Web 2.0 Applications

Join me on my journey as I explore new ways to engage my students via different web applications.

Here is my first application test - Glogster.

I can see my students having a lot of fun with this application but could be time consuming.  I think this could also be a very fun way to kick off a pbl or start a new topic.  I was also thinking it might be a fun thing to do to share a little about myself for the first day of school with my new students. I can do an all about me glog to kick of the year.  Sounds like a summer project.  Overall, site is easy to use and I can see myself using it a lot next year.




My next journey takes me to a social bookmarking site called delicious.  It helps me store all of my bookmarks in one webpage so I don't lose them and anyone else can access them.  I plan on searching for some other teachers on there so I can check out their links as well.  It's all about sharing the love right!.  If you find a great resource it is always great to share it with a colleague and that is what this site is all about.  Thank you delicious.com.  ; )

Here is a link to my bookmarks.  I will be adding a lot more.  https://delicious.com/claudia.montemayor

Adventure number 3 takes me to google docs.  I never realized how many benefits there could be to storing and keeping documents on the web.  I could collaborate with students on writing assignments in real time, we could collaborate on a math spreadsheet for a year end project.  I see a lot of great things that could happen on google docs.  We are currently working on our end of year video so I have started a document where I am going to have all of the kids post their favorite memory from 5th grade so we can use these quotes throughout the video.  Easy great way to organize and keep this information all in one place.  And if my computer ever dies I still have all of my documents safe and sound on the internet.

Here is a link to my document on google docs.  Feel free to make a comment.

Journey number 4 took me to one of my favorite new sites.  Pinterest.  I had been a fan of pinterest for a while but had not quite made the connection that it could help me with teaching resources.  So I started digging around and found some truly amazing resources.  You can find tons of great teaching ideas, lessons, freebies.  Just type in what you need and someone has a snapshot of something to share.  Another reason why I am a huge fan of Pinterest is because it just gives you a small image to check out that post.  No need to read a ton to see if you are interested in looking at it.  You can see the picture and if you want to know more then you just click and it takes you the site where the item was originally posted.  I have started a few different boards.  A cool teacher ideas, a crafts board and an inspiration board.

My 5th trip through the web has taken me to wiki spaces.  It is an online collaborative webpage that you invite people to and give them editing priviledges.  They can make changes to the page, add pictures, text to enhance the page.  I can see this as being a great team project page for kids to build and for a way for them to share what they have learned during the course of a project.

For now I am just starting my wiki and I plan to invite my kids to join it next year so we can add projects to it as the year progresses.

Here is a link to my wiki.

My next trip has taken me to test out a website where you can make some really fun videos for free.  Animoto.  The free version lets you make videos of up to 30 seconds that are really cute.  You can pay to upgrade your account to make longer videos.  Here is a quick video that I made of my class.

Click here to view video.

My final trip for now took me to Voki.  It is a fun site where you can add audio to an avatar that you create. It could be a very useful application for kids to use to explain their thinking on a topic.  This could be especially beneficial for students who are shy and don't want to speak in front of a classroom.  Here is a link to a welcome Voki that I created for the first day of school to share with my students.






Blog Research - My final journey for now was to visit a few of my other ECAP intern blogs and leave some feedback.  It is nice to see other people's styles and how everyone has different views on teaching.  It's good to have a great variety of teachers out there with different ideas.  Otherwise classrooms could get quite stagnant.  ; )  Here are the three blogs that I visited; Mrs.Crawfordscorner , Blog the Teacher Said and Mrs. Arensman's blog room.