Final Project Website

I really enjoyed everything I learned while creating this website. It really helped me to see how user friendly GoogleDocs is and how everything is easily compatible. As a teacher who loves using technology I have always wanted to create a class website. I just didn't know where to start and I knew that a website would take a lot of time to create. I am so glad we were given a lot of time to work on the website during class so that we could really make the site how we wanted it.

Now that I have the website created I will definitely use it as a communication tool with the parents of my students. I will continue to update it every week and revamp it every year when I get new students. I know it will still take time to maintain the website but to me, having the majority of it done through the chunked out time in class, I feel pretty good about keeping an on-going website.

Here is a link to my "finished" website. My website

Online Scavenger Hunt

I used this assignment to create an activity that I can use in my classroom. I decided to make my scavenger hunt revolving around the website Switchzoo.com. This website has fun activities for students to do such as creating their own unique animals. It also has a lot of interesting animal facts and activities to learn about habitats. I made my worksheet with questions about animal facts so the students can learn about animals as they answer the questions.

Scavenger Hunt Worksheet

Switchzoo

Death of Lincoln Slideshow

This activity reminded me of something similar I learned about using KidPix. I could have each student create a page for a letter of the alphabet. I could then combine all of their pages to make an alphabet book. I love how GoogleDocs allowed for us all to create a page at the same time and it saved them in order so that we didn't have to organize it all at the end. It was all organized and ready to go. Unfortunately, my second graders are a little young to use the program and GoogleDocs is blocked in our school district.


Completed Slideshow

Prezi Slideshow

I decided to use this program to make a slideshow of caterpillar and butterfly pictures. I teach second grade and we are currently studying insects. We will be receiving caterpillars soon and we will obsereve their life cycle and watch them turn into butterflies within a couple weeks. I thought showing a bunch of pictures in this really cool format would be a catching way to kick-off our butterfly unit. The students will have fun looking at how the pictures rotate and the page moves around.

Butterfly Prezi

Stock Market Exchange

Stock Market Game

I could definitely see how this activiy would be useful in high school and college. I am a second grade teacher and I would never do an activity like this with my class. I enjoyed it personally because I learned a little bit about the stock market. If I ever want to start learning about stocks I will definitely use this website to practice and get good at it first.

YouTube Video Clips

I don't think I would really do a project like this in my classroom. I would, however, use what I learned about converting YouTube videos. There are a lot of really great videos on YouTube that could be used for educational purposes. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked at school. Now I know how to convert YouTube files into .wmv files so that I can show purposeful videos in class.

YouTube
Video converter
My Finished Video

Wunderground Spreadsheet

Spreadsheet and graph link

wunderground Las Vegas history

I could use Wunderground with my students to make graphs about temperatures in seasons. We would go through the website as a class and find the dates when the seasons started and ended. We would then make a bar graph showing the temperatures for each month in the year and look at how the temperature compares in each season. I would then ask question such as: Which season has the biggest change in temperature? Can you tell which months are summer months just by looking at the graph? I think I would have the students do the graph on paper, not in Excel. I would probably do a master graph on Excel for the students to see the visual.

Mapping America Activity

Student Worksheet

Link to Map
I think I could only use this activity in the computer lab with the whole class at the same time. I would bring up the website on the Smartboard and have each student type in the link on their computers. First I would model how to navigate the map using the zoom in and out features. I would also show students how to hold the mouse button and move it to move around the map. I would then pass out the worksheet and do the first couple of questions together as a class. Then I would let the students work in pairs to finish the worksheet. I would probably use the map that shows percentages of college graduates. I could do this activity during college awareness week to show students how many people have college degrees. Then we could pull up the map about income levels and see how it compares to college degrees.

Photo Editing

I could see using this activity at the beginning of the year with my class. I usually make a bulletin board with a picture of each student on it. I could use this program to make the bulletin board more fun by changing each student's picture with a different effect.

Befunky
Web Resizer

Wikipedia Comparison

       I decided to try to compare the new head coach for the San Francisco 49ers. I first looked on Wikipedia and found some information that appeared very accurate. I tried to find the same coach on Britannica and I had no results from the search. From this experience I found that Wikipedia has a larger database and access to more information.
       I like how Wikipedia is easily edited because new information shows up quickly. For example, this coach, Jim Harbaugh, was just named head coach yesterday and the Wikipedia article has already been updated. However, having information that can be changed so quickly and easily will affect the authenticity of the facts. I don't think I would use this as a source for factual information but I would use it just for my own interest in information.


My contributions- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Omlier
My changes- http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Omlier