Learning Log

Today in class we talked about Digital Stories. I am still a little fuzzy of what they are, but I think that I have the just of it. A digital story is pictures that tell a story and then the author puts words to go with the picture. You can tell a story about anything that you want to. Today we decided what we are going to do our digital study on, this was actually harder than I thought it would be, because I wanted to pick something that I could use when I did my field work. I chose to do my digital story on the difference in geography and culture between New England, middle colonies, and Southern colonies. I chose this because I figured that I might be able to use it because it is in the social studies fifth grade core. I am doing my field work in a fifth grade class. We also talked about scripting, scripting is figuring out what words you want to say that will go with your pictures. I will be able to use digital stories in my classroom by having the students create their digital stories, or I could make one as the teacher to introduce a topic. I think that I could have a lot of fun with digital stories.

Learning Log

Today we learned about Google site. We created our own web page through Google. It was a really fun activity. We wrote about ourselves and our dreams. It was so fun to create my own web page. I could use Google sites in my own classroom in many ways, but one way that I thought would be cool is for them to create their own web page and do a similar activity about them. I would love to go and read about my students and it would help me to get to know them better. This would also give me the chance to determine how much they know about technology.

Learning Logs (September 9)

Today in class we learned how to utilize google tools. We chose groups and were assigned to do research on a ceratin topic. We then began to use WIKI. At first I was sceptical about what was going on. I was so confused at who was typing what and what we were talking about, but then someone suggested to do google chat as well. When we started doing google chat it was so much better. It was easier to communicate through google chat because first of all it already had our name on it and second of all it was way faster. So we finally got the hang of the google documents. I really liked the google chat because I could be talking to someone and researching something else at the same time.
I beleive that using WIKI in my classroom would be a great tool for my students to learn to utilize. They could do projects together through WIKI. Also I think that google chat would be good to use if they were on the computer at the same time that way they could discuss things without really talking out loud. Now that could either way they could be talking about things that pertain to class and then they could be talking about things that don't pertain to class. I can't wait to use WIKI with my classmates and do projects. I think that it will be a great tool to use in my education and in my classroom.

Learning Log

Today in class we learned a lot about different tools we can use on the Internet. We learned about blogging, voki, and Gmail. I would love to start a blog when I have my own class and do weekly postings of what we are doing in class, that way the parents can access it and know what we are learning. I personally loved the Gmail introduction, I was so excited about all the cool features it has. My students can use the Gmail accounts to work in study groups or chat with each other or even me.