Slice of Life Day 9. Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.
Calling all teacher-nerd-bloggers to join in the DigiLit Sunday Round-up. I will be hosting every Sunday. This is a huge leap of faith on my part, so I am hoping I have some leapers join me this week. Mr. Linky is waiting at the bottom of this post. Link up your own Digital Literacy post. I am still looking for a logo. Any ideas are welcome. This is all new to me.
One of my biggest problems in using the Internet in my classroom is blocking by the district network. I am pleased that YouTube is now available. This is due to the new curriculum our state is using that requires use of YouTube videos. So this week we were able to view a video by Tamera Will Wissinger. She read a poem to us from her book “Gone Fishing.”
A student from another class doing the Slice of Life Challenge wrote about Kid President, so we watched a few of those. I’m sure there are more ways I can use YouTube in my classroom. I welcome your ideas.
Still I run into frustration, especially when we are trying out new apps. I wanted my students to try out Haiku Deck that Kevin Hodgson led me to. When we pulled it up, all the parts worked except the pictures were all blocked. The best part of this app is the beautiful images to choose from. We managed to find a few pictures that would work, but only by trial and error.
Another difficulty we’ve encountered this week was that most blog sites are blocked. Fortunately, the Two Writing Teachers was not, so I could link up our class’s blog to the Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge, but if the other classes use any site other than Kidblog, the site is blocked. We are able to link up with other slicers through Kidblog.
I am trying to teach my students about fair use of pictures from the Internet. Mary Lee Hahn talked about using the Google Search Tool under Usage Rights: Labeled for reuse. The problem with this is most pictures that are reusable are blocked. I have taught my students that for use in the classroom on projects and PowerPoints, we can use a picture that is not creative commons; however, if they are going to use it on our public blog, it must be an original picture or one for reuse.
I’m sure many of you are running into these kinds of roadblocks and welcome any advice for working around and with them.
Reflections on the Teche 
Thanks so much for doing this–it motivated me to think about ways digital tools have enhanced learning this week!
Spread the word, Franki. I am thinking there are others out there wanting a community to talk to about the goods and the bads of technology in our schools.
I sure wish I had advice, but I don’t! I share all your concerns and roadblocks and then add a few more….technology that doesn’t work. Smart boards, computers and the internet itself all see to fail at the moment I need them! Printers and Adobe readers this week were at the top of my #)*(%&#)(%& list! I would do so much more….
We’re sailing in similar waters. Find a life raft and hang on it’s worth the ride.
That is the purpose of this round-up. We need to stick together and do the best we can for our students.
I will be thinking about digital tools for future Sundays. I am very lucky that I can contact our IT department, and they will unlock sites if requested for classroom usage purposes. Kudos to you for taking this leap of faith!
Jaana,
Thanks for stopping by. I have also had success with getting sites unblocked, most recently with an author Skype visit. But they don’t unblock multiple sites, such as blogs. I wish there were a way to code them so we know they are educational. Surely someone can do that!
Oops. I should have looked at Mr. Linky before I added Franki’s post. Can you delete the duplication? Sorry!
It’s fine. I’m not sure how to remove it.
Sorry for the problems, Margaret. I too was going to mention Franki’s post today-a new app that looks awesome. Remember when we had that awesome color site? Do you think they might unblock one computer for you to supervise in your classroom?
When I did the color site, I used my phone. It worked but used a lot of my phone’s data. I’ll check on getting one computer unblocked, at least for the free use Flickr photos.
This is a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow, Margaret – I’ll rustle something up this week for next Sunday.
Thanks. I hope it will grow as the weeks go by.
Here is my link for my digital thinking: http://teachingin21.blogspot.com/2014/03/sailing-in-uncharted-waters-with-google.html#comment-form
[…] in digital learning, Margaret Simon hosts a weekly Digital Learning round-up on her blog: DigiLit Sunday. Stop by Reflections on the Teche (today’s link-up) to read, discover, and link. (This […]
Playing with Nutshell to show my maker spaces for the Digital Playground.
http://debfrazier.blogspot.com/2015/03/slice-of-life-my-maker-space.html