Brainstorming Process

For my voicethread lessons I didn't really do much in the way of brainstorming. I looked over the website and tried to come up with some ideas (the book reading a writing voicethread). My dad and husband and I all sat down and came up with the other 2 ideas, we just talked about voicethread and looked at some of the videos. Fairly easy to do. I am not really too sure on how to do brainstorming :)

Voice Thread Ideas

1.) Students could use Voicethread to read a book they have written. I would take pictures of their illustrations and then they would record themselves reading their book on the voicethread. This would be great for students in grades 1-5, as they get older they could write about more elaborate things, and the younger students could write about simple things. This would be great for all students. I think that the younger students could take turns reading others stories and I could comment on their reading abilities, this way they won't have to worry about being scared of reading aloud in class. I think this would help with language arts.

2.) Students who are learning a foreign language could use Voicethread to learn the correct pronunciations of certain words in that language. The word would come up on the screen and they would voice comment the correct pronunciation of the word. This would also be great for students who are having trouble with English or ESL students as well. I think that this lesson would be great for students grades 2 and up, students who are reading.

3.) Voicethread would be great for guest speakers to use, especially if they live out of state or can't come in. If the students were learning about ancient Egypt I could contact someone who knows a lot about Egypt and have them do a voice thread with all the pictures they have of Egypt and talk about it too. Another thing to do would be if we were learning about Farming and where our food comes from, this would be a great idea to have a farmer do a voice thread about his farm and what he grows and where our food is grown, there is a WIDE variety of things that can be done for this one. This could be used for all ages and subjects.

Finally figured out how to make it public!

Glad this class is a learning class about technology! :) I had no clue how to make this public. Thank you Lee for your help!

I hope you all have time to view this, enjoy

Creative Exercises for Artists and Art Students

I read on Free Technology For Teachers about a blog for Artists or Art students. I don't know about the Anchorage School District but out here in the Valley they do not have an Art Program, it makes me very sad to know that they don't have one and that art is put on the shoulders of teachers. But this website give teachers ideas for art. Some are really neat! I really liked the three strikes your out project. What you do is take your pen or pencil or whatever you want to create with and make a picture using only 3 lines, you can draw a tree and a river and a mountain or whatever you want. The possibilities are endless. I would like to hear what you all like or even other options for Art in the classroom.

Lets try this again

Apparently my link didn't work. If it doesn't work this time please let me know if you can't access it again and I will email it. It works for me so I don't know what is going on. Here is the link again. You can copy and paste it if that doesn't work http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AS_KlDWIBu3gZGRmejg4aG1fMGMydzIzemZ0&hl=en

Lesson Plans

I am so sorry this is late, I had a router problem and of course this was on my laptop. Everything is good now!

Here is my link...I don't know if I did it right. I will be anxious to see how you all did yours and what you think of mine :)

Have a GREAT break!