Picture of my Game

Games

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This is the game I created, I think most of these games could be really useful if they are used in moderation. Many students can get distracted with so many games and not use them for school purposes, but if used briefly I think they could engage students and make it fun for them to make their own games and share with each other. All of the different games available are nice for the teacher to choose from and decide what is best and appropriate.

Voicethread

This is a picture of my voice thread that I made intending it to be for kindergarten students, I asked who their best friends are and why. I dont think voice thread is as effective as other sites but I think it could be useful for biographies or it could be a safe place to express opinions and feelings that could be helpful for some students.

Glog

This is an example of my playing with a glog. Glogging is really easy and very fun I think for both students and teachers. It is an easy way to creatively involve the students and also allow them to be creative while learning at the same time. Tools like this could really influence and improve learning in the future.

Mixbook Scrapbook

I absolutely love this website, I could do this all day :)

Xtra Normal

This is a picture of my xtranormal video that I made using this website. It was so easy to use and play with and it was so much fun being able to pick my own characters and even their voices and decide what I wanted to script to be and even change the background and location. I think this would be a great tool to use to create a video about the topic of class for example the alphabet or math, etc. It is a great way to get the students focused and interested while still teaching them at the same time.

Grading Rubric

This is the rubric that I explored with and I found it very useful and a wonderful tool for teachers to use and communicate with each other in order to improve their teaching and organizational skills.

Google Earth

I made my own google earth tour of my favorite places in the world that I will be uploading to my final portfolio for this class. I even included my own pictures of the places I've been and love as well as youtube videos I embedded into some of the points I included in my tour. Overall I really enjoyed playing around with Google earth and thought it was very well organized and had a lot to offer to both students and teachers. This tool is a great resource for different projects or just for fun that can be used very creatively and individually.

Flickr and bighugelabs

I really like bighugelabs.com because it is very useful for many different things. It is a good source to have pictures on, to make posters on and more. It is really easy to figure it out and really fun to work and play around with. I think students and teachers would both enjoy working with this site and get alot out of it. I didnt like Flickr as much as I liked bighugelabs.com because I've been to sites like Flickr before and didnt get that much out of them, so comparing Flickr to bighugelabs.com just made me like bighugelabs.com more than Flickr but both are great resources for different projects and activities in and outside of the classroom.

Quizlet

learning math

This online quiz website is very useful for students especially younger ones. It is very interactive for students and is a way for students to feel as though they have accomplished alot because it allows them to be independent in something that the teacher sets up for them. It allows the students to challenge themselves and keep trying until they improve which is great for their self esteem. Having quizzes online like this is very empowering for students and easy for teachers to use, quizzes online like this should definitely be used in the classroom as tools for learning.

Webquest

Webquests can definitely be a useful tool for students to use because it is very straight forward and easy for them to follow and it is a way of learning that doesn't necessarily feel too much like school, it is a fun way for them to learn while enjoying it. webquests are a great way to captivate them and keep them busy while allowing them to work themselves and feel independent. Games in general are a great way to learn especially for younger kids, so a webquest is a great way to set up a whole outline of how to get to certain websites.

These are some example webquests I found:
http://education.nmsu.edu/webquests/wq/dino/dinosaur.htm, I liked this one because it was very well set-up and fun to explore with.
http://education.nmsu.edu/webquests/wq/ocean/index.html, this was also a fun way to learn.
http://education.nmsu.edu/webquests/wq/bugs/index.htm, the different tools and games to play are very interactive for students to play with.

Streaming Videos

http://keepvid.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPbUtL_0vAJk

I downloaded a video of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream speech" off of youtube.com and uploaded it to keepvid.com so I wasnt downloading illegally. I chose this video as an example of showing how to use streaming videos online for educations because it is classic. This is one of the msot important stories of all time and he is in every history book so I thought a movie explaining his speech might be more ineractive for students and captivate them to learn more about history and hopefully other subjects. I think these websites are great tools to help use videos and other interactive activities as a way of teaching my future students more and encouraging them to want to learn.

Alternative Online Bookmarking

Alternative bookmarking online can be very helpful for both students and teachers to use. I explored through readfresh.com, livebinder.com and delicious.com, also simplybox.com, these are just a few. These are very easy ways to remind yourself of websites and blogs that you thought were helpful and a great way to organize your thoughts and different tools to use for teaching without having to remember and look them all up separately. These tools could be very helpful for students to use because it is accessible for them to see the websites and different information that I find useful for the material they might be learning. They can even upload their own websites and information they found that they may want me to look at as their teacher. Bookmarking in general is very useful for organizing everything and reminding yourself and websites or tools you have found, and online bookmarking is even easier and better for both teachers and students.

Wordle of Search Engines

http://www.wordle.net/create

this is a wordle I made about different search engines that I have heard of and used to search different ideas. Google and Yahoo are well known by everyone, but are still great. Yellowbook is nice and easy to use for just about anything you can think of because it is basically like one of those big yellow books that are in every house except they are online and they include more opportunities and information. Bing is a newer website that is also very easy and very similar to google and yahoo. I really like neroo.com because it is an energy efficient search engine, it is based off of google but it has a black background screen and uses far less energy than google does which I like because it is eco-friendly. There are many different search engine websites that are all very similar but it is nice to have many options to use so it broadens our range of knowledge and information.

Games as an effective way of learning and teaching

Games in a classroom can be very effective especially if they engage every different student in the material. I especially enjoyed http://ms.ardsleyschools.org/site_res_view_folder.aspx?id=1dcf8b49-b239-4f40-ab1d-e5641db76817 because it was very easy to use and play around with and had opportunities to make your own questions and also make your own games. I got to make my own are you smarter than a 5th grade game which was really fun for me because I enjoy watching that show and being able to make my own questions and game out of it for my future students was really exciting. for this website: http://www.murray.k12.ga.us/teacher/kara%20leonard/Mini%20T%27s/Games/Games.htm, I thought it was very effective because it lays out how it works right there in front of you so you cant miss a step. I also like the option for music and the other varieties of accesories for the games that some websites dont have. This website, http://its.monroe.edu/content/smart-board-help-links-resources-and-lessons, I didnt find as effective because it was a little more confusing to navigate through and use. It also seems more advanced and like someone would already have to be knowledgable about this topic in order to use it successfully. Whereas the other websites were simple enough that students at an elementary age could use as well as learning teaching on how to better improve their classrooms. The first two websites I enjoyed and I think students will really enjoy the opportunity to not only play games as a way of learning in the classroom, but also create their own games to play with each other.

Smartboard Websites

Websites that use tools by smart board can definitely help with differentiation in a classroom and elementary education. Because students, especially at young ages, have every different types of learning, it is important for teachers to cater to their needs by having a variety of tools available to them. smart board tools are great for these type of situations with students because they have so much to offer and they have many different ways for students to learn and teachers to teach. i especially liked http://www.juliethompson.com/SMART.html because it was very easy to use and made learning difficult subjects easier for younger students. Teachers definitely need to broaden their horizons into the technological world in order to better teach our future generations. Smart Board has excellent opportunities for both teachers and learners and can improve every classroom.

thinklinkr

http://thinklinkr.com/outliner#5685

I couldnt figure out how to embed this, but here it is. I liked this website but I didnt feel as though it was entirely effective, there are lots of websites that do things similar to this site so I just didnt find thinklinkr entirely effective. It is helpful however for organizing different outlines and ideas, which can improve learning as well as teaching