The Digital Generation

Believe it or not, many of our kids may truly believe their world is entwined with the birth and development of technology.  From the time our children are born they are bombarded with the very fast paced, interactive, interesting, visually loud expanse of technology.  Unlike adults, they have never know the world to be different. This is where problems begin in educating our youth.  Instead of just tackling the age old behavior and engagement issues, now we have to battle 21st century issues. Check out the link below to discover for yourself why this change in direction will be beneficial and critical in the development and success of our youth.  

Check out Glogster

Teachers, kids and families will find this online digital poster making program amusing.  Once you have an account, you can even blog about them.  Make sure to set your search defaults to a conservative level in the control panel to make sure all your search results within this program are kid friendly.  See my post about how to do this if you are confused.  

www.glogster.com

Some ideas for usage:

-  Make a digital persuasive or informative piece.  Then, have the kids blog about the effectiveness of each others' work. 

- make the cover of a book from the children's perspective.  Or, have them recreate the front page to demonstrate how the setting of a book can change the mood or theme.  

- illustrate a major event from the story

- make an informative poster and add text features

- create an advertisement

- make a visual "how to" piece 

- or create a page for yourself where kids can check out videos and links

- make a poster that shows what you learned and saw on your field trip

Scared to fiddle with it?  Check out this quick tutorial.

Podcasting

Podcasting is a useful resource in the classroom for any audio assessment or audio recording project.  In my classroom I can see using podcasts for building fluency, creating audio books, as a prewriting strategy, and presenting information in an informative, explanatory, or persuasive manner.  

For fluency, my students can choose an on-level book to practice each week.  At the beginning of the week they can do their “draft” podcast.  By Friday they should rerecord their reading of the book so they can hear the improvement.  If improvement is not significant, it will be evident that the text is either too difficult, or they are truly not practicing.

So many students struggle to write because they can’t get their thoughts on paper.  Using a podcast for students to gather their thoughts or to get initial thoughts organized will a powerful tool for the students who get lost somewhere between their thoughts and the paper.

Audio books could be a great brainstorming activity.  Given journal topics, or story starters the students can create stories as a stress free way of expanding their imaginations.  Also, if the students made audio recordings of the books they create, they can be used for struggling or emergent readers in other settings.
Finally, podcasts can be a tool for assessment.  By allowing all children or students who struggle with writing to share their knowledge via audio recording teachers can get a clear idea of what his/her students really know. Students can also create persuasive arguments and informational presentations.

See my first podcast below.  These will give you an idea of what podcasts are like!  just click on the link.
How to teach your dog to play dead. 

Ways You can use Microsoft Resources in Schools or at Home

I have used programs such as Read Write Gold for students with reading/comprehension disabilities om the past, but this program appears easy and user friendly. I would use Narrator in my classroom to assist struggling readers. Or, I can have the students listen to the word documents they create being read back to them. Many times I find that students do not actually read what they write. In fact, when they read their writing to me they always read the document as they think it is written. By listening to their work they will catch more mistakes. Another way I can implement this program is to have non-readers listen to stories or direction in this manner. If I really wanted to save some time in repeating myself I could also make written directions of tasks for students to re-listen to if I am not available to chat with them.

Finding the narrator software is quite simple. If you have Windows 7, all you need to do is find the Windows icon at the bottom left hand side of your screen. Once you have located the icon, left click it. the viewer will notice a blank search box at the bottom of the selection page. In the search box, type "Narrator."

Once you have found the "Narrator" tool, you can use various keyboard combinations to control the functions of Narrator. The most useful keyboard combination I can see a student learning to use is ctrl+shft+spacebar;This combination reads the entire text of the page you select as a reader. If a reader needs to walk away from the reading or pause their work they can simply hit ctrl. Using insert+f6 allows the reader to hear the current paragraph. Lastly, insert+f8 will read an entire document.

Microsoft narrator

This Link will give you access to more in depth instructions.

Podcasting Tutorialsand examples

Here are tutorials on making Podcasts.  Podcasts are audio recording that anyone can do!

Youtube videos for Podcasting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3LSRevfnGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOtyPfLdoHo


Examples of podcasts: