Final Session

We got together and researched the pupa and the adult stages of the butterfly and moth. Then we got straight to our activity. I had her make a compare and contrast diagram that shows the differences and similarities of the two insects. I had bought some life cycle toys that show the different stages of the butterfly and the moths. She then drew a life cycle chart and placed the insects in the correct order to show that the butterflies and the moths have the same life cycle stages its just that they look different and during the pupa stages they are called different things like the butterfly is called a chrysalis and the moth is a cocoon.

She had fun making the little activities, she especially liked putting the life cycle together on the board. When we had met a few meetings ago i had showed and explained to her a voicethread. She had never seen or herd of a voicethread before so i showed her other examples on the web then i showed her my mini lesson movie on my blog. She liked how it looked but didn't like the fact that she would have to record her voice. She said she doesn't like the way she sounds on the recording.  I finally talked her into talking and recording herself, i told her not to worry that her friends didn't have to see it if she didn't want them to. After picking out the right pictures and saving them to power point i showed her how to upload and record your own voice. She wanted to help come up with the script on what to say for the voicethread. So i let her give the information on each slide and she  really liked how it came out. She told me she wanted to share it with her class and i told her thats the reason we created her own blog so that she would be able to share it with her whole class and whom ever she wanted to. She enjoyed this project very much, and i enjoyed working with her as well. I never realized how much technology is such a great and amazing tool to use for teaching. I hope to incorporate voicethread and other technology tools in my classroom when i am teaching.

Service Project Session 2

On our second meeting we talked about the larva stage of the butterfly and moth. This time i tried to use more of the inquiry based learning on her. I asked her how does she normally research something that she doesn't know. She told me that she would normally go to the library at her school and look for a book on what she is researching. I told her that was really good, the library is an amazing place to do research but i told her for this project we would be using more technology. I told her to use google and to type whatever it is she is researching. So she did, i sat next to her on the computer and we googled life cycle of a butterfly larva stage, and life cycle of a moth larva stage.


Also when we would go to a website that she didn't know how to use, i would tell her to click on a tool and see what it does. I did show her where the help bar is so that she could try and figure out what the tools mean. Sometimes it was kind of tough whenever she would ask a question like where do i look now, because i wanted to just tell her and let her know what to do next but i had turn around and ask her a question like if we don't know how to use the website where do we go, and she would say the help menu. After awhile she found a couple of really great informational websites about the larva stage of the butterfly and moth. This is pretty neat seeing her research on her own. She would view one website then take a few notes that she thought she would need to know for later on, then go view another website.

Session 1 Service Project

For my service project i decided to use my little cousin. She wasn't being a team player and i had to bribe her with some McDonald's then she finally agreed and when i told her we were going to be comparing and contrasting butterflies and moths she wasn't to happy because she said thats what they were doing in class and didn't want to do it at home also. We started with making the first part of the KWL chart and then i told her she was free and able to explore the internet and look for any resources that would help her to answer her questions.  She found a few neat websites that showed pictures and gave really good information about butterflies and moths.

 For this first session we are learning about the egg stage of the life cycle. I let her control the computer and take control on where she looked up her information. Then from there we compared the stage of the egg from the butterfly and moth. After our research was done i told her she was going to make a blog of her own and she would be writing in it, she was actually pretty excited because she said this was the closest she would get to having a facebook without getting in trouble with her parents. At first she didn't know what to write and i told her it was her blog and she could write what we did that day, but that it was her own blog and she could say what she wanted. Im excited for this project and excited about working with my cousin because im introducing her to new things that she had never done before like a KWL chart and blogging.

Sharing Spreadsheets

When i used to think about spreadsheets i used to think about businesses and jobs that maintain a chart to keep track of all their goods. But when i was given this assignment to explore spreadsheets as an inquiry based project i realized that this is a good tool to incorporate into the education setting. This is a controlled and organized way to view whatever it is your working on. 

I have created a sample spreadsheet on my wedding budget to show how easy it would be to incorporate spreadsheets in the classroom. This would be a way to give the students an assignment on how to take polls. They can write students names and see what their favorite food is like pizza, hamburgers, or corn dogs and students will take count and then create a chart as well. By looking at charts and spreadsheets it shows students the differences and ranges there are. 

Lights, Camera, Action

Movie Movie Movie i can hear you chanting right now but i'm sad to inform you that i was having problems with Teachertube and uploading my movie. So now i just sit and wait until i get the approval from Teachertube. But i must say creating this movie was very fun and interesting. I went around Corpus Christi with some help from a dear friend looking for pictures to take for my movie and went to several places from Lowes, to the water garden, the city dump, gills nursery, and a car wash.

My short movie is taking a look at different ways rock can be reused, and water recycled and how soil is recycled. The gadgets and tools on movie maker was really neat. I was able to load all the pictures i took and able to place them in the order i wanted them, then i was able to record my voice and talk through each picture explaining  whats on them and how they are recycled. There are also other neat tools it has like fit audio to movie , where i automatically fits your voice to each slide so its right on time with the pace. Another neat facter to movie maker is that you can add songs, sounds, and really cool transitions. It was fun for me to make and this would be something fun for students to create when they are working on a project, for example if they are learning about animals in the rain forest they could make a movie showing all the different types of animals found and using the voice and animation they are able to explain about each animal.

Okay i finally got my approval i have been waiting for from teachertube so here is my movie..

Telling A Story

Whats a storyboard you ask? Well a storyboard is basically an outline to help you with your movie that will be created. and when you make this storyboard there are elements that go into it making it even better. There are 7 elements of digital storytelling that is your point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, the gift of your voice, the power of the soundtrack, economy, and pacing. I have created a storyboard to help me with my own movie that i will be creating. 

 

This storyboard goes along with my unit plan. How can we recycle rocks, water, and soil is the big question we ask. In the storyboard i discuss what are some different ways rocks can be reused and how water is recycled and how soil gets turned into compost. In the unit plan i have my students create a small garden using compost soil, recycled water that will be reused when watering plant and pebbles found outside to decorate the garden. 

VoiceThread In The Classroom

Digital Story telling is a great resource to use in the classroom. VoiceThread gives you a chance to create a whole lesson using technology and students are on the other side interacting with your digital story. People from all over can view your voicethread and interact, leave comments, and learn for themselves. By using voicethread gives the students a chance to learn outside the classroom they can be at home and viewing your lesson and this is a fun and different way for them to learn instead of using pencil and paper. It also gives the students to hear one another and learn from each other. They are able to see other peoples responses to the activity or questions and can gain more knowledge from each other.

I have complete a VoiceThread of my own based on rocks and soil. Students are to be able to observe and distinguish the differences in different types of rock and soil. I have also created unit plan  which talks about recycling of rocks, soil and water. By using voicethread helps students to understand what they are learning. It hits all types of learners like kinesthetic, visual, and auditory. In my future classroom i hope to use voicethread because i think it is a great way to teach students. I would like to use it as homework work questions where they go home and have to view a voicethread and answer questions and interact with the other students.