Kristen Selves RDNG 654

 There are so many apps out there for helping students with many aspects of writing.  As a kindergarten teacher, I think the best apps I saw were Little Writer: The Tracing App for Kids and Book Creator.  The Little Writer app l ooks very engaging and extremely child friendly.   There are bright colors and fun images included, not as a distraction, but to help the child with practicing their handwriting.   The one picture shows a little crab at the top of the letter.   This is where the child should put their finger to start the next stroke.   They will then follow the string of pineapples until they get to the end.   It’s just a really great way to make it maybe a little more fun for the kids.   I also love that there are multiple options for what children to practice tracing, upper and lowercase alphabet, numbers, shapes, and words, making it an all-in-one app for handwriting practice.   What I liked about the Book Creator app  is...

Graphic organizers are a great way to organize thinking and learning in the classroom.  Exploring the digital graphic organizers that were shared was fun.  It is so interesting to see how differently websites can be set up as well as how easy or difficult they can be.  For my two graphic organizers that I submitted I used bubble.us and Wisemapping.  Both of them were interesting and I think you could use them for many things.  The bubble.us app seemed to be a bit easier for the type of graphic organizer that I was looking to create.  However, I discovered that Wisemapping would be a wonderful app to use if you were looking to create a family tree.  (This is actually something that I have been thinking of creating for my family.)  Overall, I actually found that the Google Draw was easier for me to manipulate and use.  Again, I think it all comes back to what type of graphic organizer you are looking to create.  A few years ago I was train...

Click here or on the image above to view Source: https://twitter.com/MrsMacsKinders/status/971801218874933248 Audio tools are great tools to use in a classroom.  In my kindergarten classroom I tend to use more audio/visual tools and resources rather than just audio.  I will often use Storyline Online for students to listen to a story during snack time.  I will also sometimes use YouTube to students to listen to a story if I am feeling under the weather or do not have the book to read myself.  The text mentioned apps such as Evernote, My Story-Book Maker, and Voice Recording.  I have heard of Evernote before, but have not used it.  Looking at it again it seems as though it would be a tough app for younger students to navigate.  There have been a time or two where I have had students use voice recordings for things in class, but not as often now as I do not have classroom iPads as I did previously.  Several years ago in my classroom I used an ...

         Source: https://tastecuvino.com/2017-12-15-thru-12-23-feast-of-the-seven-fishes/ Images help to make a visual connection to what we are reading or learning about.  As a learner, that visual connection helps to support my thoughts or feelings about a topic or subject.  Images can help strengthen understanding and can even help to clarify information.  We teach our students to look for details and pay attention to the setting.  When looking at a picture in books we are reading, I always model pointing out things in the picture that were not talked about in the text.  I share with them that we can often times learn more information from an image that was not included in the text we read.  As a teacher I can ask students probing questions that require them to look deeper into an image.  This allows for great practice so that they are able to do it independently as they grow. I find it very important to include images ...

I was quite disappointed by the selection of eBook websites that were shared in the Lifewire article.  As noted in the headline, many of them were for the Kindle, which I do not have access to.  Many of the other websites were not kid friendly and difficult to maneuver through.  After clicking on several of the eBook website options, I finally decided to explore freekidsbooks.org.  This website seemed more kid friendly with the bright colors and pictures of the books.  The format of the website was easy to read and work with, until I began to notice an  excessive number of pop-up ads that covered much of the screen.   I then ran into some difficulty with finding a text that was actually available to  read online.  Six out of the eight books I clicked on to "read online" stated, "Online view not available yet".  However, some of the books were available in PDF form instead.  The three books I read in PDF form were Sami's Be...

I think that it is absolutely critical that we teach our students using these "new literacies.  Our students are growing up in a much different world that we did.  I don't know how many times I have heard someone say they have seen a toddler or young child using a phone or tablet with ease.  Technological advances have made it so these devices are everywhere in their environment.  As our students grow into adults we want to be sure they are well prepared for the career they choose.  Most jobs today require employees to use computer or technology skills of some sort.  As educators we can help to prepare them for their future endeavors.  We want to be able to expose our students to the wonderful potential that technology offers, while also teaching students to be aware and cautious of them as well.   In my kindergarten classroom I am able to use many different websites and to help students learn.  We can use PowerPoint slides to guide us t...