Mrs. Raffetto’s Ruminations

For my ed psych class I needed to come up with a kinesthestic activity to showcase a topic find in one of the textbook’s chapters.

I chose to film my cheer team at practice as a model of observational learning at work. Often, I have a group model the behavior to be learned that has already mastered that skill set. The rest of the team must pay attention, retain the info that is displayed and explained, practice and perfect the behavior, and be motivated to want to do it.

The video is on YouTube and is about 6 and 1/2 minutes long. At the end is one of the final competitions of last season’s team. The team shown in the video is a brand new group.

How funny, I just finished reading chp 3 in Web 2.0 and using tools such as Photo Story is mentioned which I just used yesterday for the first time yesterday! What a coincidence.

Though the beginning of this chapter was a little confusing for me because it used a lot of jargon that I am not familiar with (Ajax, aggregators), it did do an adequate job of explaining the terms to uneducated folks such as myself. But the really interesting part of the chapter dealt with all the wonderful and free services that are available to educators to bring technology into the classroom. And not just using technology for the sake of using it; actually using things students use in their everyday lives and turning into a tool for an authentic learning experience. While I am familiar with blogs, podcasts, social bookmarking, and wikis (thanks to ITEC 501) and I am a confessed addict of You Tube, I did not know about web-based word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Though are definitely something I am going to explore further because Microsoft Office is really expensive. It wouldn’t surprise me if many students didn’t have it at home.

I think I had two WHOA moments when reading this chapter. The first was when I read about the idea of ePortfolios. I know from my literacy classes that I definitely want to have my students keep a portfolio of work samples. It’s just a sound idea. And I have an ePortfolio of my work in ITEC 501. But it honestly never occurred to me to have my own students do the same. That would cut out the problem I was having of storing all those binders or files I would need for my students’ work. And students can take more responsible for maintaining their portfolios because they could also access it from home and work on it. The second was when I read about Google notebook. What an excellent way of saving notes of information you find online. I can’t believe I haven’t found out about this sooner. The only thing I want to look into more before I let my students use it is whether or not it also saves the page where you found the text. That would be needed for citation.

The authors mentioned that they were currently working on a companion book that will showcase real-world lessons. That is something I will definitely invest in!

Well, I just used Photo Story for the first time and it went rather well. I usually use Movie Maker because I’m usually after making videos with short video clips. I hadn’t actually considered making a photo slide show video before. So I gave it a shot to make videos for Father’s Day. I really like the results. It was easy to add narration, titles, and even music. I had my boys record a message to their Dad because he is deployed right now. When it was all put together, I simply emailed it to him so he could open it this morning. I also burned a DVD to send to him though that will take a while to get to him. In fact, Photo Story was so easy, I made 2 other videos for my Dad and (sort of) step-dad. I don’t think it took me a full 2 hours to do them all. The hardest part was deciding what pictures to put into it.

I already have several ideas flashing through my head on how to use this with students. After reading a book, they could develop a photo story for a certain section of the book – maybe the romance or conflict between characters, or a poignant part of the book – and they can chose a song they feel is appropriate to be in the background. They could write a story and use a program to illustrate a scene. Then those illustrations could be put into Photo Story. Maybe they create a poem and then use images that represent the poem to put into Photo Story. Then the student could read their poem while the images play.Or in History, they could use images from a battle and either narrate important points of the battle or set it to music again or both! This could be so much fun!!!

If you’d like to watch the video I made for my Dad, you’ll find it below. The song is from the movie Uptown Girls. My name is not Molly but the song is still perfect.

Father’s Day Video to My Dad

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HKV/is_2_10/ai_77074378/pg_1

An interesting little article I ran across while doing this week’s homework. It’s a little long but talks about a myriad of things. Gardner’s theory on Multiple Intelligences is mentioned. Check it out!

I believe I am addicted to Twitter, and it was not so long ago that I was complaining that I couldn’t figure it out. Amazing. It’s fun to send quick little updates and read everybody else’s.

I have given some thought to how teachers might use this tool but thus far, I haven’t come up with much. When you sign up for for Twitter, it states you have to be at least 13 so I couldn’t really use it with my students. It might be neat to send quick messages to other teachers, but email could do the same. I’d like to have parents sign up so I can send out little messages about goings-on in the classroom. That could be a neat way for us to stay connected.

35% of children ages 2-5 used the Internet in 2002 (p. 28)?!?!

When I read that statistics in Web 2.0, I was floored. My colleague Brian agreed. I can’t even begin to imagine what that number is now, six years later. But as an educator, we have to face that reality. It is a Web World and we need to embrace it in order to better relate to our students so that we better educate them.

So many things jumped out at me in chapter 2 including the statistics compiled in regards to technology. Meredith noticed the same. But I think what struck me the most was the story of the student who came into computer class and within the first 5 minutes, completely customized his desktop (p. 33).  Then it really hit me - this is the customizable generation. Like the book said, we as educators really need to keep this in mind and allow students more chances to customize their education. 

Today was my last day of work at KGES and for about an hour I had to help the principal clean out the mountains of papers in his office. I won’t get into what he had just lying around but in one folder, I found lesson plans he received at a conference that were based on using a digital camera. At asked if I could have it and he said yes and I did a little happy dance. I can’t wait to go through them and see if there are any ideas I can apply to my unit plan. Then after the initial glee, I became frustrated. Why were these just lying around on the floor of the Principal’s office? Why hadn’t someone used one of the lessons in their classroom? Until people begin to realize the importance and value to including technology in their classrooms, we are never going to fully connect to our students.

Is that anything like she sells sea shells?? Anywho, I have a neat little collection of educational links going on at my ikeepbookmarks page. Check ‘em out!

Oh, and just an FYI. If ever you get tired of scrolling through my blog for link, just go to the sidebar on the right and click on the link for my web page. You can easily find all my links there as well.

Off on another adventure! I just set up a Twitter account http://twitter.com/lraff5cy and I have to say, I am not liking it so far. I have been busily clicking trying to “find and follow” people but other than it searching my address book from my hotmail account, it can’t figure out how to just search for a name. I am very frustrated right now so I’m probably leave it alone for the night and come back tomorrow. With all the talk I’ve heard about it, I really thought it’s be more user friendly.

I’m a sucker for acronyms. So when I had to design my own model for an informational literacy after looking at other examples, there was only one way for me to go . . .

It’s called WOO HOO. To find out more, visit my wiki and scroll down until you see Homer!

Homer Simpson was created by Matt Groening. You can see The Simpsons every Sunday night on Fox.

You know what’s sad? I remember quite vividly my husband’s and my first computer. We bought a Toshiba Satellite from Best Buy in 1995 complete with Clarisworks. Our first Internet provider was Earthlink and we mainly used the computer for email. We had no firewall, no router, and only found limited information from sites that wanted you to pay. Boy has that changed!

Reading Web 2.0’s chapter on online safety really hit home how many things schools, teachers, and students need to be careful of whenever they go online. It is true that all schools I know now give each student a short presentation and/or quiz on Internet safety but there is just so many things they can encounter. And I think it is because of that that many schools restrict student access to social networking sites. I will admit, when I began to wonder how I might take advantage of Web 2.0, I had no idea how to take advantage while still keeping my students safe. I was very happy when author’s Solomon and Schrum offered a few sites where teachers could take their students to network while keeping them and their information in a safe environment. My favorite is www.elgg.org which hybrids blogging, e-portfolios, and social networking. Kids use those tools everyday and what better way for schools to validate student interests while making connections between home and school. Excellent idea.