Emerging from my snow coma......

Yes, I think it is time to put down the mixing bowls and baking dishes and get back to the real important things...technology in the classroom, of course! My cohort has been busy loading great websites, YouTube videos, creating digital stories, finding great apps, tagging wonderful teacher blogs, and sharing it all!Wow!Thank you to my wonderful partners in education!

Kindergarten response to Animoto!

In a word-anticlimactic!  The students were excited to see their hands and the digi blocks on the screen.  I think I need to add large numerals to it(insert them before or after each slide).  Also, it I could slow it down or put it in a loop for reinforcement.
Our math teacher enjoyed it!  She hadn't seen animoto so this was a new tech tool for her.

Classroom Animoto

I've been thinking how I might use Animoto in my classroom.  For vocabulary? With word families? Highlighting high frequency words? Maybe in math? What should I create? One for shapes or solids? Number line? Counting? I settled on counting.  The class has been working with the "tricky teens"- the numbers from 11 to 19. They have used various manipulatives to accomplish this task.  I thought a good use of  Animoto was to create a movie that showcased each number by using digi blocks and their fingers.  Each slide would show the number and the number word.

The children were excited when I told them they would be in a movie!  But they were surprised to hear the movie would be about math!  'Math?!', they said.  Then the questions started. How? Why? When would we do it? How can you use digi blocks-they aren't real?  I explained how it would work and how we would accomplish this task together.

The children worked together to put the correct number of digi blocks in the cases.  I took the pictures of the blocks when they were ready.  Then they worked in pairs to show the number of fingers for each number. Another photo op!  

Finished product:

What do you think?  Should it be longer? Slower?

2 Birds with One Stone

How do I load a youtube video onto my blog?
Step one: look for a video on youtube.
Step two: find one that is an Animoto too!
Step three: Post!!

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle
First attempt at using Animoto.  I used some pictures from a trip.  Very easy to use!