Reflecting upon my sixth lesson in my Kindergarten field base classroom, I don't think it could have gone much better. The subject was science and the topic was magnets. For this activity, I divided the class in half. One half was the hypothesis group and the other half was the conclusion group. This activity allowed the hypothesis students to view object pictures and make a comment about rather they believe they think the object is magnetic and explain why or why not. The conclusion students viewed the object pictures and made a comment on rather they found the object to be magnetic from the in class discovery and explain why or why not. I was able to have students use the scientific method thanks to VoiceThread. It's like another teacher in the room. Due to my students being so young, I did spend a little time explaining directions for the VoiceThread prior to the lesson and monitored the VoiceThread throughout the less. After all students had made their hypothesis or conclusion, we watched and listened to the VoiceThread as a class and reflected upon our new experience. They told me they loved it and like recording their voice. One of my students said, "I like this because I can say what I want without writing it." This made sense to me. If we think about it, students to a lot of writing in a school day and the VoiceThread allows them to record their voice, video them self, or type. I definitely plan on using VoiceThread in my future teaching.
Here is my lesson plan. The technology information is high lighted.
Nicole Tharps-I loved the landform pictures she uploaded on her voice thread. It really accommodates the naturalistic intelligence and makes the activity more realistic. I believe it's age appropriate and that second graders could successfully navigate through it. My favorite thing was allowing children to compare and contrast the different land forms because it's so user friendly to switch back and forth between slides on voicethread.
Hailey Rogers-I love how she did her voice thread on language arts. I believe most people would limit the use of voicethreads to content areas such as science, social studies, math, etc. I commend her for teaching our students about different types of sentences and using the doodling for commenting. I remember when I was in first grade, we had a workbook with lists of sentences that we were assigned to go through and underline, circle, etc. I think it's so cool how the children today can do the same exact thing but with technology.
Courtney Barrington-I love how she created a voicethread to share the classe's work. It tied in Thanksgiving and allowed the children to say what they're thankful for. This made me think that if a teacher ran out of wall space to hang up children's work to be seen, they could put it all on a voicethread to be seen. It displays the children's work and so much more!
The planning for my upcoming lesson involving math and the numbers "8, 9, 10" is making progress. I know I will allow students to take turns using the two computers in my classroom during their workstations to complete the voicethread assignment. I am still working on how the voicethread will be utilized in successfully teaching the objective. I am hoping to learn more about it myself so that I can create an effective voicethread for my students.
I'm in communication with my CT. My tentative date to do my TIE lesson is on Thursday, November 10th. As of right now I'm planning on the subject being math. The objective is unknown at this time, but I know it will involve learning the numbers "8,9,10". I look forward to integrating technology into this upcoming lesson!
Here is a voice thread I created to incorporate in my weather lesson plan. The lesson is for kindergarten students. They will learn how to report the weather for the day by looking outside our classroom window, make predictions about the weather, and describe different weather conditions. The voice thread allows them to visualize different types of weather such as sunny, rainy, cloudy, and snowy. The student will look at a picture and "report the weather" by identifying what type of weather it is and provide their reasoning. I will check for understanding by the student sharing what led them to believe it was either sunny, rainy, cloud, or snowy.
Here is a voice thread about "Picture Writing". It contains student's illustrations and poems that describe weather. They collaboratively created a voice thread that teaches about all types of weather. A viewer can learn about rain, lightning, snow, and wind. It's fun and informative to read and listen to.The Affordance and Pedagogical Implication is provided for more information.
Monday, September 12, 2011
I am looking forward to having a blog to share and exchange ideas. I believe this is an awesome tool to allow me to communicate with educators as well as other professionals. I hope this will also be helpful to others as we continue our journey to becoming educators.
