Web 2.0 Tools

Although, many times I get overwhelmed with having a full time job and being in two grad classes, I can say I am LOVING learning all of this new technology. In my last class, Educational Planning, we wrote a research paper and mine was on technology in the classroom because I felt like that was an area where I could improve and was truly not educated on many of the programs available.

Web 2.0 Tools for Weather Unit in First Grade!

Concept Map (Bubble.us)
With that being said, I have completed my concept map and am ready to go start my video! I really enjoy Bubbl.us. Unlike other classmates I have not had the trouble of saving it, cross my fingers I was doing it correctly! My major concern is with not being able to align the bubbles. I feel like I spend too much time trying to get my bubbles in the perfect place. It is a hard program for us Type A people who need it to be perfect. I also would like to change my font. Both of these things you might be able to do, but I have not figured out how! Here is my concept map:

Video (Animoto.com)
I really enjoyed this website. I am very sad I did not know about this until now. Not only do I think it would be cool/interactive to use with students in the classroom, I could utilize it for my own classroom webpage to post pictures. My one concern was the length of the video for the free user. I think I would want the option to have longer videos, I had to delete three of my photos to get to the 30 seconds! Hope you enjoy my video. I chose the music, "Cloud Forest," not too exciting but I thought the title was fitting!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Glogster
Well, not so sure how much I like Glogster. I think the application is really neat and some of the graphics and designs are cool, but I do think it was very hard to use. I would imagine you would use this in a classroom to make a presentation about a certain topic, but I think a lot of support would be needed to do so. I really enjoy the idea of it and if I got better at it I might feel more comfortable to use it in my room. After several hours on this I still do not love mine, but at some point I had to let go! Here it is...

http://morgana3940.glogster.com/weatherunit/

Free Choice (Bighugelabs.com)
I, like many others, really enjoyed this site as well. I could see using all of the fun activities in the classroom to help students express ideas. I have added this site to my favorites and cannot wait to use it at school. Here are the three activities I made!

I think the magazine cover would be fun to make when students have completed a writing piece and need a title page!

I used this project to show the four seasons.

I thought this project was neat, a creative way for students to share information about a topic.

WHEWWWW...I'M DONE!!!!!