Thing #11-Location(Maps)

I had a hard time trying to get something that I could use with my 2nd graders. We do talk about community and where we live. We talk about Michigan and some of the more important things that they may have heard about or visited in Michigan. Click here to check it out.


View Michigan in a larger map

Thning #10-RSS

I set up my account at google reader. I've added the blogs that I follow along with several sites that I visit regularly. I'm not sure if this is something that I would use on a regular basis. I love to see what's new on the sites, but it's like everything else. It's just finding the time to sit down and check it out. I don't blog all that much, so there is really not that many that I follow. Right now, with this class, I have been following those who are also taking the class. I'm not sure how much I will use this after the class is finished. We'll have to see.

Thing #9-Learning Networks

I already was a member at our KPS Ning. I also had already started the 2nd grade group. Unfortunately, there are only two members right now. I'm trying to convince others to join. I would love to see this sight become active. I would love it to be used for sharing ideas that we all have in teaching our classrooms. Why reinvent the wheel all the time. We have a lot of very talented teachers in Kentwood. Let's share what we are doing.

I also joined the interactive whiteboard users group. I'm hoping to share/gather more ideas for using this as well. I think the Ning is a great tool if we can get people to use it!

Thing #8-Videos

I investigated Teacher Tube. I found a fun video/song for the water cycle. http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=7708&title=Water_Cycle_Song
I found a video for diet coke and mentos. Together they make a geyser. We did this with my classroom when we were talking about landforms. This would have been fun to show the kids afterward. http://www.teachertube.com/members/viewVideo.php?video_id=8667&title=Diet_Coke_and_Mentos If you are looking for something specific, I think you would have better luck. I was just browsing and found lots of junk. I think this would take a while to find something that you could use in your class without looking for something specific. I did find that a lot of classrooms created videos and posted them. I found 2nd grade poems/stories that the children illustrated and retold.

Thing #7-Wikis

One sight that I like to use in my classroom is http://sigsx4.wikispaces.com/Social+Studies. It is full of ideas for social studies and science lessons, websites, games, videos and more just for 2nd grade. They have organized it very well. All of their lessons and ideas are connected to the state GLCE's. Social studies and science materials are hard to find for the lower elementary students, so I have enjoyed this one.

A second sight I found when I was looking around was Mrs. Goneau's 2nd Grade Wiki. http://mrsgoneau.pbworks.com/ They are a second grade class from Random Lake, Wisconsin. I found her sight fun to look at and great for ideas to incorporate with my classroom. She organized her Wiki by classroom projects, sites and resources. I liked how she had her classroom projects from the last three years in the same Wiki. I know when I had a classroom wiki, the students from the last year asked if they could still get on the sight. They were disappointed to hear that I didn't keep the same one this year. She had several sights that she linked to her Wiki I thought would be fun to check out. She used Slide.com to make a couple different slide shows of her class. She also used a site called Podbean.com.

A third site I found was http://hcselabs.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/2nd+Grade+Links. This Wiki was very organized. It had math, language arts, science, socials studies, art/music and health. There were several links in each of these areas. The wiki was also organized by grade level. This sight looks like it was made by someone in Alabama.

I used a wiki in my classroom last year. The kids/parents loved it. This year I switched to a classroom web page instead. I thought it was easier to use and make it look the way I wanted to. I couldn't get my Wiki to look "cute" the way I wanted to. As I browsed through a lot of these other wikis, I noticed many of them were able to make the look cute.

Thing #6-Presentation

I choose to try out Zoho Show. I liked the fact that it is internet based and can be accessed from any computer. One of our computers at home does not have Power Point on it and that has been frustrating. Another computer does have Power Point, but it is a different version than we have at school. Therefore, my programs will not run at school. I created a presentation about Landforms since this is one of our standards in second grade. I found the program easy to use. I was able to import pictures with little trouble. The biggest thing I found that I didn't like was that I couldn't find a way to make my slides transition automatically. I have to hit the arrow each time I want to switch slides. Maybe I just haven't figured it out yet. The link to my presentation is:http://show.zoho.com/public/pamelabird/Landforms

Thing #5-Documents

I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do with Google.docs. I wanted to make something that would be useful to me. My kids aren't old enough to use the program with each other or with me. Quarterly, the 2nd grade teachers get together with all of our interventionist, academic coach and principal to look at how our students are doing in reading. We keep track of their progress throughout the year. We have often said we should set it up on Excel so that we can sort easily. We are doing it all by hand right now. I decided to make a form that would allow all of the 2nd grade teachers to input their student data quarterly and then we can sort and manipulate as we need to. I've sent my form off to my two colleagues so they can fill in their student data and we can play around with it a bit this year. If it works as I think it will, we can start in September next year. Here is the link to my form:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuJ03kO3x9AIdDhpeVAyOFIwMnJpLUlGM1U1ejdiVHc&hl=en

I think Google Docs could be useful for many. If you are comfortable using computers, have a computer and trust your software to keep your data safe, Google Docs could be very useful to share information quickly and without having to print things out all the time.