After My VoiceThread Lesson

I have taught my technology lesson and it went well.  The students were engaged throughout the lesson and very excited to record their comments.  I did a brief review with them because none of the students had used VoiceThread before, but they caught on right away.  I think VoiceThread is a good activity for 2^nd grade because they are independent enough to navigate through the program with little or no difficulty.  What worked well was that all students clearly understood what was expected of them and this allowed for things to run smoothly.  They completed their recordings in an organized manner and did great in answering the HOTS questions.  I had planned to have them comment on each other’s work but we were unable to do that.  What I would have done differently to improve my lesson was to include some of the students’ drawings but it became difficult to do it all within a reasonable amount of time.  Still, I was very happy with the results and I plan to become more familiar with VoiceThread so I can use it someday in my own classroom.  This is the final draft of my lesson plan.

My VoiceThread

This is my VoiceThread

Before My VoiceThread Lesson

This week our second grade class is learning about living things.  For my TIE activity I plan to teach a lesson on the parts of a seed and I will be using VoiceThread for the technology component.  The objective is for students to learn the parts of a seed that contribute to the growth of a plant.  Using a lima bean seed, I will teach the students about the seed coat, food storage, and embryo and their function in maintaining the seed alive.  For guided practice they will disect soaked lima bean seeds to observe and identify the internal parts.  During their independent practice the students will create paper models of the inside of a seed and they will label each part.  After they complete their models they will rotate on 3 computers to record their comments about their observations on VoiceThread.  Aside from asking the students what the parts of a seed are, other HOTS questions I plan to use in my lesson are:  "How does a seed become a plant?"  and "Why are plants important to us?" I will encourage them to listen to their peer comments so they can learn from each other.  Here is the first story board along with the PowerPoint I created to use in my VoiceThread.  This is my lesson plan, it is in Spanish because I teach in a dual language classroom.

HOTS Integration in 2nd grade

Students in 2nd grade can be introduced to blogs as a way to develop their creative thinking.  One way I would use blogs with second grade students would be to post divergent questions that prompted them to come up with a variety of answers that they could all share and learn from.  Posting blog entries is not just writing, it requires reflecting on topics and analyzing information which is excellent for students.  Another good way to use blogs is to post upcoming topics on lessons that will be covered so that students can begin to post what they know on the subject.  Blogs provide them with opportunities to organize their ideas in their own way which requires higher level thinking.  Blogs also promote a community of learners where everyone gets to participate, even those students who are not comfortable with the idea of speaking in public.  I think students in all grade levels can benefit from using blogs.  Laughlin's Witty Writers is a very interesting blog that contains several posts by students about the disaster in Haiti.  Another good one is Mighty Writers from Room 12 blog.  These students wrote a book made up of their best articles from their blogs. 

Great poster for elementary classrooms

Voice Threads In The Classroom

Voice threads can supplement all types of lessons and curriculum projects. This new technology provides a great way for students to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. They provide a new type of instruction that engages students. I listened to one from Mrs. Cassidy's Classroom Blog where students were using voice threads to talk about their daily rituals.  This is a very creative way for students to express themselves. I especially like how they can use voice threads to teach each other math concepts. Sometimes there are different ways to solve the same math problems and voice threads allow students to share their knowledge with each other. I think they should be used as often as possible in the classroom. I found a lot of useful information about voice threads for first time users along with examples at Voice Thread 4 Education.  This is a very good resource because it gives teachers ideas on how to develop lessons with voice threads in all subject areas.

Google Docs

I think Google docs should be a part of every classroom. It contains excellent features for both teachers and students. It is perfect for group projects because it allows students to contribute to assignments and to help each other. It is great for math classrooms because of the many kinds of diagrams, charts, and graphs students can create. Everything is done and seen by others in real time and this eliminates the need to keep others waiting to edit your work. It also eliminates the trouble of having to consolidate files. Best of all, information is saved and there is less risk of losing important work. Teachers should introduce every student to Google docs because of its many benefits. I would like to use Google docs during field basing with first grade. They love to get assignments that require them to draw so I think they would really enjoy working with Google docs.