Week 4 - Multimedia

     Multimedia is everywhere. Today's students are fed a steady diet of mulitmedia in their daily lives. As classroom teachers, we must be able to include educational multimedia as part of that diet or student's will wither away. There is a huge supply of multimedia resources available to use in instruction. It can be an overwhelming task to determine how to incorporate mulitmedia into your classroom. I think the key is to start at a point that you feel comfortable with and build on this. I was very nervous about starting a blog. I had read many blogs, but had no idea how easy it would be to start one of your own. Now, I would definitely use a blog with my classroom. I found two good examples that I would like to model my blog after. These are Ms. Brown's Grade 2 Class (http://msbrownsgrade2class.blogspot.com ) and Sherry Becker's blog (http://sherrybecker.blogspot.com ). I have added Ms. Brown's blog to my google reader list. I think these are amazing examples of how you can communicate what you are doing in your classroom to parents. You can include pictures, videos, and running commentary of their child's school life. As a parent myself, I would love to see pictures and get updates of what is going on within my son's class. I would include weekly assignments, spelling lists, special activities, test dates. Parents could then respond to me without having to worry about whether or not I got their note.
     After seeing the glogs (http://www.glogster.com/ )that most of the class did on their Digital Citizenship project, I would also like to use glogs in my classroom.  A colleague of mine told me how she used a glog in her second grade science unit on the solar system. She made a glog about the solar system, the planets, moons, asteroids, etc.... She pulled in some uTube video clips and downloaded some children's songs about the planets. She introduced the glog to her students by putting it on her projector. She teased them by showing them how to use it, but didn't let them see the videos or hear the songs. She then had the glog on her computers for students to use as part of her centers. She also sent the url home with students so that they could pull it up at home. She said they absolutely loved it and begged her to do more glogs. I was excited to hear how I could incorporate this into my classroom.
          Another form of multimedia that I would really enjoy using in my classroom is the smartboard. I was able to use these some when I subbed. I know that I have had minimal use and have only seen a small portion of what smartboards are capable of, but it was exciting to think of all the ways that it could be used. The students were very excited about using them. It made lessons interactive. A good source of lessons for the smartboard is www.scholastic.com/interactivewhiteboards.
     There are so many amazing kinds of multimedia available to use in classrooms today. Teachers can be creative with their teaching in ways that weren't possible ten years ago. I can not imagine what the next ten years will bring.