Thing 12: Media Skills

Ok, I'll start out by saying that as a life-long learning, I love Cool Tools!  I want to have them at my finger tips, ALWAYS.  It was hard to pick what I would try out, so I did some random things: Quozio, Flipagram, Clipping Magic and 1 Second Every Day. 

Quozio will come in super handy as my students finish up their African American Movie Maker projects.  I'm going to require them to locate a quote made by the person they are researching, or a quote about that person, create a Quozio for it, and include it in their presentation . They are going to feel so professional! 

I used Flipagram to create a video of my kids coloring Easter eggs and making carrot cake.  Adding music gave the slideshow a more romantic feel, though I would like to add in transitions from slide to slide.  A bit more research on that feature is necessary. 

Using Clipping Magic is a cool site that can photoshop your pics basically for free, but as a novice user with a short attention span, I found it hard to navigate.  The available features seem interesting enough that I'll want to go back and invest the time to learn them.

My prediction is that I will be LOVING 1 Second Every Day, and using it a lot.  I've always wanted to take a pic in the same place once a day of myself or kids and then compile them to see the changes over time . I don't know why I haven't done it, or why an app like this should be the catalyst in getting me to actually do it.  The samples were very cool - and as stated something like on the Cool Tools site:  oddly intriguing. 

There are more that I'd like to try, and will likely come back and do them later!

Thing 11: Coding

Hello Cool Tools friends!  I am VERY late this year in getting caught up on all my Cool Tools tasks.  I really have no excuse for this, except for that last year, my position was in Tech, and I wanted to learn as much as I could to bring back to my students and teachers.  This year, I am grappling with many demands, as most elementary teachers do, and therefore finding it hard to get these completed.

I also am experiencing some difficulty in locating my previous blog posts.  I can go to BlogSpot and see them, but cannot add to the most recent.  I've spent the last 3 times that I've logged on to work on my Cool Tools tasks, trying to retrieve it and continue posting.  All for naught! 

So...needless to say, I'm behind in my reflection of having completed the Hour of Code.  I completed it probably close to a month ago.  As with many of the responses and insights shared on the videos regarding coding, I believe in the numerous benefits for students that it can produce.  Coding fosters strategic and critical thinking while building literacy skills. Once NYS testing is over, I hope to have my fourth grade students begin their own journey into the world of coding.