love love love igoogle

I have never been exposed to iGoogle before until yesterday in class. This is such a wonderful tool to have access to on your computer. Since I have set iGoogle as my homepage, I have found it to be such a blessing. There are gadgets that you can put on your page, such as, a to do list and also it will allow to have your Gmail account open on the page. This is a great way to stay organized and it will also keep you up to date on the current news as well. You can have add a gadget that has the top news stories in the world and also one for the entertainment world. I just wanted to let everyone know how great this tool is and to encourage everyone to use iGoogle frequently!!

Wordy World of Wordle

Wordle is a Web 2.0 tool that allows you to create your own word clouds. Word clouds can be used in many different ways in the classroom. It is a fun and creative way to present information to your children in the class. If you have a younger class they are going to be more interested in the topic at hand if you present the material in a new and fun way. As a teacher, you can use Wordle to present your class rules, do an about me page, present a story/speech, list your spelling words. There are endless possibilities for the uses of Wordle and word clouds. Give your students a chance to speak their mind and let out a creative side.

Here is an example of an about me word cloud.

making the quest through the web

What are they? How are they used? Who can use them? What are they used for? These are many questions that went through my mind when I was first introduced to WebQuests. WebQuests are online projects that allow students to work in groups to reach a particular task. This week we were to collaborate with our group members in order to review a few different WebQuests. This activity made me realize what exactly these were and what they can be used for. Each member of the group had a particular task that they were responsible for reviewing in each WebQuest. My job, in particular, was the efficiency expert. My job was to review the site and to see if the project was using time efficiently. If the project took a long period of time to complete, I wanted to know if the children were getting a lot out of the material learned and was it worth our class time to complete. Some other things that should be looked at when deciding on what WebQuest to use are: does it allow for group collaboration, does it make children think at a higher level and not just writing down facts, and the overall look of the page is also important. This project really made me aware of what to look for in a good WebQuest and to know when you come across a bad one.

After we completed this project in class we were to go out and find our own WebQuest that we would like to use in our classroom. I was really frustrated when first looking for one because it seems like there are many out there that do not meet the expectations that we were looking for in class. The WebQuest that I finally found was "Help Frog and Toad". This particular WebQuest should be used in a first grade classroom and it collaborates English and Science. The children are asked to read Frog and Toad Are Friends and then to do research on both frogs and toads. This was a good WebQuest because to me it met all of the qualifications we learned about in class. The children are working with partners, they are using a good amount of time to research and talk about the subject at hand and the page is very appealing, it does not have many distracting aspects and it is easy to understand.

Overall, I think that WebQuests are a great tool for teachers at any grade level. They allow children to learn about a subject while discussing with their fellow classmates, as well as using tools on the internet. As teachers, we must also be aware that their are some WebQuests out there that are not very effective or efficient. Before we give any classroom a particular WebQuest we must first review the page and decide if it gets an A or an F. If given an A, then let your kids begin working and enjoy the fun!

to use or not to use....that is the question

On Monday, our class was told we were going to be evaluating a website that we could one day use in our classroom. This was a big project because we all want to have successful classrooms; therefore we want/need to pick the right tools to use. Each student was to pick a different website and complete the evaluation form given to us. I choose to evaluate starfall.com.

StarFall is a website that can be used in the lower grade classrooms. It is meant to help Kindergarten through second graders learn to read. I found this website to be very useful in the aspect of learning to read. There are many different links to different short stories and games that help children learn the basics about reading and phonics. There are also many other links that show fun ways for kids to read and ways to get them interested in reading. This site is very interactive and easy for children to navigate through. The font is large enough, the colors are bright but not distracting, and there is also sound to go along with many of the games. I think that if I end up teaching a younger classroom this website will definitely be one that will be used.

There are not only links to help children learn, but also links for teachers and parents. Teachers can get on and look at different curriculum's that could be used in the class. Parents and teachers can also download printable handouts that can be used at home or in the classroom. The only thing you need to have in order to download these files is Adobe Reader. One draw back of this website is that you need fast internet connection. If you have a slower internet connection, it might take some of the games and movies a little longer to download.

Overall this website is a great tool for young readers and if you would like to check it out the website is http://www.starfall.com/.