EDUC+8Y34+–+Sec+8+Reviews

=8Y34 Lab 8: Place your cursor BELOW the three lines. Type in your Activity Types Reviews below. Then place a line under your entry.=

I think that Digital Records would be a great way for students to tie in computer technology with Language Arts. This activity allows students to upload their images from a camera onto the computer and then write a message about the importance of the image. This is a great way for students to apply computer technology into their everyday lives not just now but in the future. I would encorporate this activity into the classroom by perhaps hvaing children take a photo of themselves from a field trip and describe the significance of this picture in relation to the field trip. Jenn kanoza

I think that the iAdventures would be a great thing for kids to do as an alternative to reading a paperback book. Most students would rather be on a computer, and for those who can read, the iAdventures activity is a good combination. For those who do not know what an iAdventure is, it is basically are a "choose your own adventure." These activities allow children to make their own decisions in the novel and find out the consequences. This will help them in real-life when they have to make decisions and deal with the consequences of those decisions. Nicole Stokes

The activity that I like is Vocabulary Bingo. This would be a great way to introduce new theme words for the word wall. Bingo is such a simple game but students love it. It is engaging and easily played by everyone. In a primary class such as grade 1 or 2, the bingo columns could be based aroung phonemic sounds to help students who are sounding out words. During other language activities such as journal writing, the students could choose from these words. Robin Perry

The name of the activity type that I found particularly interesting is __Digital Records__. As the textbook states, a digital record consists of an image or picture found either through the Internet or a personal photo uploaded to the computer. The author of the digital record then composes a paragraph which will describe various meanings this photo has to them. I can see myself using this particular activity in a lesson directed toward language arts, particularly creative writing, or perhaps even paragraph writing. I could use this activity as a means to assessing how the student composes their paragraph structure along with proper grammar and spelling (depending on the grade level). Sarah Sproviero

I really like the Literacy Web Activity. I just did a Language presentation on Webs and I think they are a great way for children to brainstorm and get their ideas out and organized. I remember doing Webs when I was young and I think it's great that children can now do them on the computer. I think they are already a fun activity for children to do but this added dimension makes them even more fun and novel too! The webs described in the textbook are literacy webs done for books children have read but webs can be created on any topic, both fiction or non-fiction. I would use webs for brainstorming a new topic and also for summarizing ideas of a topic the child has already learned. I would be assessing the web in terms of the information included and its organization, as well as the technological aspect of how they were able to create the web on the computer. Kirsty Muileboom

Chapter 6 (page 274) discusses alphabet books as one type of descriptive story activity that can be done by students in the classroom. This involves having students make alphabet books using pictures and images from a variety of locations, including photos that they have taken themselves, to images found in clipart and on internet photo sharing sites. You could use this with a class that was just learning their alphabet, but I think it would be useful with Grade 1 or 2 students who know their already know their letters. They could be instructed to develop alphabet books for a kindergarten class, which would be great incentive. Upon completion, each student could choose one of their letter pages (so that each letter of the alphabet was taken), these letter pages could be combined into one collaborative alphabet book, and students could present their page of the book to the kindergarten class. The teacher could assess students on their oral presentation skills for the presentation of their designated letter page! - Lindsy Nicholson

I love the idea of creating trading cards

(Ch. 5, page 224) with a class to help them classify and summarize information that they have gathered. The cards are easily created using MS Word and, since kids seem to love information presented in this type of abbreviated form, I think they could generate a lot of enthusiasm. Students could break into groups with each group being assigned a category of cards to generate. They could then regroup to share/trade cards with the other groups. The students could be assessed on their ability to successfully summarize their topic by including only the main points of interest on their cards. - Cami Boyko

** Name of the activity type: ** An activity discussed in chapter 4 on page 195-196 in our textbook is called “Using digital cameras and writing e-books”  ** What it is: **  The purpose of the activity is for teachers to create a high quality lesson plan for Project-Based cooperative group work in our classroom. The activity is for students to identify items and take pictures using a digital camera. Following this, the students will upload the pictures onto the computer and choose one picture to make into a Kid Pix page. The next day the students will work on the Kid Pix pages in the computer lab. ** Example of how you could see yourself using this in a lesson: ** I would incorporate this activity into a grade three language lesson, by having students photograph items in the classroom or in the school. I would follow this up with uploading the photos to the computer and having the students create 3-5 sentences to match their chosen picture. Then they could create a Kid Pix Page when they finished. Finally students could showcase their work by printing out their projects and creating a class e-book, where small groups of 4 worked together and discussed each other’s work. ** One aspect of the activity that you would be assessing: ** I would be assessing how will learning be documented, ie. the taking of the picture, uploading the picture, creating 3-5 sentences and sharing within the small groups. Sabrina Catallo

Alphabet Books Chapter 6 (page 274) Alphabet books are a fantastic way to teach early primary grades the alphabet. Alphabet books are books that students can create based around the alphabet where students can use images, words, and things that are familiar to them. This allows them to use pictures from home to associate with their letters. Alphabet books also enable students to use Powerpoint, slideshow, clipart, and the Internet to search for images. This gives the students free range to use different tools to create a book to help them to remember their letters and sounds. Examples: [] [] Amanda Dennis

The activity type that I will be reviewing for digital storytelling is iAdventures. iAdventures are problem solving activities where you get to make choices that will lead the story in different directions with different outcomes. iAdventures use real-world data and the students see how their characters access the internet to make choices and solve problems. An example of how this activity can be used in a science lesson for Grade 1 students on the needs and characteristics of living things, is to have the students make choices on how to care for living things and see if their choices will keep their living thing (plant, animal, ect.) alive and healthy or not. Two of the aspects that I as a teacher would assess are whether or not the children understood how the iAdventure program worked and also on whether or not they were able to successfully identify the needs to keep their living things alive. Marnie Olton

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Picture Prompt Writing!

The activity that I chose was picture prompt writing. This is when a student is given a picture and then instructions on how they should use this picture to write a story. This activity type is great because it can be used in a variety of ways such as individually or in a group setting. I would use this in a social studies lesson and show the students a picture of what we are currently studying such as ancient civilizations and then ask them to write a story about what they think is happening in the picture. This would be a great tool because it incorporates both language arts and social studies. I would use a rubric to assess this type of activity as it will allow me to mark different aspects of the writing and the amount of creativity involved.

Amy Ruxton

Activity Type: Character Web __**Description:**__ A character web is like a visual map that has different kinds of information pertaining to a character in a story. For example, it may have the character's name in the middle of the web and then have "webs" attached on the outside that say things like: brown hair, writer, likes cats, loves brownies etc. It can also include various descriptions of how the character develops throughout the story. It is a helpful tool for students to organize and prioritize their ideas. __**How I would use it in the Classroom:**__ I would use this not only for characters in stories but maybe helping them organize their ideas for paragraphs or essays or possibly even to organize events to write their own stories. __**Assessment tool:**__ I would use a rubric to analyze the character web to make sure they understanding the key traits and to make it more useful for them.

Joanna Page

Photo Essays:

The activity type that I particularly enjoyed reading about and thought would be highly beneficial to use as a future teacher was the Photo Essays. Photo Essays is a great way of conveying a message or particular subject you want to talk about using photos instead of words. The author/creator of the story will select images to use in their essay, which they believe will convey the best message to its readers. The five different types of photo essays are, I Spy stories, oral histories, electronic photo albums, slice of life stories, and VIP biographies. All five of these photo essay types would be extremely beneficial to students, but I think that slice of life stories would be an excellent tool in the classroom of getting the child to create a photo essay about a particular part of their life or someone they know who is an inspiration to them.

Melanie Skanes

Character Web

This technique is good for **deepening character development**. The purpose is to help students identify with the characters motives and perspective. For example in the book "The composition" the young boy lies about what his family does at night. This character web would be useful because the lesson is that, at a young age the boy knows about freedom or lack there of. **His character and the lie he writes is the main idea** of the story therefor it is important that the students explore and elaborate on this point. I would use the rubric rating system and rate them according to **how deeply they explored the characters** traits.

Jen O'Brien

The activity type I enjoyed reading about was **Alphabet Stories**. This would be an excellent activity for emergent readers as they explore the relationship between an image and a word. Digital Alphabet books can be created, either by the student or teacher, with familiar pictures with the alphabet letters and words to represents them. This activity could be incorporated into a cross-curricular lesson for social studies and language arts. The children would be asked to think of images that represent certain letters from a social studies unit and add it to the class alphabet book. Not only do the children learn new words associated with the image, but interesting facts about the image could also be discussed. I would use a rubric to analyze how well the children are able to match the images to the letters and new vocabulary and their understanding of the new words. I would also ask them to share their images with the class. Virginia Allibon Kampe

An **iAdventure** is a problem solving activity where students use the Internet to follow a story line where they can interact along the way. It is a problem solving activity in which students determine where the story goes and the eventual outcome. The activity uses resources providing “real-world” data and primary documents. The intention is to help students understand how the access to a vast amount of information (Internet) can help with problem solving and decision making. This activity could work very well in lessons. It could be a cross curricular activity with any subject. I could see myself using this in a classroom as a science or social studies activity. Since it is a story-based it would work well as an language activity as well. I would assess this activity by recording how students justify their answers. I would look at the strategies and research they used in order to answer and complete their assignment.

Marina Sieukumar

The activity type I selected to review is the Webquest. A Webquest is a problem-based learning activity where a student(s) interacts with the internet to complete a research based task involving gathering, analyzing, summarizing, and evaluating information. This type of activity can be used individually or as a collaborative group project. Each member would have a role in creating a final culminating product and the whole process requires them to use HOTS (higher order thinking skills). I would use this in a classroom to end a particular unit--as a culminating task and I would assess not only the process via a checklist I would have the students work with throughout, but how the members worked together as a team, and assess the final product based on a rubric I would create with the students prior to starting the activity. This would allow them to be metacognitive while performing the activity as they'd already know what the expectations for outcome are. Shelley Lifchis

ALPHABET BOOKS

My favourite type of activity was the creation of an alphabet book (pg 286). The alphabet book is a digital book that consists of pages including an alphabet letter with a corresponding picture clue. I think this is a great tool in the JK, SK, or grade one classroom because it is an amazing tool to assist the development of letter identification and even the introduction of phonics. If the alphabet book is created by the child (with the help an adult or older child), then the activity becomes more exciting and the child is much more likely to remember the association between the picture and letter or sound since they were included in the final decision regarding the picture. The process of creating the alphabet book creates a deeper memory and therefore a quicker retreival process (or faster learning). As the child becomes better at letter identication, it is so easy to edit the alphabet book and delete or insert an alternative picture to test if the child is simply using recall, or has actually learned the letter, or sound. Older children could be asked to develop an alphabet book and assessed with a rubric on their ability to use computer tools and skills. Is the child able to choose appropriate pictures, transfer those pictures into a powerpoint program, arrange them appropriately and successfully complete the task. Obviously, the younger children would be assessed with a checklist referencing their ability to identify the letters presented in the alphabet book, or translate the letter name with the letter sound.

Lisa Caruso

**Activity Type: **Alphabet Books **Description / Assessment: ** Alphabet books are best utilized by young children and those who are learning how to read. They are a way to introduce letter names and phonological sounds by linking alphabet letters with a word or image example. For instance, the page for the letter ‘t’ may include a picture of a turtle. This activity would be perfect for the kindergarten classes that I am currently working in. To start this activity with the children, I would have them create one page for their book every week on a letter that corresponds with the letter of the week. I think this would be a great way to further enforce the letter concepts that they learn throughout the rest of the day and week. By having the children work independently to decide on an image to match the letter, teachers can easily assess where the students are in their letter and phonological comprehension, and determine areas that need further practice. Kristen Wells

The activity type that interests me is related to data collection and analysis. The activity type is the KWL chart which stands for: what you already Know about a subject, What you will learn about a subject, and then at the end of topic, what you have Learned. I can see myself using this type of activity at the beginning of any chapter from any curriculum subject area (e.g. science), for any grade. You can use this to assess your students on what they already know so then you can differentiate your instruction plans based on this information. Andrew Lech

The activity type that I found most interesting was the iAdventures. iAdventures are online problem solving activities where students are able to determine the outcome of a storyline using internet resources. The storyline's are usually based on real-world data and as students follow through the storyline they will be faced with certain dilemmas or choices and will be forced to use teacher provided links and resources to find information online to complete the activity. Since students love using computers, I could see this being a very useful activity for nearly all subjects, for example if I was teaching grade 3's about Canada's early settlers (a boring topic to many students), I could use an iAdventure activity to make learning this topic interactive and fun. Teachers can use this activity to assess their students research skills and their ability to use resources correctly to find the specific information they require to accurately complete their activities.

John-Paul Berlingieri

//**Activity type: Picture Prompt Writing**//

The activity type that I found most interesting was the picture prompt writing. The idea behind picture prompt writing is to look at a picture and then write a story or reflection on the picture.The picture can be of a scene, an object a person or some combination of all of them. This is essentially a creative writing exercise, meaning the students are free to embrace the assignment in any way they would like. As a student, I really enjoyed creative writing. I hope I can bring my childhood love of creative writing to my teaching in the classroom. One of my classmates did her micro-teaching using picture prompt to teach the idea of suspense. She read them a poem (which had an eerie picture of a dark alley) and then asked her students what they thought would happen next, and what they were feeling in regards to the picture and words. This was embraced by her students partly because of her skillful preparation, but partly because they were allowed to think and be creative. I feel like there are many ways this activity could be used in the classroom. Since I am a sports/entertainment fanatic, I would ask my students to select an action picture of an athlete, musician or actor. Then I would have them describe to me what the setting is (hypothetical or real), the feelings or emotions of their picture and what will happen next or what was happening. I personally have been trying to use cross-curricular lessons and activities as much as possible. This is an activity that lends itself to the "literacy block" as well as the arts, social studies and history. All that..................from a picture!!!


 * Matthew MacDonald**


 * Activity Type: VIP Stories**

I really love the VIP stories as I believe that students thoroughly enjoy sharing about themselves and their lives. By tracing their family history, students are given the opportunity to connect with their family members on a deeper level. It a creative writing and research activity that the students at my teaching placement would all love. My class currently has a community sharing circle that focuses on one star student, sharing their lives. It has been a really great experience for the rest of the class and gives the star student a sense of pride to share. I would use VIP stories in my classroom as an opportunity for students to learn about each other and share their live experiences.

Erica Kruis

Activity Type: Charater Web A tool that I selected was the **Character Web**. This tool allows students to represent their ideas visually. It also acts as a great organizational tool when the student begins to transfer the information from the character web to their story. It allows them to keep their thoughts straight, and with practice could eventually lead to better character development. This could be used in the classroom in many different ways. I think that the concept of having students putting their ideas down on paper in a clustered organization could go beyond the character web. It could be used to outline the major parts of a story, concepts within a single argument, or even a good note taking or study tool. I would assess the character web by evaluating the way it was created to determine if the student has grasped the concept of building and expanding on ideas. As a next step, I would see if the content of the character web was transferred into the story. Kathy Dewar

I think a fun activity type would be the e-book. The e-book is a digital collaboration of photos put together by the students in a pages called "kid pix" pages. You then can collect all the photos, make headings and create a digital book. An example of how I would use it, would be, in the fall, you could take your class on a field trip to a maple sugar farm. With the students in groups, you could have them each take pictures of each of the steps, and include the students in the pictures for fun. Then, when you get back to class the next day, you could have them essemble their pictures in an e-book. I would use this in an older grade, where most of them have cell phones with cameras, or cameras of their own. After, they could submit the digital books and you could assess them by reading them and seeing whether or not they were paying attention at the field trip.

Jen Vanderherberg