Digital Storytelling-Week 1

I can see using digital storytelling in my classroom in Social Studies. We learn about the five regions of the United States. There is tons of information to learn about because in each region is so unique. Right now we are covering the western region and I could see storytelling about the 49ers, The Oregon Trail, Yellowstone, or even Death Valley. I could even do one for each state in the region that would highlight some important ideas about the state. That would be 50 digital stories...so maybe I could pick one or two from each region.

Rubrics/WebQuests

For our last week of class, we learned about a great site that creates rubrics for you and we got to investigate/evaluate some WebQuests. The rubric creator was a great tool, especially if you are not used to or have never create a rubric before. I am one of those people :). Being an elementary teacher, and teaching Kindergarten previous to this year, I have not had a use. However, now teaching Third Grade, I can see a few projects down the road that these would be useful for. Not just for the kids to see that the expectations are clear but for the parents who are helping the kids.

We also talked about WebQuests and explored so great resources for them. I found some that would be great to use in my curriculum. My favorite one was a project about investigating the midwest region and picking a state to move to in that region. What a great hands on experience for the kids to use to apply their knowledge about what we are learning in Social Studies.

Another thing that I found very useful in class this week was the sharing of each groups Internet saftey/Cyberbullying lesson plans. All of them were very well thought out and easy to implement.

Internet Safety/Cyberbullying

In class this week we had discussions about cyberbullying and Internet safety. After talking about what they are, an important question was asked-when are kids taught about Internet safety? With all there is to cover in the curriculum, I think that both of these topics are passed over in schools, when it should be something that students and parents are aware of. Children are surrounded by technology at very early ages. I think that the sooner you teach them about Internet safety the better. We can lock down computers and put up filters, but I think it is more important to teach children what to do when something goes wrong rather than try to protect them from everything. I also think another important piece to the puzzle is to teach the parents how to monitor Internet usage and teach their children to be proactive rather than reactive about the Internet. Again, the issue to train parents is time. There is a lot of information out there for kids and parents. What I would like to do is add a blurb in my monthly newsletter about the importance of educating children on Internet safety and guide the parents to my web site for links that will help them to discuss the topic at home with their children. Our study group developed a lesson plan that I can use with my class. I really want to give it a try with my students, it should be very useful. Thanks to my group for stepping outside their boxes to create an elementary lesson!!

Class 2- Filimentality/Online Quizzes

This week we took more time to examine websites that would be a useful resource for lesson plans and interactive materials. I always like to look at these sites because I can explore all subject areas. I always come upon really neat ideas, but the problem that I find is that after that night of class I forget about them. I have so much to teach and I am just getting to know the third grade curriculum so it is hard for me to look into what I am going to do in the future. I have learned to look for things that I have already covered so that I can use it to enhance my lessons for next year. This is where my Delicious account will come in handy. We also took a look at some online quiz resources. This is not something that I could use with my class, but it was sure fun to explore and see how people spend their time creating quizzes. Do we really need to make a quiz about what we should wear that day?! I learned our society is quiz happy :).