Common Sense Classroom » TCEA 2009

Blogging with Primary Students

Kerrie Gustin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:51:40 +0000

Kerrie was invited to present her classroom blog at the TATN Event at TCEA 2009 in Austin. The picture shows the student’s Water Cycle video. They created it with Windows Movie Maker.

This post was written by my husband, Jamie Gustin, who is a Technology Coach and Distance Learning Facilitator for our district. It was reposted here before the server housing the TCEA 2009 blog is shut down August 1, 2009. Here are Jamie’s impressions of my presentation…

Ok, so I had no choice but to attend Kerrie’s session. That aside, blogging with 1st and 2nd graders is something that interests me. Kerrie does some interesting things with her students. Check out her blog here. She has her students leave comments on her blog as they complete activities. She embeds video, creates videos with Animoto, and the students create videos that are posted on School Tube and embedded in blog posts. The students feel ownership of the blog. They give their ideas of what should be on the blog. Check the animoto video on the second post.

She showed a picture of the kids talking to Rike from Germany during a Skype video conference.

Moodle is another tool for student collaboration. The students discussed the moodle course on her blog. Go to the bottom of the page for that post.

She uses the blog for student input. She also uses it to check student knowledge. Sharing experiences with students is also important like the Great American race, Moody garden’s trips, etc. The blog is a great place to save links. The students are to leave comments to create the conversations. The conversation is the most powerful part.

Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 8:58 AM by jgustin

Animal Adaptations Animation

Kerrie Gustin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:38:55 +0000

Leslie Vazquez- Nieves, a 4th grade bilingual teacher in Georgetown ISD, uses powerpoint and clay animation with her students to demonstrate their understanding of animal environments and adaptations. She carefully monitors student progress throughout the project to insure that students are on the right track as they work through what they are learning.

All materials for the project with the exception of the clay, must be recycled.

She shares her view that students must be proficient in the use of productivity software, like Word, Power Point, digital cameras etc. that they will need for the project before they begin work.

At the end of the project all students in the school grades 3-5 as well as the faculty vote on who they think the winnners should be.

The lesson can be found on Mrs. Vazqez’s Website .

Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 10:46 AM by kgustin

Puzzle Computing Assessment Tool

Kerrie Gustin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:34:41 +0000

Karen North from Houston ISD is a 27 year veteran Computer Science teacher who moved down to the elementary level to teach tech apps to K-5 for one purpose: to figure out why students were not coming up to secondary with the skills they needed in order to be able to problem solve.

She is involved in research to develp a K-8 curriculum designed to prepare students for there future both in education and in the workplace.

She shared video of her 2.9 yr. old grandson developing a problem solving process in order to successfully complete the animal puzzles on the Smithsonian National Zoo website. As he worked out the problem solving process, he became more and more fluent with his problem solving.

North is using this same puzzle tool to monitor and evaluate the performance of her K-5 students. She is monitoring whether there is a direct correllation between the increase in fluency of their problem solving skills and there ability to perform on assessments of their application of core content learned in the classroom.

I found her premise compelling, and look forward to the outcome of her study. In the meantime, I plan to use this site to assist my own apprentices with their fluency in problem solving. You will see it appear on my classroom blog very soon.

Posted Tuesday, February 03, 2009 5:26 PM by kgustin