January 30, 2009:
Note: A few weeks back, I spent a solid thirty minutes writing my blog only to have the whole thing erased when I saved/submitted it. Nevertheless, I was highly frustrated.
I love my ELMO! Ever since I received my document camera, I have been using nearly every day with every class. Currently, I have a student intern with me from the University of Maryland. My intern loves using the document camera too. After spending 10 minutes showing him how to set it up and use it, he has become a pro.
Because I am a visual learner and a visual teacher, I love the ability to easily explain an assignment not only through verbal directions, but also by showing the assignment to the whole class via the document camera. I teach three sections of ESOL LSN government, thus the ability to visually explain directions is crucial to my students. We spent a few classes writing letters to local legislators. I broke the assignment into three separate parts/classes. To begin each class, I helped the students’ complete different tasks by filling out the worksheet as if I was a student. The document camera allowed me to specifically explain how to answer each question.
Along with my ESOL students, I have enjoyed using the document camera in my AP Government and Politics course. Students often make presentations—the document camera allows students to visualize to the entire class answers to questions, thus allowing students to teach the class about different topics. The document camera is great at projecting current event articles. Because it takes up so much paper to make photocopies, the document camera allows me to project an article to the entire class while we discuss it’s contents.
Overall, I am thrilled to be using the document camera and I cannot imagine teaching without it!
February 9, 2009:
Over the last month, my student intern has been teaching full time. At first he wasn’t sure if he would want to use the document camera—I think he was nervous, but he loves the device as much as I do. Like me, he enjoys using the ELMO to explain directions and go over activities with our ESOL students.
Before our students took an LSN exam, he had students teach the class different parts of the review packet using the document camera. Instead of wasting large amounts of time having students make posters of information they already wrote down, he was able to have groups of students teach their classmates different aspects of the unit using their review packets. Students did a great job presenting and teaching the class. Additionally, students enjoyed helping each other review while using the ELMO.
I am looking forward to our next STEP meeting because we are receiving a digital camera. I am not sure how I will be able to incorporate the camera, though I am sure we will go over different teaching strategies.
Overall, I am very pleased I decided to be a STEP participant. Using new technology has rejuvenated me as a teacher because new tools make teaching more fun. When the teacher is having more fun, the students often feed on that enthusiasm.
February 23, 2009:
Since receiving my digital camera, I have been busy using it more as a video camera, rather than taking still photographs. In my experiences, students are enamored by the idea of performing a skit and watching themselves and their classmates perform these skits.
Therefore, to help students remember their “due process” rights, I put students into groups and they had to make skits that showed the police/FBI/ICE not providing “due process” rights to a group of people. At the end of the skits, students had to summarize which “due process” rights were being ignored by the government. In the end this assignment was much fun for the students and myself. Sometimes the laughter was so loud, I had to “shhhs” the crowd, but it was all in good fun. The recording of these skits and then showing them to students will help all students remember their “due process” rights, thus helping students be successful on their unit test.
My first class (2a) was my test class. I recorded the first videos in a high-resolution format, making each video a really large file (over 100 mb per video). During my planning period, I discovered how to change the resolution to a lower number, making it much easier to transfer the videos. This change also provided me more video space on my 2 gb memory card.
This was a great assignment. I look forward to using the video recording function more often in my classroom—it was super easy and the students had a great time, while learning a lot.
March 5, 2009:
Today, my student intern is in the midst of video taping students acting out a skit that shows the inner workings of the Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court case. After he video tapes all of the classes, he is going to use Windows Movie Maker to create one video that incorporates all of the classes. Because we teach three LSN classes and the skit has three parts, we are going to use one video from each class to make this video. Thus far, students have been enjoying being video taped. However, students get the most joy when they watch themselves in the videos.
By the end of the next week, I will have put together a large Photo Story project for my AP US Government and Politics class. Each student is responsible for a few Supreme Court cases—for each case, the student must state the significance of the case and they must create a simple drawing to help students remember the case on a piece of paper. I plan to use the document camera to take a photo of each court case—this will equal 40 sheets of paper since there are 40 Supreme Court cases. This Photo Story will provide students with a great study tool for their upcoming quiz on these cases and it will help students review for the AP exam on May 4th. I would like to incorporate an audio narration of each case, though this will depend on the amount of extra free time I have at my disposal.
March 16, 2009:
Last week, I had an epiphany—how about creating a wiki to help students, parents, and teachers prepare for the HSA? There are so many resources available via MSDE, PGCPS, and other school systems; however, none of this information/resources are centralized. I am in the process of putting all of this information together. Thus far, I have put many resources in the LSN Government section (my specialty) and in the “HSA Links” section. Check it out for yourself: http://nhs-hsa-review.wikispaces.com/
Today, I sent an email to a small group of colleagues gauging their interest in making this wiki a reality. So far, a biology teacher and English teacher have stated they would be interested in participating. I am awaiting word from other folks. One of my fears is that people might see the word ‘wiki’ and get scared since it might be new to them. I know that I was a bit fearful at first with wiki’s since I had never worked with them before, however, I am much more comfortable working with them after my experience in STEP.
One of the motivations for making this wiki is my experience learning about www.slideshare.net at our latest STEP meeting last week. The ability to turn PowerPoint presentations into widgets makes it possible for students/parents without access to PowerPoint software to utilize these multimedia resources.
