"Earth Day" Podcast

I created the audio for my Podcast using Garage Band on my MacBook and I think that it was very easy to use and the program offered many different video tutorials meant to help in understanding the process of creating the audio. It was a bit confusing at first because I had to record my lines individually because otherwise the timing was off with the pictures. I then used iMovie to make the final Podcast!

Here is the link, I hope you enjoy the cast and learn a little something about Earth Day! http://tlkeenoy.googlepages.com/EarthDayPodcast.mov

A Digital Story (Finally)

Finally, with the help of my MacBook, I have been able to create my Digital Story, entitles "The Body of our Community". Please view and enjoy!

?Digital Stories?

Alright fellow classmates, I am in need of some help. I have seen the wonder that is a digital story and I think that they are completely wonderful and they present a wonderful way for students to express their own written thoughts in an interactive way. My problem is that I do quite grasp how to get the whole project to work. My experience with VoiceThread has not been positive and have been unable to get my voice recordings to work. If there is someone who excels at this project type and would like to help me in figuring it out, I think that would be absolutely wonderful!

Well all, good luck with everything and may the rest of the semester go smoothly!

One Man, One Guitar

I must say, that when I first approached the Google Maps, I thought that the medium was fairly easy to use. However, once I picked the topic "One Man, One Guitar" as a way to look at those people of the past who helped to created blues, jazz and, essentially, all the popular music that is listened to today, I found that it was much more difficult to achieve the effects that I wanted to.

I found many great You Tube videos that showed the performers singing their songs, but when I tried to embed text so that the video would play when the pin point was selected, the video would not show up. Because I felt that being able to see and hear the performers, I embedded links that would take potentials students to the correct video, but I was disappointed that I was unable to embed the video.

Also, while I was working on the pin points, I wanted to include photographs of the performers so that students viewing the pin point would be able to get a sense of the time in American history that these performers came to dominate entertainment and create, what is now, the powerful music industry. However, when I was working on this project on my iMac, I could not get the links for the photos to work correctly and the photo was unable to be viewed, but when I used my PC laptop, the same links to the photos worked fine and were visible immediately when the pin point was accessed.

Once I was able to create this map and also view some of the maps that others have made, I am impressed and convinced that there are many usages that Google Maps can have when it comes to classroom integration. Maps such as the ones that Google allows you to create can be used to track the progress of a character in a book that the class is reading as he or she travels or can be used to mark important places within a state is a state research project was being conducted. I feel that there are many uses within education for Google Maps and I also feel that it is a powerful tools that students can use to make their own learning more meaningful and lasting because they are educating others to things that they themselves may have over looked.

View Larger Map

Check out my Slide Show!

The pictures within this slide show were taken during a field trip that my TE 401 class took to the 4-H Children's Garden. I chose to created a slide show using these pictures because I feel when going on an educational field trip with a class that all the students should be able to record their reactions to the trip and also they should have the chance to show their fellow classmates their view of the trip itself. I think that if I were to take a field trip with my class, I would want to make it possible for my students to take digital pictures in small exploring groups and then once we return to the classroom, they should be able to have the creative opportunity to create a slide show that they can share with their classmates so that they can get a complete experience of the site that the trip was taken to.

Unit Plan and Technology

The unit plan that I have created focus on the Social Studies GLCS centered around developing citizenship. It is my hopes that this plan will offer a critical thinking approach to determining what makes for a good citizen and how you define greatness. The plan will integrate recording technology, digital camera usage, video camera usage and website and blog development. The following is the outline I have created as a lesson/unit plan entitled "Redefining Greatness". I also encourage you to listen to the sermon delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that inspired me to create this lesson/ unit plan! Please Click Here

Unit Plan
Monday, February 25, 2008
Listening Response
Today we will start this unit of developing a new definition of greatness by brainstorming what greatness does and doesn't mean to us as a class. Also we will brainstorm ideas about different people whom we think are great based on our class definition.

After our class has discussed meanings of greatness, the class will watch the video composed to illustrate Langston Hughes' "Dream Deferred". After viewing this video, students will independently record their reactions to the meaning of having a dream and what it means to let the dream go unfulfilled.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Read Biographies
Today, students will be split into groups and each group will be responsible to researching one person in the world’s history that had a passion for change. Each group member will first construct a K-W-L chart and compose a list of items they believe they know about the person they are researching. Each student will then use a tape recorder to document what it is that they think they know and what it is that they hope to learn about the person they are researching; these two recordings will be accompanied by a digital picture of the students holding their "knowledge" and their "inquires". These will be uploaded onto the classroom website creating a digital story of the students "knowledge" and "inquires" as to what greatness is.

In the remaining time, the groups with visit the social book-marking site that holds the biographies and other information about the person their group is researching. Each student will get 10 minutes of silent exploring time in order to surf the site and to become comfortable with the media that is showcased. Finally, the groups will have the remaining 10 minutes to read the biography sections created about their person.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Information Activation
Today students will spend the first half hour discussing what they remember about the biographies they read about their social leader. Their conversation will be recorded and their effort will be focused on recreating the information to the best of their ability; this recording will allow for a record of misconceptions that will be altered after the second reading of the biographies.

Revisiting Biographies
In this hour, the groups will reread the biographies provided on the socially bookmarked websites. During this reading, the group members are encouraged to take notes of what they feel is important information about their person. After 15 minutes of read and think time, the groups will get together and compare notes; this portion will also be recorded. The students will have 15 minutes to discuss.

Next the groups will listen to their initial recreation of the biographies and make marks in their notes about information they correctly reconstructed and that which needs to be revised. Now that group members will return to their K-W-L charts and see if they have gathered enough information to answer their "inquires". At the end of this revision portion the students will research more in order to answer their "inquires".

The King Center
Now that the students have had time to predict, question, and learn new information they will have time to make connections because their person and their actions and what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called "the new definition of greatness". The following website ( http://www.thekingcenter.org/ ) houses a flash media, along with a recording of MLK giving a sermon about "greatness". After the students watch and listen to the words they will have 14 minutes to make an "inference" as to what they think Dr. Martin Luther King was talking about. In the remain time of this period the groups with get together to talk about their thoughts about the meaning of greatness and will start to outline the aspects of their person that makes them great. Students will be able to use their initial brainstorm criteria as a guide.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Operation: Brainstorm
In this hour, groups with get together and brainstorm ways in which they can use the technology available to them as a way to teach the other groups within the classroom about the person that they researched and how they fit the definition of being a "servant" to greatness. The students can create a digital story similar to the pre-learning activity every group did, can write a poem similar to "Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes that we listened to when starting this unit or create a social bookmark page with links to websites that represent what made that person a "servant" to greatness.

Technology Creativity
Now that the groups have brainstormed and decided on a technology presentation, they will have an hour and a half to work on record, video taping, taking digital pictures and creating a social bookmark page around the topic of their person's greatness.

Friday, February 29, 2008
Technology Creativity (cont.)
This session is meant as a work period to finish the group’s technology presentation centered on what they have learned about their person and the issue of greatness. When groups finish their presentations they will begin to upload them to the classroom website so that their classmates and parents are able to see how they have redefined greatness.

The New Definition of Greatness
Once the presentations have been completed and uploaded onto the classroom website, as a class we will revisit our predictions about what it means to be great. The class will have a discussion about revisions that should be made about greatness. The last 5 minutes of the period will be used write a quick response about whether or not they are capable of greatness, giving their reasoning for why. These will be tape recorded and uploaded to the students' classroom blogs along with the text of their response.

Google Research and Trish's Learning

When I was researching using Google I was at first apprehensive because I normally struggle with finding the information that I truly want when using this vast search engine, but using the skills discussed in class I was able to narrow my search allowing for the desired information to be located.

The purpose of my research was to find tips and information on the internet that would guide me in creating a classroom Book Club at my Senior Year placement at Bath Elementary School. I was interested in seeing what other educators across the nation thought about Book Clubs and finding what the powers that be feel about implementing such a reading project. I learned that there are many different ways that educators have implemented reading projects that get students thinking about the books they are reading more critically from what is written on the page to integrating parents into the discussion. One of the websites that I found helpful in my search was "Education World; The Educator's Best Friend". On this site I my search located an article highlighting how one New York state school created a book club that integrated parents into the reading process. I enjoyed this particular article because it informed me of ways in which I as a f pre-service teaching looking for information about such an activity could work towards involvement of parents in the literacy process. To read this article, click here!

Keeping my focus on Book Clubs, I altered my search a bit so that I might find different sites that had information about materials and lesson plans that might be useful in attempting to create a classroom Book Club that gets students thinking critically about what they are reading and also being able to link what they are reading to the world as a whole. When I searched for this type of information I was lead to Heifer International and their Read to Feed program. This web site not only offered lesson plans and an interactive web site that would allow students the opportunity to understand the conditions children like themselves live in on a daily basis, but the site also has a place that an educator can go if they are interested in gathering materials that would help students become informed about world conditions. Click here is you are interested in explore these possibilities like I was!

All-in-all, I feel that this search gave me access to more tools than simply seeking out a teacher who uses classroom Book Clubs as part of their literacy curriculum because I would have been limited to who I personally know and it would have limited my possibilities in creating such a project.