VoiceThread
VoiceThread allows students and teachers to put images and comments together easily and share them with a broader audience. Here are some possible ways to use VoiceThread to support your Red Clover Program.
1. Create a bird gallery. Students can add comments or even create the images that are shared.
2. Display art inspired by Calder. Each student explains her/his own piece and comments on the work of others.
3. Take photos of a tree planting inspired by Wangari’s Trees of Peace. Upload the photos into VoiceThread and have students narrate the events and explain their importance.
Check out VoiceThread by visiting http://voicethread.com.
Ideas to Support Student Learning
1. I teach students who have difficulty reading how to have the computer “read” text to them. This is useful for research purposes. On a Mac this can be done using a Safari browser. Have the student highlight the text they want read (smaller amounts is better- 2-4 sentences at a time). Students then click on “Safari,” “Services,” “Speech,” and finally “Start Speaking Text.” I have not been able to figure out how to do this on a PC.
2. All students can benefit from having their work “read” back to them by the computer in the same manner as above. This helps them to spot spelling and grammatical errors. The only word processing program that I have found that allows you to do this is Pages.
3. I often take screen shots to add to written directions. On a Mac you can do this using the shortcut: Shift Command 4. You can also use this using the free software Jing (www.jingproject.com/).
4. Jing is also great for creating tutorials for students that they can watch as needed.
Chicken Chasing Number Stories
Everyday Math is big on number stories. Students solve number stories and write their own. Collaborate with math teachers to have students write number stories about chickens and eggs inspired by the Chicken Chasing Queen.
Equipment needed: computer, projector and printer
Software needed: drawing software
1. Outline criteria for number story.
2. Create a number story as a class.
3. Demonstrate typing the number story on the computer.
4. Demonstrate illustrating the number story.
5. Students work on writing and illustrating their own number story.
6. Print the number stories for use in math class.
An example of a Terrible Hodag number story created by a first grader:
