Wordle families

At first, I toyed around with my readers finding the main idea using cut and paste and seeing what words pop up the biggest and most frequent, but it turns out there are not that many places where they are cool with you copying the text of a children's book.  :)  So I did what all teachers do when in need of an idea, I Googled it!

I will confess right away that I stole this idea from someone else.  And since I am not really a thief, but a teacher who appreciates sharing, I will give credit where credit is due!  This teacher suggests that first graders could use Wordle to create a word family poster.  She had an example on her wiki page, but I thought I should put a little effort in, so I made my own.
Love the idea and THIS is something my 6 year olds could do.   In fact, we just started rimes and this might be a great, timely assignment they could use that would also provide a grade in the technology line of their report cards.

A second fun idea she shared was using Wordle in math.  The students could make a Wordle that shows all the ways to make ten.  This is a little more confusing and I have not quite figured out how to get the symbols to show up.  More on that later.

Wordle - what are you trying to say?

I made this first Wordle (is that the correct term?) using the most recent iste.nets-t standards.  Since I cut and pasted the standards directly into Wordle, and Wordle automatically emphasizes those that occur most often, I can see that learning is a huge focus of these standards.  Resources, digital, tools, students, technology, professional, support  and use are also words that occurred frequently.   Student shows up more than one time in this Wordle, but if you look at the next one, from the older standards, the word teacher shows up more than the word students.  Interesting. Look carefully, you probably can't find the word teacher in the first Wordle using the current standards.

In addition to the focus on the teacher, the words use, learning, resources and apply were important focal points in 2000.  I think my favorite statement from the older standards was in the first section, it stated that teachers require "introductory knowledge, skills and understanding."  The word introductory takes a lot of pressure off the teacher, despite the fact that the teachers are a huge focus of the standard.  .
We have definitely progressed from 2000 and I think it is safe to say that teachers are expected to stay as close as to the cutting edge of popular technology as possible.

Zoom Chat - forgot to blog about this one!

Looking back through my posts, I can see that I forgot to blog about my chat with Melinda on Zoom this past Saturday.  I have used Facetime, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, and Skype in the past.  Zoom was just as easy to use as all of these, although initially I had a bit of difficulty with my camera, which I had inadvertently turned off in the Zoom program. Got it up and running and it was nice to check in with a classmate about the assignments.  Talking in person is one of the things that I miss when I take an online class.  In the future, I am going to check with my fellow classmates to see if they use a program like this and want to "meet up" for a visit.  Face to face conversation is easiest...

Which is why programs like Zoom are very handy for facilitating conversation when people are unable to be in the same place.  It is especially handy when the topic would benefit from both parties being able to use and see facial expressions.   A large percentage of my students' parents work and coming to school when it is convenient for me (before 7 am or between 2:50 and 4 pm) is often highly inconvenient for them. I think they would love an opportunity to have a quick "face to face" without leaving their office.  Meetings with colleagues and communicating with pen pals are two other possible uses for this program.  I don't envision using it with my six year old students, but I suppose it would be fun to check in with one who were out sick for an extended period of time or on a 3 week trip to India, which is quite common with our students.

iste.nets-t standards

Zoom certainly lends itself to standard 3b which demands that educators collaborate with others using digital tools and resources to support student success.  It also supports standard 1d: model collaborative knowledge construction... in face to face and virtual environments.  Zoom might also work well in pursuit of satndard 5a: participate in ... global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

Self Portrait

Well, here is my work of art.  Here is the link so you can visit my work of art among other works of art.  If you would like to create your own picassohead, you can do that as well.  I am a bit at a loss as to why anyone would want to do this, but I am not going to question people's motives.  I did it because I had to, and now I will ponder the value of it in terms of the iste.nets-t standards...

This tool offers an opportunity to be creative in a limited way. So, I can see the argument that using it fits with standard 1: to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. Certainly if a class were studying the style of Picasso it would be a handy and perhaps fun tool for students to engage in an authentic learning experience about this topic which would address standard 2 as well.  Now that all applies to the tool itself, but the assignment did force me to learn some new things and as a teacher I have a responsibility to continue to embrace new skills using web tools and share them with my peers, so in that I have become familiar with a new tool and practiced using it, standard 5 is addressed.  I just don't know how I could use the tool, so I think I will read some of the other blog posts and see what my peers are thinking.

Jimg Image - getting closer to mastery

My Second Jing Attempt

So, I created this fun little graphic because we start matter tomorrow and after we review the states of matter, my students are required to make predictions about solids and liquids and design some experiments.  They need to understand the term dissolve in order to do this, and I think this will aid them in visualizing what it means.  I used the text, the text sizing, the arrows, and I also used a little chalk type feature that enabled me to cover up some of the text already in the graphic.  I will put this in a SmartBoard file and it will be pretty cool!

It saved it to Screencast and you should be able to check it out using that link.

As for the questions -
1. Jing screen captures result in a png file.
2.I save them in my pictures folder.
3. You can access your Jing history by rolling over the sun and selecting the middle icon.  Pretty handy.
4.As far as Screencasting your history, it seems like it just makes another copy of it, but I might be misunderstanding the question.
5. As mentioned in a prior post, I had a difficult time importing the Jing file, until I found the little image up in my tool bar.  Now I simply click on the image and import.

6&7. I can published my image using Screencast.  Screencast also allows you to share your image with others using the assigned url.

iste.nets-t standards addressed

I can see that Jing lends itself nicely to standard 3c because Jing allows a teacher to take visual content and add labels or comments that ensure the communication of relevant information and ideas.  Jing screencast videos can be used to collaborate on lessons or share successful ideas, two circumstances covered by standard 5 which demands professional growth and the use of digital tools and resources.

Small Victories - Jing Continued

Okay - sure it took me 15 minutes, but I did ALL BY MYSELF!  (I sound like a two year old.)  I kept hitting the old control v and getting nowhere trying to get Stacia's art into my blog post, but no luck.  I checked out some classmates' blogs, saw they were able to do it, and then applied my brain.  :)  Still working on my assignment, but learning little things along the way.

Jing - more new tools

I have to say, I was pretty satisfied with my snipping tool until I checked Jing out.  There is a bit of a learning curve, and I have a lot more to figure out...  like I assumed I would now need to sign up for Screencast account, but guess what, apparently I did that by signing up for Jing.... So much to learn.  I am working on my assignment using a graphic that could help in my classroom, but first I had to play around with Jing using a painting my daughter made yesterday.  You can check that out just below my links.  She entered it into a contest Maggie Stiefvater was holding and was a finalist!  Fun.