Janine Patterson's Blog

reflective podcast

janinepatterson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:55:41 +0000

So this is another attempt to get my podcast up here…hopefully this will work! I couldn’t figure out how to embed it so I made a link instead.

I reviewed two tools that I recently learned how to use.

podcast

my futrure class

janinepatterson — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:30:58 +0000

In my future class, I want to have an fun environment where all students are able to learn and explore. I want my students to feel safe in the class and I want to ensure that I teach in a way where all the different learning styles are used. I would get older students to come into the class as mentors and help out and build relationships with my students. I would also like to have an area with comfy chairs, couches and/or giant pillows where students can read and socialize and just be in a comfortable atmosphere. I like the idea of having tables throughout the class where students move around so they are able to connect with each other socially and be able to easily work together in different groups.

I would also take lots of field trips so students can see and learn about things first hand. I would also like to have guests speakers come in to talk to my class and share their expertise with us. I also think it would be fun to decorate the class in themes that go along with what we are learning, or at least have a lot of student work and posters displayed all throughout the classroom. I want it to be a warn, fun and colourful place!

I would love to have a smartboard, even though I don’t quite know how to use it yet, but I would learn. I would also like to have some computers available to my students so they can use many of the different tools that are available through the computer and Internet. I would like to have a classroom blog where we can write about what we are learning and a even post pictures or videos showing it as well. My students could even post some of their work or write about what they are learning for the rest of the world to see and comment on. I would would allow the students to use cameras or video cameras to capture what we are leaning and exploring as well as use for projects. I would like to use skype and connect with different classrooms and people who are experts on different topics as well. I am excited to start teaching and want to always be looking for ways to improve my classroom and try new things.

photo credits:

couch- http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspicacious/303144541/in/photostream/

classroom with tables- http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspicacious/303144538/in/photostream/

microphone and computer- http://www.flickr.com/photos/49766127@N00/113323389

hmmm…

janinepatterson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:12:52 +0000

does anyone know how to get a podcast recorded with audacity onto a blog??? I saved it using all the export options but when i try to put it on here it doesn’t work??

podcast review #2

janinepatterson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:05:32 +0000

For the non-educational podcast I watched a few different video podcasts. They were from National Geographic – Wild Chronicles Digital Shorts and the two that I watched were called Sahara Trees and Panama Golden Frog. The description for the Sahara Trees from itunes is: The African nation of Mauritania borders the largest desert in the world, the Sahara. Westward expansion of the desert is encroaching upon the nation, threatening to swallow homes, farms and everything else in its path. Until recently, local residents had nowhere to run from the sands. Thanks to the acacia tree, they may not need to run any longer. The description about the Panama Golden Frogs is: Considered a symbol of luck and prosperity, Panama’s golden frog is an important part of this country’s natural heritage. But a deadly fungus is spreading like a plague through the forest and the situation is critical for these tiny frogs. Wild Chronicles joins some intrepid researchers going to extraordinary lengths to save these endangered creatures from extinction.

Both of these videos were very interesting to watch!

podcast

janinepatterson — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:26:04 +0000

The fist podcast that I listened to was called “A picture is worth a 1000 words” it was from “KidCast: Learning and Teaching with Podcasting” and it was by Dan Schmit. The description on itunes of the one that I listened to was, A picture is worth a thousand words… let’s prove it! Learning to describe what we observe in depth is a valuable skill that is connected to seeing and thinking more deeply. This episode will provide you with another great podcasting activity that will develop descriptive observation in your students. We’ll use photographs to create a guided visual tour in GarageBand.

I found this podcast very interesting and think that he had a great idea for how to help students develop the ability to develop better analysis skills and be able to build more descriptive narratives. His idea was to use pictures and come up with 20 questions about the picture. These questions would then turn into a dialogue of question and answer which could then become an interesting narrative about the picture. He then told how you can turn that into a podcast with pictures that would help the audience visualize specific things you are talking about. I think that this is a great activity for students to try.

almost done the final project!

janinepatterson — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:59:58 +0000

So today Amy and I met to try and finish our final project…but as usual, there were some difficulties actually getting a computer to use and then trying to

figure out how to make our video. We started using imovie…and after using that for a while and trying to figure out why it looked so much different then when we made that short video for class, realized it was because we had used garageband then! We continued to use imovie, although we had some difficulties trying to figure out how to expand or shorten the picture length to match up with the audio we had with it. We did almost finish but ran out of time so we are going to meet again on monday to finish up everything. Hopefully we will be able to figure out our picture problem and be able to find some good background music! If anyone knows of any good sites to find good background music please let me know! We looked at jamendo and podsafeaudio but couldn’t find any good music there without vocals. Hopefully we will be able to figure this all out!

Here are some pictures we are using for one of our poems!

snowflake: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48600090482@N01/70144228

catching snow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/piper/3063168495/

K12 #3

janinepatterson — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:00:48 +0000

For my third presentation, I watched What Did You Do in School Yesterday, Today and Three Years Ago? by H Songhai. This presentation talked about different ways that you can use technology to document and organize what you do in high school, or anywhere really, using cell phones, MP3 players, cameras, and online tools.

He talked about how many students have the tools they need to document what they are learning but they instead only use it for social interactions, like cell phones, cameras and MP3 players. He told how he encouraged his students to use the tools they had with them while on a field trip and how his class is paperless and he gets his students to use these tools all the time to document what they are learning. He explained different ways that you can use them to continually document what you are learning about so that you will always have it to refer back to. He talked about the importance of bloging and taking screen shots of what you are looking at and learning about online. Most of the sites he mentioned I am familiar with, or at least heard of, a few though I haven’t heard of and I am interested to check them out, especially google book search.

I really enjoyed this presentation, I think that this approach could be very useful for students and everyone to use because then what you learn is organized, documented, out there for people to see, and you will never loose it!

Pictures of the Skype chat with the Kinderkids!

janinepatterson — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 06:04:01 +0000

Here are the pictures from the video skype call that I did with Amy and Maria Knee and the Kinderkids! It was so much fun to do! I hope that we can do it again soon!

K12 #2

janinepatterson — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:32:56 +0000

The second presentation that I watched was called Never Too Young by Sharon Betts. In this presentation, she talked about how you are never too young to use technology and she gave three solutions to technology tools that can be used in the classroom, especially for the younger grades.

The first tool she talked about was ed.VoiceThread. This is a tool where you can post pictures and then attach a voice to it as a commentary. You can also leave comments either by writing, or by recording your voice. I have learned some about voicethread lately and think that this would be a great tool for younger children because they don’t have to worry about typing anything, they can just use their voices.

The second tool she talked about was dipity. This tool can be used to help with order and organization in the form of a time liner. One of the examples she gave was showing what a kindergartners day looks like. She had pictures in a sequence from when they got onto the bus to go to school, to when they came home. Another example she gave was learning the months of the years. For the months, some of the things she had under each were videos, pictures, poems, and holidays that occurred in that month. There is also a place where parents or students can comment.

The third tool she talked about was bloging. The bloging site that she was showing was called 21classes. She talked about some of the benefits bloging has to even the youngest students and showed how to make a post and highlighted some features within the site.

I agree that these tools could be very beneficial to teachers, especially ones of the younger grades. I have experienced the success of blogs in younger classes through my online mentoring with a kindergarten class in New Hampshire, Maria Knee and the Kinderkids. The teacher writes about things that the class is doing, and the students post pictures that they have made and they each have animal voki‘s where they record their voices and it looks like the animal is talking.

Sharon also made a wiki that has all of this information on is, the wiki is at http://nevertooyoung.wikispaces.com/. I enjoyed this presentation and the information that she gave for teachers who teach the younger grades.

priceless

janinepatterson — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:16:35 +0000

So I finally figured out how to make a mastercard commercial! It took me a very long time! My computer was being slow and my microphone keep on deciding not to work…but here it is!