Final Podcast Project- What's Being Read in 6th Grade

So I tried several times to get my podcast from Podbean and was unsuccessful- so I just attached my video from my mpeg file. You can subscribe to my podcast on Itunes, it uploads there. Ahh the joys of technology! :)

Delicious

Woah- what an interesting site. I had NO idea that I could save and look at my bookmarks from any computer. Since I use a separate computer at school and home sometimes I don't have access to a site that I went to at one or the other. This makes it so I can see my bookmarks from anywhere. I think this is a great site and is a great way to look at what other people are bookmarking as well. As educators it's great because sometimes we have that stroke of genius and find a great site that we would like to share with our colleagues and we either have to e-mail it to them or write it on a sticky note :) this way we can share these links and websites with each other at any time.

Here is the link to my delicious account:
http://delicious.com/abbyliebenguth

Podcast Subscriptions

I have subscribed to a couple of podcasts- the ones that I will reflect on today are BrainStuff and Tenacious Teacher. The first podcast- BrainStuff is from the website howstuffworks.com which is a website that my kids already visit on a regular basis. This podcast addresses a daily question and then answers it. For example "What does RSVP mean?" or "Does drinking ice water burn calories?" I think my students would enjoy listening to this podcast and finding answers to some of their questions.
The second podcast Tenacious Teacher- Teaching Strategies for the Everyday Teacher is a podcast for me. It gives me tips and suggestions for my own teaching. A couple of example topics are Bloom's Taxonomy and Providing Feedback. Some of these could be extremely important and serve as good reminders for how to make my teaching that much better. I am excited to subscribe to some more podcasts and explore them and allow my students to find some that interest them and could be incorporated in my classroom. I look forward to seeing everyone else’s to see what I can subscribe to! :)

Podcast Proposal- Book Talks

Purpose of Podcast:

The purpose of this podcast is to allow 6th graders to share book talk on books they have read and would recommend to other 6th grade students.

Podcast Description:

The audience for this podcast would be other 6th grade students as well as parents of other 6th grade students so they could be well aware of grade level books that other students have liked. I would like to have students broadcast weekly. I would choose a new student each week to share a book that they have read and enjoyed at the 6th grade level. My students would be the host of this broadcast; however, I would be the one putting it together for them and guiding them on what types of things they could say about their book. The length of the show would only be a couple of minutes probably 3-5. The format would be a summary of the book including characters, setting, plot and reasons why they would recommend the book to others.

Detailed description:

I will have one student per week give a book talk on a book that they have read and would recommend to other 6th graders. They will write up a summary that includes the title, author, genre, setting and a brief summary. Students will not give away any important plot twists but may want to describe key moments of conflict from the book without revealing how the conflict is resolved. They should then leave the audience with "If you want to know what happens, read this book!" or something similar. Students will give reasons that they liked the book and why they think others should read it. They will practice their book talk. I will make sure it is brief and engaging and that it gives enough information for someone to make a decision about whether or not to read the book.
I will then make an audio recording of each student recording his or her book talk. Each one will be an episode in the book talk podcast series. I will add some pictures in Photo Story so that I can include pictures of the book, author and characters as well as possibly students' artwork for the book. My students will be able to share their work with their families, with other classes in the school and district because I will notify other teachers and parents that a link to this will be on my class website.

Include any local/state objectives this podcast will address:

Nebraska State Standards- 8.1.1; 8.1.3; 8.1.4
Bellevue Essential Objectives- Reading and Language Arts #4

Plants in Our World- Animoto Video

When using Animoto there were a couple of things that I really enjoyed and some things that I really don't like about using it. One that I like is that the program transitions and makes your project look snazzy without you prompting it to do so. One thing that I didn't like as much was that in order to have text ON your pictures, you had to first edit them in Picnik. Another thing that I like about Photostory versus Animoto was that in Photostory there are many more opportunities to preview your project before it finally gets put together.
I messed around a little with freeplaymusic, but chose not to use it in my Animoto video. I had trouble getting the files to load and play on my computer. It is a good resource for kids when they are adding music to their presentations, as it is free and will not infringe on copyright laws.
Finally, I liked using Picnik- I enjoyed enhancing my pictures that I found online and adding text. I did this to several pictures in my movie. Before I created my movie, when I was just looking at Picnik, I took a staff picture from last year when we all played staff volleyball together and enhanced it so that only our shirts were red (school color) and the rest was black and white. I thought those types of features were really neat.
I would be willing to use Animoto in the classroom for a variety of things. One thing I think it would be good for is introducing new units. By putting together pictures and music it's like a preview before the movies in the theater. I also think kids would enjoy making the free 30 second ones about themselves as something to start the year with, so we could learn more about each other. Finally, I do a 6th grade recognition video with pictures from the entire year, and this would be a fast and easy way to do that. I think all of these tools we learned about and used this week are beneficial and fun and are things I will pass along to colleagues and my students.

Multimedia Makes Its Mark- Article Review and PhotoStory

Phew- what a sense of relief to be done with the first project!


Enjoy :)

Introduction

My name is Abby Liebenguth, I'm a 6th grade teacher at Twin Ridge Elementary School in Bellevue, NE. This is my second year teaching and it has been absolutely better than the first! I began my undergraduate in education at Northwest Missouri State, then went to UNO and finally finished at Peru State at the annex location. I've worked with kids since I was 16 and always knew that I would want to continue working with children- so teaching was the clear choice for me. When I'm not teaching or working on school work I enjoy reading, shopping, spending time with my family and watching movies.
My experience with technology is quite limited- even though I am part of the Y-generation and have always grown up with technology, I'm quite intimidated by it. I get easily frustrated and give up when I can't figure it out. I am definitely a PC person! When I student taught in Westside Schools they were Mac and I never really quite got the hang of it, although many people love it. I have always had PCs and that's what I'm most familiar with. I use Office 07 at both school and home. In my classroom I have a couple of technology tools that I'm most familiar with and use pretty regularly. Our district received rover projector carts which I use on a very regular basis. I also sometimes use a document camera, although there are fewer of those in my building so I have had less time to play around with one. Finally I use clickers on a very regular basis with my students in preparing for tests. Since these are things I'm familiar with, I use them, but I have to feel very comfortable with something before I use it in my classroom as 6th graders are often very critical.
Finally I decided to get my Master's degree through Peru because I was familiar with their system having received my undergraduate from them and I liked the convenience of this program being all online and accelerated. Of all my classes these multimedia ones have been the most scary and intimidating, but I somehow muddle through them. This degree will hopefully help me to continue to learn about changes and new information in education as I find it equally important to learn as to teach. I plan on getting a second Master's or starting my Doctorate in the coming years.
I look forward to learning more about technology and multimedia in this class!