Expert Evaluation 572

I had a great experience in EdTec 572.  Terri was so accommodating to me, because I had already taken the 544 class and they were combined.  She was patient and very flexible in working with my individual needs for 572.  I learned a lot from the class and enjoyed learning how to use Google Pages for easy web publishing!  The tips of the week were very also very interesting and useful.  

I also really enjoyed the video project, finding it very rewarding and a fun project to enjoy our fellow classmates.  It was nice in 572 to finally put all of the theory into practice using the various tech tools.  

It was helpful with the final project to have various due dates through the progression of our project.   It made it easier and less daunting of a task.

The Emerging Technology Tools project would have been helpful to have a rubric before, personally was unsure of the expectations for the project.  

I had a great experience and learned a lot from this class! Terri was a knowledgeable, flexible instructor!

Houndsley and Catina

Houndsley and Catina is a cute series of beginning chapter books by author James Howe. The characters are a dog and a cat, the stories are silly tales of their friendship. All of the books we have read have good lessons about friendships and the kids really enjoy them! They are perfect beginning chapter books for any child!

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

The Incredible Book Eating Boy is a wonderful and funny tale about a boy who... eats books, and becomes very smart. After a while, the books begin to take a toll on his belly, and mind. He starts getting words confused, and can no longer control all the information he has eaten:) At the end of the story the boy decides that it is better to read the books to learn than to eat them, and begins to love reading and acquire all kinds of new information that stays put without any tummy aches:)
My students loved this book, especially the back cover, which has a bite mark in it:) It is a great read aloud for children!

My Video: Inspiring Women

I had the idea for my video from a book I was reading to my class Amelia to Zora Twenty Six Women Who Changed the World, which is a wonderful compilation! I decided to start gathering quotes and pictures of inspirational women over time.
I did my video in iMovie HD and the main problems I had was I gathered all the photos and did the quotes in PowerPoint and exported them as .jpg Then when I finally got them all into iMovie I decided to put the quotes and pictures together... so I went back to PowerPoint and then used the grab tool. It took a very long time:)
Anyway I have used iMovie before to make a video for my wedding, and also some projects with my class. However, it has been a year since I have worked with it. My biggest challenge was fitting the 30 second music clips with my photos, because once the song was getting good I had to cut it off and find another. Along with this I had problems smoothly transitioning from one song to the next...There must be an easier way to do this.
All in all it took me MUCH longer than I anticipated, partly because I was trying to make everything flow and look nice. I am pretty happy with the finished product and hope you enjoy it as well:)

EdTec 572 Reflections

I am so excited about this class, and have been having a lot of fun playing with all of the new tech tools we have been introduced to. It somehow does not seem like work when you are building an easy web page (compared to dream weaver) in Google pages:) I am continually surprised on how much I learn, and more excited how much I still don't know. With the constant advancement in technology it is difficult to keep up at times.
My favorite new technology tool is iGoogle, I love having my own homepage with bookmarks, widgets of topics I am interested all on one page without having to search around. It is a great time saver! I also enjoyed the discovery videos for the classroom, there is useful clips that I will be using in my instructional package.
I have been playing with Tux Paint, it is a great drawing program for Free, which is always a plus! The kids in my class have Kid Pix, but I will tell them about this program for their home computers. The program is very user friendly and childproof. I am excited to see the presentations tomorrow to pick a few more tools I can implement in my instructional package!

The Most Beautiful Thing in the World: A Chinese Folk Tale

We read The Most Beautiful Thing in the World: A Chinese Folk Tale, and the kids really loved the story, as did I:) It was a wonderful story about a king sending his three sons out with 100 gold coins to find the most beautiful thing, and the winner would take over the throne. One boy bought a painting, another a pearl from a dragon, and the youngest gave coins to the poor people of their city who were in great need. It was a very heartwarming story with an enriched vocabulary, which prompted a wonderful discussion about good deeds that can be done for others. I recommend the book, although I think it was published some time ago.

Mr. Potter's Pet

Mr. Potters Pet by Dick King Smith was a crowd pleaser, at least for my first graders. I read this book aloud and they loved it, although I had to dumb down some words such as 'stupid' because they call that the 's' word:) Very cute... all in all it was a wonderful book, with a very humorous, loving pet bird Amazon who is a mynah bird who speaks his mind. The kids laughed and begged everyday for me to read another chapter. Wonderful author and would be recommended for a read aloud :)

Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch

This was a wonderful Valentines story about a lonely man who accidently gets a nameless box of chocolates and a card in the mail for Valentines day.   Not knowing who the sender could be Mr. Hatch dresses up nice and now walks around town with a smile and good attitude trying to find his mystery Valentine.  The Valentine in the end was brought to him mistakenly, and he is sad for a few days, until his new friends are worried about him and cheer him up.  This is a great story about caring, helping out friends, having a positive outlook on life, and being the friend you want others to be to you.  I read it every Valentines Day and my classes always love it.  

Tikki Tikki Tembo

Tikki Tikki Tembo was a very fun folktale that we read this week. I remember reading this book as a child, it is ingrained in my memory, so I thought it would be fun to read to the children, tying it into our China unit.  The children really enjoyed it, and were soon chanting the tune tikki tikki tembo no sa rembo chari bari ruchi pi peri pembo all over school:) The story brought up the meaning of names in the Chinese culture which carried over into the classroom, children had fun looking up or telling the meaning of their name.  

We did our first attempt at answering comprehension questions with phrases, it went rather well:) 

All in all this was a wonderful book that the kids wanted to read over and over:) 

A Friend for Dragon

I have decided to blog about some of the books we are reading in class... and other events that may take place.  There are so many great books and ideas out there and as a teacher it is nice to see what other people are doing in their classroom.  

This past week we read A Friend for Dragon by Dav Pilkey  

 it was a wonderful and funny story about friendship.  Teaching the children what attributes good friends have.  My children enjoyed the book and laughed at the way the dragon makes friends with an apple.  Because there is a lot of dialogue in the book, I took the chance to talk about quotation marks and expressive reading.  

Another addition, our poem of the week was I Have a Secret Dragon by Jack Prelutsky, which we put up on the smart board and the children came up underlining the rhyming words, vocabulary words, antonyms and synonyms.  The children then wrote their own version of I have a secret _____________?  They had fun and overall it was a good week.

The dragon tied into our Chinese New Year celebrations, which we also had this past week.