Games in the classroom

Well, I normally like games in the classroom, and these sites were okay, but not my favorite. I definitely like more simple games as a class. These would maybe be a good idea if it was a class assignment to the kids as an exploration tool.

digital story telling

I think that the voice thread website is pretty fun. I like that there is an option to either write a comment or record one. I like that because for people that like recording things it's fun, and for people that don't feel comfortable with that, they can simply comment using text.

Google portfolio

Oh my goodness! I am so excited. I have recently started my google portfolio and I feel like it's coming along so nicely! I'm actually having a lot of fun creating it and I really feel like I can use this for future employers and I will obviously keep updating it with new things I'll create in the future so that they can see what I can do. This site is really neat and I really like how you can make it your own with still making it look nice and professional.

Xtranormal

Yes!!! I finally got xtranormal to work! It turned out to be a lot of fun!! I liked that you can be creative with it and do pretty much whatever you'd like. The downside of that is that for kids it wouldn't be a good site to have available at school because people create some inappropriate things, and I'm not sure what some of their restrictions are, if any. So, I think if a teacher maybe created one just for a fun lesson. I'm thinking it'd be fun to use a little character like a robot or something else and make him tell the class what the instructions are for that particular project or activity.
Very cool site!

Glogster

extranormal

Well, I've been trying to get on to extranormal and every single time I've tried to sign up for an account the website has some sort of error and won't let me past it. It's a bit frustrating. Anyways, the site looks like it would be a lot of fun, I just wish I could actually log in and make one to find out for myself. I'll keep trying back, Let's keep those fingers crossed!

google earth and glogster

Just an example of my google earth tour:
google earth is pretty cool, but the whole time I worked on it I was having issues. It would be better if it worked for me. Every time I tried to add a push pin it wouldn't let me and you couldn't see it. That was very frustrating.
Glogster was fun. There was a lot of fun things that you can add to a page and you could even create a welcome page for when your students walk in the door. I'm thinking almost like a syllabus (of course you would print one out as well...) but just for an introduction class you could let everyone know what kind of material will be covered in the year.

mind map. flickr.

The mind map is pretty cool. I really like it for classroom activities with really any topic. I think it'd be a fun source for notes and note taking, possibly for older kids though and not necessarily for elementary. I loved flickr! I think that would be such a fun way to create name tags for desks (elementary classrooms). There's obviously many other options for flickr, but that was just one fun example I could think of.

Spelling City

I love this site! This is an amazing site (finally) for elementary school kids! I feel like a lot of the stuff we've looked at could be wonderful tools to us, no doubt, but I also feel like they would all be more useful in an older grade rather than elementary grades. When I was exploring this site I fell in love with it instantly because it seems like such a fun class activity to all do together. Say you have a list of vocab. words for a certain chapter and you type all of those words into spelling city, you could create fun activities anywhere from word scramble to spelling bees, to spelling tests. This could be so much fun in a second or third grade class!
I've attached my idea, just as an example!

page flakes

I had more at the bottom of my page flakes, but jing wouldn't let me copy the whole thing. This site is pretty cool and it could for sure help you stay organized if you had the right materials on your page. This site seems to be helpful keeping track of different type of updates and news and other issues like that, but really you could use this site for anything.

read fresh

I really like the read fresh site because it seems really useful to use. The only think I have against it is that is seems to be more of a personal website, and not necessarily for teaching. I could completely be wrong, and I'm sure that some teachers would disagree with me, but then again they would probably be teachers that teach older kids. In my opinion, you don't want to over complicate lessons and whatnot for young elementary school kids, and I have a feeling this would be a bit crazy. I definitely seems to be a useful tool, just not particularly in the classroom.

live binder

I'm really not a huge fan of this. It seemed easy when I was just exploring around and looking at other people's binders, but it's not as simple as it looks. I for sure like other sites that have the same concept better. For some reason part of it reminded me of smart board, but smart board is so much better so I would never use the live binder by choice. I am glad I've seen it so I know it's there, it's just not my favorite. I'm not trying to be disrespectful about the website, I just find that it's a little too complex and I like things like that more fun and more simple.

various sites and searches

Well, I'm really interested in trying out some of the new search engines that we learned about. Spezify was really cool because you can type any simple word or topic in the search box and tons of pages pop up and instead of links you can see what the sites sort of look like. Bonzo box was another one of my favorites because it's like a custom page of any webpages you want. It reminds me of a cooler version of bookmarks. you can make it into sites that you regularly visit, and that way you wouldn't have to remember the web addresses. I was not a huge fan of the web quests. In all honesty I think those would only be useful for older kids, and not for elementary. I just felt that there was too much going on, and it was a bit complicated. Web quest was probably my least favorite out of the sites we ventured to see. I'm definitely glad I got to see and explore the site, but I don't think I'll be using it by choice ever.

Internet safety

I feel that internet safety is more important than the basic reasons of child safety and public websites. Copyright is a very important thing to learn about. I relate it to someone drawing a pretty picture, and then someone else said that they drew it. That wouldn't be fair because that; claiming something that isn't yours. I would hate it if I created something I was proud of and someone claimed fame on it, I would be so mad!

So, I think it's definitely important to teach kids to cite all of your work that you use or borrow anything on.

scriblink and thinklinkr

Thinklinkr and scriblink are pretty cool, and I feel that they can be useful for group projects or fun doodle time with classmates.

lesson plans

Wow, this smart board app is so fun and you can get so creative with things. I just lost two of my lesson plans though, so that's really frustrating.. Other than that I haven't had any other issues with it. I really like it and I think this program can be incredibly useful for teachers!

The lesson plan I still have is one about math involving prime and composite numbers, and I think it's fun and upbeat for a possibly boring subject.

I checked out a few of the pre made lesson plans, and I really like the one that involved geography. Since I have to re-do two of mine, I think I like the geography with flags and other things better than the art one I had made about artists and other paintings.

Just by reviewing different math lessons made me want to do one, and that's why I chose math as one of my lessons. I liked what the various holiday math ones and game type math lessons were, but I wanted to do something for a tiny bit older kids, probably 6th or 7th graders, for when they're first learning about prime and composite numbers.

Th one titled count in 10 different languages was fun, and that inspired me to do one on spanish.. I was going to minor in spanish so I've taken a lot of it, but I have realized that I really don't like it and I could be doing something else just as useful, which is business. Anyways, I have realized that after many years of taking spanish, it's fun to be able to speak at least a little, so I thought it would be fun to create a basic spanish lesson that wasn't too much but taught some key things.

So, all in all, I really like the program and I really want to keep it when the trial is finished. Or, at least when I become a teacher.