Got another technology convert. (well sorta). At the end of April, our Biology II class took a field trip to the State Museum and I was along as a chaperone. Before the trip, I got to thinking about a recent tech workshop on Voicethread and an example of using Voicethread to have students reflect on their field trip. I broached the idea with the teacher and she said YES! She decided to use this for her assessment portion of the field trip/assignment!

I took along my trusty digital camcorder and a couple of the students who took cameras gave me copies of their photos. I uploaded the photos to my Voicethread account and created student identities for them to submit their comments (using icons cropped from the trip photos.) I’m sure there is another way this could have been done, but I was trying for quick and easy for the students. I also collect student release forms for permission to make the thread public.

All last week the students were to come in and record at least three comments – one had to be an audio, the rest could be either audio or text. There comments are supposed to be what they learned and/or researched after the trip. (Yes, some of them actually looked up further information on what they saw – mostly so their comments on the Voicethread would be more intelligent!). Anyway, here is the result. It is not completely finalized as the teacher hasn’t added her comments yet.

First up, I would like to share a wonderful example of Voicethread AND a short explanation on why we should all learn and use a little bit of Web 2.0 in our schools. It was created by Library Media Specialist Fran Bullington. I’m attempting to embed it in this post, but if it doesn’t appear you can access it here.

I thought some of you might find inspiration from the following post “Making Connections With History” by loonyhiker of the Successful Teaching Blog, about creating a classroom timeline to help students identify with concepts, discoveries, important people in context with other notable events from the same time/era.

More Anne Frank news from BBC News: “Anne Frank Greeting Card Found”

A few news items from CNN.com:

• “Conflict follows device that drives away teen loiterers” Remember a while back I posted a link regarding the Mosquito ringtone that only young adults are able to hear? Well there is a teen repellent device, oddly enough, called the Mosquito that emits the tone and deters teens from loitering outside of places people don’t want them. As a teen advocate, this disturbs me greatly. I understand there are SOME teens out there who are “bad” but this punishes all teens. The sad thing is that the article mentions a SC school district that uses the device!
• “Harry Potter case brings the law into the Internet age” Another sad story. A former librarian is being sued by J.K. Rowling over a Harry Potter encyclopedia he’s trying to get published. Not sure who’s side I’m on, especially since as long as it was online and free, Ms. Rowling seemed to like the website, but now that the guy wants to make money off of his work compiling Potter facts she’s saying no can do. So far I think both sides are wrong: librarian for not seeking permission first and Rowling for letting the website exist is she wanted to be the only one to produce the “definitive guide to Harry Potter.”
• “How to raise financially savvy kids” I liked this idea: “Her 3-year-old son has a piggy bank. But it’s no ordinary piggy bank. The modern kids’ saving tool has four chambers for coins — one for saving, one for spending, one for donating and one for investing.” Get them started on money management early! Wish I’d done this as a child and then I’d be more financially responsible today!

That’s all for today. I hope to have a post up soon about the ETV Technology Workshops I attended this week.