Wordle

While searching through Nik Peachey's blogs, I found an article about wordle. This yahoo site can be used to create word clouds from text read on the internet. Using this activity will help ELLs build their vocabulary. I think it could also be used as a sort of graphic organizer for students to help them write informational text.

Learning to read

This site for beginning readers is amazing. Eric Carle reads Brown, Brown aloud while the pictures are shown. A Snowy Day, along with many other books, are available for students to listen to during Reading. You can find songs and interactive games on this site as well.

Valentine's Day Vocabulary

Larry shared an interactive valentine's game. The game is used to develop valentine's day vocabulary. The thing that I liked about the site was that it reminded me of the tasks on LAS LINKS. For example, the students were give three pictures and had to identify the one in which someone was writing a valentine. It was an excellent listening activity.

Larry's Best of Games.

Larry's Blog contains several links to games for ELLs. I was particularly excited to see math and literacy games. When I clicked on the link I found a section of a site that I had actually used that day. My kids enjoyed playing the addition games. If you have an interwrite board in your classroom, these are excellent activities to try.

My First Grade Blo

My class has a blog. www.nelson1st.blogspot.com
My kids recently completed an Author Study. We used a blog to share our favorite books and characters with others in our building.

Web 2.0

This article explains the difference between the internet 1.0 and 2.0. The definition of 2.0 cracked me up. I was amused by the description of 2.0 as "sticky." Today users want to read and comment...not just read.

Blogging with your kids?

The article Thinking about Teaching Blogging to your Kids? was fairly boring. I suppose someone that is implementing blogs could find it supportive in that "you are not alone" way. Clearly it is not an easy process.

The 20 things I read about...

20 reasons why students should Blog lists the various reasons why students should blog as part of their academic exprience. Two of the reasons spoke to me as a teacher. The audience for a blog is authentic. Students are also care a great deal about their product. This is not always the case with written work in the classroom.

Shift Happens

The did you know video emphasized that technology needs to be accessible and utilized in our classrooms. We often have it, but many refuse to use it. The flip side is that technology is not a substitute for instruction. It is a tool in the box. Not the whole show.

Wikis in Education

I read the article on using Wikis in education. It talked about uses for Wikis other than collaboration. I liked the idea that I could use a Wiki to save word documents that I could access from anywhere. If I forget my flashdrive, I would not have a problem.

I also looked at some of the Wikis used by specific classrooms. Since I currently teach first grade, I do not see the usefulness of wikis for my class. If I were to teach kids 10 and up, it would be a much more useful tool for me.

Question #9

I enjoyed checking out the classroom blogs. The K/1 blog interested me the most because it is something I can do right now. I appreciated the way the teacher included the slide show from the holiday party. Working parents do not have the luxury of attending those events, and it would be lovely for children to be able to share them with their families via the internet. It would also give parents a better idea of our classroom climate and celebrations. Including youtube videos about concepts taught is brilliant as well. Parents receive a little tutorial that enables them to help their children with the homework, but kids just see it as sharing more with their parents. I would like to implement this type of blog in my classroom. My only concern is that I teach in an area with an extremely high poverty rate, so many parents do not have computers.

Definition of Literacy

I think that it is important that we do not underestimate how the desire use technology drives students desire to read. Over the holiday break, I visited my brother and his family. His five year old son is not reading yet. My brother said, "If he ever wants to play Zelda, he will learn how to read." He was referring to a video game.

Teachers also complain that students do not read and write. This is untrue. Our real complaint is that students are not reading and writing what WE want them to read and write. We want students to read The Old Man and The Sea. They want to read TMZ on the internet. We want them to write research papers. They want to write rants on their myspace pages and emails to their friends.

Computers in my Classroom

I have 4 desktop computers in my classroom. I also have a laptop. Each week my class visits the computer lab for specials. The computer lab has 25 computers.