Okay I admit it – I LOVE PowerPoint!

Yeah, I know, it’s so not Web 2.0 but I find it so useful on so many levels. Here are just a few things we’ve done or are doing using PowerPoint:

Math Books: I first saw this used by Kevin Jarrett in the fall as a Pumpkin Math Book and adapted this for my own use with my Kindergarten through 2nd Grade students. Since that time I got involved with the Winter Wonderland project and adapted this yet again into Penguin Math Books. You can download the templates on the Activities page of the Winter Wonderland project. While you’re there, check out the Penguin Glyph too – that’s also done in PowerPoint!

Keyboarding for Kindergarten: Collins Trott has designed a keyboarding curriculum for Kindergarten students called Trott’s Typists which uses Kidspiration focusing on learning letters and starting letter sounds as well as finding keys on the keyboard. We don’t have Kidspiration but I’ve adapted her idea into PowerPoint and now my Kindergarten and 1st Grade students are using this on a weekly basis. So, if you don’t have Kidspiration, don’t let that stop you – adapt those Kidspiration ideas into PowerPoint!

Idea Webs: My 3rd Grade students are involved in the Monster Project and one of the lesson plan ideas for that project involves using a word web in Kidspiration. Once again I took the idea and created a web template in PowerPoint that my students are using.

Internet Safety Posters: Using the ability to export slides as images, my 4th and 5th Grade students designed Internet Safety Posters in PowerPoint and then exported them as images.

Animoto Videos: Taking the concept used in the Internet Safety Posters, my 8th Graders designed a series of slides about Cyber-Bulling which were exported as images and then uploaded to Animoto to create Cyber-Bulling PSAs. An added benefit of this is that it gets the students to think of PowerPoint as a visual medium and not as something with just a bunch of bullet points.

Presentations: Yes, I actually do have my students use PowerPoint to make presentations, too. My 6th Graders have just finished up Christmas Around The World narrated presentations. You will find few (if any) bullet points on these. What you will find is lots of visuals and recorded audio to narrate the slides.

Poetry Books: In the same vein as above, my 4th Grade students and 6th Grade students are creating a slide in PowerPoint which will contain snowflakes that they have digitally altered from Wilson Bentley’s photographs and a poem that they have written about winter or snow or snowflakes or Bentley that is being recited by the student that wrote it. These are being combined into one presentation for pictures and poems by the students.

Bottom line, PowerPoint isn’t just for the dreaded Death By PowerPoint presentations anymore! I do promise to train anyone and everyone who will listen not to make these mistakes:

What are some ways that you use PowerPoint?

January 29, 2009 Projects, Reflections 1 Comment on Okay I admit it – I LOVE PowerPoint!

More Current Events in the Lab

I blogged earlier about what we did in the computer lab during the election season. On Tuesdays, I have both 7th & 8th Grade for computers. They had watched the swearing in ceremony and Obama’s Inaugural Speech during their first period of the day. During computer class on that day we began with the Dateline Video: Hope Change & Symbolism on Inauguration Day

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Following the presentation we had a discussion about the video and about what they felt Obama’s message was in his Inaugural Speech. We then viewed a Wordle that I had created from the text of the speech to see if the words used most frequently in the speech matched up with the feeling that they got when they watched it.

They found this very interesting and would love to use Wordle sometime themselves. We then reviewed how to write a formal letter and each of the students wrote a letter to President Obama. These are being mailed to The White House for any students that wish to send them. I was amazed at some of the students that definitely wanted their letters mailed. Most of the letters were very positive and supportive, a few were somewhat critical and most of them offered very thoughtful ideas on the items these 12-14 year olds feel are the most important things that the new President should be addressing.

January 28, 2009 Reflections No Comments on More Current Events in the Lab

Collaboration Conundrum

One of the things I have been very excited about this year were all of the different online collaborative projects I have been doing with my classes. These all involve some fun and different activities using a variety of tools and applications. The conundrum is this. My students are doing a great job completing these activities and we’re posting them online. A lot of other schools are also completing the activities and posting their projects online too. But, it feels more like the parallel play that you might see with very young children at a park rather than children playing and interacting together.

Ann Oro shared a wonderful map illustrating the collaborative projects that her students are doing this year and I loved the idea so much I am planning to put one up in my computer lab starting next week. I think it will help the students (and parents at Open House) see the connections we are trying to make around the world. Some of the projects my students are involved with have many schools participating but none that I feel we’ve connected with. So do I include these on the map as long as we’ve added to the project and the other schools have added to the project or don’t I? We’re in the project and the other schools are the in project. We’ve both posted finished activities, videos, pictures, etc. to the project but have we truly collaborated? Does there have to be a more tangible connection of some kind or is just being part of the whole project and adding to that enough?

Last year, I stumbled upon the Voices of the World wiki and loved the project and the global feel of it. I was thrilled this year when my 4th Grade class became a part of this project. This project is now one of my do I include all the other schools on the map projects. I don’t know that my students feel the connection to the other schools they way that I hoped they would or that they really understand that there are students all over the world drawing pictures and saying or singing the same thing as they are. Would putting all of the schools that have participated so far this year help them to understand?

Another of my do I include all the other schools on the map projects is the A Room With A View project. My students are doing their part. We take a picture each month and record information about the day and time the picture was taken and upload it to our wiki and to the gallery for the project. Each student also writes a paragraph about the month and what they like or don’t like about it that they post online. Once again I don’t think my students feel connected to the other schools. It’s hard to find the new pictures each month because there are a lot of schools involved. I have posted a request for a few other schools to connect with on the A Room With a View ning and may email a few participants directly next month to try to make more of a connection.  Would adding visual references for the schools help my students connect more with the other schools? Do I really add all the schools involved? Since my class is 6th graders do I only put connections with other 6th grade or 5th & 6th grade classes? Would that be missing the point of the project?

I always seem to have more questions that answers. I do know that because I’ve been thinking about this I plan to have my students spend some time looking at, listening to and commenting on the work of others involved in their collaborative projects. This is our first task in the computer lab when we’re back in school with my classes involved in the Winter Wonderland project and the Voices of the World project. As we watch and listen and comment we’ll add another string to our map as we connect our school with others around the world.

January 2, 2009 Reflections 3 Comments on Collaboration Conundrum

7 Things Meme

Hmmm … why do I think of this?

I was just tagged by Ann Oro in the meme going around the education blog circles called “Seven Things”. See the video does make sense!

Here are the rules:

  • Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
  • Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
  • Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
  • Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter and/or Plurk.

So here are my 7 Things You Might Not Know About Me:

  1. I have lived in 5 states in the U.S. and 1 foreign country, Canada, and even went to high school in Canada.
  2. I am the oldest of 5 children in my family, only 4 of whom are still living.
  3. I was a major teen idol “fan” way back when and spent way too much time & money following The Osmonds around the country. I’m the mother of two “fans” of my own these days which explains my knowledge of the video above – that and the fact that I teach elementary & middle school girls!
  4. Speaking of being a “fan”, one of the first groups I loved was The Cowsills and today I am their webmaster. If only I would have known what would be when I was 12 and in love with John Cowsill.
  5. I am a wanna be photographer (okay maybe you did know that one) and take a lot of pictures for my daughters’ dance studio and for my school’s yearbook.
  6. I love to scrapbook – okay these days this should be, I love to think about scrapbooking since I can’t remember the last time I actually did any scrapbooking. I do still have lots of supplies though and I even have a Scrapbooking Website … that I haven’t updated in ages.
  7. My two favorite drinks are Diet Coke and Snake Bite (the lager & cider variety if you please).
  8. Oh and a bonus one, I met my husband in a bar – okay really a PUB which is different than a bar. Yes you can meet people in a bar (uh, pub) and to tie it in to some of the other 7 things … I was at the bar to see Bob & Susan Cowsill (#4) and I was drinking a Snake Bite (#7)!

Now it’s my turn to tag and I’m supposed to tag 7 others. The problem is most everyone I would normally tag has already been tagged so I’m only tagging 4 and they are: JoNelle Gardner, Amber Coggin, Kevin Jarrett and a non-edublogger, Tracy P! Tell me something I don’t know about you.

January 1, 2009 Memes 5 Comments on 7 Things Meme