Reflection: Using Wordle and Tagxedo in the Classroom

Both the applications, Wordle and Tagxedo, allow the user to compile a list of words and make a word cloud out of them. I found both applications to be a ton of fun! At first I though I liked Wordle best because it was the first one that I tried. However, after trying out Tagxedo and seeing all the fun shapes you can put your words in, I realized it is more elaborate. With Tagxedo you can even type in a URL and the application will create a word cloud with the words off of the website which is what I did with the image below. 

The image below this one, is another example of wordle. I have previously posted on this blog about this application and used it again for my ED Tech class: 

After using both applications I definitely think there are ways this could be used in the classroom. Wordle can be used to type in words about various subjects you are teaching or perhaps a unit your are covering such as the rainforest. You could type in words that relate to the rainforest and it will make a word cloud of out them for you. Or if you wanted to get really creative, you could use tagxedo and choose the shape of a cloud that is raining for this word cloud and then type in all your words. I think that would be a fun way to use these applications. Other ways I saw that are possible, especially with Tagxedo is using the clouds that are in shapes of famous historical people and brainstorming words that described them and making a word cloud. Also, listed on DED 318's Website for this week were some ideas that I thought were fun. 

Various ideas include: 

-Students could use wordle to do an "About Me" activity and pick words that describe them, not unlike the activity we just did for our Ed Tech class with wordle (my example is above). 

-Another idea I thought was fun was having various words about a book listed and having the students guess which book it was talking about. 

-If you are dealing with older students you could use it to list various criteria required for essays and such. 

-Make Wordles of famous speeches. 

-Students could make wordles of the week's vocabulary, or vocabulary for a book that they are reading for your class.

-Wordles about popular holidays

-Make a wordle with all the names of your students and post it on the wall of your classroom

-Other fun ideas I found on our DED 318 Website include:

Guess the Wordle  which is a fun way to get your students involved by looking at wordles and guessing the relationship of the words listed. 

and some of the ideas I got were off of this slideshow 50 Ways to use Wordle in the classroom

Overall, I've found that wordle and tagxedo are great resources for my future classroom. 

Wordle!

Our teacher mentioned in class today to come up with 20-30 words that we feel describe ourselves and that we were going to make a "wordle" of them during our next class period. A wordle is a colorful combination of different words here is a link to get you started http://www.wordle.net/

Well.... long story short I have heard of a wordle, one of my teachers made one for us in a class last semester and it looked like a lot of fun - sooo I went ahead and made one! Here it is!

Reflection 2: CDK’s Education Technology Place

Ok, so here is the second reflection of the week. For our educational technology class we had to dig around on our teacher's website http://www.cyndidannerkuhn.info/CDK/Home.html and write a reflection on some things or resources that we found there so here goes:

To start off with, before I even enrolled in this class, I heard about Cyndi Danner-Kuhn and her love for technology through a cousin of mine. She’s employed in one of the Junction City elementary schools and Cyndi did a presentation there. Over Christmas break I saw my cousin and she told me to look up Cyndi's website and various things she talked about. So, I have viewed CDK's website prior to “exploring” it. One of the things my cousin said Cyndi stressed was the use of “delicious” to create a way to view your bookmarks off of any computer and I’m sure we’ll get to that in class, but it seemed to me like a really cool idea.

            Re-browsing through her website, I see some familiar links and such. I am friends with some people that took your class last semester and enjoyed looking at their blogs, one resource that I see they must’ve gotten off your website is Tech Chick Tips. This resource is a podcast that has two Texas teachers sharing what they love and how to use bits of technology. I find them kind of fun and interesting to listen to.

            One resource I newly discovered while browsing is www.dropmocks.com

This website is really cool, and I can use it in the future to make quick presentations of pictures or images I need to show my class. All I have to do is drag and drop and it’s so much simpler than loading pictures into a powerpoint.

            Another cool resource I discovered through the “Langwitches” Blog is edu.glogster.com, which is a way to create online multimedia posters and share them. I thought this was really cool! I remember back to middle school language arts and we had to make posters for several things, but never got to use any program as cool as this! The project is then entitled a “Glog”. I feel like this will be a more relevant way for me to let my students make posters if they have to, than the traditional poster board and marker way. Glogster even allows a person to put sound on their poster, thereby enriching the full multimedia experience and I think it’s really cool! Although you have to pay for a licensed copy of it, that is the only downfall that I see at the moment. It’s not a free resource, bummer.

            Something I found funny was “creative excuses NOT to use technology”. Some of those excuses are entertaining to say the least, some are pathetic. Reflecting on my schooling, I KNOW technology makes a difference and is beneficial to the classroom. I’ve been using a Mac since 6^th grade, (I went to school at Stafford Jr/Sr High School) and I’m loving it! It makes doing homework better, faster, and easier. I can take it to class and take notes on it, do powerpoints for projects,  use Imovie for projects. Or take advantage of all the online resources that I could possibly need. I love that this website has people giving excuses they heard for not including technology time, personally though, I think they’re scared or unfamiliar. This could be helped by technology presentations within their school districts, not unlike the presentation you did in Junction City at my cousin’s school.

            Two last random reflections, I noticed that “animoto” and “scribd” are both listed and good resources for teachers to have. I have used both of these websites before and concur! Animoto makes videos really fast and it’s really simple to use. Whereas Scribd is an easy way to share documents. I could easily use this with my students, and have them have scribd accounts and share assignments with them maybe, or things that I need them to read online, that way their parents see it and it doesn’t get lost in a bookbag. As a result, both sites are really great.

            Overall there are a great deal of resources and interesting things on her webpage, I wish I had the time to sit down and look at each one and dig deeper into every blog. However the ones I did choose to look into are great, and very interesting.  I feel like I’ve learned a lot and class has barely began :) 

How to add a cute blog background!

For those students that are in my Educational Technology class and were wondering how I got my cute background, or how to create a fun background that is different than the templates that blogger provides, here is your answer!

This link provides a pretty good explanation of how to do this http://www.ehow.com/how_4563630_add-cute-background-blogger-blog.html

Here are some websites that provide free blog backgrounds:

http://shabbyblogs.com/?page_id=108&val=120

http://thecutestblogontheblock.com/free/free-backgrounds.html


If you are still having trouble and can't figure it out, comment on this post and I'll see what I can do :)

Reflection 1: Technology Bits, Bytes & Nibbles

So folks, I observed my educational tech teacher's blog, Technology Bits, Bytes and Nibbles for class and I found a lot of interesting and helpful things and this is my reflection :)

The first story I read written by Kevin Jarrett and about implementing digital cameras in the classroom. While some may think this means letting a teacher photograph her kids doing various activities, this is wrong. During this activity, the teacher allowed groups of students to have one camera per group and gave them note cards of things in the classroom to take pictures of. The students really enjoyed this activity and had a lot of fun.

I learned that it is possible to give young children cameras and use them in a lesson, I’d never really thought about doing that before. As a result, I think it could be a fun activity that I could use in my future classroom for my students. There were also follow up lessons after the “Photo Scavenger Hunt” that tied it all together. The teacher explained the use of various parts of the camera, and also made jigsaw puzzles out of the pictures they had taken via a website (I had never heard of! It’s kind of neat!
www.jigsawplanet.com. After this, the teacher had a powerpoint template that the students were to complete. They had to label what the various pictures of the items were, and it was basically a “keyboard exercise” he said.
I all of this is a great, creative way to use technology in the classroom. I love technology myself, but I’m not sure how to relate it for little kids/students so they will be accustomed to it. This activity allows them to directly work with digital photography, the Internet, as well as powerpoint. Three key things they are going to have to know how to use in the future.
This will impact my teaching because it gives me the confidence to try small things like this with my students. It also changed my mind about allowing students to handle things like cameras and deal with the internet at such a young age. Both of these activities, I was a bit hesitant about because my mom is a kindergarten teacher and I know how those kids are, but it turns out the kids love them! And it’s great technological interaction for them!

I did some digging around on this guy’s blog and found a really cool resource called www.superteachertools.com This site is really technologically savvy! When you arrive on the site there is a place at the bottom to follow it on facebook, which is a good way for me to stay connected with it. Also, it allows you to see who is on the website and their various locations which I thought was cool.
What this site does, it allows you to easily make classroom review games such as jeopardy, match review game, who wants to be a millionaire, and board game question review. Not only does this site have review resources, it has things such as an easy way to print out a seating chart, has a group maker, random name generator as opposed to the old way of using popsicle sticks, and a counter for times when you need to countdown in the classroom.
Overall, I learned a new fun way to have students review in the classroom and discovered that it’s not as hard as I thought to come up with fun ways to review.
This site surprised me with how much it has on it! It seems to be overflowing with good ideas and things I can use. It will/would make my future teaching much easier and more fun to be around for the students. I will be giving them fun ways to review so they might actually comprehend more of the information. I know in high school we were allowed to use jeopardy to review for our biology class, and while it wasn’t a computer version, it was a lot of fun and helped me learn. So, going from prior experience, I’m guessing these games will help the students learn more as well!

Another cool resource I found on her blog was the website for   Google Science Fair. I LOVED participating in the science fair when I was younger. I was the geek that delighted in perfecting my tri-fold and everything that went with it! However our science fair was only for our middle school students, I think this is great that it allows students ages 13-18 to compete at a Global level. It will give older students the opportunity to continue doing science fair if they want to and it allows them to work in groups of 2 or 3, which is great I think. I remember doing it all myself, which I liked, but some thrive better when working in groups. So, as far as using this resource in my classroom, since I won’t be teaching this age range it really doesn’t apply to me, but I could forward this link to other teachers in my school district who do, and I could spur the movement of getting older kids involved in science fair.


So, I might be having too much fun with exploring resources listed on her blog… I found another great one. It’s called UJam and while it’s similar to Garage Band in nature I feel like it allows a little more creativity and is more user friendly. I watched the tutorial posted on her blog and I’m itching to try out this resource. I actually started out as a Music Education major here at K-State and then switched to Elementary Education, so I love anyway that music can be incorporated into the classroom. I feel like I could use the website to have my students, if old enough, either work in pairs or groups to create songs about things we’ve learned. It could be used to review a unit we’ve just covered and I could give them key vocabulary words that had to be included in their song. I think this is a way for students creativity to shine in the classroom, and still make learning fun for them.
I did try this site out personally and it seems like a lot of fun, but perhaps students need to be old enough to know how to use it, it does seem kind of complex but I enjoyed using it nonetheless.

The last article I browsed through on her blog was “Are Laptops Helping Lower Merion Students Learn?” Coming from a middle school/high school where everyone K-12 had a laptop, I firmly believe that laptops are definitely a plus in the classroom. It widens the variety of activities we were able to do, the variety of desktops, it made us mobile instead of being tied down to desktops. While some kids did get distracted as this article points out, the benefit of the laptops far outweighed the few that got distracted. And I know in my old school district, the ed tech teacher in charge started blocking non-educational websites so students didn’t have the opportunity to wander off topic during class and get on sites such as facebook, they were simply blocked.

Overall, the blog Technology Bits, Bytes, and Nibbles is great and was fun to reflect on!

Snow Snow SNOW!

Well, sadly Christmas break is about to an end. I'm kind of okay with that, and yet i'm kind of not. While I love my family, sometimes they drive me crazy, in a good way. Also, I miss my kstate friends and family up in Manhattan and i'm itching to get back to the little brown box that I live in with my roommates.

However, i'm not exactly psyched to go back to classes... the downfall of going back means that school is back in session!

But, the good news is we have one more week before that actually happens! So for the next week or so i'm going to be enjoying my last week of break here with my family.
At the moment i'm enjoying the view. I love how snow makes things look - pure,bright,clean, unblemished. I would go out and play in it, but it's freezing cold outside! So i'll just soak up the view for now.

Snow :)

Jesus is the Reason for the Season :)

First off, I am SO grateful that finals week is over and i'm comfortably lounging at home with my family! :) And although I love k-state and living up in Manhattan, there is truly no place like home for the holidays.
However,while sitting with my sister watching Hallmark Christmas movies and enjoying my first day of doing nothing this Christmas break, I stop and think about the true meaning of Christmas. It isn't about who has the most lights like "Battle of the Bulbs", the Hallmark movie we're now watching, or like the competition on the Jim Carey version of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I love watching movies like The Grinch, Elf, The Santa Clause,Charlie Brown Christmas, and especially White Christmas. All of these are some of my favorite Christmas movies, however none of them show what Christmas is truly about. The Grinch movie tries, when they talk about loving those around you no matter what they look like, and coming together, but it doesn't really get close to the whole idea of Jesus being our savior. The Christmas message is briefly mentioned in the Charlie Brown Christmas, so I like that, but that movie also stresses having a perfect tree, having presents, etc. Talk about stressing about getting the perfect tree - think National Lampoon's Christmas vacation "Honey this tree won't even fit in the backyard... it's not going in the backyard it's going in the living room!" As it bursts through their windows and ceiling. Their is also a cliche competition about who has the better lights in that movie as well, despite the fact that it's hilarious, it doesn't promote the true meaning of Christmas. The truth is, Christmas has been commercialized. The Grinch actually captures this point quite well with this quote "The Grinch: That's what it's all about right? That's what it's always been about! Gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts! Do you know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me...in your garbage. Do you see what I'm saying here? IN YOUR GARBAGE! I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump! And the avarice...[points to mayor] The avarice never ends! "I want golf clubs!" "I want diamonds!" "I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored, and send it away to make glue!" Look, I don't wanna make waves here, but this WHOLE Christmas season is STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!" The Grinch is trying to point out to the town of Whoville just how obsessed they have become with gifts as well. Even when Cindy Lou Who is asking the Grinch what Christmas is all about he responds "The Grinch: VENGEANCE! I mean... presents... I suppose."

Other movies I remembered when I was little about Christmas include Precious Moments: Timmy's Gift and Timmy's Special Delivery, oh how I loved watching them!





So, the whole point with this post is to encourage all of you, myself including to remember the true reason for Christmas, Christ being our savior, and coming to earth as a lowly human to live and die for our sins. Here are some verses to remind us of that.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Matthew 1:22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”).


So, take this into considering, Christmas isn't about the presents, who has the most lights, or watching holiday movies, but instead about the baby boy that was born in a lowly stable on a cold winter night, let us all remember that and the fact that Jesus is indeed, the Reason for the Season.



-Merry Christmas Everyone! :)