder if my parents will use it...
I obviously have my blog up and running. My goal this year is to update my blog more frequently and link our weekly newsletter to it. Our second grade teacher had a blog that I checked religously, but I know not all parents did. Getting busy parents to buy into adding one more thing to their to do list is the challenge.

Tool #5-Producing with Web 2.0 Tools

So we've done wordles in class the past few years. I explored a new tool called ABCYa! which is really similar to the Wordle on Big Huge Labs. We can use this tool to reinforce vocabulary words, review word families, tie up unit concepts in social studies and science. Here's what I created to go along with our science unit:

I made a Storybird story...I can see kids recreating the story arc on this app, or reviewing the life of one of our famous people. Love the art available.

Tool #4 Moving Up to the Clouds

Today I worked with Google Docs and Google Forms. First, I created a Student Information Card for our classes for next year. We can email it to our parents and have them fill the info out online. Hopefully, the information can be aggregated onto one page, instead of the 22 index cards I've been managing this year. As a team, we can edit the information that goes on the cards with teh questions we ask. I think this might just work!

Secondly, I uploaded our Back to School Night packet from Word. It didn't copy seamlessly. No borders or graphics transferred to Google, so I've had to change margins and indents throughout the document. I'm still working to add some interest to the page, but can't find where to do that through Google Docs. The other frustrating thing is that Google Docs works so slowly compared to Word. It takes several beats for commands to be applied. This is definitely a learning curve.

As the district transitions from Word to Google Docs, I know we will be doing much of our composition writing on Docs. I love the idea of Forms. I can see using it to create tests and quizzes in science and social studies that the kids will complete on the computer. We do some of that now through BrainPop and Odyssey, but Google will give me much more control over the content included in the test/quiz.

Tool #3 Online Video and Image Locating

I had played around with YouTube and TeacherTube for 23 Things. I'm learning more about KidTube. It looks like something my kids would love!
Here is a video from YouTube about perimeter and area (concepts my kids often confuse). I'm hoping this will help them keep the two straight!



I also found a rap on YouTube reviewing place value. I can use this one early in the year to reinforce place value.



The Best Practices in Fair Use video was interesting. It seems to me that the main idea is that we can use copyrighted material as long as it's attributed, and it's repurposed from its original use intent.

I've used Picasa before, and I have some of my personal photos and some downloaded photos in my album. I

Tool #2 Posting

I still have a hard time posting comments on blogs of people I don't know. I've done two posts this morning on the blogs of two third grade teachers in SBISD. Ultimately, I'd love to have a network of grade level teachers across the district to discuss curriculum, activities and sometimes just to commiserate/vent about what's going on in our classroom.
My Google reader is up and running, and I'm following several educational blogs, a movie review blog and a clean eating blog.
I found a ning for third grade teachers. I've joined, but am waiting approval.
I'm also planning to visit the Yahoo groups for 3rd grade. Waiting for approval for that, too.

As I said above, I'm hoping to build a network of third grade teachers from many places to share information, ideas and thoughts about teaching third grade.

Tool #1: A new adventure...

Starting 11 tools for my summer project. I still have my blog and avatar from last summer, so I'm two steps ahead of the game! Looking forward to the new things I'll learn from this inservice.
Can't wait to get started!

Postscript: My team and I have been playing around with Voki. We had such fun creating new avatars. I love that mine has a voice...