When you are meeting with students for the first time, it is a good idea to spend a few minutes to introduce yourself and help students get oriented, especially younger students. I made the following slides to do this.
Who Am I Slide:
Take this link to see this slide. This is my page where the students can get a mental image of what I look like and what environment I am in. I use the pointer tool to point to the pictures of my children who they will likely hear in the background and what computer in the room I am sitting at. The whole idea is to help the children get comfortable with having a teacher they cannot see. Oh, I also used a webcam for the picture. Should we use voice/video that is pretty close to the image they will see over the internet.
Where Am I Slides:
Take this link to see this slide. I use map slides to show where I/we live. I have a world, US, state, and local region map slide made and I use only the one that is best suited to the students I have. I dot in where I live and they dot in where they live. This slide takes the previous one a step further by helping the student realize where everyone in the class lives in relation to where they are. Again it is another step toward feeling connected and building a social environment. Specific addresses are not given and I won’t ask the kids to dot in where they live if any parents are uncomfortable with it. Yes, I know Vyew has a map option built in, but for this particular sctivity a map slide was a tad quicker ans easier. Should we arrange a fieldtrip then I would be using the Vyew one.
Whiteboard Tool Orientation Slide:
Take link to see this slide. It is very important that students learn how to use the whiteboard tools before we get inmto the lesson. That is what this slide is for. There is plenty of space for them to practice.
You may have noticed that all of my slides have a navigational aid in the tabs listed along the top and the right side. These navigational aids are a great help for me to remember what I want to cover and in moving quickly through slides whne I might need to jump around a bit later on.
Tammy Moore
