Assignment 12

This course has showed me just how important it is for me as an educator to embrace technology and go for it. I have always been very nervous about using resources in the classroom and avoided it. I think that now I know how important it is for our students and how easy many of these tools are. I love the blogging and have actually joined a few teacher blogs already and I have found tremendous amount of resources at my fingertips. I have blogged with teachers around the country and even joined a postcard exchange.

I also feel that I should be more willing to have students show me what they know. Gaming is so popular and I have always avoided that conversation with students and I shouldn't. I learned that many strategies they use through gaming are very important.

This year I am hoping to try a classroom blog and possibly try doing a podcast. I am excited to try new things and watch the younger students jump into the technology world! Laptops for everyone?????? Maybe someday!!!!

School 2.0 Assignment 11

WOW, the school 2.0 model was jammed packed with great things! There was so much throughout the model that it is hard to know where to begin. This model is a great way to show how far we have come and how far we need to go. It amazes me how it all works together. Everyone is part of a huge team. It blows my mind how all of these things work together.

It seems as though everyone in the community would have to be willing and able to participate to make it fully effective. However, slowly but surely I thing progress is being made and we as a community are well on our way to preparing students for this technology world. I like the way students can continue their learning at home independently and how we as teachers can give immediate feedback to parents and teachers are particulty great assets to this model.

I do not think I that would change too much. I think the model is a great thing to strive for and I think our district is well on the way!

Assignment 10

After listening to the Podcast, I think that it is a great idea to help educators to chance their view of how we teach technology. Instead of avoiding and keeping students away from it. We need to change how we think about it and embrace it. Students flock to the new tools and want to learn how to do things. The gaming theory and having students learn through gaming is an interesting thought. While using gaming people are developing decision making skills and cognitive skills that are probably far beyond what you could do while interacting with people face to face. Gaming also builds a sense of determination and competitiveness.

Resources are becoming more available however, I think that it will be very challenging for schools to keep up with the funding and resources to provide students with the appropriate tools.

Project- Assignment 9

While listening to the podcast, I kept wondering how could I use these ideas with first graders. A big part of our social studies units are communities. Growing up in one area can limit students' exposure to different parts of the world. This year I happen to be involved with a postcard exchange with teachers from around the country. One project we could do is share community aspects through the use of technology. Students could interact with each other and compare and contrast through blogs, web cams, pod casts, etc. After chatting with a variety of students and areas, students could develop their own community. Students could even send pictures to each other to make it more realistic. This could be very powerful with younger students who often need models to understand ideas and concepts.

Reflection Assignment 8

I have been excited about all of the tools and how they can be used in a school setting. My absolute favorite is the del.icio.us tool. I can not tell you how many times I have had wait until I got home or vice versa to get a web page that I love but forgot the address. Also, my computer crashed a few months ago and I lost every favorite list I had!!! This is an excellent way to keep everything together. It is a great back up tool. Also, I am so excited to begin looking at other peoples bookmarks! I know that a teacher I work next to has excellent websites and I would love to see her favorite page. After I logged on to del.icio.us account I started tagging items and moving my favorites over!

Assignment 5 Videos

I quickly learned how slow my computer can be!!!! However after some patience I was able to tour the sites. I thought that teacher tube was my favorite. It was a great way to publish and explore a variety of topics and Watch other people who are much more creative than I am. I thought that You Tube......could be dangerous to monitor. I found a few interesting videos. However, it seemed to have a great variety of topics to choose from. I think this is one that students would flock to and that they would have no problem looking things up! I had a hard time with Next Vista....I am not sure why but I couldn't get this one to work for me. Clip Blast was easy to explore and had many great topics as well. I think Teacher Tube is the best from my point of view but You tube does offer a large topic choice.

For use in the classroom, in the early primary years students have so many questions about how things work and how to do things. I think it is a great way to model new things for them.

Assignment 6 Wiki Thoughts

After being out on maternity for a few times, I returned to school and heard about the wiki. I had to sign up for classes and assemblies but I didn't really know how or why I was doing that. After watching and exploring the wiki lesson, I think I get it. It is a great way to centralize your ideas and have others come to a place and respond and edit. I think it is a great way for teachers to support their lessons and give students a chance to explore things at their own convenience. I also liked the way you post post articles and things before meetings and almost have pre-dialogue and info prior to a meeting so you do not have to do it when you meet. I think the time stamp and ease in checking will be a powerful tool as an instructor. Although, I am still nervous about creating one, I do think this is a great learning tool. It seemed easy too when i tried the example. Hopefully I didn't mess it up too bad.

Reflections Assignment 4

I think that blogging will have future in my classroom! I have started brainstorming on how students could use this tool. One way I thought of is to have students challenge each other. Many people have blogged about using it in reading and writing but even in math and social studies that might work as well. Students could blog challenging questions to each other and have them blog back and forth answering and challenging each other. It would be neat to see what stduents can come up with.

I think that one benefit to the classroom is that it a useful way to communicate with many people and share ideas in many different capacities. Through sharing research to informing about topics it is a great way to learn new things for students and teacher. I am looking forward to using blogging in my classroom.

Children's Poetry

I found a few great sites of children poetry being published. http://vepoetry.blogspot.com/ is one of the great blogs that I found. Here is another one as well. These were written by Quest students What a great way for students to share their work!

Blog trial

I am practicing blogging for a class I am taking!