Blog #8

21st Century Learning and Communicating Tools

                 I know for a fact that EDM310 has opened my eyes to so many things that I never thought existed. Being a new individual to this new major, I thought teaching would be so bland, with not many resources available. Well, I was extremely wrong! After doing some research on different technological things I can do in my classroom to engage the students, I found a few things that I would absolutely love to use.

                The first site that I found was Voki, a fun little site where kids can create and personalize an Avatar, a cartoon image used for posting for themselves! I plan to have a class blog for my future third graders, and letting the children create Avatars for their profile picture would be fun, interactive, and lets them be creative. Sometimes, parents don't like the fact that teachers have pictures of their kids on them, and Avatars will help alleviate that anxiety and benefit the kids and parents in the long run.

               Another site that I found is called Animoto, a fun site that lets kids create stunning and beautiful slideshows of anything that they are learning at the time. Students can add music, photos, and just about anything to personalize their presentations! I am all about letting my future kids express their inner selves and allowing their creative juices to flow, and this amazing site lets them do just that and accomplishes so much more! I already have so many ideas in my head that involves using Animoto, like letting the students create their own story, designing a movie trailer of their favorite book, a video analysis of a chapter in a book we are reading, be it science, social studies, or english, and even make a show for show-and-tell! Animoto encourages the kids to go above and beyond just regular school work

           Next, I found PearlTrees. This was the most unique site that I've ever come across. Basically, it allows me as a teacher, and my students as well, to create a list of URLs to collect from sites that we may be interested in or that may be relevant to a lesson we are learning. After we find those URLs, we organize and share them on our individual profiles so that the whole class has the opportunity to see what others have found. For instance, if I were to implement a science project, I will tell the students to look up and research their topic and post their URLs of the sites to PearlTrees. That way, if any student is interested in what the other is doing their project on, they can see what they looked up and maybe find a new interest!

           After PearlTrees, I found Certificate Street. Now, this is a perfect site to use when you notice outstanding conduct or great citizenship in kids. It is a site where you can create your own certificate for them to print out and give to them. It will motivate the students to continue to do good in their studies and behavioral conduct. I would like to create certificates for highest projects grades and such so that it will keep the kids on their toes and encourage them to do the best in everything they do.

        Last but definitely not least, I found Study Shack. This is probably the most valuable thing that I will use in my future classroom. It is a site that provides online flashcards for just about any subject. You just type into the search engine what you want to study and Study Shack will pull the appropriate flashcards up for you. In my days in school, flashcards helped me a great deal, and I believe that my students will definitely benefit them in their studies. Using repetition like that helps them memorize the material that they are learning more easily, and it is probably the most effective way to study. So Study Stack will run rampant in my classroom!

            I'm so glad that I took the time to research these very fun, interactive sites! My students will definitely love them, and hopefully I can make a difference in their school career with them.