I have been using Wordle for awhile now, personally as well as in the classroom. My students create an "All About Me" wordle that becomes part of a Language Arts project. I decided to share my Holiday Wordle today. If you haven't yet checked out this great site, you will soon become addicted. It's really fun and super easy!
I recently began using pivot with my 6th grade students. Pivot Stickfigure Animation is a fantastic way to introduce young students to simple stick figure animations. Students create a "story", design frames (similar to a flip book), and add each frame to the project as they proceed. You can add colorful or realistic backgrounds, change object colors, design your own objects, and add text. There are also some pre-designed objects like horses, ladders, and elephants. Once completed, the animations can be saved as .GIF files that can be viewed as animations. Some of my students took this one step further by importing the completed .gif file into Windows Movie Maker and adding sound.
Mrs. Friedman's TechTalk has been awarded a Kreativ Blogger Award by Some Novel Ideas!! Thank you so much to Stacy Nockowitz for recognizing me with this wonderful award. I'm still amazed that people are actually reading my blog!
I am really excited about the possibilities of using podcasting techniques in the classroom. I recently introduced my students to Audacity, a free software program used to record and edit a podcast. My 8th grade students created a radio station, WRIS 106.2, to produce segments for our middle school. My 6th grade students create businesses for our Real World Technology class, and I had them use podcasting to create advertising commercials. It's so much fun, and a great way to excite students! Here are the outstanding results:
What is screencasting? Well….it’s basically a way to capture the screen activity on a computer to create a movie that can be shown to an audience later. You can use screencasting to demonstrate the use of a software program, Internet research, Google tools, or anything else that you use on a computer. This is a very powerful way to communicate knowledge and ideas. 
My school was recently painted. We used to have beautiful art all over the walls of the school, along with the teachers' doors. Now every hall and door is the same color: basic beige. Our art teacher has a program where students can paint the doors of individual classrooms. I took advantage of this and begged him to have my door painted. Luckily, I was one of only a few teachers who got artistic doors this year. (The rest will be painted next year). I chose my favorite artist Peter Max. The image is Heart Series III and I think my students did an amazing job. Thank you to Ellie, Izzy, Lilly, Jessica and Chanel for a job well done.
Matt's Mario
Emily's Fishtank
To see the rest of the projects, click on my Student Animations page.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the use of video production in education. For the past two years, I have been teaching a Video Production class to the 7th graders at my school. Students create movies on topics ranging from Public Service Announcements and Documentaries, to Drug Awareness and Bullying. Though most of the movies will never win any awards, my students have learned a very important new technology. As a matter of fact, many of my former students now create videos for other classes. Students in 8th grade are creating a movie based on the concepts they learned while reading The Secret Life of Bees. Another group produced a cooking show for their French class, with the entire show filmed in French.
I have the privilege of running my school’s Black History month assembly every year. It is a labor of love because I think it is so important for students today to understand the contributions of the many African American leaders who have formed the backbone of our nation. For the second year, we were honored to have the Newark Boys Chorus perform for us. They sang Circle of Life from Lion King and several other selections. Our keynote speaker was truly inspiring: Mr. Joe Rogers from the Dream Alive organization. He gave a compassionate and enthralling performance our students, staff and community will never forget.
