Mrs. Muñoz's Class Blog

Since our district has “gone Google” this school year, I have become familiar with more Google tools than ever before. Google sites is one of those, but there is one resource that helped me tremendously that I want to share with you. @FollowMolly has a great website that can help you with your Google site building and many more Google related applications.

Here is also a list of resources that will be mentioned in my SimpleK12 webinar called Web Sites Made Easy: Part 2. Check them out and add to the design or content of your Google Site.
1. Colourlovers
2. Picnik
3. Voki
4. Animoto
5. Embedding Gadget 

I just finished my week long discussion/activity lesson with my students over copyright. It’s an important one to have in any class, but especially Multimedia. We create, re-mix and re-use lots of already made media on the internet. A lot of the media we use belongs to a creator, and their creations should be treated with respect.

I try to put my students in the place of successful artists and composers by having them create original, digital artwork in GIMP and an original song in Garageband. After a day or two of creating, I start the lesson by defining copyright and why it’s important. We used the Cyberbee  website to guide the questions in a logical order. I created a Copyright Discussion Guide Sheet for students to follow along to keep them accountable. I find middle schoolers do well when they have a purpose besides just contributing to the conversation. Once we were done with the general discussion of copyright, I want to have the students imagine different scenarios and tell me if they think those people are using fair use or if they are abusing copyright. The worksheet I use needs to be converted to a digital format to share but here is a sample of the types of scenarios it asks to the students to think about.

Finally, I used this site to explain the consequences of copyright abuse and a current online article to drive home that more is starting to be done to punish those who continuously break copyright laws. I love the conversations and questions that arise over these lessons. The students think about all the things they’ve done and want to know if they’ve been doing what’s right or not. However, even after reflecting on the lesson from the week, more than half the students still claim they will download music illegally. I hope each time they do it, a little bit of my lessons start to eat away at their conscience, but then again, don’t we still speed every chance we think the cops aren’t looking? I think it’s the same concept.

If you’re looking for more curriculum over copyright, and digital citizenship in general, then check out Common Sense Media’s school curriculum. Although, the lessons listed above don’t come from this site, I’ve used their lessons and videos the past 2 years and they are well done and ready to go over every topic.

If you have something to share, leave a comment below. I would love to hear how you teach copyright and the responses you get from your students.

If you haven’t heard of Class Dojo yet, or tried it out in your classroom, then start today. It’s so easy to use and it has made a difference in my classes. All you do is use your computer, iPad or smartphone to access Class Dojo and give students positive or negative points towards their behavior. For example, if Mary is working hard, then I can reward her for her efforts. If Little Johnny is out of his chair without permission, then I can give him a negative point as a consequence, however, this motivates my students to behave so they can start accumulating positive points. You can use the points as a way to grade participation in class or just as a management tool. When you end the class a donut chart will appear showing the breakdown points given. The class can see the overall behavior for the day, but you can also see individuals charts as well by clicking on their name. Class Dojo has a “mock” class for you to try out before you start using it with your own classes. So what are you waiting for? Give it a try and let me know how it has worked for you!

I found this tool while browsing through Adam Bellow’s edutTecher App on my iPhone. Anything that states you can create a final product in 10 minutes catches my attention for classroom use. After trying out Slidestaxx I was hooked and I can’t wait to have my students create one as well.

So what is Slidestaxx? It is a free web tool that allows you to gather social media from various sources and create a slideshow to post on your blog or wiki. You can also just send out the link to your published slideshow. A Slidestaxx can contain a collection of  pictures, websites and videos. I see lots of possibilities for using this cool, new tool in my classroom and I wanted to share one Slidestaxx with you that I created for my class.

My blog does not allow me to embed this media so just click on the picture to get to the slideshow

I will be talking about this tool with SimpleK12′s Teacher Learning Community on Thursday, Sept. 22 at 4:30 central time. Come join me and see how to set up your first Slidestaxx presentation.

How do you see using this tool in your classroom? I’m always looking for ideas so share with me!

This tool has only been out for 1 month and I am loving it! I can see so many ways to utilize this in my technology classroom. The first use is just creating lessons for my students to watch. Especially for when I won’t be there with them to teach the lesson in person. I plan on making a parent video to introduce them to my classroom and what we are going to do for the year. My students could create projects such as “pitching an idea to a company” or talking through their “all about me” presentation. This tool would give them an opportunity to practice their speech and re-cord if they mess up.

Here is an example of a Knovio I made that will preside on my “About” page on this blog. It’s a welcome message and takes them through what they will find on my blog. I’m sure it could be perfected, but it will do for now. ;0) How do you see using this tool in your classroom?

Click here to see my blog intro

I just love word clouds. There is something cool and beautiful about seeing all the words of your blog, twitter feed, or favorite book combined together to make a piece of art. However it’s not just to something to look at and admire, it’s also a tool. Teachers can use these for many different purposes: get to know students, find key words in a text, creating a site words poster and lots more.

Here is a list of different word cloud generators as well as some resources for more ideas on how to use them. How do you use them in your classroom? Which one is your favorite?

Wordle
Tagxedo
Word it Out
Tagul

51 Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom by Tom Barrett

101 Ways to Use Tagxedo

Ideas from Edutopia’s New Teacher Bootcamp

Edmodo is such a great, extensive classroom tool that it’s hard to describe everything it can do in 15 minutes, but I tried my best during today’s SimpleK12′s webinar. To help anyone that may need a refresher or needs a link to the Edmodo user guide, I wanted to put all of those resources in one place. If you need any help or have any questions, leave me a comment or find me on twitter or edmodo. :0)

5 Minutes Tutorial Videos:

Part 1: Getting Started with Edmodo (Create accounts and groups)
Part2: Creating Assignments
Part3: Using the Calendar

Edmodo User Guide and Help Center (Great place for districts interested in getting a portal)
Edmodo Blog

To learn more about Edmodo and it’s amazing free social learning capabilities check out this website about 15 brilliant ways to use this tool in the classroom.

On May 2, 2011, there are three different times I will be live blogging with another class on my campus. We will be showing the Ted Talk with Eric Whitacre over his virtual choir! The lesson plan and activity is already planned out: Live Blogging Activity Lesson Plan.  Please download a copy and see if you would like to participate, if so, PLEASE RSVP by clicking here. It will help me be prepared for how many students I will be moderating. If you have any questions leave a comment or email me at kmunoz@bryanisd.org

I’m excited to be sharing our student’s experiences as they watch such an inspiring video that will help them see anything is possible….it just all starts with an idea.