7 weeks later...

In just 7 short weeks I've gone from dreading a technology class to being really excited to start a classroom blog for my students and parents next year! I wasn't expecting to learn much if anything that I'd actually use in my classroom going into this class. Having one desktop as the only available technology, my attitude always was that it's easier to not use technology then to try. In this class I've been exposed to a wide variety of tools and am walking away with a handful of ideas that I can see myself using in or for the classroom. These tools include: Google products specifically Google docs, voicethread, animoto and blogger. 

The biggest change to my classroom next year will be a classroom blog for parent communication, providing information, pictures, student work and at home practice for students. I will use animoto for picture slideshows of things we do in the classroom as well as making digital flashcards and voicethread for making digital versions of our class books. I think google docs will be helpful in creating out team lesson plans. 

Other fun tools I found that I will use for classroom decor are quotes cover and tagxedo. Quotes cover is a fun tool to explore for making beautiful quotes to hang in your classroom, see my blog post about it! And tagxedo uses words to create art. 

In reflecting on this class I decided to make a tagxedo. I have used products like this to enter my students names for a welcome poster at the beginning of the year, but this week I learned that if you enter a keyword or url then tagxedo will create a word cloud for you! I entered my blogs url and created a beautiful piece of word art that sums up what I have learned over the past 7 weeks. The more commonly used a word was in my blog, the bigger it appears. 

Digital flash card success!

This morning I showed my class the sight word practice animoto--it was a success! Luckily for me my sight word inspired animoto makes a great literacy project for my grad class. 

The kids were all excited to see the words they colored up on the computer screen. It was a little tricky to get everyone positioned to see my laptop screen, so after the whole group introduction, I told them my computer would be available at center time for sight word practice. Two at a time all my students circulated through. This method of practicing sight words got positive feedback from all of my kids. One student told me my video was "better than great." Multiple students asked if we could make more learning videos.

Update:
Seeing how well my kids respond to this animoto is inspiring me to want to incorporate more technology in the classroom. 
The sight word digital flashcards have been available on the computer during centers all week and are still getting used!
 I also was able to bookmark the video on my phone and have had my students practice that way as well. The sight word practice has come in handy during transition times such as the end of the day and waiting for other students to get off the bus in the morning. Many of my kids are asking to practice sight words on my phone. 
Incorporating technology has refreshed their excitement and engagement with sight words, which is especially great in the last few days of school. 

Picnic in the park

This Tuesday, my class went on a picnic in the park. We can see a large park form out playground and all year the kids have asked if we can go over there. So we decided that we'd make an afternoon of it and have an adventure. During centers in the morning we made sandwiches and packed a lunch, then we walked over, went on a scavenger hunt, ate lunch and explored a new playground. Upon returning to school we wrote about our experience. Such a fun was to spend the afternoon!  And a great way to practice my new animoto skills! The kids will love to watch and remember our day :) Check out our adventure...

Attempting Animoto

In my grad class I was introduced to Animoto, a way to make a video slideshow from your pictures. You can register for free and attention teachers: you can register for a free educators account that allows you to make longer videos!

 I experimented with creating a video tonight, and was able to make one using pictures of my bunny , Bailey. So far it seems pretty user-friendly. I uploaded pictured from my computer, dragged them into the order I wanted, chose a layout and music. I plan on using animoto in the near future to make some videos for my students, both pictures of some memories form the year as well as some letter or sight word practice.
Here is my first attempt: