Before/After Pictures

I wanted to share some BEFORE & AFTER pictures of my classroom during my first year of teaching.

My classroom was H-U-G-E and down in a basement….you don't get more creepy than that, but I love a good design challenge (c:

So here it is before….(and with some decorations the teacher before me left!)

….and with a little paint, LOTS of cute decoration, and TONS OF CLEANING--also I had the Fairy Godmother of Decorating with me (MY MOM) here is the after…..


My Texas Exes Door!

 My Word Wall & Calendar board when you walked into my classroom!

My Reading Nook!

My giant letters and bookcase area!

My desk area!

Other various shots of my new & IMPROVED classroom! (c:

The kids always told me how much they loved my room.  I, too, loved being in my room! My favorite thing was when I was standing at the door greeting my students and students I didn't know or have would come say "OH MY GOSH" or stand in awe at my class! It made me feel like I must have made a pretty great environment! (c:

Web 2.0--Necessary Technology for the Classroom

There were some AWESOME links to choose from on Web 2.0, I chose to expand some practice on digital storytelling so I went with "GOANIMATE."

They have some really great pre-selected settings, characters, and voices! You just have to choose the following, type in your dialogue between the two characters, and VOILA you have a digital          (semi) masterpiece!

I chose to do a skit between a teacher and student about "Sequencing."  It was so simple to use and took me about five minutes to create! Seriously, anybody could do it! I created a dialogue between me and this said student…and no I'm not British…but I decided if I'm going to put myself into my own digital story, I might as well have a cool accent!

The accents/dialects are a really unique aspect to this site, it allows you to chose what cultural accent your character will read your dialogue from and even whether that character is male or female!

Check out my video and then go make your own! It's so much fun!!

heatherUT's Animation by heatherUT on GoAnimate


Make a Movie - Powered by GoAnimate.


Link if the above clip fails: http://goanimate.com/videos/0R8l1cgOpKRg?utm_source=linkshare

Digital Storytelling ROCKS!

I had never heard of digital storytelling before this ECAP assignment.  Being a graduate from the University of Texas' film school I thought I was up & up on the latest and coolest mediums for storytelling…boy was I wrong!

This was fabulous! I was so intrigued and excited to make just this short, 30 second video, I can't imagine how excited my students would be!

Another wonderful aspect is it is ONLY 30 seconds--which means this type of assignment can easily be worked into any curriculum and any time frame! It also had preselected options of themes, music, text, etc. so I could see the students really being able to experiment with this! Here's a visual of my story at the International Newcomer Academy…

Try our slideshow creator at Animoto.

...I tried to tell my story through pictures but here's what each picture represents
Picture 1: Room 104 is where it all started! My classroom for my first year of teaching!
Picture 2: C.J. Wilson always stood guard outside of my classroom (c:
Picture 3: Huge letters I had in my classroom (found them & painted them a bright turquoise) and it always reminded my ELL's to READ!
Picture 4: All the standard dictionaries in my room represent where all of my students were from!
Picture 5: GRADING!
Picture 6: A project we did on present-day bullying which stemmed from our Ruby Bridges lesson.  I also contacted our school counselor to come into our class and give them a presentation on Bullying! These are the posters they created after that presentation to show what they learned!
Picture 7: A collage of my decorated classroom! HOOK 'EM!  \m/
Picture 8: Just a few of my wonderful students and their academic awards they earned!
Picture 9: SUMMERTIME is just what this teacher ordered! (c:

I didn't use these other digital storytelling sites given to us, but I definitely will be implementing them in SOME way in my curriculum for next year! Check them out…

http://www.littlebirdtales.com/

http://www.meetmeatthecorner.org//

Wiki Wiki

The Wiki platform was useful enough--it didn't have an exciting interface like a class blog, class website, etc.  but I could see using it for a group assignment so that students can feel ownership and can see their own work published.

It was an fairly easy interface to use, it could be easier though--simple things like copying and pasting some images onto the wiki took longer because you have to save them to your desktop, then upload them as a file, then click and choose where you insert it/what picture you upload.

I wasn't a big fan of the site, but I can see it's usefulness in certain contexts.

Link to my Wiki Page:http://heatherut.wikispaces.com/

I wrote an article with information about unschooling! Check out my Wiki for information on that educational movement!

RSS Feeds…a thing of the past?

RSS feeds….is it just me or are they pretty much useless?!

Maybe it's just me, but with social networking/bookmarking sites like…

-Delicious
-Pinterest
-Blog/Website subscriptions via e-mail

….well RSS feeds just seem redundant to me….very, very redundant.

If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe GOOGLE! I took a screenshot of my (old and never used) iGoogle site….notice the NOTICE from Google.  iGoogle  will not be available after November 1, 2013.

SEE! Let's say ADIOS to these old, outdated RSS feeds and HOLA to the new, easy bookmarking/reading sites out there!

What up DOC?!

Google Docs was completely new to me! I have received documents that way, but never created any!

Once again--SUPER SIMPLE! I didn't get to add my usual dose of creativity, but that's okay because I really wanted to grasp, and focus on, the basics.

I created a sample test I would have given to my students at my entirely ESL school.

Here's a link to check it out, and it's public to anyone!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-fHKrAFBOZKSbWDb7Z9dGn7h_iDakLOT-2cDJTij2kM/edit

Mmmhmm…DELICIOUS

Delicious is a wonderful social bookmarking site! It's this easy…

1. Join at http://delicious.com/
2. Drag the "Delicious" button onto your bookmarks bar
3. Start surfing the internet
4. See something you like? Go back up to that "Delicious" button and click!

….I know…it's seriously THAT easy!

If you have any background with the site Pinterest, it is EXACTLY like that! Only I know some districts block those sorts of "social networking" sites, so this is a great way to get around that! Say you're in class one day, you remember that AWESOME reader/writer notebook idea on Pinterest, but your district blocks the site…problem? NO! Just log into your Delicious account and you can access the information right then and there!

It's seriously wonderful! Check out my "Delicious Stacks"

http://delicious.com/stacks/heatherut