Activity 3: Digital Storytelling

Storytelling: Food in Spain

To tell a story about my favorite food in Spain, I chose to use ZooBurst. I found it to be fairly easy to navigate and fun to put together. I did not prefer the process in which you had to go through to choose pictures to add to your presentation, as I found it to be very time consuming. Although, I figured out the easiest and most efficient way to upload them towards the end. The overall hardest part for me was thinking of a topic!

I plan on using this presentation when I discuss food in Spanish. We practice talking about different foods that we eat at different meal times during the day. Sharing my experience with food in Spain adds in a cultural element in which students are able to learn a bit about life in Spain. Which student doesn't love talking about, looking at, and hearing about food?

As I think about ways that I could engage my students in creating their own ZooBurst books, there are a lot of possibilities! Students could retell the elements of a story, present different literature projects, and show different parts, such as an introduction, body, and conclusion to their writing. In math, students could discuss the steps to different operations or present their own word problems and then let the class solve them.

Activity 2: Pimp My Presentaion

Pimp My Presentation: Meet Mrs. Greene

This year in fifth grade, my students used Prezi to present many different projects. I shared the program with them, but never actually explored it myself. This was a great reason to start exploring!

I chose to use a template and found this to be extremely easy to navigate! I also adding the zooming feature to some slides and added the video. The program was very user friendly and made it easy to insert both images and videos. 

Using Prezi to present information is an engaging way to appeal to you audience. I can think of many different ways to incorporate this within a fifth grade classroom and am excited to be able to assist more in the creating process next year. This process took me about an hour to create and learn how to manipulate it, which is something I need to remember next year with my students. It is so important to provide time in class where students can explore and learn about the tools in which we are asking them to use. 

Some of the ideas in which I could use Prezi within my classroom include:

• Retelling a story
• Identifying the elements of a story
• Presenting research findings
• Character interviews or presentations
• Steps to solve types of math problems
• Creating real-world math word problems and presenting the steps to solve
• Investigations into Spanish speaking countries and traditions
• Presenting new vocabulary in Spanish units

Activity 1: Blog Bling

Activity 1: Social Media in Education 

I would use the following video to introduce the use of technology within our classroom for the year and also to promote acceptable use. We would brainstorm ideas on how we, as a class, could incorporate social media to enhance our learning. This would also be the time in which we have a discussion about using social media appropriately.