Infographic Assignment

Here is a link to my Infographic Assignment.  I kept mine very simple, as it is something I would use with my 3rd graders.  I have found that too much content for them can be overwhelming, and they don't see everything you want them to!

http://jenn6462.edu.glogster.com/branches-of-government/

Week 5

As we have worked through the digital story telling process, I have found it to be exactly like the writing process.  When we teach our students to write, we teach them to brainstorm.  In third grade we typically give them some kind of organizer to use, although we do teach them how to make webs, much like the one I used to gather my thoughts about my digital story.  They always do a rough draft.  Many of our students will tell you that their story is perfect, but as they learn, we all have to revise and edit our writing.  I personally, do not like writing, so I revise a ton.   My biggest struggle in creating digital stories, is figuring how to make everything work together between the talking, visual, and any music.  In my mind that is a lot of things to coordinate. When we do digital stories at school the kids are able to coordinate all three, so I figure if they can do it, so can I :-)  

Week 4

Many teachers have a classroom website with varying levels of success.  How have you made your classroom website more useful to students, families, and other educators?  What gaps still remain?

Our school requires us to each have a classroom website.  We have made many changes to our websites over the years, but it wasn't until recently that I have found a way to make it work.  In my opinion, our school websites are very lacking.  They are hard to edit, you can't do much with animations, or making them visually appealing, and it is hard to put documents on for the parents to download.  The worst part is that you have to be at school to update your website.  As we all know, finding time during the school day to do something like this is difficult.  Our district has tried several other alternatives along the way, but nothing has stuck.  

My solution to this last year was I started a blogger site.  There is a link on my school website to take parents to my blogger site.  This was by far the best decision I ever made.  I love that I can update it from my phone or ipad wherever I am.  I am able to upload documents that are useful to the parents and students more easily.  It is so much more user friendly.  In order to make my site more useful for parents, I would like to incorporate google calendar and create separate sections for the parents and students with pertinent information.   I still have links on my regular school website that the kids access every day, and ultimately I would like to get all of them moved into my blogger site.