Starting Over Again!

I am having trouble selecting projects for my PhotoStory project for STEP. I spent alot of time taking pictures, editing, arranging , captioning but then decided I had a better idea. So I took pictures, edited, arranged, and captioned another project. I did complete one. Now I just have to decide which of the other projects I will concentrate on.
I also started over again with my VoiceThread. I had a good idea when I was taking pictures for my PhotoStory. We had an in-house-fieldtrip. I noticed one of the teachers was not there and had the idea that the students could tell her about what they saw. I could not get right in to the room which would have been ideal. I had to wait a few days and the students' memories had faded somewhat. The results are a little rough but they are genuine! I am glad I did not go the editing route like I had originally planned. There is a place for that but this is real sharing!

The Deadline looms

We just got word of our final deadline. I can't believe that the school year is ending and our Gallery walk for STEP is so close. I have to say that from December till now I have really had a change of heart as far as technology in the classroom is concerned. While i still don't belive my two year olds need to be using technology everyday Ithink that exposure in a supportive environment and technology that is interactive can be useful. I found that most of my projects started leaning to being parent training modules or at home online reinforcers of stuff that the students were exposed to at school. I'm hoping I can continue to implement this stuff next year and expand and make better what i've already come up with.

Now to put those finishing touches on my Wiki :) (which if you still need the link to is http://kateribaker.wikispaces.com/ )

I love the photo story program. I am able to use it to demonstrate projects that students need to independently complete in the learning centers.

Since I am able to add voice to the photo stories, I have decided to create photo stories and allow the stories to run in the student computer center. This way students can use the photo stories as resources when the need reminder of directions or procedures.

We are winding down and I am attempting to complete my portfolio. It is getting difficult to give the projects the time since the school year is wrapping up.

BLAB BLAB BLAB

Sooo I forgot to tell you about Blabberize it is a super silly and very fun site that the ladies at the braving the wild session at Micca showed us. Check it out!



It's basically an internet puppet, they are alot of fun to make and could be used for projects. The ladies at MICCA had students be the voices of farm animals and talk about where they lived and what they ate it was very cute.

Check it out for yourself at http://blabberize.com/
Or see another one I did for STEP at my wiki http://kateribaker.wikispaces.com/

Recording and Editing Sound

There was a project that a group of Chapel Forge staff wanted to do to support some of our Spanish-speaking families. They asked me to help to record and produce CDs with vocabulary to support the monthly theme, ABCs. counting etc. I wasn't sure how I would do it. Luckily Ronlyn was at CF when they suggested the project. When I asked her how to do it she mentioned Audacity was a good program to use to record sound. Initially, I was able to use the Microsoft sound recorder (under Accessories on most computers). This was fine until I needed to record segments that were longer than 1 minute. I remembered Ronlyn's suggestion and downloaded the program from the Audacity site. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ . I am not using half of the features but have been very happy with what I have used. The group was very happy with the CDs that resulted.
I used Audacity again for my VoiceThread project. I thought the students would have a hard time coordinating speaking into the microphone on cue. I had them react to the book, The Carrot Seed. I just started Audacity recording on a second computer. It did well in picking up sound. My intent is to edit the sound clips and insert them into the VoiceThread. So far, so good. The students liked to watch the sound pattern change as they spoke. It was very easy to isolate statements that I can associate with different images fom the book. I am getting somewhere!