As the technology teacher I use multimedia on a daily basis in my classroom. All of my students use Power Point to present facts and ideas. Most recently, I had my kindergartners create one PP slide with their name and choice of a favorite item they could not live without. We had read a story and watched a DVD just prior to their creation to give them ideas about a special stuffed animal, blanket or toy. We are now using the voice feature of Power Point to record their story in their own words. Our final assessment piece will be a story, created and read by kindergartners. I have also used Publisher on several occasions to create brochures that went along with a 4th grade regions project and with the 5th grade school newsletter. It is very easy for the students to update a Publisher template off the student file portion of our server and link the finished document to our school website. Our school principal has also just begun to use Publisher to send out his "Weekly Word" newsletter. Unfortunately our school video camera is not digital (we need an upgrade) but I have used my personal camera and video camera to record classroom events and play back student presentations. It always amazes me the insight they have into how to make other student's presentations better. Music is so important to the students at Woodmont. We constantly create raps and lyrics to go along with important lesson concepts and I occasionally play music to set the mood in the computer lab. On Wednesday, we will be recording Fox 2 News as they come to Woodmont to broadcast live from our 2nd grade classrooms. We earned the honor of having our student letters to Obama delivered to the President himself by one of our local representatives.
I want to continue to use Power Point and the voice recording options to excite students creating reports. I would also like to have the 3rd and 4th grade create a games challenge using power point and the slide hyperlink and transition features to reveal answers. Finally, the 5th grade will be continuing to utilize the versatility of Publisher to create graduation invitations for our Kindergarten, invitations to our Peace Makers project and the opening of our nature trail.
The digital camera and scanner has been a recent favorite technology project for my students. They love to take a picture, especially backgrounds, scan the pictures into the computer and then use a drawing program to draw themselves or other items into the picture. We have had alot of fun doing weather reports, taking pictures and comparing them from day to day. Finally, I have been scanning and saving student work into digital files to create student portfolios. These will be saved on personal flash drives at the end of the year.
Woodmont Academy
Technology + Students = Excitement!
About Me
- Gail Morad
- I am an elementary technology teacher in a charter school with 300 students, K-5.
Gail, I like all of your ideas for your young students. You are truly maximizing their potentials by offering them practical classroom related activities to accomplish with PowerPoint and other multimedia tools.
ReplyDeleteI bet your students still smile when they think about their letters to the president. That was an awesome idea.
I also like your idea of using a camera with respect to teaching weather concepts. I can see how having a time line of daily pictures to compare and contrast would bring more awareness to the numerous differences between the seasons.
I love the idea of recording the 1st graders talking about their favorite item. Do they have a way to take home a copy of the file? As a parent I would love that kind of thing. Way more of a keepsake than some of the construction paper junk my kid brings home now (of course, he's only 3, so...)
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you do some really cool projects with your students. I also like that you have the 5th grades make the invites for the kindergarten graduation. I bet that really encourages a sense of school community!
Gail, I enjoy reading your blogs. There is no doubt that you are enthusiastic about your students and the way you integrate technology. It’s great to read that you are introducing kindergarten students to PowerPoint; but I have to ask, is this challenging? Our kindergarten students have used KidPix, but I just can’t see them using PowerPoint so early in their technological lives. You’re doing wonderful things for the students at Woodmont.
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ReplyDeleteGail-
ReplyDeleteWow you inspire me to be a more creative teacher and tech savy in the classroom. I love all your ideas of technology intergration for all ages of learners. As a 7th science teacher, we do a lot of projects, experiments and data collection. Today, I find my students are more interested in presenting there findings using multimedia, rather then poster paper and markers. My 7th grade students have grown up with this technology, so it's second nature to them. Often they teach me new and better ways to intergrate technology.
One of the main themes I see coming out of our blogs and in technology usage in general is the idea of community. I see how you are encouraging each other, learning from each other, and how you talk about your students doing the same. This is great!!!
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