Thoughts About United Streaming

I already have an account for United Streaming - but of course I had forgotten my password : (
I have done observations while teachers used United Streaming clips for parts of the lesson - some more successful than others.

Today I researched clips to use for our monthly character themes and clips to use for team building. I found that there were several clips for most of the character themes (respect, responsibility, cooperation, acceptance) that could be used for any K-5 grade level. They even had teacher guides and quizzes for them!

I thought the clips for team building were a bit "dorky" but that could just be me. I will look some more to perhaps find one to use at our welcome back staff meeting just to show that I can do some of this : )

I tried the "Assignment Builder" to save videos for character themes. But, after I got the first step done (the administration page) I tried to get to the next step and it kept telling me that I had to save my page...which I kept trying to do. I started over twice thinking I had done it wrong and got hung up in the same place. I finally just got frustrated and gave it up.

I DO believe United Streaming can be an effective supplement that has a high probability of improving learning because:

• students like to watch videos - tv, videos, game boys, etc. are their generation!
  
• the videos are short and to the point (which fits the "requirements" of our movie sheets
  
• they are 'teacher friendly and easy to use
• they have teacher resources such as curriculum guides and quizzes available
  

I hope to see more use of this tool as I do walk-throughs this year!

From the LCSD Library Assignment

Did you know that our library page was so well organized? Beth's TeacherTube explanations of the library catalog, online resources, and reviews was excellent! I even found a book on softball (only one though...come on Liberians, how come we only have one?). I enjoyed the link of "Stately Knowledge" for the 5th grade state reports...I sure hope the students are using this resource as it has much of the info they need all in one place with numerous links to other resources.

I actually did a short review of the latest Harry Potter book (yes, I'm a fan) even though I don't know if it is in our library. I didn't know how to "sign" my review...hope that's okay Beth.

Reflections on being 1/2 Way Through

I have taken a week off to go to Montana (had a great time: went white-water rafting, hiking, kayaking, and enjoyed sight-seeing and picnics in Glacier National Park....along the way I managed to get tanned - burned?- and didn't even gain any weight!!!).

Today I tried to add work on the Moodle assignment...still have some to go on that. I think I understand what I'm supposed to do (thanks for the extra help, Beth!). I also did the next assignment by looking at the Zoho Work Online (zoho.com). It is an online organizer (planner) on which you can do lists, set it up for email reminders of tasks, add notes to tasks to better remember what it is you need to do. The Zoho site also allows you to do online notebooks, chats, Wiki, and mail. I think that while this would be a good sight for someone who needs this organization assistance but I think that I have other tools to do the same jobs (I have my Pageflakes page set up for the tasks and email reminders and of course we've learned about Wiki, etc.) I also can't see how it would be any more helpful than my Palm Pilot and a lot less portable.

As far as being at the half-way point of the class, I have to say that I really had no idea that there were so many useful things available at my fingertips! I have really enjoyed doing this blog and reading the blogs of the rest of the classmates. The Moodle sure seems like a useful teaching tool...maybe even for an old principal to use (check out my entries on team-building) . I would love to see some classes do Wiki pages (maybe during their computer time?). Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what lies ahead in the 23-things and getting together to chat with some of you.

My Moodle Thoughts

As I began to work through the sandbox on the Moodle page I began to see understand why Beth uses this so much in her computer classes. There must be endless classroom uses for the various parts - "storage" of resources and information but also the ability to do tests. I was intrigued by the use of the "forums" (nice to see a curriculum question posted as well as a response by another staff member).

I was able to post a download into the Moodle - Life on a Train. This is one of my favorites (sent to me by LK) - I think it speaks volumes to all of us as we go through life. Speaking of which, I hope you like the pics I've added to my blog. Of course to great dog is Tika - they call the dog "man's best friend" but she certainly could be called "woman's best friend" - she has come to my "defense" more than once while I was walking on the trails at Paden....one can truly feel the love she has for her "mom!" The picture of my mom and me was taken at my family home in MN last summer. The "Memories of my Dad" is a photo taken of a display of his military career my niece did for his memorial sevice. If I haven't shared my dad's book with you, you might enjoy reading it sometime...it really helped me to understand my dad.

Anyway, HUGE thanks to Beth for being such a great teacher for this class. She has been VERY helpful as I have had many, many questions. If I could use this as an evaluation, she'd get a glowing write-up!

Wiki comments

I have spent the morning through the Wiki stuff on the assignment sheet. I really enjoyed two of the categories the best:
- Wikibooks (where I was brave enough to edit a recipe for hamburgers) - I didn't know how to add the page to this.
- Wikiversity - there is so much free material available to folks that I, like I'm sure many people, was not aware of.

I can see that this would be a great place for classes to do writing (a nice WICR and/or AVID exercise). I am not sure how long it would take to set up a Wiki page or if elementary students could maintain it without too much teacher time - I will be showing this to the staff (or maybe Beth could do that?).

I'm still confused about delicious...maybe need some ono-on-one tutoring. Are we going to have an end-of-session BBQ? I'd love to prepare the hamburger recipe I edited.

FYI: I will be hosting my mom for two weeks (one of which will be in Montana at a family reunion...may get behind on my claswork but I look forward to forging on when I get back.

Delicious and Wiki Report

Today I worked through the delicious and Wiki stuff. I have to say that the delicious was a bit mind boggling for me but I did manage to set up one bundle (Staff meetings) with one tag - facilitation. Found some good articles in there! I intend to use this for many things as the summer (and year) goes on.

I found the Wiki fascinating! I especially enjoyed the following Wiki:
- Book Lovers Wiki because I found some new summer reading materials in the mystery list
- Library Success Wiki because I found an article on Successful Collaboration
But I especially enjoyed the Room 15 Wiki! There was some amazing stuff on there from a 6th grade class. I bookmarked a Super Kids site that looked great!

I will do the assignment another day but I hope everyone spends some time with the Wiki sites!

At school things are "cool"

Just so you know, things at school are pretty quiet! We will be looking at the files of those that have applied for the HS job and doing interviews soon...I hope all of you HS folks will be involved in that process. I see a couple of interesting candidates.

I have been enjoying reading all of the blogs from my "classmates!" I see that I am not the only one that is learning a LOT of new things in this class. Hopefully we can all use our PageFlakes, blog, etc. as we enter into yet another year at LCSD.

My First Blog

Just a sample of who I am:
- I have four dogs:

• Tika - a yellow lab
• Darwin - a Westie
• Buddy - a Bichon
• Abbie - a Australian Shepard
  

- just for fun I also have 2 cats, 2 gerbils, a guinea pig, and a fish.

As you can guess, I am a real pet lover!