VUE Tutorial

Below you will find a tutorial I completed for my 5th grade reading class.  Using VUE, I would like for my students to learn to create a graphic organizer or concept map for their weekly reading stories.  VUE is relatively easy to use and free to download.  Using the story title, I would like for them to create the focus of their map.  From there they can link to other concepts they find throughout the story.  Each of these topics can be extended to other subtopics.  The final creation should be an overview of the story and clearly demonstrate their understanding of the story.  You can view my tutorial at the following address via full screen:  http://www.screencast.com/t/QrsfnqalVZrH or by just using the embedded link below.

Happy Birthday Chloe!!

 Well, it's hard to believe, but Chloe will be 1 year old on Oct. 26, 2010.  Although we dearly miss Haley, she has definitely added joy and love to our home.  Here she is in her cute pink snowflake dress!

Well, they say it's a dog's life!!

Church Outside the Walls Murfreesboro, TN

What a great experience!  In Murfreesboro, TN, a day called Church Outside the Walls was experienced on Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010.  Various churches from the area, including ours, Real Life Community Church, participated in taking the Church to the community.  Our church was divided into four groups.  Each group was assigned a particular place to go share and connect with others.  Our group visited Pittard Elem. School to work on landscaping.  There were approximately 150-200 people who worked at our site.  Afterwards, everyone who participated at each site went to the park for a cookout and singing.  All in all it was a great experience.  Thanks to the people who thought up this idea and shared it with our church!!

SlideBoom Presentation

Geometry: Identify Lines

View more presentations or Upload your own.

I created a game for my PowerPoint presentation last week.  So I really wasn't sure exactly how to present it on SlideBoom.  So, I was the narrator and the one who played the game and answered the questions.  The only downside to this is that I didn't show the slide that was displayed in case of a missed answer.

I think the version that uses both text and images is the most effective tool.  When using all images, I found it hard to give any directions and tried to convey those through the use of pictures.  However, not everyone would be able to know what the pictures meant for sure.  The use of SlideBoom is very handy and appropriate for many uses.  However, for my game, I think it would be best used without SlideBoom so each individual could interact in their own way.  Using this tool on a class blog for homework help however would be a great tool.  This could convey to parents as well exactly what directions were expected to be followed.  In the future, I will consider my images and text more closely to convey the meaning I am truly intending.

Summary of the 23 Things Journey

I have really enjoyed the 23 Things journey.  Although some of the things weren't totally new, I was able to rediscover why I looked into them in the first place.  I did, though, learn many new and creative ways to add info to my blog and my classroom.  I am truly a life-long learner, and I want to inspire my students to be too.  With all the technology we have at our fingertips, learning about about anything, from anywhere is possible, not to mention fun.  I have learned how much I really enjoy blogging.  Other than other classmates' blogs, I had never really checked out anyone else's blog.  Seeing what others are blogging about and just how creative their sites are is inspiring.  Although I only saw bits and pieces of the movie, I even searched for the blog about Julie/Julia Childs that was made into a movie.  Some of the items I learned about, but had never used before were the RSS feeds, Animoto, and the online image generators.  These are definitely items I plan to continue to use and learn more about.

Where do I go from here?  Well, I certainly hope to continue my blog even after my graduate classes are finished.  I was happy to discover one day that some of my students have been checking it out.  I know this because one came up and asked me "What thing are you on now?"  That was very exciting!  I hope that my work and ideas will inspire someone in someway.  The Cool Cat, in a former post, said it best, so here are her words, not mine:  "If you died today and don't share 'your secret', it will die with you and you will miss the chance to leave behind something far more important...a legacy."  I can only hope to do just that!

Thing #23 - Creative Commons

This info at the bottom of the Learning 2.0 - 23 Things for Teachers website shows me an example of using the Creative Commons license.

*Note: This project is loosely based upon the website 43Things (which allows you to set and track personal goals) and the Stephen Abram article titled 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006).



I thought that the video, “A Fair(y) Use Tale”, did a great job explaining copyright info, not to mention that they used a vary creative way to do this.  Now that I know more about Creative Commons and how to utilize it, I want to use it more often in my classroom to create lessons that really inspire and capture the students attention.  I also hope to share more of this info with coworkers who are interested in learning about Creative Commons and how to use it in their classrooms.  I think that it is also important to share with older students exactly what copyright, plagiarism, and Creative Commons are all about.

Thing #22 - Podcasts

I found a neat podcasts created by a 5th grade class on Podcastdirectory.com.  It is called the ColeyCast.  The particular podcast I listened to was #48 on the different types of sentences.  It was very neat to hear that the students participated and did the podcast.  This would be a great way to have the class practice, study, and teach others about any topic you might be teaching.  It could also be posted to a blog so that the students had access to it to study by or use it for homework help.  The only downside would be that some students may not have internet access at home or any other means to connect to it.  I did try the Educational Podcast Directory, but couldn't find anything in elementary math (unless I wasn't searching correctly).  For a previous class, EDUC 5616, I did have to create a podcast of my own either using GarageBand or Audacity.    Audacity is a free open source software for recording and editing sounds, like podcasts.  Here is a podcast I created about prime factorization.  For me, though, I thought having visuals would make it a lot easier to teach and for someone else to learn.  I am not sure how or if you can do this with podcasting.  Still learning!!

My Podcast on Prime factorization

Thing # 21 - Animoto

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.


Animoto is extremely easy for any one to use.  I had a lot of fun creating this video of an off road trip with friends.  We love going off roading and seeing who can get through the mud holes!  Usually we take turns so we can get pics.  Sometimes we also have to pull each other out when we get stuck.  LOL!

Animoto would be great to use for open house at school, parties, and anytime you want to share pictures of events or projects that your class has been working on together.  If posted online, you would obviously have to get parental permission.  I would like to look into creating them without sharing or posting online.  It might even be a neat gift to give to each student to remember the school year by.  I think most parents would consider it as a nice keepsake of their children's school years.  I can't wait to keep creating more!!  I advise everyone to check out Animoto!!

Thing # 20 - YouTube

YouTube has some hilarious videos.  This is one of my favs.  I think I first saw it in one of my graduate classes.  It reminds me of people I've tried to help with computers and technology.  Some people are so afraid of losing thingsor tearing it up that they never just try to explore and learn.  Although I'm really older than the digital age generation, I love learning new technology.  I suppose it's like anything.  You have to be willing to fail a little or make mistakes to learn anything.  My hangup is cooking!  My mom is a great cook, and I didn't inherit any of it.  I do try though.  I have come up with some really weird concoctions.  LOL!

Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked at our school.  I realize it's because you never know what your search might turn up.  However, there are some videos I would deem appropriate and useable in an educational setting.  I wish that the site could be utilized at school, and only the inappropriate videos would be blocked.  However, I have been able to save a short video about technology ideas onto a flash drive and been able to share it with my principal.  So there are ways of still using it.  Another idea would be nice if just teachers had access.  This would allow you to find appropriate videos for your lessons during your planning time.

Another video I love is the one about the Evolution of Dance, but I think one of my classmates already shared it.  So I decided to share this one.  First of all, don't get freaked out!  I am not a witch or anything like that!  I found it after attending a meeting at the historical society in my area.  At the meeting, someone mentioned "witching for graves" to find unmarked graves in cemeteries.  The group is writing a book on all the cemeteries in this area.  Although I had heard of people who could "witch for water" when digging a well, I had never heard of this.  I came right home and started Googleing!!  This is the video showing how to "witch for graves".  It seems to only work for some people.  I tried it and it really worked!

Thing #19 - Other Social Networks

I joined TeacherPop a few years ago while taking summer classes.  I think TeacherPop is a great way for teachers to communicate and share ideas that work using a "Teacher" friendly site.  To me, it is a great alternative to FaceBook.  Here is the Ning badge I'm adding to my blog:


Visit TeacherPop


I also thought this might be a great guide for those teachers who are still using FaceBook.  I found it on the TeacherPop Site and decided to add it to my blog.

Teacher's Guide to Using Facebook (Read Fullscreen)

As I stated in a previous blog post, I am a member of LinkedIn.  However, I would like to check out some of the other sites listed such as Classroom 2.0 Ning or College 2.0.  I will keep you posted!

Thing # 18 - Social Networking

I have to say that I really don't like social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. I also don't see any uses for them in the classroom either. At the beginning of this school year, the attorney from the state dept. of education spoke to our district. She strongly advised against using it as well. She did say, however, if we did use it, we should never add students or parents as friends. In her recommendation, this was not the appropriate site for this type of communication.
Since I don't have an account on either site, I have not been able to view anyone' s page. However, I only know through comments made at school about certain situations. For example, I was told by one parent that she viewed the Facebook page of a teacher that I worked with. On it, the teacher had pictures of herself with friends out drinking and partying. Personally, I don't think this sets a very good example for her students. Another incident I have heard about at our school from several people involves a teacher who goes on daily and posts comments about things that happen at school. Those who work there and know the situations know exactly who and what she is talking about. At the beginning of this year, she was finally granted tenure. I heard that she posted something like...I guess those CSES teachers are stuck with me now! To me, both of the previous incidents are completely unprofessional. Due to hearing about incidents like these and much worse in the news, I really don't see a need for a teacher to have a Facebook page. I do suppose its like anything else. It's what you make of it. You either use it appropriately or not. So, instead I joined another site called Linkedin. Hopefully, this site will serve as my social networking site just as well as the other two choices. I am not sure if it has all the same features as the other two, but it works for me. Here is the link to my public profile page: Lisa Bunde on LinkedIn.

Thing # 17 - Del.icio.us

It seems like I may have added a Del.icio.us account several years ago when it first came out.  However, I haven't used it as much as I should have.  I set up a new account and exported my favorites to it.  It will certainly be nice to have all these in one place, instead of having to resave these to new computers that I use at work.  I can certainly see the benefits of using Delicious.  It evens makes it possible to share sites very easily with others.  It seems like a great tool for allowing teachers to share various sites they find useful in certain categories or subjects.  I plan to add the Delicious Network Badge to my website and blog.  For now, here is the link to my network badge:

Thing #16 - Get Organized with Web 2.0 Tools

Since I use Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Reader, it only makes sense I should continue the pattern and choose iGoogle as my home page.  Here I can organize everything I use the most and have it even more at my fingertips!  This way I can access it at home or work and have all the sites I readily use without having to copy my bookmarks to other computers.

In a previous post, I stated that I use Google Calendar to make my weekly classroom plans and communicate those with students and parents.  I have it embedded into my class website.  It can be found at the following link:  http://mrsbundesfifthgrad.weebly.com/weekly-planslessons.html.  Google Calendar has many options such as color coding or reminders.  By checking my calendar, I am able to use my cell phone to schedule doctors appointments, as well as any other appointments I may need to make.  This calendar makes it possible for me to not schedule two things at once, and I can access it anywhere!

I thought the Ta da list looked really helpful!  It seems like I never have my list when I make it to the grocery store.  This tool seems like it might alleviate that problem.  Hopefully, my husband and I can edit and share this as well.  If so, this will be a huge help to both of us.

Any of the tools I have discussed on my blog, I would recommend for home, office, and school use.  Many of these I have implemented 100%.  I consider many of the tools very user friendly, even for those people that are not too technology-savvy.  Other tools I hope to look into more are the Web 2.0 gradebooks.  I think having a gradebook accessible from any computer sure beats having to either bring home your work laptop or use a flash drive to keep updated versions on each computer used.  However, since its online, I will have to get it cleared through our school before I can implement its use.

Thing #15 - Wikis

I was first introduced to wikis in Dr. Luck's class.  He had set up a wiki containing technology tools.  It was our job to contribute anything new that no one had already thought of to add or perhaps add to someone else's discussion.  If needed, we were to do research on our topic and add sources to the wiki as well.  I remember at first not totally getting the purpose behind it or really even what on earth a wiki was!  However, once I looked at the site, it was easy to follow and understand its purpose.  I think that wikis could be a great place for students to comment on others ideas and add some of their own thoughts as well.  I had thought that I might like to start a math wiki for my students.  Perhaps I could have a question of the week and the students could share their solutions and describe the steps they took to solve it.  I think that the students would love doing this as well.  However, when I asked my principal, she said what is a wiki.  Once I explained, she said that she would check into it for me.  Sadly, she came back with a no.  She told me that our technology director said things like this were blocked at our school.  I really love working with technology, and we teach students who have been born into this technology-driven world.  Why would we not use it to enrich what we teach?  Since then, I have looked for ways other teachers use wikis.  This is one I came across a while back.  Due to time, I haven't had time to explore every page of it, but what I've seen is certainly appealing.  Not only that, it is the grade that I teach!  It is titled Mrs. Shanahan's Wiki and is located at http://shanahan1.pbworks.com/.  I love blogging.  However, I think using a wiki in your class could allow your students the opportunity to create, edit, and share all under the approval of the teacher.

Thing #14 - Go with the Flow!

Flowcharts and mind maps are definitely encouraged at our school.  However, the ones we have available are contained inside a 3-ring binder with one copy on copy paper and one copy on a transparency sheet.  Exploring these tools online is a great idea!  The first one I chose to check into is Bubble.us.  This one is considered a mind map tool.  I used it to create a chart of 5th grade Geometry terms and how each are related.  Here is a screen capture of my creation:

This was very easy to do.  You can create the entire thing without ever having to sign up for an account.  When finished, I just took a screen capture of my work.  However, if you want to save your work for later use or editing, you will need to sign up for a free account.

Next, I explored Gliffy.  On this site you can create all sorts of diagrams and charts.  The one I chose to play around with was the Floorplan creator.  Originally, my hope was to create a floorplan of my classroom.  However, really for that, the choice of items was limited.  It was really geared more for an office.  It was really easy to use and choose the size and items you wanted to add.  I think it would be great for anyone looking to design an office or maybe their own home. Adding my drawing to my blog was extremely easy as well.  Once you signed up for an account, you simply clicked to add it to your blog.  You could choose the size you wanted and copy and paste the html code right into your blog.  This site might be useful to create the layout of your school and add in fire drill exits and so on.

Thing #13 - Web-based Applications

  Blogging is like writing in a journal....it's just online for all to see.  Web-based Applications are a great way to post to your blog.  Although this is the first time I have tried doing this, it wasn't too hard to figure out.  Since I already had a Google Docs account set up, I decided to use this application instead of using ZohoWriter.  Basically, once you have your document created, you simply click the share button and choose to post on your blog.  With just a couple of clicks, there it was on my blog!  I already liked using Google Docs for working with other students in my online classes.  I have encouraged the use of Google Docs at my school as well.  However, it seems that many people aren't open to change.  Personally, I think that it would be much easier for us to create school-wide documents such as the Needs Assessment and SACS Study.  This would allow each committee to create and produce their own portion of the document and make everyone responsible for the entire creation, except just those same responsible few!  I encourage everyone to check out Google Docs!

Thing # 12 - Google is not just for searching

Google tools are awesome!!  I am using Google Calendar this school year on my website to communicate more effectively with parents regarding classwork and homework.  I simply embedded my calendar into a page on my site.  Each time I update my calendar, it is automatically updated on my website.  Here is the link to my page (it is best viewed by clicking on "agenda" on the top right side of the calendar):
http://mrsbundesfifthgrad.weebly.com/weekly-planslessons.html

I began using Picasa Web albums this past summer while taking a Multimedia class for my masters program.  It is extremely easy to set up and use.  I like it because you are able to not only add photos, you can resize them and create special effects on them.  On a photo of one of my dogs, Bandit, I was able to touch up his left eye.  After coming down with a condition caused by breathing in some type of spore two years ago, his left eye has been left partially white.  He can still see a little with it, thank goodness!  With Picasa, I was able to make his eye look perfectly normal.  If you don't have any photo programs of your own to use, Picasa is a great resource and it's free! 

My husband uses Google Translate.  He has it on his cell phone.  He often encounters manuals written in Japanese at work.  With this tool, he can check maintenance manuals and communicate more effectively with co-workers who speak other languages.  He may be traveling to Korea in the near future.  I am sure this tool will definitely come in very handy!!  I know that the ELL teacher at our school has to have things translated often.  I plan to recommend this site to her as well.

Thing #11 - Finding Good Feeds

For me personally, I prefer to check out my usual sites first to see which ones have RSS feeds available.  Next, I tried doing keyword searches on Google Reader to find topics that I'm actually interested in.  I really didn't want to just add feeds for the sake of adding feeds.  :)  Then, I checked out Edublogs' Award Winners.  There I added a feed to The Two Writing Teachers.  This blog won the best teacher blog category for 2009.  Cool Cat Teacher, which I had already added to my list of feeds, was second runner up in this category as well.  The last method I tried using to find RSS feeds I was interested in was using Topix.net.  Here I was able to search for the lastest news in regards to the recent education controversy about test scores and teacher evaluations.  I added a feed for Education on The Huffington Post.  This news site seemed to have a vast array of news stories in education.

More to come on RSS feeds and what I find useful....

Thing # 10 - RSS feeds

I had always seen these orange squares and wasn't sure how to use them.  I also did not know exactly what they did.  After watching the video, RSS in Plain English by Lee LeFever, it was very clear.  The short video did a great job explaining the purpose behind RSS feeds and how to sign up.  I chose to use Google Reader since I already had a Google account.  It was as easy as the video said it would be.

The idea behind RSS feeds is wonderful.  There are several sites I often check to see if anything has been added.  It is great that you can subscribe to these sites on Google Reader, and it will notify you of any additions.  This will definitely save me some valuable time.  While choosing my sites to subscribe to, I realized that you can not add all sites to your list.  Some of the ones I wanted to add weren't available.  Hopefully, more will continue to be added.

Teachers can definitely use this tool to keep up-to-date on current news in education, especially technology.  Personally, I would like to use this tool to help me with my family tree project.  I am hoping that I will be able to add several of the sites I visit often while working on this project.  If so, that will be an awesome time saver!