Any good tech class ideas?

[GeneralChaos]

The primary reason that I took this class was pick the minds of teachers in the area for ideas to use in the classroom. If you have any gems, go ahead and share them. I'll post several of my own as soon as I get that final paper typed out.

Quite simply, What did you use? And how did you use it?

[Meg Ormiston]

General, great questions!
I think some people are afraid to share their amazing ideas that they may think are low level, they need to change their thinking great things are going on around here! SHARE!!

[GeneralChaos]

Here's my list ranked by student interest, just ask if you would like more details.

SketchUp- Designing dream home
SketchUp- General usage
Web browser and packet - Iditarod race, 13 day race, students record the progress an standing of their racer on a trail map.
Old computer parts - disassembling and reassembling old computers.
Web browser and Spreadsheet - Stock market, buying and selling stocks
Web browser and worksheets - Programming shapes in LOGO
Web browser - International penpals through epals.com
Publisher - Trading cards for Iditarod racers
SketchUp - Castle design
Publisher - Travel brochures for the planets
Hyperstudio(similar to Powerpoint and a worksheet - Storyboard rough draft indian tale on paper, animate and share in hyperstudio
Word(MSWorks) - Practice typing through animal bios.
Hyperstudio(similar to Powerpoint) - Sumarizing chapter on simple machines, review for atom test
Publisher - American Revolution posters
Web browser and paper - Students create Oregon Trail packet
Web browser and a paper plate - American Explorers wheel
Web browser and packet - drawing tessellations
Word(MSWorks) - Summarizing and sharing international news articles

[Meg Ormiston]

Patrick,
You are such a wealth of information! Thanks you for sharing these great resources. It was fun spending time with you this week, I look forward to hear more about what you will do with students!

[Greg Noack]

A project I have done in the past, that could be done using several different software choices. Students make a visual timeline of events. I have done it twice with students making a timeline of the events leading up to the American Revolution.

Students made the timeline in PowerPoint and used hyperlinks to link between slides. They then set up the show to be viewed at a Kiosk. The kids really got into it and a few even added some audio clips. I did this five years ago. Powerpoint is probably not the best software to do this. I know there is timeliner, but I liked using powerpoint as it taught them office skills, how to use the draw tools. I might think about trying to make it as a webpage. Students could work on different pages and the final product would be incorporated together.

[Ellen]

I worked with our art teacher and our fourth grade students created clay animations using Tech4Learning's Frames. We uploaded their finished movies to mulitply.com and linked it to our class blog. The kids loved this and it involved a great deal of planning, followed the art and tech curriculum and was a big hit. I'd like to repeat it next year with more science/social studies focused topics. This year we were just getting our feet wet.

[Kathleen Johnson]

I have found Tumblr to be a very interesting, and easy way to combine content from many sources.
I'm sure that this media approach would appeal to middle school kids in particular.
This is my tumblr
http://simkathy.tumblr.com/

which I am using as a filing cabinet of interesting stuff I find on the internet. If I throw it in my tumblr then I can review later on.
I imagine classes could write reports using tumblr and I believe that now they can be private, with invitations to specific people.

[Greg Noack]

I stumbled across this video on you tube when searching for ideas, it's a math movie about fractions, there is a lot of extra footage the students put it, but the content is nicely done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-99R09nYDs

[Greg Noack]

Hey, I am going to make a movie with my summer school kids. we are going to make a tour of our school! I am going to try to blog about in on my page. Check it out.

http://techcamp.ning.com/profile/gnoack



Check it out.

[Nadine Norris]

You listed a lot of great ways to use technology. In my last position as tech coordinator in a parochial school, we used the Office Suite, the iLive suite, and the web for everything - never buying any extra software. I worked with students in grades 2 through 8. I found that the handiest application to demonstrate "visual literacy" was PowerPoint. Just using a blank slide, the draw tools and images borrowed and manipulated from the internet gave us a way to enhance learning in every content area. Here's a quick list:

Cover for a research report with a collage of pictures and word art title (change the page layout)
ABC book with vocab words or about a topic (print 6 slides per page and cut up to save ink)
Scrapbook with images and captions using Library of Congress resources
Map of our community demonstrating compass directions
Diagram of a place to go along with a descriptive paragraph
Map of the town from a book demonstrating reading comprehension
Diagram of any Science concept ie life cycle
"Poster" for a movie (book), famous person, important event,
Name plate with students name and descriptive adjectives
Illustrated poems
Class books for just about anything
Tessellations
Illustrated math stories
Explanation of the data on a graph or chart

That's all I can think of for now. I think that manipulating the drawing objects and text boxes was the closest thing to using Publisher (which we don't have on Macs) and saved us money because we didn't have to pay for the Mac application "Pages" (sorry Apple). We used to use Appleworks, but that application has been discontinued. We use Paint to manipulate photos and to create our own clip art.

[GeneralChaos]

Thanks for the great list of ideas Nadine, it was exactly what I was looking for. I'm in the process of posting all of my science and computer materials on the net, feel free to do the same.

[Kathleen Johnson]

Wikis sound scary but they are not. I think that it would be interesting and fulfilling to have a class collaborate on a subject using a Wetpaint wiki. It's easy and fun and once you have tried it you will experience the ease and start to see the possibilities. One thing I am doing is keeping my own digital filing cabinet in Wetpaint. It's a place to put all of my research, and I can organize the pages... a librarians dream right?

[Trish Dower]

Fantastic! Great to read about what you are doing in your classrooms. I have spent the last couple of months learning and experimenting with web2.0 tools and am continually amazed and enthused by what people are doing in their schools. Very much looking forward to beginning the school year and to get involved with the kids online.
Thank you for your willingness to share your ideas. Once were back I will let you know what we have been up to.

Our class blog site is http://trishd.globalteacher.org.au and if you have any ideas or comments for us I would greatly appreciate it. I teach Grade 2 in a mid sized school and am very keen to learn as much as I can.
Trish