The videos below are a great way to grasp the difference between software and hardware.
For the next few weeks, the students will create an avatar choosing between two free internet sites listed in the Useful Programs sidebar. They will capture the screen and paste the image in Paint. In Paint, they will edit the image and save it to their computer. They will insert the image in a blank slide using Microsoft Power Point. In Power Point, they will use a vertical wordart to type in their first name. Using the text tool, they will create words from the letters in their name that describe them. They will save their slides on their computer. Using Google Docs, they will each import their slide in to one presentation to create a “Get to Know My Class” portfolio. The pdf instruction files for this project can be found by clicking on the picture below.
The Intermediate student body at large of WOISD has discovered commenting. While visiting the site where the students’ slideshows are posted, classmates discovered the ability to post comments to the slideshow of their peers. It did not take long before the discussion of appropriate and inappropriate commenting arose. One student left a negative comment on a friend’s slideshow in jest. He told his friend about it and explained it was just a joke. I realized we needed to quickly have a discussion concerning how comments are viewed by a global audience, and a joke between friends becomes public very quickly. The parent of the student whose slideshow was commented on would not have viewed it as a joke. I know our students will be sharing comments often, and I encourage the activity as long as they abide by the rules on the Rules for Commenting page of this blog.
For more on internet safety, click on McGruff above.
I thought of a solution to the eight computer limit in etherpad. I did this project with two classes today because they were not in the computer lab last week. I realized I could open three separate etherpad documents and have eight students typing in each of the three for a total of 24 students completing the survey at one time. Then I just had to copy and paste the three documents into a word processor or into wordle. That eliminated the time the students were idle when waiting on an available computer. I will remember that if I do a similar project in the future. Please watch our slideshow to see the resulting word clouds by clicking on the picture below!
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This has been an exciting week in technology. I introduced the students to the definition of Web 2.0. To demonstrate a Web 2.0 tool, the students answered survey questions by sharing a document in etherpad. Etherpad will allow up to eight students to open and work in the same document. The students were really excited to see how they could all be typing in the same document at the same time. The survey had each student type in the last name of their teacher and then type in their responses to the following categories:
A pdf of the survey can be found on my (Nina Peeery) podcast page of woisd.net website. The students typed in their answers with a space between each answer. For those choices that contained two words, the students used a tilde(~) between the words. Students shared the eight computers. When all the students had typed in their responses, I corrected any spelling and capitalization errors. Then I selected the text and pasted into wordle. Wordle takes the text and makes a word cloud out of it. The students were able to visually see the most popular choices in their class by the size of the word in wordle. I printed out a black and white copy for each student. I used the program blockposters to make 11X17″ posters of each class which I placed on the outside wall of the computer lab with the heading “The Flavor of My Class.” While I was printing the student copies, the students took turns calling on each other to come to the computer connected to the projector and change the font, layout, or color of the wordle. One problem I encountered was what to have the students do when they were waiting for their turn on the computer. To occupy their time, I laminated the survey forms and had them mark their choices with a dry erase marker. When they completed typing in their choices, they used a tissue to erase their forms. Another problem that came up was the students being confused over seeing the text being generated by others when they were also trying to type. I had to encourage them not to touch the mouse so they could not accidentally place the cursor on someone else’s line. All in all, this project engaged the students and produced a lot of excitement. We discussed how wordle could be used to help them in writing. They could copy their text and paste it in to wordle to see if they were overusing a word. If they could not think of synonyms they could use it its place, they could use the word processor’s thesaurus to find new words to use.
Watch the video of Mrs. Smith’s fifth graders sharing a document in etherpad and creating a word cloud in wordle.
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Finally, a workable solution to allowing teachers, parents, and students to view the Microsoft Powerpoint presentations the students completed before Spring Break. Click on the teacher’s name below to view the slide shows for that class. Enjoy!
3rd Grade
4th Grade:
5th Grade:
OK. My idea was to have the students upload their own Powerpoint presentations to a slidesharing website like slideshare.net. Using my google email account, I created attached accounts by adding the computer name to my name, so that the students could log in to slideshare using their computer name. So far, so good. The upload is no problem, and because these slideshows are small in size, the upload does not take log. Herein is my problem. I want the teachers to be able to easily find the slideshows of their students, without pulling up anybody elses. There are some inappropriate things on this website, and I do not want students, parents, or teachers to accidently come across anything else. I am having a very hard time coming up with a filename or tags that will only pull up a certain group of slideshows. If anyone else has encountered this problem, I would be most grateful to hear your advice on the matter. In the meantime, I will continue to try to make this work.
I have had questions recently from co-workers about copyright laws. I came across this table at http://www.mediafestival.org/copyrightchart.html that may be helpful in answering those questions. Feel free to print the pdf file below.