I know that I am posting a little late this week, but I was super sick all weekend after the conference.
Talk about a wealth of information... because if anyone has one, it must be Troy Hicks. Just in case anyone lost the information to get to his page I will leave it here. That is also the page with all the links to the activities that we did.
Recently, I came upon the website ProCon that Troy was telling us about. I actually was using it for another class, for writing an argument about why Harry Potter books should not be banned in schools, and I made note of it then. I was so excited to see that he has used that same site to show us some things on Saturday. This is absolutely something I hope to bring into my classroom someday.
By far, my favorite thing that Troy talked about was the video essays. What a perfect way to combine our literacy skills and writing with technology. So I decided to do a little more research into this topic. On another blog site a teacher, Taylor Higgins, writes about the different ways that this can be used in the classroom. Sometimes it can introduce a topic, used for students to present certain ideas, think deeper about certain topics, create questions about copy rights, or even assess how a student has learned a topic. You guys should check out what he has to say in his post.
After Troy's speech we went onto the different workshops. I choose to visit with Amanda Scott about Ira Shor's ideas in a democratic classroom. This was super interesting for a few reasons. She taught us a few things that were like a differentiated instruction type lesson. Most of the work we did was fueled by our own personal perception of the question she asked "What is a democratic classroom?" We did a self reflection, then shared with a partner, then shared with a group for 4, then shared with the class. This lesson took quite a while to get done, but I feel like the idea was for us to get a good idea of what each of us perceived to be a democratic classroom.
Our last workshop of the day was the Digital Storytelling workshop. Going into this I wasn't sure what to expect but I am really glad that I attended this one. I had no idea that something like this even existed and I couldn't get enough of it. This website called Storyboard That allows students to take a story that they had read or were writing themselves and turn it into a digital storyboard. There were so many options! My only complaint was that this program was not free, which was super disappointing because I know that would create problems in the future use of the program. However, the idea was incredible. Students could use that for anything, and I feel it would really help them tremendously to understand what they are reading. I would just personally like to find one that was free to use.
After a long day, there was nothing left to do but eat lunch, which I was obviously looking forward to all day. Ending it all with that chocolate mousse though... now that was a good day.
Talk about a wealth of information... because if anyone has one, it must be Troy Hicks. Just in case anyone lost the information to get to his page I will leave it here. That is also the page with all the links to the activities that we did.
Recently, I came upon the website ProCon that Troy was telling us about. I actually was using it for another class, for writing an argument about why Harry Potter books should not be banned in schools, and I made note of it then. I was so excited to see that he has used that same site to show us some things on Saturday. This is absolutely something I hope to bring into my classroom someday.
By far, my favorite thing that Troy talked about was the video essays. What a perfect way to combine our literacy skills and writing with technology. So I decided to do a little more research into this topic. On another blog site a teacher, Taylor Higgins, writes about the different ways that this can be used in the classroom. Sometimes it can introduce a topic, used for students to present certain ideas, think deeper about certain topics, create questions about copy rights, or even assess how a student has learned a topic. You guys should check out what he has to say in his post.
After Troy's speech we went onto the different workshops. I choose to visit with Amanda Scott about Ira Shor's ideas in a democratic classroom. This was super interesting for a few reasons. She taught us a few things that were like a differentiated instruction type lesson. Most of the work we did was fueled by our own personal perception of the question she asked "What is a democratic classroom?" We did a self reflection, then shared with a partner, then shared with a group for 4, then shared with the class. This lesson took quite a while to get done, but I feel like the idea was for us to get a good idea of what each of us perceived to be a democratic classroom.
Our last workshop of the day was the Digital Storytelling workshop. Going into this I wasn't sure what to expect but I am really glad that I attended this one. I had no idea that something like this even existed and I couldn't get enough of it. This website called Storyboard That allows students to take a story that they had read or were writing themselves and turn it into a digital storyboard. There were so many options! My only complaint was that this program was not free, which was super disappointing because I know that would create problems in the future use of the program. However, the idea was incredible. Students could use that for anything, and I feel it would really help them tremendously to understand what they are reading. I would just personally like to find one that was free to use.
After a long day, there was nothing left to do but eat lunch, which I was obviously looking forward to all day. Ending it all with that chocolate mousse though... now that was a good day.
I also enjoyed the chocolate mousse quite a bit! All kidding aside, it was an amazing day. I also attended the Digital Storytelling workshop, and I loved the "Storyboard That" program that she showed us. There is also a program called PowToon that lets you ANIMATE your story - how awesome is that? I and I do believe it is free! Also, another helpful took I used all the time is called "snip it" or "snipping tool". It lets you screen show just a portion of your screen, which is helpful when you just want to grab a small chunk of something...like...oh let's say a few panels of the comic you could create in Storyboard That....
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