MindMeister

Mind Meister

Mind Meister is a web 2.0 tool that helps you map out your thinking. It's just like a digital graphic organizer. I was looking at the website and listened to the introduction of the program and its pretty simple to use!

First you log in like all websites these days. One thing you can do on this website is organize your thoughts into a web organizer. While watching the video on this, I was thinking this would be great for each student to do before writing. This could be like their outline, with what they want to include. Not only can you make a graphic organizer but you can add notes to a part of your organizer.

I know that everyone likes to customize everything to what they like. This webiste also allows you to do this. There are tons of themes to choose from, or you can customize it piece by piece until it's to your liking.

The new updates now allow you to drag and drop images or attachments right into a part of your organizer. Mindmeister makes this possible through the Google Docs Viewer they've incorporated. The documents/attachments are easily visible and the images can be resized to fit it's placement.

Collaboration:
You can invite people to view your organizer. All you do is add their email address, and add a note to go along with if you wish. They can then view your organizer and see all aspects of your thinking, put into a viewer that you have created! They can then add to your organizer as well.

This tool is a collaborative tool that can be used as a presentation as well. You can go back and view the history or the making of the organizer. Your able to see the progress throughout the creation, just like that webiste we used to create a story about the checks! You'd see who added what, at what point during the creation. They use a color system for each person adding to the organizer just like the other website, to make the changes easikly identifiable.

Mobile:
Can be used as an App on mobile phones, Ipads, and so on.

There is a charge per month with this program, but you can specify what plan you would want. You can do a free trial with up to 3 mind maps in your free trial!

Versions:
 You can get a Personal Plan, Pro Plan, or Business Plan. The personal is just for individual use (and the cheapest per month). The Pro Plan you can do individual or it works well with teams of people, and the business plan is for 10+ people to work with.

I really like the tool, and can think of tons of ways to use it in the classroom, but I know budgets are tight. If there was a free program like this that you know of please let me know :)

http://www.mindmeister.com/

FYI I found Mindmeister through this website which lists TONS AND TONS of other apps and programs online to use for many different things. You can narrow down your selection by clicking on what you are looking for. http://www.go2web20.net/

CNN News- Ipad and Autism

Soooo. I had to blog right away. I'm watching CNN News right now and they are talking about the Ipad.

CNN was doing an overview of the life of the inventor of the Ipad, Steve Jobs. I found what they were saying about him all to be very interesting. They went on to talk about how he introduced the Ipad and how more and more apps became available. This seemed to all connect a little to my last blog so I thought I would talk about the rest of the program a little more.

CNN went on to play interviews with Jobs explaining his thoughts, ideas, and lifestyle.

What I found the most fascinating, and the reason I grabbed my computer to blog, was how the Ipad apps were being used in classroom. CNN explained that Autism and some special Apps for the Ipad were being used to access their knowledge and learn large amounts about their students. There is a school that was used for this research, and this school is for children with special needs, including a large number of them being Autistic. Before they showed how the Ipad and apps were being used by the students I thougth about the class I was in and how I used the Ipad. I realized that I only really used it with the students who spoke Spanish and had trouble communicating with me. I also realized that they had the same problems as an Autistic student would, communitcation.  I went on to listen to the program and found out that the apps were helping the students and teachers communicate greatly. One of the apps mentioned that made a huge difference was ProloQuo2go.

This app helped the students communicate to great lengths! Before the Ipad was introduced the students were distracted and not paying attention. Right away after the students were introduced to the Ipad, they wouldn't look away from it! They knew exactly how to use it and how to communicate. They could share how they were feeling, what they wanted, and what they needed. Communication seems to be a luxury to them, and to get to communicate through a cool Ipad tool is a fun way for them to do this.

I was blown away by the Ipad's ability to help an autistic student communicate so clearly. When the teachers were intereviewed to get their feedback and to hear how the students were responding they couldn't stop raving about how the Ipad was helping them! They weren't sure what it was about the Ipad that intrigued the students so much, but they had a hunch. They went on to say that the Ipad apps that they were using were very constant, predictable, had good wait time with great pictures and interaction with the students. The teachers themselves working with a pencil and paper weren't so predictable and not as interesting. If you know autism students, then you know that they like their procedures and routines, and th app was set up to work with this kind of student.

Anyyyyways...I just had to share right away!

I also found online a website that provides a spreadsheet of a ton of Apps for Autism students and reviews about each of them! It's quite a list, which suprised me!
This is the website: http://www.squidalicious.com/2011/01/ipad-apps-for-autism-spreadsheet-of.html

This is the Spreadsheet from the website: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AjbIta8OTS0KdHRMVWx0Q3pvOWRXRXBfd01jc3lqakE&hl=en&single=true&gid=0&output=html


It's like the apps are unlimited with what you can do with them! I love it! I want an Ipad!

The Journal

I came across a site that intereseted me.

http://thejournal.com/Forms/Search-Results.aspx?query=technology%20in%20the%20classroom&collection=THEJournal_Web

Many of the headings seemed to be precisely what I was looking for.
Some of the headings included:

• THE Journal: Educators' Mobile Devices of the Future
• Teachscape Reflect Video Expands Classroom Recording Support
• THE Journal: New Media: It's a 'Pull, Pull' World
• New Service Puts Texting Back in the Classroom- THE Journal

Mobile Devices of the Future told educators to conjure up what they would love to have as a movile device that could help students achieve higher learning skills. Some of the Apps that were mentioned were My Big Campus which helps the teacher access educational resources easily like You Tube videos, online assignments, activity feeds, group discussions, and more, using a filter to monitor all activity. (All the users must have My Big Campus accounts though). Another language and literacy software developer Imagine Learning launched a learning application called Gamester. It's designed for young students, and has interactive games that help them master the alphabet. I think it's funny that since we were just discussing in class how games had pros and cons to them. This app times the students, like a race, to race the clock and see how many letters they can identify.

One other mobile device app I found was eChalk. After doing the SKYPE in class and talking about how we would or wouldn't use Facebook in the classroom, I find myself being more open to it. eChalk is just another one of those accounts you can create and have parents/students get access to be up to date on school information, events coming up, assignments, and ever class discussions. Once again it's just another place a parent would have to log into and check up on their student. Facebook seems to simplify that issue.

I've considered using texting in the classroom and IMing. This service called StudyBoost just encourages me more. It's obvious teen-agers are attached to their phones like their life depends on it, as am I SOMETIMES! The problem is, when a student whips out their phone in class it's because they want to talk with a friend, or discuss something, or use their device for something more interested than listening to the teacher in the classroom. Why not include them with the tools they enjoy using, THEIR PHONES! StudyBoost is a service that recently launch officially, concluding a lengthy run in beta mode where it gained a small following, mostly among curious teachers. The service allows students and teachers to create batches of questions and answers online, which can be used individually or shared with the whole class. students simply add StudyBoost to their contacts list on their phone. When there is a new question post they recieve a text. They respond with an answer and they recieve a text back telling them if their answer was correct or not. Teacher have send and reveived  more than 200,000 text messages. There are new features with the service including statistics page, embed an IM-style chat box within Moodle and otehr edu. websites.
The Founder is Raphael Hickling says, "My goal for StudyBoost was to be an enhancement, or a sidekick that can help students study, as it stands now, it's not a central study tool. It's like an assistant."

I keep finding new tools that interest me! It's amazing how many are out there...now the hard part, putting it to good use and in a innovative way!

Trying out Wordle

Sooo....here it is.

In my first grade classroom I decided to do a wordle with the students. I told them how the program worked and showed them an example. They were really excited to make one. I had each of them write down a few words that described the school, their classroom, or their teachers. We combined all their ideas into a small paragraph. I also let the students help me type to work on their spelling and typing/computer skills. Once we had a small paragraph typed up into wordle, we clicked create, and wa-la! They thought it was the coolest thing ever! We messed around with the fonts, colors, and so on. This is what we came up with. The words that we typed came out perfect in the wordle. We now have this wordle hanging on the window going into our classroom. We've gotten many compliments, and I've gotten a few questions on how to do it. I got to share wordle with a few other teachers who seemed to be interested!

I think if the school itself create one to post around the school people would be intrigued :)

I just wanted to share how I used it in the classroom.

The students loved it and it represents our classroom in the school.

Are you a FACT MONSTER?

I want to start off with saying that the classroom I am teaching in has 3 ESL/ELL students in it. Last week i was observing the small group readings and was suprised. The book being introduced was called "The Picnic". The teacher simply asked if the students knew what a picnic was, and they DIDN'T. We explained to them it was like taking your food in a basket/bag, a blanket and something to drink with you to a park or outdoor area. Then you lay the blanket down and get your food out. This is called a picnic. The students seemed to understand but kept saying a spanish word that we weren't familiar with.

Up to that point I was thinking to myself ...."these students probably know what a picnic is and are just not sure how to say it and not familiar with the word. Right then the teacher pulled out her Ipad and looked up the word they were saying, and how to say picnic in spanish...we came up with "comer en la campo", which means 'eat in the camp/field/land'. The student immediately knew what we were talking about and going to read more about.

I was stunned at how fast and accurate this Ipad was able to help this student during a quick 15 minute reading group. In that time they were able to warm up with a book read, introduce a new book, look up how to say picnic, and read the new book. This Ipad I realize is not just one technology tool to use, but one tool with many other tools within.

I'm determined to buy an Ipad now or get one at Christmas. There are so many tools at your fingertips that I can't wait to explore.

On another note.....
While teaching today I wanted to see what kind of things I could find on Christopher Columbus, since we were reading about him in a book. I found my information, and then kept searching around finding new websites that would be helpful with research projects.

One that I found was called Fact Monster.
http://childparenting.about.com/cs/k6education/a/schooltools.htm
It seemed to have a wide range of topics and I loved the fact that you could search for what you were looking for.

One other one I found was Visual Thesaurus: Thinkmap. This would help students with their writing and vocabulary usage. You simply type in a word like "happy" and then hit enter. A bunch of words start popping up webbing of the original word happy. You can try a trial for free for a certain amount of searches, but it requires a subscription eventually. One other thing it offers, that I think would be beneficial in a classroom, is Create and Share wordlists.
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/trialover/

Anyways.....I'm outty