Figurative Music
Smile
You make me smile like the sun
Fall out of bed sing like a bird
Dizzy in my head spin like a record
Crazy on a Sunday night
You make me dance like a fool
Forget how to breathe
Shine like gold buzz like a bee
Just the thought of you can drive me wild
Ohh you make me smile
-Uncle Kracker
A Brief Overview: Another great idea (read about the first here) that Ginno Kelley gave when he came to talk to my technology class was to play music clips for the class and have students pick out the aspect of language you are studying (metaphores, similies, rhymes). In the example above, students can pick out several similies in the chorus of Uncle Kracker’s new song “Smile”.
Perceived Strengths: I have found that children love music and they enjoy opportunities for music to be incorporated into lessons. Incorporating a variety of genres is also an easy way to reach those hard to get students. Another strength of integrating music into the classroom is that music can be difficult to forget. You get that song stuck in your head and it keeps playing and playing like a broken record. If a teacher can get her learning objectives to continually run through the students heads then they will hopefully have that when it comes time for the assessment.
Perceived Weaknesses: It can be time consuming trying to find appropriate songs that showcase the literary elements you are studying.
Opportunities Afforded: Students are exposed to a wide variety of musical genres while learning that what is being covered in class has real connections to their own lives outside the classroom. This can be a great way to activate background knowledge for students.
Threats/potential issues using this idea in teaching and learning: Be sure to preview the entire selection that you will be playing in class many popular songs today have inappropriate sections.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )UNO
A brief overview: Right before Christmas, I was taking an opportunity to observe several teachers where I was completing my Student Teaching. My first stop was in a third grade teachers class during reading centers. One particular group was reading out of a book and taking turns, but that’s not what caught my eye. It was how they were deciding who read. They were using UNO cards (my favorite game growing up)! The students shuffled the cards and set them on a flat surface in the middle of their small circle. Then a student choose a card. If a wild is chosen then the student who drew it can choose anyone they want to read. If a skip is drawn then the reading skips the person who choose the card and the person next to them reads. Finally, if a number card is drawn then that student who drew it counts that many people over to find the reader. I was amazed to see how smoothly the whole process ran and how much fun the kids were having. One particular child in the group had only been in the class for two days and started out incredibly shy. Before the time was over he could hardly handle the suspense of waiting for his turn to read! He wanted to read so badly.
Perceived strengths: Anything that can make a child smile during reading centers has to be a good thing. It eliminated having students that didn’t want to read and gave everyone a fair shot. It also kept students from counting ahead a certain number of paragraphs to determine what they would be reading and only focus on that paragraph. Every child in the group had to be paying attention, because no one knew who was going to get the chance to read next. Unlike some methods where once a child has had their turn they know they won’t be called on again so they tune out, there is always a possibility that it will be your turn with this method.
Perceived weaknesses: While this strategy eliminates the age old question who goes first it does create the problem of gets to choose the first card. A possible solution could be that each person draws a card and the lowest or highest numbered card goes first. A teacher should also beware of too much fun and excitement during reading or center time.
Opportunities afforded: More time is devoted to reading without students arguing over who is next. Every student has an opportunity to read. Everyone has to pay attention, because there is no telling who will be reading next.
Threats/potential issues using this idea in teaching and learning: The teacher I observed, said she doesn’t use the wild card in third grade, because her students were not mature enough to choose a student at random to read.
Examples of how this idea has been used in teaching and learning: Using UNO cards could be used during reading centers. They can also be used during whole class readings, similar to playing around the world. Or during any type of activity when students have to take turns to participate in an activity.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Batman and the Onomatopoeia
A brief overview: About a month ago, Ginno Kelley, from Promethean, came to speak in my Practicum in Educational Media course. He gave an amazing presentation about the wonders of interactive whiteboards. I know most of us have used them, have them, or at least have heard of them before. But, during his presentation he gave some amazing ideas that can be used for various subjects. The one I want to mention now is about using old 1960’s Batman clips to introduce onomatopoeias. The idea is that by showing the old clips, which can be found online, students can discern for themselves what an onomatopoeia is and then will likely remember for much longer than had they been told or had to use the dictionary to look it up themselves.
Perceived strengths: Other than the fact that showing a fun superhero clip would awaken any child and bring some excitement to the classroom, students are far more likely to remember the information. An added benefit is that this strategy would also work great for ELL’s. The visual cues and the written words to accompany would be helpful for any ELL.
Perceived weaknesses: If your classroom doesn’t have a Smart Board or some other type of interactive whiteboard it may be difficult to show the comic to your students. Unless of course you have a projector that you can hook up to a computer. Of course, you’ll also need internet access. Thankfully, the comic is available from places other than youtube.com, which many schools have bands on. Here are a couple of links where you can find a few video clips:
Batman Intro and Batman Fight Scene
Opportunities afforded: Showing old Batman is a way to show students that what is being taught in school is relevant, that they’ll see this stuff somewhere other than school. Providing the opportunity to allow students to delve into the world of classic TV and superheroes as well as giving students a chance to figure things out for themselves.
Threats/potential issues using this idea in teaching and learning: Anytime the Internet is brought into the class the teacher must be careful. Make sure to preview the clips ahead of time to ensure their are no inappropriate adds on the site.
Examples of how this idea has been used in teaching and learning: The teacher could show the clip and have the students determine what the words were or the teacher could provide the definition and allow the students to pick them out or count how many were used. Then as an extension, you could have students make their own comic (possibly using Comic Life) and inset their own onomatopoeias.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Creaza
A brief overview of the tool: Creaza is a web 2.0 tool that appears to have huge potential for teaching and learning. Creaza offers four creative tools that allow the users to make movies (similar to using iMovie), create pictures or cartoons, create audiofiles, and graphic organizers.
Perceived strengths of the tool: Creaza has many strengths. To begin with, there are no software downloads and the program is free. The four creative tools allow the Creaza to be used for many different projects. It is also an intuitive program that, in my opinion, is more user-friendly for younger children than iMovie or Garageband. All a user needs is Internet access, a web browser, and the Flash plug-in. Creaza works with P.C., Mac, and Linux operating systems. Each of the four tools in the suite has video tutorials to help students learn the programs quickly. Students can upload up to 25MB their own media files to use within the various tools. Finally, because it was made with educators in mind Creaza allows for easy grading of assignments. All the teacher needs is the homepage URL (which is easy to locate on the homepage) and the teacher can view all shared projects and then post a comment with feedback.
Perceived weaknesses of the tool: The free version of Creaza does not provide all the resources that the premium version has to offer, such as more storage space and additional themes in Cartoonist, as well as being able to record your own voice. Right now, Creaza is still missing a Help section for the AudioEditor, but according to the site it is expected to be available soon.
Opportunities afforded by this tool: Imagine a classroom in which students are highly engaged working away on their iMovie’s for a social studies unit. Then the bell rings. Suddenly, the room erupts in “man!”, “is it time already?” and “I wish I could work on this at home!” Well, with Creaza students can work on their projects at home. Learning can now continue outside the classroom walls. Students also have the choice of displaying what they have learned in multiple formats.
Threats/potential issues using this tool in teaching and learning: Users can choose if they want to share their creations with others and get feedback. As always users have to be careful with what is shared over the Internet. However, a safe card that Creaza installed is that friends and teachers can only see what projects have been shared if the homepage URL is provided.
Examples of how this tool has been used in teaching and learning: (1.) Use Cartoonist to allow students to create cartoon versions of the books they have read. (2.) Students can also take on roles of figures in their books, in history, in science and record interviews between the figures using the AudioEditor. (3.) If you’re looking for a new way for students to present information from science, social studies, or language arts students can create professional looking presentations with Creaza. (4.) Mindomo is a great tool to help students plan out stories or to visually connect their knowledge. Then after students have created their projects they can embed their final creations into the classroom blog for others to enjoy.
Classroom Ideas 