I would like some ideas on ways to use technology in my upper elementary classroom.

Does anyone have some "user friendly" things that I can do with my 5th grade class in the technology realm?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Liana Gooch on February 22, 2011 at 8:58pm

hi Michelle. I have really got onto using web 2.0 tools and can recommend some that I have found very useful. I teach years 7-12 humanities and have trialled the use of glogs (electronic posters) with year 8 humanities, my 9 geog class and year 12 international studies. All age levels really enjoyed them. The glog is extrmely easy to use and you can embed film clips which makes it ideal if students want to apply their own footage from field work etc. My students quickly grasped how to use the different tools on the glog and the results have been amazing. The students were fully engaged in their activities. They are keen to use this tool again. http://edu.glogster.com/ Use this website and you can have all of the students' glogs on your page. Your provide them with usernames and passwords by enrolling them.
I can also recommend wall wisher and voice thread. I am in the process of getting my year 7 students to develop their own maps using googlemaps while researching about some signficant historical sites in our neighbourhood.
Hope you find these tools useful.

Permalink Reply by Jessica Pilgreen on February 22, 2011 at 9:10pm

Personally, I would start a classroom blog that parents could access. You could have students take turns reflecting on the day's events, and you could post pictures of activities. Creating a classroom blog would also give you the opportunity to get your feet wet with all sort of Web 2.0 tools. Students could collaborate on a podcast, create a Glog, make a virtual pop-up book, etc. and you could embed all of the products on the blog. However, how you integrate technology really depends on what you want to accomplish. So, with all of the possibilities out there, my questions for you is... What do you want the technology to do for you?

Jessica

www.meandmylaptop.weebly.com

Permalink Reply by Carol Olson on March 10, 2011 at 6:48pm

I have a 5th grade language arts teacher who is looking students and teaches to respond to their reading blogs. If this is something that you might be interested in having your students do, please visit

thanks, Carol O, Pennington NJ

Permalink Reply by Susan Stephenson, the Book Chook on February 22, 2011 at 9:23pm

I can wholeheartedly recommend iLearnTechnology blog. Kelly Tenkely's posts are almost always about some item of technology and how to apply it in the classroom.

Permalink Reply by Nitin Kumar Sharma on February 23, 2011 at 1:47am

I completely agree with Susan. Have a look at these teaching tools.

Permalink Reply by Luciana de Oliveira Silva on February 23, 2011 at 5:21am

Hi there, I'm a middle school teacher in Brazil and most of our schools don't have the perfect scenario for technology use yet but I created a site to post tasks for my students. There are several kinds of tasks, since search tasks and editing for practicing to online tests. You can visit my "attempt" at http://sites.google.com/site/teacherluonline/Home and you can give me feedback, too.

As a doctorate student, I am teaching a college subject for Language students to discuss and use technology in elementary and middle schools. I am using TelEduc, a virtual learning environment like Moodle, and students are going to have a training moment in a school (where I am a teacher).

I will be happy to give more information about my research and I'd also like to exchange ideas.

Luciana

Belo Horizonte - Brazil

Permalink Reply by Susan Gagnon on February 23, 2011 at 1:03pm

One simple thing I changed this year was how students keep their notebooks. Instead of the traditional paper and pencil, they keep electronic notebooks. I teach AIS reading and after kids read an article from their leveled readers, they create a short PowerPoint. There are certain criteria they have to meet and expectations are clear. Because they are all reading different things, we share once a week. This also allows for oral presentation practice in a non-threatening environment. Kids love the freedom to be creative with font, color, sound, animation and graphics.

Permalink Reply by Michelle Linn on March 7, 2011 at 10:45pm

I love this idea! Our school is always stressing ways to lessen the use of paper. Use less copies, use less copies, use less copies.... This would be great! So, do you have the students using a word processing document, googledocs, or how are you doing it?

Permalink Reply by Agnieszka Szklanny on February 23, 2011 at 6:00pm

Hi Michelle,

Some of my favourite web2.0 tools include Kidblog http://kidblog.org/home.php, where you can create students' accounts without individual email addresses, set up and manage classrooms, create groups and more. Another one is Voicethread at http://voicethread.com/ and there are also wikis. My favourite is http://pbworks.com/, once again, you can create individual student accounts without email addresses. There is also http://bitstrips.com - online comic building tool, in some school districts this tool is available in a http://bitstripsforschools.com version for free. All of these tools are very user friendly and our students LOVE using them.

Permalink Reply by Carol Olson on March 10, 2011 at 6:47pm

Michelle- I have a 5th grade language arts teacher who is looking students and teaches to respond to their reading blogs. If this is something that you might be interested in having your students do, please visit