Texas Bluebonnets 2014-15

Texas students in grades 3-6 will participate in the Texas Bluebonnet Awards by reading a minimum of 5 books. The following videos are a great way to get your students excited about reading the nominees. Help them along by reading the picture books, sharing book trailers, and reading at least one chapter to get them hooked. They will then cast their vote in January for their favorite book. Who will be the winner! Will it be your first choice or your second or third? No one knows until January so grab a book and get reading.

Reflecting on Past Work

This semester has been very challenging for me but extremely rewarding. I have learned and explored many new electronic tools that can be used in and outside the classroom or library. These tools can best be used to enhance student and staff engagement, learning, and collaboration. While in conjunction aide the promotion of the library and its resources. There were so many different tools and I know those were just a very few needles found amongst multiple haystacks.

Some favorites were Pixton, Piktochart, and Symbaloo

Pixton was used to create a quick comic strip or even a whole comic book. I could view a top 10 category of member creations, make comments and publish my work. I found it to be very easy at times but if you wanted something more elaborate there was no problem.  It offered a multitude of graphics and animation for added effects. The tutorials were very helpful on creating speech, bubbles, characters, effects, props and scenes, and writing.

Piktochart taught me how to create incredible infographics, reports, banners, and presentations that are no longer dull and boring. I could use a template already made or I could start from square one. They also have a help for almost anything you can think of.

Symbaloo is my absolute favorite because I could store websites I like all in one place. This was a tremendous help this semester with all the different electronic tools we used. This would be awesome as a pathfinder for research, the library databases and so much more. The webmixes can even be organized by content so teachers and students can find what they need. Will definitely be using this and setting it up very soon.

The Most Beneficial to Students: Screencast-o-matic, SoundCloud and Shelfari

Screencast-o-matic and SoundCloud would be helpful in creating and viewing tutorials and instructional videos instead of PowerPoints.Step-by-step instructions lead them to successfully completing tasks, assignments, and understanding of concepts.  It’s something they can revisit over and over for reinforcement of skills. A wonderful interactive tool to collaborate on creating book trailers, book reviews, and projects.

Shelfari will be a great asset because it has a lot to offer in getting kids to read. When they make a bookshelf they can organize books by what they’ve read and want to read. This helps when it comes to looking for books in the library. Once they input this information they can get suggestions or recommendations within the categories they have read. Then they can click on the reviews to see what people have to say about the book before deciding. Before or while they are reading the book they can go back and look up information on the characters, setting, theme, and more to better understand what they are reading. After they have read the book they can then rate, review and even join a book forum to discuss the book.

Most Difficult

I didn’t really find one tool to be more difficult than the rest. Most of the problems lied with my internet service, the search engine, or security suite instead of with the electronic tool. Overall they were fun to explore and easy to access.

Teen Writing: Do Digital Tools Help or Hurt?

Purcell, K., Buchanan, J., & Friedrich, L. (2013, July 16). The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing is Taught in Schools. Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/07/16/the-impact-of-digital-tools-on-student-writing-and-how-writing-is-taught-in-schools/

I was looking through the report and found many interesting results that I could agree with. Then I came across the following information on the “type of community you teach” and saw that 50 of the 100 teachers surveyed come from a small city or suburb.  I thought to myself can this be true for a large metropolitan city like Houston. Just think about it, the student to teacher ratio, poverty levels, internet access to name a few would be off by thousands when factored into the equation. Wouldn't that make the results inconclusive?  Let’s take a look at the results anyway because I do agree with the majority of its findings.

When asked, teens considered writing something they only did in school; they didn't believe that texting, tweeting, blogs, or any social medias was remotely close. I can agree with this because my students were shocked when I chose to use text conversations as a real world connection to dialog.  Not until I did this did they realize it was a form of informal writing. To change it to a formal piece I could then show them how to tweak it using grammar and spelling rules to clean it up.

Today’s digital technology allows students to “share their work with a wider and more varied audience” (52% strongly agree, 44% agree) with the use of the internet reaching around the globe. This is not a surprise as new online communities and social networks are developed to keep us connected to each other.  78% believe this leads teens to think deeply about what others have to say and leading them to respond with their own personal expression.  I don’t know about thinking deeper because they do seem to have no filters on the internet. You know no netiquette, they blurt out stuff that can be impertinent, rude, obnoxious, and even mean just to name a few things. Oh! Wait a minute. That’s right they are just teens and this study covers AP students so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

68% say that digital tools make students more likely to take shortcuts and not put effort into their writing.  I think this mainly pertains to research and not daily writing or creative writing. This is believable because I've seen it with my own eyes, students cutting and pasting information directly into their own papers with no thought of what I just taught them on “fair use” and “copyright”.

I’m with the majority that say, 40% of today’s digital technologies make students more likely to “use poor spelling and grammar”. Of course I believe this, especially when you get papers filled with 4ever, 2, LOL, OMG and so on. I can understand using it in narratives and dialogue to add voice but it’s useless in expository and formal writing.

So, is this still true for all students, the impact of digital tools on their writing? Maybe but it would still be nice to see a comparison between the different communities and if there is any change in results. I would even go so far as to study affluent vs. poor districts, just for curiosities sake. Digital tools can help teens with their writing but beware the “creep” of informal language.

118 pages

Technology and Teens

Purcell, Kristen. "10 Things to Know About How Teens Use Technology." Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project RSS. N.p., 10 July 2013. Web. 25 June 2014. http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/07/10/10-things-to-know-about-how-teens-use-technology/.

I can relate to Kristen and Holly’s story in the beginning because that is me and my son. The only difference is, try going further back by about 10 years. This is when you used correction tape on an electric typewriter and made copies using a mimeograph because copiers were too expensive. Technology has come a long way and is still ever changing our world.

Computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets have become less expensive, making the internet more accessible. Our children and grandchildren are growing up connected to the world around us, not just at home but in school as well. No I don’t believe that cellphones are used more than tablets in education. The reason is because our district has a no cellphone use policy on all campuses or they will be confiscated.  I hope one day this changes because the data states it’s a great learning tool.  I agree that the majority of teen’s internet use is through mobile devices like tablets, and especially smartphones.

This is a good thing but at the same time we have to be vigilant in their safety. I can’t believe that only 53% of parents are very concerned about their child interacting with strangers online. I am always concerned with not just my children and grandchildren but my students as well. The report also stated that teens are sharing more personal information online than before. That’s a red flag for me because our teens are trying to make as many friends as possible without considering the dangers. They don’t really know these people.  I had a student say they had over 500 Facebook friends. That shocked me so I changed my lesson for the day and proceeded to teach the dangers and safety of social networking.

As technology becomes more available to our children, we have to be ever mindful of how teens use it. Educationally I could see the advantages of them using it to complete assignments, perform research, and socialize with peers outside the class. Social networking has always been popular with teens and with the different platforms is changing. Teens have adapted to the technological advances into their everyday lives successfully and with ease.

46 slides

10 Things to Know About How Teens Use Technology from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Instagram and Vine

Both Instagram and Vine will be useful in the classroom and the following are just a few ideas. I enjoyed investigating both and will keep exploring their uses.

INSTAGRAM
The following are photos of my class bulletin boards and walls. They were a hit last year with the students all over the school. I was asked the question, "Why do I decorate my room more than other teachers?" My reply was, "I do it because I enjoy it and shouldn't you like it also."


VINES
are 6 second video clips that can be used for students to create inferences. The purpose for these Vines are for students to infer what they are before they are completely revealed. Stop them before they reveal too much and discuss with your students what they could be.

Instagram can be used in the classroom to take pictures of the walls when filled with work. Once posted students can visit the site to see best works, vocabulary, notes and station work to highlight student work. Vines are excellent for quick inferencing, writing prompts, star students, book connections to settings and characters, so many more. These are fun sites with many advantages.

Screencasts

This is my review of two screencast tools that can be used in the classroom or library. They both offer free recordings without downloading anything to your computer. You will have to signup in order to save your screencast recordings to your computer and publish them to various social networks like twitter, YouTube, Facebook and such. They are both similar in appearance on their recording frame but it ends there. The following are my findings and screencasts created with each.

Screenr  was simple once I got past the problems with Java on my computer. For some reason or other they had certificates that were not trusted. I had to turn off all my security settings and suites to access the recordings. Once I started though, it was pretty easy with no problems and I could easily download it to my computer to upload. I like mostly that I could move the frame by clicking and dragging the center of the frame. It was also a little like cutting and pasting what you wanted to display. Last, I couldn't find a time limit for the free version and it saves it to their website for future use. 

Screencast-o-matic had no problems and I could get started immediately by just pressing the "Start Recording" button. It offered automatic volume for the microphone so I didn't have to adjust anything or worry about noise reduction. Even the frame size could be adjusted to include full screen, HD and other set sizes. It was also easy to upload to my computer, YouTube, and Screencast-o-matic. The downside is it only offered 15 minutes of free screencast time and then you would have to delete the previous one to begin a new screeencast.

I realize that both screencasting tools offer similar functions but I would suggest Screenr for teens to adult and Screencast-o-matic for students. My reasoning is this, Screencast-o-matic offers very easy settings for students so that they do not have to make a lot of adjustments. Everything can be easily set to automatic preferences. whereas Screenr does not. It does however offer teens to adults to manipulate what they want to screencast and save them to the website with no restrictions on time.

Making Comic Strips

Making comic strips can be fun and there are tools out there to help you achieve what you want. They seem to all be pretty easy to navigate, it just depends on the amount of graphics you need and want to help you choose the right one. 

MakeBeliefsComix was very easy to utilize even a small child would have fun creating their own comic strip. I wish it had more graphics, it is limited in the amount available to use. It can be printed and/or e-mailed to yourself and only one friend. That's okay because once you receive the e-mail you can post it on Facebook or resend to all your friends. The hardest part would be teaching students how to save the comic strip since you have to take a screenshot, paste it to paint, crop it and then save it as an image for any other use. I loved that I didn't have to log in or create an account.

                           

The following comic strip was made using ToonDoo which was really easy. You do have to sign up for access but it's free. Now this tool was awesome because it had more graphics and the were in color. I also had the ability to manipulate the sizes and layering objects easily. As for saving the comic strip, it gives you a choice to publish it to everyone, yourself or friends by e-mail. It does let you print and save to your computer but I had to exit the toon maker and click "My toondoc". Then it was just a matter of hitting save on my computer. Overall its a great tool even for kids to make their own.

Pixton was super easy because it had templates already set up to choose from. All I had to do was create my character and type in the speech boxes I was finished very quickly. There are other templates and a freestyle section. The only thing I didn't like was that you have to earn credits in order to download to your computer. You do get more options with an upgrade for $4.95 a month, it might be worth it for the amazing graphics and limitless possibilities.

I had fun creating my own comic strips with these tools. As I said in the beginning its all up to how much graphics are needed and if you want to spend some money. For me ToonDoo was easy, had plenty of graphics and was free. It will be easy to create story starters, language lessons, vocabulary, sight words, sequence, literary terms, comprehension and many other skills. It will bring fun back to teaching.