Communicating More Frequently, Mentoring

One of my goals this year is to communicate more frequently on this blog. I am going to try to update this on a weekly basis even if I don't have anything exceptionally noteworthy. I think that I've been getting away from the original intent which is to reflect on my journey of growth as a teacher integrating technology.

The Global Learner veterans at Adams 14 school district finished giving a two and a half day training for the new Global Learner mentees. I will be working with two fantastic teachers from other schools. I understand the feeling of frustration and being overwhelmed with all the new technology. Two years ago, I went through the same thing. If I had had a mentor I think it would have reassured me. Sometimes you just need a nudge in the right direction every once and a while.

Welcome Second Graders

Bienvenidos al salon de clase de Mr. Fisher. Vamos a utilizar mucha tecnologia interesante. Mi meta es usar la pantalla SmartBoard y aprender y usar VoiceThread. Vamos a trabajar con dos clases -una de Hanson y la otra de Haskin Elementary en Center, Colorado. Mi numero de telefono es 303-853-5862.
Welcome to Mr. Fisher's Classroom. We are going to be using some exciting technology this year. My goal is to use the SmartBoard and really work on VoiceThreads. I am excited to work with Mrs. Talamantes from Hanson and Ms. Martinez from Haskin Elementary.
My classroom phone number is 303-853-5862.

Practicing Embedding VoiceThread in blog

This post is just a practice for embedding a post during the training for the 2009-2010 Global Learners training. This was one of the more popular training segments and I think the appeal of Voicethread lies in it's simplicity. Many primary teachers were excited about using this with their younger learners who do not type or write well yet. More to come on VoiceThreads later.

practice

Animals Internet Inquiry student artifacts

Here I'm posting some student artifacts. The students created them in Windows Movie Maker. For copyright issues we didn't use the screen captures from kids.nationalgeographic.com but instead we found some photos on flickr.com under Creative Commons license. The students recorded their voices with Microsoft Sound Recorder. The students really showed their learning and they reflected on what part of the website was most helpful to them.
You can find the lesson plans here: https://sites.google.com/a/adams14schools.org/mrfisher/lessons

Overdue Kidspiration Needs vs. Wants Lesson

Here's my lesson for distinguishing needs vs. wants. The students created a multimedia file using Kidspiration to distinguish between needs and wants.
The objective of this lesson is to sort pictures to distinguish between a need and a want as well as to select picture files to add to illustrate understanding of the concept. The digital product will be a Kidspiration file. Students will create a multimedia file including a written or voice recorded sentence stating two needs in addition to listing 5 needs and 5 wants. Students will address technology and operations standards to manipulate media to create interactive media files in Kidspiration.
Learning Objectives:
Students will differentiate between a need and want.
Students will show they can drag and drop files, enter text and/or insert a voice recording.
Students will create, locate, and use digital media and digital media tools to create a multimedia file.
The lesson plans (as well as the other lesson plans from this year) are posted here.

First/Second Grade collaborative project.

To get my students ready for second grade I asked them to develop some questions that they are curious about. Each table group developed a question, edited it for errors, and filmed it on their own. I helped them add their questions in MovieMaker. Now the movie/questions are assembled in VoiceThread ready for Mrs. Kellogg's class. The VT can be found here: http://voicethread.com/share/487074/
Lisa and I will post again after we have finished.