Sunday, September 16, 2007

Animoto Rocks!

I made this video in less than 5 minutes.

Here's what I did, and it was all prompted by the site.
1. Selected some Florida pics from a folder I already had on my computer.
2. Picked a free song from the site.
3. It made my movie...special effects and all! UNBELIEVABLE - in a FEW MINUTES!!!

http://animoto.com/

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Teach Web 2.0 Consortium Kick Off

Anna and I kicked off the Teach Web 2.0 Consortium at our school yesterday. The wiki has 44 members, all colleagues from school, spanning early childhood, lower, middle, and upper division teachers, staff, and administrators. It's really a good mix. I'm blown away by the interest and proud to be working with such a group of professional educators who want to provide the best learning environment for their students. The purpose of the consortium is to explore Web 2.0 social networking tools and determine their educational value. We will research wikis first because we will be using a wiki to collect our ideas and document our work. We started by introducing the wiki and helping the group get familiar with the layout and research format. It went better than anticipated. Everyone was able to join the wiki with limited technical issues. Visit the Teach Web 2.0 Wiki to track our progress. Next topic - blogs.

Monday, September 3, 2007

First quarter - We're in the game.

I always forget how busy the first few weeks of school are every year. It doesn't matter how much I prepare. There is always something else to do. Thank goodness for Labor Day weekend. I slept for 11 hours on Saturday night. Two weeks into the year I have set up the class blogs, a spelling wiki, a Back to School Video Time Capsule and a Web 2.0 WebQuest. With all there is to do, we teachers sometimes continue to beat ourselves up over what isn't finished instead of remembering all that we've tackled in a few short days or weeks. Shout it out - I AM TEACHER!!! To every teacher out there on Labor Day...celebrate what you've already accomplished!!!! You are AMAZING!!