Reflection on Final Project

Seems appropriate that we are in the middle of a typhoon and my final project is on weather.

This project is an integrated unit with first grade's weather unit. Last year I read a book that was about clouds and what to do in severe weather. I briefly tied in some library skills by discussing the differences between fiction and nonfiction books. We looked at the call number and I pointed out where nonfiction books are in the library. After the book students played a weather matching game that they loved. It was made by a weather channel and the kids would flip the cards (about 25) and match the photos of in pairs. When a pair was matched it disappeared.

I wanted to improve on this lesson and use the vocabulary words and photos from the Grade 1 FOSS science kit to create my own game. This would be integrated in the curriculum much better and have a stronger impact on student learning. I did a search online for a PowerPoint or Smartboard card game but none of them did quite what I envisioned. I have started the PowerPoint and I can create cards and match them but have yet to figure out how to make them fly off the board once they are matched with the correct pair. If anyone knows of a different program (flash for dummies) or a way to do this, please let me know.

Nancy came through for me again and sent me a memory game. I have finished the game in Smart Notebook and the flash is already done for me so I don't have to learn it. Nancy also showed me the website songs for teaching that has a weather song.

Kill the Widget

Kill the Wabbit! Elmer Fudd shouts at Bugs Bunny, his archenemy in Looney Tunes cartoons.

After my widget war, I too, have a battlecry:

Kill the Widget!

Let me explain.

I've been working with a grade 5 teacher who wants to create digital portfolios with his students blogs.  The teacher wanted to create a blog page with students titled, My Reads, which launched me on a quest to find a website that students could use to track books they have read and write reviews. 

I didn't want it to be a quest.

It should have been easy. I've used Shelfari and Library Thing. But it wasn't easy and during my quest Elmer Fudd phrases kept popping into my head: Bewieve it or not, I'm hunting a certain wascawwy wabbit /widget.

I tried putting Shelfari's shelf widget on my blog. Pwetty cwafty, eh? Wrong! This is where the wabbit/widget outsmarts me. No matter what I did the Javascript kept deleting when I'd try and post, leaving me only a link. The teacher wanted the visual so students could show parents their digital portfolios during conferences.  Check out Jeff Utecht's great posts on digital portfolios. I  tried the only other social network I know for reading books called, The Library Thing. This too has a widget but the javascript would delete when I embedded the information into my Word Press blog. It acted the same as Shelfari. I worked with the IT department and tried all sorts of ways to get the wily widget to work, but no luck. The quest ended in failure. I was told the widget  wouldn't work.

My alter ego, Elmer Fudd, grabs his hunting rifle and pulls the trigger. Blast! I kill the widget.

Elmer Fudd  was always remorseful after he thinks he killed the wabbit. "Oh what have I done?" he says. "I've killed the wabbit. Poor wittle bunny! Poor wittle bunny." I too, am remorseful. I talk to Nancy Gorneau, grade 3-5 IT Coordinator, who tells me to try Good Reads which is supposed to work with Word Press blogs. It works and looks great! Look at the bottom of my column to the right. The teacher is happy. The IT Department is happy. I am happy. I also wearned my wesson... next time I  have twubble wid widgets I'm finding Nancy.

In2Books

Beware of out-of-control hyperlinks. I have 13 Internet Explorer boxes open from jumping from one link to another.

I have been trying to find an online collaborative project with other librarians. No luck. I found a good website on library curriculum but it was informative not collaborative.

 I would like to do something with books and getting students excited about reading. I found an article on Collaborative Learning Gaining Traction in Classrooms and Libraries by Sarah Amandolare that linked me to the website EPals. From this site I found In2Books which links adults with students' reading books.  The program is for students doing book reviews in grades 3-5. Students choose books from a booklist and write a review.There is a checklist to see if certain story elements are in the review. The students write to another adult about the book they have read. The adult writes back to the student and they discuss the book. The adult has gone through a screening test and the teacher has control of the communication. The review that comes from the adult goes to the teacher who approves it and sends it on to the student. At this point I'm starting to wonder if all these bells and whistles cost money. So I open a few more hyperlinks to add to my collage of cascading open browsers and find that the program is free if you are a Title 1 school in the U.S. and costs $360-$460 US dollars if you are not.

Here's a link to a video explaining the program http://images.epals.com/In2Books_Class_08/Videos/I2BVideo/I2BVideo.htm.

I wiped the browser(s) clean and tried a different track looking up online book clubs. I found one I liked called Spaghetti Book Club. It has a wide range of books and the web interface is easy to use. Two of the bottom links didn't work and when I clicked on the About section it said there were membership fees.

I need to mull over this topic. The In2Books collaborates with adults and I want students to collaborate. The Spaghetti Book Club doesn't collaborate so it doesn't really apply. What would be more valuable? Scott has Pen Pals with grade 2 students in the U.S. and I see the value in it. Perhaps linking with another classroom in the world and sharing reading is the way to go such as the ES 1001 Tales. ES 1001 Tales has a great setup and I could get lots of ideas from it. I used a Wiki a couple of years ago with books and it became too unruly with no organization to the books. I also had problems with students accidentally deleting each others reviews. Of course it didn't help that I didn't know what I was doing. I think the blog setup would work better as a collaborative tool because of the easy way to organize using categories.