Well I may have found a solution to my own problem (re: peer editing online). I was reading a post by Jo McLeay on global colaboration. She is hoping to start a English language arts collaboration with classrooms in other parts of the world. She is hoping to set up something on Ning, which is a social network. Now I am a little leary about social networks, but maybe this is just because I don't know enough about them. I think of facebook and myspaces a social networks, althought this one sounds like you can have a special group. Again I need to learn more. Jo also refered to a wiki that is very similar to her idea that is already up and running. A thousand and one flat world tales, this wiki can be used by students ages 11 and up. This wiki is currently being used by classrooms in Seoul, Korea, Denver, CO. and Hawaii. The idea behind this wiki is that students can post stories, they are edited by their peers (which includes the students from classrooms around the world), and they get graded on their story but also how well they can give useful feedback to their peers. It looks like everything is monitored by their teachers.
I would love to do something like this with my grade 7 class in the fall. I have already emailed my cooperative teacher to find out if this is something she would be interested in too, before I go too far with it.
But who know a little exploration of my RSS feeds would lead me to a solution for my own problem.

Making a Wiki

Well I can say that I am new to this assignment. I have never been involved in making a wiki before and I can honestly say I don't know when I would have looked at one (beyond wikipedia). I did get quite excited on Wednesday when we were talking about our assignment in which we make a collaborative wiki with a few people in our class as well as some from a masters class a Plymoth State university. We came up with some really neat ideas to possibly work on together. I am really intersted in looking at ways of introducing technology into certain subject with in K-8. Talking with Kyle on monday really got me thinking of different ways I could do this project. Kyle has made wiki's before which also makes me feel a little bit more comforatable as he would know what to do. I am sure I would catch on quickly it is just that safety factor when it comes to school work.
I myself am really intersted in science and would love to find neat ways to incorporate techology in my classroom.
I just thought I would post some sites that I have found that are relevant to technology with in a science classroom based on the evergreen curriculum.

Rube Golberg assignments- structure and design or forces and motion, machines and work

Ecological foot print- Sk resources, renewable resources, energy in our lives, Earth

I will keep adding to this as I find more pages.

My Photo Story

Well for a class assignment we were asked to do some digital story telling. I descided to used Photo Story for this assignment. I am familiar with imovie and I thought this might be similar. It was and it wasn't. This application seems to be strictly for photos (which is something schools would have more of anyway), so it was different trying to edit it. I was able to navigate through it pretty easily, and it didn't take too long to complete it. I ran into a few problems though: creating blank, non-picture slides for a title or subtitles, so I had to go into paint and save what I wanted and add that to the story. Also when it came to recording I discovered that you couldn't narriate the entire story, you could only narriate one picture at a time. I had originally wanted narriation over some music, but that turned out to be difficult as I had to add my narriation as music, once I recorded it on the computers sound recorder. It is an interesting application and I could see where you could use in school or for familly photos. I will keep looking into how to solve the music and narriation problem.
But in the mean time check out what I have done so far!

Peer editing online

When I was first told about the possibility of peer editing online I was really excited about it. Since I am going into a grade 7 class for my internship I am really excited to try new and different techniques to get the students excited about their work. Dean had mentioned a site called FanFiction, so I checked it out to see if it would be something that might be possible to get my students involved with. I thought this would be a great idea based on the idea that some students may not be excited to just write for themselves, you or their classmates. By posting it online they may look at their ELA writing as something with a little more importance (or at least that is my hope). Unfortunately on that site you have to be 13 or older to sign up. I tried looking at a few more sites: Fiction Alley, Fiction Press, and My fandoms, but all of these sites have a age 13 or older restriction. So the search continues to see if there is any public peer editing tool out there for students who are under 13.