BP12_2009104_Reflective Media Asset 2

BP11_2009104_Photos

BP10_2009103_Response to Micheline's Blog Post

Web 2.0 tools #2:http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

This web 2.0 tools is hosted by the New York Zoos and Aquarium which includes: The Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and The New York Aquarium. The intended audience is children however I think any adult using this page would have fun at least one time. The purpose of this site is to promote literacy, provide information about animals, identify anatomy, as well as encouraging play and creativity.

The page opens and the user is prompted to make several selections to “build your wild self.” Get started by inserting your name on the template and selecting gender and skin tone. A blank body will appear and then the user must continue adding parts. Each time you make a selection the user gets to hear a funny noise, which usually identifies the animal the part came from. This feature can be turned down. Once your creature is complete press I am done and the learning begins. The user is now redirected to a page that provides information about each animal part that they have selected. The image can be saved, printed, and emailed.

This tool has many applications for the classroom. Literacy is a main goal in many school districts. This could be used as a reading activity that would then be followed with a writing assignment.Students could make up a short story about the creature they have become. The fun part is that the creature can be printed out for an illustration. Students could share their stories with the class to practice reading out load.

There are also applications with science. The web tool is sponsored by the NY zoo system and includes links to each zoo. This site can be used as an introduction to animal classification or a pre-zoo visit. When the student is building their creature they are learning anatomy by identifying different body parts and where they should be.A more creative focus for an art teacher would be to I am an first have students “build their wild self” on this site to warm up and practice and follow up by asking them to draw or sculpt a creature in a similar concept.

BP9_2009103_Web2.0 Tool

The last Web 2.0 tool that I found is called Big Universe where children can read, create, and share books. The website is found at http://www.biguniverse.com/createkidsbooks. I have very mixed feelings about this website and using this tool. First there are fees involved in order to create books and to read any of the books that have been already published. The fees are not bad but I am not sure how I feel about having to pay to use this. The fees aside I really like this tool. You can create a book yourself, add the background, the characters, text, or speech bubbles. The pages turn and the characters are animated. It really looks cool and fun for the kids. There are a lot of books have already been made that you can go into and read to your students. Your students can also go in and create their own books to share with the class.

This really promotes literacy in the classroom. There are so many different ways that you can use this is in your class. You can teach them about what goes into writing a story that it’s not just about the words, but the background and the characters. This is where the writing process is important to teach them about brainstorming, pre-writing, editing, and publishing. The students are always excited when they get to see their work displayed and especially to tell them that they are published authors.

There are many tutorials and tips for teachers on how to create the books and the different pages. I really like what this site has to offer to teachers and to students. I really don’t see a grade level that you couldn’t use this with. Again the only issue is the fees and how you want to use it in your classroom.

BP8_2009103_Web2.0 Tool

Another Web 2.0 tool that I have found and plan on using in my classroom is ClassTools.net. The site is found at http://classtools.net/. Using this website you can create interactive flash tools and educational games. There are several tutorials that help you with using the website. There are also sample files that you can use to get ideas as to how you can use it in your classroom. With this tool the possibilities are endless with what you can create and the topics you can create it for. There are templates that are provided for you that can be used in wikis, blogs, and websites. This is also a totally free site that has no fees and it is a quality site.

As I stated before there are a lot of different ways that you can use this website in your classroom with your students. You can use this to create a Venn diagram when you are comparing information in science. You can create vocabulary games in the arcade, which will give the students 5 different games they can play. There is also other graphs that you can use with any information. What is great about this website is that once you show the students how to do create some of these graphs, they would be able to create them as well to share with the class.

Overall this would be good to use in any grade level classroom. It is great to use to review information, learning about new things, practice what you know, and then to create your own work. I think that it is worth while to try out and check out the tutorials.

BP7_2009103_Web 2.0 Tools

A web 2.0 tool that I have found that I would like to use in my classroom is called Wordle. The website is found at http://www.wordle.net/. Using Wordle you type in the words and then it creates your words into word clouds. You can choose how they are displayed, their colors, and the fonts. The reason why I have found this interesting is because in first grade we work a lot with words. They always see them in black and white and buried within a lot of text. I thought that it would be fun to see words presented in a different way. You can create your word clouds print them out or you can save them in the Wordle gallery to share with the class. There are a lot of activities that you can do with your word clouds. You can have them identify target words mixed in with other words. You can have them brainstorm more words that can be added to your current cluster of words.

The great thing is you can do this for any words you are working with in the classroom. Once you show the class how to create it, they can also make their own. This would still have to be supervised since in the Wordle gallery there are other creations that may not be censored for young children. Posted below is an example of what a Wordle creation looks like.

If you use a screen-capture or other image representation of the Wordle on this page, you must attribute the image to http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed .

BP6_2009102_ReflectiveMediaAsset