Exit Slip for March 25th

Ø First we checked our delicious accounts to see if we are on track for the class requirements at this point we should have 60 bookmarks to be on track. One way to build your account is to check out your classmate’s accounts.

Ø Then Jeff asked us to take a look at the “feed bag” on the class website. It contains many articles that are useful for you to put in your delicious accounts. Some articles could be useful for our inquiry projects and worth look at. He will post information that is useful to teaching and technology.

Ø We reviewed who needed to do digital autobiographies, cool tools and contemporary issues presentations. Then we reviewed the podcast assignment briefly before introducing Carlee and Erica who are teaching Chapter 8.

Ø For Chapter 8 they taught that students should learn by designing. They shared a few sites for students to use to learn how to design. Designing allows for students to be challenged and for them to create projects that they are going to be able to do and will learn the concepts that are involved in the process. Some of the new programs that are available allow students to design a product and test it before actually building the project in real life. They shared the site www.http://algobeautytreb.com that allows students to build a simulation of a trebuchet. This will let students play around with settings on their models before finding the best design for their project. They discussed the progression of this technology from the logo to microworlds. Next they discussed constructionism and the Scratch website http://scratch.mit.edu and iStopMotion. Scratch we have already used and probably are fairly familiar with this program. The other iStopMotion is similar to the one we are going to use that involves taking multiple pictures frame by frame and then putting them together as a finished project. iStopMotion is not a free program. Designing music was another aspect discussed. GarageBand and Impromptu. These are fairly easy to produce with children. Studies have been shown that this tool does help students create music on their own. One program available for younger students was http://creatingmusic.com. They discussed that designing tools are meaningful learning and teachers should use these tools in their classrooms. Then we explored different simulations for bridges, science simulation, gizmo and design your own garden. Class shared feedback with the presenters.

Ø For the cool tools presentations Tiffany shared the website Symbaloo http://symbaloo.com/us/ which is a search engine tool/bookmarking tool. It creates a full page that can be used for specific websites and tools for in the classroom. A very good tool for organizing websites. Netvibes and igoogle are other similar tools that Jeff mentioned.

Ø Contemporary issues presentations that were conducted today were by Rachel who shared information about a paperless classroom. Her article referred to a teacher using PDA’s for students for their work and then they upload them to her. This saves time and is useful for ELL students since formats can be changed to other languages like Spanish. Loren was next and she discussed video games and how they can be incorporated into the classrooms to prepare students for state tests. Kathleen went last and she discussed China’s recent decision by Google to lift censorship.

Ø Jeff discussed the features of GarageBand and how to create a podcast using this program. It is only available on a Mac computer. This program is different than the Audacity one discussed last week since it has preloaded music and sound effects. Many of the features are easier to operate in GarageBand. Then he showed us how to save the files into mp3 files. Resources are listed on the agenda page for tutorials on these tools.

Ø We went over the homework that is on the agenda.

Ø After that we went over the stop-motion animations and the expectations for this project. We discussed it in our individual groups.

Ø Last we discussed posting our exit slips to our learning logs.