Voice Thread

Working with this program was a lot of fun. I could see many different age levels working with this project and really enjoying it. I could see myself using it in many different subject areas. It would be a great way for children to describe, for example, pictures of the life cycle of a plant. I think it would be neat for students to create easy lessons for their classmates to view. I believe one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. Not to mention, kids love to hear there own voice! Similar to the the storybook project the end result of this project is very rewarding. I also think that it would be a great way to share classroom activities with parents.

Panraven Story Book

Working with Panraven was fairly easy. I found that inserting the photo's and text was not difficult. I would have liked to expand the narrative of the photo's but of course was limited by the text box options. That was okay I simply tried to think of exactly what I wanted to say about each photo. I know that I would use this program again. As far as for a classroom I think that it would be useful to allow students to create a narrative of either a place the class visited or create a "story." The resulting book was quite rewarding in that the pictures and layout were something to be proud of. I could see a class really liking the outcome of their work. Younger children would perhaps do best working in a group with the teacher or an aide but I think an older class say fifth and up could work with this program on their own.

Flickr Slide Show

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

While working on this project I was able to visualize several useful applications for the classroom. A teacher could possibly use this to help explain class projects. Having a step by step example visualized would be useful. I could see this working in a differentiated classroom giving the teacher the opportunity to allow students to return to the slide show for help or further explanation. This would eliminate the teacher having to explain procedures several times.
While I feel like this tool would best be utilized in a classroom of third graders or above I think it would be fun for teachers of younger grades to create slide shows for their students to remember field trips or class parties/events.