For those using teacherweb - how did you get your divider lines the way they are? (you didn't use the ones found on teacherweb - you used your own) and how did you make your background your own as well? (not a canned one from tw)...
It's pretty basic. When I designed it I didn't know I would have first graders... it probably could use some re-doing! (I did change the curriculum piece.)
It still has all of last years information on it as I haven't updated it yet. My board has "First Class" and through it we can access web publishing so it's very easy to use but very basic. I love it though - especially the blog!
I get so many ideas from other teachers - I'm glad someone can use the idea!
My children LOVED having the camera. The first day - the first child took 12 pictures. The next day the next child took 60! It didn't take them long to figure it out. I want to try to do more with the pictures this year. I think I may put them all on a DVD and give them out at the end of the year. Would love any suggestions that someone else may have though. Last year I did this activity in the last term and was too busy at the end of the year so I haven't really thought about how I will use it the entire year.
I have it set up on my website that i have as a side business because our district didn't have webservers. Now that they do the style needs to fit this, http://www.pittsburg.k12.ca.us/highlands/ So ugly
I also love your photographer idea!! In fact, it fits perfectly because last year with PTO money I bought two (reallyr eally really crappy digital cameras... I only had $75) just for student use. My idea was to do a photo-journalism writer's workshop unit. But I wanted to let them use the cameras more, so maybe I can snatch your idea too. I'm wondering about printing a lot of them with hand-written captions and hanging them in a spot int he classroom? (maybe as well as saving all the others they've taken to DVD?)
I had each student sit down with me at the end of the day and we chose one picture to print out and write a caption for. Sometimes they took them home to do as homework - my good writers could do it fast so they just finished it in class usually. We displayed them outside the classroom. Great way to introduce the elements of nonfiction. I am wondering what to do about this activity as a year long thing. If I do I will have a ton of pictures to place on DVD at the end of the year. That may be too overwhelming! Any suggestions? Maybe I will just keep them - use some for my site and select some by month to save????
My site has not been updated since June. I change it daily, as I add the word wall word of the day. Each time the bulletin board changes, I add the new pictures so parents can see what we have been doing.
(The unicyclists on the page are from an International race that used our school as a check point. Like the Tour de France, on one wheel!)
I wonder if there would be some way to have each child have a file of their own pictures on the computer so that at the end the year they could take turns (maybe with a parent volunteer) choosing a certain amount of pics. for their own "scrapbook"? I don't know! You're right... it's so many pictures to handle. Thanks for all the great ideas!
I agree--this is a wonderful way for the kids to get involved in photography and writing.
Question--who pays for the color printer cartridges or do you take them and get them printed? I always seem to spend $$$ printing off pictures for their writing portfolios. I take a picture every couple of months to use in the hallway above their coat hook and then attach the picture to a cardstock coloring type picture. I let the kids color the picture and then put their picture on it and laminate the entire page. This becomes a divider in their writing portfolio that they take home at the end of school.
I hadn't thought of letting the kids be the ones to take the pictures!
We are very fortunate at our school to have a laser printer that for the most part the parents club pays for the cartridges. It's about 600$ for them and we sometimes can talk the Xerox lady into donating some. When she sees what we do with the children she can't say no! We got a good deal on the printer years ago - it came with free cartridges for 3 years. Now we are paying for it ourselves and my administrator is a stickler about what can be printed. I print out alot on it but I also go to the Kodak machine and print some off too.
My site is very simple and easy to maintain since it is built through our board's First Class. I think if I used Dreamweaver or other website building software it would take me longer since I would be a newbie to it.
At first the pages were time consuming as I played around with picture sizes and fonts and clip art. I decided to spend more time blogging than anything else. It was very easy to update it a few times a week and I included pictures that I took. SO once the main pages about the class were made all I did was blog. My site is strictly for my students and parents. I do not have time to post things for teachers as I just don't have the time. (Wish I did though!) Parents were so impressed and emailed us often to let us know they read our blogs. I look at it as another way to stay in touch with parents. A newsletter is nothing compared to what I can show them online. I actually don't even do a newsletter anymore but I will send the parents snippets from the blog as I have found that most of them have access to the internet at home or work. Podcasting is awesome too - My suggestion is if you want something simple start a blog.
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08-08-2008, 04:32 AM
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