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I am very excited to join this network. I have been using technology in various ways in my own life for a quite a while, and I cannot wait to get it into my classroom. I only wish that our school was designed in such a way that fostered technology use.

I can't wait to meet more people who are interested in using technologies in learning!

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Comment by Durff on April 23, 2007 at 4:19am: Hi Matt! I assign work on our blogs as homework because we have a paucity of technology. The computer is only available during one block that I teach.

Comment by Matt Kish on April 23, 2007 at 6:26am: Thanks. I may consider something like that. I think it would be an easy way to do follow up work on reading.

I will give it a try and let you know!

Comment by techmentor on April 23, 2007 at 10:27am: Hi,

I am a teacher and technology mentor and work with teachers integrating technology in the classroom. Two things that we have been doing this school year at the elementary level have been podcasting and digital storytelling. The kids love it and parents love to see their child's work up on the web. the kids see themselves as "authors" now. Lots of safety issues we had to start, but now is running well.

Comment by Matt Kish on April 23, 2007 at 5:58pm: Thanks for the tips. We have a visiting poet in our school for the next three days, and I think I am going to jump on that to have students record some poems and possibly add some pictures.

Our school has basically nothing, so I think we'll be recording the audio on my Dell PocketPC. I will post links once I have it all figured out.

Comment by Matt Kish on April 23, 2007 at 6:48pm: Do you recommend any specific tools for digital storytelling?

Comment by techmentor on April 24, 2007 at 9:47am: Hi,

If you are interested in digital storytelling and you have access to a PC with MIcrosoft XP, then you can download PhotoStory3 from Microsoft for free. It is a very easy to use software and elementary students love that they can basically do everything themselves. If you have a Mac computer , you will need iMovie. After this basically the process is :

1. Write the story and complete final draft
2. Collect pictures or even better DRAW the pictures that go with the story
3. Upload the pictures. If you have hand drawn pictures and no scanner, use a digital camera and take a picture of the drawing then upload.
4. Record the audio for the story
5. Add music (if you want)
6. Save and you are done.

I have some elementary samples if you would like to see. They can be as basic or advanced as you want to make it. The classrom I have been working in is a one computer class. As tech mentor I will arrive to help the teacher and add a body to the room to make it easier for all the students to create.

Sorry this was so long....good luck!

Comment by Matt Kish on April 24, 2007 at 6:00pm: Thanks for the advice. I sent off an email to my principal to see if we can download Microsoft Photo Story (the computers are on lock down ...). I expect that he will be for it.

When I sent the original idea to him, he wanted to expand it to the whole school. Exciting.

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