Wacky Web Tales

Web Site: Wacky Web Tales - URL: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/



Description: This site allows students to insert specific parts of speech into pre-written stories to create fun and entertaining short clips or poems. It also explains the different parts of speech and gives examples, if needed. This site is geared toward third grade, but could be used with other grade levels.

Favorite Websites

Picking three favorite websites sounded challenging at first, but it didn't take long to come up with five. My first two websites are educational and ones that I use often in my teaching. The other three are personal favorites.

2 Educational Websites:

http://www.hssd.k12.wi.us/ This first website is our school district site. I use it almost daily in my teaching. If you visit the site and go into library and then elementary digs it is full of useful activities that I can use with my students for teaching and reviewing content related skills. Having only been in my school district for two years, I am still finding new activities to use with my students.

http://www.brainpopjr.com/ Brain Pop Jr. is another great website that is fairly new. Our district subscribes to the original Brain Pop, but next year we will have access to the Jr. version. It is an educational website that provides brief movie clips explaining various subjects and skills that are taught at the K-2 grade levels. My students are fully engaged when viewing the movies and each movie is followed by an optional quiz. A five day trial membership is available for this site, and each week there is a free "movie of the week" that can be viewed.

3 Personal Websites:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr I am in the process of learning spanish as a personal and professional goal. I find this website helpful in translating english into spanish. It can be utilized with many other languages besides spanish.


http://www.apple.com/itunes/ I really enjoy listening to music while exercising or just relaxing. This website is a great source of music for me to listen to or to put on my ipod for listening pleasure while I'm running.


http://www.durhamtownship.com/portfolio/index.php I am originally from Pennsylvania and often miss the area for its beautiful landscapes, nature, and history. I was recently made aware of this photographers website. It's a must see!!! Her photography is available for purchase. I have yet to purchase something, but I am awestruck by her skills as a photographer and the content of her work.

3 Lessons

After quite a bit of exploring I found three valueable lessons/websites that will be useful in my classroom. The first site is:
http://www.newton.k12.ks.us/tech/second_grade_internet_links1.htm
This website is similar to our school district website in that it is full of games and activities that connect to the second grade benchmarks that I need to teach. A variety of subjects are covered that include fun practice activities for telling time, counting change, working on place value, practicing various phonics skills, as well as other relevant elementary lessons. I could incorporate these activities in a variety of ways as teaching, practice, and review activities both in the classroom and in the computer lab.

The second site is:
Merit Software • www.bookpunch.com • 800-753-6488 • 212-675-8567http://www.bookpunch.com/intro/literature_activities.php?gclid=CJamqrDtlpECFQlxOAodElV0OA
This site, Book Punch, was geared to third through fifth grade readers, which would be students in my higher reading groups. It allows students to read various chapter books and links specialized comprehsion and writing activities to the books. The students answer the questions on the computer, and have choices as to what questions they would like to answer or respond to for each book and chapter. In addition it assists students with the writing process as they type up chapter summaries and comments to questions by giving writing tips and suggestions throughout the process. The only downside is that it looks like it is only a trial for a period of time and would need to be purchased. I plan on talking to our technology committee to see if our school district could purchase such a program. It seems to have a great integration of reading, writing, and reflecting. I would use this program as part of my guided reading as a follow-up, independent activity.

The third site is:
http://www.education-world.com/tools_templates/temp_dream.doc
Educational World website

I liked this site because it emphasizes goal setting. In a recent community conversation we talked about having students be more accountable for setting their own goals. This site has worksheets and activities that help students to set a variety of goals such as: daily, weekly, and overall goals and contracts that they can individualize to meet their needs. I would use this at the second grade level, but of couse it could be used with a large range of students.

"Blogging" an article by Diana Eastment

Well...from this article I have learned that blogs seems to come in an endless variety as unique as the individuals creating and posting on them. The uses for them with students has great potential for allowing students to reflect, creative write, or simply get them excited about writing by exploring it in a new and exciting form.

At this point, is seems as if writing in a blog is most beneficial for the person creating it and posting entries in it, as a way of reflecting and putting information out for others to view. In addition, teachers can use it as a new and exciting way to motivate students to write.

Unfortunately, it seems a little difficult to locate information located on various blogs, since the article mentions that it is a hit or miss process. They do mention some blog searches that are somewhat helpful such as: Blogwise, Best of the Blogs, and Weblog guide (in Guardian's). I have yet to explore these sites, but plan on exploring them in the future. I can see how a personal recommendation could be a good starting point for finding what blogs to explore first. This article listed many other websites that reference various types of blogs. Speaking of this...I guess I need to ask...what do the letters EFL and ELT stand for? I'm curious...

Blogs, Threaded Discussions Accentuate Constructivist Teaching

I decided to start with this article since it related to blogs and teaching. I liked the how one of the professors used the term "wild experimentation" to explain using blogs. Professor Pedro Hernandez-Ramos used blogs with three main goals in mind, which included: the introduction of blogs to his students, the sense of self it would offer to them, and that it allowed the students to connect with a network of peers. He mentioned that learning is a social process, and I would agree, because I always learn by talking with others. What he was doing with his students really seems to relate to what we are doing in this first technology course.

He talked about the mixed feelings this caused with his students regarding an unclear audience which also makes sense. I think there is always some uncertainty when you are doing something for the first time. In addition, I like how he mentioned that the blogs allowed the professor to see a different side of his students that he might not see in person.

It seems as if this professor is still experimenting with the process of using blogs in his teaching, and mentions that he has done limited analysis. Even with this in mind, learning is always a process for both the student and teacher.

This article created three questions for me. First, should we be viewing the blogs of our fellow classmates? Second, how would we do this? Finally, do we need to create access to our blog?

Hooray...I did it!

Hooray! My first blog. I know I have A LOT to learn, but as with my running, I know it will take baby steps to accomplish my goal. I always try to celebrate the small accomplishments along the way.