Digital Story- Matter

Here is my digital story completely done. I will use this digital story as part of my matter unit at the end of May. I am still debating if to use it at the beginning or the end of the unit. What do you think? I hope my my students like it.

Going Mobile Website

This is a website that the video in Judy's blog Going Mobile talks about. It is a a website tht you can create and share video lessons. "It is your personable recordable whiteboard."Teachers are using this to go over lessons before test, or to create individual problems for students that need help. Here is an example of a lesson on World War II. The student is asking questions and the teacher is answering her. It seems very interesting.

Do you know of anyone who has used this before? How would you use it? 

Class Dojo

Here is a website that popped up in a blog I am following:

It is a website where you can keep track of students behavior. You can give them points and take away points. It helps the students be more aware of their behavior. Rockin Teachers gives more of an explanation in her blog post. I think it is fate for me to use it with my students, because today at my Technology Committee meeting another teacher share this tool as well. It is very interesting and I hope to try it out soon.

 Have you heard of it before? Do you know anyone who uses it? What do you think about it? 

Digital Literacy Activities

At what age can online/digital literacy activities be integrated into the classroom? 


I believe that digital literacy activities can be integrated in the household at a preschool age and if you would like a toddlers age. I know of many families that are starting early to have their children learn their abcs, numbers, and sight words using digital literacy activities like Starfall.com or apps on their phones. Children need to start learning literacy even more at an early age, and with the new generation of children being digital learners the best way is to teach them with digital literacy activities. All the digital literacy activities are so engaging now a days that the children like to play with them. Some online/digital literacy activities are like video games and they hook the children. If we start early, when they come to kindergarten they will come with a great amount of knowledge. It is a great basis of learning for them. 


Once in school I believe online/digital literacy activities should be integrated in Kindergarten. It is a way to hook the students into learning and make learning fun for them. Also if we start them early, as they continue through the other grade levels they will be come more comfortable with technology. This makes me think of Aviva and her students, especially the student she has had for three years. She feels so comfortable using the technology given to her. That would be great to see in every school. As we know students are digital learners and integrating digital activities at an early grade will help them succeed in school and life. 


Many of my friends who have children of their used digital literacy activities to help them learn their abcs, numbers, and words. When I speak to their children you can see how much they know. We know they are like sponges, so let's start early. 

Early Childhood Websites

Starfall is a great sight for younger grades. It is a great tool to use to go over the alphabet and vowels. It is a great website to share with parents so they can use it at home with their students. It has steps from ABCs, to Learn to Read, It's Fun to Read and I'm Reading. I have used this website for my guided reading groups reading at another grade level and in my SRBI Tier 2 and 3 groups. 

Read, Write, Think was a website a professor in my undergrad had introduced me to. Ever since then I have seen many teachers talk about it and I have used it myself. They have great lesson plans on writing and reading. The lessons are divided by grade levels. I really like that they have added the interactive sections for students to use. I really like the one where the students create their own letters. It is a great website to keep in hand and in our Diigo. 

This website seemed very good for teachers in K and 1. They had some great thematic units. Their site also talks about their workshops. Unfortunately, it is too far for us, but they do give information about it online. Good resource to have in hand. 

This seemed like a great website. This would be great at a listening center where students can read books and see the words. The only downfall of this website is that you need to subscribe to it. With the budgets not being great, it would be hard to get this for our school. However, it is a great site to keep in mind if you would like to use it at home with your own children and pay the fee. 

Scholastic.com has always been a website I have used for resources. I use it for scholastic book club, scholastic news and to look up lesson plans. When looking through it today I noticed how many different interactive activities it has for students. This is a great website for my class and grade. I will keep looking into this website and see what else is available. They had great videos of authors, books to read and it is for all ages. Here is one interactive tool I found that I would love to use with my students during computer time one day: StoryStarters. I know that my fellow teachers would like it too. What do you think of it? 

This is a great website for kids. I love the videos they have. I have used them with science. Great website to keep in our diigo account. 

Matter- My Digital Story Draft

Here is my digital story in draft form. I have not added audio yet because I have been sick and was waiting to feel better. I wanted to share to see if my transitions, timing and images are good. If there is anything I can change to make it better please let me know. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks to the advice of Sara, I wrote down what I will be narrating. As she said, it is nice for the visual learners to have. I hope I did this right and uploaded it correctly. Here it is:

Digital Story Plan

For my digital story I decided to do it on Matter. In a previous class I had set up a unit on Matter and will be using it this May/June. I thought a digital story on it would work great for it. I have been gathering my images for the digital story and started the storyboard and putting it together on iMovie. I have never played with iMovie so it has been an interesting ride so far. I hope it all works out at the end. I am using the resources I used for my unit to put my digital story together. My question is: would it be okay to have the words that I will be saying on the screen as well?  Does that make sense? Or should it just be audio? Tomorrow I will continue to play with my digital story. I hope to be able to upload it so that I can get some advice on images. The one part I am very nervous about is the audio because I do not like listening to my voice and I am always nervous my accent will pop up once in a while. How are you doing with your digital story? Has it been taking a lot of time for you as well? Have you had a hard time finding pictures? How long should our digital story be? Should I include video of a liquid?

Even though it is a long process I know that in the end it will be worth it.