Reflection and idea

This blog was one of the last things I did. Why, why, why?? I am not sure. I think I just did not understand that it was an assignment and how valuable it would be. It has been great! A place for reflection and collection.

I actually have an idea for another project. No I am not going to do it, not now anyway. But I could see developing it as a PGP goal some year.

What is it you say? I can see doing an entire piece on the Red Clover Books. You could have a slide show of book covers, summaries of the books, a class could write their own reflections, forms could be used to collect the data for voting (no more lost ballots--yes I did do that once). It could incorporate so many of the Google tools and be a real school collaboration without adding more work for teachers. Something they already do. Next year.

Embed video in a Google site

Getting my playlist installed in a Google site was a little tricky. It did not follow the "rules" that I was familiar with. To compound problems You Tube Channel has changed recently and a lot of the videos are for the old format. I did find a great video with excellent directions. The only thing I changed was I pasted all the code in the window and from that window I deleted the code that was not needed. Watch the video and you will see what I mean.

You Tube Play List

I have been puzzling out my You Tube channel. It was a struggle at first. Nothing seemed to work. And then the more I played and the more I clicked things started to fall into place. I figure another 20 more hours and I'll be close to an expert (:

I want to experiment with video and play lists:
--embed a You Tube video into my project WRS does G-Tools
--embed my Google Drive play list in WRS does G-Tools
--put a link (not sure if it would be a link or just my You Tube name) in my e-portfolio That might take a little more than 20 hours!

This might be my play list called Google Drive. I went through all the assignments and picked out the videos that Lucie featured that I liked. Fingers crossed.




It worked! Click on "Play List" at the bottom of the You Tube screen and you will see thumbnails of the videos. Now to figure out how to do it on the website. I tried a few things already but it didn't work but I'll just keep trying and I will get it!

Presentation

I love this tool! So easy and fun to use. I can see a teacher posing a question and giving each student a slide to answer the question posed. Lucie had us do fun things with this and I can see a classroom teacher replicating these ideas. Our Passion and Places to Visit.

Our district is focusing on Common Core standards Speaking and Listening. After creating their slide students could talk about their slide, why they chose what they did.

To keep the project from dragging it would be helpful to have an easy to access bank of pictures for students to select from.

The Standards » English Language Arts Standards

Spreadsheet

I had a lot of fun with the activity we did with this tool. I think eating the M&Ms was the most fun. I can see kids having fun with this. I can see pairs of kindergarten students sitting at tables sorting and counting out the M&Ms. I think this activity would suite itself to the Smart Board. Kids could go up and fill out the spreadsheet. The Smart Board has line recognition so the handwritten numbers could be converted to type. And wouldn't the kids think it was magic when the data in the spreadsheet was converted to a graph!

Sharing a document

I think this is a cool way to work on something. The librarians are always working on things. Most recently we worked on a Book Selection Policy. We did great work! But we only meet once a month.

That great document has gotten "lost." Who was working on what? Where is this piece? Who has that piece? Did we ever finish it?

Google docs to the rescue! I think I should make that a PGP goal. Find that Book Selection Policy, upload it to Google Drive, share it with the librarians, and let's finish it!

Blogging in the library

Naturally finding time to blog in the library -- during the library class is not possible. I see students once a week for 40-45 minutes. Within that short amount of time is transition (coming to library and leaving) and about 20 minutes for books selection, reading/sharing, silent reading, and check out.

How can I incorporate blogging and blogs?

I created two blogs thinking that teachers could use them as is or adapt them for classroom use.

White River School DCF Blog would be for the fourth and fifth grade students that read the Dorothy Canfield Fisher books. Students could use a blog comment about a book as a way to "prove" that they read the book. Students that read the required number of books get to vote for their favorite and get invited to the DCF luncheon. This blog could be adapted for the Red Clover books.

White River School READS is a blog that a teacher could use to by posing a question and asking students to answer via the comments box. I could be used as an activity for students that are always done first.