My First Presentation with Audio!

Here is my completed lecture on "Making Bar Graphs" with audio! I had a lot of fun making this. I can't wait to use this technology in my classroom. I think it will be both fun for me to use and once I become more comfortable with this, it may be easier for my students to understand using this technology on different topic areas.
http://voicethread.com/share/1452734/

Enjoy!

Making Bar Graphs

Here is my first presentation without audio! The audio will be added later, but for now, here are my slides. Unfortunately, the slides did not come out in the same layout that I had saved them under. Here is the link where you can find the slides:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1LUvp0y6p3CMmMxYmUxNTEtZTVmNy00OGUwLWI0ZjAtYTZiMjExZGFjY2Iz&hl=en

My First Lesson Plan Integrated with Technology

I completed my first lesson plan about three hours ago! It took SO much work! I am very excited about it though. I was having a very fun time putting everything together: integrating the GLCEs with certain websites and in my case, paint, to make an effective lesson plan for the lunar cycle using technology. After three-four hours of work, I think i finally have a pretty good idea of how to make a lesson plan and all the work that goes into making one. Especially when integrating technology into it, teachers need to be very prepared with all the bombarding questions and often times goofing around that comes with a class of fourth graders in the computer lab. Here's a link to my website so you can check out my lesson plan! www.lcatalano89.weebly.com

Halloween Costume Ideas for Teachers

While searching for fun Halloween ideas to incorporate into the classroom, I came across a website about teacher Halloween costumes. Often times there are Halloween parties in elementary classrooms, which means that teachers should dress up. I thought the idea of teachers dressing up as children's literature characters was really creative. Dressing up as a character your students will know is not only cost-effective, but can be fun and integrative as well. Here's the website to check out all of their costume ideas: http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/holidays/a/Childrens-Halloween-Costumes-Based-On-Childrens-Books.htm

Enjoy!

Misconceptions of Astronomy

The content goals I would like to integrate technology are the different aspects of astronomy. With astronomy, there are many different content areas that can be taught: seasons, moon, stars, planets, angle and intensity of the sun, revolution of the moon and earth, etc. I think using Photo Peach would be a great way for students to understand the many sequences of astronomy. After learning about all of the sequences in any of the content areas listed above, I feel like it would be very beneficial for the students to take what they have learned in these different content areas and make a digital story out of the sequences of an area.

There are many different misconceptions about astronomy. At the elementary level, many children may not know why see see different phases of the moon, why we have seasons, the direction and axis of the earth, etc. Creating digital stories can help students at the elementary level understand the many sequences and cause-effect patterns of astronomy.

Digital Storytelling

The Lunar Cycle: What we see from Earth on PhotoPeach



This is my first digital story! This digital story in particular could be very useful for my classroom when teaching about the phases of the moon. This could show the students the phases of the moon in order, which may help them understand this better. It could be very useful to use this type of story telling specifically in science because there are many sequences. Digital storytelling will help my students tell stories specifically on the sequences of science, or for this case in particular, astronomy.

I absolutely loved using Photo Peach to create this piece. Not only was it very easy to use, but I could see my students using this too! There were no parts of this tool that I did not like. Everything was very user-friendly.

Enjoy!

Classroom Tour

While searching information about SMART Boards and the ways they can effectively be integrated into an elementary classroom, I came across another teacher's website. She posted pictures of her first grade classroom. I wanted to share this because I really enjoyed looking at the ways she set up her classroom and the different activities she had for her first graders. As we are all going to be teachers in the near future, I think it is useful to see different teacher's websites. I found this fun and interesting that she posted pictures of her classroom because I think it is useful to us as future teachers to see different ways to have integration and how other teachers have set up their classrooms.

Here is Ms. Bond's first grade "Classroom Tour":
http://teacherweb.com/MO/MillsElementary/MrsBondsFantasticFirstGraders/apt14.aspx

Enjoy!

SMART Boards: Are they useful in an elementary setting?

A SMART Board is an electronic, interactive whiteboard that truly enhances the elementary setting. When used in the right way, teachers can create more dynamic and meaningful lessons for their students. There are many strengths to using SMART Boards in the classroom.

Having another visual representation of something being discussed in class is one effective way of using the SMART Board. Using this tool can help show students a more clear way of explaining a particular topic, by showing them visually. By using a SMART Board in discussions, "Teachers notice an increase in students' attention spans, greater clarity in communication, and heighten ability to grasp information. Plus, students enjoy the interaction with the board and pick up the tools and features of the software the right way" (Dinga and Melenbrink). The SMART Board's touch-sensitive surface gives all students the opporunity to participate in learning. Overall, SMART Boards can be used in an elementary setting in many different ways; but more importantly, they help students engage in interaction with different lessons.

SMART Boards are very useful in classrooms. However, many educators find SMART Boards to be a problem when their lesson plans are restricted to having a SMART Board in the classroom. While teachers can use other resources instead of SMART Boards, the visuals can really loose their effects when they are transferred to another computer program or just shown on a projector.

In an elementary setting, there are many different ways SMART Boards can be used. They can be used in all content areas for visualization and interaction among students. For example, in a math lesson where the students are learning to count money, you can simply put different coins on the SMART Board and have students count the coins. Another example is when you are presenting a science lesson on "living and nonliving organisms." You can post pictures of living and nonliving organisms and have students interact by drawing circles around the images or categorizing the pictures into groups.

This is a tool that completely integrates TPACK. TPACK is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. SMART Boards integrate all of the different areas of TPACK because this source of technology enhances the lesson, it is not just used to simply be used. This technology is used in an elementary setting to reinforce the main concepts the students have already learned. With all of this said, SMART Boards are a "smart" choice when integrating visual images and helping students to engage in a variety of topics.

Resource:
http://www.enhancinglearning.org/httpwww.enhancinglearning.orgprojects_spotlight3.html

Art Education

After starting to follow a blog about Art Education on my google reader, I began to wonder if any of these art projects can be incorporated into an elementary classroom. I have always been very interested in art and taken art classes for fun on the weekends during my K-12, so reading about different art projects that different art teachers have created have made me wonder if any can be integrated into my own classroom someday. The art teacher had an entire blog about murals. I really like this idea because it includes all students working on one piece of art. All students will be able to say they created something, and it can be hung in the classroom and used in different lessons. Murals can be integrated into an elementary classroom during different science units and possibly for different social studies units.

Blogging about Blogs

As we are making our own blogs in CEP 416, I have been checking out other blogs by other educators. Another teacher recommended a blog to me regarding American Indians in Children's Literature. I have become increasingly interested in Children's Literature over the course of my undergraduate studies in Elementary Education. Literature is something that is so important not only for educators choosing the right stories, but for parents to be reading to their children, and children to be reading and be provided with books and literature appropriate for their grade level. I am very excited to get into the classroom and choose books to read to my students. Over the course of CEP and in more of my undergraduate courses, I hope for literature to be incorporated into the coursework.

Here is a really great blog about American Indians in Children's Literature. This blog stresses the importance about choosing the right books for educators to read to students, and for the correct information and literature to be available for the students to educate themselves:
http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/

Check out Debbie Reese's blog! Enjoy!

Learning about Twitter

This week we focused on Twitter. At first, I thought Twitter was not very useful, but now I see that it actually has many different uses. For future teachers, Twitter can be used to follow different educators and to see different websites that different educators "tweet" to share with their followers. I do not quite understand how Twitter can be used in the classroom, but I can see how the ideas and the different tweets that other educators share with the Twitter world can be useful in the classroom. On the surface, Twitter may seem useless but as you get into it and follow other educators, it becomes very useful, interesting, and fun.

My Slideshow

CC by lcatalano89 SA

Here is my "Florida" slideshow! After figuring out how to embed these photos into my slideshow, I can see how it is very useful to use this in blogs that I could possibly be sharing with my future students or with the parents of my future students. Enjoy!

My First Licensed Photo and A Few Thoughts on Copyright

CC by lcatalano89

CC by lcatalano89 -SA

This is my first licensed photo with Creative Commons! The original is the colored photo. After licensing, I edited this photo using Picnik. This is my first time using both sites! I have to say, it is fun editing your own images. I added about five photos today of some interesting pictures I have from all over the country. I have been fortunate to travel a few couple within the past one/two years, and I hope to be doing more traveling in the next few years overseas.

A few comments on Copyright laws...

I completely believe that these laws are necessary. Especially when using images and videos, one should always give credit to person who captured the certain type of media. Now that I have started to post some of my images on the web, I understand that it is very important to give credit to the person for their image.