Looking at other's virtual tours

I think that as we learn more about this wonderful tool, many of us will use it to teach our students in class. I thought that everyone was very creative in doing their virtual tours. It was interesting to see how much work some put on their virtual tour and made it very informative. There were also a lot of different subjects covered by other virtual tours and that really helps on giving me ideas of how to teach other subjects.

Virtual Tour- Animals Around the World

For our virtual tour we did animals around the world. We picked a couple of animals from each of the 7 continents and describe the animal, what they are like, what they eat, how they live, and something unique about each animal. We also listed questions about the animals as our activity for the students to do. This is a good way to teach about the unique animals that you would find around the world. It is a unique way to teach students about animals and fun for them because it is done on the computer. I would definitely use this program for teaching about many different subjects to my students.

Google Earth

Today in class we learned about Google Earth and I learned how to make a project in which I can show and contrast different things. For example, I can show the weather at different locations. Or I can teach about volcanoes and show on the globe where each volcano is located as well as have a small description about the volcano's history; pictures can also be added to show what the volcano looks like. I think that this tool will be very useful whenever I want to teach a subject which has a lot of information because I can summarize tons of information and teach about it in less time as well as in a more enjoyable way.
This is the link I found that will help me teach about volcanoes. It list a large number of volcanoes, their locations, a picture of each, and a small description of the volcano and its history. So using this Google earth will facilitate my instruction about the volcano history and locations as well as facts.

link to volcano Google Earth

Using Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

I personally think that the more variety of ways I use to teach my students, the more interested they will be, and the better they will learn. I am so pleased with the results htat digital storytelling has brought as we finished our project. I plan on teaching the first grade and I think that using digital storytelling will be a great way to practice reading and writing with my students since they will need to read the writing of whatever the story is about. They will also need to write it so it shows on the video. It will allow them the opportunity to be creative as they experiment with different materials or ways to illustrate the story. It will also give them the opportunity to practice typing on a computer and using technology.
I can also teach about any subject through digital storytelling; math, science, history. All we would need to do is find a book that is at their level of reading, that teaches about the specific area we are learning about and turn it into digital storytelling. As they work on the project, they can learn about the subject. I am sure I will use digital storytelling in my classroom.

What I learned from other's digital videos

I watched the digital videos from Dawnee Godfrey, Melinda Hecht, and Whitney Zylstra. I was very impressed with the creative videos that they all did. I really liked the clay images from Melinda's digital video; I think that working with clay is really hard, but Melinda did an amazing job. I liked Dawnee's video a lot. It was very funny, and very original; I personally loved the accents and how the pictures really illustrated the story. Whitney's video was also really good, I liked the pictures and how detailed they were.

Halloween Costume

Digial Storytelling

This week I learned that there is a fun and exciting way to make story telling interesting. I learned how to make a story by narrating and posting pictures and music. I also learned how to make a storyboard which will help me teach my future students how to do it and make it fun. I really like learning how to do these things because I think that this tool will really help me make reading or any type of literacy exercise interesting and enjoyable for my students. I hope to use this often once I'm a teacher; I know it will be very helpful.