Carissa+Chinana


 * Year One **

__Participating Class/Students__ Mrs. Winnert and my fourth grade inclusion class will be participating in the project.

__Blog Project Outline__ After reading in their guided reading groups, students will respond to what they read or what they are going to independently read through a blog. Students will be reminded to edit their writing using CUPS. [|Blog]

__Blog Outcome and Self Reflection__ I think that blogging is a fun way for the students to write. It is great because whenever you put anything on the computer, I find that there is more motivation for the students. My only problem was that some of my students are still very slow at typing. Due to this, it took longer than I thought it would to write a couple of sentences. I think it would work better if the students had stronger typing skills. I would like to have a longer writing piece that asks for a topic sentence, supporting details, and a wrap-up sentence, but I don't see it being feasible in the time frame that we had. I think if we start off in the beginning of the year blogging and practice more frequently, we might be able to build up to longer pieces. This is something I would like to try in the future.

__Participating Class/Students__ My fourth grade guided reading students and a few students from Mrs. Winnert's class will be participating in the project.

__Podcast Project Outline__ Mrs. Winnert and my fourth grade inclusion class will be participating in an egg drop competition. Throughout the competition, I will have my guided reading students broadcast how the competition is going. They will practice what they are going to say before they tape it. After the competition, one of the students will interview the winners. [|Podcast]

__Podcast Outcome and Self Reflection__ I think this podcast was a great way to get my students involved in what we were doing with the class. It made them really pay attention to what was going on around them and not just be a bystander. I think they felt a sense of pride being able to broadcast a fun event for the class. The students who won also enjoyed being interviewed about their experiences. This podcast was more guided, but in the future, I would like to do more podcasting, eventually letting my students completely run the podcast. I would also like to do other types of podcasts such as retelling stories. This is an area I find many of my students need to develop. I think it would be a fun way for them to work toward improving their retellings. Overall, I think podcasting was a great experience for my students, and I plan to do it again in the future.

**Year Two** Once again, I had a great experience with the PDP. It was wonderful to see other people learning how to use the technology. The person that I worked with did a fantastic job learning the technology and using it with students. This year, I used new technology in the classroom. I collaborated with the general education teacher and computer teacher to do a vodcast for the Living Wax Museum. During the Living Wax Museum, I took pictures of all of the students in their costumes. I uploaded them on the computer and placed them in the students class folder. Then, when we went to the library, the students recorded their speeches and made a video with their picture. Next year, I would like to do even more with vodcasting. The students seemed to really enjoy it. They took pride in it.