Words to Live By...

One of the best Anonymous quotes that I have come across that made me stop and reflect on myself is below.  You've most likely read this quote before...enjoy your reflection! 

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

~Anonymous~

Digital Literacy: Storybird Online Story Writing and Book Making

storybird

Recently on Twitter, I learned about Storybird, an online story writing website that promotes digital literacy.  You start by choosing an artists set of pictures or a theme of pictures and creating a story, based on which pictures you choose.  I am a huge advocator of book making projects and alternatives to worksheets which motivate children to write, and this included digital literacy.  So, I just had to dig in and try it!  You can view my published book: A Surprise Winter Day Birthday Party by clicking here.  The books go through a filter approval process before they are published.  The artist I chose to use is

bluedogrose.

There is a demonstration video in the Tour tab on how to use the Create board: add text, change colors, and drag and drop in pictures for your story.  There is a Read tab which takes you to where you can read other books published for public viewing.  When you create your account, you can choose a regular account (1 person), a         teacher account for a class, or a child account for under 13 years. You can sign up for free! 

When writing, you can invite a collaborator to work together with you by adding their email; a beneficial feature if you have more than one student working on a book together. There is also a spot for a guardian or parent email so they see the collaboration and writing in progress.  Once you publish a book, you can make your books "public or private" (invite by email address).

However, there is a catch, as I found out after publishing my story.  If you want to download a PDF file of your published book, it will cost you $1.99.  There are other purchase choices too for soft cover books and hard cover books ranging from $14.95- $29.95.  On the positive side, it could make the perfect gift from your students for a family member or special friend.  Or, you can share it for free by just posting it as a "public".  If you choose the "private" viewing setting, then you can invite only certain people to view it free online by adding their email address.   So, there are a variety of options!

The best part about the Storybird digital literacy story writing website, is that it just may be a technology tool to inspire your students to write, write, write!

Homework Menu: add choice and community service. It's not all on paper...

Teacher Sally Koch Hayes of Burlington, introduced a terrific idea about homework and differentiated learning.  She knows students have different interests and different styles of learning that is meaningful to them.  Basically, she gives her students a weekly homework grid and they must select three daily activities from a "menu" of 10 categories which may include:

1.  Pleasure Reading: books, magazines, recipes, newspapers, ebooks
2.  Physical Activities: walking, biking, skating, swimming, playing sports
3.  Hobbies: sewing, gardening, photography, caring for pets
4.  Art Projects:  painting, drawing, collage, dioramas
5. Community Service:  mowing a neighbor's lawn/shoveling for them, playing a game with an older person or younger person, picking up trash

Effective education thinks outside the box; it is creative and innovative.  This teacher found her students began to organize community clean-ups and learned how to play chess in order to play with an older person.  They extended themselves to build community.  Homework is more than regurgitating information and completing worksheets.  I like this idea; learning is not all on paper.  This is homework that would make Music lessons or participating on a Sport Team outside of school count.  Today's students would love a Technology option to interact with websites, view videos, and play online skill building games.   I like when students connect what their gifts are and where their strengths lie to extend themselves and reach out to others!

To read the full article on Sally Koch Hayes, please click here.

Googlios: Transforming ePortfolios, Transforming Education

Educator G. Alex Ambrose, an academic advisor at the University of Notre Dame and an ABD Doctoral Student in Computing Technology in Education, created the concept and website on  Googlios (Goolge + Portfolio).   It is copyrighted and licensed under  a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.  See the 2 minute introduction video here:

I'm interested in these for students to build their ePortfolios through school and post secondary studies and for adults to continue to add to their ePortfolios as they add their own post Graduate studies and work experience to their resumes in the form of a Googlio.  You can make your Googlio public, private (for viewing by email invite only), or semi-private  (in the case of a school).  Click here to view the four part videos by G. Alex Ambrose. Please visit www.Googlios.com for more information.

Pizza Books!

What do you get when you combine Pizza and Books? ...Pizza Books!  These creative books are seen in The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook...Plus Other Books to Make With Children  by Tami Duby and Cyndy Regeling.

Use this folding pizza- shape idea for reports or presentations instead of a flat poster. The pages of the book look like a pizza slice and it folds open page by page into a circular pizza.  Storage is easy as it folds back up into a single slice of pizza.  I've used this with children to present on their Family, each piece of pizza is a new paragraph and photo.  Use it for Social Studies to separate different regions, provinces or Flags of different countries.  Be creative!

Other variations the authors recommend are Rainbow Pizza Books using multicolored poster boards , decorating the edges with patterns, stamps, hole punch designs and stickers, and Mini-Pizza books!

Kids love putting these together with you and the best part is, they can't wait to write in them!  Enjoy.

Pursuing Peace: The Talking Corner

Here is my Prezi to explain how to pursue peace through talking with your students in Grades 1-3: "The Talking Corner".  I have implemented this problem solving strategy with students and it works; focusing the students on talking, pursuing peaceful relationships and finding solutions. You can adapt the process to older students by replacing the Teddy Bear with a "conch" for the speaker and to represent taking turns.  Enjoy this idea developed by educator, Deanna Odland.

Pursuing Peace by Talking on Prezi

Learning Virtues Through Literature