Feature Friday

Flip Video

What is a Flip Video camera? A Flip Video is a small, inexpensive digital camcamcorder.  It’s about the size of a regular digital camera and can easily fit in your pocket.
What makes the Flip Video camera so special?
The Flip Video has several unique features that make it very attractive to educators:

• It’s very inexpensive, about $130- $150 for the basic models.
• The Flip Video is extremely easy to use.
• The quality of the video is fantastic for such an inexpensive and simple camera, both audio and video are exceptional.
• No cables! The camera hooks up to your computer with an attached USB port to upload videos directly.
• No fancy batteries, the Flip takes 2 AA batteries.
• No tapes to mess with- the camera stores all video digitally on the internal hard drive.
• No complicated buttons, to turn on the Flip you just push the big red button! There are no complicated switches and buttons to navigate, it’s super easy.

How can I use a Flip Video camera in my classroom?
The possibilities for using the Flip Video in the classroom are really endless and you are only limited by your imagination, but here are a few ideas to inspire you:

• Digital Storytelling
• Record students acting out a story such as The Three Little Pigs
• School tours for new students
• Recording daily activities in the classroom then showing the video to parents at open houses to demonstrate student learning.
• Tape a model lesson to show to new teachers.
• Record field trips so you can extend learning after the field trip is over.
• Video student portfolios: Use the Flip to record evidence of student learning. Create a digital video portfolio for each student.
• Behavior: If you have a behavioral problem videotape the behavior and review it with parents and administrators to discuss a course of action. Since the Flip is so small and easy to use you can just pull it out and start recording with the touch of one button- no set-up necessary.
• Science experiments: Record science experiments to extend learning.
• English Language Learners: Record students narrating a story, a personal narrative or fictional story like a fairy tale.

Taken from Pre-K Pages

Feature Friday

PINTEREST

What is Pinterest?

Pinterst is a virtual pin board. According to the company itself, “Pinterest is a place to catalog the things you love.” Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people (educators). Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. To get started, request an invite at www.pinterest.com.

The essence of Pinterest is this: You are browsing early childhood blogs and websites and you come across a really cool graphic (idea) you want to save. So you press a button in your browser, save (or “pin”) the image to your Pinterest account, and then all of your followers on Pinterest see the image that you pinned. (All pinned images include links back to their original sources on the web.) People can also repin anything that you like that someone else has pinned. This is the Pinterest version of a retweet. When you repin something, it shows up as a pin on one of your boards and also shows who the original pinner was.

Most of the early childhood sites have a button tagged "Follow me on Pinterest" and you can click on it and go directly to their pins. You can get some great ideas for your classrooms here! In order to save and organize them on your own board you must enroll in Pinterest ( a free service). You can catalog all of your seasonal or unit ideas. At any time you can go back and get those ideas! It's like a virtual file system!
Some ideas (images) from Pinterest:

Feature Friday

Pandora - Internet Radio

Pandora is an Internet  radio and music recommendation service that helps people discover new music. Listeners begin by selecting an artist, song, or genre they like, and Panodra responds by playing music with similar attributes. Teachers will find favorite children's music artists like Greg and Steve, Raffi, and Hap Palmer, as well as many other types of music suitable for young children including jazz, classical, and folk. Pandora offers two types of subscriptions - a free plan (supported by advertising) or a fee-based subscription plan (with no advertising). Go to http://www.pandora.com/.

Taken from Teaching Young Children, NAEYC

Feature Friday

Power Point in the Classroom

What is Power Point? (adapted from wikipedia) Microsoft Office Power Point is a presentation program developed for computers. In PowerPoint text, graphics, movies, music, and other objects are inserted on individual pages or “slides”. You can make a Power Point presentation for any topic and customize it with text, graphics, and music to engage the audience.
Why use Power Point in the Classroom? Power Point is particularly helpful when used in the classroom as it can “hook” the learner and make learning more fun. When using PPT’s set to music you can time your slide transitions and advance the slides automatically so there is no need for you to be right next to your computer when the show plays. PPT’s also support the use of animations; you can animate objects in PPT or insert movie clips to make your presentations more fun.
How do you use PPT in the classroom? Power Points can be used on a daily basis.  You can show morning songs, such as Days of the Week, as well as many other educational songs to go with your themes or units of study. You can place Power Points in your computer area and use for listening activities, discovery activities, phonics activities, math and vocabulary activities. There are SO many ways to use them in the classroom.  Below are some great resources for Power Points. Try them in your classroom!

PPT Links
Kelly’s Kindergarten
Prekinders
Calico Cookie
Dr. Jean

Feature Friday

Converting Audio Cassettes to Cd's

Have you ever wondered what to do with all those audio cassettes. It seems as if every piece of equipment now uses Cd's and we still have such great stories and activities on tapes. Fortunately, you can easily transfer audio from cassettes to your computer, where it can be stored in formats such as WAV and MP3 or can be burned to Cd's. In fact, $6 could get you everything you need.

Go to this link, http://www.wikihow.com/Transfer-Cassette-Tape-to-Computer, to get full directions. You can also find directions on how to record on Cd's (You can even record your own stories now!)