Creating Voice Threads

I chose to make a that could be used as part of a lesson. In this Voice Thread, I focused on homophones --words that sound the same but have different meanings. I knew that this was a topic in which visual aids, like pictures and doodling, could help clarify confusion.

I found this week’s project to be very helpful; I can definitely envision myself using Voice Threads in my future classroom. The process of creating a Voice Thread was very user-friendly but there still seem to be tons of great features that would be helpful teachers (like multiple identities on one account or being able to moderate the comments left on your thread). Once I got my account up and running it was smooth sailing. I used FlckrCC to grab some images for my thread about homophones, plugged in my microphone and I was ready to go. Like other commenters on the Voice Thread about doodling, I too found the tool very helpful. In my Voice Thread I used doodling to differentiate between the two homophones I had up on the slide. I hoped that this would highlight the fact that I was pronouncing two different words. I did make several mistakes while recording my comment, thankfully erasing these errors was super easy!

The examples posted on the class blog as well as the Voice Threads I looked at on our Google reader served up some inspiration on how Voice Threads might be used in my future class. As I said before, creating a voice thread was very easy to do. I think that with some guidance even the youngest students could contribute to a Voice Thread. I thought the idea of combining all of the class’ ideas onto a single voice thread, like the Federal Holiday Voice Thread, would be a nice way to showcase student work. Plus, Voice Threads are easy to share. I’m sure that many parents and relatives across the country would be interested in looking at student created Voice Threads. The examples of compiling different Voice Threads in wiki’s has the potential for really interesting possibilities. Students could collaborate in Voice Thread wiki’s with students across the hall or across the country. Because Voice Threads are so versatile the possibilities are endless!

Creative Commons and Adding Images

Photo Attribution

Original Image: "Home of Chicago Cubs"

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/31/58806696_98f800166a.jpg

By: brighter than sunshine

Released under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en

Before doing this assignment I had a vague idea that many of the ways that I have become used to finding and/or using images from the web wasn’t 100% on the up and up. If a student would have asked me how to find an image I probably would have directed them to Google images, AltaVista, or some other similar search engine. As far as citing an image goes, I would have had no idea what to suggest. Perhaps I would have told the student to include the web address from which they took the image. Even though I knew that this was not the right protocol, I guess I’d never taken the time to look into what I should be directing students to do.

This week has definitely provided me with a better understanding of Creative Commons and what is appropriate in terms of using other people’s work. The links to the videos and comics that were provided in the class blog were not only crucial to my understanding o f this topic but also have the potential to be very informative for my future students. After this week’s lesson I feel more confident in responding to students questions about locating and using images from the web. Now I know how to utilize sites like FlickrCC as well as properly cite the images I use –all of which is information that I can pass on to my future students!

Election Mini-Unit

I chose to plan a mini-unit that would tie into a very prominent current events topic – The Presidential Election. This unit focuses on the GLCE’s and METS listed below and will provide an introduction to how different government officials are elected, what their jobs entail, and how their decisions affect our daily lives.

4th Grade Social Studies GLCEs:

4 – C1.0.1 Identify questions political scientists ask in examining the United States (e.g., What does government do? What are the basic values and principles of American democracy? What is the relationship of the United States to other nations? What are the roles of the citizen in American democracy?).

4 – C3.0.6 Describe how the President, members of the Congress, and justices of the Supreme Court come to power (e.g., elections versus appointments).

4 – P3.1.1 Identify public issues in the United States that influence the daily lives of its citizens.

Michigan’s Educational Technology Standards & Expectations
Technology Problem-Solving and Decision- Making Tools:

By the end of Grade 5 each student will use technology resources to access information that can assist in making informed decisions about everyday matters (e.g., which movie to see, which product to purchase)

By the end of Grade 5 each student will use information and communication technology tools to collect, organize, and evaluate information to assist with solving real-life problems (personal or community)

Day 1: How do you become he the president?

Brain Pop Movie and Quiz: This website will serve as introductory to our study of the election process. Tim and Moby’s animated short explains how elections work in a republic. Political parties, primaries, conventions, presidential tickets, political platforms and the like are discussed in this animated video. After the video, the students will complete an informal quiz about the information presented in the video. This website will help students gain a brief overview of the election process that will serve as a jumping off point for the rest of the week’s lessons.

Day 2: How does government affect me?

The Democracy Project: Using this website, students will explore how checks and balances are applied to our government. Skill level appropriate explanations of each government branch are provided. Students will then link into the “town” section of the website to investigate the impact that government has in the local community (e.g. on schools, transportation, media, etc.). This website will help students think about how the decisions government officials trickle down to affect all aspects of their own community.

Day 3: Road to the Capital:

Students will use this website to engage in their own mock campaign. After a congressman steps down, Roberta Glass decides to run for his position. She is running on the platform that “kids have too much freedom” and she proposes that more decisions should be made for them. As students run against Roberta Glass, they are “briefed on the issues” that involve our basic rights and freedoms. To win this election, students will need to prove that they are the most qualified candidate by drawing on their knowledge of key principles of democracy.

Day 4: If You Were President…

This game asks students to pick advisors, create a budget, and give interviews to the press. Students will have to justify the decisions they had made in regards to the budget which will result in a front page news story that can be printed and shared with the class. This website will encourage students to think critically about the ways which government funding is spent, who is benefiting and who is losing out.

Day 5: Get Out the Vote!

Students will register for The National Student/Parent Mock Election which we will partake in before the general elections on October 30th, 2008. Additionally, students will use the ZOOM website in order to “get out the grown up vote”. All the tools are provided to help students set up a community voting drive. These website will help students get involved in the voting process, draw on what they’ve learned throughout the week, and make a difference in their community.

All of the sites I used for this unit are tagged under "election" on my course del.icio.us account. My google calendar also outlines the election mini unit that I've planned.

Googling Lisa Patterson (or "At Least I Found a Good Masseuse")

Typing my name into the Google search bar returned over 213,000 results. That’s a heck of a lot of results. I know Googling someone has become a common practice but I am not sure that much can be learned about me through this simple search technique. Although I’d imagine a few of the 213,000 results might actually be about me it’d be hard to find them buried amidst the results about Lisa Patterson the surgeon, lawyer, real estate agent, graphic designer, or masseuse.

Modifying the search phrase so it sort of “aimed” to find this Lisa Patterson, the me Lisa Patterson, returned more specific results like other blogs I have kept for MSU classes or information pertaining to my years as a resident mentor in the dorms. This information wasn’t incriminating or anything, but I do believe it would be hard to find. I had to play around with my search terms for a while before I found results that pertained to my own life.

I also created my online portfolio this week which was an interesting experience. I’d never used Google pages before and I was quite impressed with how easy it was use. Although I’ve merely laid the groundwork for this portfolio I hope to create webpage that will give the reader an idea of who I am, what I’ve done here at MSU, and where I’d like to be in the future. I think it’s great that this class has prompted me to create an online portfolio well before I am in the job market. This gives me plenty of time to “play” with the technology and update information as I gain more experience during my internship year.