PodCasting in the Classroom

PodCasting would be a great way for older students to share books with younger students. Having an audience would inspire the older students to practice reading aloud, which would help them build fluency and read with expression. For the younger students, hearing the story read aloud as they attempt to read it themselves would provide a great deal of support in decoding words and learning new vocabulary.

Here's Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Other Favorite Bedtime Rhymes.

If a teacher knew she was going to have a substitute the next day, I think it would be useful to record podcasts giving some of the directions for the next day. That way she would be using the language the students are used to hearing and there would probably be less confusion than when the substitute has to read and interpret the written plans.

Screen Recordings

I need to train my teachers to access PowerSchool Teacher in a different manner than they've used for the past 3 years. School starts in two weeks, and there's no time for formal training. Creating a screen recording seemed like the way to go. I found after I had made a couple of botched attempts, that it saved time in the long run to create a script first. Once I had a pretty decent recording, I imported it into iMovie and deleted the extraneous parts. Then I exported it to QuickTime, formatted for streaming. It uploaded quickly to YouTube.

I can't wait to share it with my teachers!

Sharing Flickr Photos

One project we do each year with 6th graders is have them create their own web pages. We have them create some original artwork but we also have them use generic photos of the school. In the past, we've always just uploaded a selection of photos to a shared folder. It will be much easier to share a wider variety of photos on Flickr. We'll start by sending the students out around the school with the digital camera. We'll upload any suitable photos to Flickr. Then we'll share the url for that photo set and have the students select any of the photos they wish to share on their own web page.

YouTube Videos

Today I made a screen recording about PowerSchool Teacher to upload to my wiki. I thought it would be interesting to see what other videos might already be available that I could use in other training.

Here's one that would be useful to share with parents to let them know what kinds of information PowerSchool makes available.
Tecker 911: PowerSchool

This one would be useful for a school system just considering making the switch to PowerSchool.
PowerSchool Presentation to Crocker School Board

I didn't come across any others that would be useful for training teachers. Looks like I've found a niche that needs filling.

Addy with Chopsticks

Internet Safety

I think educating kids about Internet safety is a continuous on-going process that begins or should begin the first time they go on-line and should continue throughout their school career. The reading from Microsoft Security, Tips to Protect Children On-Line offers some great pointers and some links to age appropriate guidelines for 2-18 year olds.

I help to supervise an after school computer lab for kindergarteners through 4th graders. I'm amazed at the on-line social networking sites for even the youngest kids. They can buy dolls or stuffed animals that come with codes that allow them to log onto a website and engage in virtual play. My lab rules require a parent to attend with kindergarteners. That helps take some of the pressure off me to be aware of what every child is doing at all times. I do think it's best to have a parent sitting beside the youngest children when they go on-line. I try to circulate and remind children not to give out any personal information when they are visiting a website that requires a login.

Our 6th graders have a chance to create a "personal" web page as part of a class project. We don't publish the pages until they've been checked by an adult to be sure they only include first names, no addresses, and no inappropriate comments. We have them include pictures of themselves, but since they have to draw the pictures, they're not really recognizable:-) It's not failsafe, but it does give us a chance to talk about internet security while the kids get some experience in a structured environment.

Our internet filter does block most social networking sites. Before we started blocking them we got to the point where many of our students were being distracted by them during class time. In other words, they were spending time reading and reacting to MySpace sites when they should have been doing school work. Unfortunately, we sacrificed the positive aspects in order to eliminate the negative aspects. This is definitely a debate that will continue.