Phew!

I have been learning but have been too busy to post. I am so thankful I have former posts so that I can refer to them. The ideas everyone has shared are fantastic.

I love some of the more recent tools I've explored. Glogster is incredible and if you haven't visited Jaclyn's blog you have to see what one of Leslie's students created. I also like Wallwisher and we are going to have our fourth graders try it out the first week of school saying something about fourth grade and what they are looking forward to.

After the children receive their laptops on the 23rd one of the first activities we will do is give a "shout out" about how cool having a laptop is.

Skype is a great tool and we've got to connect our children and experts and perhaps schools in colonial towns. When we study the American Revolution it would be interesting to have the children connect with a school in England. I can imagine the questions the children would create to ask British students. About ten years ago my students read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The setting of the story is London and we had video conferences with a school in England.

As you can see by the date, I am immersed in school. Wasn't Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs amazing! Oh what to cut! What to keep! Tis a toughy!

Thanks again to you, Sandy! You have introduced me to so many valuable tools and I must continue to learn and choose which ones will help prepare my children for 2017 and beyond!

Thank you Sandy!

I followed your helpful directions and have been successful in adding my recorded voice to the Animoto story below. I love Leslie's idea of using Animoto to create movie trailors for our Jerry Spinelli author's study. Jaclyn's kindergarten/fourth grade description of the colonial fair is another excellent use and one I want to try for sure. Now I need to figure out how to create classroom accounts. I remember reading about creating "fake" email accounts for each student. I will investigate. By the way the Animoto I created is not one I spent much time on and the result is indicative of this, but I accomplished my goal of learning the basics.

Adding Audio

I think Animoto has incredible possibilities. As I was looking at Jaclyn's Colonial Fair sample it was amazing to me the amount of planning the group as a whole had to do.
I am not sure how to add audio. Jaclyn mentioned downloading Audacity. Once that is done and the recordings are made and saved, do I add the recording as a whole when I go to step 2...the Music. If anyone knows, please let me know. I am going to try now for myself.

Animoto

drop.io

I found this tool and I think it could be amazing. Teachers and students can upload files, add notes, "chat", and the changes that are made are seen by everyone who is given the web page without even refreshing the page. I'd love to try this with someone if anyone has the time. Ah...that is always the problem for us, isn't it?
Check out the video below!

Real time collaboration and file sharing!

Digital Storytelling

Simply put, digital storytelling is powerful! I envision our fourth graders selecting a historical or personal topic individually or with a partner. Oh what learning they would enjoy! Planning the story board and incorporating the seven elements of storytelling would result in deep thinking, decision making and creativity. I have noted a few digital stories that show the possibilities.