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I created this lesson teach homophones to “my” third grade class.

Homophone Lesson Plan

Here’s the accompanying presentation:
Homophones

I have researched and explored OpenCourseware (OCW), particularly the MIT site but also the Yale site, and SecondLife.

OpenCourseware is something that would be really helpful to me as a teacher, however, I’m not sure how directly helpful it would be for my students. It’s a great way for me to build my background knowledge about a particular subject, stay up to date on various topics, and learn interesting facts which can enrich my lessons. Many of the courses are much more in depth than early elementary students would need to know. Still, I think there are definitely bits that could be helpful and ways that it would strengthen my teaching. For example, many of the Writing courses can provide me with insight which will help me give better feedback and better advice to my young writers. Being a teacher is about being a lifelong learner. OCW is a great way to keep learning on a time-frame that works, without the cost.

SecondLife is more on the edge than OCW. I actually created a SecondLife “resident” and took the QuickStart tour. Honestly, I may delete because it seems to take a very long time to load and I feel like it’s going to slow my laptop down (you have to download their special SecondLife program files). It seems interested and I did enjoy exploring some of the Destinations. I don’t know how much it would enrich my knowledge, but I think it could make a positive impact on certain lessons. It’s exciting that you could take SecondLife field trips or set up a SecondLife recreation of an historical time/place like the Jamestown Colony. SecondLife seems like something that would capture the interest of students. Some of them may even use SecondLife in their personal time. I like that it can put the students in a real space to help them visualize a place we can’t actually go. However, creating a field trip location, like a Jamestown Colony, would be incredibly time consuming and somewhat expensive for me to pay out of pocket. I likely won’t use SecondLife in my early elementary classroom since there is an age requirement (13 is the youngest for Teen SecondLife). I may be able to serve as a tour guide for destinations but that doesn’t seem as engaging as letting the students explore for themselves. I’m interested in finding out more but I think SecondLife may be best for Middle or High School teachers.

Since our last class, I have been following several people with education related focuses on twitter. I had a twitter account set up about a month ago (for work purposes) so there are a couple people that I have been following longer. Here’s who I’ve been following:
CollegiateRVA
ScienceMusofVA
urichmond
WorldEd
preschoolers
DEN
NytEducation
stewardschool
HenricoSchools
LitPartNYC
LiteracySpeaks
Lemons4Literacy
ReadingHorizons
FirstBook
teachermagazine

By and large, I think that twitter is more of a marketing tool than a way to get really great ideas about teaching. Maybe I’m following the wrong people? The tweets I enjoyed reading most were links to articles, mostly posted by the literacy related twitter-ers. I think in that aspect, it could be a valuable resource. However, it seems like most of them are just linking to things that are out there on other major sites. For me, I think that Google Reader is a more valuable resource and is much easier for me to navigate.

Professionally, I use twitter for work. We use it as as marketing tool but also try to post things that are helpful for parents. Most of our followers are media contacts or vendors. For us, this seems to be helpful in terms of getting our name, services, and community events out but I’m not really sure. I didn’t engage any of the educational focused twitter-ers since most of them are large non-profits rather than actual teachers.

After seeing the TweetDeck in class, I did set that up. It definitely made following multiple people much easier. I suggest it to anyone that’s following more than just a couple people. It makes putting out your own tweets easier too…very user friendly.

Overall, since the most value I got from following people was linking to articles I’m not sure what the benefit of twitter is over a variety of other sources for information. Following people on twitter also makes me feel a little bit like a creepy voyeur…it gets a little bit addictive too. But if it turns out to be a really valuable resource for information I wouldn’t have found otherwise, I’ll eat my words.

According to VA SOL 2.6:
The student will investigate and understand basic types, changes, and patterns of weather. Key concepts include:
a) temperature, wind, precipitation, drought, flood, and storms; and
b) the uses and importance of measuring and recording weather data.

So…I decided that a fun way for my 2nd graders to do this would be to have a rain gauge, measure and record daily rainfall, and produce a visualization that helps the students easily process this data.  I used Many Eyes to make the data visualization

Here’s an example of a bar graph with data I collected* from April 2009:

Here’s another example with a bubble chart with data I collected* from May 2009:

The bubble chart is a little confusing for rainfall because it leaves out the days (quite a few) when the rainfall was zero, but does show the great amounts well for comparison purposes.

*by collected I mean that I loosely based this on the Farmer’s Almanac for Richmond in April and May 2009. It is not the same data but it is similar to the actual rainfall data.

So…I’ve thought a lot about a way that I would use video editing/creation in a meaningful way in my class.  I hope to either teach early elementary or work as a reading specialist.  I very much welcome feedback and ideas on how to incorporate video editing into my class so that I’m not just doing it for the sake of the assignment or to show that I can edit a video.

What I’m posting is not an edited video; it’s a video I think the students would enjoy that I would use in class, how I would use it, and an idea for how I would edit it that I am wondering if you all think would work.

I would frequently stop the video (at pre-selected spots) and get the students to make predictions about what is going to happen next, like I could do with a story in a book. At the end of the video, I would have the students Think-Pair-Share with a partner to retell the story. Then, I would pull out individual freeze frame images and have the students sub-title the video. Each pair would be in charge of the narrated sub-title of one frame. Then we put them together and could “read” the freeze frames with sub-titles like we would a book with illustrations. We could discuss the story and the narration they created and then watch the movie straight through.

BIG CATCH MOVIE from Moles Merlo on Vimeo.

Is this a good plan for effectively using video in an edited way in a 2nd grade class?

I found this ad on adsoftheworld.com.  I thought it would be really great to use in my early elementary class (maybe 2nd grade) for a comparing perspectives exercise.  We would either re-read Little Red Riding Hood, paying attention to the pictures, or just do a picture walk through and have them tell me the story as they remember it.  Then I would put up the ad and have them talk about what’s different and what would have to happen for this illustration to exist in the story.  We would probably then do a creative writing or dictation exercise to get them thinking about their own variations on the Little Red Riding Hood story.

There are also some follow-up ads (Hansel and Gretel and Goldilocks) that play on the fairy tale theme that could be used in subsequent comparing perspectives lessons.

A draft of my class Newsletter which can also be seen below:
Draft Newsletter

Embedded is a great presentation on the importance of reading.

Kids Need Reading Stamina

What I like about this presentation is:

• It’s simple but engaging and gets to the point
• It’s visually appealing not just visually flashy
• The pictures relate to the audience (college education students) in a meaningful way
• The font is consistent and bold and color are used appropriately to highlight important information
• It’s not overwhelmingly crammed full of information – although there are a few slides that are a little too full, in my opinion of course.

I have subscribed to a number of RSS feeds which I’ve been reading in Google Reader.

Professional:

1. College Nannies

2. College Tutors

• I currently work for College Nannies & Tutors.  There seems to not be much coming through the RSS feed from their sites though.

3. Weekly Reader ideas for promoting a love of reading

3. PBS Teachers for lots of interesting teacher information

4. National Writing Project improving writing and learning in the nation’s schools

Personal:

1. Epicurious.com For people who love to eat

2. Runner’s World so I can run off all the food I love to eat

3. Apartment Therapy because I want to live in a comfortable, organized, stylish apartment

4. NPR.org for unbiased but interesting news

5.Mercycorps.org Be the change you want to see in the world

Based on the homework readings and video, here are three main points for giving a great presentation.

1. Visual images are the best way to convey your message.  The old “a picture’s worth a thousand words” adage is true.  Slides should be clean, simple, and visually engaging – not just flashy.  You should aim for “visual story-telling that complements your presence and speaking.”

2. Relate your presentation to your audience and make it meaningful to them.  We don’t retain information when we’re bored and the best way to engage your audience is to relate the material to them and make it significant to their lives.  When the audience’s attention span lapses – about every 10 minutes – re-engage them with an anecdote and video or image that is emotionally relevant to the audience.

3. Don’t overload the audience.  Keep slides simple and visual; avoid too much text or charts that have too much information to process.  Keep it short and end on time.  The 10-20-30 rule regulates this: a good presentation should have no more than 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes and have no font smaller than 30 points.